Never use Travelocity.

First the short version:

- They sold me a hotel room.
- They ensured me it was available and charged my credit card.
- The hotel then told me they've been sold out for months.
- Travelocity told me no rooms were available.
- No resolution.

Now the really long-winded version:
(Just stop reading now, and save yourself some time and never use Travelocity.)

I'm going to the annual Coachella festival in Indio, California at the end of April. A bunch of high school buddies and me will meet in Burbank and drive over to the Palm Desert area where we will go to our hotel and party down for a few nights. And then we'll go and see lots of fun bands like Bauhaus, New Order, Weezer, Wilco, Gang of Four, Fantomas, blah blah blah.

We divvied up the chores to get this thing done and I (stupidly) volunteered to get the hotel room. Everything around there that was affordable was sold out. I looked on Yahoo! Travel (which says Travelocity on it) and their site said they could book these cheaper hotels that were sold out on other sites. I booked it as fast as I could. Then I received my e-mail confirmation:

First line of e-mail:
YOUR TRIP TO INDIAN WELLS IS CONFIRMED

Page down:
YOUR TRIP HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED WITH THE HOTEL

Now how in the hell can that happen? Shouldn't a travel site not list a hotel that isn't available? Isn't that the whole reason you put in the dates you want to book there in the first place? Call me crazy.

So I call Yahoo! Travel and get somebody from halfway across the planet I'm sure, and she is of no help at all and basically tells me I should cancel my reservation. Great. Thanks for your help. I go to Travelocity's site and see that the room is still listed as available. Not wanting to make the same mistake, I pick up the phone and call Travelocity and tell the lady what happened to me at Yahoo! Travel and I saw that these rooms are still available. She took a look and ensured me that the rooms were available. I told her to book the rooms for me, and she did. She sent me an e-mail receipt with confirmation not like the earlier one, which contradicted itself.

I let it be for a month. Am I dumb or what? Then I decide to call the hotel and make sure that my reservation is there. The lady at the hotel gets all pissed at me and tells me I don't have any reservation, and she's been sold out since November. Great. So I call Travelocity and the fellow halfway across the globe tells me matter-of-factly that the reservation isn't confirmed.

This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. He basically told me to cancel my reservation and book another one. Right. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. I asked for a manager. He told me that the managers were all busy and I'd have to hold for some time. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it.

Anyways, there is still no resolution to this point and I'll probably be reserving a much more expensive hotel room much further away from the venue. All I can say is: Never use Travelocity.

Apple Store adventures - part 2

Being in the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco is kind of surreal. There are a bunch of people aimlessly moving slowly from computer to computer, gadget to gadget. It's the store where you can actually buy cool. All I wanted were some new headphones. And I heard the Apple In-Ear headphones were good.

I asked the Apple store representative about the In-Ear headphones. She told me they were amazing, and explained how she liked them better than the stock earbuds that come with any iPod because her ears were too small. Then I think she farted. I didn't hear it, but she was kinda squirming around while she was telling me about the fact that the Sony earbud headphones had a cord that wrapped around the back of your ear. And then it smelled stinky. I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could, but it was futile. I was about ready to hand her the 40 bucks and run, just so I could get away from the stench. For a moment I thought my friend Jesse laid it because he moved away from where we were standing as soon as I smelled it. He denied it.

Anyway, these Apple In-Ear headphones have got to be the worst I have ever heard. I had these lame Koss earbud-style phones a while back that had poor sound quality, but at least it was a listenable experience. The Apple earphones had absolutely NO bass whatsoever. They fall out of my ears on average about every 2 minutes.

After finding the article on the web that describes the "prescribed insertion method" for these things, I realized it was all me. Operator error. Suddenly these things had great sound and they sealed off the outside world nicely so all I heard was the music. Well, until about 10 seconds later. The canalphones (as they're now called) lost their seal and there went the bass.

Now I'll have to pay the fart lady a visit at the downtown Apple Store again. Hopefully she'll remember that she told me I could "try 'em for two weeks and if I didn't like 'em, bring 'em back." If she doesn't rememeber, maybe if I tell her she farted while telling me the tech specs, it'll jog her memory.

Taxes suck.

