Happy Thing #12, Book #12
Happy coincidence that the numbers synched up!
Happy Thing #12: US Air/SE/"Winning"
Back when I was in the hospital, at first the doctors told my mother that what I had was a common infection, happens all the time, no need to fly in, blah blah. Then it changed to she could come if she wanted, but don't worry. Then it became 'You really should come or we'll send your daughter to a home'. However, even then, no one could tell her when she could fly back, so she made her best guess when buying airline tickets. (One-way tickets generally cost a lot more than round trip, so they're not an option.) Eventually the day she was due to fly back arrived, and I hadn't even been released from the hospital yet.
Long story short, she was with me a month, and had to deal with US Air about changing the ticket. The woman on the phone said no problem, just send a copy of the hospital bill and the original ticket would be refunded.
Once I was on my feet, I did that. Then we waited and waited and waited. No record of the request online. While I was poking about their website, I found a long list of things you needed for a medical refund (including things like a note from your doctor that you were in the hospital for a (fatal? mortal?) injury -- I forget the exact wording, but that you could die from it). Took me a while, but I got all of that together and was ready to fax it in. Just before I did that, I got an email that they were refunding my mother's ticket -- apparently the hospital bill had been enough.
There were so many hoops to jump through to get the money back, I was worried we'd just have to give up. It's nice that the right thing happened -- we "won".
Related, though silly: Square Enix finally accepted that my credit card is good, so now they'll take money out each month instead of me having to do it by hand. Yay? Since I had extra "money" in non-money form (the in-game currency), I upgraded to the collector's edition. I still have $25 sitting in my Stream Wallet that I can't make apply to the site, but I suppose I'll figure out something else to do with that.
Book #12:
Outpost by Ann Aguirre
Rating: 3/okay (1/hated-5/loved)
This is book two of the trilogy, a followup to Enclave which I reviewed last week. There are two main statements I can make about it:
1) It could have been worse.
2) I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it again: It would have been a much, much better book without the teenage love crap in it.
The love triangle I was dreading wasn't too bad, as once the main character understood what was going on, she had no problems with telling one of the boys it was never going to happen. (She had lived underground for all 15 years of her life, during which even being alone with someone of the opposite gender was banned, so she was often clueless about relationship stuff.) The boy (Stalker, the Wolf gang leader of the rapist teenage boy gang) still thinks he'll get her in the end, but Deuce (the underground girl) has eyes only for Fade (the underground boy). Unfortunately this lead to lines like her loving Fade so much she wanted to "crawl into his skin" to get closer to him.
Teenage love stories, blech.
In Outpost, the foursome (Deuce, Fade, Stalker, and the victim of his gangrape gang whose name I can never remember) found an actual town of real, non-zombie people named Salvation.
Like everything in this book, nothing is subtle. All women feel X way, all men feel Y, all humans as a whole feel Z. The town's name set off warning bells in my head.
And, because nothing in this book is subtle, my worries came true. I really don't like the "She doesn't act like the bible says to, so let's kill her to make all of our troubles go away!" plots.
Stalker and the rape victim became friends in this book, too. Friends to the point where they joke around with each other. The teen who not only raped her, but was the one who could have stopped the rest of his gang from doing so too but did not. I'm really, really, really worried they'll end up as a couple by the end of the last book.
This book annoys me because it has potential. There's a lot of good in it: I like the world it's set in, that the creatures aren't zombies, I liked a number of the adult characters, and I don't mind Deuce at all (other than her name, HATE IT). There's so much wrong with it though. Blah.
I suppose I'll read the third book, since I've gotten this far.
Happy Thing #12: US Air/SE/"Winning"
Back when I was in the hospital, at first the doctors told my mother that what I had was a common infection, happens all the time, no need to fly in, blah blah. Then it changed to she could come if she wanted, but don't worry. Then it became 'You really should come or we'll send your daughter to a home'. However, even then, no one could tell her when she could fly back, so she made her best guess when buying airline tickets. (One-way tickets generally cost a lot more than round trip, so they're not an option.) Eventually the day she was due to fly back arrived, and I hadn't even been released from the hospital yet.
Long story short, she was with me a month, and had to deal with US Air about changing the ticket. The woman on the phone said no problem, just send a copy of the hospital bill and the original ticket would be refunded.
Once I was on my feet, I did that. Then we waited and waited and waited. No record of the request online. While I was poking about their website, I found a long list of things you needed for a medical refund (including things like a note from your doctor that you were in the hospital for a (fatal? mortal?) injury -- I forget the exact wording, but that you could die from it). Took me a while, but I got all of that together and was ready to fax it in. Just before I did that, I got an email that they were refunding my mother's ticket -- apparently the hospital bill had been enough.
There were so many hoops to jump through to get the money back, I was worried we'd just have to give up. It's nice that the right thing happened -- we "won".
Related, though silly: Square Enix finally accepted that my credit card is good, so now they'll take money out each month instead of me having to do it by hand. Yay? Since I had extra "money" in non-money form (the in-game currency), I upgraded to the collector's edition. I still have $25 sitting in my Stream Wallet that I can't make apply to the site, but I suppose I'll figure out something else to do with that.
Book #12:
Outpost by Ann Aguirre
Rating: 3/okay (1/hated-5/loved)
This is book two of the trilogy, a followup to Enclave which I reviewed last week. There are two main statements I can make about it:
1) It could have been worse.
2) I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it again: It would have been a much, much better book without the teenage love crap in it.
The love triangle I was dreading wasn't too bad, as once the main character understood what was going on, she had no problems with telling one of the boys it was never going to happen. (She had lived underground for all 15 years of her life, during which even being alone with someone of the opposite gender was banned, so she was often clueless about relationship stuff.) The boy (Stalker, the Wolf gang leader of the rapist teenage boy gang) still thinks he'll get her in the end, but Deuce (the underground girl) has eyes only for Fade (the underground boy). Unfortunately this lead to lines like her loving Fade so much she wanted to "crawl into his skin" to get closer to him.
Teenage love stories, blech.
In Outpost, the foursome (Deuce, Fade, Stalker, and the victim of his gangrape gang whose name I can never remember) found an actual town of real, non-zombie people named Salvation.
Like everything in this book, nothing is subtle. All women feel X way, all men feel Y, all humans as a whole feel Z. The town's name set off warning bells in my head.
And, because nothing in this book is subtle, my worries came true. I really don't like the "She doesn't act like the bible says to, so let's kill her to make all of our troubles go away!" plots.
Stalker and the rape victim became friends in this book, too. Friends to the point where they joke around with each other. The teen who not only raped her, but was the one who could have stopped the rest of his gang from doing so too but did not. I'm really, really, really worried they'll end up as a couple by the end of the last book.
This book annoys me because it has potential. There's a lot of good in it: I like the world it's set in, that the creatures aren't zombies, I liked a number of the adult characters, and I don't mind Deuce at all (other than her name, HATE IT). There's so much wrong with it though. Blah.
I suppose I'll read the third book, since I've gotten this far.