Now That's Customer Service!

I've been trying to buy the "Impeach Remove Jail" t-shirt from Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press for several months. Every time I try to place an order, they are out of stock. I'm not sure that's because of the sentiment or because of who's selling it, but either way it's a great slogan. So, on Thursday, I noticed the shirts were available again and I attempted to order one in long sleeves and one in the new pink color in short sleeves.

The site had several places where it warned customers to it the send button only once, lest they be charged for duplicate sales. Unfortunately, when I clicked the button, I got an error message. I tried fixing things twice more with the same results (insanity would be expecting a different result, I guess), so then I went in search of the information to contact the company to ask what was going on and make sure that six shirts weren't in the mail.

I can understand why it's a little hard to find an e-mail address to actually contact the company, but I finally managed to find it--no hot link there--and I sent off a short e-mail explaining the problem. Much to my amazement, used as I am to never hearing a response to queries I send to on-line companies (why hasn't that bra company answered my question yet?), I got an e-mail from a nice person named Walter within minutes.

Walter told me that had changed servers only the day before and they were having some problems, but if I tried again, thing should be o.k. Also, not one of the three orders had gone through, so my credit card was safe. I tried to place the order again, and got the same error message. I immediately let Walter know and THEN he wrote back to say that they were trying to get in touch with their tech person and that he would e-mail me as soon as he knew things were working again. He also assured me they had plenty of shirts in stock.

The next morning when I checked my e-mail, there was an e-mail from Walter assuring me things were working and I was able to place my order. On Saturday--that's yesterday, the day after I placed the order--the shirts arrived. Now that's great customer service.

Al Gore Was No Dunce

Evgenia Peretz wrote a great article in Vanity Fair about the skewed coverage Al Gore got from the media in 2000. Heinlein said something along the lines that "intelligence is not a crime, but most people treat it like at least a misdemeanor" and this article supports that notion in a big way. So many things that Mr. Gore said were distorted by the press with the effect of turning him into a laughing stock, thus creating an even playing field for the Pretender. What a disservice the press did to the American people and the world by that kind of coverage.

Last night, Keith Olbermann did another great commentary on his show Countdown, repeatedly calling the Pretender out as a liar. I'm sure that the Pretender (or his handlers) regrets that he gave interview time to Robert Draper for Dead Certain, a book I hadn't planned on reading until last night. The Pretender's been playing at world leader and playing with the lives of our citizens. Will the word actually get out.

IMPEACH REMOVE JAIL as the slogan says over at Perceval Press. I'd really rather not have to wait 500 days to see these monsters out of office. The Democrats better start standing their ground.

Why I Like Viggo

Sometimes he's so quiet on screen that you have to strain to hear what he's saying. On the other hand, he can deliver the rousing purpose speech (you know, the one Morgan Freeman had to deliver for Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and you're ready to follow him into battle. He looks great in costume. He's a really good horseman. But what I really like about Viggo Mortensen is that his life isn't all about acting. In addition to acting, he's an accomplished photographer, writer, publisher, and activist. He was one of the first people in Hollywood to come out against the Bush administration, wearing a self-produced "No Blood for Oil" t-shirt on an interview show while promoting "The Lord of the Rings."

Viggo's publishing operation, Perceval Press, is located in Santa Monica. The front page of the Perceval Press website contains all kinds of squibs and links, much of it political. A good portion of it is not even in English (oh to be a polyglot.) Every once in a while, Viggo even adds some commentary of his own. I really liked the speech he gave in support of a Democratic candidate for Congress running in the Republican district of upstate New York where Viggo graduated from high school. Lately, Viggo's been recommending reading the Constitution and a list of other works to see how scary things are under this administration in Washington. (A letter to my local paper this morning recommended watching Judgment at Nuremburg for the same purpose.) I found the following quotes on a recent visit:

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. -Dante

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. -Joseph Goebbels

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

I'd recommend a visit to the Perceval Press website for the provocative reading material you can find on-line and to do a little shopping as well. I do like the "IMPEACH, REMOVE, JAIL" t-shirts, but they've been sold out every time I've check to buy one.