If you guessed this guy, you win! Your prize is that you get to come by and ice my foot for 48 hours after I have a bunion removed from the joint of my left big toe. No, my foot doesn’t look like the one on the Wikipedia page. Mine isn’t nearly that bad. The joint is just a little red and sticks out a little more than it should. I’ve been having some pain in my foot for a while. I thought it was related to running, but it turns out that running was just making it uncomfortable, not causing it. Bunions, it turns out, are hereditary. My sister had one removed maybe last year, and says the surgery wasn’t too bad. I’ll be off my feet for two days, then I get to wear some special shoe/sandal thing for 4-6 weeks, and then I’m fine. It doesn’t sound too terrible. And in the meantime, I’m free to do what I want on it – I can run and jump and dance and all that. Not that I do much dancing. But the only restrictions on what I can do before I have it removed are my own level of comfort, which is nice.
Tag: complaint
Wet socks
At the wife’s request, I did not take the bus this morning. She might not have made the request if she had, as I did, gone outside to take out the trash. If she had taken out the trash, she probably would have decided that it was raining too hard, and that we should take the bus. But she didn’t take out the trash, so we walked. For those of you not in or near DC, it’s been raining for a while now, and things are starting to flood. Not serious floods, but minor property damage and hydroplaning cars kind of floods. So, we bundled work clothes and lunch and whatnot into bags, put on our raincoats, and set off. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There weren’t that many people walking, so there weren’t too many umbrellas to avoid. Umbrellas and puddles are the scourge of the city rain walker. Especially those giant golf umbrellas that take up the entire sidewalk. So I arrived at work, slightly damp but okay otherwise. I changed my clothes, and realized that my backpack is not entirely waterproof. The two things that got wet – my laptop power supply (Although not badly – I wiped it off and it’s fine) and my brown socks. So now I’m wearing brown slacks, brown shoes, a brown belt, and little white athletic socks. Oops. Perhaps the brown socks will dry, or perhaps I will just wear these all day. Only time will tell.
And there we are
And the Orioles have lost their fifth in a row to fall into last place. I think everyone saw this coming, but some of us held out hope it would come a little later in the season. It’s pretty clear what the problem is – they’ve now scored fewer runs than anyone in the AL except Kansas City. Their runs allowed are tolerable, they just can’t score. Still, they’re nearly a third of the way to their predicted win total, and we’re not even a quarter done with the season. So that’s encouraging.
Parking a car in DC sucks
Posted a new Angry Letter today. I’m tempted to tear down a bunch of “Emergency No Parking” signs. But I probably won’t.
I guess it serves me right for buying a soda
I got a Cherry Coke out of the machine down the hall to drink with my lunch. I don’t drink nearly as much soda as I used to, but every now and then I can’t help it. This time, I should have been more careful in my selection. It wasn’t actually a Cherry Coke – it was a Cherry Coke Zero. That means they’ve taken out all the delicious high fructose corn syrup and replaced it with carcinogens that fool your tongue into thinking you’re consuming something sweet. I know my view on this is a little extreme, but I’d like to see Coke and anyone else who wants to use aspartame and sucralose and all those other non-food products have to put a big disclaimer on the package, like a cigarette warning.
WARNING – this product contains a chemical substance posing as food that is not, in fact, digestible by humans. It tricks your taste buds into thinking it’s sweet, but it is all a lie. Also, there is non-trivial evidence suggesting it causes cancer. If you still think it’s better than high-fructose corn syrup, go ahead and enjoy.
Dell again
Wow. Another email from Dell. The best part are these consecutive passages:
. . . I will provide you the information.
As a Customer Care I am unable to provide you the information . . .
Please don’t think that my anger here is because Dell has outsourced their customer service. I truly don’t care if the CSR is in the United States or India or the moon or anywhere else. I don’t care what his or her first language is. The only thing that’s important to me in a CSR is being able to fix my problem, preferably in a minimal amount of time. That’s it. Hence the anger. None of the people who emailed me could fix my problem. What’s even more exasperating is that each of them has chastised me for asking my question to the wrong person. It’s a little frustrating to be directed to talk to a person who tells me that he or she is not the person who can help me. Anyway, I’ll get a computer eventually. And I still hate Dell.
Dell is fired
I’m trying to purchase a computer from Dell. Well, that’s not exactly true. My new employer (Started the new job today, went very well) buys from Dell. The process is that each employee builds a computer at Dell.com, then emails the boss with the specs, and he buys the computer through the corporate account. Sounds simple, right? Well, first of all, Dell doesn’t let you just email specs. I can’t imagine why not – surely they’d be happy to let kids email specs to their parents, or perhaps they’d even be prescient enough to foresee my situation. But no. They let you save, and they even let you tag to del.icio.us and all sorts of other social sites, but apparently that’s just to the initial start page for the computer, not the customized version. So, I thought I’d just get one of their online chat CSRs to help me. Again I failed. Or, rather, Dell failed. They had no chat representatives available. Do they let me get in line and wait for the next one? No, they force me to resubmit my request. I tried about five times and gave up. So I was directed to email them. This steaming pile of crap is what I got in return. Their response was much longer, but that’s the only part that wasn’t boilerplate gobbledygook. Next I tried calling. I hate calling companies. If I’m calling you on the phone, it’s because your website failed. Anyway, I was greeted by loud music and an unhelpful robot voice that refused to give me a person. I tried a different customer service number, because I think I might have gotten the wrong one the first time (I don’t remember why I thought that, but it made sense at the time). This time I got another unhelpful robot, but this one gave me a person. Hooray! Until I asked her my question. Turns out she was tech support. I have no idea how the robot got me to tech support when all I wanted was customer support, but that’s neither here nor there. She transferred me to the correct CSR, who said a great many things, none of them helpful. So I gave up. I’m going to ask someone at work tomorrow. And I’m going to continue to tell everyone I speak to about computers to avoid Dell.
