Inter-Ocean Parabolic

 Here is Safeway's response to my complaint:

Dear Mr. Schoewe:

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding your local Safeway
store.

You expressed your concerns regarding the availability of rolls of
quarters at the store. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you
have encountered. Whether the item was out of stock due to sales
projections or ordering concerns, we will work hard to correct the problem.

You also expressed your concerns regarding the quality of customer
service provided by our associate at the Customer Service Booth at the
store. We are sorry to hear that your experience was not consistent with
our standards. Safeway continually strives for the highest quality of
customer service and a positive shopping environment. We will forward your
comments to the Store Manager for review.

If you would like to discuss this further, please reply to this email
or call our toll free number at 1-877-723-3929 and reference contact
I.D. 10582721. One of our associates will be happy to assist you.

We appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you soon. Thank
you for shopping at Safeway.


Sincerely,

Isaac Malcolm
Customer Service Center

My boycott of Safeway ended tonight, with some bitter, but nourishing booty. I broke down and bought a honeydew melon, a walnut levain, a wedge of brie and a twelve pack of Coors. And this, in spite of their robo-answer to my complaint!

For more of my moaning and groaning, check out my review of the hotel I stayed at in Washington DC.

Gamefly may rule, but Webloyalty (aka WLI Reservation Rewards) has been sued.

Go get 'em!

"The lawsuit is frivolous. It completely misrepresents the manner in which Webloyalty.com conducts its business," Rick Fernandes, the company's founder and chief executive said in a statement. "We intend to vigorously defend ourselves and expect to prevail."

I hear things are going well in Iraq, too.

After being told on Sunday that I should come back during the week to receive my indulgence of quarters from Safeway, I was greeted tonight by the same surly service desk employee. I was told by her that I was too late; I should have showed up on Monday if I wanted a roll of quarters.

I had just come from a very busy day at work, and my laundry clock is quickly ticking down before I need to leave on a business trip on Thursday, so perhaps my tone was bordering on the edge of curt when I asked her when she thought I might be able get some quarters from her.

Her reply to me, as you'll read below, prompted me to compete with my brother's storied Gamefly foray into the curmudgeon sweepstakes.

My email to Safeway customer service follows:

I just returned from your Safeway after asking for a roll of quarters. I am a regular customer and one that you value, if I can judge from the coupons you've sent me for free tartar sauce and hot dogs. But I have been told repeatedly that you cannot give me a roll of quarters, wasting my time and making me inclined to no longer shop at your store. I find it astounding that you will not offer even this simplest convenience. Tonight, I was told that "You are a not a bank" and that giving out quarters "was a favor" by the employee at your service desk. From my experience, it's a favor you rarely offer. If you want to compete on service, your Oakland store is failing miserably.

They just put up a big sign in their store saying "Serving Oakland since 1929." You think that service would include giving a roll of quarters to one of their regular customers at least 50 percent of the time when he asks.

Now I can't finish my laundry today!!!!

And the quality of their meat is bad.

End of rant.

I was going to get back to regular posting last night, but I spent all night at the Berkeley Community Fund awards dinner. So to tide my dwindling readership over, and to commemorate YouTube's sale to Google, here's the Estonian Meat Commercial I've been emailing around:

A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper has cheated him out of ten million bucks.

His bookkeeper is deaf.

That was the reason he got the job in the first place. It was assumed that a deaf bookkeeper would not hear anything that he might have to testify about in court.

When the Godfather goes to confront the bookkeeper about his missing $10 million, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language.

The Godfather tells the lawyer, "Ask him where the 10 million bucks he embezzled from me is."

The attorney, using sign language, asks the bookkeeper where the money is.

The bookkeeper signs back: "I don't know what you are talking about."

The attorney tells the Godfather: "He says he doesn't know what you're talking about."

The Godfather pulls out a pistol, puts it to the bookkeeper's temple and says, "Ask him again!"

The attorney signs to the bookkeeper: "He'll kill you if you don't tell him!"

The bookkeeper signs back: "OK! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo's backyard in Queens!"

The Godfather asks the attorney: "Well, what'd he say?"

The attorney replies: "He says you don't have the balls to pull the trigger."

Although my brother certainly makes a good companion, should Pete be trying to talk you into branching out a little bit, I think you should be forewarned:

Piophila casei

The cheese fly, a species of muscoid flies whose eggs are deposited on exposed cheese, cured meats, and other foods and are thus ingested, sometimes giving rise to temporary intestinal myiasis, with diarrhoea, colicky pains, and vomiting.

I think I'd rather have Starbucks.