Horrendous. Absolutely horrendous.
Here's the tale:

I bought this iPod at the end of September with a service plan. In November the hard drive began to click as it tried to spin, as well as giving me a sad face on an iPod on the screen. So I took it to Best Buy to be serviced. They shipped it out to their service center and it took 40 days to get it back to me! I was totally excited to get it back because I got some cool accessories for it for Christmas from a friend. Plus I just missed the lil' guy.

The day I got it back I noticed that the scroll wheel was a bit flakey but it worked ok, so I didn't think much of it. A few days later it began to do the exact same thing as it had been doing before I sent it out, so I would have to have it serviced again. I looked at the sheet that said what they did to fix it, and they just upgraded the software and reconnected a cord. They didn't even fix the problem, and now they were going to take it away from me again!

So I brought it in, and got it back on Saturday, but this time rather than installing software, they replaced the hard drive. Which is what I had been telling them was wrong the whole time. It only took 20 days to get it back this time.

I got it home and hooked it into my computer, and I got a surprise. Not like my fifth birthday party. This one was bad, and I didn't even get a Batmobile! They replaced my 60 GB hard drive with a 40 GB hard drive. I can hardly explain how extremely mad I was. I called their service center and demanded a new iPod, cause I wasn't going to wait who knows how long to get my iPod back. They told me I had to bring it back into the store and they could deal with it there, but that lady couldn't do anything.

This is the best way to describe how pissed I was: on the way to Best Buy, I was reciting--out loud--exactly what I would say to the manager. I got there, talked to the manager and somehow refrained from screaming, and he told me, "I'm not going to do that," in reference to giving me a new iPod. Their policy is that with the service plan, they only replace it if it has been serviced four times. So I left there after telling him that I wasn't going to be coming to Best Buy anymore unless they fix this problem with out me having to spend time away from my iPod.

I tried the 800 number, and the manager there told me the same thing, so I asked who I needed to write a letter to, and he gave me the address to the corporate office and told me I am, "more than welcome to write a letter to Brad Anderson," the Best Buy CEO. So I'm working on a draft for that, and I'll keep you posted.

I was contemplating not posting anything about this, because it is something bad about other people, and this is the internet. But I realized that I get less than 20 hits per day, and hardly any are from Yakima. Plus it's all true, and maybe they'll change their bad habits if they read this. Probably not.

So here goes: I started at McDonald's here in Yakima a week ago. Some of the managers are a bit below par as far as their attitude and performance goes, in comparison to the McDonald's owned by Adams Enterprises in the Tri-Cities. And by that I mean in comparison to a brand new crew person who has worked for McDonald's for about 37 minutes.

That is a bit of an exaggeration (it's really like 47 minutes), but they are terrible, and extremely unprofessional. I'll just use initials instead of names to protect the innocent: A is the restaurant manager, B is an assistant manger, C, D and E are shift mangers, and F and G are managers in training. A, B and C are great, and very helpful. D is usually a great guy and G has a great attitude and wants to learn more. That brings us to E and F.

E does well when it’s busy, but is extremely unproductive when it's slow, which is really bad in a closing manager. And F don’e seem to know what is or is not appropriate to do or say. I don't think either of them like me, because if I work there, then they might actually have to be a tiny bit productive, which they couldn't stand for.

The other night, they were screwing off and noticed that I seemed pissed off about it. So E started throwing ketchup packets at me (none of her shots landed), and F came over and said, "Just quit." This makes me even more excited to whip that place into shape, because I know it will cause them anguish.

There are so many good stories to tell you, but I'll save those for later. Plus a lot of them require being posted in McDonaldsese, which most of you aren't fluent in.

Just this very hour, I found out some amazing news. Billboard has released the Hot 100 Singles of 2005. This is the first year they even made the chart and Weezer's "Beverly Hills" is number 20! Only 19 other songs were more popular than it was on radio stations that I don't listen to!

Some, myself included, have said that this is not nearly their best song, but it led them to a great year, a cover story for Rolling Stone, and for only the second time in 12 years, Weezer has gone platinum with a CD. So I think Bev has worked hard enough for us to make her an honorary Weez Classic.

On February 8th, the Grammy Awards will be broadcast on CBS, and Bev is up against the Foo Fighters, U2, Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay for Best Rock Song. With big names like those there is not a large chance of Weezer winning. However, the highest any of those other songs got on the Hot 100 was Coldplay's, "Speed of Sound" at #57. So there is some hope, however slight.