So I subscribe to Warren Ellis’ blog. I really enjoy his writing and usually he is throwing new and interesting ideas our way. One of the things he showed us today was episode one of Pioneer One. The shows description from their website: “An object in the sky spreads radiation over North America. Fearing terrorism, U.S. Homeland Security agents are dispatched to investigate and contain the damage. What they discover will have implications for the entire world.”

It is an teevee show being distributed on the internets, and can be watched on youtube:

Pretty interesting first episode – makes me want to see the rest of the season.

I went back to the Wayback Machine to see the different incarnations of the CFG site. I’ve had 3 previous ones that I can remember. The last one was the blue design, using html tables and a touch of CSS:

The design previous to that was HTML only and had the menu bar along the top (doesn’t that logo look familiar. . .):

Both of these were when I had the CFG domain name, either pointing at the GeoCities free website, the 0catch site or the current godaddy locations. The wayback machine’s records only go back to Sept 3, 2000. Following links there the ‘site update bulletin’ shows the first entry as being May 23, 2000. They don’t have it, but it is still on my harddrive:

May 23, 2000: update bulletin created, cerebus checklist finished — pictures currently being added, created new index.html file for y’all to choose frames or no frames versions — this seemed to get rid of the ‘error’ message that keep popping up. Just finished added all of the pictures (that I currently have) to the Cerebus Checklist.

Frames? Wowza, that does take me back. Before GeoCities I had the CerebusFanGirl site on Juno using their WYSIWYG Homesteader interface – before I learned HTML. I don’t know when I started the CFG site, I want to say late 1999, but I don’t have any code dated that far back. The first IMHO column that I did, the precursor to my blog, is dated April 01, 2000. I know I had the CFG site before then – and as you can see by the above update, I had finished (ha!) the Cerebus checklist at that time.

10 years.

So taking what I learned about CSS from developing the CerebusTV website, and learning more (if you’ve been by in the past few weeks you’ve seen drop down menus and the links page was set up with tabs), I’ve redesigned the CFG page yet again.

Yes, I like purple.

The site looks best with any web browser other MicroSoft’s Internet Exploder – I’ve tested with FireFox (which I use and highly recommend), Safari and Chrome, and it looks like I want it to look with those browsers (MS claims that they are CSS 2.1 compliant with MSIE8, but the site still looks different on that browser while on the others it looks the same). I’ve set it up so it is formatted for a 1024 wide resolution monitor, but it looks the best if you have a monitor with at least a 1680 wide resolution screen. There are a few more tweaks that I want to do to it, but they’ll be minor.

So after a couple hours of messing around with mysql databases and reinstalling wordpress, the CFG blog has been restored. wOOt! I’m sooooo happy I managed to restore it. The first thing I did after I changed my automatically created password – created a back up of my wordpress blog using the blog’s interface. that should save me some headache next time I have to do a restore. . .

Now all I have to do is tweak the current theme as I lost the old theme in the upgrade to the latest wp software.

weeeeeee!

So a friend of mine got a 10 pack of tickets to the Boston Bruins. I’m not a huge Bruins fan like I am a Patriots fan, but if a chance to see a hockey game live comes up, I’ll take it. So I’ve been to a few games this season at the Garden, wearing either black or yellow and really enjoying the game. I’m starting to pick up a few of the rules, and learn a bit about the players and the positions.

Back in early October, I was on NHL.com looking at Bruins jerseys, thinking perhaps I’d get one to wear instead of the random yellow tee-shirt or the random black sweatshirt I had been wearing. That is when I saw it, the Winter Classic edition of the Bruins jersey:

Nice! So I ordered a jersey and had it customized with Tim Thomas’ name and number – the goalie had stood out during the games I had gone to, including a shut out.  Then I waited patiently as the NHL.com site stated the jersey was a pre-order and the jersey wouldn’t be available until Dec 1st.

Well, Dec 1st came and went, and with no email updates from NHL.com I went to log into my account yesterday, Dec 5th, to see what if anything had transacted. . .Nothing had happened. No charge to my credit card, no updates, nothing. So I found the customer service contact us form. . .

which, let me digress here for a moment, in itself should have set off the customer service fail horn. They asked for all the standard information: name, order number, a drop down menu for reason for contacting customer service, email address. . .and my phone number? Why did they need my phone number? You already have one method of contacting me: my email address, it isn’t necessary to take my phone number unless you are going to call me. Which I don’t want you doing! So I just gave them my home phone number. As it only is for my DSL and has no phone connected to it. . .so it’ll just ring and ring and ring. . .good luck with that. And so unnecessary to ask me for my phone number.

