I Reckon

The season debut of The Closer was pretty good. Gruesome, horrible crime, diversions and misdirections, personal issues, and a tense interrogation through a sheet of plexiglass.

I thought I knew what was going on with Law & Order: Criminal Intent this week, but I got fooled. I thought that the father overheard complaints about the robberies and used it as a cover to get rid of their sick child, but it was even cagier than that. Ms. Redgrave was a nice addition.

I sat down to watch Burn Notice last night, before I realized it was only Wednesday evening.

Issue 5 of Dead Reckonings is back from the printers and on its way to contributors and subscribers alike. I have two articles: Enter Ghost (a combined review of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) and Living on a Powder Keg, a review of Joe Hill’s, Gunpowder. As a rule, I like Hill’s writing a lot, but this novella didn’t do it for me, for reasons you can learn by reading the essay. The full table of contents is available via the hyperlink above or by clicking on the bold yellow cover.

I’ve been wrapped up in meetings at work for the past three/four days, and I have a web video conference with my colleagues in Japan tonight, so I’ve been out of the loop. However, let me take a moment to rant about T Mobile. I bought a prepaid To Go phone the other night for someone to use while on an upcoming trip. Activated the phone very early yesterday morning and then attempted to add minutes to it. The automated system told me there was a problem with the account, even though the phone works. It received the activation verification message and I’ve been able to both make and and receive calls. Since then, I’ve spent, oh, conservatively 465 hours either dealing with automated systems or live people simply trying to add $25 worth of minutes to the damned thing. Everyone is very sympathetic to my plight, but seemingly unable to get the phone out of its stuck “still activating” mode. They keep telling me to try back in two hours. I do. No go. What a huge PITA. I would never buy another T Mobile system again. We used AT&T last year for the same process and it was effortless and painless. I’m not much of a complainer, but I plan to write the company about my experience (since you can’t apparently file a complaint message online). Does the “T” part of “T Mobile” stand for “terrible”?</rant>