Magic Jewball

I know you spend your days pondering the following: “I wonder what the worst electronics & CD store on the entire earth is?” Because I love to answer questions, I’ll tell you that I know this one and I know it well. Yes, friends, it’s the Circuit City on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Could there be a worse store for either electronics OR CD’s? How about customer service or the lack thereof?

I think last night might have been my final straw with them. But let me back up a little and just say that I have never, ever gone there with the intention of buying a non-new-release CD and actually found it. Sure, they have the stuff that was released last Tuesday, but their CD racks seem to be there just to tease you into thinking they might actually carry the pre-2006 CD you wanted. No sir!

And don’t bother asking anyone anything. They never know. I think my favorite customer “service” event happened last Christmastime when I went looking for a Discman for a gift for someone-or-other. My conversation with the salesguy went something like this:

Me: Do you have the El Cheapo brand Discman on sale in your flyer?
Him: I’m sorry, that’s not in my zone.
Me: Pardon?
Him: We each cover zones. The portable electronics zone is over there but the guy is on break.
Me: So you can’t step over 30 feet and show me where it is?
Him: I’ll get fired. Do you know what my rent is?

Uh, no. And I never found out. But that brings me to last night when I went with a friend of mine visiting from Israel, Naftali, whom I’m namechecking shamelessly to ensure he’ll read my blog from now on. It was clear the store would be closing shortly and it was nearly empty. We went upstairs, found the two external hard drives that were on sale and I proceeded to ask the salesguy if the no-name yet cheaper one was decent. He said, “I haven’t received any complaints on any of the hard drives.” Now, I ask you, when was the last time you complained to the store sales guy that your hard drive crashed? But, you know, that was what I wanted to hear so I went with it.

He got another guy to open the case for us and get me the one on sale. Or so we thought. Because they were closing soon, they had closed all the registers except the customer service desk. Which is fabulous because you get to wait on line for one cashier behind all the people with long, drawn-out issues. The woman in front of me won the prize, though, because she went ballistic and insisted she had pulled out her credit card and now it was gone. First she declared that the cashier had lost it. Then she moved on to contend that it had been stolen by some other customer. Because of that, she insisted the cashier let her use the phone to call Amex to cancel it that very second because someone was out using it to buy things RIGHT NOW. Of course, since she didn’t have the card, she didn’t have a number so wanted the cashier to find that for her. Naftali and I spent this time debating whether it was in her pocket or if she had left it at home.

By the time they got to me I was ready to jam the hard drive down someone’s throat. But finally, the cashier rang it up and it came up as double the actual price in the sales flyer. We determined that the guy upstairs had given me the wrong one. Great. So we went back upstairs (of course the security guard, who wanted to close up, tried to stop us) to find the salesguy who when I pointed to the one in the flyer, said, “oh yeah, we don’t have that one.” Naturally.

So why do I keep going back to this store? Because it’s the nearest one to me, at the moment I have a giftcard there, and it’s the cheapest thing in the area. Of course, things are always cheap when they’re not in stock and so you can’t buy them. But I’m counting on them for the new Deftones CD which comes out on Tuesday. I’m sure if I get there within 12 hours of its release they’ll have it. I just hope I don’t have to ask anyone for help.

The Polecats – Make A Circuit With Me

I know I said the next post would be Jew & A, but I lied. I’m just a big liar. You caught me. I’m so ashamed.

Anyway, this morning, the subway train I was riding stopped moving for no apparent reason. Finally, they announced that there was a train ahead of us and we’d be moving shortly. Speaking of liars, I had been waiting 10 minutes for this particular train I was on and so I can reveal to you that THERE WAS NO TRAIN AHEAD OF US.

As if this lie wasn’t baldfaced enough, I could dimly hear an announcement on the platform that the entire line was out of service due some problem having to do with the heat. (It’s a furnace here right now, as if to show us liars what Hell is like, that is, if I believed in Hell). Now, I was angry this morning to begin with (just one of those angry days) but by the time I walked a mile to work in the blazing heat, I was enraged.

