E-Commerce. My friend.

Having got a bonus in work I ordered up a new Dell computer and some stuff from Amazon. Dell give you lovely links that show you robot-cams of the machine being assembled and such (not really) but my link said (for quite some time) that they were awaiting credit clearance. I had supplied a valid credit card with sufficient credit on it but there it sat. Contacted them and said how long does this usually take (2 days) and can you give me a URL that works for the robot-cams and so on and not once did anyone mention that if the shipping and billing addresses are different, they can't clear the payment! Ahem.

So after waiting some time and re-enquiring,  I got them to change the shipping address so that it was the same as the billing address and round we went again. Still no change. So I rang them again. Ah! When I changed the shipping address they had to raise a new order so the order number I was looking at was for the old order which was perpetually awaiting clearance. And will be until, I dunno, the Earth is swallowed by the Sun.

So they give me a new number and a new URL and now I see that my machine is in "In Assembly". I suspect that Assembly is a small town in France, but we'll see.

Then the credit card company sent me a letter requesting me to ring them immediately. So I did and they were panicking about this order and I explained and they calmed down. And then their representative said You shouldn't do this, you know, it causes us a lot of bother. Get stuffed mate. You're getting a percentage of this sale and don't say you aren't.

And then Amazon. I ordered a few CDs, one of which was that CD. Stupid, yes. But some of the CDs on Amazon are described as being copy protected and this one wasn't so I just thought that it was a different version. Nuh-uh. Back it goes.

Christmas approaches. I'm taking tomorrow off and going shopping. I hope to be able to get something for Sally this time. I'm notoriously crap at this, but this year Will Be Different. This year will be the Year Of The Amazing Presents (crosses fingers).

There has been some discussion about the Christmas trees (we need two) but we usually don't bother until around the 14th and then it's usually my job to make sure they're vertical and so on. I hate that, there's always an argument about it. But then somehow they look OK and Anna sets about decorating them. Paddy will no doubt want to be involved this year.

One year I gave a tree to some new (new at the time) friends of mine. It was the first Christmas I'd known them and they'd decided they couldn't afford a tree. So a friend and I cut the top off one of the trees in our garden. The tree was tall -- about forty feet maybe -- and it was kinda awkward, but I did it and we delivered it, and they all burst into tears.

It was a magnificent tree. As tall as would fit and a perfect shape. Really bushy and not wholly green, but with a blueish tinge to it. They proceeded to decorate it to within an inch of it's life.

It looked great.