Random Rants LXVIII: Burn it all to the ground and start over!

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I nearly broke my leg playing Alien:Isolation...

I had a little go with Alien:Isolation last night...

I have all of the lights off, and my surround sound headphones on. The alien is coming up behind me, and I can hear it. It's that close. I spin to try to avoid it, I see its face fill the screen...

... and my roommate puts her hand on my shoulder.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, practically peed myself, and cracked my shin against the bottom of my desk. I now have a nearly orange-sized lump on my shin and it hurts to walk. I'm going for X-rays on Monday. :(
 
Bloody hell… have you put ice on it?

re: groceries. What's the 'Muricanadian cultural implication of having groceries delivered?
 
The grocery store decided they want to deliver Sunday night instead of Saturday afternoon. I order food for the day after I run out because my fridge isn't so great.

The delay could be seen as problematic.
Do they have a standard delivery day, or is this a store where you can order in the morning and expect the delivery in the evening (or maybe the next day)? What reason do they give for the delay? I guess you don't have an emergency food stash (3 days' worth of canned food/bottled beverages) that don't need refrigeration or cooking?

I've had a few goarounds with the store I order from... I get that sometimes they're very busy and have to do it the next day. I get highly annoyed when they want to put it off again, and when they tried for yet another day, I reminded them that some of what I ordered was deli salads that wouldn't keep that long, I'm concerned about how fresh it would be after that many days, and I'd been pretty patient for a lot of times when I'd been bumped to the bottom of the pile for next-day deliveries. Being repeatedly bumped is unacceptable, considering the fact that I order a lot of dairy and deli items that don't have a long shelf life (milk and egg salad) and as someone whose family has had a membership there for over 55 years, I think a bit more consideration is merited for loyal customers.

re: groceries. What's the 'Muricanadian cultural implication of having groceries delivered?
Not sure what the "'Muri" part of that has to do with this. Some people have groceries delivered because they're busy and don't have time to shop. Some people don't like shopping for various reasons (crowds, frustration of having to search for things, lineups at the checkout). Some neighborhoods are basically "food deserts" because they might have a convenience store in them, but no real grocery store (or at least not an affordable one) and it's a long way to get to a real grocery store.

Most of those reasons are why I have food delivered. There's a convenience store nearby, but given the potholiness of the parking lot here, the very busy street in front, the uneven sidewalks, plus the doorway and aisles of the store are too narrow to accommodate walkers, it's impossible for me to even get to this place, let alone get in there.

The nearest affordable grocery store is in Walmart, and I do pick up a few things there if it's considerably cheaper than my regular store or if they have it and the regular store doesn't (that's how I found out about hot dog-flavored Pringles). Walmart offers some of its non-perishable items online, and that's how I get Maddy's cat milk - it's considerably cheaper than anywhere else (gotta put in another order soon; I have to throw out the stuff in the fridge, and she's only got 2 left).

The store where I have the membership (it's a cooperative) is way across town. The cost of delivering it is less than half what it would cost for me to take a taxi there, so I just phone in the order and the manager delivers it... eventually. I don't object to the next day if I've put my order in later in the day. But when I get calls that say, "Oh, he can't do it today, he'll do it tomorrow" and this continues past the next day I was expecting, I've actually gotten to the point where I've said, "Tomorrow morning, or cancel the order and I'll go to Walmart." Since my orders are usually fairly large or pricey (I tend to order case lots whenever possible, and cat food and litter aren't cheap at the best of times), they haven't tested that yet.
 
Do they have a standard delivery day, or is this a store where you can order in the morning and expect the delivery in the evening (or maybe the next day)?

The latter. You can get your order within 12 hours (assuming it's open). I make my order a couple days before though since it happens regularly that they're out of stock with certain things if I order day-of or the night before.

What reason do they give for the delay?

"We're too busy."

I guess you don't have an emergency food stash (3 days' worth of canned food/bottled beverages) that don't need refrigeration or cooking?

Sort of. I have bread in the freezer and some cans of soup but they've changed the recipe for the soup. It makes me sick now. :(

I also usually have some frozen entrees stashed away but I ate them all after returning from Seattle and haven't restocked them.

