Express THIS!!!

Have you ever popped into the supermarket for a few items, run out of bread, low on milk, short on some sort of little life essential? and once you have grabbed those half a dozen item headed to the express check out line only to find a family of four doing their weekly shop in front of you?

Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit with that question - but not by much.

A couple of days ago i run to the local supermarket to grab a few ingrediants for dinner. I checked the contents of my basket and counted seven items. At our local the express lane has a sign that states "12 or less items". So the fact that i had seven items i headed to the express lane - quick in, quick out - or so i thought...

Infront of me was a couple with a trolley that obviously had more than twelve items. As they unloaded the items onto the counter. And might i add that the counter is small and not designed for too many items. So as they unloaded their shopping i counted - twenty six items!!!

And my did the girlie at the checkout put them in their place, telling them that it is not exceptable for them to be using the express lane.
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OH NO WAIT!!! She did not say anything like that, in fact she said nothing at all!!!

When i got to the counter i asked if she ever says to people that they should not have come through the express lane with more items than they are supposed to. She just shrugged her shoulders and told me that people did all the time, there was not much she can do about it.

She continued to scan my purchases and i paid and started to leave the supermarket. It was at this point that i realised that i had forgotten one thing. So i went back, got the final item and went back to the express checkout lane - after all i had only one item this time.

And would you know it, but the person in front of me had a trolley with a rather suspicious number of items. I waited till the person in front of me was being served and once again counted the number of items. Twenty one, twenty one items in the twelve items or less checkout. This time i was served by a different person and so i asked that person if they ever say anything. She told me that hse is tempted but not game enough to actually try it.

Not game enough? what does she think the customers are going to do if she point out the fact that they are at the wrong checkout, which I'm pretty sure they are aware of already.

So here is my idea - let's take back the express!!! We should at least point out to these people who have no ability to count the error they have made in the lane they are queuing at. Or as i have been tempted to do, pushing in front of them and when they object simply say that you did not know they were in the queue because they obviously have too many items to be.

And now i shall end this rant by telling you that yesterday while at the supermarket, i went through the 12 item or less lane with thirteen items - hey thirteen is not twenty three!

(: G

What have I just done?!?!?!?

I can't believe I have just - done what I have just done!!!

As some of you may know, those who have spent years reading my rambles including when I used to ramble on rantspace. There is a certain jewellery store that I had a bit of gripe about and said I had no interest shopping there again.

If you don't know what I am talking about, here is the link! Have a read! Knock yourself out!!!

A proud patron ... or am i?

As you will see (or remember) this post got a fair bit of attention, especially from employees of the store and some devoted customers. Unfortunately most did not really read the post and their comments were a little off topic half the time. But there were comments for two years after the original post was made - not bad! And the post was in the top few hits on a google search for the store for quite a while. Now if you search on google search on the name of the store the post is not even in the first five pages - and go goes further than that when searching on google! If it is not in the first couple of pages, it is not worth looking at!


But back to what I did today.

I went to the local shopping centre to buy a birthday present for a dear friend of mine. I wanted to get jewellery but as far as what jewellery to get - I had no idea. So i trolled around every jewellery shop at my local, and the infamous shop of my previous post was the last to be looked in. Because of geography! from where I parked the car it is literally the furthest to walk!

So I looked through all the different shops, chatting to the shop assistants about my complete lack of ideas as to what to get for my friend, but the more I looked and chatted the more of idea I got.

I did not want to get heart shaped, that is too romantic for just a friend to give (in my mind) and of course seeing as commercial love day has just been and gone all the store want to get rid of their heart shaped crap.

I did not want to get a ring, again too personal in my mind; the ring is the gift of loved ones or family. And talking about my mind - it is a strange place and normally only makes sense to be, but even then, not always.

Then I got the inspiration to get some with my friend’s birth stone! I know what her birth stone is seeing as I have a child born in the same month!!! And most stores have birth stones of the month range in their catalogues!

So I grabbed all the catalogues for all the stores in the main jewellery part of the centre ( if they were not in the main part of the centre they did not get a chance) and starting looking through those.

