If there wasn’t a drought of Wii games, then there wouldn’t be enough time for someone to build and program a Lego robot that bowls a perfect game in Wii Bowling:
Nintendo, honestly, we need Super Smash Bros. Brawl, stat! I don’t think Super Paper Mario is going to cut it…
Steve posted about the BRU fiasco on Wednesday. I’m still a little annoyed about this. The employee at the help desk was most unhelpful. It’s nice that everything matched, but I really liked the product specs- the fact that they matched was just icing on the cake.
So yesterday, Steve and I met up in Framingham to pick up the carseat and stroller that the psychic employee claimed did not exist. I had tracked down a pack-and-play in California, and while having my parents pick it up and ship it would not be an ideal solution, there did not appear to be any alternatives.
I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this, but our house has a bit of an odd floorplan. The master suite is on the first floor and the other bedrooms are on the second. And since I really don’t want to be tromping up and down the stairs several times a night, we were planning on having MB sleep in the pack and play until a sleeping pattern is established. The Windsor model was fairly snazzy- it had vibration and music and a changing table and lots of bells and whistles. And I might be a FTM (first-time mom), but I know that babies love vibration. And the changing table feature would also avoid multiple trips up and down the stairs.
I had spoken to Ruth (my mother in law) earlier in the day and she suggested that we order the crib to avoid any more discontinued fiascos. In order to pay for the crib, we had to use the register at the help desk. We got the chance to meet the really top-notch employee who had helped us out Tuesday night, as well as the employee who I had spoken to that day when I called to check on my items.
All of a sudden, I look to my left and sitting in a shopping cart is a WINDSOR PACK AND PLAY!!! It turns out that the couple who was at the help desk was returning it. It was a big relief to actually get to talk to them. They assured us that nothing was wrong with it, and that they were only returning it because the changing table contraption didn’t fit in the travel bag. This does not bother me one bit- we had not intentions of taking the deluxe pack and play on the road with us.
I’m still annoyed that there was no notification regarding the discontinuation and that the first employee was so unhelpful and rude. I’m so incredbily psyched to have found the things we were looking for and we really wouldn’t have to do it without the help of the countless employees who went out of their way to try to help us.
Listen now or subscribe to the podcast feed!
This week, we analyze the rest of the major free agency moves, including Jake Plummer’s final middle finger to the Broncos, Jeff Garcia finds a new home with the Bucs, what Matt Schaub’s trade to Houston means for Mike Vick and the newest Falcon, Joe Horn, the Patriots start their receiving corps from scratch, the Broncos lure Daniel Graham and Brandon Stokley, the Rams get Drew Bennett and Randy McMichael, Kevin Curtis finally gets his day in Philly, and what to expect out of Ashley Lelie in San Francisco.
Links:
Mrs. B’s Patriot World
Technorati Tags: Sports Football American Football Fantasy Football Podcasts NFL
Feedback:
E-mail us at ExtraPointsPodcast@gmail.com, or join our message board at http://extrapoints.forumup.com!
So we’ve had a registry with Babies ‘R’ Us set up for a couple of months now; we set it up when my parents came up for Martin Luther King Weekend, as they do every year. On said registry, we had a number of items, not the least of which were a car seat, stroller, and Pack ‘n’ Play, all by Graco, all selected by Maureen in a pattern called Windsor. It was actually quite the nice pattern.
What’s that, you say? I should be referring to it in the present tense? We’re getting to that.
So we attended a breast feeding seminar at the local BRU (an experience we may discuss in further detail on the next episode of The Wicked Good Podcast), and afterward went to check on the status of the above mentioned items. You see, Maureen, being the diligent mom to be that she is, has been keeping up with the items on our registry, and she noticed (thanks to some prompting from Scott J) that the Windsor items have been marked as “Temporarily Out Of Stock” on the BRU web site. We go up and down the aisles and can’t find anything in Windsor. So I suggest that we go to customer service and get to the bottom of things.
At customer service, we’re informed that the Windsor line has been discontinued. We ask if any of the stores in the area have any left, and, without even a check of the computer, the employee says that all the stores are out and that there are none left. (Apparently, she’s related to one of the characters in Heroes. You know, the one who can read everything online with her mind.)
Needless to say, we’re upset. (OK, Maureen more than me, but that’s to be expected.) There are actually several things wrong with this scenario. One, you’re in a store where you’re dealing with pregnant, borderline crazy women all day; you’d think that the employees would have some sensitivity and not treat the fact that the car seat that we’d registered for as discontinued as though they stopped making our current brand of motor oil. Just some compassion would be nice, as opposed to a flippant, “Nope!” when we ask if anyone in the area has these items.