It's really just bad timing. My fault. :p
 
The latter. You can get your order within 12 hours (assuming it's open). I make my order a couple days before though since it happens regularly that they're out of stock with certain things if I order day-of or the night before.
Do they offer rain checks?

"We're too busy."
Given that you order a couple of days in advance, that's BS. I get that excuse as well, even when I'm trying to place my order: "I'm really busy with a customer here..." and my response is, "Yes, you are. Me. I'm your customer, and am no less a customer for being on the phone instead of standing in front of you." The customer they're dealing with in person is one who's only there to buy lottery tickets and cigarettes, and I've kicked this up to the manager (he's the one who does the deliveries) that I don't appreciate being talked to as though I'm inconveniencing the clerks who answer the phone.

If I still lived in the neighborhood, I would still do all my own shopping as long as the manager continued to let me borrow the carts (I had a chat with him about that, and told him that I returned the cart along with any others I came across between the store and my building - there were usually one or two). But I live across town now, and since there's not a lot a person can take with a taxi or the handibus, I found it's more efficient to have it delivered.

IF I can get through an order without a whiny-voiced clerk telling me how "busy" she is, and could she call me back, and wants to know why I say "not between 2-3 pm (not her business, but that's when my soap opera is on, and I don't answer the phone during that hour). I do get that there are times when they really are busy... but they don't need to be rude about it. I've told the manager that if he offers a delivery service, he should make sure there are people who can take the orders.

Have you talked to the manager about this? They're offering a service and not fulfilling the terms, if they're giving you excuses when you're placing orders well in advance. You're giving them lots of notice so they shouldn't have any trouble picking the order and making sure you're on the list for timely delivery.


Sort of. I have bread in the freezer and some cans of soup but they've changed the recipe for the soup. It makes me sick now. :(
:(

If the soup isn't stale-dated, you could pass it along to a food bank or soup kitchen. That way someone would get use of it. My store has 10-for $10 sales (or other amounts for $10, depending on the item) and those are the times when I get some extra non-perishables. I've got enough cans of chili, for example, that it would easily last a couple of weeks if that's all I had and the electricity was out (I don't actually know what this tastes like hot; I always just open the can and eat it). There are some TV dinners and a loaf of bread in the freezer, soup, chili, rice, and canned salmon in the pantry, and enough water and other bottled beverages (pop, juice, etc. - no alcohol) that I could last a month or so if I really had to. Thank goodness the recent power outage wasn't long enough that I had to throw out too many things from the fridge.

I also usually have some frozen entrees stashed away but I ate them all after returning from Seattle and haven't restocked them.

It's really just bad timing. My fault. :p
If you're ordering 48 hours in advance and they're giving you the "too busy" excuse, it's their fault. Not yours.

Mind you, waiting until your cupboards are totally empty isn't good. Maybe tonight should be a cheap pizza night?
 
LOL...so now you are suggesting slowing down to allow a big gap (irritating everyone behind you), but speeding up to close it whenever you think someone might get in it (irritating the people beside you). In LA that gets you shot in a road rage incident.
Indeed. I can see it would. If you made it obvious what you were doing.

But in my experience, the average driver simply isn't that alert to what's going on around them.

And that's the trouble. That's what causes accidents.

Still, never mind. You keep on with your technique of leaving 2 cars lengths at 70 mph.

It isn't that bad, actually. Most drivers don't leave even that.

I don't get it. A lot of people seem to think that driving as closely as possible to the vehicle in front will get them to their destination quicker. The opposite is closer to the truth.
 
I nearly broke my leg playing Alien:Isolation...

I'm sorry, that sounds really painful and I hope it won't cause you any complications in future, but it does sound like something you'll be able to laugh about when it's healed up.
 
Not sure what the "'Muri" part of that has to do with this. Some people have groceries delivered because they're busy and don't have time to shop. Some people don't like shopping for various reasons (crowds, frustration of having to search for things, lineups at the checkout). Some neighborhoods are basically "food deserts" because they might have a convenience store in them, but no real grocery store (or at least not an affordable one) and it's a long way to get to a real grocery store.