Then in the catalogue of two of the stores i saw a lovely piece of jewellery - set with an amethyst - and the price was perfect for my budget. Both pieces were the same concept but a little bit different in detail to each other. One was from (funnily enough) the store that M34tb4LL and I got our wedding bands from, and the other was from the store that i had previously slammed.

I looked at the piece from the first store and eehhhh... it was a bit of a funny shape, it looked a bit crappily made, the catch to do it up was trickly to work and all in all it was not the present. So I went to the other store, THE store! I crept in, hoping they would not recognise me (not really but it sounds good) and asked to see the piece of jewellery. It was very pretty, a nice sized stones, very pretty details, easy to do up, it was the present.

So I bought it. I had looked enough, the piece was perfect and I was tired!!!

Shock - horror!!! But what are you going to do! I have bought something from that store again! Happy now internet community? Anyway a little time has gone - we can all laugh about it now...

(: G

Optional extras

How many times have you gone to pizza shop and not found the exact topping you wanted on their board? Well for me this is a daily (not that i eat pizza everyday) thing.

I will look at their board and think - i want the 'flibble' pizza - i don't want the onion but i want capsicum instead, just as an example. Now what i object to is the fact i will then be charges ?cents extra for an additional topping, but they do not take anything off the the topping that i don't want.

There is a rather large chain pizza outlet that i get pizza from once in while (and i tend to regret it when i do). Lets call them "Pizza Shack". I went to this pizza place a couple of weeks ago and got two pizzas, one of pizzas i ordered was exact to the shops recommendations but the other was... well... the pizza i wanted was their pepperoni adorer, and the only topping the pizza has is pepperoni. Now from past experience the pizza artist will only put about two pieces of pepperoni per slice on the pizza.

Pizza shack have all their pizzas for the price - they only charge extra for additional topping or chicken pizzas. But some of the pizzas will have one topping, some will have up to six. So only wanting the one topping, you would think they put a decent amount of it on, NOPE!!!

This was my effort to get the kind of pizza i wanted without paying their addition topping charge -

I asked for a meat enthusiast pizza with pepperoni instead of ham, peperoni instead of bacon, pepperoni instead of beef and no onion. This request was met with the response "So you want a pepperoni adorer pizza?". I said back "No, the pepperoni adorer has only a single serve of one topping, i want the full four topping serve - but all of the same topping" and the answer was "If you want four times the normal amount of pepperoni then we will have to charge to three extra toppings". I thought my request was reasonable!

I don't think anyone will be surprised that i ended up getting the standard amount of pepperoni that you would get on the pepperoni adorer and i dare say they have spat on my pizza at no additional charge!!! AND they now charge extra for signature deep pan base!!!

But it is not just pizzas that i have come across this - when i went to the "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Restaurant" a little while ago, i asked for some of the standard to be excluded from my burger, but some additions as well i got my burger and they kindly gave me an itemised receipt. The receipt was as follows -

Australian burger
- onion $0.00
- mustard $0.00
+ mayo $0.20
+ bacon $0.80

I understand that i have pay extra for additional things, but if i am asking for ingredients to be to left out - don't still charge me for it!!!

(: G

disclaimer: it has been a while since i have had a none standard menu item for "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Restaurant" so if they have changed the way they charge for alterations to their burgers - great!

Please work for my sale!

The silly season that has descended upon us once again, and with that we join the throng of hundreds of frantic shoppers to get that perfect gift for our family and friends.

Yesterday M34tb4LL and i went to a shop to buy a present for ... someone. Well if i tell you what the item is, where it was bought from or who it is for then that person might read this and think to themselves, where there goes the surprise!

So we were in a shop and were not sure where they had the item we wanted on display. Rather than mill around and add to the already packed shopping area i decided to ask a little shop person as to the where about of the item. I looked around the shop and spotted two rather bored shop people, leaning on some boxes of stock, chatting away to each other.

