8920 – Wednesday

This entry brought to you by:
A freaky rusted gizmoI saw in the marshes of Washington DC.
DSCN5855

Dan should be getting his river rocks in the mail by the end of the week. (We’ll ship the webcam and LoTR Risk by then, too.)

Enjoyed watching The Soup recap of 2007 with BHK over a late supper last night.. we were both pretty stuffed, and retired shortly after our meal. I’m impressed that they had so much fun, dopey stuff. Tonight’s dinner at the Macaroni Grill was nice, save for the hornet sting I got on my finger, brushing it off of BHK.

Check out this link, which takes a specified address and gives you the walking score for that address. The score assess the number of and distance to common destinations (restaurants, theaters, etc.). Pretty nifty stuff! (my current house gets a rating of 38 out of 100, or “not very walkable”… I disagree! I can carry groceries , go get food and whatnot within a mile of home. My old place got a rating of 83 out of 100… much more available within hoofing-it distance.)

Received this in the mail Tuesday night, not too long after posting the day’s entry. It’s in regards to Sunday’s entry, here.

My name is Josh S. Talley and I manage The Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, Va. Your journal entry was brought to my attention by my boss (one of the owners) after being brought to his attention by a Looney Labs representative. First off I would like to apologize to you and your friends for the lack of customer service you received (or didn’t as the case may be). I would also like you to revisit us sometime soon if possible. Second please let me assure you that my employee’s behavior is and always will be unacceptable to me. Third we can always try to order something if you don’t see it on the shelf and are happy to do so. We have many days that are activity days, but I have always stressed that the customer is to take priority and that product knowledge is a good thing to all my employees. I am working on rectifying the situation you experienced with the one employee and am truly sorry about your visit. I think you will find that we are a nice little store if you visit again. Granted we are not as nice as some stores, but considering the lack of “gaming” space and floor space in general, I feel we’ve done well. Please come visit again and as an apology for your first impression of the new Strategist, I’d like to extend a discount on any purchases when we next meet. I work any day but Wednesdays and Sunday, but will most likely be working those days soon in addition, heh.

Sorry again and looking forward to another visit, hopefully,

-Josh S. Talley
Manager of The Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, Va.

My reply-

Thank you for your speedy response. I appreciate your concern and desire to make things right. (I hope you don’t fire the sales guy on my account… hopefully he can be salvaged with a little customer service training.) We were pretty frustrated by the lack of salesmanship and pro-activity, given that we were actively curious and asked multiple questions about items on hand.

He wasn’t obnoxiously rude, he just didn’t attend to us and it felt like we were more an annoyance than a customer. I understand that a lot of your business likely comes from your events, but hopefully it wouldn’t preclude sales to new arrivals.

I really liked the size of your stock, and would be happy to try again in the near future… we’re still looking to pick up ice towers and treehouse (we’re pretty big fans of the looney labs catalog and love to support local businesses) , as well as a few other games. A discount would be greatly appreciated!

May I reprint your letter in my livejournal? I think it would please a lot of the folks that read it to know that you are interested in running a quality establishment.

Again, many thanks for your courteous reply. I have many fond memories of the Strategist in Florida, and would really like to have another one so close by to get my gaming loot from.

His last answer –

Hello again Scott, please feel free to insert my letter into your livejournal entries. I read through the comments and would love to see more people come check us out and get a good experience from their visit. You are correct though, customers come first, no matter what. I have stressed this numerous times and some get it, some don’t, but what can I do? I can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it swim…heh. j/k Oh and I am pretty sure that we can order the Classic Deluxe Illuminati box set from SJ Games, just let us know. As for Brawl and any Cheapass Games we have to special order those, Cosmic Encounter was supposed to be reprinted, but I haven’t seen it yet. Playing with Pyramids I would have to check on but would be happy to do so. Anyways, please come see us again anytime.

1 year ago – morning breaks doodle, sleepy, heat of the moment, training a tech, sailboat doodle, stop motion space invaders, voice pdf files, deaths

2 years ago – bro court, autostitch of an alley no longer there, graffiti pics, harry potter, zombie game, bards tale ends, mimiced, Reverse Polish Notation, top40

3 years ago – manatee trip pictures, Miami travel shots

4 years ago – Aol gives up on netscape, random poster form the past, I get fan mail from desert butterfly, reading list retreat

5 years ago – princess sultanas circle, hug meme, joy machine, angry corn ghosts burn police cars, hydrogen fuel cars, got tested for diabetes (none here!),baseball bat poll, Bush & Women’s rights, spooky patent office logo

6 years ago – evil news, arriviste, clochard & myopic, gilligan’s lessons,contraception myths, Leisa’s 2 months pregnant, zeppelins, tuck in thoughts

7 years ago – xanadu, sleep study prep, name meaning Geotarget

8919 Tuesday

24 generations =16,777,216 ancestors. I guess I won’t be taking my family tree that far!

I’m drinking way too much soda pop and coffee type stuff. Maybe it’s time to go on a Soda Sabbatical.

Crazy early morning wake up today… I had trouble getting out of bed again… it’s too comfy cozy under the covers with the kitties and BHK.

Dear Fox news. You’ve confirmed my thoughts about you again and again, but this is totally ridiculous. (via ecto – warning, justifiably foul language in the text) – Fox news making a claim that Fred Rogers was evil. Not as a joke, or ironically. Fox news should recognise evil… it sees it in the mirror every day. Reporting like that is beyond just evil.. they live in a world of lies and madness.

From the link –

It’s a disgusting, vile little piece and it’s very likely that you won’t be able to get through all of it. To summarize. Fox News’ argument for Mr. Rogers being “evil” goes like this: he told two entire generations of children that they were “special just the way they are.” Then, in what can only be described as a despicable lie, the Fox News anchors claim that that’s precisely where Mr. Rogers left off. He never taught children anything except to merely exist in a static state of selfish self-entitlement. And that’s why my entire generation is comprised entirely of rapists, murderers, welfare recipients and drug addicts.

There are a lot of reasons to be offended by this, but the biggest reason is that Fred Rogers was the kindest, most inspiring and most loving man to have lived in the last 100 years. His love for children and his passion for their education and well-being were absolute and unhypocritical. Watch this clip from Mr. Rogers’ testimony to the US Senate in 1969 to increase funding for PBS. If you disagree with Mr. Rogers politically, that’s okay, but there is no mistaking the sincerity of his passion for child development.

In other news, millions of years ago there were human-sized penguins.

Giant penguins. Is there anything not awesome about the phrase “giant penguins”?

1 year ago – defective materials, algo march 2, control freak, McCain on Lieberman, Michigan fairy doors, random flickr

2 years ago – Kev day, pictures of train station/toys/etc, mr moonlight

3 years ago – mind flayer doodle, travel plans, blue ink, Warriors…., phone posts

4 years ago – odd dreams, Gary hart, pizza box solar oven, hunting for Bambi hoax, walnut walks with a belly dancer

5 years ago – CHiPs, Spreading rumors

6 years ago – Music Mystery Solved, exegesis, evil news, Earhart’s wreck perhaps found, I discover Google image search, sea creature poll, why poop is brown

7 years ago – Scheduled Departure time set in stone, something at Archie McPhee no longer there, sitcom nudity-logic Geotarget (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)