. . . and sent this:

To: customerservice@nhl.com

Subject: Order Inquiries

I placed my order on Oct 11, and understood that that Bruin’s winter classic jersey was a pre-sale that would be available Dec 1st. From your website it also states that for customized orders "please allow for additional time beyond the expected shipment time indicated on the Product Detail page. The additional time required for customization varies from several days to several weeks depending on the options you choose."

So let me ask you these questions:
1. Since the Winter classic is on Jan 1st, 2010, will I have it before the game? (I would hope being a pre-order that my order would be at the top of the list to get done.)
2. When I put my order in I had to pay shipping. Now there is a promo for free shipping. Why are you penalizing me for ordering early?

Since this is my first NHL jersey, I really wanted to have it before I went to the Dec 2nd game – seeing as that was so unlikely to happen, and didn’t, I hope it will arrive by 12/30 game I have tickets for. . .

Thanks!
Margaret

Their response lacked a certain something. . .like an answer:

Dear Valued Customer,

If this automated e-mail does not answer your question(s), please contact our Customer Service department using our toll free number.  You may also reply to this email with the subject line “Customer Service Follow Up.”  Our Customer Service is open 24 hours a day seven days a week to better serve you.

For the most current information about your order, please visit Your Order History located in the “My Account” section of our website.  Your order status on the website is automatically updated each time your order moves a step further in the process. (Please note: After you place an order, order information may not appear in your order history for up to 60 minutes.)

After you place your order, you will receive order update e-mails regarding your order.  You will receive an e-mail once your order enters our system.  You will receive another e-mail once your order is ready for shipment.  This e-mail will contain a tracking number and the name of the carrier for you package.

Tracking numbers are assigned to packages almost immediately and generally appear on our website along with your order information.  Please be advised that it may take up to 48 hours (2 business days) or longer before the package is checked into the carrier’s tracking system. That means even though your package has already shipped from our warehouse and is on its way to you, the carrier may not be able to provide any information about your package for up to 48 hours or more.  Some orders may contain items that ship separately by different carriers and /or shipping methods; the individual item status for orders that are shipped via multiple methods is also available in Your Order History.

Due to the fast shipment processing time, once the order is received into our system we are unable to modify or cancel your order.

Please note:  All shipping times are for business days only.  Business days include weekdays Monday through Friday excluding holidays.  If you received a shipping confirmation over the weekend, your package is ready for shipment; however, the carrier will not pick up the package until the next business day (This is usually Monday morning, unless the Monday
is a holiday).

Occasionally, orders are delivered via a carrier that does not offer the ability to track a package.  In these rare instances, Your Order History will not offer tracking information, but will still offer order status and other details.  Customer service representatives will not have any additional information.

For more information on the checking the status of an online order please visit the section of our online Help Desk titled Your Order.

If this automated e-mail does not answer your question(s), please contact our Customer Service department using our toll free number.  Our Customer Service is open 24 hours a day seven days a week to better serve you.

Best regards,

Customer Service

FAIL. No, make that EPIC FAIL.

They did not answer any questions, they spammed me with an automated email and if I wanted answers I’d have to call them?

So with no answers to when I’d get my jersey, being penalized by ordering early by being charged for shipping that others weren’t paying, and a lack of customer service I did the only thing I could think of.

I cancelled my order at NHL.com and then I went to eBay and purchased the same jersey, but with a Tim Thomas signature on it. And guess what? Free shipping! And an answer as to when I get it: 3 to 5 days after it ships on Monday!

So if you want an NHL jersey? I don’t recommend NHL.com for they are The Fail and the Suck.

And even after I cancelled my order, NHL.com appearantly doesn’t care why. They sent an automated email to tell me I had cancelled my order, but no way to tell them why – I guess they don’t care enough about what the customer is thinking when they cancelled the order, as if NHL.com doesn’t have a corrective action system in place to try and correct anything to make the shopping experience better for future customers.

Well, they won’t have to worry about this customer, because she’ll never be going back.

So Facebook is really acting up on me. So much that I logged out of it, cleared the cookies for it and relaunched firefox. I tried to log back into facebook and this is what it told me:

Account Unavailable
Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.

uh-huh.

