I feel like I need to go back to work to get some rest. Sheesh! Here is a bit of a summary of my weekend:

It actually started Friday night after work. A head-hunting agency that we work with gave us tickets to the Las Vegas Wranglers hockey game. It’s minor league hockey and it’s a lot of fun. They play at the Orlean’s Arena in a brand new facility. Not a bad seat in the house! The Wrangler’s lost 4-2, but was still a very fun evening!

Saturday morning, got up early and met a group of friends/co-workers and we headed over to CES – The Consumer Electronic’s Show. This is an annual convention heald here in Las Vegas that is SO MUCH BETTER than Comdex, it’s not even funny! If you want to check out what the latest tech gadgets are and who’s coming out with what to plug in to your home/office computer, home/car stereo, home/car video, portable music, cell-phone, etc… Look no further. I must have lost my mind because I told my wife I’d be at the show about 2-3 hours. I’m not sure we left the car-audio section in less than that much time. It was great to see some of the products I have done some research on and am looking to purchase. Nothing like seeing it in person to help make that final purchasing decision. You can bet I’ll be purchasing 2 (or maybe 3) of these ViewSonic Monitors, a KVM Switch that also handles audio, and, the one product I actually purchased while at the show, the 60 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox. I’m also likely to purchase a couple Shuttle Computer Cases to get rid of the 2 mid-tower machines that sit under my desk. No matter how you slice it, the CES show was absolutely awesome. I had a great time and plan to go again next year. Perhaps I’ll even be able to make it out of the convention center and in to some of the other buildings…

Saturday evening, most of the crew that I went to CES with came over to my place to play some poker. We started around 8 and didn’t end until after midnight. The big winner was Tom who walked away with an extra $5.20.

After waking up a little late on Sunday morning, the wife and I went back to CES to make the purchase of the Nomad. It took us about 2 hours to park, walk in, find the Creative booth and make it back to our car. We did make one extra stop at the Sony exhibit to check out the Dancing Robots. These things were incredible. I can’t wait to see what Sony has planned for their development. They moved with such fluidity, it was amazing. It wouldn’t surprise me to see these type robots becoming in-home care givers for the elderly or handicapped. This was truely exciting technology.

Ahh, and to finish the day off, I updated my software website to no longer use PayPal as the main form of payment. It now uses my merchant account and Ezic gateway interface.

Phew! I’m exhausted! I better go catch some sleep!

So, I’m browsing through my filtered spam just to make sure nothing legit got blocked before I delete it all and the subject of one of the spam messages catches my eye. Not because I’m interested in their product, but, more because I want to see if they are serious. And, without fail, it’s a real product… The subject was “Name A Star For Someone Special…”. My first thought was that I’m sure there’s a cost involved…, of course, there was… So, a quick look at the email and it points me to their site. Ahh yes. Now I see. I can name a star in the sky after somebody I love. And, as luck would have it, it makes the PERFECT holiday gift… This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where as gifts they told people they made a contribution to some charity in their name… My lord people, do like the rest of us do… Wait until December 24th, run to Save-on and purchase all the Whitman’s Chocolate samplers…

Man, I sure do love December. No, it has nothing to do with the fat dude in the red suit. Actually, it doesn’t have to do with any sort of holiday. For me, what makes December so great is that every channel on TV has to air some sort of “Top [insert anything here] of the past year” show. I don’t know what it is about these types of shows, but I’m freakin’ addicted. I love them. It’s sad, really… “Top 100 hairstyles”, yeah, I’ll watch it.. (the “Mullet” got robbed. It should have been in the top 5).

Well, I gotta get going… The “Top 100 Best Car Commercials” is coming on… (my money is on the Ford Focus)

Everything you see or hear is driven by advertising. Somebody somewhere is trying to get you to buy SOMETHING at all times. I understand this and it doesn’t really bother me. But, what does bother me is stupid advertisers… Here are two great examples of stupid avdertisers:

#1. (received via email) “Want to stop spam? We have proven spam filter software that will drastically reduce the amount of spam that makes it to your inbox.”

#2. (seen in a pop-up) “Tired of all those darn pop-up ads? Our pop-up blocker eliminates 100% of internet pop-ups.”

So, let me get this straight… if I use your email blocker, I wouldn’t get your ad and if I use your pop-up blocker, again, I wouldn’t get your ad. PERFECT! Sign Me Up!!!

As he set my order on the table, he says, “There are two slices of cheese, I put them both on top.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but I said, “OK” and began to eat. I then noticed that there was only one patty of meat. But, there was in fact two slices of cheese…

After I finished the single burger, I went back to the counter and placed an order for a DOUBLE cheese with DOUBLE meat burger. I explained to the guy that what I had wanted to begin with was a burger with 2 patties and two slices of meat. He apologized and then went back to explain to the cook what I wanted. He came back and apologized again and said he’d only charge me for a single burger since I made him feel bad (not quit sure how I did that…). I paid my bill and sat back down.

