Well, today has been rather frustrating

And it started out so promisingly, too.

I'd rather not get into what made it take a turn for the worse, not right now, but I am going to mention one particular thing that just added to the disappointment.

Some time last year, I ordered Raymond Queneau's Exercices de Style, the deluxe artbook edition that's divided in two, top and bottom, so that one can leaf through the illustrations and the text separately.

I'd seen it in the library and much admired it and finally decided to splurge on my own copy since I had some gift certificate money left over.

Like most of their French books, it was “Not In Stock, order now and we'll ship it to you” at Amazon.

Accordingly, I ordered, and waited, and waited, and waited…

I honestly wasn't expecting to ever receive it at all, because they twice sent me notices that there was a delay, that they were having difficulty laying hands on it.

So when it finally did arrive about a week or two ago, I was absolutely delighted.

I had glitches applying my gift certificate balance to the stuff I ordered late last winter, so it ended up charging my card, but I was happy enough I didn't care about that.

In any case, I thought I'd destress a little by leafing through the storylets and illustrations at random, as I often do, and got an unpleasant surprise.

One of the illos (they're spread across two pages each), had very noticeable damage to a portion of it, due to some sort of printing/binding defect which made the ink of one page kind of scrape off onto the other.

It seems to be just one picture out of 75, but this really upsets me.

If it had happened on one of the text pages, I would have been annoyed but more-or-less accepting, since it wouldn't have interefered with my reading.

But the damage is on one of the artworks, in an art book, and if I'd just wanted the text version I could have bought the decidedly non-deluxe pocket paperback instead.

Anyway, this worries me in more than one, not least because I'm not sure that Amazon will consider this flaw enough to be a defect and thus eligible for replacement.

Because in comparison to the rest of the book, which seems perfectly okay, it's about a half-centimetre at most strip down the center of just one picture.

And they did have such difficulty getting it in the first place, and they might not be able to get another to replace it, and maybe it's better to have a slightly damaged deluxe artbook edition than no artbook edition at all.

And for all I know, the entire print run might be like this and sending it back and waiting for another to be shipped would just be a waste of everyone's time and money, and not just mine.

Well, obviously I'll have to sleep on this and I'll see about comparing the library's copy if it's also got that same problem.

But yeah, this has kind of been the capper to a not-so-good day.

ETA: Finally checked out the library's copy and took pictures.

It either doesn't have this problem, or it doesn't have it enough to show.

My copy:




The library's copy:



And it looks like this may have been my last day to return it, and they raised the price of getting another copy, too.

Let's hope they go by the day the return authorization is requested and not by when they actually receive it back.

Chapters in reverse

So I went to Chapters today to return two books with a binding problem.

Actually, they were the same book, bought twice in an attempt to get a good copy, which according to their site seems to be the way to replace things.

In the FAQ on how to return defective/damaged goods, one is instructed to make the return, and then use the refunded amount to purchase a new copy, rather than simply making the return and waiting for its replacement to arrive.

Well, I was reluctant to do that, since shortly after I ordered the first one, they upped the price on the second and if I'd done it their way, I would have ended up paying an extra $1.04, including tax.

It turned out to be a moot point anyway, as it seems at least part of the print run that Chapters has access to is affected by the defect, not just the first one I got.

So, with that in mind, I decided to return them both when I got a spare moment.

In the meantime, I ordered something else, at the same time as the replacement. Chapters had another one of their price fluctuations, which affected not only both itemss in my new order, but also one pre-order item in my old, which coincidentally happened to be the same price difference before and after adjustment as the books I was about to return.

I wrote in and asked them to please adjust my order price on the pre-order item, because it hadn't been shipped and all. In passing, I commented on how I was disappointed that they'd gone and changed their site's price on my other order's item, pretty much the same time as they shipped me the copy I'd ordered, charging me the older, higher price.

In response, they did an adjustment to the item that just got shipped, and also refunded me an additional amount which I thought was supposed to cover the pre-order item. Actually, I thought it was a little weird that they didn't do it the more logical way Amazon does, adjusting the price you would be paying before you got charged, but at least they did it at all, hey?

So, fast forward to today, when I finally have the time and available transportation and lack of any other tasks to be accomplished and can take in both my defective books to be returned.

Before leaving, I made a note of the prices I was charged, with tax and all, because this one time I returned something, they didn't refund me the tax and I didn't notice until well after, when I had a look at the receipt again.

So when I get to the store, the return goes smoothly enough: I've marked the defective pages with stickies, and written up a description of the problem and stuck a copy into the front of both books, for the benefit of whoever has to process these things.

Until it gets to the amount refunded. I'm being refunded the lower price for both, and that doesn't seem right because I was charged slightly more for the second.

