the girly who shall end all girls

today, UPS left the standard passive-aggressive sticky note and no package.

but hey, if you contact them by seven, you can drive yourself to their warehouse in SODO between the railroad tracks, and then stand around and wait through most of the one-hour window they give you until the package is produced.

and lo, M$ gave us a new 360 with a warranty instead of repairing our busted old one, and a month of Live for our troubles.

they did not, however, send along a power block or a/v cord.




*headdesk*




if you call the service number on the website, you go through a series of recordings that never lead you to a human. if you exhaust the automated menu, it actually says "then i can't help you".

i used their email form. they make you choose a problem from a drop-down menu. "Console will not power on" it is.

Microsoft support tracking is very well-designed. they know that console gamers are needy. they have happy little icons and package up the UPS tracking info in a way that makes it look like progress is happening.

and it is.

our 360 is slowly crawling across the country. since there hasn't been another scan since Wednesday, i took the UPS tracking number off the M$ site and visited UPS where i confirmed the worst. the UPS delivery date is on their site. as you may know, UPS never brings you the thing early, even if it is sitting in the local warehouse.

now i know that it will arrive next week, on a day that both of us work. SIGNATURE REQUIRED.



i tell people to never send us UPS because they won't leave us packages, even if we sign the "we missed you" slip or otherwise beg and swear that we will bear the risk of the package being left on our porch-that-is-invisible-from-the-street. package delivery is not convenient if i have to stay home from work, drive to SODO, or add several days having them reroute to my office (which we are not supposed to do anyway).

i suspect one of us will stay home from work to sign for it. hate.

i thought i would look into renting a 360 for a day or two while we wait for repairs.

Blockbuster doesn't do it anymore.

Rent-A-Center is just creepy. first, there are no prices or terms anywhere on their website. second, the store finder is like a map of low-income neighborhoods and military bases in the region. (not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that, but predatory much?)