The Ballad of Incompetence (or, don't ever use art.com)

I'm flabbergasted. Honestly. I have never had an online shopping experience as unbelievably frustrating as the one I just experienced with Art.com over the past couple of months. I'm telling you right now, don't use them. Let's start from the beginning: Mid-December, I ordered a poster for Scott for Christmas. It's a picture of a famous train crash (Gare Montparnasse 1895). They have a few versions of this poster on their site, and I picked the one I wanted to get and bought it. It arrived in time for Christmas (yay!), but turned out, the poster has some cartoon cat & mice characters imposed into the picture that I most definitely didn't want (boo!). You couldn't tell the cartoon characters were added to the poster on the website because the thumbnail image they had doesn't show it clearly, and the description didn't mention anything of the sort. So, okay, my bad. I ordered the wrong print. No problem, I filled out the return receipt, and specified which image I would like them to send back, including the item #. It's basically the same image, just without the cartoon characters in it. So I sent it back to Art.com at my cost. Several weeks go by. Christmas passes. New Years passes. And after a few exchanged emails, I finally get the replacement poster. Very excited, we open up the tube, and IT'S THE SAME POSTER I SENT BACK!. Okay, so now I'm mad. I clearly specified on the return receipt the correct poster for them to send me, and they still sent the original wrong one again. So, I email them yet again and tell them what happened. That I am angry, that I expect them to send me the correct poster immediately at no additional cost to me, and that I want this resolved ASAP. I made it VERY clear which poster they sent, that it was wrong, and which one they needed to send me. A retarded monkey with Alzheimer's could have got it right. I was that clear. So, couple more weeks go by, and the 3rd poster arrives today. Finally!. The situation has been resolved!. No way they could possibly have screwed up again. Right? Well, (yeah, you see this comin'..), we once again got the wrong poster. The one with the cartoon characters in it. For the 3rd time! So, now I have to do something I've never done before, and don't want to have to do, but Art.com has given me no choice. I'm going to contact the BBB and tell them how incompetent the people at Art.com are. So, because of their ineptness, I'm out the poster I wanted, the cost of it, plus, Scott doesn't get his Christmas gift. :-(

Seahawk Sunday

Well well well.. The Seahawks first Super Bowl has come and gone. We lost, but I'm not sure that was entirely the Seahawks fault. There is quite a bit of controversy over the officiating. Calls that probably should have gone our way didn't, and calls that should have been called on the Steelers weren't. Me, I don't know enough about the sport to claim anything, but there certainly were a couple plays that looked fishy (including at least one touchdown.) But, the end result is the same no matter what you believe. I'm not much of a football fan, the only sport I really like is baseball, but I am definitely one of those people who get caught up in the hoopla. It's hard not to when something this big is happening. I know people bitch and moan about bandwagon fans, but let me tell you, without us, you'd be pissin' and moanin' that not enough people cared. I'll get excited and cheer for my home team, you bet'cha. Especially when we are accomplishing something this historic. It was our first time winning a championship, and also our first time in the Super Bowl. That not only meant allot to the Seahawks, but to the entire Seattle area as well. Go Hawks! (well, next year ;-).

The David Lee Roth Show

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Van Halen fan. I lost my musical virginity to David Lee Roth, matured with Sammy, and if you want to stick with the metaphor, Gary Cherone is that night you get a little too drunk, and wake up the next morning going "what the hell did I do last night!?" Nonetheless, when David Lee Roth left Van Halen in 1985, his solo career gave birth to a couple of terrific albums, but then slowly declined. He's had a tough time keeping his musical career afloat throughout the 90's and now the 2k's. He became an EMT for a while, until he was offered the highly sought after gig replacing Howard Stern on terrestrial radio. I've been listening since the first show about a month ago, and I had high hopes for the gig. As a lifetime fan of David Lee, I knew he could pull of the stint very well if he wanted too. His personality is rambunctious, over the top and in your face. In other words, perfect for radio. But he started off pretty rough. I've spent much of my time since 1985 as a Van Halen apologist, but I'll be the first to admit that the new show is pretty rough. I understand and applaud him for trying to do something a little different, but it isn't really working. The show is all over the place and scatterbrained, which, I suppose is very much Diamond Dave. I do think if he focused the show a bit more on a specific topic, actually let callers speak once in a while, got rid of that obnoxious dance music always on in the background used to accent his witticisms, lost his bodyguard "Animal" as a studio personality, and quit twisting every anecdote of his into a slam on Sammy Hagar or Eddie Van Halen, the show might be much better. But, it's Dave, and you don't tell Dave what to do. So, you end up with this. I hope he can stay on the air long enough to improve. Or maybe I don't. Truth is, I really just want him to call Eddie, get his ass to 5150, replace the wine bottle in Ed's hands with a guitar, apologize for the last 20 years, and record a new Van Halen album. But, since this is the real world, and because I'm starting to turn blue, I'll stop holding my breath for that.