Rants

I’ve had the DVD Norah Jones: Live in New Orleans right at the top in my rental queue for about 5 weeks and the status has been “Long Wait” the whole time. So I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email on Wednesday that it had shipped and that I would receive it on Monday, May 26th. It was taking longer than the other movie that shipped the same day because I guess it was coming from California as opposed to the regional center in Georgia. No problem, I’ve waited this long, a couple of more days won’t hurt. Well today I got an email from Netflix saying I had returned the DVD. WTF? I hadn’t even got it in the first place, how could it have been returned? I guess it got a wrong label or something. I went and put it back on top of the queue and it’s status is now, “Now.” Maybe when they ship it out this time it will make it all the way to me.

I liked the first movie, up to a point, so what made me think I would love this one. Hope springs eternal I guess, after all I’m a Red Sox fan. Some funny stuff like the first one, some totally stupid stuff too. Nothing makes the word fuck sound so poetic as an Italian/New York accent. And is it just me or does Lisa Kudrow with her hair pulled back look like the prototypical alien – all high cheekbones, sharp chin and big eyes?

The Thumb Drive showed up on Tuesday. You know me, I’ve got some complaints: The old one had a red drive light that worked like the standard one, it was lit when there was activity. This one does the same, but has the added annoyance of flashing once a second to let you know it is, I don’t know, working? Another nice feature is that it came with a couple of different color covers to match your mood or I-Mac color. The fly in that ointment is that to change the cover you have to remove two screws from the back which are hidden underneath the sticker that says, “Warning! Warranty void if removed.”

The Mug arrived the next day, Wednesday. You know me, I’ve got some complaints: It took a whopping ten days to get here. The thumb drive came from California too, and it made it 5 days. The dark green of the outside ring of the logo came in way too light. That is livable, but the big problem is that the Club’s circular logo appears oval when looked at on the mug. They preach what you see is what you get, the photo on the site doesn’t look like an oval, but in real life it sure does. My wife thinks I’m too picky, but I think it is unacceptable. I tweaked the logo by stretching it in the horizontal by 10% and ran a cylinder filter on it in Paint Shop Pro. I test printed it and it looks a lot better. I uploaded the new image and ordered another mug to check the results.

Or they might get the same thought I had about the plot for a new reality based TV show. Of course Thy might not get that idea from this story, Chimps May Have Closer Links to Humans the way it was titled on Yahoo, but the headline I read in the Augusta Chronicle was, “Researchers put chimps in human family.”

Everybody Loves Raymond used to be a must watch on Monday night. This season I just never picked it back up. Tonight I decided to watch the season ender. Robert was getting married and because it was so much TV they couldn’t get it all in 30 minutes. Tonight’s episode ran for a whole 45 minutes. It was painful to watch. It seemed pretty much like they used that extra 15 minutes to show commercials. On top of that there was some fat in the actual show that could have been trimmed.

Still no mug from Cafe Press. No Thumb Drive from Wolverine. both supposedly shipped from California via the USPS. Next time I order I’ll pay extra to go UPS, this way even if it takes a long time at least I can follow along.

According to Yahoo Maps it is 2825.7 miles with an approximate travel time of 43 hours and 28 mins. If that is true why has the mug I ordered from CafePress not arrived yet. They say it was shipped on 5/9 at 8:40 in the morning. That is about 97 1/2 hours ago. Had I known it would have taken this long I would have driven out to get it and I would be back by now with my mug.