May 29, 2007 by Hawk.

Well, it’s 9:30 AM, the Sears delivery people have come and gone and I’ve already been on the phone with the manager, twice. That should give you an idea how my day’s going so far. The new grill was delivered and surprisingly they did get the right model. Sadly they did not assemble it properly. There’s a bolt I can’t get to without disassembling the entire upper section that was never tightened. The whole grill top is out of whack making the cover close poorly. The ‘flame diverter’ was not installed at all, it was just tossed on top of the burners and the side shelf, it’s got a huge bend in it.

Friday or tomorrow, Sears will be delivering a new grill, again. I wonder what’s going to be fucked up on this one… How many chances do they get to ‘get this right’? **Sigh**

Hawk (who still hates Sears some)

Posted in Rant and Rave | 2 Comments »

May 27, 2007 by Hawk.

So yesterday while I’m sound asleep (I’m nocturnal) the phone rings and it’s the assistant manager from the local store. Hey, bitch enough and somebody will take action. He wants to make things ‘right’ about the grill. He even understands if I never want to shop Sears again but he wants to ‘fix’ this thing with the grill. I’m tempted to yell “Give me money!” into the phone, that’d fix things. Money can fix a lot of things… I digress… That idea passes and the guy from the store says “How about if we pull a new grill off the shelves, assemble it and then deliver it to your house, free of charge of course. Would that fix ‘things’?” Well hell, a new grill to replace my ’slightly used’ and missing pieces one, delivered, free? Sure!

Ten minutes later he calls back. He’s gotten the manager’s OK for this exchange and delivery, how’s Tuesday sound to me? Tuesday will be just fine with me.

New grill. Assembled by people who know what they’re doing (hopefully). Delivered to my back deck, free of charge. The ‘old’ one was getting a little dirty after the past month outside…

Anyone want to place bets whether or not they’ll deliver the RIGHT grill? They have receipts from us for two separate models and their automated pick-up system still thinks we’ve got a grill waiting… I wonder which one we’ll get? If it’s not the one we have now it’s going back

Hawk

Posted in Rant and Rave | 2 Comments »

May 25, 2007 by Hawk.

I sent them a complaint (see below) on May 8th about their terrible customer service and damaged products. I waited a week and when I didn’t hear back from them I sent them another letting them know a week is long enough to make someone wait for a response. Especially in light of Char-Broil emailing AND phoning within 24 hours of their receiving a compliant about the grill I bought. They wrote me back and said they couldn’t find my original complaint, could I please tell them, again, what my problem was. I did so and now yet another week has gone by. Supposedly Sears corporate forwarded my complaint to the local store manager who appears to be as incompetent as his staff…

I really, really hate Sears.

Hawk

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May 24, 2007 by Hawk.

Watching the news tonight and saw this story reported…

During a routine traffic stop the officer(s) decided to bring in the drug sniffing dog. It’s happened to me, I’ve long hair and tattoos so I guess I must be a drug dealer. The dog signals on the car and it and the two latino occupants are searched. NOTHING is found. Not a seed. Not an empty baggie. Nothing. So instead of chalking it up to a false hit by the dog or just a case of one of the gentlemen having been in the proximity of someone who happened to smoke a joint the cops somehow obtain a search warrant for the drivers residence… Wait, what? Based on a dog’s bark and NOTHING else (unless the reporters missed something or details were left out by the cops) a judge has issued a warrant to search a private residence? How the hell did that happen? Zero physical evidence will get you a warrant these days?

Now, granted, they did find a large marijuana growing operation at the home listed on the driver’s license but that’s not the point. You’re supposed to have damn good evidence of a crime before invading the sanctity of someone’s home. This was not the case. At least not as it was reported. Something’s fishy in Denmark, kids. 

Hawk

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May 21, 2007 by Hawk.

