It was a fairly typical Sunday – nothing out of the ordinary to report about most of the day.

Item 1: I went back to Circuit City today. I am NOT happy. As I said yesterday: I needed some answers to the question: ‘If the purchase that I made here (to be picked up elsewhere) was not picked up, what steps do I need to take to procure a refund?’

I spoke to an associate at the service desk and explained the situation. She took my receipt, entered the information, and stared at the screen. She stared some more. She pushed more buttons. She furrowed her brow and stared at the screen again. Then she said,”According to this, it has been picked up.” I told her that it had not been. She took the receipt and disappeared into the office area… A few minutes later, she returned… and said the same thing. GRRR

I pulled out my phone and called my father to reconfirm what I already knew. As unhappy as I was with the situation, Dad was that much less pleased. He said that he’d go back to the Circuit City near him tomorrow; I gave him all of the pertinent information from the ticket. As much as I would HATE to be on the opposite side of that service counter tomorrow, part of me would love to be there to see what transpires. He’s going to call me with the details of the ordeal tomorrow; hopefully the matter can be reconciled fairly easily. If not… *shrug*

Item 2: I watched Sins of the Father on FX tonight. It was about the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. Four girls were killed in the explosion; many others were injured. This act became a focal point for the civil rights movement.

I thought that the movie was well done. It took an unusual approach to the case: It was told from the viewpoints – past and present – of Tom Cherry, son of Bobby Frank Cherry, one of the accused bombers. It showed Tom as a boy who wanted to please his father and as a man who was attempting to reconcile his thoughts and feelings of his past. I recommend seeing this movie, if you get the chance. I’m not sure how many liberties were taken with the Tom Cherry story, but the underlying themes of the issues seemed to be fairly well portrayed.

If you are interested in other civil rights-related links:

  • http://www.4littlegirls.com/
  • http://bcri.bham.al.us/
  • http://www.mecca.org/~crights/ncrm.html
  • http://www.splcenter.com/splc.html
  • http://www.naacp.org
  • http://www.usccr.gov/
  • http://www.aclu.org/

Item 3: I also (finally) read the books that I picked up at the comics shop yesterday. While this is not ordinarily a noteworthy thing, there was an interesting twist to some of the books. Early last year, Marvel Comics’ president Bill Jemas and Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada concocted an interesting idea/challenge for their books’ creative teams: Write an issue of the books without any dialogue. There were many skeptics of this plan… and I was one of them. It sounded gimmicky. A slick. A con. I am pleased to say that I – and apparently many of the detractors – were wrong. These issues are truly a credit to the creative synergies of the staff… and to Jemas and Quesada for engineering the plan. To help readers out, parts of the books’ plots are included at the end of the story; the full plots are available online at www.marvel.com. Check them out. And if you get a chance, check out the books as well.

Pictures of the Day are here

And, that is all the news that’s fit to print. Until next time…

Peace.