A Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat

I just got back from my sister's. It was nice. Relaxed. Nikki was rather shy at first, but finally she opened up and allowed me to play a little.
I have to see her more often. She is talking now - saying recognizable words. She loves books.
We dug out our slides from when my sister and I were kids. '67 through '73 or so. That was fun. We didn't get through them all before the bulb broke in that old projector. I want to go through them and organize them by date. Maybe edit out a few. That will take me a long time.

"Look at your hair!"
"You wore that?" "It looked pretty good at the time."
"Oh, nice suit!" "Hey, it wasn't my idea!"
"Nice dress!" "She had to wear it. Grandma made it for her."
"Who is that?" "I have no idea."
"Who is THAT?" "I don't know. Oh wait! That's you!"
"Hey, there's you little Wacky Watermelon! It was so cute. It clicked when you pulled it. I wish I knew what happened to it."
"Hey! There's my yellow Mustang! I sure wish I still had it."

AT&T and Ameritech

Some friends of mine are getting screwed by AT&T. Or maybe they're getting screwed by the people who made charged those overseas phone calls to their number. They petitioned AT&T to have the charges dropped, but they were denied. over $200. Ameritech sucks too. They never even recieved half of their phone bills. At one point their service was shut off. The only way to get it reinstated was to pay the whole thing. But they couldn't get a list of charges. So they paid it. THEN they realized there were $60 worth of 900 number charges that they never made. But they already paid for them, so they couldn't protest.

Remeber when the phone industry was deregulated and Ma Bell was broken up? They did it to promote competition. Now we're back down to five phone service providers. At least with the old way, there was some oversight. The phone company worked for us. Everything got done - eventually. Now profit is the highest motive, and there isn't enough competition to be an incentive to make the customer happy. Ameritech SUCKS, and they don't have enough money to improve, and nobody would stand for paying more, with service at its present level.

Which remminds me, the Postal Service, inn their attempts to turn a profit on their own terms, is diversifying. They're going to start offering other services. I forget what - internet access? What else?

And the price of a stamp is going up one cent, in January.

California Dreaming

And so we started screaming
On such a winter's day