Were there no heatwaves in 1904 when they built this thing? How can iron rails not withstand 100 degree heat? Why do tourists not cross on red lights? Why did that taxi feel the need to come thisclose to running over my foot? Why must Starbucks blast air conditioned coffee aroma at me while I’m trying to get to work and only be an hour late? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS CITY?

I’ll add a song later when I’m good and ready and you’ll like it, damn it!

Two rants in a row. I am on a freaking roll! But see, this is really an appendix to the last one. Because the other thing to hate about summer, or pre-summer, is the glut of graduation ceremonies. But let me distinguish.

Graduation – a fine, fine thing
Graduation ceremony – torture that makes people envy the inmates at Abu Ghraib

I realize why graduations have to be long and speech-filled. Unlike a wedding or Bar Mitzvah, there is no actual ceremony. The second you hand in your last paper or, in the case of the high school and grade school graduations I just attended, take your last exam or attend your last class, bingo bango, it’s done. So they just sort of artificially inflate the moment to make it last longer.

“This….moment…of….your….commencement…is….
reeeeeaaaaallly…imp….or….tant.”

Since they can’t do that, they have lots of speeches. Then they give each person their diploma while the rest of the class, as well as the people who love them but aren’t so sure anymore, cool their heels. Is this really efficient? Why not just hand over the rolled up scroll on the way in? Oh right, it might not seem like four or eight years was worth it if the ceremony was too short. You know how people say, “My whole wedding just went by in a blur – the time just flew?” Do you ever hear a graduate say that? So it’s not just me, the excruciatingly bored audience member, who feels this way.

And while I’m ranting, why are graduations called commencements? Sure, I get it, you’re beginning a new stage in your life. But have you ever heard of something that has two names, each of which has the exact opposite meaning?

But at least with college graduations there are often interesting speakers. At my graduation, there was a morning and an afternoon part. At one we had Brian Mulroney, then the prime minister of Canada (luckily I had been to enough hockey games to know all the words to “O Canada”) and at the other was Lee Iacoca. Lee Iacoca. You know you’re going to have an auspicious career in business when they get the guy responsible for the biggest bankruptcy ever to give you advice. This year they had Jon Stewart. Why didn’t I get Jon Stewart? I mean, he was hosting Remote Control on MTV back then and everything!

I guess it would have been too much to ask to have Jon speak at my niece’s grade school ceremony, wouldn’t it? Right. Thought so.

Simon & Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson

This is going to be one of those rants. Sorry. But I did warn you. Those who are not in a ranty mood can go look at porn now. No complaining later.

Anyway, I hate summer. I think I’m the only one, based on that whole “yay it’s summer” vibe you get everywhere you look. But all the great things people say about it are all myths!

1. Easy & laid back times
Someone forgot to tell my company about this. We have no summer hours and the pace of work goes unabated during this period. And why not? It’s not like people stop buying music because it suddenly got hot. I’d like to know, other than schools, what business exactly does slow down over the summer? Who are these people who just get to lie around in hammocks?

2. Delightful weather
Again, just not seeing this. Not in my circumstances anyway. New York seems to go from rainy/damp/cool straight to 95 degrees and 75% humidity. It makes doing anything besides sitting in an air-conditioned room unbearable, like the strength has completely left your body and nothing seems important except getting out of whatever place you happen to be.

3. Fun days at the beach
People who know me are already rolling their eyes. Yes, I hate the beach. What is the point of the beach? Lying around in baking heat? Squinting uncomfortably at a book and eating mushy sandwiches? The long drive? The exhausted long drive back? This is something I will never understand.

4. Vacation
Because everywhere one goes is four times as expensive during the summer, I never travel at this time of year. I like May or September when I can get a good deal and the rest of the known universe isn’t also vacationing right there. Instead, I get to stay at work, doing the labor of several other absent people.

5. Summer music
Bites.

Now, I’m sure the fact that I just spent $1500 on new air conditioners and that said air conditioners couldn’t be installed due to me not having some part I never heard of has just a little to do with the timing of this rant. See, the idiots who designed my building decided it’d be fun to have not one iota of choice for those living in the units, so they stuck wall-through holes in the living and bedrooms. They decided with the one in the bedroom that they should cut that chunk into the size of a unit whose smallest incarnation has twice as much power as that size room needs to be cooled. High five!

