Chris Benard

Greg (Facebook) was in town for Christmas and brough Alan (Facebook) to my house. We played Xbox 360 for a while and then watched part of Trading Spouses from episodes that my roommate had downloaded. It was the one with the crazy christian lady who’s screaming “SHE’S NOT A CHRIS-CHUN!!!” and “GARGOYLES!!!” and “DARK SIDED STUFF!!!”. Man, I just can’t get enough of that episode. It was really good to see Greg and Alan (only Greg) and not have parmesean cheese involved. Thanks for coming by guys!

Greg is leaving tonight to go back to Houston, but I plan on going there for Easter to watch his play he’s written about an android hobo living among us, collecting our change to finance his creator’s hostile world takeover. No, that’s not a joke; it’s just how creative Greg is. Do NOT question him, EVER.

Well, I had fun this Christmas. I got that neat Galileo thermometer that is over there on the left. My mom said something like, “I wasn’t sure how it worked, but it looked pretty nerdy, so I figured you’d like it”. I didn’t get much else in the way of presents except cash, gift certificates, and food from relatives, but my parents did forgive quite a bit of debt that I owe them ($100 of the $450 I owe for 4 new tires I had to buy for my Expedition).

I bought my mom a hanging hammock chair, by Hammaka. Here’s a picture of her sitting in it. She likes it a lot, and has already spent a great deal of time in it. Today was a pretty nice day for sitting outside and we did. I bought my dad The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman. He’s an awesome author and I read The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. That was and awesome book, and I’m sure the one I bought my dad will be just as good.

Did the “Drag Pictures” get your attention? Good. 😉 Those pictures are at the end of this post. Read the rest of it before you get to those.

Dave Anderson has written a good writeup of a typical Best Buy customer service experience. He and I both worked in the computer area at Best Buy for quite a while. I worked in “Services” for the duration of my employment, now Geek Squad. Dave worked in Computer Sales, and then Services. Dave and I always gave good service, and I’m not trying to say the people in the store are not helpful, because a lot of them are (Katie, Ian, etc).

The problem lies in the fact that Best Buy, the corporation, seems to not have good communication within the corporate levels. The people in the stores may be willing to help you, but they are having to fight the infrastructure to attempt it. Dave and I both personally know about this.

Anyway, go read his posts on his blog (first, second). He will update it as the story unfolds, but long story short, they sent off his laptop to get it fixed, and it came back to another cutomer’s house and then made it next to impossible to get it back. He still hasn’t been able to get it back. They also screwed up the PSP information which expired while they were working on it.

Also, if you really want to see something funny, check out these pictures of managers and other people at our store dressed in drag. I’d tell the story behind that, but it’s more humorous if I don’t.

I just got back from Jennifer’s (Facebook, Myspace) apartment. She has game night on Wednesday for friends and other people. I got a Christmas present!!! Jennifer gave me these pictures in a frame. Christmas came early this year!

We played Apples to Apples. If you’ve not played this game, I think it is probably one of, if not the, best party games around. It’s really hard to explain and make it sound fun, but I assure you it is. I’ll write a detailed post about it later, but basically you match green cards, which are adjectives, to red cards, which are nouns. You try to pick the best noun so the person will pick your word. Object is to get the most green cards. It’s totally awesome and here’s a picture of us playing Apples to Apples last week.