Disorderly Content

I spent a couple of hours at DFW yesterday on my way to the Romantic Times conference in Orlando. DFW doesn't have free WiFi, but they do have something almost as good: Clear Channel-sponsored power and Internet access kiosks, one of which was right by my gate. It was kind of a good news/bad news story though, as I hadn't known about the wired Internet and had my Ethernet cable in my checked bag. The nearby shop didn't carry cables. Brookstone did, but only as part of a $50 collection of accessories. Fortunately, the sales person pointed me way down the concourse to a shop called In-Motion. They did have a cable, at the bargain price of $8. Their biggest seller, if the sales person there is to be believed.

Which makes me wonder: given the proximity of the sundries shop to the Internet station, why wouldn't they add cables to their offerings? There was even a giant Sony vending machine; what better product to add to the music players no one wants than an actually useful cable? Seems to me they could have charged $10, $12 or even more and I'd have bought it without a moment's hesitation. Clearly, I belong back in Marketing...

I'm just finishing up a Route 66 adventure in Oklahoma, about which more later. But today I was in a tourist shop off the Interstate, named for and showcasing Native American crafts and artwork. I was looking at Indian woven baskets. But these weren't Indian. They were made in Pakistan of all places!

I suppose it's better than if they'd been made in India. Now that would have been ironic!

Why do I ask? Here's why.

You have to love anybody who'd wear one of these. Even better, they claim (and I quote): "Instant affirmation can be as close as your closet".

Sometimes these postings just write themselves...

Today at lunch I made a stop at Valley Fair, our local shopping mall. I hadn't been there in a couple of months, which is unusual for me. And somehow I don't think I'll be going back any time soon.

Granted, it's a weekday. But the place was pretty empty. And the salespeople working the kiosks were particularly aggressive. Not that it helped; I think this woman was going to try to sell me on a manacure until she took one look at my nails and ran away screaming. First time in my life I was happy to be a nail biter.

Stopped at the Apple Store to see and play with the iPod nano. It's really amazing; so much smaller and thinner and lighter than you expect. Heck, I bet the little security thing they had sticking to the back weighs as much as the iPod itself! And it sounds great too. The only problem is the lack of a remote connector. That means my iTrip wouldn't work with it, which makes it a problem to use in the car. Still, I might have bought one on the spot if they'd had any to sell. But all they had were 2GB models in white. Which was wrong on two counts.

Next stop was something to eat, followed by a visit to Brentano's for reading material for an upcoming trip. That desperation vibe hit me the moment I got in the door. The place had been redecorated, but that wasn't it. But somehow the place seemed smaller and not overly loaded with reading material, like a literary version of Python's cheese shop. Half the books were turned to show their covers, which takes a lot more room with a lot less stock. It wasn't 'til I got to the register with my purchases (and believe me, finding two books I wanted to read wasn't easy) that I realized that Brentano's had been transmogrified into Borders Lite - urp, excuse me, that should be Borders Express. Which is sort of like a real Borders, only not so much on the books.

All of which left me wondering if it's all malls that are this depressing, or just this one. Good thing there's the internets, that's all I have to say.

Today I was in Walmart for the first time in ages. As a rule I try to avoid the place, in part because it's an unpleasant experience, but mostly because I believe wholeheartedly that Walmart represents everything that's evil and wrong about corporate America. So what was I doing there? I'd stopped in a couple of other places to look for school supplies; I wanted some new subjects for my stock photo efforts and was hoping to find some really generic and cheap items without logos I'd have to erase.

Anyway, I found some cheap crayons and pencils and such and then got in line at the checkout. Total of my purchases: $4.44. I checked my change and handed the cashier a ten dollar bill, two quarters and four pennies. Which she stared at. And stared at. And couldn't figure out what to do. Finally she said, "You gave me too much. It's 44 cents." And I explained, patiently I hope, that I gave her 54 cents so she'd give me back a dime. That made the light go off. So she rang up the total, looked at the display and handed me back a dime. And I had to explain, politely again, that she'd forgot the other six dollars. And had to wait for her to ring up the next customer, so the register would open and she could extract my change.

