Rob Ford, idiot
The ten pounds Ford recently lost is rumoured to have been shed from between his ears.
Time to recycle this. Leftie pinkos unite!
Tired of getting ripped off
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been really, really poor (which now seems like a lifetime ago) or perhaps it’s because I don’t like wasting money or maybe even because I hate seeing others getting ripped off, too, but I am sick of these bloody electronic scanning systems that seem to just be waiting for people to come along and not notice that they’re getting hosed.
Allow me to explain: One of my items today at Shoppers Drug Mart scanned for $7.99, even though the sale price marked on the shelf was $4.99. The cashier said she would override the price and give it to me for the sale price.
I pointed to the Shoppers Scanning Code of Practice and said that, no, I get the item for a penny (Yep, that’s Shoppers’ policy). The cashier then decided to call the woman in the Beauty Department (it was eyeliner, btw) to confirm the price inaccuracy, who promptly told her that I hadn’t read the tag properly.
(I should probably tell you at this point that I’m a bit of a savant with pricing. Like Rainman but without Charlie Babbitt. I could have hundreds of dollars of groceries in my cart and I could tell you the price of each. Back to the story…)
Most people would have paid full price at this point and moved on but, no, I can’t do that. I politely ask the cashier to suspend my purchase so she can help the person behind me while I go back to where the eyeliner was located – the woman working in beauty now hot on my heels.
Ultimately, I did read the sale price right and I then did get the item for a penny. But had I not been the stubborn woman I am, I would’ve walked out of the store paying full price for a cosmetic that had been on sale.
I’m not the only one who this happens to – CBC’s Marketplace has done stories on this – but we should all be more vigilant. Stores, too. It’s too easy for them to get away with overcharging. While some stores like Loblaws and Shoppers have scanning codes of practice, many others don’t.
I’m not sure if legislation has ever been introduced to protect consumers from retailers who are less than vigilant about their scanning accuracy, but it should be.
Random thoughts on #lpc12
I got there late, so here’s my abbreviated take on the whole thing.
- As has already been said ad nauseum, the Liberal Party is alive and kicking. Walking onto the convention floor and looking out at literally thousands of members, was amazing. And at a policy convention, no less.
- It was great seeing old friends, even arriving as late as I did. My favorite bow-tied senator, some of the best political staff ever to grace Centre Block, and MPs, both current and past. For a former political hack like myself, it was a bit like a high school reunion: there were those you hoped to see and there were those you hoped to never see again. (Also, finally got to meet @see_jane_sell. She’s great, you should check her out).
- Liberal staffers know how to party. We felt, um, old at the young Liberals event so headed over to Darcy’s for a couple of pints. And true to form, staffers, former and current, were knocking them back – including a few who probably didn’t remember speaking with me when they sobered up the next day.*
*Editor’s note: Staffers of all political persuasion are known to let off steam in the pubs surrounding parliament. For the most part, they’re hard working, dedicated people who’re chronically underpaid and unappreciated. There are some exceptions to this rule – those ones are just assholes.
- Best part of the convention is that Alf Apps is gone. Gone! Holy hell, he’s actually gone. I’ve been asked for my thoughts on Crawley’s win (or Sheila’s loss, depending on your perspective). The result was thisclose. Both Crawley and Copps definitely had their pros and cons. Martin vs Chretien, young (although only in political circles is person in his mid-40s young) vs old, male vs female, etc., etc. Personally, I like Ms. Copps. I hope she sticks around – we need her.
- Worst part of the convention: Voting to allow “supporters” to pick our next leader. I’ve heard arguments that it’s fine. You know, because it works in the U.S. Btw, we’re not American and we have an entirely different political system. But more than that, I don’t think Conservatives, Dippers, Greens, etc. should have a say in this process. Their say is on Election Day.
Anti-choice group at it again
Campaign Life Coalition is at it again, handing out a slick flyer this past weekend, full of unattributed “facts,” demanding the government defund abortion because “it is an elective procedure and not medically necessary.”
These pro-life zealots don’t believe that abortion should be funded in any case. If the woman has cancer and needs to terminate in order to get treatment, too bad. If the girl is 14 and pregnant resulting from incest, too bad. If a woman is violently raped and is pregnant from that rape, too bad. Hell, they don’t even believe these women should be allowed to have an abortion at all.
Overwhelmingly, these groups are populated with ideological extremists, using religion to fuel their arguments. They refuse to believe that the welfare, safety and health of the woman carrying the fetus is even relevant in this equation. Isn’t it interesting that most of the pro-life mouth pieces are male?
And, as for those “facts,” like the one that states “96% of abortions are performed for convenience,” I’d like to see the source. A credible one.
(H/T @cbcqueenspark for tweeting the flyer)
Response from VIA Rail on #viafail – UPDATED
Oh yeah, they’re still getting the bill for my cab fare to Ottawa.
