stolen earth or stolen moment

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

Can you feel their pain? Finally at last, so close to the big reunion and some random Dalek is there to mess things up.  Well, as David said in DW Confidential, they’ve got to leave something for the second part don’t they.  I did love the ending, the fact that they got a few moments for a gentle caress, a chance to stare at each other.

As for the time children reunion – hmm – it had its moments but it was a little bit naff in places.  The childish jealousy of Rose was annoying.  Honestly, Donna is no threat and nor is Martha, they’ve both matured and want other things. The Doctor’s hearts belong to Rose.  Does she have to be so annoyingly insecure about it all?

Another Ianto and Jack moment – how delicious.  You can never have too much of that.  Ianto’s obvious jealousy that Jack met some soldier in a bar.  Jack’s “strictly professional” response has you thinking “yeah right”.  Must admit, I’m a little disappointed in Jack seemingly giving up so easily, hugging his friends and waiting to die. He just needs to toughen up.

UPDATE Just watched it through again. I’d forgotten the line “It’s like an alien facebook” – I like that. Actually as silly as that whole reunion piece was I guess they needed to get the introductions over and done with without complicated stories.

Oooh and did anyone in the UK try phoning or texting that number? 07700 900461

i’m a real person too

I have to respond to emails which are sent to a website.  Sometimes it is nice to help people.  Sometimes I have to email some really obnoxious individuals.  It is as if they forget there’s a human at the end of the email.  You can tell me you don’t like the website without telling me I’m incompetent useless or overpaid. Don’t tell me my organisation’s website is dreadful and I should fix it, – that doesn’t help me.  You need to be specific. Was something hard to read, hard to understand, did it not work right in your browser.  Send me a screenshot. I can’t see what you see unless you show me.

I like to get feedback good and bad but it is frustrating when I can see that someone is really angry about some part of the site but doesn’t give me enough info to help. Insulting me or my organisation is no help either.  I’m not your tech support either.  I can’t spend ages helping you with your browser settings or give you advice on whether you should use Firefox or IE. 

Being on the receiving end of so many unfortunate emails makes me think more carefully about the feedback I give others. I don’t think an angry customer ever gets the most sparkling service – they get the ‘difficult customer’ protocol.  Be polite, be courteous, be specific and try and leave your anger and disappointment out of it. If you shout your issue at me all I hear is the shouting.

the girls are back

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

If you’d told me that I’d enjoy a DW episode with barely any scenes with the Doctor I wouldn’t have believed you.

Last week’s single set episode had an air of money saving about it and this week’s “flashback fiesta” was a bit the same.  Money is being stashed away for the finale and it had better be good is all I can say.

I’d also been thinking that by the time Rose finally returned I’d have got fed up waiting but I hadn’t.  She was like a mini Doctor, adopting his habits and behaviours.

The fortune teller was seriously creepy, more than the bug on Donna’s back. That time beetle – looked like something out of a toy shop. I regretted that they showed us the whole thing to clearly in the end as it was just creepier and more suspenseful seeing only small snippets of it.

Another market scene – did that remind anyone of pompeii? It felt a bit samey. And I kept thinking it was earth.  The opening scene just didn’t register and it wasn’t till Donna was talking about time machines and aliens so freely – I kept thinking why is she saying that to someone on earth – but of course she wasn’t.

Flashback annoyance aside I did like the tie-ins with the spin-off series – the Torchwood reference and the Sarah Jane link. A mention of Ianto and Gwen – so much <3 so much sadness.  And then my mind wanders to Captain Jack…

At the end, Donna’s whole realisation that her life was insignificant compared to the survival of the world – I’m still struggling with that. It just arrived too quickly. It felt like the end of the episode was rushed. Even at the moment she realised she needed to jump felt too rushed. The interval between the realisation and the action was so brief and it is in a parallel world so she won’t take that with her. In her “Rose” world she’s gone from ignorance to mind blowing awareness and self-sacrifice but in the “Doctor” world she’s been on the journey of discovery and ading real world emotion and reality to the Doctor’s world. In my head I can’t reconcile the two Donnas.