Two, where was the notification? Their system knows that we registered for these things. Is it so difficult to send out an e-mail to let us know that these things are discontinued? When were they planning on letting us know that we couldn’t buy the item that we’d registered for? We’re talking about necessary items here; it would’ve been nice to know that we’d need to pick something else out, you know, sometime before the baby’s born.
Finally, remember the Heroes reject who told us that all the stores were out? Turns out that wasn’t the case. We called another BRU, and the first one we called had the stroller and car seat, so that’s on hold for us to pick up tomorrow. The pack and play was a little harder to find, but it seems that Maureen was able to find one near her parents in California, so, for the time being, crisis averted.
I’m extremely disappointed with Babies ‘R’ Us. They really could have handled this situation a LOT differently and ended up with some happy, loyal customers. Instead, they took the lazy route in almost every instance (with the exception of Roger at the Framingham, MA store and Victoria at the Warwick, RI store who, even at closing time, did their best to track down as much as they could for us,), and we ended up a lot more upset and annoyed than we should have been, honestly. Five minutes extra looking stuff up at the store that we were at instead of getting us out the door as quickly as possible so they could continue their conversation could have avoided an extremely unpleasant evening.
Oh, and they owe me a Quizno’s sandwich. Roast Beef on Garlic Bread. Because that’s where we should have gone after we left the store, instead of going home to search for the juvenile Holy Grail.
UPDATE: The registry fiasco gets more egregious. Maureen called Graco and discovered that, yes, the style is officially discontinued, and, to make matters worse, it’s a Toys/Babies ‘R’ Us exclusive style. There’s absolutely no excuse for the lack of notification from BRU, especially since my mother was able to add these items to a test registry this morning.
That said, Maureen’s been calling around to a bunch of stores, and everyone she’s gotten on the phone has done their best to help us out. So thumbs up to the people answering the phones at BRU, but two thumbs down to their registry service.
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This week, idiocy in the parking lot, half-naked women at Target, making fun of the evil GPS robot, our self-flagellating follower, sticker shock at Babystyle, creeptastic baby bikinis, the home of the 19″, 3 lb pizza, Tiger Woods, EBGames clerks butt into our conversations, the inability to turn over tables, and the infamous Fung Wah Bus.
Music:
“Beaches” by Aloud, courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network
Intro Music: “Pocketbook” by Derek K Miller
Outro Music: “Remember Hope” by Farewell Redemption
Links:
Our New Blog at Loopipes.com
Podcasts Mentioned:
Love Long and Prosper
Barely Podcasting
Life on Tap
Geek Acres
Technorati Tags: Podcasts Boston Massachusetts New England
Feedback: Feel free to e-mail us at WickedGoodPodcast|at|gmail.com or call us at 206-600-MASS(6277)!
I’ve finally been tagged! Mrs. B tagged me with a simple one: List seven songs that you’re into right now. Some of these shouldn’t be a surprise if you listen to the Wicked Good Podcast, but, hey, I listen to the stuff I pick for the show, you know? So, here goes, in no particular order:
“Less Talk More Rokk” by Freezepop
“Sonic Pasta” by Ivy Hill
“Mahna Mahna” by Cake
“The Girl I Can’t Forget” by Fountains of Wayne
“Bank Job” by Barenaked Ladies
“The Ballad of Barry Allen” by Jim’s Big Ego
“Code Monkey” by Jonathan Coulton
The rules are that, when you’re tagged, you link to everyone in the chain in your entry, including this post, Mrs. B, Chris Penn, Chris Brogan, and Aidan Hatch.
So let’s tag Dan and CJ, Alyssa, Daryl N. Cognito, and Jason Tucker. Have at it, kids!
…I expect this scene to be replaying itself in our living room, else I will have failed as a geek dad:
[Via Gizmodo]
Listen now or subscribe to the podcast feed!
This week, a photo op with the Colonel, irony prevails at the New England Podcasters meetup, the local radio station gets Punk’d, what Steve and a Patriots receiver have in common, Steve can’t tell time because of snow, breaking news: it’s snowing!, winter amnesia, a 3-way tie on Jeopardy, Burnout: Dominator, and driving in the snow.
