Dear Diana and Scott:

I wish to request a refund from Mainehellsite.com for membership number 666. I signed up in order to have access to Heritage Search online and access to the other "members only" areas. I have spent from 8:30am today until now trying to access Heritage Search to no avail.

In order for you to comprehend the level of my frustration I offer the following steps that I took to alleviate the problem.

1. I logged into Mainehellsite.com and hit HS. I got the login and password screen on the white page.

2. I followed the instructions given on the Instructioins for Accessing Online Databases (which, coincidentally, does not contain the info necessary for Norton 2005) to take care of the cookies issue and the firewall issue. Tried again, no good. Rebooted in the event that was necessary. No good.

3. Called Kathy at Mainehellsite who told me she has problems on one of her PCs accessing HS. Suggests that I use another browser besides AOL (already tried that) or Internet Explorer. Suggested Firefox. I am reluctant to jump through any more hoops. By now I could have driven to the airport and hopped a plane to Salt Lake City and in the cool refuge of the Church of Latter Day Saints Geneological Library accessed all that Heritage Search could ever hope to have and more. But Noooo! I keep trying. Maybe I AM an idiot.

Kathy  also suggested that I call Heritage Search. I did. I spoke with Charlene in customer service. She had no idea what I was talking about. I asked for IT. She said she would have to research the problem and get back to me. The conversation was enough to make me pull my hair out.

"What was the site you were using?"

"=http://www.mainehistory.com/ href="http://www.mainehellsite.com/"www.mainehellsite.com", I answer.

"I can't get that to come up on my computer"

"How are you spelling it?"

"I am spelling out hellsite."

"How are you spelling Maine?" I ask.

"M - A - I - N"

"Are you familiar with a state called Maine?" I ask.

Yes, clearly this knowledgable individual is going to be able to figure out and solve the problem. Fo schizzle.

She gets my name and number, will call back. Lucky me.

4. I call Diana and tell her enough is enough. She suggests that in order to figure out how to improve customer service would I please send an email. I agree to do so. This is the result.

5. Charlene of "customer service" at Heritage Search called back. I asked for her name and or employee ID number. Can't give me her last name, no employee number but is willing to spell her first name for me. She can be reached at extension 666 and thank you so much for calling. Is there anything else she can do? Not so much.

6. Bonnie ****& of HS (Hey she has a last name!) called. She asked me what she might do to help. I tell her, she suggests that I speak with someone in IT. Now there is a shocker.

7. I speak with  IT. He emails me detailed instructions for Norton 2005.

We talk about browsers and why that could be the problem. I relinquish, download Mozilla and make it my default browser. I also follow the instructions regarding Norton 2005 to the letter. I log in again (for the what, 59th time?) and get right back to the page I have become so very familiar with.

8. I type in the following: Please refund my membership fee. I would rather rub the inside of my ankle vigorously with a cheese grater than to deal with this anymore. I have wasted a half a day.

Sincerely,

SusanofPudlin

I saw a bumper sticker that read "You cannot be Catholic and Pro Abortion"

I wonder, since the body is considered the temple of G-d, and one is expected to treat it as such, if by extension one might consider the following bumper sticker message:

"You cannot be Roman Catholic and Bulimic".

Henry and I went to see The Complete Works of Shakespeare - Abridged. We had a fine time. It is a fun play. Imagine doing all of Shakespeare's plays in one sitting. Good thing that they are mostly single lines, bits of speeches arranged around purportedly adult men poorly cross dressed for the female parts. Then picture them doing Hamlet, four times, the last time backwards.

Followed by wings and beer at Hooters. My memories of Hooters goes back to the early eighties. Then, there was a machine (I swear I am not making this up, in the ladies room. This vending machine dispensed tan pantyhose. Yup, get your tampons, your condoms and your L'Eggs tan as if anyone ever really was THAT color pantyhose out of the same machine).

After a fine gourmet repaste of wings, salad and beer we returned to the house of Pudlin to fire up the outdoor fireplace and solve all the problems of the world. Much of which is contingent upon sending all members of the religious right into space with enough oxygen to last until they are out of the earth's atmosphere. Seriously folks. I have tried to step away from the things what got me hate mail in the past. Like my series of blogs about the Catholoc priest scandal. That was fun. Seems there was this one guy who could not stay on task. He wanted me to believe that there had been just as many rabbis found guilty of molesting children as priests. It pained me that I tried very hard to help with his research and was unable to find even a paltry handful of similar episodes. Then his tack changed and he wanted me to believe that A) the numbers were skewed with women who were over 18 and willing partners and B) the males that were involved were willing too. But the best was C) it never happened.

He was nearly as entertaining as the woman who popped a carotid when I did a review of the Magdelene Sisters. Her response was A) it didn't happen (the more than a hundred unmarked graves was a tough one for her to justify. Didn't Native Americans EVER live in Ireland?) and B) It didn't happen because she didn't want it to be true.

So for a long time I took a hiatus from my religious and political blogging to not rock that dang - screw it - damn boat. Guess what happened? I got bored and boring. Now, I would rather attend a Baptist church supper than be boring.

The truth of the matter is this: I endeavor to practice my religion without interfering with anyone elses right to "practice" whatever Voodoo they subscribe to believe in. That being said, I also spend the best part of my day trying to piss off the religious right.

That said - here is my beef de jour: You know that Woodside Hospice, the fine folks who cared for Terri Schiavo during her last days? Well, it seems that someone had to pay the tab for all the off duty officers that it took to keep those fine upstanding Christians from blasting in and drowning a woman who was in a permanent vegetative state with cups of water. That bill came to about $40,000.00. That money came from a reserve fund that exists to provide dying people with their last wish. An honorable thing in my book. So I suppose that the people whose last wishes will not be fulfilled will be able to go to their graves smiling just knowing that convicted child molesters (that guy whose ten year old son was arrested? Yup him. He was convicted in Florida, moved to the Carolinas and "forgot" to register as a sex offender there) were kept safe and sound and had the opportunity to tell the rest of us how we should conduct ourselves during our final days.

Along those lines, the City of Pinellas Park got to decide whether to send police officers to protect the families of other patients (who were called "murderers" as they attempted to cross the threshold to go visit mom or gramma for the last time) or have them do what they do best, ie fight crime on the street? So the City coffers took a hit. Thank you Jesse Jackson. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Schindler.

How much do you suppose that media circus cost us with time in the courts? How about what the legislature frittered away on a cause celibre' designed to further their own political agendas? How I would love to see the grand total for this one.

How much good could have been done with all of that money?