Now my local news even has laptops for the anchor people. I first saw them pop up on CNN, mostly during election night return broadcasts, but now it’s an everyday thing.

Why? What can they possibly be looking at besides the teleprompter when reading me the news?

Answer: Nothing. It’s total show. Unless they have bad eyesight and suddenly can’t read from the teleprompter, absolutely nothing could possibly be on the computer that would help them read the teleprompter… which is their job in the first place.

Remember, these are anchors, not reporters. It’s not like they’re surfing for the latest news and will bust into some post from some amateur blog breaking news. It’s all just show.

My biggest complaint about anchors and newscasters with laptops is that it is totally distracting. A double anchor setup means two laptops… two laptops side by side means two laptops that are opened at different angles and reflecting back at me with different colors… and … and … it just goes on and on.

Just read the news and shut up when the commercials come on.

1) Most recently, we tried logging in about 30 times way after the “early day, scheduled maintenance time for July 10th”, however, when the green “W” screen came up, it loaded for a few seconds and then got stuck. My daughter was afraid her webkinz would get sick from missing the day, and we lost out on some of the daily activity bonuses and prizes. My daughter was also afraid her garden would die, because it already got wiped out once from a glitch within the last day or two.

2) We have also had problems with games locking up, for example:
* the gem mine locked up while she was entering one day and then wouldn’t let her try again even though she never made it into a mine,
* the 2nd level of the piano employment job loaded the screen and never went into the game and then blocked her from doing another job for eight hours
* the newspaper job registered “all three strikes” at once when she threw the paper at the green door, as indicated in the instructions, and then blocked her out of the jobs for eight hours. This happened at least two or three times with this particular game.
(NOTE: We, too, sent e-mail advisements and asked questions, but their e-mail system is so generic that we did not receive any information that was helpful to our plight. Instead they sent some generic response explaining the same information that you find when you first go to the employment office to try a job.)

3) When she bought a new room, not only was she unable to rename it, as we’ve had previous problems with, but it seemed to wipe out all the belongings from her kitchen. She cried because she thought that she had permanently lost the appliances, etc. that she had worked so hard to buy, but later on when we attempted to get back onto the site, the glitch seemed to have been fixed as the items reappeared back in her kitchen.

4) We have had many instances of her dog just “freezing up” in his room, and then we have to go to the arcade to try to get him moving again, or log out completely and hope we can get logged back in.

5) Several times my daughter has gotten bumped out while playing a game. This results in no cash being awarded from the game and locks up the screen and she has had to log out and log back in, to attempt to get things to start again.

These are just a few of our most recent encounters, and the sad part is that we just bought several more of these things, and were actually planning to sign them up onto the web site, but our experiences with the first webkinz do not make it seem like it would be worth the hassle of trying to keep up with six or more, so if things continue at their current rate, we will probably be among the many who turn these “web site creatures” into just “plain, expensive, stuffed animals with a pretty tag”…………

“ONLY IN AMERICA……”

We received a voucher from Delta and made reservations to go to Boston with them. This was a horrible ordeal. We had to call three times to make sure we could use the vouchers and not be charged for the trip. We were reassured that our $200 vouchers were be applied. After the trip we received a bill from Mastercard for the whole amount. We have tried numerous times to contact Delta only to be placed on hold for fourty minutes then disconnected. We have been treated very badly from the airlines.

Although utterly ignorant of anything remotely resembling the linguistic science behind language standards, you rant, bubble and witter yourselves into a pointless froth when exposed to the most innocuous and perfectly standard regional differences in spelling, pronunciation, grammar usage, what have you.

My instructions to you are as follows:

1. Pull your collective head out of your ass/arse.

2. Look up “prescriptivism”, maybe on en.wikipedia.org (if the idea of looking something up on that website doesn’t send you into further paroxysms).

3. Get a hobby - specifically, a hobby other than working yourself up into a fury over things about which you know nothing. How about …oh, I don’t know…crochet, or masturbation, or fox hunting?

