$741.59

That's what someone charged on my Mastercard and I have been trying for THREE DAYS to get to the bottom of it!#^#$%!!!

I lodged a dispute with MC, which will take up to 30 DAYS to even be seen!!  So, silly me, I tried calling.  After being on hold with various, "Your call is important to us" bullsh-t recordings blaring in my ear, another voice came on and said that when posted, charges cannot be reversed until you have checked with the merchant.  Huh??!!  I thought that's what you'd be doing with my dispute??!!

So I called the merchant, which was Air Miles.  Huh??!!???!!!!  I haven't even had an air miles card since 2000!!!!  After waiting for two hours on another hold, a voice came on and said I would get a callback.  Why make me wait for two hours to be told I can get a callback??$%^@Q?!!!

It's now been three-and-a-half hours and still no callback.  And who's supposed to call me back?  One of their.....wait for it....."Customer Care Ambassadors"! 

I kid you not!  That's what they call themselves!!!  "Care" Ambassadors?!!!!  Are you kidding me??!!??!!!!  More like a "Customer Who Cares?! Ambassador".  'Cause they most certainly don't!!!!

So, this morning it's been no swim and no shower in case someone who "cares" calls me back.  I predict I will be staying in my pyjamas all day and still won't get the callback!#$%!!#$!!

Update:  Just got a "callback" from a recorded voice that said -- and I kid you not! -- "You will not get a callback today because we have an unusually high volume of calls.  Please press this and that and this and that to select a time for a callback.  Sorry, that time is not available.....Sorry, that time is not available.....blah, blah, blah."

Guess when my callback is scheduled?  Nov. 30th!!!!!  That's absolutely appalling!!!  

Canada is the most non-service-oriented country in the entire, effing world!!!!!

If I had long hair, it'd be in this shape!!!

 

Did they think I was a lonely bag lady?

"It's already paid."  That's what the server at a Dim Sum restaurant said to me last night when I asked for my bill.  

Whaaaat!!??  Paid?  By whom? I asked her incredulously.  Why would a stranger pay for my dinner???  "Who paid it?" I asked.  "That woman over there," she said, as she pointed to a family seated at the other side of the restaurant.

I was dining on my own because B was at a meeting and I was waiting to pick him up.  I do this often at the same restaurant on Saturday nights, not far from where he meets regularly with his charity colleagues.  

I love Dim Sum and he doesn't, so it works out perfectly.  But why would this woman cover my tab?  Did they think I was a lonely, old bag lady sitting forlornly on my own on a Saturday night?  I may have looked like one, with no makeup and an old jacket.  (Maybe it wouldn't have happened, had I been wearing my mink?!)

Incredulous, I walked over to their table.  "Did you pay for my dinner"? I asked the woman.  "Yes, but I told them not to tell you who paid," she replied.  "I wanted it to be anonymous," she added.  "Are you a Secret Santa tonight?" I asked.  "I guess so!" she replied, laughing.

Their daughter said they try to do this every time they go out as a family.  Why they picked me, I have no clue?  Maybe because I was the only one dining on her own; every other table was full of Chinese families, which would have been expensive.  

We chatted for a while and I learned she was a 911 operator.  "My son-in-law is a firefighter, so I know what you deal with," I said.  "He tells me people call 911 because they have a sniffle."  "Oh ya, you wouldn't believe the kind of calls I get," she said.  "Can I have a hug?" her husband asked.  "Of course," I replied, whereupon she, their daughter and I enjoyed a group hug Christmas-style.

"I promise to pay it forward," I said as I left.  "That's what we hope," said the daughter as I walked away.  

I promised and I will.  What a beautiful start to the Christmas season of giving!

 

  

Only two

The only opinions worth listening to these days are those of Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson.  

Murray

Murray is a British journalist, author and truth speaker.  Oxford-educated and vehemently against open immigration -- legal and otherwise -- he slams the woke so articulately you would do well to have a listen to anything he says. You can find him on YouTube.

Peterson, as you may know, is a Canadian psychologist and author and another guy I highly recommend you catch on YouTube.  He has clinically analyzed our Monster-in-Chief, Justin Trudeau, and correctly assesses him as a destructive narcissist who is dismantling Canada piece by piece on every file.  

Peterson

Any panels where they debate various specious woke gangs are highly entertaining, as each man meticulously shreds such gangs' erroneous points and opinions.  BLM gets eviscerated as does multiculturalism.  Both men argue that instead of uniting cultures and ethnicities, both movements have created deep and divisive chasms among many sectors of society.  Peterson calls multiculturism, "A miracle of stupidity."  I agree wholeheartedly, but cowardice is catching and that's what fuels woke-ism.    

Murray singles out Muslim ghettos in London, for example, where people can live out their entire lives without once interacting with anyone outside their home bases.  Many, in fact, never learn to speak English, "So what are they doing here?" Murray asks.  I agree.   Murray even had a go at Piers Morgan, the latter coming off very badly.

Treat yourself to a few broadcasts.