Good day,
I am sending this email to you following the significant delay of VIA Train 644 on Saturday, January 14th.
Although on-time performance is a priority at VIA Rail, you will appreciate that operating difficulties beyond our control can occasionally cause delays despite our best efforts. On this occasion cold temperatures affected the air brakes system at Smith Falls preventing the train from proceeding. Despite efforts to correct the problem, it became necessary to transfer to buses to complete the journey resulting in an out of the ordinary delay. Please accept sincere apologies for the inconvenience that was caused. We are reviewing our protocol with regards to the handling of the situation as concerns were expressed including the communication of information and the availability of snacks and beverages.
As a measure of our concern, VIA is offering a repeat round trip or travel credits equivalent to twice the fare paid for that day’s one way trip. These credits, which have no cash value, are valid for six months following the trip. You may apply your travel credit toward a future trip by presenting your original ticket receipt at any VIA ticketing outlet.
Again, I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused to you as a result of this exceptional delay. We value your business and I hope that we will have the opportunity to serve you again soon, albeit under better circumstances.
Sincerely,
Jean Lemyre
Director, Telephone Sales Office and Customer Relations
UPDATE: After writing to the VIA Customer Relations Department requesting reimbursement for my cab fare to get me to Ottawa, I received the following response:
From: CustomerClient@viarail.ca
Date: 17 January, 2012 4:51:22 PM EST
Subject: 355587–Follow-up on train 644 delay / Suivi sur le retard du train 644Dear Ms. *******
Thank you for your email.
I have spoken to Ms. ******* earlier today regarding your requests for a refund of the taxi fees. While we must respectfully decline your request for a monetary refund, we would like to exceptionally offer to send you a travel certificate in the amount of the extra taxi expenses you incurred on January 14th. As discussed with Ms. ********, please send your taxi receipt to my attention at the address below or send me a scan copy by email so I may send you a travel certificate.
Regards,
Cindy Laplante
Customer Relations, Officer
I haven’t yet answered Ms. LaPlante. I’m intrigued – and by intrigued, I mean irritated – by what she calls this “exceptional” offer to send me a “travel certificate” for the taxi rather than actually reimburse my out of pocket costs, due to the mechanical failure of the train. I’m not going to go through another play by play of the events of Train 644 (check earlier posts for that) but had I waited for the buses to take us to Ottawa, we would’ve pulled in nearly five hours after our expected 4:44 pm arrival time.
Nope, by the time VIA told us the buses would be arriving by 7 pm, we no longer wanted to take our chances. And a good call, too: buses didn’t leave Smiths Falls until just past 8 pm. At 8 pm, I walked into my Ottawa hotel room instead and managed to salvage the remainder of the evening.
A funny thing happened on the way to #LPC12
I decided to head to Ottawa for the last day of the LPC policy convention (I have no love of policy but my partner was there and I’d get to see old friends that I never get to otherwise). So, after debating whether to travel Via Rail or Porter (train won because I missed the Porter seat sale), I grabbed my devices and headed toward the freezing cold hell that is Ottawa.
The trip was uneventful until we hit Smiths Falls at around 4pm. And there we sat for hours and hours. I, a bored blogger, who had lots of juice in her iPhone thanks to the nice guy across the aisle who leant me his charger, decided to tweet about our broken down train. You can find threads here. Also check out my fellow #vialrail tweeps @kateASzy and @PhillyDoucet. Other hash tags being used: #viajail and #viafail.
After our predicament was broadcast across the twitterverse, journos from the Star and Ottawa Citizen began contacting us. And thus this story appeared above the fold in today’s City section of the Cit. Also, this one in the Star. Unfortunately, the Via Rail handlers’ accounts of events last night seem to be hugely different from ours. You know, the actual passengers.
I’ll take you through a few, but first, so you know, before I took to Twitter, I called Via Rail. Three different numbers. All had recordings saying the offices were closed at 5 pm and to call back tomorrow. It was 5:27 pm and we’d been sitting on the train, parked in Smiths Falls, since just after 4 pm. We’d been told an hour earlier that a repair was needed and it should be fixed in about 10 minutes.
- Via Rail says “regular announcements” were made to keep us up to date. Not true! After that initial announcement above, we heard nothing again until the gentleman working our car came through with crackers – no water – telling us Via Rail was going to be making a decision on whether to get buses to take us to Ottawa or send another train. Next contact with Via Rail staff was about a half hour after this when our predicament was gaining momentum on Twitter and two women, seemingly from the first class cars, came through offering us free pop.
- A Via Rail spokesman said that while there were initial problems with the washrooms but they were “eventually solved.” This could be true if “eventually” means “after the passengers got off the train.” But, if the bathrooms got fixed, I didn’t hear about it. And the pregnant woman and her husband, two rows up, left shortly after six in part because of the state of the toilets. And the stifling heat.