So overall I really liked this episode despite the flashbacks and woefully too few shots of that fabulous hair.  This “Turn Left” episode is still messing with my mind. I can’t wait for the finale.

midnight mayhem

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

For the first time ever I’ve just seen an episode of Doctor Who I really didn’t enjoy. It was okay, it just wasn’t spectacular. Midnight saw the Doctor off on a solo adventure, stuck in a transporter with 7 others doing a spot of sightseeing. It was just all a bit naff.  I understand all the subtleties and depths within, the Doctor failing to win over humanity, the fact he came so close to being abandoned by his fellow travellers, how different it is for him to travel without a companion.  I watched Doctor Who confidential as well and I appreciate the difficulties faced by the sound folk in this episode.  I don’t need a big explosion or scary monsters to enjoy an episode. I think after the last two episodes I was just expecting something more.

And as for Rose, we know she’s coming back, all the little entrances which the Doctor doesn’t see are becoming as annoying as Donna’s return was.

loyal till the end

If you start reading a book, do you have to finish it? I do.  I can never bring myself to walk out of movies either.  Part of me always thinks it is going to get better. This is just a bad patch, the story will improve. You might miss something really good if you don’t finish.  I have this habit of just putting the book to one side and starting another.  The half finished books sit beside my bed taunting me with their bookmarks poking out at various stages.  Some have been there for so long I fear I’ll have to start over, I can’t remember what I’ve read already.  I always blame myself for not enjoying a book – I’m not in the mood or I’m not paying enough attention, but that’s completely wrong of course.  I get hooked on certain authors and read everything they write.  Every now and then your favourite author disappoints – they try something different and itdoesn’t click for you. 

No-one likes to think they picked a dud book.  And besides these “hard to get through” titles aren’t random unknowns. Some are award winners but awfully tough going.

my emotional wardrobe

I used to have the nickname Pollyanna. I used to be annoyingly cheerful and positive. I had the odd not so Pollyanna-ish day but on the whole I could see the good in anything.  Now I look back and wonder where that person went.

On Tuesday by lunchtime I was as grumpy as a grumpy thing and wondering how it happened. That morning I’d been full of the joys of spring and only a few hours later I was wishing I hadn’t got out of bed.  That morning as I’d gotten dressed for work I’d somehow managed to grab the grumpy shirt by mistake.

I’ve worked in teams with really moody people.  I try not to be that person. I hate it when one bundle of grumpiness makes the whole team grumpy.  I have a little trick for those unavoidable days.  I force myself to smile, especially if I have to talk to someone either on the phone or in person – do you know how hard it is to sound grumpy through a smile?  That and hysterical laughter – somehow they take the edge off the stress.

gasp, toni, no!

Did you see that coming? Toni, dead, how can that be? You can’t give us Hone and then take Toni. Toni’s been part of the furniture of Shortland Street for such a long time it will be strange without her. Mind you I was over the will they wont they relationship with Chris.  And despite the shock, I’m kind of pleased that for once they didn’t build up to her demise overpainfully drawn-out months.  Hell, by the time it got to Joey’s departure we were bored with it. Suspense was well out the window with that one. Nice too that it wasn’t one of the predictable just before Christmas deaths either.  Hmm, I wonder if they way is being cleared to dispatch Chris and Harry too.  Will Chris be fired by the board? Will the sadness send him to San Fran to be with his brother? Dr Ropata is nicely placed to fight Callum for the top job. Or will Chris take up with Justine again?

too much customer service

This Saturday saw my fourth lot of online purchased groceries arrive. Woolworths are doing okay, but only okay. It looks like they went all out on the first experience but have gotten a little sloppy. The first time I ordered potatoes they were all the same size and perfect. The last lot were a mixed bunch and a couple were marked and I wouldn’t have picked them if I’d been in the store. The week before I ordered 2 bananas and got a bunch of 6. Also that week they’d got the wrong size tins of soup and tuna. Maybe they thought substituting the next size up would be okay – it wasn’t, but actually I think someone was just sloppy.

