(no subject)

[ravencallscrows]

At the moment, it's 88 degrees Fahrenheit (30°C) in the Emerald City. Fortunately, the humidity is low- about 25%- and there's a bit of a breeze, so it's not purely overwhelming. It's still pretty damn hot, though.

We had some errands on the Eastside to run today, so were on the far side of the lake by the time the mercury started climbing in earnest. Deciding that air-conditioning was a GoodThing™, we elected to grab lunch and kick around Bellevue Square.

First of all, i will never refer to SUVs in this space again, unless driven by one of those people who actually use them off-road or in a sporting or utility capacity from time to time. When driven by Kirkland or Bellevue suburbanites, they will henceforth be known as UAVs- Urban Assault Vehicles. Successfully dodged the yuppiemobiles and the UAVs with only a close call on 520 eastbound when an idiot in a silver Jetta decided that neither the traffic laws nor the Pauli Exclusion Principle applied to him, as he drove between our van and the vehicle in the lane adjacent to us, at something approximating 85 mph. How he didn't hit either us or the car in the other lane i don't know. DIEYUPPIESCUM!

Errands went fast. We now have a 4-port USB hub, another cordless phone, and an electric can opener to replace the seriously nasty looking one we have now. Then lunch, which was pretty unremarkable, then soaking up mechanically chilled air. Had to make an obligatory stop by the Apple store, just to torment gwynnaaron and ithilien (hey- by the time you make it here, the one in University Village will be open as well). Took a look at things while there and priced out a G5 system at just under $5k.

Back in Magnolia now, and the house isn't overwhelmingly hot. Life is good.

Comments

[hottoastermama.livejournal.com]

Uh oh. Martha Stewart will be out for your ass. She's got the Good Thing TM. Unless you want to help her make embroidered button holes in her napkins so you can hook them to your button up dress shirts.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Edited to not infringe upon trademark. I hope i can still use GoodThing™ without fear of legal reprisals.

[gwynn-aaron.livejournal.com]

Well we won't be buying Panther in Seattle like we had told ourselves we would, but we are consoling ourselves with the fact that there will be two glorious Apple Stores for us to revel in once we get out there. Damn, but we should be moving right about the same time the first Cleveland store is actually opening :-P Oh well, at least I know I'll be buying my own G5 in one of those two stores by you.

*sigh*
*bliss*
*drool*

[inanna.livejournal.com]

i discovered today that i am too stupid to own an iPod. Bleh.

[gwynn-aaron.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's possible, dearling. It's certainly possible to be too smart to use one because it operates on such simple principles. I'm sure that's what happened to you.

[inanna.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Thank you for the pat on the head, but i couldn't get the f-ing volume to change, no matter what i did. Once i got a picture to show up that sorta looked like a volume screen, but then it disappeared before i could do anything to it and i couldn't get it to come back. :D

[gwynn-aaron.livejournal.com]

While a song is playing you move your finger/thumb clockwise on the wheel to raise the volume and counter-clockwise to lower it. While in a list view you use this same control to scroll up and down the list.

[inanna.livejournal.com]

Ok... now i feel silly. Although if a salesperson had bothered to say anything to us while we were there, that might have been another story.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

The cute one did say hi to us. Then she got busy helping other people.

[inanna.livejournal.com]

That would have been the "you and nicholas" us :) He is a total babe magnet, as you have mentioned before. :D

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

No, i mean other people. People dressed as if they lived in Bellevue, not us scruffy, black-clad urban dwellers.

And i would assume the reference is to nicholas.

[gwynn-aaron.livejournal.com]

Usually they are pretty helpful, but I find that they don't tend to hover around customers trying to find ways to be so. I've always hated that about retail shopping — sales staff that just won't leave you alone. Could be they were just pretty busy?

[inanna.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, there were other customers in the store, but not once did anyone make eye contact with me and say "Do you need help with anything?" Not even when i was actively looking at and comparing software titles (picking up boxes, turning them to read system requirements, etc.). Not even when i spent 3-5 minutes at the iPod display and was obviously interested and having troubles with the product (confused look, comment to another customer who walked up across from me, putting down the product in disgust). And since (at that time) there were 2 employees standing at the desk with maybe 1 customer there (off and on there was 1 customer in front of the desk, but there were 2 people behind it most all the time) i would have thought someone would have stopped by. i don't like being hovered over, but being acknowleged is nice. i am guessing (from what he said) that someone acknowleged wingedelf at one point... but since we weren't standing together or interacting most of the time we were in the store, i would have expected at least a "hello" from someone.

Yeah, too many years in customer service and retail sales has given me ultra-high standards for customer service... but at the price of Apple products i would expect that they would be attentive to, or at least actively acknowlege, each customer who enters.

When i worked at Kit's Cameras i learned the hard way that you never assume anyone is not going to buy. i was showing a new 8mm camcorder to one gentleman and another walked up and was listening in. Neither looked like "buyers" - they looked like "shoppers", if you know what i mean. Well, when i was done explaining the camcorder, let them look at it, and describing useful accessories i asked for the sale (you always ask for the sale, if you don't they might not buy) and to my utter amazement BOTH customers bought complete outfits! i had 2 $1500+ sales from one demo where i was sure i was wasting my time. Taught me a lesson i have never forgotten.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they were. Non-employees outnumbered employees in the store at least 5:1.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

I think she was just looking for discreetly labled controls. ;-)

[razordead.livejournal.com]

What the hell is the "Pauli Exclusion Principle" ?

[gwynn-aaron.livejournal.com]

The Pauli Exclusion Principle (formulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli) states that no two electrons in an atom can have the same quantum number — that is to say occupy the same state. Roughly this means that no two atoms can occupy the same "space" or "position" in an atom. I believe that Vanya was using this to indicate that the cars seemed to be occupying the same physical space as one another, which should have resulted in a catastrophic explosion of some sort.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

The concept that no two pieces of matter can occupy the exact same space at the same time. In short, any particle can only get *so close* to another. We damn near had a wheel well full of idiot-driven Jetta.