faboo mama

inside the mind of an opinionated mama…


YEARLYKOS 2007: Presidential Leaderhip Forum

Every single Democratic presidential candidate is on the stage.

Matt Bai introduced them all, everyone got a lot of claps. He announced that it was Sen. Obama’s (D-IL) birthday, so the entire room broke out singing happy birthday to him.

The questions started off with Richardson being asked about his Supreme court answer at a previous debate. He admitted that he was wrong in his thing. Clinton was asked about health care. I’m completely blanking on what Obama was asked about. Edwards was asked something, but didn’t quite answer the question. That didn’t matter to the Edwardnistas, they gave him a standing o anyway.

I suck at this liveblogging stuff, so I’ll probably just post pics and video if I can.

Now they’re taking questions from the audience.

Dodd got a standing o for talking about standing up to BO.

YEARLYKOS 2007: Lollapalooza

For the last hour, I’ve been treated to the sounds of the soundcheck. My room faces Grant Park, but I was thinking that the sounds wouldn’t be so loud on the 15th floor. I was wrong. This is probably the most paper thin hotel I’ve stayed at besides the Hotel Roosevelt in San Francisco. I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep after today. Maybe I’ll go get some earplugs.

YEARLYKOS: McCormick Place

This convention center at McCormick Place is ridiculous. The registration desk is in the middle of this HUGE entry way. Then the rooms on the first floor are like in an area 1/2 a mile long. But, if you want to go to the panels on the 4th floor, it’s another hike. I hear that the so-called rooms 10 are in a basement of sorts. It wouldn’t be that bad but the workshops/panels are butted up against each other. Like you’ll have Blogging 101 run from 12:30 - 2:00 on the 4th floor and My Blog and Me go from 2:00 - 3:00 on the first floor. The walk between the floors could be between 4 - 8 min. Not to mention, everyone is running over because of the distance between everything. I’m finding that a lot of people are just not attending panels because of this. I missed 3 things yesterday because of that…well, that and talking. Ha! It’s hard.

And there’s nothing around the convention center, so at times everyone is at the bar around the corner and it gets too crowded in there. The restaurants at the place are expensive and sadly, there’s nothing to walk to so one feels kind of stuck.

I highly suggest for a smaller convention center next year. Or get everyone some Segways or rollerskates, ’cause I’m thisclose to renting a motorized wheelchair.

Headed to Chicago

YearlyKos is upon us and I’m headed for Chicago tomorrow morning (dang SuperShuttle picks me up at 3:20am!). I’m super excited. My husband is attending the YK Convention in Second Life. I just freeze up at all the things I’ll be able to do. Too much stuff and not enough time. Gaaah!

Worse Boss of the Year

Car dealer kills two workers who asked for pay raises.

Milinavicius, 38, turned himself in two days after the shootings and confessed to the killings, telling them he was under a lot of stress, East Point police Capt. Russell Popham said.

“As I understand, the employees were not really happy about the pay, and they had questioned him about it over the course of time,” Popham said. “That morning he said he just snapped.”

Stress? Shit. You eat a lot, watch too much TV or take up exercising. You do NOT kill people. That’s a big no-no and it’s generally frowned up.

iVilliage really, really sucks at the customer service thing

Life shouldn’t be hard. Customer service really isn’t hard. When you know that your customers are busy moms and may have a job and other concerns, your first step should be to least NOT be a problem.

Maybe I’m self-centered that way.

In my previous post, I mentioned that they double charged me two different amounts twice. The reply to me email:

Hello,

We have canceled your subscription to the Premium Message Boards, order #35884. A credit of $34.99 has been applied to your credit card.

The refund should appear on your statement in a few days.

Unfortunately, I cannot find transaction in our system fir the $29.00. If you are unable to locate your reading with the link provided in the email we sent you after you placed your order, please send us the following information:


- Order ID
- Email address with which reading was ordered
- Method of payment: credit/debit card, check, PayPal, FirstGate
- Billing name
- Name on reading
- Date reading was ordered

If you have any further problems or questions, please contact us at:

[email protected]

Thank you,

Victor Vela
Customer Service Representative
Astrology.com - iVillage.com
http://www.astrology.com
http://www.ivillage.com

Yep. They decided to just cancel the account. But keep in mind that the $29 charge was still in effect, so I should have the same privileges right? Nope. When I logged onto iVillage, I could only read one post at a time and my siggies disappeared. Nice. So I went bitch on them:

What are you doing? I did not ask for my account to be cancelled. I asked for the double charges to be settled. How hard is this?

1. On the 23rd of July, iVillage charged the same Visa card twice. One for $34.99 and one for $29.99.
2. I asked you to rectify the situation.
3. I did not ask you to cancel my account.

I’ll make it easy for you. Since you’ve credited the $34.99 to my account. Reinstate my account with the $29.99 you’ve kept.

Today, I get this back:

Hello Ms Denton,

Re: “Since you’ve credited the $34.99 to my account. Reinstate my account with the $29.99 you’ve kept.”

