twodoebs

Here's my e-mail to buy.com Customer Service (someday, I should aggregate all of these complaint messages together to amuse myself). Seriously, be aware of these folks. In my opinion, they're total scum-bags:

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I placed an order with BUY.COM on AUGUST 2, 2010. When the order never came, I e-mailed you. My order had been canceled, you told me, because my credit card had been rejected. I ignored the fact that when a credit card is rejected, that's typically discolosed when the purchaser presses "submit." I also ignored the fact that we saw the payment show up on our bank transactions. OK, whatever...

(That was, by the way the first time I came to realize that this was a buy.com MARKETPLACE purchase and that I wasn't even dealing with buy.com, but some third party so-and-so . . . yeah, yeah, that might have been disclosed in the fine print somewhere, but you sure didn't mind taking advantage of the fact that I wasn't reading that fine print.)

On August 12, 2010, I get an e-mail from you stating--and I'm quoting, here--"the Buy.com Marketplace items(s) listed below have shipped and are on their way to your door!" Your e-mail went on to say "The seller, HealthE Goods Natural Health Store has confirmed the shipment was sent on 8/12/2010."

Such authoritative words you chose to use. Such certainty.

Trouble was?--they were LIES. Lies!

How do I know? Because TODAY--more than TWO weeks after placing the order and 5 days after you told me the order had shipped--I got a message from HealthE Goods saying that my "order is hold at [their] warehouse" (which is presumably some hippie's garage).

I told them the same thing I'm telling you: these business practices are deceptive. You should be ashamed of yourselves as human beings for all the reasons that don't even need to be elaborated on (misleading customers to think they're dealing with a named entity when in reality they're dealing with a fly-by-night outfit, lying about having an item in stock, lying about shipping things).

I want my order canceled. I want my money back. I want an apology. And I want something for free.

If my money is not returned promptly, I will contact the IC3. And Bizrate. And my congressman.

I have more to say, but instead of being a company with Customer Service practices that are on the up-and-up, who give you an e-mail address, you limit my characte

I was going to title this post "This Week in Air Travel" but now that more than a week has passed that didn't seem like the right title.

In any event, most of you probably already know what this is all about - but for those of you don't - here goes. Did you hear about that Jetblue flight attendant who went and cursed out his flight - grabbed a few beers then jumped out the emergency chute??? Well - - yep, I was ON that flight. Here's what I can tell you:

I was in the LAST row of the plane - row 25, seat D (window seat). Because of this, I was one of the earliest boarders. I saw the flight attendant as I boarded and noticed quite quickly he had a cut on his head. It bugged me because there wasn't a bandaid on it - and there SHOULD have been. The passenger in front of me made a comment to him and he responded with some kind of snarky joke.

The flight passed relatively uneventfully. Then - we landed. We taxied and came to a stop. Antsy people started to get up to grab their bags. A female flight attendant came on the speaker and reminded all the people to have a seat until the pilot notified us when it was safe. VERY soon after, we rolled forward a few more feet - and came to a stop again. The seatbelt light turned off and once again people all jumped to their feet to grab their bags.

THEN it happened! Mr. Slater jumped on the speaker and showered us with his short but profanity laced adios. Most of us in the back just gasped - giggled a little - then carried on with the business of the airport. By the time I got off, they'd already closed that exit door so I missed even seeing the chute deployed. Must admit - I am kinda bummed about that!

In any event, like a good modern girl I promptly put it on facebook. Within a few hours this turned into a 'real story' with everyone posting links to CNN articles and such. Then a friend asked if I'd be willing to talk to HER friend who worked at CBS. SURE I thought - what fun! I then spent ALL night fielding phone calls, answering emails - they wanted me to be on the Early Show. I didn't think I would have the most compelling story to tell since I didn't see his dramatic exist. CBS apparently agreed and at 6am, they "passed".

7:30am though, the local CBS station called - would I be willing to talk to them? SURE I thought - what fun! Well . . . I did. The interview took about 15 mins then - it went EVERYWHERE!

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/11/defenders-turn-out-after-spectacular-jetblue-exit/

Another friend asked if I'd be wiling to talk to her friend at the AP - I happen to really like AP - so why not, I thought. Well I shoulda known - talking to the AP is like talking to the universe:
http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Passenger-NY-flight-attendant-s-curses-drew-gasps-612084.php
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/08/11/us_flight_attendant_arrest_1
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/11/2144286/flight-attendants-bizarre-antics.html
And so forth . . .