I went over and interrupted their conversation with my Paddington Bear style stare and asked about the where abouts of the item. Rather than point me in the direct (which wasn't far at all) i was escorted to the shelf that housed the item. The sales person then took the item off the shelf, wrote a number on the price ticket and passed it to me.

When i asked M34tb4LL what the number sales person wrote on the ticket meant, he told me that it was the sales persons ID number, so that when we bought the item he would be credited for the sale and get a commission for it.

WHAT????

What assistance did he give us that means he deserves that commission?

Did he approach us and offer his assist?NO, i had to find him and interrupt his conversation with his co-worker to get his help.

Did he assist us in selecting the item? NO, we went to that particular shop knowing full well what we were after.

Did he give help in choosing one brand of the item over another? NO, the item we were after does not have a few makes over a few different brands - it is kind of like "I am after this thing" "Then to get one of these things, this is the only option - one option - here - if you want it this the one you have to get"

Did he help us pick out a second or a third item? NO, we had come in for the one item - found it bought it left the shop.

So what did he do to deserve that commission? He did not have to walk the floor, checking with customer if his assistance was needed, nor did he need to display any product knowledge. He did not even have to employ any of his sales training to sway us to buy the item!!! All he had to do was walk three steps and write a number on a price ticket.

I'm not sure why this bothers me, it is not like we had to more for the item because of this. However if he had not done this where would the commision have gone? Would it have defaulted back to the manager of the store? Would have split up at the end of the day with the girls as the checkout? Or would it have just been lost in the ether?

Call me petty, but i think i would rather any other option than the one that transpired. And in the future when i shop at that store and a sales person offers to write his ID number on the price ticket - i think i decline the offer! Unless of course he HAS worked for my sale.

(: G

And now let me sing some praises

One year ago today (or by the time i get to publish this post, one year ago yesterday) M34tb4LL and i got married. And as far as days go, this has been a good one (:

The parentals had offered to look after Peanut within our birthday season and we thought that tonight would be the goodies.

For those that i have confused with talk of anniversaries and birthday seasons - it was M34tb4LL's birthday on Thursday and mine is on Monday, our wedding anniversary is right in the middle, today.

Now those of you who are regular readers of my posts will know that i am not much of one to name names. I don't tend to use the real names of the the places/shops/people i talk about. And this tends to be mostly because i am either having a bit of rant about an experience or just because i fee the place i am talking about gets enough publicity as it is.

But tonight the rules will be changed!!!

MISTY'S DINER is the place that we chose to spend the evening. Being grand finale night we were unsure about how busy our venue of choice would be, so i called a couple days ago to make sure that it was alright to book a table. The lass i spoke to said that she had no idea how busy they might be getting and booking was a good idea. So seeing as we had Decay and Droidy in tow i booked for four for 7.30, booked in with the parentals and proceeded to play the waiting game.

So we picked up Decay and Droidy and went to drop off the boy with the parentals. After a quick bait and switch with his bottle between me and his Granny we were heading out the door. We drove to the eatery - it was not hard to find at 103 - 105 High Street, Prahran, Victoria, Australia. We got a premo parking spot just across the road and we walked inside.

It was a tad quiet in the diner, ok tad may be an understatement seeing as we were the only people there but...

Misty was there to great us at the door, with a big smile and a warm welcome, and she seemed to have a good sense of humor about the fact that restaurant was completely empty.

Grand Final day is a funny one. My birthday is on 1st October and seeing as grand final day is always the last Saturday in September, the Saturday before my birthday is always shared event. Not being a football person, this is fine by me because it means that if i want to do birthday type things during the day - there is no-one around. Problem is if i want to do birthday type things at night i have to pick my venue well unless i want to swamped by celebrating/commiserating footy type peoples.

This choice was a goodon' because there was not a single footy type in sight, tee hee, there was no-one in sight other than ourselves.

Misty came to take our drink order, and gave some advise on some of the can of American soft drink that she had there. She then came to take our food order.

