I did more social things Saturday than I normally do in months. I should probably never admit this in public.
I met Laura downtown at Innovox, as usual, because I’m lame and only know how to get to that one place. From there, we went to the High Museum of Art to see the exhibit of the “Later Works of Edvard Munch.” The museum was fairly nice, although I’m not sure what compelled the members to spend a few thousand dollars on random junk collected from Ebay and call it art. The Munch exhibit, which would be more appropriately entitled “Everything that Edvard Munch Did Except For The Scream Which We Couldn’t Find”, was fairly nice, although it did prove the concept that not every painting an artist does is worth hanging on the wall.
After our brush with high culture, we went to Global Imports, which is located in a hidden space-time rift just north of Interstate 75. The reason I broke the laws of continuum to find the car dealership was so that I could test drive the new MINI Cooper S. The MINI is an absolutely sweet car: 163hp, road-grippy, and enough room for the tall and beautiful Laura to sit in the back seat without becoming uncomfy and mauling the sales lady. Said sales lady, Frauhlein Helga, would only let me go 50MPH, but the MINI handled that indignity better than I handled the clutch, as I stalled the car once. Woops. Sadly, I won’t be able to obtain this yummy machine [the MINI, not the sales lady] until January, due to the limited supply.
Later, in my Evil Lair of Evil Doom, I entertained Laura by stealing a stack of her CDs, and burning a lot of MP3s for her. She’d not been exposed to Invader Zim, so I suggested we watch one of the episodes saved on my Tivo. After the second episode: “You don’t have to watch any more. I have a stack of DVDs here.” “No, no.. play the next one.” Four hours later, she’d watched every single Invader Zim episode that I have, and had laughed herself into near oblivion. Apparently she’s developed a major Zim addiction, so if anyone has any Zim merchandise, I know where you can get a good price.
Ooh! Just in time for Halloween: take a look at this photo collection of spooky towers, spooky graveyards and other spooky places. It’s just spooky!
CompUSA Sucks.
Yesterday, Robert and I stopped by CompUSA. Once at the register, the cashier informed us that there would be a 5 minute wait before we could be helped, as someone had just made a very large cash purchase. Rather than waiting, my friend put his purchase back on the shelf. I told the cashier to inform his management that the arbitrary hold-time due to the large cash purchase just cost Compusa about $200. The cashier then stated that his management was much happier about the large cash purchase and wasn’t very concerned about the loss of $200. I then advised the cashier to inform his management that while the hold-time cost Compusa $200, the cashier’s poor attitude cost Compusa two customers.
Today, Friday, April 26, I thought better of my refusal to shop at Compusa. “Perhaps the cashier was simply having a bad day.” I reached the store at 8:55 PM –very close to closing time, but the store hours clearly indicate that the store closes at 9PM. There were several customers still inside, shopping. When I reached the door, an employee named ‘Mandy’ stepped up to the doors, and held them closed.
“We’re closed,” she said. I looked at my watch.
“It’s five minutes till nine. It’ll take me 5 minutes to buy this video card.”
“No, we’re CLOSED!” Mandy said, and then turned around in a huff, and went back to her stand by the door. I tapped on the glass. “Please let me speak with your supervisor.”
“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!” screamed Mandy. “I TOLD YOU WE’RE CLOSED! GO AWAY!”
I was taken aback. This was highly unprofessional, and very insulting. “Let me speak to your supervisor, now.” Mandy ran away to get her supervisor.
Moments later, her supervisor, ‘Da–’, appeared. “Sir, we’re closed.” I checked my watch.
“It’s 9:02. You weren’t closed when I got here. Furthermore, this employee just screamed at me and told me to go away,” I said.
“I don’t care about that and there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re closed,” replied Da–. She refused to contact any other manager, and then turned around and walked away.
This is disgraceful conduct for any person, much less a CompUSA employee. Additionally, this was the second day in a row that I have been insulted and offended by employees working at this store.
I expect a full written explanation of this incident from the general manager responsible for this store. I expect a written apology letter from both employees, if they are permitted to continue working for the company. Even then, I am unsure of whether or not I will consider shopping at CompUSA again.
A parable for our times: “The Crow and the Owl“, by Louise Szente.
Ding Dong Kingdom. Sounds like a vacation spot for fat people.
I heart Pine. Today I saved a coworker a lot of time by explaining Pine’s batch-apply commands.
Say you want to move all emails containing the string “monkeys” in the subject line to another mail folder. These are the commands to enter:
; to enter Selection Commands
B Broaden Selection
T select based on Text
S select text in the Subject line
type in the string of text you’re searching for, and hit Enter.
You’ll notice all the selected mails have an X by them now. Enter the following commands next:
A Apply Command
S Save selected messages
type in the name of the folder in which you want the messages saved.
