The police helicopter that has been circling for an hour is driving me crazy. Every night, they circle around in San Jose with their search light. Who are they looking for? I’m sure if they let us know, someone would give them up in order to make the constant “whiiiiiiiirrrrrrr zeeeeeee whuuuuurrrrr” stop. This totally ruins the windows-open-all-the-time spring/summer experience.
Category Archives: Freaks
DHL: Clueless?
I recently signed up with Vonage, since it seems pretty cool. They sent me the VoIP adapter via DHL, who picked it up on Thursday, April 6th. It was sent 2nd day delivery, which means it should have been delivered on Monday, April 10th. Did I get it? Nope!
All through yesterday, April 10th, the DHL website claimed:
Est. Delivery Date: 4/10/2006
Today, Tuesday, April 11th, I figured I’d give them a call to see what’s up, and when I should expect to really receive the package, since the site still claims that the estimated delivery date is yesterday, which doesn’t inspire much confidence. The conversation went something like this:
DHL: Thanks for calling DHL, what can I help you with?
Me: I was sent a package which was supposed to be delivered yesterday, but I haven’t received it. I tracked the package on your website, and it still claims an estimated delivery date of yesterday, which can’t be right.
DHL: OK, can you give me the tracking number?
Me: OK, (reads tracking number)…
DHL: Well, we have a lot of packages and not all of them go out every day etc. etc. … your package is here at the sorting facility, it hasn’t gone out today.
Me: Uh, well, it was sent 2nd day delivery, the 2nd day was yesterday. Should I at least expect to receive it today?
DHL: Well, I can’t really tell you that. I don’t know if it will go out today, it’s still here… I don’t know if you’ll get it today.
Me: Don’t you have some sort of service guarantee, or the shipping is free?
DHL: Uh, uh, I don’t know, you’d have to talk to billing about that, I don’t know anything about that…
What the hell? You are DHL. Your only real business is moving other people’s stuff around. How is this considered customer service?
A familiar voice…
I had my favorite light rail conductor again today… and he did the same thing!
A lady pushed the button for some reason, and he answered with the familiar “Is this an emergency, or are you disabled?” line. I knew immediately that it was him. After the woman responded “Stop here!” he hung up on her and made the same train wide announcement: “Would the parents of the small child please keep them from pressing the red button unless it is an emergency”.
Oy.
Sorry, house arrest isn’t “cool”
Today at the light rail stop, there was a guy with his pant leg hiked up, on purpose… upon closer examination, I noticed that it was purposely hiked up so that everyone could see his house arrest thing around his ankle.
How pathetic is that? House arrest is supposed to let these people off a little easy, so they can keep their job, and try to reform. Instead, it becomes some sort of badge that he shows off to the world, to let everyone know how “bad” he is…
Ugh.
Toyota Camry Hybrid: Political statement or a commercial?
I didn’t watch the Super Bowl XL, this year… in fact I never watch it, as I couldn’t care less. I usually catch the commercials on the internet afterwards, since it’s not worth suffering through hours of football just for some funny commercials.
This year there was a commercial for the Toyota Camry Hybrid, which featured a hispanic man and small boy. Their conversation went like this:
Boy: Papa, why do we have a hybrid?
Man: For your future.
Boy: Why?
Man: It’s better for the air, and we spend less because it runs on gas and electrical power.
Man: Mire—mire aquÃ. Man points to console display, which shows the engine, battery, and electric motor status.
Man: It uses both.
Boy: Like you with English and Spanish!
Man: Si!
Boy: So why did you learn English?
Man: For your future!
What the hell? The subtext of the whole commercial is: immigrants need to learn English. I won’t argue against that point—that battle has been played out many times by many people. Instead I’ll just hit the point I care about: Why did they include this subtext in a car commercial. It would’ve been a fine public service announcement if not sponsored by Toyota. Instead, it just seems in poor taste, at least to me.
Jeremy Cole 