For starters we got a serve of potato skins and a serve of deep fried cheese things to share. We opted to get the potato skins 'mild' so Misty brought us some of her home made chili sauce to help that flavour along. And might i say it was the best chili sauce i have had in... well ever!!!

Choosing what we wanted for our main course was NOT east - not because the menu was huge (and full of crap like some places we have been to) but because there was a good variety and it ALL looked soooooo good.

Droidy ordered a bowl of chili, Decay picked a meatball sub, and M34tb4LL and i decided to get a philly steak roll and a chili dog and split it. We also got a couple side serves of cheesy chili fries. I also got a 'turtle' thick shake (chocolate and caramel with a hard chocolate shell) - go for the whole experience.

The food, for want of a better way of saying it, EXCELLENT! The serving size were perfect, big enough that we were nicely full, but not so big that we could not move. And because we were there within the week of my birthday i got the thick shake FREE!!!

The price was pretty good as well, better than the prices we had experienced at another American style restaurant (that shall remain nameless) who don't know what good service is about and think that if it is not oily it is not American.

After our meal we picked up a few of our favourite American lollies and chocolate bars that Misty had at the counter, settled our bill and left, feeling quite happy with our choice of eatery and confident that we would return.

We then went back to the parentals to collect the boy and went home for some well needed sleep.

So i finish this post today (or as it happens to be tomorrow) with three pieces of advise for my dear readers -

If you have an event that need celebrating, try Misty's Diner
If you want to catch-up with some friends for a meal, try Misty's Diner
If you are hungry and just want to grab a bite to eat, try Misty's Diner

(: G

To Pay or Not To Pay

I have a dilemma! And this time it does not involve ice cream!!!

My flickr page is once again getting near to full and i am thinking that if i have to perform a cull on the photos every couple of months that is going to be a bit of a drag!!! Plus there are soooooo many drop-dead cute photos of our boy - how do i choose the ones to get rid of?

So not even two months since my last cull i am at the point again that i either need to do ANOTHER cull or start paying for the privilege of sharing photos.

Though i must admit the whole happy snapping has decreased since our boy has past the six month, it has not stopped, and i hope it never will!!!

So if i continue to use the site free of charge i can only have a maximum of 200 photos up at any time and the size and quality of the photos are that of the sites choice, and i can only upload a maximum of 100 MB a month. If i pay, i can have an unlimited amount of photos, the size and quality is that of the original, and i would get unlimited uploads.

Plus there is the whole 'off-site' storage thing to consider. Living in the digital age that we do, if we were to have a major computer melt down in this house (or even worse thing to think a house fire - not that is that is being planned!!!), we would loose a great deal of our pictorial memories!!! We do our best to always have a back-up (or three) of all our photos at any given time, but a disaster is something that you can not really plan for or prevent. So the flickr account could also act as that 'worst case scenario' back-up for us.

Of course there is not every photo ever taken of the boy on flickr, seeing as there are literally over a thousand photos on my computer hard drive - and M34tb4LL would easily have four times that amount on his. So if the best and cutes are also somewhere else if the unforeseeable were to happen, not all would be lost.

So... have i just talked myself into upgrading the flickr account? If so i need to do it soon or i will have to cull the photos that are currently there again!!

WOW, all that thinking has done my head right in, i think i need to get some ice cream.

(: G

OMG - it's mid September!!!

I have been looking at the good old social calendar, have been trying to arrange a time to catch up with some friends, and it has dawned on me that we are approaching the birthday season! Well i kind of know that the birthday season was coming - but now i am like "Oh yerrr, it is getting close!!!"

And how is the social calendar looking? Pretty impressive i must say!!! I have had to put the catch up with before mentioned friends till October!!!!!!!!

Of course this year there is another celebration on top of the birthday circus, M34tb4LL and i will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary that falls smack inbetween our birthdays (: We have made plans with some friends - wittnesses at our weddding - to go out to dinner, nothing fancy.

But it does raise the question of what to get M34tb4LL for a present! I think i have his birthday present all wrapped up (tee hee), the normal bag of random crap. I have to put the ole thinking cap on...

