Marie Claire (1-year)

Hearst Magazines, Magazine, $42.00

This used to be my favorite fashion magazine. That’s right, it *used* to be.

It’s really changed a lot when the new editor took over (Joanna Coles). The design is awful, some sections are almost ineligible.It also feels like they’re trying too hard to be like Vogue or Bazaar. If I wanted to read one of those magazines, I’d buy them.

Interestingly, I may not the only one who feels this way. Sales have been consistently low since Ms. Coles took over. In other industries, most executives would be “dealt with” fairly quickly if they were impacting the bottom line. Why does poor performance seem to be more tolerated in publishing?

For now, all I can say is that my subscription ran out and for the first time in many years, I won’t be renewing it. I am now subscribing to the UK version.

Marie Claire - Uk Edition

Ipc Magazines Ltd, Magazine, $106.00

We were hit by a bad storm here in California that started early Friday morning.

By 10:00 am, our power went out.

By 6:00 pm, power was back in our neighborhood, except for our street. We kept calling PG&E to get updates in vain.

Woke up this morning, still no power. It finally came back around 2:00 pm. All of our food was spoiled by then. Joy.

I shouldn’t complain though. There were significant damages in some other areas so we were actually pretty lucky.

Jura-Capresso 13299 Impressa Z6 Automatic Coffee and Espresso Center

Capresso, Kitchen, $4,900.00

I love our coffeemaker. Absolutely love it.

I also miss our coffeemaker. See, a couple of weeks ago, it broke down in a freakish way. The used grounds container somehow got dislodged and the machine detected it. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of making espresso and it went a bit crazy. The blade thingy would not go back up. So we had to send it in to have it fixed.

I can’t wait to have it back. I don’t know how much longer I can go without…

Imagine ordering the bouquet on the top and receiving the one on the bottom? And a day late!
That’s what happened with a Teleflora order.
The flowers were supposed to arrive on Tuesday. They didn’t.

A call to customer service went something like this:
20 minutes of wait time for a rep. Then finally, a live person.
“Hi. My name is Maria. How can I help you?”
“We are wondering why some flowers that were supposed to arrive today, didn’t.”
“Let me check”. More wait. “It says here it’s unreachable”
“Uh, what does that mean?”
“That your address is unreachable by any of our florists”
“That’s odd, I live in Silicon Valley so not really a remote area by any means. And your site indicated there were 28 florists who delivered to my house”
“Well, it says unreachable. We’ll reschedule for tomorrow.”
“Thanks, that’s helpful. Can I talk to your manager?”
“I said we’re scheduling for tomorrow”
“I understand, but I still want to talk to a supervisor to understand why my address was “unreachable”‘
“They’re too busy”
“Can you please get a supervisor on the phone”
“Please hold”
Hold for another 2 minutes
“They’re all in a meeting. No supervisor available”

That’s insane and obviously a rep worried about her job instead of someone motivated to offer customer support. So I decide to write to them.

The next day, a completely strange bouquet arrives. No resemblance to what was ordered whatsoever. Green wad of tissue paper stuck on top of it and all. Duncan was not happy after his thorough inspection.

Another call to support.

“We can come pick up the flowers and give you a refund”
“That would be great”
“Ok, I’ve noted here that the customer didn’t think the flowers were of high quality and that we’ll be picking them up”
Grrr…

Don’t feed greenies to your pets, they’re extremely dangerous. Duncan had to go to the vet twice, staying overnight both times, because he swallowed a piece of greenie and it was obstructing his esophagus. It was awful, he couldn’t eat, kept throwing up. The vets were worried that he may not make it.

He’s fine now but it was a huge scare. The vet told us they always have dogs come in with the same problem. I can’t believe this product hasn’t been banned.

Edmond Fallot Dijon Mustard

Edmond Fallot, Unknown Binding,

A couple of weeks ago, a tiny little jar of mustard fell on the stupid glass top of our range causing it to crack in several places. So I talked to our landlord and he said he could fix it if we ordered the part. I then called Whirlpool and found out that the part costs $364. It’s a $500 oven for god’s sake. So we kept looking online for cheaper places and came up with nothing! It took me a few days to get used to the fact that we would just have to go with it. To sum it all up, I just got off the phone with Whirlpool and plonked down $409.03 for the part. We might as well have spent a few extra dollars and bought a new GAS stove! Argh!

I’m sick. It started Sunday night. Three other people in my group are sick too. And three more if you go up one level in the management chain. We’ve been calling it “The Plague”. Anyway, time to go take my super-drowsy meds.

Ugh, I’m still at work. And I thought things were getting better earlier this week. At least I’m done with all my hiring until July (I hope that’s true). My team grew from 7 to 18 people in the past 4 months. It’s been nuts! Now I need to get all the new people up to speed so I’ll probably still be MIA for a couple more weeks.

It wasn’t super cold but it was cold enough that my toes were complaining. Unfortunately, I leave for Tucson AZ on Wed. so I won’t be able to enjoy the cooler weather for too long. But I’ll be back Friday night. Just in time for my b-day weekend. BTW, can I just say that it sucks that I won’t be able to start pre-celebrating on Thursday b/c of this annoying business trip?

Sex and the City - The Complete Series (Collector’s Giftset)

Hbo Home Video 1998, DVD, $299.98

The Sweetest Thing

Sony Pictures 2002, DVD, $9.95

I think I just watched the worst movie ever. The Sweetest Thing needs to be renamed. The title is misleading. It was awful! And the worst part? I already watched the episode of Sex & The City I had Tivoed so now I have nothing to chase it down with.