That is all.

Spam n' eggs, Spam n' spam...

Today I actually clicked on some of those spam e-mails I always delete. The temptation to get free Starbucks for a year was too much to resist. So after getting my free Starbucks for a year coupon, I decided to head over to the local Starbucks and get a triple mocha latte with extra whip. It worked! Being the planner-aheader that I am, I brought my notebook computer so I could test the waters of spam again.

I logged on at the comfy sofas at the Starbucks that used to be called Circadia on the corner of Mariposa and Bryant, kitty-corner to the Muni bus barn. After signing into my Yahoo mail account, I found 69 bulk e-mails that were ripe for the picking. Just as I was about to click on one with the subject line "Mexican Pharmacy tj" my iPod ran out of juice. There's not much that will take the wind out of your sails easier than having your iPod die. Especially while it's in the middle of "Red Alert" by Basement Jaxx.

Suddenly, like an angel descending from heaven, the words "Claim your Apple iPod 40GB" glowed from my computer screen. Click. Almost immediately a punk rock bike messenger was handing over a box and demanding my signature. Unfortunately the iPod was the damn U2 version and had nothing loaded on it except for U2. There's always some hitch when stuff is free. Thank god for Under a Blood Red Sky.

This spam thing was like a dream come true. Actually it was like having unlimited wishes, but always with some loophole in the wish making it not exactly what you wanted. I was having so much fun consolidating my debt and selecting new desktop computers, I neglected to check my battery usage. I clicked on every single spam link, and the last one from Conjurer H. Giggling had the subject line asking "Leegardnersf wanna play? knead" This one sounded kinda odd, but hey how bad could it be? I envisioned myself playing "knead the bread dough" or playing "knead the sore calf muscle" at Starbucks as the baristas cleaned the espresso machines for the next morning. Instead, some huge hairy dude in a wrestling outfit busted through the door. He wore a jock strap and protective cup on the OUTSIDE of his singlet. "WHO'S LEEGARDNERSF?" He shouted into the room full of computer caffeine addicts. He shouted "WHO WANTS TO PLAY KNEED?" Now I understood. Knead. Check.

My computer ran out of juice and shut off. The wrestler guy barreled over to a sofa near the door. I silently said "Oh fuck" to myself. He angrily confronted a web design-y hipster. "YOU LEEGARDNERSF?" I discreetly closed my computer and got the hell outta there. I hopped on the 22 Fillmore and listened to "With or Without You" for the 20th time that afternoon. When I arrived home, I plugged my computer in and looked for some new bulk e-mails in my Yahoo account. There were too many to count. I clicked on "Paris Hotels $49 a night." Nothing. Clicked again. Nothing. I clicked on "Need Quick Cash?" Nothing. It looks like I better just realize that spam is just spam. Unless it's spam n' eggs. Or bacon eggs n' spam. Or spam spam n' spam...

One of our finest

Did you watch the Academy Awards? Did you see the part where Chris Rock was asking who the hell Jude Law was? Man that was funny. I mean, we all know that Jude Law is a huge star now. He's a hottie, right? That's all it takes. Hottie? Star. Not really, because I'm wondering why Adriana Lima isn't a huge star yet if that's the formula.

Did you see the part on the Academy Awards where Sean Penn came out and tried to one-up Chris Rock by saying Jude Law "is one of OUR finest actors"? Oh shit, man. What a pompous ass. I can just see Sean Penn backstage snorting a fat line of blow and doing the requisite double sniff afterwards to make sure he got all of it up his schnoz, then telling his coke buddies how he was gonna set the record straight on Jude Law. It could have only been a better made-for-TV moment if Mr. Law were actually in attendance because he was such a fine actor that he'd be up for an award for one of the 10-fucking-million movies he was in last year.

Unfortunately, none of the people at the house party I was at caught the retort from Chris Rock later in the show. But I read it online. He apparently said something about his accountants wanting a word with Mr. Penn. Lame. It's Chris Rock for cryin' out loud! He LIVES for shit like that. Please, Chris Rock, don't let Penn get away with being a stuffy shit. I can't decide what was more disappointing - that, or the fact that Adriana Lima wasn't up for best actress.