Ok, granted, it’s not like we’re bestest of buddies or anything but over the years we’ve exchanged quite a few emails. When one of the guys had a obsession with old, 1900’s, print ads I scanned a dozen or more out of an old ‘Popular Science Monthly’ for him (several can be seen in the ‘Scans’ section of my page, linked to at the right). We’re fans of an old CosPlay model who’s gone over to cheesecake and tease photography. We’ve communicated. So when I got myself a PlayStation 2 I thought, who to ask about what games they thought someone with my physical limitations could play I thought of them, first and foremost. They’re the video game gurus. They’ve got their own video game convention for God’s sake and they sponsor a charity to obtain games and gaming hardware for children’s hospitals. So I sent a short, suscinct, email to Tycho and CC’d it to Gabe simply asking “What games do you think I could play?” I don’t have a lot of money to spend on games and as I’ve already discovered even some kid’s games are unplayable for me.

Dead freaking silence. Not a word. Not even a “Sorry we’re too busy to respond to everyone.” form letter. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It’s not like they don’t read their email. Friday’s post to their site shows they most certainly do read and react to their email.

It wasn’t like I was asking them to send me anything. Hell I’m sure they could reel off a list of games for me in a matter of a couple minutes. I guess I’m just not worthy. Either that or they won’t get their names in the paper and on the TV for helping just one guy out so it’s not worth their effort… Ah well. Gabe, Tycho, I think less of you now. Not that you care.

Hawk

Posted in Rant and Rave | 5 Comments »

May 18, 2007 by Hawk.

There’s a hawk or falcon (not sure which) that’s recently moved into the neighborhood. Three times I’ve gone running outside to get a picture of him and all three times he’s been chased off by smaller birds I assume are protecting their nest/young. This is the closest I’ve come to getting a shot of him and it’s his ass. How nice.

Click here for a larger version of the above.

Hawk

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May 18, 2007 by Hawk.

The other day I was ordering checks for the account we use for the majority of our bills. Looking in my personal (not household) checkbook I realized my checks were issued by a bank that no longer exists. I’ve actually had a cashier call the manager over this. So I decided to order new checks that would have the new bank’s name on them. Our main account gets its checks for free and I wrongly thought this would apply to all of our accounts. I don’t want new checks that bad. $16 is too much for something I use twice a month if I’m lucky. I wrote an email to the bank’s customer service asking that since my checks were old and from the bank they bought out wouldn’t it be acceptable to waive the fee so I could have their checks… Apparently not.

Being the obnoxious guy I am I then called the local branch and asked a few questions:

There’s no fee to close an account.
Correct.
I could then immediately open up a new checking account.
Correct.
My new account would receive the first box of checks for free.
Correct.
The new account would receive a free Visa Checkcard.
Correct.

So… instead of just waiving the $16 fee for checks I could go spend an hour of a bank manager’s time. Have them spend the computing resources to close the old account and open a new one. Have them spend the money to issue and mail a Visa Checkcard. Anyone think that would cost the bank more than $16? I do!

Hawk

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May 15, 2007 by Hawk.

The automated system at Sears just called, waking me up, to tell us the merchandise we’d ordered had arrived. Of course we haven’t ordered any merchandise from them. So I gave them a call. After getting shuffled around their phone system for a while I got to talk to someone in their pick-up department. Seems the grill we ‘ordered’ has come in. Funny that, since the grill we bought is sitting out on the patio. Read below for the fun I had with that evil piece of crap. I hung up and sat here for a while thinking. Is a free grill compensation for the dent that’s still in my forehead and all the pain and aggravation I went through last week? Sears still hasn’t responded to my complaint while Char-Broil called me the day after I emailed them to apologize profusely. I called them back to talk to a manager to see if he/she could explain this. In what appears to be typical for the average Sears employee the manager’s not bright enough to charge his cordless phone and I had to call back TWICE before he could transfer me over to a regular phone. He’s as clueless as you’d expect. “Well if you ordered it, it’s here. If you already have it the system may have a glitch in it. I don’t know what to tell you.”

So, do I take the risk and go get me a free grill? I could sell it or it would make a killer Christmas present for someone.

Decisions, decisions…

Hawk

Posted in Rant and Rave | 2 Comments »

May 13, 2007 by Hawk.

And especially my own…