Dell 1, Me 0
Dell Says:
Dear Valueless Customer, Because you selected “Pre-Sales/Sales Question” as your Issue Category when you submitted your inquiry, Dell’s automated response system is sending you the following information on how to obtain product specific information. Dell does not currently offer e-mail support for pre-sales questions. However, there is a lot of information available on our web site and other contact alternatives. This document provides information on the subjects listed below in the table of contents.
My reply:
This is one of the least helpful emails I’ve ever received. It’s really a shame that a company that built itself on fantastic customer support has stooped to automated messages such as this. If you don’t offer email support for pre-sales questions, why in the world would your website direct me to email you? I hope you appreciate the absurdity of your position here. I don’t need anyone to respond to me on this issue. I have resolved it myself. The only reason I’m at your site at all is because my employer uses Dell products, so my work computer will be a Dell. I have owned two Dell computers, but will never purchase another one for my own personal use due to your woefully inadequate customer service.
And Dell again:
Thank you for contacting Dell. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you and I understand that you wish to place an orderunder the existed account. I will provide you the information. As a Customer Care I am unable to provide you the information and I request you to contact our Sales department at 800-284-3355 and place an order. I once again apologize that I could not assist you. The case number for this interaction is [unimportant]. Please email me for any additional support and I would be happy to assist you further. Thank you for choosing Dell.
Contract the Nationals!
Leave the stadium, though. It’s pretty nice. The wife and I went to the game last night. On the positive side, you have the stadium, Ben’s Chili Bowl, an organized and efficient Metro ride, my love of baseball, and an enjoyable evening with the wife. On the negative side, you have the weather, the game itself (And the six unearned runs the Nationals allowed), and the announced crowd of 20,400. First, the positives. 
The stadium is gorgeous. We sat in the first row of one of the 400 sections. It was roomy, with a pretty good view. The giant scoreboard in right center is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t working for the first half inning, but they’ll probably work that out as the season goes on. But the picture is incredible. When they’re showing replays, it looks like you’re actually seeing the players, not a video. Interestingly, there is no clock visible from where we sat. Maybe no clock in the whole stadium. Ben’s Chili Bowl was awesome, as expected. The line was long, but it moved quickly. My veggie chili cheese fries were cold before I finished them, but that was hardly their fault. They were still good. Metro took us 20 minutes to get in from Columbia Heights, and barely longer to get out. Might have been worse if there was actually a capacity crowd, but I can only judge my experience. There were a ton of Metro employees directing people. They’ve made a lane from the Metro directly to the stadium (Please, Nationals fans, DO NOT experience Southeast UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES until we can put on a fresh coat of paint). It actually reminded me a little bit of walking in to Fenway Park, although DC will need to do some work to build up the collection of businesses that surround Fenway. 
Of course you know I’m a big baseball fan, as it’s all I’ve posted about since the season started. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to politics soon, and I’m sure I’ll have some new complaints once I start working again next week. Plus we have a vacation coming up that should be interesting. And of course I enjoyed my wife’s company, as usual. She was somewhat annoyed that she couldn’t have a beer at the ballpark due to that pesky baby she’s carrying, but $7.50 Bud Lights go a long way towards discouraging her. That, and the health of our unborn child. Although, as she said (joked?), you can probably drink a couple of Bud Lights before the baby even notices. Then there are the negatives. I won’t blame the team for the weather. They couldn’t help that it was cold. Allowing six unearned runs and three home runs (one of them to a backup shortstop I’ve never heard of. Robert Andino? He has 86 career at bats. Although he does have two bombs in 5 at bats this year off the bench, that’s pretty nice for him) isn’t cool, though. Stranding 11 runners is not a good technique for winning games. But you can’t win all 162, so I guess I can forgive them. 
What’s really bad, though, is that the second game in the history of the stadium drew 20,400 fans. I don’t know what capacity is, but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000. I know it was a cold Monday night when the NCAA basketball finals were on (Although we made it home for overtime), but the stadium was empty. Even the clowns right behind home plate, the ones with the $100+ tickets, didn’t bother showing up. And the fans that were there seemed pretty disinterested. Maybe they were into it and I just couldn’t hear them. But I’m used to going to sellouts at Camden Yards (Before Orioles fans were so beaten down by The Angelos Years that they stopped caring), and this was a far cry from a sellout. I don’t know what the city can do about this. Maybe it’s too early to worry and things will be fine when the weather warms up, but if I had a big financial stake in this team, I don’t think I would have slept last night. Anyway, I’ll definitely be back for more games. The upper deck is a fine place to watch the game, and for $10, that’s worth it for me. And I’m curious to see what businesses and attractions pop up around the stadium. They had ads up that we didn’t stop to look at, but there are clearly big plans for the area. Should be interesting.
THIS HAS TO STOP
Someone found my site searching for “jason varitek nude”. Now, I don’t know how Google decided that I’d be a good result for that. This is the first time I’ve ever used those three words in the same post. I guess I shouldn’t complain, since the person who found me that way was a first time visitor. But he or she didn’t stay long, so I don’t expect I’ve gained a new reader. Since there are not, nor will there ever be, nude photos of Jason Varitek (Or any member of the McCain family) here, perhaps this is not the right destination for people searching Google for those things. I mean, seriously. My mother and my mother-in-law read this. There are not going to be nude photos of ANYONE at Complaint Hub. Ever. Do you hear me, Google?