But it’s OK, the AC units I had before date to the Reagan administration so I’m sure these will last at least until we find Osama. Of course, should the terrorists bomb Manhattan into oblivion, air conditioners will be the least of my worries. See? I’m always looking on the bright side of things.

What are all these songs about summer breezes and winds anyway? Here, any breeze just blows humid air into your face and warm dirt into your contact lenses.

Deftones – My Own Summer (Shove It) [Clean]

Well, my cell phone is dead. Moment of silence for my cell phone. Not too long, though. Make it like the moment of silence that Bob Sheppard calls for “our servicemen and women stationed around the globe” in the seventh inning stretch at Yankee Stadium. That is, like 4 seconds.

See, I’m not wedded to this thing as many of you are. Oh, I love pocket-sized electronic devices, that’s for sure. Sometimes I pile my cell phone on top of my iPod on top of my PDA and admire the layer cake of gadgets that I carry around. But I don’t talk much on my cell phone. First off, I am either at work or at home for 95% of my day and my landline service is far clearer. Second, half of that other 5% is made up of subway riding where there is no service. (Thank God. Can you imagine? “Yeah, I’m on the uptown B, where you at?” for miles and miles.) Here, I included a handy graph. It’s a little blurry, but you get the idea.

Here’s the key in case you don’t have 20/5 vision.

Work 65%
Home 30%
Subway 2.5%
Walking someplace V. important 1%
In the bowels of the Time Warner Center 1%
Misc. stupidity .5%

Of course, there’s much overlap between “Work” and “Misc. stupidity” but my graphing capability is limited.

But mostly, I have an old fashioned sense of propriety about phone conversations that irritates most people I know to no end. You know that behavior you have that you feel certain that your friends joke about when you’re not around? I’m sure I have several but I know this is one. I just don’t chat on cell phones. For one thing, I’m quite private and I don’t like to be yelling, “What do you mean he’s cheating on you?” at Starbucks. Once, the woman in front of me on line at the Food Emporium was having an entire, matter-of-fact, conversation on her cell phone about how her doctor had told her she couldn’t have children. Holy crap, how am I supposed to just watch my groceries slide across the belt and then go on with my day after that?

Even if I’m at home, I get annoyed if you call me from your cell phone. If you have no landline, that’s OK. But if you do, and you still chose to call me from waiting on line to get into “The Da Vinci Code,” well, how important am I supposed to feel? I guess the time you have at home is just too valuable to waste on little old me. And if I want to tell you something meaningful, “Hey, I’m really depressed,” or whatever, do I want you saying, “What? Can you repeat that?” every three seconds while I know you are simultaneously surrounded by a horde of strangers?

So, I rarely use mine. But that’s OK, it calculates tips and has a flashlight. I have Virgin Mobile which is pay-as-you-go and I pay essentially $5 a month. I almost never use it up. The Olympic moment for my cell phone is at the US Open in August/September when my family and I use our phones all day to say things like, “What match are you at? Should I come over? Is it a blowout? No, come here, it’s going into the fifth set and all the Chilean fans are going crazy!” We should really learn to text because, if you’ve ever been to the US Open, you know that people will give you the Stare of Death if you take a phone call while points are being played. That leads to a hastily whispered, “Court 12, on serve…call you right back. Bring ice cream.”

And so, I do need one. Sadly, at Virgin Mobile, part of the a la carte experience is not getting a free phone. So I will now have to shell out for either a “clamshell” or straight up model. I just need to make sure it has a good flashlight.

Yeah, I could have gone with either Hanging on the Telephone or Call Me (which my mother used to add several extra any’s to when she sang it: “Call me any any any any any time…..”) by Blondie. But that would have been too easy. I really wanted “Telephone Operator” by Pete Shelley but it’s not available on Napster. So let’s go with this gem from the early ‘90’s.

Primitive Radio Gods – Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand