Word of the day: irrefragable (i ‘ref ruh guh buhl); adjective. Impossible to refute or dispute; incontrovertible. (Probably ©2004 wordsmith.org.)
Can I use the word in a sentence? Aw hells yes:
The fact that Matt Hearn is the coolest dude to come out of Delaware since George Thorogood is irrefragable.
Okay, moving on. One thing that I find interesting about the American system of law is that the simplest of actions can get you embroiled in a lawsuit. I got a very nice email today from the folks at Paypal informing me that because I opened an account with them between 1999 and 2004, I am now part of a class action suit. My mind’s immediate response was, “Hell, all I wanted to do was pay for that massive collection of 19th century erotic paraphernalia that I won on eBay!”
Did I say erotic? I meant, um, baseball. Yeah, baseball.
I don’t even begin to grasp what the whole thing is about, really. It has something to do with the “Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978,” of which some folks say Paypal has been in flagrant violation, to whom Paypal responds that the EFTA doesn’t actually apply to them, which strikes me as patently silly, since, last I checked, Paypal is in the very specific business of Transferring Funds via Electronic Acts, so saying the EFTA doesn’t apply to them is rather like the Federal Income Tax Constitutional Amendment doesn’t apply to me. (As if it wasn’t approved by three-fourths of the states, or anything. Oh wait.)
Have your eyes glazed over yet? Stay with me, things will improve.
So anyway, apparently if I don’t opt out of this class action suit, I get free money. In fact, opting out is relatively difficult, as I have to write a snail-mail letter to some court in California and word it just a certain way. The only benefit this would get me is the ability to sue Paypal on my own hook later, but I’m not personally feeling very infringed upon, for a change, so I think I’ll let them slide, just this once, and take the 12 cents or whatever I’ll get as part of a class that must include 50 million people, each taking a bite of a $6 million settlement.
That 12 cents could buy me, um…a gumball! Well, half of a gumball. Well, no, I’m sure I’ll have to pay 6 cents in taxes to the government, so it’s probably more like I could purchase a single Frito.
Oh, I have a favor to ask of you before you go: I need you to pray for two things:
- That the rain that’s currently moving vaguely north from North Carolina pushes off east and allows us to have our preview tonight, since last night’s was rained out, and
- That Jennifer’s sore throat from yesterday was a weird one day thing and has subsided. (I’m personally praying for this one roughly every 2 minutes; I think God is starting to get a little irked with me.)
The second one is more important; if she’s not feeling well tonight, it can rain buckets all it wants. Thanks!
