So, covering my day backwards, we just returned from Alanis Morissette. Good show all around and I'm very happy, although no show will likely ever compare with the show in Honolulu where those of us assembled got to watch them celebrate the end of their nine-month tour.

Ryan Adams was nigh-brilliant, although he seemed more suited to sweaty bars and clubs than the Dodge Theatre.

---

So now on to the earlier part of the day. By way of explanation, our temp worker, Jori, has made it her mission the last couple of weeks to try to win me a laptop computer. I had mentioned that I needed one for my business but couldn't afford one. The radio station we listen to every day gives one away each day, and we've been trying to win for some time. But today we decided to get serious.

So when the time came today, she got on one phone, I got on my cell phone and one of the file clerks, a 62-year-old woman named Marianne got on the third.

You can maybe surmise which of the three of us had the luck to be caller #10. That would be Marianne.

She proceeded to be completely unenthusiastic, having to take prompting from us as far as choosing the laptop and saying the appropriately celebratory and appreciative things. She also proceeds to tell them the computer is for the office, and to tell the flunkies after the on-air part that she was going to donate it to our employers.

Later, she professed ignorance about the plan (which was nigh-impossible, considering how much we talked about it constantly), but didn't change her stance. Then, as time passed, she complained more and more about how she didn't want the prize to complicate her taxes. No matter how I promised to pay any applicable taxes, how I insisted I would make it up to her, she would not be moved.

It will probably go unclaimed.

We were all rather angry.

I'm still pissed off.

The other file clerk, an extremely nice lady a few years younger than her who I've never heard raise her voice or say a truly unkind word, let alone curse, referred to Marianne as a 'shithead.' I was shocked and delighted at the same time.

So in retrospect, thanks for the effort, Jori! We'll try again tomorrow, I guess.