With all due respect (i.e. none),

Anonymous And Fed Up

I called for a shuttle to pick us (my wife, 2 yr old daughter, and me) up at the airport at about 8:20pm on June 27th. I was told one would be there within 15 minutes. After approximately ½ hour, I called again and see how long we would have to wait. I was told they were delayed, but would be there shortly. Another 15 minutes, another call. I was told the van had “a flat tire”, but another was on the way. Another 15 minutes, another call. I was told the driver had been, picked up some people, and left. No “Payless” shuttle had come by us, we were in the correct pick-up spot- we were being lied to.

I kept the dispatch person on the line until a van came to us. More than an hour and a half had passed since we first called. My daughter was becoming dehydrated (we had just come off a 6 hour cross-country flight and hadn’t yet eaten), and at nearly 10pm, it was obviously past her bedtime, and we still didn’t have our vehicle.

When the driver arrived, he verbally abused us and accused us of standing in the wrong spot. Angry words were exchanged (wouldn’t you be angry?), and then he said “load your own bags, I don’t need this ‘abuse’”. When I accused him of being less than professional, he threatened to leave us in the roadway and drive away. He would not wait for me to install a child seat in the van, which is illegal, and he did not assist my wife (holding our child) to get in. We drove to the rental area. After a wait, we were given a minivan, which was then driven away to be fueled!

It was almost 10:30pm before we had a vehicle and were on tour way to our hotel.

The van, by the way, was dirty and had brake problems (the ABS light was illuminated on the dash which, according to the manual, requires ‘service as soon as possible’).

After our trip, I contacted ‘customer service’ per the directions of the agent, and was offered a $10 discount for our inconvenience. It was an insulting offer, and only deepened our resolve to get some sort of satisfaction.

My complaint is Expedia sucks major A$$. They even yelled at me when I spoke to CS after I got back home saying they offered a service and I shouldn’t complain about paying for the service I received. I hope my $60.00 is embezzled and the company will be belly up soon. Karma.

Her problem was simply a battery problem and she requested that the store first perform a test because it is not holding the charge. The store clerk (Fabio) told her to drive around for about a half hour to charge the old battery so he could get a reading, to which my daughter explained that she had it jump-started last night to get home and the drive was well over half an hour and it was dead when she tried it this morning having to jump start again.

Mr Fabio was as rude and useless as could ever be. He sells her a battery that is considerably smaller than the required battery for that vehicle. He would not even attempt to help her with the removal of the old one - his comment was something along the lines of…”I ain’t working too hard today so I can’t help you, besides I don’t want to get anything on my clothing, you will have to do it yourself”.

According to my daughter, he appeared to lack knowledge of which was the right battery spec for that car, but being inexperienced my daughter decided to try out the battery with the intention to seek help elsewhere.

Frustrated, my daughter figured out how to connect her new battery she just bought (but not happy with the selection provided by Fabio) and promptly went to ADVANCE AUTO who helped her immediately and installed her second new battery – this time with the right specification.

The clerk at Advance Auto even told her that he was just leaving for his break, but would stop to help her first. They could not have been more helpful.

THAT, MR. AUTO ZONE, is what service is all about. Needless to say that my daughter, along with her friends and co-workers to who she socializes with, myself included and anyone I can tell this to, will never, ever enter the portals of your store or any AutoZone store as a result of this one incompetent associate.

My daughter does not want any form of coupon, freebie or compensation from your organization. What is required here is an apology and the assurance that Mr. Fabio be reprimanded for his insolence and lack of work ethic and that you will consider placing someone else who wants to work in that position.

1. A group of people were smoking inside on second floor. When requested to stop smoking, they refused. Supervisor was helpless. Finally with some efforts from serving boys / waiters / stewards, this group shifted to ground floor, still refusing to stop smoking.

2. There was severe shortage of manpower on second floor. Only two waiters were available to handle about seven families. Only billing took more than 10 minutes (without exaggeration). When I reported this to supervisor (Ms. Fizza), she very arrogantly asked me to fill up the comment card, which I did. I quote her comment ” to phir card bhar dain na aap”, unquote. I think, the supervisor in particular has to be extremely soft spoken and well trained to handle customers. The waitors were however very courteous.

3. The wash room hand drier was out of order and was room cleanliness was not upto standards.

4. When I tried to pass faxes to phone numbers (Lahore and Karachi) given on comment card, they are not responding