So I keep refreshing and trying to log on, after a couple times I get this instead of the above:

So now I’ve got to log in to see the log in page? Jackasses.

And when I do manage to log in – FaceBook thinks I’m new. As my friends list has totally been wiped out, at times my wall is totally blank with nothing in it ~ not even my status updates, even ones I somehow manage to just post:

and when I try to post status updates? It tells me I need to be logged on to do that – but you can plainly see that I’m logged in:

What the hell Facebook? I know your service is free – but I’ve still got to look at the ads, so while I don’t pay for it, you are ad supported, you should be able to afford some level of quality to your site. I’ve reported it twice now. Once I got a form email back. The next, nothing. What the heck.

If it isn’t their tabbed broswering, cool add ons, it is how they show their love to me:

But oh, FireFox, why don’t you block pop ups like you used to?

I was reading the winter storm advisory for tomorrow’s storm and this paragraph made me chucle:

THIS SNOWSTORM IS STILL ABOUT 30 TO 36 HOURS AWAY SO EVERYTHING IS NOT SET IN STONE. IF THE SYSTEM TRACKS FURTHER NORTH OR FURTHER SOUTH THAN CURRENTLY FORECASTED… SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WOULD LIKELY CHANGE. HOWEVER… AT THIS TIME… IT MAY BE WISE TO PLAN AHEAD OR MAKE ALTERNATE PLANS FOR FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING/S COMMUTE… AS PRESENT DATA INDICATE THAT IT WILL BE SNOWING QUITE HARD BY THEN.

Thank you advisory writer for that – ‘specially the “so everything is not set in stone.”

So I regularly use Amazon.com when I’m looking for a book or some music. On Sunday evening I purchase something from them, but then right after wards I realized I shipped it to my work address rather then my home address. Opps. I tried to change it, but basically the system told me too late. I sent a comment through their help pages. That has gotten me nothing. So yesterday I tried again to change it, but it was too late: the item had shipped. I sent this to customer service instead:

 09/22/08 15:23:11
Comments:I sent this yesterday via the “did this page help you” feedback. I received no response. Since that time my order has been shipped and it is too late to ship it to the address I needed it to go to, though my last question still stands and so does my dissatisfaction with the way the system is currently in operation:

I placed my order, and then 5 seconds later realized I shipped the item to my work address rather then my home address. Since this will not work for me, I quickly went to my account and clicked on the “change shipping address” button and then the button for order ::snipped number::. I clicked on the button for my home address and then was taken to a page to reenter my credit card info. I did this and clicked on the button – and was given an error and told to try again in a few minutes. Which I did. Only to receive the same error and message. So I waited and tried again. The same error.

I decided to go thru the process again, going back to my account page. Only to find out that the order stated “We are preparing these items for shipment and this portion of your order cannot be canceled or changed.”

Really? at 5:50pm on a Sunday evening? While there may be a second shift on a weekend working (“due to high volume”?), the period given to me for changing my shipping address was too quick and now you will be costing me extra shipping charges as I will have to ship the item from my work to my home address.

What can you do to help me out?

Thanks
Margaret

They actually responded to my ‘email’, I’m reprinting it in whole (minus account / order info) not changing grammar or whatnot:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I am very sorry to say that, it is too late to make this change to the shipping address because this order has already been shipped via UPS 2nd Day delivery.  I hope this will not prevent the package from reaching its destination.

Please note that UPS will redirect the package to another address; however, they require at least one delivery attempt (out of their total of three) before they are able to make this change.

Once UPS has already made at least one delivery attempt, you will need to contact them by calling 1-800-PICK-UPS (742-5877).

Please reference this tracking number when you call them: #
Any correction needs to be received by UPS within 2 business days.

Because orders can’t be stopped once they enter the shipping process, the option to change the shipping address will not appear in Your Account. I’m sorry if this causes any inconvenience.

We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we are unable to address customer’s concerns. I hope you can understand our limitations in this regard.

If the package cannot be delivered, it will be returned to us by the shipper, and upon receipt of the return we will issue a full refund (including shipping charges). When the refund is completed, we will send you an e-mail confirming the amount.

I am really upset, we are unable to re-ship orders that are returned to us as undeliverable.

If you would still like to purchase this item, I encourage you to return to our web site and place a new order.

For your convenience, I have included a link to the product page here:

Please be sure to double-check the shipping address and make any appropriate changes to it when placing your order.