For the last 2 weeks, the bread I want hasn’t arrived – you’re telling me you don’t have a staple like that? Or is it that that particular brand doesn’t arrive on a Saturday in time for delivery – I wish I knew. I figured out the newspaper thing. You see I want the Dominion Post but it isn’t on the menu yet the Herald is so I select the Herald and ask for a substitution of the Dom. How hard would it be to load the Weekend Dominion? So now I have to play the bread game too – I hope I don’t have to do this with too many other items, it will get boring trying to figure what’s on the shelf for a Saturday delivery and what’s not. Actually it has surprised me some of the things they’ve not been able to deliver.

Sometimes as I select I’m bugged by the nagging feeling there’s a whole lot of products not online. Choice seems limited – sometimes I know it is because they’ve broken things into all sorts of crazy categories I just don’t care about. I still find it hard to believe they’ve got only one type of cous cous available. I was looking for batteries the other week and again they were missing the major brands – I mean who buys panasonic batteries as a matter of course? In some categories it feels like the bargain corner of unloved brands or the closest you can get to shopping at Lidl in NZ for those who know that gem of a supermarket in the UK.

The one thing I don’t yet trust woolies to deliver is the entire ingredients for a meal. I wish I could group items on my list – if you are missing any of the following then I don’t want any of them – don’t deliver the pasta without the pasta sauce.

Anyway, to the point of this post – I got another phone call from them at the weekend. This is the third phonecall and there’ve been two voice messages left as well. Honestly, I’m starting to feel a little hounded. The people have all been perfectly polite but I don’t want to talk to anymore woolworths employees about my shopping experience. I hate grocery shopping, this is supposed to let me spend less time doing it but I don’t want to spend even more time talking about it either. I gave lots of feedback the first time round and this week’s caller assures me they have that on file – well, great then, do something about it stop calling. My opinion on your crappy business focussed site hasn’t changed. Getting familiar with it isn’t going to make me like it anymore.  Just because your customers get used to your site doesn’t mean you can ignore doing something about it.  Okay, so I don’t expect it to have been dealt with in 3-4 weeks. I work on a website, these things can take many months. I guess it depends on how quickly you want to grow your business.  All I can hope is that they get some competition to help them sort their oddly arranged online aisles.

an empty restaurant on Friday is bad

Let’s start at the end – don’t go to the Curry Club on the corner of Dixon and Victoria streets, Wellington. Just don’t do it, you’ll regret it.

So you’re sitting with a group of 20 friends who all of a sudden decide a curry would be a good idea. It is 7.30 on a Friday night and you ponder where to go. Someone shouts out, what about the Curry Club, it always has tables. Common sense should tell you this is not the golden opportunity it seems but no, instead you think thank goodness, somewhere to eat and we won’t have to wait.

About the only positive thing I can say about the meal was that we could all sit together and didn’t have to wait long for the food. Honestly, I swear the staff have NO concept of customer service.
A few tips for the staff:
* try remembering who ordered what, don’t just stand at one end of a long table and shout.
* if you deliver the wrong food to the wrong person and they start eating it before the mistake is realised, replace the dish. Don’t make the intended recipient make do with a pre-loved half gnawed meal.
*deliver the bread to those who order it, don’t dump a basket at the other end of the table.
*if someone claims they didn’t get their bread, they didn’t get it. OK! Don’t suggest they could order another one “since all those ordered have been delivered.”

So what about the food I hear you ask? What about it! If those are dinner portions I can’t imagine how little you get for lunch. Mind you, my lamb korma was so completely tasteless I wouldn’t have wanted more.

I know big groups can be annoying but we stayed sitting where we’d ordered from, we weren’t drunk and besides, we’re the customer.

I think the most amusing thing is the folder of thank you notes at the till – are they real? It just made me wonder how much they’d paid those people for their recommendations, and where the room filled with complaint letters was.

Don’t go to the Curry Club – anywhere else would be better.