Archive for December, 2007

Noooooo…they be stealin mah bucket

December 21, 2007

This lost baggage situation is completely out of control. For the fans keeping score at home, here is the latest update:

  1. Thu #1: “Oh they tried to deliver the bags but you checked out”
  2. Thu #2: I purchased an emergency pair of Levi 501 jeans for 85GBP
  3. Thu #3: “We cannot deliver the bags because we don’t have the address for the May Fair hotel” (again, sigh). The 3rd bag has gone missing again.
  4. Fri #1: My mobile phone is dead since the charger is in my luggage (ha ha) so I dropped 40 minutes on my hotel phone with them to go through the case again, give them the hotel address again, confirm that I am still without bags (“our records show that two bags were delivered on Tuesday”).

I am again wearing the glorious hotel robe considering a breezy sashay to get a coffee….

Posted in British Airways, Complaining, Kvetching, lolcats, london, lost baggage, travel, walrus saga | 2 Comments »

If you love something, set it free

December 20, 2007

Beth and I are in London this week wearing the same clothes as when we departed on Saturday since British Airways lost all three of our bags. We smell sooo Euro…

I realize that shit happens, particularly when you manage a business at scale. BA seems particularly bad and my story is hardly the first or worst. The problem for me is when the remedy is half-hearted and clumsy. Here is a quick summary of my calls with them:

  1. Sun # 1: “The bags are on a flight arriving at 8 am. Check back later”
  2. Sun # 2: “We aren’t sure where the bags are”
  3. Mon #1: “Two of the bags are in and will be out for delivery. No info on the third…”
  4. Mon #2: “I don’t know why the courier has had the bags for 18 hours without delivering them”
  5. Tue #1: See “Sun #2″
  6. Tue #2: “Call the courier, Express Baggage…here is their number” (it turns out is was only voice response)
  7. Wed #1: “The courier has all three bags but doesn’t know where your hotel is. If you tell me, I’ll tell them, and you’ll get them by 10:30 PM”.

That last one is pretty rich. We are staying at the relatively famous May Fair Hotel in the Mayfair neighborhood. When I completed the report, I indicated we are at the “May Fair Hotel, London”. Googling that gets you a map and the first two links are to the hotel’s site. When asked why they didn’t look it up or call, the guy offered only… “uh, well, the bags will be there by 10:30″

Well…it is Thursday and I am sitting here in the hotel robe debating whether I’ll wear it to breakfast at the neighborhood Starbucks. It is about 38F and windy but the plan sounds (certainly smells) better than putting on the threads I have been wearing since Saturday.

The race is on to see whether we will get our bags before we depart this weekend!

Posted in Complaining, Kvetching, Salad Toss, london, lost baggage, travel | 1 Comment »

Dexter

December 10, 2007

showtime_dexter.jpgIf you were a fan of Six Feet Under, then hold onto your mojitos! You must go out and either get Showtime on your satellite/cable programming, go to your nearest video store or better yet, sign up for Netflix, to be able to catch the amazing series, Dexter. The common denominator here is Michael C. Hall, who was the gay funeral home director in Six Feet Under, and now plays a blood-spatter analyst, who’s a serial killer of serial killers, in Dexter. We are just about done with season 1 and Showtime is already airing season 2…super plot line and great characters.

How did we come about this Michael C. Hall trend? We tend to be fairly cheap with some of our services, dare say “thrifty”. We have basic Directv, BUT we have the NFL package (not so thrifty) so we can watch the Beloved (Chicago Bears) get their heads kicked in every week while they look for quarterback #22. (Just for reference, Brett Favre (pronounces favh-reh by Scott) has been the sole QB for Green Bay while the Bears have seen 21 different QBs.) My mom has HBO and watched Six Feet Under when it was on, said fabulous things about it, and then it went to Bravo last year and we were able to catch it. Most people boast that Six Feet Under had the most perfect ending to any series; I agree. Then I heard about Dexter on the radio, but Showtime was carrying it. In walks cancer and Netflix. Scott came up with the brilliant idea of subscribing to Netflix while I was recuperating from surgery. The furthest walk I had was to the mailbox to receive and return my dvds. I then put Dexter in my queue right away and waited for the series to come out on dvd. Well, we have blasted through 11 out of 12 episodes in pretty quick time and I cannot wait for the finale.

If you are a movie/series/documentary buff and not a member of Netflix (or something like it) you should try it. The convenience and selection is amazing. We could have entertained ourselves, but when all around you is cancer “this” and cancer “that”, it was really nice to have some diversions. Maybe we’ll tackle The Sopranos next.

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No One Wants a Skinny Santa

December 5, 2007

rudolph-santa-final.jpgLast night CBS aired the 1964 (not quite claymation, kinda cartoon) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I have not watched this in a long time and it seems as if there are a lot of things I missed as a kid and are interesting to dissect as an adult…

Santa is an ass and just plain mean to Rudolph; I think he’s a nose-ist. Mrs. Claus is the obvious underlying cause to obesity in the U.S. She kept yelling at Santa, “Who likes a skinny Santa? Eat! Eat!” Then Donner, the coach of the reindeer fawns, was just plain mean and sexist/nose-ist. He reminded me of the character Billy Bob Thornton plays in Mr. Woodcock. And all the female reindeer need to burn their bras and stand up to the males; “man’s work.” Pshaw. There was also a very effeminate elf…very sensitive boy who worked with the misfit toys. And all those misfit toys…where to begin with their issues. I think most of them have a case to sue their manufacturer: a train with square wheels? A “Charlie” in the box? A cowboy riding an ostrich? Sounds like malpractice all the way. I wish Johnny Cochrane was still around. I am sure there would be some sort of Chewbacca defense in the making.

Posted in Treatment Updates | 1 Comment »