For your reference, the shipping address we have on file for this order is: ::snip work address::

If this is an outdated address, you can remove it from your account by clicking the “Your Account” link at the top of our home page and then clicking the “Manage Your Address Book” link under Personal Information.

In future, please note as long as your order is not shipped or “shipping soon,” you may change the shipping or billing address online:

1. Click the “Your Account” link at the top of our web site.

2. On the following page, click “Go!” next to “Open and recently shipped orders.”

3. Sign in with your e-mail address and password.

4. Click “View or change order” next to the order you wish to modify.

5. Click the “Change” button underneath the address (shipping or billing) you want to change.

6. To use an address that’s already in your account, scroll down through the list and click “Use This Address” beneath the correct address.

7. To use a new address, click on “Add U.S. Address” or “Add Intl.  Address” and enter the new information.  If this is an address to which you have not previously shipped orders, we will ask you to re-enter your credit card number for security purposes.

8. When you are done, click “Confirm” to make your change take effect.

If you have any further questions, please visit our Help pages:

http://www.amazon.com/help

Thank you for your understanding.  We appreciate your business and hope to see you again soon at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:

If not, click here:

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Muthukumar.C
Amazon.com Customer Service

Yeah, sorry Muthukumar, I know it isn’t your fault that Amazon’s system sucks: you’re just a customer service representative, you don’t have the power to institute the changes I was looking for, and appearantly you can’t even answer my question.

Not that question. I threw them a bone with the “What can you do to help me out?” question. His answer was a rote copy and paste  one, not the excellent customer service answer I was hoping they would give me (send us the bill for the shipping of the item from your work to your home address and we’ll pay for it).

The question I was hoping they would answer was how would they eliminate this from happening again? To determine the root cause of the problem and eliminate it. But no, I get nothing but superficial “customer service”. This doesn’t answer my question. It doesn’t solve the problem. Even the copy and paste answer they gave me won’t help. UPS will make the delivery attempt and they’ll actually make it: someone from my work will sign for the package. So there is no redirecting the package. If the Amazon.com rep had listen to what I had to see they might have seen that, or at least asked that question.

And this part of his “email” made me scratch my head:

 I am really upset, we are unable to re-ship orders that are returned to us as undeliverable.

Looks like English isn’t Muthukumar’s first language – though to be fair his English is better then any of the “second” languages I speak. But thanks to this blog entry over at “Amazon Customer Service” blogspot, I’m going to print out this blog entry and send it to the snail mail address listed there:

Snail mail to customer service
Amazon.com, Inc.
Customer Service
PO Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226

Though I doubt sending something to just that address will solve the problem or answer any of my questions. Though if you keep reading that blogger’s entry, there are some names and titles listed.  Perhaps this address will get me someone that can find a solution to the problem:

Amazon.com Headquarters
Address: 1200 12th Ave., Ste. 1200
Seattle, WA 98144

Though Google is pretty helpful with this company overview page.

Is always a nice way to cap a weekend. What makes it even sweeter is we did it at the Meadowlands and with our back-up quarterback over Brett Favre.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous after Brady went out last week against Kansas City. Sure, Cassel came in and did an okay job for us, we won the game, but still, it was Kanas City, with their back up quarterback as well. How would we do against a division rival at their stadium with such a great QB as Favre? Halfway decent it would seem.

Downers: not converting in the red zone as often as we should have (for TDs, sure the field goals are better then nothing, but I think we all can agree that 7 points is better then 3. 4 Points better actually) and our defense let some big plays get made. On the up side, Cassel didn’t throw any picks ::knocks on wood:: and no one fumbled the ball ::knocks on wood::.

That and we won.

And bonus? Nah, not the nice ride home on the motorcycle – warm and quiet, that was nice, but the bonus? On NFL they are streaming live video of the Sunday Night Game. And not just one feed, but five different feeds. It looks pretty neat:

Yeah, that is “life size”. So the video that we’re getting isn’t that large, but still, I can switch between the different cameras to see what is giong on. During the advertisementsthe feeds other then “main broadcast” showed the field and the players still. The only problem is having to listen to Madden. Gah!

But the Patriots won! w00t!

So I went to CNN’s website to see if I could watch some video of the hurricane hitting Houston, TX right now. When I clicked on the graphic for the media this popped up:

I shouldn’t have to download any extra software then what I have already to watch a video. So screw you CNN, I’m not downloading your “plugin” nor watching any videos on your site. “Turner Media Plugin” – hahahaha!