After a few minutes, the same employee from before calls out my order number. I raise my hand and he walks over and sets down TWO burgers. A quick look and I notice that they have brought me two double cheeseburgers. So I’ve now gone from having a single patty to having 5. Sheesh!

since I was watching a hockey game and my wife didn’t feel like cooking. I placed the call and the phone was answered by a gentleman named Nadir. I placed my order for 2 XL pizzas and then mentioned that I had a coupon for a “Buy one, get one free”. Nadir then explained to me that this coupon was only good on Tuesdays. I looked over the entire coupon page and found not a single mention of it being only valid on Tuesdays. I told Nadir that it didn’t say that. He then told me that the coupon was expired. I then explained that it clearly stated the coupon was good through 7/15/02. At this point, I would have expected him to give me the benefit of the doubt and agree to the terms of the coupon I claimed to be holding. But, he didn’t. He explains that my total is going to be $30 and change. My first reaction was to cancel the order entirely. But, instead, I told Nadir I’d bring the coupon in and pick up the pizzas. When I got to the store, the two girls (I didn’t catch their names) both gave me the initial feeling that I was really putting them out by just walking in the door. No smiles. No good evening. I explain that I have 2 pizzas to pick up. One of the girls goes to grab my pizzas while the other rings up my total as $30. I hand her the coupon. She looks it over for a moment and changes my total to $19.46. Doing a little math in my head, I’m trying to figure out how taking off the price of one pizza only drops the total by $10. But, I’m in a bit of a hurry now as the game is back on and I’m missing the third period! I hand her my credit card and at that time Nadir walks up to her and takes the coupon from her hand and looks it over. He looks up and says to me, “I’m the one that spoke with you on the phone.” I replied, “I know, and that’s why I’m here and not having my pizza’s delivered.” The girl can’t find a pen, and apparently, that’s my fault, too. She gives me a bit of a dirty look and storms off to find a pen. She finds one, and hands it to me along with the credit card receipt I’m supposed to sign. I get a bit of a chuckle at the fact that there is a place for me to leave a tip. I place a large ZERO in the tip section, fill in my total and I take my pizzas and head home, more than a little upset.

I worked in a family food service business for 11 years. If a customer called and said they had a coupon, I would have to believe them until they were unable to produce it. It only makes sense. Why should I, the paying customer, have to go out of my way to prove that I wasn’t lying? Did nobody explain to them that “The Customer Is Always Right”? (or, at least until you can prove them wrong)

At the end of June my family and I will be moving to Vegas. I explained to my wife when I got home that even if we were to live in Redondo Beach for the next 20 years, there is no way we would be ordering from that Papa John’s Pizza again. I’m sure the girls at the counter won’t miss me.”

and a kids meal with some cheap plastic toy. At the same time, I’m a VERY picky eater. I don’t like most vegitables, spicy foods and, even though my mom made me try most every food available, I don’t branch out much and order something that I am not 100% certain I’ll like. When I go to a fast food place that serves burgers (In-’N-Out, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Rally Burger, etc…) I order, pretty much, the same thing every time; Double-Cheese Burger (ketchup only), French Fries and a Coke (Pepsi whenever available). Not very exciting, but I can order that most any place and be fairly sure I’m going to end up happy. Well, there is one intangible that is being overlooked. That’s the fast food employee. This is the person who ultimately decides the fate of your dining experience. I worked in a food service business for about 11 years. I know the work that goes into it and I also know how poorly these people are paid. I can understand how serving burgers is probably VERY low on their list of life goals. But, at the same time, they should remember who walked into the store and asked for the application, filled it out and then accepted the job once it was offered to them. My biggest problem is this: I order my burger with ketchup only. That means, I do not want Mustard, Lettuce, Onion, Pickle, Mayo, Secret Sauce or whatever else the place puts on their burgers. JUST KETCHUP. (again, I don’t think I’m asking too much here…) While 9 out of 10 times I will get the burger back and it will only have ketchup (as ordered), that’s only the beginning of the problem. Let me ask you a question. If I were to tell you that I wanted Ketchup only, would you take that to mean that instead of putting mustard, mayo, onion, pickle and secret sauce on the burger, I instead wanted you to replace all those ingredients with equal amounts of ketchup? For example, lets say the burger place puts 5 things (other than the meat and cheese) on the burger. I said I wanted ketchup only, therefore eliminating 4 of the 5 items normally on the burger. Would you then be compeled to put 4 times more ketchup on the burger in what can only be explained as a means of making up for the lack of other items? Welcome to my hell! This drives me nuts! I get my burger, unwrap it and take a nice size bite only to realize that I am eating equal parts of meat and ketchup. If I had a cup of hot water, I could just about make tomato soup out of the excess. McDonald’s is the worst for this. Not just locally, but everywhere I’ve been. I think what they must do is weigh the burger before delivering it to the customer. I can hear it now, “Nope, it doesn’t weigh enough. Add some more ketchup”. Sheesh! Wendy’s and Rally Burgers are almost as bad as McDonald’s, but that Red-Haired Clown is the champ, hands down! That’s not to say that all fast food places are like this. In-’N-Out Burger is the one place that I can go that gets it right (almost) every time. There has been one or two occasions where I’ve ended up with a ketchup burger, but for the most part, they get it right. I wonder if they put their employees through some sort of common sense training before they hire them? I couldn’t be sure. But, whatever it is, it’s working. I’ll be back.”