- A Via Rail spokesman said anyone who wanted to leave the train could do so. Not true! The nice guy who let me charge my iPhone, and who was reading a quit smoking book, started prowling the train about an hour and a half after stopping in Smiths Falls. Being in the last car, he went up the train. He said that he was able to walk through Car 6 (ours), Car 5 and Car 4. When he got to Car 3, the door was locked and he reported that there was not a single Via Rail staff member in any of these three cars. We could not leave the train for the first half of our stay in Smiths Falls.
At around 6:40 pm we heard that buses were en route and would be arriving in 20 minutes. Not trusting much we were being told at this point, @KateASzy and I grabbed a cab and headed to Ottawa (had I realized that @PhillyDoucet was in the car with me, I would’ve invited him!). Turns out we made the right call because despite Via Rail’s declaration that buses would be there at 7 pm, they weren’t. They arrived at the Smiths Falls station at 8 pm, getting passengers to Ottawa for 9:30pm. Over 9 hours after we left Toronto’s Union Station. To make matters worse, @PhillyDoucet tweeted that when the buses did arrive he had to help several seniors with their bags because “all staff already bailed.”
Not that Via Rail cares but here’s some free advice:
- When breakdowns, malfunctions and other problems occur, communicate early, regularly and accurately. The Star story states that Via Rail claims they ordered buses at 4:40 pm. If, at 4:40 pm, I knew that our train wasn’t going to move again, I would’ve then called the cab. Had Via Rail actually told us this, I would’ve gotten into Ottawa in time for dinner with my partner saving myself and Via Rail a ton of bloody aggravation. And the other passengers, too.
- Almost everyone around me had some sort of PDA, cell phone or laptop. This means we could communicate with others off the train. In real time. You know, like on Twitter. And we could counter Via Rail’s failed attempts at spinning the Train 644 events. At one point, Via Rail tweeted that train travel is a beautiful way to see Canada. (I’m sure it is, but at that moment, I really didn’t care about the views).
- Lastly, don’t call your passengers liars in newspaper columns and “dispute” their claims. One of them might be a pissed off blogger.
The skinny on the modeling world
I found this column online yesterday, which intrigued me. Back in the day – and I mean back, way back – more than two decades ago, I spent some time in the modeling industry. I wasn’t very good at it partly because I found it stupid, partly because my face, apparently, is asymmetrical and partly because I was too voluptuous. Voluptuous, by the way, is code for too big. That’s right, with a BMI of 17.5, I was too big for runway.
The industry, at least at that time, was a cesspool of agents trying to find the next ‘It’ girl who would make them famous, and a ton of dough in the process. They would lie about your age to clients (to make you younger than you truly were). Add height if you weren’t quite tall enough. Take away pounds if you strayed from your diet that week. One time I dared eat a sandwich within sight of my own agent who then promptly stalked over and literally removed it from my hands. Eating was bad.
I don’t think anything’s going to change much in the industry but pictorials like this one may help.
In case you didn’t already think Rick Santorum was an ignorant jerk
Get a load of this:
The GOP presidential hopeful recently attended a town hall at a Dublin, New Hampshire private school where he preached his wisdom on what, exactly, makes a good father. In a word? Straight. As in heterosexual. Full stop.
Yes, a deadbeat dad, uninvolved in his child’s life, is better than having a gay dad, so says Santorum. He continued:
The idiocy, bigotry and general ignorance that GOP candidates like Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, et al. and their supporters continue to display sickens me. The upside? Obama wins his second term this November.
Gritchik: 2011 in review
It’s only fitting that my first post of the new year, be a look back to the last. Being the nerd I am, I love analytics so here are the basics from 2011.
Most viewed post: A very conservative Christmas message. In just under 48 hours this video was shared hundreds of times on Facebook and sent thousands and thousands of people to GC.
Runner up: LPC postpones convention. Holy hell, this one, posted during the federal election, also brought angry DM’s on Twitter from other Liberals who told me I shouldn’t be posting on “internal issues.” Another one told me to “shut up” before I “ruin everything.” I’d post it again: Apps has been a joke of a party president and I’m looking forward to the end of his reign next weekend.
Honourable mention: All the Hudak campaign pictures. Several incensed Tories demanded to know where I was getting these from – one troll even suggested that I was manufacturing the Hudak bus parking pics because there was no way I could be in all those places at one time. I’m betting that particular genius was a member of Hudak’s brain trust. Regardless, the minute these shots went up, traffic would spike, each and every time.
Top search engine terms: Gritchik, “george lepp penis,” “hudak abortion” and “vote compass.” Yes, you read the second one right.
Top commenter: Bocanut. Not just a Tory troll but an all around asshole. Curious? Click here. And here.
And so begins 2012.
