So I got the call last night; the Dyson had arrived! After a 15 minute jaunt there to pick it up and a 10 minute jaunt back, Dyson “Absolute” in tow, I was like a giddy schoolgirl on christmas morning. Or a giddy nympho on a honeymoon, take your pick.

So how does this thing perform? Did you read the title? Yeah, it’s pretty damned impressive. I hooked it all up and plugged it in, and as it sat on the rug I decided to just do a “test run” before dinner and turned it on. After only a few swipes, I decided to finish out the whole rug, as I was about to throw up from the amount of things it had accumulated. One rug later, and I had to empty the thing! So dinner came and went (after my friend Ana, with the new Macbook, got through entertaining us all with her video chat capabilities and some twisted photos of herself. Oh, and the incessant giggling), and next thing I know me and the Girl are finding ways to put everything that isn’t bolted down to the carpet up off of it so we can really put this thing through the motions.

And 20 minutes later, I’d emptied the thing no fewer than 4 times. Yeah, I had to empty the canister at least 4 times. Look, we vacuum regularly; we’re clean people. Hell, we’ve been using a Kirby vacuum cleaner, and those things are supposed to be the Rolls Royce of vacuums, no? But every time we got through with the Big-K, if you laid on the carpet and looked across, you could see pet hair all long the carpet, in with the fibers. We just figured that the vacuums couldn’t pull that stuff up. And also figured the carpet was otherwise clean.

WRONG WRONG WRONG! This thing pulled almost all of it up. Now the carpet looks brand new. It’s a little rough now, probably because we got rid of all the extra “padding” that was in it, but it looks brand spanking new already. And we didn’t even do a second pass. Mostly because we wanted there to be carpet left on the floor the next day and it was crying mercy already, so we called it a night.

Verdict? Dyson good! Dirt bad!



Sears Sucks, Too!
I was told that the vacuum would arrive on Tuesday. It did not. But the only way to find this out was to call them. And here is where Sears starts to really suck. First, there’s no contact info on the receipt, so I had to look it up. Then I found out the hard way that although they have a customer service line, no one actually has to answer it. Some 10 minutes later, on the third call, I finally get ahold of someone who sounds like they’re from Austria. Dear god, tell me I didn’t dial Austria. Nope, she’s just hard to understand, as I think I did hear at least a few engrish words. OK, so I tell her what I’m looking for, and she tells me something that I think was to the effect of “I’ll have to transfer you,” but far less coherent. Then I got to listen to pretty hold music for another 2 minutes, until she picked up the phone again and got me. Yes, it’s still me. So she transfers me again, to the same department. And wouldn’t you know it, after the pretty hold music had finished, there we both were, on the phone again. With each other. No way, I’m so surprised by this outcome…

So by now she decides to go and track someone down from that department (I still have no idea which one it was supposed to be). Luckily for me, while she was out doing this, someone else picked up the phone and I got to tell them my story. So they say they’ll transfer me to Merchandise Pickup, but then I hear all this yelling and screaming as he’s trying to remember (with help) the extension there. Yay. After a few minutes in what I assume was a failed attempt, I ended up at housewares… grrr…..

At least this one person was on the ball. He actually used the computer system for something other than porn, and looked me up. Yeah, strange I know!

In the end, though, all of this was gone through so he could inform me that I’d have to go through this tomorrow, as it wasn’t in stock yet. And I did. Again. 24 wee hours later.

Moral of the story? Don’t buy from Sears. I mean, shit, you know that K-Mart bought them, right? So it’s like shopping at K-Mart, anyways. Yuck. Worst customer service I’ve experienced since I had left work a few hours before. Geebus. Target had it on sale for $569 (and I think it comes with the same stuff as the “Sears Special Edition”), and there I can actually get service in some sort of timely fashion. Oh, and probably wouldn’t have had to wait 3 extra days. Probably worth the extra few $$, is all I’m saying.



New Door
Got a doggy door from the outside to the garage put in, courtesy of South Africa. We have some 4 dogs at the house; two are ours, two are not. Our two? Figured out after a few minutes (and some rattling food) that the see-through plastic door could actually be used to get out of the garage. The other two? Not so much.

They’re both Australian Shepherds. Now, in talking with their owners, you’d think that they could solve Pi or something. But in reality? One cowered at the sight of it and would avoid it at all costs, even after you opened the big door so she wouldn’t pee on herself. Yes, she’d run by the door as if it was going to reach out and grab her foot. Because we’ve all seen doggy doors do that before. At least 10 different times, myself. To be fair, she can now (a day later) make it through that hole, with some supervision. The other one though, will simply look at you through the hole, watch other dogs go through the hole, return to looking at you through the hole, then paw the door at the crack. And then return to looking at you through the hole.

Now, she wasn’t there the day it was installed, so the other dogs did have like a 12 hour head start on her or something like that, but… C’mon, you just saw two dogs do it right in front of your eyes. It’ll work, this isn’t a Superman joke. Really. Try it. Do like Microsoft and imitate.



For those of you who now want to know the Superman Joke:
Too bad. I just handed you the punch line, so it just won’t work now anyways. But trust me that the reference was funny. Really.

Peace.

Tags: Technology, hate