FUCK YOU, BANK OF AMERICA. also IKEA.

So I have my online bill pay set up.  Fine.  I get a bill, I punch in the amount and the due date, it gets paid.  Great!

Except that for two months in a row now, my Visa bill has not showed as being paid until the day after.  The funds are taken out of my (BoA) checking account at some point on the due date, but the thing isn't posted at my (BoA) credit card statement until the next day.  Last month, I called them and the guy credited back the late fee, and then later in the month the original late fee went away but the credit stayed, so they took back the credit, so I saw a "late fee adjustment" in the middle of the month, and I called them and we went around and around a couple of times until I understood that basically they'd charged me $39 and then refunded me $78, so they'd corrected their repeated mistake.  And then I got a letter in the mail saying they'd taken back $39 because they'd refunded me for a late fee that was never assessed, which isn't exactly what happened, but whatever.  And now there's ANOTHER sodding late fee, and I called them and said (essentially) RAR, take it away, and they said they could refund half of it, but not the whole fee because they've explained to me and this has happened before, and I said AHA, BUT NO, this has not happened before, because legally speaking the late fee was never assessed in the first place, see?, look at the statement! -- and she said oh, quite right, and soon there will be a late fee adjustment, and very likely then the fee will go away and I'll get re-adjusted and get another letter in the mail.

But after a long conversation with the credit card side and then an even longer conversation with the online bill-pay side, it turns out that EVERYONE ELSE I EVER OWE MONEY TO receives the payment a day or so after the due date (which is when the funds are taken away) and sees the date on the electronic check and pre-dates the payment and considers it paid on time, but the Bank of America credit card people receive the payment 24-48 hours after the funds are taken away and don't consider it paid until then.  So the only solution is to set the payment date a day or so ahead of the due date.  Which SUCKS, if you ask me, especially since nobody else requires it (the guy on the phone understood my frustration and noted that he has an HSBC credit card that takes three days to process, so if his payment is due on the 21st he has to have it paid on the 18th), and in particular this month it wouldn't have been any good because payday was the 21st and until yesterday I didn't have the money to pay the whole bill.  The guy said he thought I should change the due date, but I'm paid bi-weekly, so there's no point to that.  Sigh.  FUCKING ARGH.

I left a slip in the suggestion box.

And then I called IKEA, to see if they have a lighting thing they've been out of for a long time, and every time I stay on the line to speak to a customer service representative, it fucking loops me back to the same menu I was just in.  No matter where I go from, I get back to where I came from.  Okay, it's Saturday, they're busy, but there's got to be SOMEONE to answer the phone, yeah?

Must be time for some blood sugar.

blood sugar is our friend

On the up side, I called Comcast and downgraded my cable plan, since I never watch Starz or HBO and there's no earthly reason to be paying for them.  Soon I'm going to take my DVR box in and swap it for one that, you know, records.

I bid on the IKEA lamp I want at fucking eBay, because it's easier than getting in touch with the store (where they won't have it anyway).

I may switch my credit card to the Old Navy Visa card, which I just got in the mail and which (a) I know I can pay on the due date instead of before and (b) it says can be used anywhere that accepts Visa.  Granted, it has a limit that's only 20% of my current limit, but I never spend more than about 6% of my current limit, so no biggie, right.  Bank of America rat bastards.

two things about Sports Night

I've got Sports Night (season 1, natch) on the DVD this afternoon, and here are two points:

• Gentlemen, please -- with black tie, you've got to wear a shirt with a fold-down collar.  The wing-collar things you think look so spiffy, those are only for white tie.  We don't want to see your black ties all the way around your neck -- just in front.  Okay?  (Also, don't wear a black tie with tails.  But there's fewer of you making that mistake than the other one.)
  
• I love how in the whole "Mary Pat Shelby" episode, Dana keeps on unconsciously rubbing at her wrist.

the red is out!

So I used to wear rigid gas permeable contact lenses.  About this time last year, I went to get an eye exam, and they talked me into switching to two-week soft disposables for a variety of pro-vs.-con reasons I don't need to go into right now.  This was fine until this past spring, when my eyes got really red and then didn't clear up.  I called the eye guys and went in and they took a look and said Yep, allergies.  And I said, but I've had allergies all this time, and when I had hard contacts this never happened.  And they said, anh, here, take these prescription drops.

The prescription drops didn't help, and I saw my eye doctor when I went to get an eye exam for my glasses.  He said Yep, allergies.  And I said, would switching back to hard lenses fix it?, and he said he didn't think so.  And I switched to another kind of eye drops.  And nothing really changed.

So basically my eyes have been red for seven or eight months, and I hate it.  People are always asking me if I'm exhausted, or upset, or high.  I'm very careful to change my two-week disposables exactly every two weeks, and not push it.  Doesn't matter.  I resolved that when I'm out of two-weeks, I'm going to make them let me switch to dailies, and if that doesn't help, I'm going to make them let me switch back to gas perms.  And for a week I haven't been wearing my contacts at all, and even then my eyes have been red.  I'm fucking SICK of it.

But today I bought Visine's antihistamine eye drops?  (They've got a whole range, and the ones for contacts work okay, but my eyes are red before I ever put the contacts in, so how well are the contacts drops going to work anyway?)  And oh my god you guys, I'd forgotten what the whites of my eyes LOOKED like.

ah, torchwood.

There is more pretty John Barrowman on my television.  Thank you BBCA.  [doffs hat]

I really do think someone should cast our John Barrowman and Mark Harmon as separated at birth.