We Did It!

The Rivalry between Jet City and Sacred City has been fierce over the last few years. At Regionals in September, we nearly had the win until five of our girls fouled out at the end of the game and handed it to Jet, who won by a mere 14 points. 

Photography by D.E.sign

That win secured them the #7 spot in the Western Region WFTDA rankings, and put us at #8.

Photography by D.E.sign

Saturday night, Sacred City's Sacrificers triumphed over Jet City's Bombers, 108-72. Welcome to #7, ladies! Doesn't it feel good up here?

Photography by D.E.sign

What Are You Doing Tonight?

I'll be here:

And in preparation, I'm spending my last free hour-and-a-half listening to the Derby Deeds Podcast and seaming up my Sacred Sweater. Will it be done in time? It's not looking good; I blame my monkey arms.

Seaming seems to take forever.

Seeekrit Reveal!

My favorite part of making Seekrit Stuffs is the waiting for them to arrive.

I sent it on Monday!

In the mean time, this is my friend Dinah's blog. I met her through my equally cool (if much farther away) friend Kate, who is now in Prague. I am jealous. And this is her (Dinah's) also cool husband Mac's blog. Together, they are the kind of people I would like to be if I weren't, y'know, ME.

They have a pair of dogs named Miss Moneypenny and Captain Awesome, turned their back porch into a Tiki bar, listen to amazing music, have forgotten more about pop culture than you or I will ever know, and host an annual Oscars party that makes the actual Oscars look boooring.

If you look through Mac's previous posts, it becomes obvious that they not only made a baby, but that said baby might be the World-Dominating Overlord that only two such cool people could create. Therefore I felt it to be my knitterly duty to provide said Overlord with the proper accoutrements for the required lessons in Fort Creation, Cape Wearing (incl. Swooshing/Over-the-Shoulder Tossing), and Parent Snuggling:

Spider-man Blanket
1738 yds.

Yesterday, the Future arrived, and so did the welcome package - although both Dinah and Mac were a bit busy at the hospital to be home to receive it. Congratulations, you guys! There's love and good wishes in every stitch.


And all you knitters out there can thank me when he's old enough to take over.

Oh HELL no.

From: A Certain Website

Subject: Your Order Has Shipped

Date: April 8, 2011 11:56:38 AM PDT

A Certain Website has sent you a shipment via UPS

The tracking number is: [redacted]

You have GOT to be kidding me!

ETA: But wait, there's more. Presented mostly without comment:

From: Tika Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: Your Order Has Shipped

This is absolutely unacceptable behavior on the part of your company.  I sent two emails on March 28 to cancel my order as the terms of the sale were unfulfilled and received a "gift certificate" instead of any type of answer. I will be issuing a chargeback on my Visa card immediately and will never order from you again; I will also actively dissuade anyone I know from purchasing from you. 

Tikabelle

__________

Hi Tika and thanks for your email.  We apologize that we did not receive your emails dated March 28^th, as we would have gladly cancelled the remainder of your order.  If you would be so kind as to refuse the shipment that we just sent out to you when it is delivered, we will gladly credit your account for the amount that was charged.  Again, we apologize for the Malabrigo situation as well as for not receiving your cancellation email, and would love the opportunity to make things right.  If there’s anything we can do, please let us know. 

Thanks,

A Certain Website

__________

From: Tika 

Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 4:45 PM

Subject: Re: Your Order Has Shipped

If I am at home when UPS arrives I will certainly refuse shipment. Otherwise I will be contacting you for a return shipping label. 

I must say that I find it difficult to believe in the coincidence that I sent my cancellation email on 3/28 at 3:13pm and received your "gift certificate" at 3:35pm, but that no one received either the cancellation or the email I sent responding to the certificate itself. Considering the customer service I have experienced with your company, I will not be ordering again and will be actively dissuading people from visiting your site. The most useful thing you could do at this point would be to remove me from any mailing list you have and delete my customer information from your database.

Tikabelle

 _________

 Unfortunately it was the gift certificate that we did send out that caused the problems we had with our email server, not just on the 28^th but for days afterwards.  I actually have emails I could forward to you showing you that my IT guy was working on the problem for days.  Regardless, we understand your frustration and will be happy to issue a call tag for your shipment if you happen not to be home when it arrives. 

Regarding removing you from any mailing lists, we are unable to do that from our end.  You can easily unsubscribe however simply by clicking the link at the bottom of any future emails you might receive. 

Again, we sincerely apologize for your frustration.

_________

Just wanted to forward to you an email that my IT guy sent to the person who was causing the problem with our email server.  Thought it might help explain the reason we didn’t receive your emails on the 28^th.

_________

Thank you for the explanation; I appreciate it. 

In future, after such problems are fixed, allow me to suggest that a blanket email to everyone on your list asking them to send any correspondence a second time would alleviate the problem we are now facing.

Tika

_________


I  am honestly baffled by the finger-pointing that this business thinks is acceptable. It's our supplier's fault that we didn't send your yarn! You all ordered too much yarn so it took too long and now we're losing business! It's the Internet's fault that we didn't get your cancellation email! And yet, not a single "holy crap, update!" email to be seen.


It's not as if communicating with customers costs extra these days. Email should come free with your ISP, and if it doesn't, you need a new ISP.




TL,DR version: Don't buy anything from these people, ever, no matter what the wool-shaped Mmmmmalabrigo demon on your shoulder tells you. 

A Promise to Myself

Lately every time I log into Ravelry I have visions of gigantic lace shawls dancing in my head. I've added so many of them to my queue that I may have achieved the coveted QABLE* status, especially considering that my current knitting capacity pretty much consists of garter and stockinette stitch. Right now I have three big projects that qualify as "almost finished."

One is seeeekrit and currently being bound off.

One needs seaming/buttonbands and, while it has moved locations, is still in the same state as the last photo. Sigh.

And one challenged me mathematically, but I figured it out so now I can get back into the groove once the other two are finished.

I will complete all three of these projects 1) before the end of April and 2) before I start on a lacy something. I don't know what yet, but it will be big, probably by Sharon Miller, and awesome.





*Queue Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy. I am definitely on the young side of knitters, so this is a feat in and of itself.