Music:
“Less Talk More Rokk” by Freezepop, courtesy of Arch Enemy Records
Intro Music: “Pocketbook” by Derek K Miller
Outro Music: “Remember Hope” by Farewell Redemption
Links:
Our New Blog at Loopipes.com
Podcasts Mentioned:
Phedippidations
Love Long and Prosper
Geek Acres
Barely Podcasting
365 Tao
Life on Tap
Dinkycast
Technorati Tags: Podcasts Boston Massachusetts New England
Feedback: Feel free to e-mail us at WickedGoodPodcast|at|gmail.com or call us at 206-600-MASS(6277)!
CBS is on my list. And it’s not a list you generally want to be on.
After a long session last night of recording Wicked Good Podcast #50 (hooray!), Maureen and I decided to watch the newest episode of The Amazing Race before turning in for the night. Now, I know darned well that the NCAA tournament is going on; I’ve filled out my bracket based on which mascot/logo I like better, because I know zero about college sports in general, and college basketball in particular. I’m a big sports fan, sure, but if they stopped playing college basketball tomorrow, I’d never know the difference.
What does March Madness have to do with The Amazing Race, you may ask? Well, CBS broadcasts the games, and the games apparently ran late. Since CBS has zero slack built into their Sunday schedule, The Amazing Race came on 45 minutes late. Which means, since TiVo wasn’t informed, we got to see 45 minutes of 60 Minutes and the first 15 minutes of The Amazing Race. I think Maureen was able to back up and catch the ending to at least see who won; I had completely given up on watching the episode at this point.
Honestly, I know CBS probably doesn’t care much about DVR viewers because we don’t watch all of their commercials, but isn’t there some way to change the schedule around so that this doesn’t happen? Like, don’t show one of your shows that night and then have a post game show scheduled to run until 8; that’s what Fox does when it has the late football game or NASCAR or whatever. Then, at the most, it runs maybe five minutes late.
And yeah, I know I can tell TiVo to run late, but I really shouldn’t have to waste an extra hour on my TiVo because CBS can’t get their schedule right. I’m sure this has to annoy non-Tivo viewers too, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s got to be someone who unexpectedly has to choose between the second half of Amazing Race and Family Guy or Desperate Housewives, isn’t there? You’d figure that CBS would lose at least a percentage of those viewers.
I just figure there’s got to be a solution to this problem that CBS could come up with. I tolerated this during football season because I follow all the games and know when CBS is likely to run late. But I shouldn’t have to have my Tivo account for every random sporting event that CBS may decide to run, even if it’s something major like March Madness. They’re the ones who want me to watch their programming (especially now that Nielsen’s working on including DVR numbers in their ratings); they shouldn’t make it harder for me to see what I want to see.
So I had a brief panic attack this afternoon. I was checking out my RSS feeds, and Download Squad had a post about Twittermap, which is a mash-up of Twitter and Google Maps, as one would expect. Essentially, it scrapes the last X number of posts from the public timeline and puts markers in a map around a user-specified zip code. It’s cute, and not entirely unexpected; pretty much everything on the internet eventually results in a Google Maps mash-up sooner or later.
So here’s where the panic attack comes in: I see someone identified not just by city, which I expected, but by an actual street address. So then I start to wonder how the hell they’re figuring out where to put the pins, and if they’re scraping stuff from the incoming web requests or whatever. (Yeah, I know, kind of irrational, but despite everything I do online, I value my privacy, and anything that appears to violate it beyond what I understood going in really sends my brain spinning.) Turns out, Twittermap’s not doing anything near that fancy; this person actually put in his Twitter message (I refuse to use the word “tweet”, I’m sorry),”L: My address”, except that it was actually the address where he was posting from. So Twitter was pulling that, and, failing that, it was just scraping the location from the user’s profile and picking somewhere within that city at random. Since I list my location pretty much everywhere as “Red Sox Nation”, I don’t show up on Twittermap at all. Score one for the Sox!
But seriously, I start to wonder if some people don’t realize how public the stuff they post on Twitter is, or if they just don’t care. I mean, honestly, why would you post your exact location in a public place for all to see? Worse, if you make a habit if that, you’re making it really easy for someone to track your movements, especially because they can subscribe to your Twitter feed via RSS and have all your recent locations conveniently delivered to their feed reader with timestamps. Am I paranoid? Sure, maybe. But just ’cause you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
All I’m asking, dear reader, is think before you post personal information about yourself online, whether it be Twitter or elsewhere. It’s already really easy to get more information about you than you might realize, and once it’s up, it’s nearly impossible to take down. There’s no reason to give away more of your privacy than you need to.
EDIT: Apparently I was mistaken. My posts do appear on Twittermap. In Thailand. And that’s perfectly fine with me.
Interesting Stuff From the Internets