Yeah, now I have another reason to avoid Walmart.

Only two weeks after it was supposed to show up, I finally found a copy of the fifth Starburst set of Farscape DVDs at the local Best Buy. Which I took home and immediately started to play, knowing that I'm only two for four trying to watch the previous sets. It seems the maker has these quality control problems, which is why I was so quick to check out the disks.

Fast forward a couple of episodes (literally in this case) and I determined that, yes indeed, there was a problem. So back I went to Best Buy to see about making my problem their problem. It seems I couldn't just get my money back, at least not as long as they had another copy to give me as a replacement. But before I'd take their one remaining copy of Season 2, Volume 2, I wanted to see if it had the same problem in the same place. So I was pointed at technical support, which has been advertising itself as the Geek Squad, the ultimate answer to every technology user's problems.

And that's what made me wonder about whether I had a good geek or a bad one. Because first I got to watch a couple of technology's saviors try to get a DVD player working, eventually grabbing another one to cable to a convenient television. Then he couldn't find the remote for that player, which meant standing there and holding down the Fast Forward button through thirty-eight minutes of great SF entertainment. Which finally demonstrated that this disc didn't lock up where the other one did.

So I went home and enjoyed my new DVDs. And thought that suddenly the geniuses at my local Apple Store's Genius Bar are looking a whole lot smarter. At least they do if we're grading on a curve...

The it in this case is eBay, which is holding its annual eBay Live! conference in San Jose as I type. I decided to attend on a whim, having done a little buying and a little selling on eBay over the past few years. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a trade show. I miss my earlier days in the computer biz, when a show meant more than bad food, aching feet and, if I'm very lucky, a world class hangover.

No hangover at this one. But other than that, I've had a great time. And a useful one too. Not relative to eBay, at least not yet. But I found several solutions for photographing small objects, which might prove useful in my stock photography activities here, here and here. So I've already gotten my money's worth. And that's not counting a free trip to Great America, our local theme park. Oh, and in case you're wondering, that is indeed me in the picture at right. I'm the one on the left.

The best thing about most services is that we don't have to think about them. Do you give the electric company or the phone service a moment's thought? Yeah, you do once a month when the bill comes. And you certainly do when a storm knocks out the power, at least for however long it takes for it to come back. But mostly it's in the background.

And that's the way it is with most web merchants. You browse, you order, you receive delivery. I've had most excellent results with most of my web purchases. So when something goes wrong, it's rather a shock to the system. And how the firm handles the failure does a lot to decide whether the incident is a momentary blip or an incident that will affect my view of the whole online shopping experience.

The incident: my order of the extended edition of The Return of the King. The vendor: Amazon. I placed my order back at the beginning of October and waited patiently for Amazon to receive and ship my DVDs. Since I went for free shipping, I expected to wait a while longer. I was notified that the package was shipped in mid-December and should arrive right around Christmas. They even provided a tracking number with the Postal Service.

So I waited. And waited. Christmas came and went; no package. New Years is now history. And still no package. And the USPS still shows the box in transit, having taken almost three weeks to traverse the vast distance between Richmond, California and here. It could have walked here in less time than that. Without legs.

Calling the Postal Service's toll free number got me nowhere. They pointed me back at the shipper. So I went back to Amazon's website. Couldn't find any place to report a lost package, so I sent an email from the Request a Refund link. And had a reply the following morning, with an apology and a promise of a duplicate shipment. With expedited shipping, none of this "transport by snail" business.

I'll add an update when the box arrives. But I have to commend Amazon for their quick and positive response. This is the first time anything's gone wrong with one of my Amazon orders. And they did what was necessary to keep me as a customer. Nice to know they're ready to respond when something goes wrong. Even if it never does again.

Update 01/08: Happy ending, not that I expected anything different. The box arrived yesterday, just in time for me to finish watching the extras on the Star Wars DVD set. So now it's time to watch Tolkien's final act. And then watch it a few more times, with all those wonderful commentary tracks.