| 2 matches for "Shopping" in the Tag Cloud | | Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:40:07 +0100 |
| Mail (dis)order.. |
|
I've been an Internet shopper for years now, and have generally had a very good service from online retailers: its great knowing for sure whether an item's in stock and can be bought (usually) at a very good price. Occasionally though, things can go a bit wrong and this week seems to have seen a cluster of problems - maybe the moon phase is wrong.. So the first problem was connected with DVDs: I'm building up a special stock of movies to watch on Halloween, and found "Anatomy", a Euro surgical horror/thriller which promises to get us "in the mood" for the darkest night of the year. I was excited when it duly turned but distinctly non-plussed to find "Teletubbies Volume 10" inside the envelope. That's now gone back to the supplier: Teletubbies may in fact be scary, but not in the right way. Then there was the replacement headset for the PSP: I'm using this amazing device more and more, not only as a music player, but also as a very capable Skype phone. However, when I was ordering it online, Firefox decided to crash and I somehow ended up ordering two headsets, so one is going back.
Then there was the enlargement ordered from my favourite image processing lab Oop North. I uploaded and ordered a 20x16 copy of my grainy pic of the Thames and London Eye (see pix); but no, as I excitedly opened the well-packed cardboard tube I saw.. a distinctly moody Peak District moor scene, with two enormous limestone boulders in the foreground. Oh dear. Well, to cut a long story short, my supplier had sent me someone else's print, but I was told that "I could keep it and they'd send me what I ordered..". Okay, I was cool with that and it is in fact a very nice picture! In fact, it's so nice I'm going to frame it at the weekend and hang it on the wall..
Apart from that though, its been very straightforward and my Powerball has arrived safely. I've been using it this evening and my forearms feel strangely tired: mind you, in 6 months I should be able to crush cans with either hand! For anyone who's already got one, my personal best tonight was 8355 RPM. And the Sky Lanterns. Yes, they're for Halloween too and we'll be setting them off well away from the local area! More later... |
|
| |
| Tue, 01 May 2007 21:33:30 +0000 |
| Bad day at Black Rock.. |
|
Bad day at Black Rock is "a 1955 film which tells the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives at a tiny, isolated town in a desert".. which has got bugger all to do with my day specifically, but does in fact describe my experiences today with that scourge of the Royal Mail, the parcel carriers. Despite the fact that it's the year 2007 and surprisingly I still have a day job I'm expected to wait in from "8am to 1pm" for a package that will be delivered. This is in addition to a pair of German Paratroop boots (size 44, value low) that have now made the round-trip to their point of origin in Birmingham twice. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if I can afford to pay for these things in the first place, the chances are that I need to be away from home to earn money to pay for them. Of course, this being the 21st century we now have online tracking systems, and simply entering a number so long it could the Vogon Commander's phone number I'm simply told that my parcel's in Birmingham, "signed for by DEE via Saturn". Obviously means something to someone, but not me, and what's worse I can't actually speak to a human at Parceline - all I can do is use my telephone keypad to enter the Vogon's number, and say whether I want my parcel delivered to the same address, or not. Same with my other package - I missed the home delivery by one hour and was forced to speak to a real person at a call centre. Oh how I haven't missed those! Ironically I was watching "Monkey Dust" last night in which a hapless bank customer was passed around a pseudo-English-then-even-more-pseudo-Scottish call centre in India. Yes, sadly all the cliches were true, and my parcel can now be delivered in the evening, although why this option wasn't offered in the first place I'll never know. I mean, the carbon footprint for the goods must be at least a size 12 by now ferchrissake! To add insult to injury I arrived home tonight to find yet another "sorry i missed you" card: I haven't a clue who the carrier is or what they tried to deliver. And this is progress? |
|
| |
[P] 
Add a comment! 
More! Entry #3209 posted by MH Media (GB) tagged under Shopping
Powered by espresso, and PHP