Most of those reasons are why I have food delivered. There's a convenience store nearby, but given the potholiness of the parking lot here, the very busy street in front, the uneven sidewalks, plus the doorway and aisles of the store are too narrow to accommodate walkers, it's impossible for me to even get to this place, let alone get in there.

Delivering groceries is my current job, and I can attest that I meet all sorts of people who order from my employers, from wheelchair-bound 80-year-olds who physically can't get to the store on their own, to rural people who live too far away from any store to make it convenient, to rich urbanites who don't have the time and/or the inclination to go to the store themselves.

Don't know why the store Vincour is ordering from would be too busy, though, if he ordered enough time in advance. Could be they actually are too busy and way more people than usual ordered their stuff for Saturday before you did, I guess, but from what you're saying that sounds unlikely.
 
Don't know why the store Vincour is ordering from would be too busy, though, if he ordered enough time in advance. Could be they actually are too busy and way more people than usual ordered their stuff for Saturday before you did, I guess, but from what you're saying that sounds unlikely.

If I were to guess, it's because of driver error. If the driver messes up (i.e. doesn't include something that should have been included) the customer can ask that they go back to the store and get it. A handful of those in a city like Vancouver and you're probably hours behind schedule. The one time that happened to me it took them 45 minutes to go back to the store, get what was missed, and bring it back to me. I get my groceries delivered between 3-5 PM so a 5~ hour delay would mean that it gets pushed to the next day.

So I wondered, why would Tim be so surprised?
(besides his off-the-grid act, I mean).

I imagine it's because Tim is a go-getter and wouldn't want to be reliant on another person for something as critical as eating. :p
 
If I were to guess, it's because of driver error. If the driver messes up (i.e. doesn't include something that should have been included) the customer can ask that they go back to the store and get it. A handful of those in a city like Vancouver and you're probably hours behind schedule. The one time that happened to me it took them 45 minutes to go back to the store, get what was missed, and bring it back to me. I get my groceries delivered between 3-5 PM so a 5~ hour delay would mean that it gets pushed to the next day.
There was one time when my order was so full of errors that I actually lost count. Some things were missing, other things were the wrong size, the Swiffer pads they sent weren't even for the right kind of mop, and they hadn't followed my instructions and called to let me know that some things were sold out. I've told them over and over - phone me if something is sold out so I can decide whether to substitute a different flavor, ask for a rain check, or just not bother. I really don't like surprises.

Unfortunately, I don't get same-day fix-its. Fixing things usually means the manager will come by the next day with the correct items, or we negotiate something else that may involve not charging me for the item or making a note on my file that I'm entitled to such-and-such a thing at such-and-such a price on my next order (occasionally it's been at no charge). One thing I appreciate is a 5% discount on case lots. That's enough to pay the GST, at least.
 
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The first Gulf War ended in Feb 1991, Freddie Mercury died in Nov 1991 and the Soviet Union dissolved in Dec 1991.

All of those are closer to the moon landing in July 1969 than any of them are to today.
 
I've at least somewhat tried to go against all the notions of "OT is dying" or "OT is terrible", but I really do feel like this site isn't doing it for me anymore

Which is pretty bad, because I don't have any alternatives
 
Even if you leave I hope to still see you occasionally on Discord. :(
 
Tomorrow is a workday and two people are on vacation. I have to pick up the slack. Looks like I'll spend the long weekend doing paperwork. :mad:
 
Tim asked:

So I wondered, why would Tim be so surprised?
(besides his off-the-grid act, I mean).

I've genuinely never met anyone who got their groceries delivered before. I wouldn't even know where to look to get that set up.
 
I've genuinely never met anyone who got their groceries delivered before. I wouldn't even know where to look to get that set up.
I do not do it, 'cos I like to look at my fruit and vegetables before buying them, but most people I work with and many of my friends do it exclusively. My sister says she has not been to a supermarket for 10 years.
 
When I was at university, I'd go to the supermarket, buy my stuff and then have them deliver it.
 
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