Then - it all turned wierd. People calling my in-laws house, people calling a cell number I never gave out, people calling my father-in-law's office. YIKES. It just became WAY too much. Then Thursday night I got a call from GMA - my DREAM! I had privately declared a moratorium on media - but for GMA!!?? SURE! After a series of phone calls with a producer planning a crew coming over to do a shoot . . . poof. It was gone. All over - moving on to the next story.

All in all, at the end of it all - I tend to think Mr. Slater was made more of than his story supports. I don't think he should go to jail, nor do I think he will. It was fascinating to watch the bubble of a story grow, grow and then pop, and poof. Gone like the wind!

The return flight sadly was without the extra entertainment. Just the 36 Channels of DirecTV programming! In case you were wondering - I DID get $100 from JetBlue! THANKS JETBLUE!! I'll be back for sure!

But nice when the come around.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

There WILL however be a "This Week in Air Travel" - coming soon.
Stay tuned!

Oooooooh yeah. This Week In Sports is SOOOO cool now - it's abbreviated to T.W.I.S.

I am making an effort to have this post be a touch shorter since I think some of the past T.W.I.S. posts have been a little lengthy.

1. Way to go A-ROD!!! It's a very cool milestone and I can't help but remember that I was AT the 500th homerun on one of the most hilarious flukes. My esteemed co-bloggers parents decided 'hey, let's go to a Yankee game before Yankee stadium closes!'. We, a coupla New Yorkers at the time said 'GREAT! let's do it'. So we went on StubHub or some ticket outlet and paid a whole mess of money to go to a game several months down the road thinking,"Oooooh, we'll go in August which will be pretty close to the end of season so it will be cooler to be at the 'old Yankee Stadium' RIGHT before it closes"! Smart right? Trouble was - we were off by a year. The summer of 2007 was NOT in fact the last summer of 'old Yankee Stadium'. Feeling like a bunch of dolts when we figured that out, we decided to carry on, it's still a Yankee game right? Well wouldn't ya know it - we witnessed history that day. By accident. Wish I coulda been there today A-Rod! Good for you.

2. Brett Farve - retired??? or not??? Bottom line is this - back in the day when he was in his Cheesehead glory, I thought he was a down to earth, regular guy who just loved to play football. Now I think he's a down to earth, regular guy, who loves to play football, but doesn't realize that this flip flopping and holding his team hostage while he 'waits to decide' is making him look like a total A$$.
You're being selfish Brett. You say, 'I will play this season if my ankle gets better'. Well guess what old man - the season has started. It's time to ____ or get off the pot.

I wear my "Judas Farve" t-shirt with pride.

3. Hi GILLES!!!! Glad to know you're out there even if you can't figure out how to post a comment.

I was just talking about this picture the other day to a friend - noting how much I loved it and realized it probably never had been posted anywhere.
So here it is . . . about a year and a few weeks after it was originally taken.

Sigh . . .

This week (well yesterday, technically speaking) marks our one-year Yinzer-versary! It was one year ago we moved to Pittsburgh.

For those of you who don't know what a Yinzer is - let me enlighten.
"Yinz" is the Pittsburgh version of "y'all". But where "y'all" is an actual contraction (you + all) and is a sweet colloquialism that is easily adopted by nothern visitors -Yinzers (aka, those for whom Yinz is a normal word in the lexicon) well - quite simpley - being a Yinzer is a way of life. Yinzers live in/around Pittsburgh and have a very specific accent and even vocabulary. For example - "down town" is pronounced "dahntahn". "Irons" are beers (don't worry, that one actually isn't so crazy. The local favorite beer is Iron City). Yinzers add the phrase 'n'at to the end of a sentence that is meant to indicate a 'series' or 'mulitple'. I presume it started from "and all that" but was shortened. For example, I am going 'dahntahn' to drink some "Irons'n'at". Ohh Yinzers. they are funny.

For those of you with copious amounts of spare time - there is no end to the Yinzer hilarity on YouTube.

