Sephy’s Platzish

I am well aware of the fact that many of my countrymen act quite arrogantly when they are overseas (you know, the “I’m from America, give me what I want damnit!” types). However, there is some arrogance that can be seen, especially when you have a chance to discuss something that isn’t in the mainstream here.

This particular example focuses on the sudden death of the coach of the Pakistani cricket team, Bob Woolmer. At first, it was suspected by his family that he probably passed away due to a heart attack from stress, but it would seem that the autopsy that was performed in Kingston, Jamaica (which is only 581 miles/935 km from Miami) has proven inconclusive.

This has now sparked rumors of how he died - from suicide to even one report that claims he might have been murdered. I have to be honest in saying that when I had first heard of his death, my first thought was that I really hoped it would be of natural causes as if it wasn’t that, it would certainly bring cricket to the attention of the US media, and for all the wrong reasons. After the autopsy, it now has. Aside from this, the only time cricket is mentioned on ESPN’s site is in a link to cricinfo in the “More Sports” section of the toolbar.

Apparently something ESPN have started to do is allow people to make comments on stories. And here is where my discussion about our perceived ignorance comes to light. Right now there are three comments, which are as follows -

- C_lopez_13 (3/21/2007 at 9:30 AM): Not an important story in the US, never seen a cricket game in my life

A fair point, it is not an important story here, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s the coach of a major world side dieing the day after his side was defeated by one of the lower-order sides (more commonly known as the minnows), Ireland.

The next comment is this -

- k.9stl (3/21/2007 at 9:38 AM): This is why we need to protect our borders!!!!!!!

What exactly are we protecting ourselves from here? Pakistani cricketers? Is that some new kind of terrorist that nobody, not even themselves, know about? I think they’ll be glad to know that it’s highly unlikely that any of the participants will be visiting our airports for transiting while on their way back home.

And the last comment -

- ammille2 (3/21/2007 at 9:51 AM) Any reaction to this story? I hear crickets….

The natural bad pun that one would expect

Well, the bloody monitor finally arrived about half an hour ago. And it is the 20″ model. I am not certain if I should tell LG about the mistake (though they did say that if there was no 19″ models by last Wednesday, they would sort something out).

Of course, I’m thinking that they should just let the error be, send them the 19-incher back and say c’est la vie and move on. Though I am having an additional problem, one which has been festering ever since I took the old monitor off the desk: it is damn near impossible to take the little stand piece (it’s the piece between the monitor and the small round base) apart from the monitor. Even after putting the new one together, I had a hard time taking that one off. My conundrum is this - should I:

a) Slice a hole in the original box, then put the screen into the box, making sure to tape up the styrofoam packaging and putting it into a larger box
b) not use the old box when reshipping the package, and just put the styrofoam into a new box
c) try in a vain last ditch effort to take the piece off so that I can use the original box

If you’re curious, the instructions are at the right. It says to twist the little piece to the right, then pull hard. I can say that no amount of pulling seems to fix the problem. Maybe I should just get going with the knife now onto the box

Oh, by the way, one of the nice features of the 20 inch model is that it has 400 extra horizontal pixels and 26 extra vertical pixels, unlike the 19″ which was only 120 extra horizontal, and 124 less vertical.

Ah yes, and before I actually publish this for real, I should mention that I am my own receptionist, as per the DHL tracking information. And they still spelt my name wrong.

Apparently DHL does know where I live because they’ve finally managed to find a truck to deliveer the new monitor out to here (though I shouldn’t get too excited as it just says that it’s with the “delivery courier”). This is after taking 49½ hours to get the thing allll the way from South Bend to Milwaukee (a distance of about 186 miles (or 300km), for a net speed of 3.83… miles per hour, 6.06… km/h). Maybe I should revise my estimation of DHL’s equipment to having lawn mowers, but I think those would even be faster

So, anyway hopefully my shipment will finally get here!

Oh, I should add that the estimated delivery date is still set for the 16th of March… maybe that’ll change when they actually deliver it? I doubt it

Well, it’s now been two weeks since my LCD died on me. Last week, I was wondering where it had gotten to, and it turns out that LG didn’t have any monitors in stock down in Alabama (which is where they’re based apparently). Robert, the cool fella who I spoke with last week in their Customer Service said that it would arrive here no later than 5 PM Thursday. You can guess where this goes. Yep. 5 PM and no delivery trucks arriving.

So I call them this morning, and I am told that it’s been shipped and should be here today. They even gave me a tracking number, which Google didn’t recognise. As it turns out (and she told me) it is a DHL tracking number.

I go to the DHL website and find out that the package had been shipped 2nd day; today was supposed to be the second day and it was supposed to be delivered to here by 5 PM. Well, it’s now 9:00 and no sign of it on my doorstep. In fact, according to the tracking, it was at South Bend Indiana (200 miles from here via the roads) at 6:44 EDT. That was 9 hours after it was spotted in Ohio, some 36 hours after it was shipped out from Alabama. Hopefully with any luck, it’ll actually show up here sometime tomorrow.

And, if you think I’m the only one that this has happened to, I’m not alone. Check out these posts -

DHL: Disasterously Haphazard Liars? (Chris Pirillo)

and

The Myth of DHL Customer Service - this person has been waiting since October to receive their shipment of laptop computers in Bolivia from here in the States

So, I’ve been waiting to receive a couple of things - one real (and very useful, not to mention having some tangible value) and the other a more-or-less throwaway item.

The real item, being the replacement widescreen display from LG, is somewhere between wherever it is they ship these things from (at the rate they specified 2-5 days, I’d have guessed California, but I wonder if it isn’t Malaysia which is where the things are manufactured). As it is, I don’t even know which delivery service is sending the item, so I figure that if it doesn’t show up tomorrow, another call to their support department shall be in order.

The “throwaway” item is the “CrazyTalk avatar” for skype. I don’t know what’s taking them so long, but y’know, I did win it in their promotion, so it’d be friendly if I could redeem it.