Amazon: The wii fit saga (episode 2)

Yeah. OK. First, let me say that this actually wasn't Amazon's fault, in my view. It's a further testament to the appalling service offered by Royal Mail.

A few days after the GAME incident, I managed to secure another Wii Fit. This time, from Amazon - thank you OneClick(tm)!

Woo. Well. Thats sorted. Amazon are cool, and stuff almost always arrives quickly.

Almost. Not always. In this case, it never arrived at all. Not even after a couple of weeks.

Amazon were great as usual - they apologised and refunded me the total immediately - saying that they would normally send a replacement gratis, but of course, Wii Fit is out of stock, so that option is nixed.

On the plus side, I found out through this process that Amazon's checkout process automatically subtracts VAT if you are in the C.I, which is (to my mind) correct - which is another plus point for them, in my book. I wasn't sure if this was the case or not, as their help is a bit confusing on this issue.

Ordered some stuff from them more recently, and it was sent from IndigoStarFish - their Jersey merchant, and arrived the day after being ordered (at 4pm), despite the fact that I picked "Super Saver". Yay.

Still need a damn Wii Fit though.. Back to the stock checker!

GAME: The wii fit saga begins..

So. For her birthday (end of June), I got the other half "Wii Fit". Or rather, I tried to - incase you have been living in a well sheltered cave, it is quite totally out of stock, unless you want to pay over-the-odds to one of the evil swine who bought loads when it was briefly available.

Thusly, I made a little voucher. Sad, I know. Then I sat on one of the real-time stock watching sites (check out this one, its really good - http://www.wii-consoles.co.uk/wii_fit_realtime.asp ). Eventually, I managed to procure one from GAME.

It was bundled with some piece of crap cover I didn't really want, but what the heck - it was £84.98 including the cover, which seemed a reasonable idea anyway. Sadly GAME do not subtract VAT when shipping to the Channel Islands (we now live in Jersey) - I decided to take the hit on that too.

Knowing that companies can be a little special about the C.I, I checked their terms and conditions carefully before ordering - risking my valuable opportunity by doing so. They define the C.I as part of the UK (incorrect, but never mind), and also state "We do not ship any item over 1kg outside of the UK". Um. OK. Well you say we are in the UK, so lets do it!

Yeah. Good plan. Shame it didn't turn up. They did post it (or at least, give it to parcel force), but sadly only with the documentation and postage paid for delivery in England. So it went back to the depot. One furious argument later, I was told to check the T&Cs. Uh. Yeah. They imply that it shouldn't be a problem..

Got a refund. But only for the Wii Fit itself. The cover turned up, and they won't refund it. Great. Now I have a flippin' useless cover thing I didn't want, for a console accessory which they decided they couldn't send me. Nobbers.

Lesson 1: Don't bother with GAME, unless you really go into the shop, they're a bunch of idiots, and their customer support, by the way, sucks. I only got a reply after threatening to report the whole transaction as fraudulent..

Long time, no blog..

Wow, long time without posting.

Never fear, this is not because I have run out of things to complain about - I've just been busy, moving house, etc.

I'm going to put up a few posts soon, detailing all the things which have f.. errr.. TICKED me off recently..

Welfare Friendly (tastier) Chicken!

Go here and support Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall's Chicken campaign.

Finished watching his short series "Hugh's Chicken Run" last night, which was informative and well presented - about the plight of intensively reared meat chickens.

I don't think he made enough of a fuss over the MAIN reason (for me) to support the move to free-range though - its much, much, much nicer to eat. Now theres real incentive. A happy by-product is that it is a far less cruel way to rear food stock. Yay.

Book - Making Money (Terry Pratchett)

Just finished reading this (got it for £9.99 in a bookshop in town, which is decent for a hardback).

It's really good - if you liked "Going Postal", this one is great too, as it's another adventure for Moist von Lipwig, and also has cameos from other Ankh-Morpork favourites (even a few good lines for Vimes, which always makes me smile).

Top read.

Fatness

According to the "largest ever UK study" on obesity (see here on the BBC news website), the general idea now seems to be to take away responsibility from the individuals.

Bull.

To misquote Ricky Gervais from his "Fame" tour (which is utterly amazing, by the way - buy the DVD right now - NOW - NOW!! What are you waiting for??):

Uh. Why not just have TEN pie and chips a day, instead of ELEVEN??

It's NOT a disease!

Madrid, via Easyjet

Got back from Madrid on monday (friend's wedding). Really nice place - we stayed in the NH Hotel at Coslada, which was actually quite good - friendly staff, clean environment, excellent state of repair etc.

Madrid itself is brill - lots of nice places to eat and drink, nice and warm at this time of year, and lots of cool things to see in the city centre (and we went there on a Sunday, so I suspect its even better on a sensible day).

However. We got there (and back) with Easyjet. They shouldn't be called "Easy" Jet. They should be called something else, like "How hard can you possibly make it jet". Check-in was actually good, and the cabin crew were above average as well - but the praise ends there.

They don't allocate seats at check-in (which is why it is so quick and there are smaller queues), however, this turns boarding into what can only be called a "stampede". The guy handling it at Gatwick dealt with this by shouting and screaming at people - not ideal - although it worked. At Madrid, they didn't even try, and just let people push and shove to get through. Rubbish.

Oh, and on the way there, they ran out of proper food (e.g. manky sandwiches) by row 8. Not good on an Airbus 320.