Anyway - here's some of the things I've learned about living in Pittsburgh in this last year.
1. Drivers are so nice they actually are TOO nice. I can't tell you the number of times people being overly nice to each other at an intersection and letting a car go thru has actually screwed up traffic or practically caused an accident. Don't worry, if a driver waves me thru, I GO.
2. Things are cheaper here. Boy it's nice to have a mangeable cost of living.
3. YOU CAN'T GET FRESH BAKERY ON A SUNDAY. It's crazy. Honsetly crazy. And it breaks my heart every Sunday.
4. I have never seen a people so rabid than a bunch of Steeler fans on Sunday. It's honestly bizarre. What's funny tho, is even with the rabid fan-dom, you never feel like a fight could breakout at any second. That's probably because you really don't ever see fans from the visitors side but still - drunken fan-ish debauchery with a sense of respect for others. (PS - Philly fans could take a hint from that).
5. This may be Sewickley-specific but 'around here' they don't let the kids trick or treat on Halloween. It's something like the Thursday before Halloween is 'trick or treat' night. That's absurd. And weird. I thought something crazy had happened when returning home from a business trip the Thursday before Halloween this year to find hordes of kids trick or treating everywhere.
6. The Pittsburgh Airport is delightful. It's clean, easy, small and rarely crowded. Now at about 6am on a weekday that place is a madhouse and security lines are out the wazzoo but pretty much the rest of the time everything is a breeze. I LOVE that I can have an 8pm flight, leave my house at 6:30 and: get to the airport, park, get thru security, on the tram, over to the gate in about 50 mins. (Although to be fair, that time I had my boarding pass already printed - but still). Of course the downside to being in a small market is that we don't have the plethora of options and direct flights to other medium or small markets are harder to find but for a gal who mostly goes to DC, Philly or NYC I am served just fine.
7. We eat WAY less take out. There just aren't that many options as NY obviously and not everyone under the sun will deliver to us up in the hills here but for the size of our bank account and the size of our pants, less take out is better.
8. This city has about the most confusing 'parkway' system that I STILL don't understand. There are two different highways that go two different directions both called "Parkway". There's "Parkway East, Northbound" and "Parkway East, Southbound"..."Parkway West, Northbound" and "Parkway West, Southbound - - I THINK.
9. Our poor GPS can't keep up around here. She (our GPS is named Jill) is usually wrong about the highway number or the exit number. Because so much has changed in the highway set up here in the recent years (supposedly), many GPS's are out of date. My plan is usually to follow whatever direction she's giving me if she's right on 2 out of 3 markers (road name, exit number and distance from the exit). If all else fails, just go to the airport. I can definitely find my way home from the airport.
10. Things are just 'easier'. Commuting is easier, parking is easier, getting around (despite aforementioned GPS struggles) is easier, traffic is easier. One thing tho - i wish there was a better public transportation or taxi network here. It makes it impossible for Doebs and I to both enjoy a glass of wine with dinner - but thankfully he ususally lets ME enjoy.
(I will omit my rant about the absolutley logic-less, arcane laws about purchasing alcohol 'round here. I'll save that for another day!)

To celebrate our Yinzer-versary, we went out to a nice new restaurant Saturday night and then yesterday went to enjoy the Rib and Wing Fest (see post below) at Seven Springs. (I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the salon AND a mani/pedi - AND we even did some yard work! We were very productive little homeowners). We also got to sit back and reflect on some of the fun things we did this year like:
1. A few trips to Kennywood
2. Katie and Tom's Thanksgiving party
3. Peggy and Chris's World Cup party
4. OUR Olympics party
5. Kate's Lobsterfest
6. Lots of visits from our friends and family (mom and dad, Gilles,Toko and Thomas, Cindy, Tracy and the girls, David and CC, Kelly, Aunt Chris - KEEP ON COMIN GUYS!! We love having you!!!!)
7. Doebs was able to see some friends in OH back last fall
8. Oh and the STEELERS GAMES!!!
9. The Kidney Walk at the Zoo
10. The Progressive Dinner in the fall

There was lots of fun to be had and we look forward to more.

Though I have said to Doebs and now I say to you all - if Libby starts talking like a Yinzer - we are OUTTA HERE - that day.

We had a good time. The wings weren't such a big part of the festival, though.