It is the 13th today, so i have 16 days to get my brain into gear and think of something. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TIME!!!

The traditional gift for a first anniversay is paper, so what does that mean as a present? a paper hat? an origami crane? a note book?

Wait i just got an idea! not going to say what it is here, M34tb4LL reads this (: I'll fill you in after the event (if it works out that is)

(: G

Choices choices...

So here is the dilemma, it is not a life changing one, but it is one that might be faced by a few of you from time to time so i feel it should be discussed.

Ice cream is a little luxury that i sometime like to indulge in. Wait a minute - is every other day considered once in a while?

Anyway, with the convenience of drive thrus getting the daily ice cream fix is easier than ever! and that only really leaves the choice of going for an icecream from the "Some Old Man Who Had a Farm Family Resturant" or "Famished Johns" (think about the names for a minute, you'll get it). But this is also where the dilemma comes into it.

SOMWHAFFR's ice cream tends to be nicer, creamier and betting tasting. But Famished Johns icecream has the advantage of a choc dip option.

So what does one do? Get one of each of course!

(: G

*** Warning *** Cull Imminent

I give this warning to the people who have been enjoying the photos on 'Flickr'.

Unfortunately, at any given time, only a maximum 200 photos will be displayed on an individuals flickr page - unless of course one wants to ungrade for a annual fee to their "pro package", which i don't want to do if i can help it.

Seeing as i there are currently 199 photos on the page this cap is near reaching.

In one week from today i will be randomly culling some of the older photos to make room for newer one. So if there are any phots that you have a particular fondness to on the first few of pages i would suggest you either grab yourself a copy or take one last look.

(: G

Internet-less

Question - how does one that spends many hours a day on the internet, uses it as the first place to get any information, and uses email and online chatting more than the phone or much more that snail mail; cope when there is no internet in the house for two weeks?

Answer - not well!

Lately the ISP that M34tb4LL and myself use decided to increase their prices, they did offer us a plan at the same price that we had been paying but at a decrease to the monthly cap.

We use the internet a fair bit, it is fair to say that we use it more than most of our friends and family (DK and Droidy excluded of course). So rather than taking a drop in monthly limit or paying more we chose to look elsewhere for our internet needs.

We found a provider that, for the same price as before, we could get a higher monthly cap and VoIP thrown in for good measure (so cheaper phone costs).

But before we could think about switching we first had to make sure that there was no unfulfilled on-line commitments, we waited till all the eBay dealings we had dealing were finalised and we signed up with the new ISP. The next step was to do the all important swap - a scary thought to two such internet dependent peoples like us.

We then canceled with the (then) current ISP and waited to be cut off. The cut off actually happened right as i had typed out a 'farewell for now' message in the favourite forum, just before i had time to publish it - of course - and we just had to wait to be reconnected.

We were told that the wait would be three to five working days, a doable time frame, at a pinch. Well at the five day mark i gave the new ISP a call to get an ETA.

The funny thing was, as far as they knew we were still connected to our previous provider!!! So i called them and after three phone calls and about two hours on hold i found out that when they cut us off they 'forgot' to send the request to telstra to have the codes removed!!! Which means that though they had stopped providing us with the internet, it was not possible for anyone else to.

After I brought this to their attention they said they would get the request through within 24 hours (and four days late).

About two days after my phone call to the previous (and evil) ISP, M34tb4LL got an email from the new (and shiney) ISP saying that we would connected with them in about five days. I would like to point out the whole "DDEEERRRRR" factor about sending an email about connecting internet, if we needed internet connected we obviously didn't have it, and if we don't have internet how can we get emails! M34tb4LL could check his email at work, but still...

Now with two blogs, a tumblr log, a flickr and a youtube account to maintain being without internet was a rather difficult thing. I did suffer a bit of cyber withdrawal. And i must confess there were a few minutes one Thursday, while i was at the public library the eyed one of their computers that internet access with envious eyes.

But the internet is back, the balance has been restored, and my insane random ramblings can continue.

(: G