"I was just layin' down some rhymes, with the G-folk, you know, kickin' it on the west siy-eede"

Today's adventure involves companies who just don't grasp customer service and/or selling to people. Why would you not try to help out customers? Why make it so hard for people to give you money? No idea.

We went to KFC for lunch, because that's what we do sometimes. This is an entire other story, but in the past we all got flack because we wanted to order the sandwiches that were on the menu. Then, KFC removed the sandwiches, only to replace them with a bunch of new, smaller sandwiches. Now, for me to get the same amount of food, they have to make 2 or 3 sandwiches. Brilliant.
Today's adventure though had to do with payment. KFC recently FINALLY joined the ranks of fast food restaurants allowing credit or debit (which is a fantastic advancement by the way.) However, KFC only supported debit cards, and they have some cheesy, I-just-signed-up-for-my-first-merchant-account machine sitting on the counter. However, Josh was going to use it today nonetheless. It turns out though, that this thing might as well be an ATM machine, they actually charge $0.99 per transaction to use the thing. Where else have you ever seen a restaurant charge to pay with plastic? Ridiculous. Especially when you consider the price of things on the menu. The new snacker sandwiches I was talking about are only $0.99 themselves. So, buy 3 of those, and your payment for the meal is suddenly 25% of the total cost. I refuse to pay ATM fees, they are evil, so I spotted him the cash instead. Lame.

Topic #2 - stupid phone co-op's with lame websites. My local phone co-op, who is great in many ways (great DSL, low-priced local phone service) began offering video via phone line as well. I was very interested in this, as I would be more than happy to drop the 800 lb. gorilla that is Mediacomm for my cable TV. However, they will not list a price for the service anywhere. They have a website that tells you they have 3 package levels. They send out fliers with the monthly bill stating the same thing. Nowhere do they tell you the price of the packages. Do you actually want people to buy this service? Tell us how much it freakin' costs. I don't want to have to call you and beg you to know how much it will be. Lame.

Last topic. When your company president is coming to town for his annual visit, don't piss off your customers because of it. I bet that's not in the company 'vision statement', and I bet the president doesn't list that in the achievements for the year. If somebody calls your store (which just might happen to be a furniture store) and wants to pick up their purchase (that you should have called them about in the first place), let them know at that time that you are not allowing any pickups while said president is there. Don't wait until they have already made plans to go to that side of town on that day to let them know. Lame pricks. You're lucky this chair is so comfortable or there would be very little slumber in my land.

Okay, Token, give me a sweet bass line.