So I mention this to the cashier processing my return and log into their site to dig up my order records as proof, while she calls the manager.

My order records show the lower price, but Chapters keeps a copy of each email they send you which is related to the order in the same place, so I dig up my shipping confirmation which does indeed show the higher price.

He asks me if I did indeed get charged that on my billing records, because they might have made an error and all in the email, which might not be reflected in what I was actually charged.

I say yes, because I have no reason to believe that Chapters magically noticed and lowered the price before shipping, because they certainly didn't on that other book I got.

So he gives me the $1.04 difference in cash, even as the cashier processes the refund amount for what the Chapters order records say.

I go home and check my records, just to be sure, and I'm a little surprised to note that the second price difference refund I got was indeed for the defective book, and not for the pre-order item in the completely different order, which is what I had asked for an adjustment on anyway.

I had in no way mentioned anything about the price difference on the attempted replacement book, because by the time the non-replacement book shipped, I'd already recieved the 2nd defective one and knew I'd have to go and return it anyway, so why bother?

But from the looks of it, they completely ignored my request to adjust the pre-order (still showing at the older, higher price even though it's somewhat lower to pre-order now and not due to be published for some time) and price-adjusted both in the second order I mentioned in passing.

Anyway, I went back to the store to try and return their extra refund, but apparently they can't process it so the new cashier said I might as keep the money.

I spent the rest of the time in the store before the bus came browsing around for something to buy that I actually at least mildly wanted and wasn't cheaper online.

Apparently, there's going to be a sale next week, so I'll go back and pick up a paperback with the added discount and pay in part with the cash I got back today.

It seems the least I can do.

Also, the moderate profit of this does not in anyway invalidate or even come close to balancing out all the other crap from Chapters I've had to put up with previously, especially not the years-long problem I had with my iRewards card, finally solved two months ago. For fairness' sake, I'll note that they did give me a minor gift certificate as some sort of vague compensation.

A tale of two libraries

So I haven't updated for quite some.

This week, the major library downtown finally opened back up after a season long strike. They gave until sometime next week, originally, as a grace period for returns, before extending it to early November.

After sitting on an entire box of books for the past four months, I just wanted to drop all the ones I didn't need to scan or reference something from straightaway, so I did this first thing heading out this afternoon.

Turns out I should have waited until tomorrow, because this was also the last day of another library system's book sale, which I got back from dropping off at downtown just slightly too late for, and kicked myself for missing.

Not only would I have liked to support that library in some way other than by incurring overdue fines, I'd left a book on the table during their last sale which I wanted, and wanted to see if it would be there this time around for me to buy.

And as it turns out, they were giving the multilingual books away for free, and I really kicked myself after learning that.

A little under half an hour too late, which could have been entirely avoided if I'd just made them my first trip (though considering the number of books I had to drop off downtown, that would have been unwieldy) or even left home an hour earlier, which I certainly could have if I weren't lazy and wanted to finish up some stuff and eat breakfast before leaving, or just plain checked their website to see what the actual sale times were.

I'd assumed that since it was a 3-day sale, it would happen Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as are the usual times for the other libraries to hold their booksales, and I could go on Sunday if I got there too late today.

In any case, it seems they may or may not have still had books left over and they apparently hold this twice a year, so perhaps sometime in March I'll be able to pick up that book I wanted that no one else seemed to last time around, or in the meantime whoever may have gotten it got bored with it and donated it back to the booksale either there or elsewhere.

Today wasn't entirely wasted, though. Unusually for the increasing lateness of the local service, I made all my connections on time and didn't have to spend ages waiting for the next bus, so I was able to complete my rounds and get home early.

And also, I helped a guy out on the outbound bus, who was looking for a historical section of the downtown area which is fairly easy to miss.

I gave him one of those free tourist maps that they have of the city and he was quite grateful.

While it was really nice to have helped him, I still can't help but wish I'd either taken the earlier bus or the other route, which would have missed him, but would have made it to the library booksale on time.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Equinox tonight. Been a while since I posted, so here goes:

I think I may have finally freed up my domain name.

I bought one some time ago, and it's basically served as a glorified email redirect for all these years.

A couple of months ago, it got locked up, due to my having transferred it to 1 & 1 Internet Services, which turned out to be something of a mistake.

Now, 1 & 1 certainly has low-cost domain registration, and they offer free private registration, in which your contact details are screened through their operation.

But what they don't tell you when registering is that if you don't go through the process in a way that specifically selects the Instant Domain package and wind up purchasing your domain registration as an add-on to an existing hosting package (which they damn near encourage you to do during sign up), if you don't have a package which supports private registration, there's no way to use that feature short of upgrading or downgrading your hosting package, and there's no way to split off your domain name from the package without some sort of additional fee, according to their faq.