They fought the good fight

The ubiquitous poppy.

As we pause on this day, November 11, 2023, to remember all those who gave us the freedom we enjoy and take for granted every day, I salute the members of both my birth and adopted families who were heroic soldiers. 

When I was a kid, my Mother and aunts would take us all to the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Ottawa to pay our respects to our fallen and serving relatives.  When we had our four, we did the same and today, still watch it on television with respect.

First, I'd like to recognize my Father, Thomas Raymond Griffith.  Born in 1899, he was a brilliant scientist who was head of the rubber lab at the National Research Council.  When natural rubber became unavailable because of the second world war, he was tasked with developing synthetic rubber, an invention that saved the war effort and is still vital to the running of the world.  Because of his work, he was not allowed to enlist; he was too valuable:  

My Dad, Tommy Griffith, with my Mother, Lillian.

My maternal uncle, Rollie Brousseau, fought on the front lines in Italy:  

The last time I saw him before he died.

Brian and his Dad, Ivan Marley-Clarke, captain in the British Merchant Navy in the war.  A very brave seaman.

My birth father, William Doyle who I just discovered.  He was a US Marine and fought in Okinawa.  A brave soldier.

Brian's maternal great-grandfather Walsh, a Colonel in the Indian Irish Hussars, with his two sons, Jack, left, and Brian's grandfather, George Walsh, right.  The regiment was first deployed to India in 1703.  

Clive Marley-Clarke, Brian's uncle, killed by a German sniper in Italy.  He was a Ghurka and only 23 when he died.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Remember that fable?  If not, google it because that's what's happening with two global figures who are supposed to transcend statehood:  The Pope and the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Antonio Gutteres

Pope Francis

Sadly, both are impotent when it comes to the jobs they are supposed to be doing.  

They are the only two heads of organizations in the world whose sphere of influence cuts across country and state lines, which should give them great influence worldwide.  But it doesn't.  They are both useless, in my view.   (See note, below.)

There's Pope Francis, waving from windows and giving speeches to which no one pays any heed.  And there's Antonio Guterres doing exactly the same thing.  With war and chaos ravaging the world, both men are useless about doing anything about anything.

Shouldn't these two guys have some sway?  Shouldn't these two guys have some influence on stopping war and death to children?  You'd think so because that's what they get paid to do.  But, no.  Neither is anything but a eunuch.

It's pretty outrageous -- especially since Guterres is paid $227,253 a year and Francis a whopping $384,000!  However, I have to hand it to the Pope:  He donates all his salary to charity.  Guterres?  Keeps his.  

(Note:  I should have added the Dali Lama, another useless leader.)   

He liked them young

Very young.  Bored and meandering around on YouTube and other day, I came across a documentary about Elvis Presley and his abnormal proclivity for children.  It was really quite disturbing.

A number of now middle-aged women were interviewed about their affairs with Elvis, revealing that he evidently was a pedophile.  According to the women, he had his handlers seek out girls of 14 in his audiences that he fancied and invite them to Graceland.  Naturally, they were absolutely thrilled to go.  

Asked if they had had a sexual relationship with Elvis, all said it only went as far as necking and petting, but no intercourse.  Why?  Because they said Elvis was really just a teenager himself at heart and enjoyed the company of young girls -- like the teenager he had wanted to remain.  One said he had told her that because he was who he was, he was expected to have a very aggressive and robust sex life, but all he wanted was some teenage frolicking.

Weird?  I'd say.

"Elvis, why is a man of 39 asking to date a 14-year-old child?" one mother asked him.  He replied that if she were worried, she could come along as a chaperone, which this mother did.  "We played parlour games and went swimming in his pool," she said, "but it didn't go further than teenage behaviour."

Weird?  I'd say.

But it's no different than the Mormon cult, whose females marry very young, often to older men, and are encouraged to have as many children as they can to keep the cult going 'cause not too many people are lining up to convert.  It's a very closed sect.

(Note: I no longer have to censor myself when I talk about the Mormons because I recently blocked a Mormon acquaintance who was an avid reader of my blog.  He never commented on anything I blogged  -- except to take offence at my research and views on Mormons -- so in a moment of childish pettiness, I blocked him, along with a few other ghost followers.  When he discovered this, he "unfriended" me, in his own moment of juvenile behaviour, so he won't be able to read it on fb either.  I know, I know, small-minded of me but I'm far from perfect!)  

But back to Elvis.  His seems a case of arrested development which never abated.  With Pricilla, he met her when she also was 14 and had to wait a few years until she was of age to marry her.  But her parents let her live with him all that time, under the same roof.

Weird?  I'd say.

She looks 14 here.

Even weirder, Pricilla said that after she had had the baby, Elvis never slept with her again.  He was repulsed by the fact that she had given birth.  Evidently, he still preferred his virgins.  That's when she started her affair with one of his body guards, which ended their marriage.  But I mean, do you blame her?

The whole thing non-plussed me.  Have a look and I think you'll agree:  Elvis was one weird guy.