View 345 January 17 - 23, 2005 (original) (raw)
Thursday, January 20, 2004
Feast day of Bishop Henry of Upsalla, slain in Finland. His slayer is said to have been punished for this treacherous deed by being nibbled by mice until he threw himself into a lake and drowned. I'm not sure why I remember that. It's also the day on which Presidents of the United States take office and are sworn in.
The speech was noble, and my wife found it inspiring.
Ending tyranny in this world is a noble goal.
===================
Maybe Wells Fargo isn't out of money, but they are short of Branch Managers with good manners and ingenuity.
I took my check from Amazon Associates PO Box 6485, Incline Village, NV 89450, drawn on Wells Fargo Bank, 18100 Wedge Parkway, Reno Nevada, 89511, to the Studio City Branch of the Wells Fargo Bank. They informed me that since there was no account number on the check, they won't pay. Therefore, although this looks like an order from Amazon Associates to Wells Fargo Bank, duly signed, sealed and delivered, to pay me a bit more than a hundred dollars, it's not really: checks now have to have the account number on them, and if they don't, banks don't have to pay.
Part of the thrust of the late Arthur Hailey's novel HOTEL was that the eccentric elderly man staying in the hotel could and did write a check on a random piece of paper, for enough to cover the debts of the hotel; and it was paid, because, according to Hailey, the order to pay money on an account you hold with a bank is to be honored provided there's sufficient evidence that the account holder did issue the order.
The Wells Fargo Branch Manager, not very politely, informed me that was not the case. Given his accent and youth I would presume he not only never read that novel, he never heard of either it or Arthur Hailey, and he has grown up in the computer business and never heard that written documents have any validity: the only thing important is the numbers on the account. If you have them the check can be signed by George Washington; if you don't have the numbers, Wells Fargo doesn't have to pay, and doesn't have to be polite about it. It's my problem, not theirs, and it is up to me to get Amazon Associates to issue me a new check.
I have no idea how to go about doing that. Had I been the Branch Manager of the Studio City Wells Fargo I would have called the Reno Branch of Wells Fargo and asked about the Amazon Associates Account, which must account for a few million in cash flow to the Reno Branch of Wells Fargo, and probably is important to them. The Studio City Branch manager informed me in his very high status accent did not think it was his place to do that. Perhaps I could do it. He didn't offer me a telephone.
When I am done with this I will print a copy and send it by US mail to MANAGER, Wells Fargo Bank, 18100 Wedge Parkway, Reno Nevada and solicit his advice on what I ought to do with this Amazon Associates Check that Wells Fargo has declared to be worthless because they cannot locate the account; at least Studio City can't locate the account. Perhaps Reno can?
I suppose there is some way to inform Amazon Associates that they have issued a check declared worthless by the Studio City Branch of Wells Fargo Bank; since I don't know quite how to do that, I'll send copies to the Incline Village post office box and see what happens.
I suppose it is all a consequence of the Computer Revolution, and it's all my fault for pushing the Computer Revolution. That of course assumes an importance I don't have: the Revolution would have happened without me, and without BYTE for that matter, although we like to think we had a bit to do with both its rapidity and its direction; but this is not a direction I wanted it to go in. (It all turned out all right; see below)
Well, a day. It's Inaugural Day. I am working on the sequel to INFERNO and deep in the diaries and biographies of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, which are depressing enough subjects, and I suspect I am like most novelists looking for something to do other than write. On the other hand, it's going to be a pretty damned good book. Niven and I don't let our characters know they are part of an exposition of our views on Big Subjects like "who killed poetry" and the place of the arts in a world in tumult, but we will have things to say on those subjects, as we have things to say about social justice and other such matters in THE BURNING CITY and BURNING TOWER.
BURNING TOWER OUT
I have a copy.
Go buy one. Maybe Amazon Associates will pay me with a check I can actually cash. I am certain Simon and Schuster will. At least they will pay our agents, and her checks are on Chemical Bank which seems to pay promptly without hoohaw.
BURNING TOWER is a romance. My wife likes it. It's also heroic fantasy, but the kind we write with rivets and nuts and bolts. And it's a whacking good story if I do say so myself.
You can read BURNING TOWER without having read THE BURNING CITY, but you'll like both. We now end this commercial and take you back to the regularly scheduled Chaos Manor chaos.
=============