Comments on: On the Road: Pittsburgh 5:30AM

By: CrankyOtter

CrankyOtter — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:18:13 +0000

Oh, and I love the idea of the customized wake up call. Of course it just wouldn’t be home if dad didn’t drip cold water from a washcloth onto my head.

By: CrankyOtter

CrankyOtter — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:14:26 +0000

My phone number in college was CAL-SEXY, I kid you not. I got the BEST phone calls at 3am. I learned that even when you are belligerent to a caller, they still want to know what you are wearing. I should have gotten more credit card numbers. I had a lot of fun with it after a while.

And what is up with this interface? Every time I type a letter, the scroll bar flickers and every single bit of text that doesn’t start a new paragraph flickers back and forth. Good thing I’m not an eplieptic or I’d be seizing right now.

By: McB

McB — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:06:43 +0000

Still giggling over the idea that you thanked the guy for the obscene phone call.

By: Kieran

Kieran — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:56:00 +0000

When you said, “Then I took another couple of minutes to really wake up and called the front desk. They said somebody had called looking for a different name and then asked for my name which is extremely common…”

My immediate response was that someone in security or at the front desk of that hotel should be told about this in a complaint…the clerk never should have connected that person to you without the caller providing your room number. I’m sorry that happened to you–I consider it a horrible form of anonymous violence against you. I wish I could laugh, but I can’t. The few times it’s happened to me, it really leaves me shaken.

By: Tanya Michna

Tanya Michna — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:06:26 +0000

ROFL! Well, not at the obscenities or being awakened so early (criminal!) but I loved your reaction. And the suggestion that hotels offer different kinds of wake up calls. Hope the rest of the booktour goes well and doesn’t feature anyone swearing at you.

Tanya, who bought her copy of Agnes yesterday!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:21:38 +0000

Thanks for the directions. Google, huh? Didn’t even cross my mind. Yay, I can go now!

By: Penny-scope dope cherrybomb

Penny-scope dope cherrybomb — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:10:01 +0000

Bob could signal if he could find Moot. Jenny I agree with everyone else please stick close to Bob. After all his little pinky can keep you safe. See you in Dayton.

By: WapakGram

WapakGram — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:55:51 +0000

Stacy- we couldn’t get it on Mapquest either as it is a fairly new place- like open for a year and obviously Mapquest hasn’t found them yet.
Bellefontaine- heck- another OHIOian! See you there- if we all find it. Maybe Bob could send up the Moot signal or something.

By: micki

micki — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:47:40 +0000

HUGE, OT coincidence! Amazon delivers Agnes! See y’all next week sometime . . . .

By: micki

micki — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:46:21 +0000

(-: Jenny, you are wonderful. Life hands you a raspberry, and you make Mojitos (powered with laughing gas!). As a reader and fan, I hope this turns into a book!

I think the customized wake-up calls are brilliant. (-: Personally, I always start off as the Good Mother, but the morning quickly degenerates into threats from there. My kiddos do not wake well in the morning. Neither do I, or I could probably keep up the Snow-White-10-years-later routine until they are on the bus.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:37:12 +0000

68 South to 70 West to Exit 44/I-675 S, to Exit 10/Indian Ripple Rd. As I remember, you can see the bookstore from the exit but in case you can’t, Google Maps says to turn right on Indian Ripple, left on Greene, right on Walnut. Big mall, big bookstore.

By: Stacy

Stacy — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:57:37 +0000

Not to be totally off-topic (although it does have something to do with roads and Jenny), but can any of my fellow Western Ohioans give me directions from Bellefontaine to the Dayton signing? Mapquest and Yahoo!Maps are not being friendly to me today and it’s starting to put me into crisis mode. I wanna go!

By: Trish Morey

Trish Morey — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:14:30 +0000

One previous Aussie conference I’d booked a wake up call which duly arrived and I was greeted by this incredibly cheery voice saying “Good Morning!”. Blearily I muttered something and dropped the receiver back in the cradle thinking, wow, how weird to get a real human doing those when the phone rang again and an irate Paula Roe said “Did you just hang up on me?”

Um, sorry Paula. Maybe if she’d talked dirty I would have hung on longer…

By: Louisa

Louisa — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:12:56 +0000

Sorry about the loss of sleep.
Totally understand about the common last name problem.

FWIW, A drill instructor is much easier to wake up to than an incontinent Pomeranian. I have experience of both, though neither ever phoned me.

Love the good mother/bad mother calls. Now, for the ringtones. . . .

No matter what else, You are a Great Writer.

By: Becky

Becky — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:10:02 +0000

Somewhere there is a woman breaking up with her idiot boyfriend for accidentally crank calling her favorite author.

By: Jen Talty

Jen Talty — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:57:32 +0000

You know, I was thinking. Yeah, I know, bad idea half the time, but when the phone rings at a hotel, I don’t put it to my ear. I just lift, then slam, because it’s usually not a person doing the wake up call. Hmmmm, maybe I’m missing something here.

By: ZaZa

ZaZa — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:37:49 +0000

The hotel caper book is next, right? Will someone in that book be getting an obscene wakeup call? I really hope so. /;+)

Sounds like Pittsburgh gave you a pretty good time.

By: Egads

Egads — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:26:58 +0000

(I kept saying, “Huh?” and I might even have said “Thank you” at first)

I keep picturing this. You’d think that a “thank you” would have given the guy pause.
I chuckle whenever I think about it.

Living the dream.

By: ang

ang — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:16:34 +0000

Midwest Living magazine (our version of Southern Living) covers stuff in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. The Midwest is the stuff in the middle between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains, and north of “southern” states Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, yadda yadda. Western PA can easily fit into the “stuff in the middle” definition.

Bob and Jenny are coming to Chicago!!! Yeah!!

By: robena grant

robena grant — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:13:26 +0000

Sounds like you’re back on track Jenny, loved your take on the wake-up calls. But just in case there’s a weirdo out there, put Bob on surveillance duty.