1- Yes, we canceled your subscription to the Premium Message Boards, order # 183401. (Email address for this subscription was “fabooj@***.com”.) A credit of $34.99 was applied to your credit card.

2- We didn’t know you used another email address with iVillage.com - “fabooj@$$$.com” - for the $29.99 subscription, order # 179392.
We never located the account and never canceled it, which is why you never received the requested refund.

3- We don’t know which email address you wish to use for the Boards:
“fabooj@$$$.com”, or “fabooj@***.com”
Therefore, we have now canceled the duplicate subscription to the Premium Message Boards, order #179392. A credit of $59.98 (2 X $29.99 - 2006/2007) has been applied to your credit card.
The refund should appear on your statement in a few days.

4- If you wish to re subscribe with the correct email address, please click on the link below or paste it into your browser window. You will be taken to the appropriate sign-up page.

http://www.ivillage.com/messageboardsplus

If you have any further problems or questions, please contact us at:

[email protected]

Regards,

Sandy Martin
Customer Service Representative
Astrology.com - iVillage.com
http://www.astrology.com
http://www.ivillage.com


I can’t complain because they did refund the money which is what I asked, but they still cancelled the account which I didn’t want. Don’t ask me about the two separate emails. I used one to get the account and the other is the contact for private emails. So, even though I’m kinda busy, I get to waste time signing up. Again.

Blogroll

Wow. Just looked at this and hadn’t realized how many of these blogs are now defunct or super suck. I also want to add a few more blogs to the roll. I’m going to be cleaning them up. I wish I knew how to break them out into categories. I think that would be fun. I see all the other blogger blogs and get so jealous of all the tweaking people have done to their blogs.

iVillage blows

Last year, I renewed my account. I was charged twice on my credit card. One for $29 and the other for $35. I reported the double charge and was largely ignored. I never received my money back and none of my previous emails have been answered.

Imagine my shock going over my statement to see that you have charged me again, one for $29 and the other for $35.

I can not think of a reason for double charging me and ignoring my emails. Please rectify this situation immediately.

This is the letter I sent them a few minutes ago. Last year for almost 6 months, I sent emails asking to be reimbursed or at least have the double charge credited to the next year. It’s insulting to have your emails ignore AND to be doubled charged again.

All this for some fucking siggies. Lame.

From the "You Can’t Make This Up" Files…

Man blames health drink for unwanted erection

29-year-old claims Boost Plus caused condition that required surgery

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Updated: 9:39 a.m. PT June 6, 2007

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NEW YORK - A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

And you think…”Wow! How much of that stuff did he drink?!?!” So you continue to read the article…

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods’ court papers say he woke up the next morning “with an erection that would not subside” and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

Did you see that? The guy who is suing for a ridiculously long erection is named Woods.

Ilia’s birthday

I managed to post this everywhere, but my own blog. Dork.

So, I did the unthinkable for those who know me. I took my hard earned dollars and spent it at the one place that I absolutely despise for so many reasons. No, not Wal-Mart…We took Ilia to Disneyland. Shudder. Now, I haven’t paid to go to Disneyland in 17 years. I haven’t gone to Disneyland in 10 years, but my little girl was turning 4. If this isn’t love, then I don’t know what is. I spent a day at the Crappiest Place on Earth. The Tragic Kingdom.

We didn’t tell her where we were going, just got in the car and went. She realized where she was in the flippin’ parking lot! By the time we got of the tram, the girl was shaking with excitement. Now Ilia excited is pretty funny. She shuts down. She starts shaking, then she’s just quiet taking it all in. When we walked down Main St. she was just a mute. I got a quasi pic in from of the castle place:

Ilia visits the tragic kingdom

As you can see, it was Fat Butt Mom Day, so I totally fit right in. LOL!

We went on Star Tours first and as we were standing in line, I realized that she had no idea what was going on, so I had to explain the rides to her. She freaked when she saw the baskets in the robot factory and I had to tell her that we weren’t going on that. She got over it and loved the ride. DH took her on Autopia and she got to drive. She loved that. She liked just about every ride, but Pirates of the Caribbean. She hated that one. She didn’t make it through the first room of the Haunted Mansion but we watched the ride on the internet when we got home so that was okay.

We tried to find Mary Poppins, but lost them somehow. We did find a photo op teacup:

Ilia and Alton

After spending three-quarters of my life in the even more confusing It’s a Small World ride (what’s with the penguins with sombreros?) we went to Toon Town where she got to meet Mickey:

Ilia and Mickey Mouse

She liked it and won’t stop talking about it. I swear I had the only kids there not named Colin, Morgan, McKenna or Jackson. It was funny seeing all the kids there with the hats on and all the parents were even making note of it. “I’ve never seen so many Jackson’s in one place!” These three women were laughing because all 3 of them had the same named kids the same age (McKenna 7, Jacob 5 and Colin 3). That’s weird.

The thing that’s funny is we went on a Wednesday and lines were 1 - 15 minutes long. I don’t have the patience for it. I can’t believe I used to wait an hour or more for those rides. But none of that matters. My little girl had a wonderful birthday and she loves to tell people that for her birthday she got a hat.