My case is a little different, however. I'd had this free 3-year hosting preview package that they'd promoted when they were first starting out, and yeah, my domain name once transferred got tied to that. No private registration for me, even though that was one of the things I was expecting to get when I paid for the transfer.

Where it really went wrong was when the 3-year preview expired. My domain name was still locked up in the expired preview package, and I couldn't switch it out without giving them a credit card number, which I didn't have a valid one I felt like turning over to them at the time, given that their stated policy was to automatically “upgrade” any preview packages to the “nearest” full package and bill for that amount unless the customer specifically cancelled. And in order to cancel, the customer needed to supply a credit card number.

See where this is going?

In any case, by the time they finally authorized Paypal payments (which in turn require a pre-authorization which is there to essentially let 1 & 1 do automatic billing on your Paypal account), my domain was completely locked up in a cancelled package which I couldn't even access the settings in the Control Panel to split off my purchased domain into an Instant Domain ”package upgrade”.

I couldn't even get in to change the admin contact info and get the authcode for a transfer.

I must say that they responded to my emails rather quickly, if a little cluelessly.

So today I went and performed a transfer via their Transfer your domain interface (after much trial and error, as simply following the prompts kept kicking me back to the domain availability checking page or the front page, depending and I had to put the Instant Domain package in my cart, go to checkout the cart, and select the domain name from there before it worked), basically transferring it back to myself, this time as an Instant Domain package and hopefully it goes through and I can start using my glorified email redirect again.

Otherwise I start looking elsewhere.

There was also going to be a bit of a rant on local bus service and eBay (not related), but I have other things to take care of tonight so it can wait.

New library, new overdues

So I'm about to incur my first overdues at the library system I signed up for a couple of months ago.

The reason being that my books there are due today, but my card is set to expire in the next two or so weeks, so I can't do the online or even the telephone renewal on the books I haven't finished yet. I can't even login to the online system to check what I have out at all.

I guess this means a trip to the most accessible branch of that library tomorrow, at least to pay the fines.

In other news, the main library system downtown is on strike, but stuff that's due during the strike started won't count as overdue when it's returned.

At least this'll give me a chance to finish up some of their books before I check out more.

Speaking of books, I need to look into having my Chapters iRewards card fixed. I've hated that damn thing ever since they sent me an Indigo one when I online-renewed it.

Stuff I got in the mail today

Today I got two out of three parts of my order from the company formerly known as DeepDiscountDVD.

I was a little annoyed when I got the notice last month saying that they'd shipped two of the cds separately and together instead of waiting another day or so when one of them was projected to be in stock.

This, of course, is because Canada Customs has in my previous experience tended to charge duty and taxes on everything they can get their money-grubbing paws on. I still haven't forgiven them for the time that they charged the full handling fee + taxes on something that worked out to be less than a dollar over the 20 CAD non-gift limit. And then I had to write them to get a minor refund that time they charged tax on the shipping costs, which they're not supposed to do.

But although I had to walk to the post office and pay to get my parcel released, the CDs were just stuck in the mailbox, no extra charges or anything.

So I'm happy.

And I have a lot of DVDs to watch, which may or may not be a good thing, because while we're cancelling the cable, I'm still not caught up on the backlog of stuff I ordered during last year's sale.

April is the cruelest month

I haven't really felt like posting much, well I rarely feel like posting much anyway, but this month was just kind of even more so.

But a few updates on stuff.

The tape deck is well and truly disassembled. We tried putting it back together, but it wouldn't work properly after that, so it's junk.

I never heard back from Cambridge University Press regarding the cassette.

Fortunately, Amazon came through and I now have a replacement and will, hopefully, soon be Speaking Greek, or some version thereof.

I went and bid on something on eBay and remembered just how much I hate bidding on stuff on eBay. There's always some bastard who does the last day sniping.

I'd been toying with increasing my bid in increments, and the last one I tried put me at the highest bidder, which is a little annoying, but not undeserved, as I was pretty much pushing up the selling price out of sheer irritation.

Fortunately it's less than 25 cents over what my max bid was intended to be, and I feel a little better googling and finding out that someone seems to have recently paid roughly twice what I'll be paying for this item, not to mention it costing me less than it did for the last person who bought this same thing from the same seller, during the auction I'd bid on last month (in which I am happy to report that the first sniper in that auction got sniped by another).

Not to mention, the Canadian shipping is the same price as for the US, which is always a bonus.

So, even though it's a little more than I hoped to pay, at least I'm getting something I like for not as much money as it could have cost me, and it saves me hours of footwork trying to find one used in the area which I live.

Although with my luck, once I've bought it, I'll find one for half the price in the first place I look.

Ah, well.