Whatever happened to the television hiatus?  Remember when a show would just go away for a few weeks or a month around Christmas-time, and then it would come back and finish its season?  Now, apparently, they have the Fall Season, and I suppose there is also the Winter Season.  A show will now have it’s “Fall Season Finale” in November and then not come back until February.  I understand that the idea, as the networks see it, is that they now have an audience used to watching TV in that time-slot and so they hope that they can bring in a new show mid-season to try it out and see if it works.  But what they are also doing is annoying and confusing their audiences who watch a show like Lost for the first half of the season and then forget everything that happened by the time the second half of the season finally airs.

Jesus Christ, Wegman’s.  Was it so important to get your Christmas crap out that you couldn’t wait until after Halloween to get rid of all the candy?  You couldn’t keep it out one extra day so that if someone needed a last minute bag of candy they could get it?  Thanks, a lot.  Merry Christmas to you, too.

On Friday night, I got home from my gig (which had been rained out halfway through) and dinner with M-D and it was around 11:45.  I checked my e-mail, and then started to play a computer game.  To be specific, it was Civilization 4.  For those of you who have never played a Civilization game, it has a tendency to suck your soul away.  Anyway, at around 4:30 am I told myself I had to stop.  I went to bed just as the sun was beginning to come up.

Last night, I got home around midnight again, having finished up my show and taken all the equipment down.  For some reason, I thought it would be okay to play the game again.  As I was crawling into bed at 5 am, Ali’s alarm was going off….

Yep.  Three copies of the standing certificate showed up today.  I was charged for it three times.  All because their website appeared not to work.  And before anyone says, “You should call them” let me counter by saying, “Yeah.  Right.”

I do a lot of work for Rider University.  They’re an excellent client.  I’ve done a bit of install work for them, and I’m set to do another renovation that they’re doing.  The General Contractor for the job contacted my client and said that he needed to make sure his low voltage contractors got permits for the job.  I told my client that I didn’t think we needed one, since I’ve NEVER needed a permit for a low voltage job before, but I’d humor him and check with the township.

Sure enough, Lawrence Township has decided that they require a permit for low-voltage work.  I can’t understand WHY, since you’d have to try incredibly hard in order to set a fire with low voltage work, but whatever.  I’ll file for their damn permit.  So I call to find out what I need.  It turns out that in order to file for the permit, I will need to register for a license in Lawrence Township.  An annoyance, to be sure, but fine.  I bring the paperwork over to the township and the woman tells me that I’ll need to get her a copy of my insurance certificate (already on the way) and my exemption card.  “My what?”  “You’re exemption card.”  “I…have no idea what that is.”  She proceeds to show me what a Telecommunications Exemption Card looks like and what department within the state I need to contact in order to get it.

I do some research, and it appears that this Telecommunications Exemption card basically licenses me with the state board of electrical examiners to say that it’s okay for me to not be a licensed electrician.  There are specific parts of the FCC code and National Electric Code which I agree to follow by filling out this paperwork, but none of it has anything to do with what I do.  Mostly it relates to plugging into phone lines.  But I have to have the card in order to get licensed with Lawrence Township in order to pull my permit, so I’ll do it.  I have to get crap notarized and pay them $120, but I file…

Today I get a call from the State Board of Elecrical Examiners.  They got my paperwork, and they’re ready to file it, but they need a copy of my Standing Certificate.  “My what?”  “Your Standing Certificate.”  “I don’t know what that is.”  The woman proceeds to tell me what department I have to call in order to file.

So I look online, find the information, and discover that I can file online.  Great.  Basically, this form seems to just say that I do, in fact, still exist.  Oh, and I have to give them $50.  WHATEVER.  I fill everything out, hit the button, and then wait.  And wait.  And finally the server times out.  I’m really annoyed now.  So I try it all again.  And the server times out.  So I do it a third time, but this time I create a login account, because I figure maybe that’ll make a difference.  But it still times out.  I call the number I was given, but all I get are automated instructions that tell me where to go on the website to find the information.  I find information on the website about fax filing, but it tells me that in addition to the precisely filled out cover page, I need to fax the completed form.  But I can’t find a link to the form.  I find a link that takes me back to the page that tells me I can file online or by fax, so I’m basically clicking around in a circle. Finally, I decide to log in to the system, just out of curiousity.  According to the system, I’ve filed the form, which means I’ve probably actually filed three times, now, and my credit card will probably be charged three times.  But maybe I’ve actually filed.  MAYBE.

So I guess I’ll wait to see if I get my Standing Certificate.  Then I can send that over to the State Board of Electrical Examiners so I can get my Telecommunications Exemption Card.  Then I can show that to Lawrence Township so I can get my license with them so that I can FINALLY pull a friggin’ permit for something that NO ONE ELSE requires a permit for.

Fuckin’ bureaucracy.

Growing up, I had a reasonable sized bedroom, but it only had one window, and for the majority of the year that window was blocked by a very large, leafy tree.  This meant I had almost no natural light in my room, no matter what time of day it was.  As a result, I crave rooms with sunlight.  I can’t understand how people can live in places with nice big windows and then keep them covered up all the time.

So it’s understandable that I was very happy to have so many windows in our new house.  I mean, there’s a ton of them, and there’s tons of sunlight coming in and it’s great.

Except when you have to clean them….