As you may remember, I planned on watching the Chicago River be dyed a brilliant green shade of green this weekend. Definitely not the main reason I went to Chicago, but it was something that I wanted to see while there. I wanted to see it so badly that I even went as far as going to the river and looking at the water.

And so did about 25 bazillion people.

Here's where we run into a little snag though – the dying was supposed to take place at 10:45am, before the parade. We got there maybe 20-30 minutes early and managed to squeeze into a decent viewing area. 10:45 came and went, and nothing happened. People (myself included) started seeing lighter green streaks in the water, but that might have just been our imaginations. This definitely wasn't the transformation from "Eeeeeew!" to "Ooooooh!" that I was expecting. So when it got to be about 11:30 we left. Dissappointed, a bit frustrated, we left.

From the pictures I saw later that day, I have to assume that the dying happened at some point between 12 and 2pm.

I bet it was interesting to watch.

Turns out I'm actually a starfish.

Since I don't have a landline phone anymore (and have never really had one in my name) I don't have to deal with telemarketers very often. The last time I was bothered was probably over a year ago, but it really got under my skin – trying to sell me something by calling my cell phone.. a call that most people would end up using precious minutes by answering. It was just frustrating and annoying – I don't care if I really did win a cruise, I don't want to be told about it while I'm in the middle of dinner.

There's always the "do not call list" but that just seems too passive. A bit more satisfying is the FCC's online form for reporting telemarketing calls and faxes. Next time you get interrupted while eating dinner, or just trying to relax, try filling out FCC Form 1088 "Junk Faxes and Telemarketing" and see if it help vent some of that frustration. 🙂