Half.com Blunder
4/18/1

I love Half.com, I really do. But they are messing things up right now. Last week, I ordered $25 worth of CDs. Aisai bought some shoes over the internet and told me to spend $25 on myself. I suppose this is to keep me from going �Shoes! Over the internet!�

I�m amazed they fit, but enough about Aisai's shoes.

I chose The Doors � The Doors (not Best of), Smashing Pumpkins � Siamese Dream [Edited], Steve Martin � Let�s Get Small, and Zoo Rave. That last one was a 75-cent CD of trance music I used to get closer to my $25. I spend 24.07, or so I thought.

By Saturday, Half.com had notified me that the people selling The Doors and Siamese Dream were losers and hadn�t confirmed their sale. So, I really didn�t buy them, the orders were cancelled.

Monday, I ordered some CDs to cover the amount that I�d lost due to the cancellation. I got Faith No More � Angel Dust, The Wayne�s World Soundtrack, and the book by Steve Martin, Cruel Shoes. That soundtrack has some good songs on it, regardless that it�s a shameful movie.

When I get home, I have two CDs. The Zoo Rave CD has shown up and so has Siamese Dream. Siamese Dream?

I check and sure enough, it�s still listed as cancelled. I write an email to the gal who sold it to me telling her that I�ll just send her a check for $5 which covers the sale price, the shipping, and rounds up about 15 cents or so to the nearest dollar. She�s fine with that.

Tuesday, I get home, and I have a CD in the mail. It�s The Doors. But this time, the guy who sent it didn�t put a little thank you card inside so I didn�t know his email address. I did know his normal address, but USPS is no way to communicate unless you are at summer camp or over 80 years old.

I call Aisai. She does the internet thing and finds his phone number. I use 10-15-335 to call, foolishly, and leave him a message.

Why is 10-15-335 foolish in this case? Because though they only charge 4 cents a minute for domestic calls, the first ten minutes are billed up front. So I spent 40 cents on a call that was less than one minute long. I pay only 7 cents a minute for my cell phone. I don�t have 100 minutes a month or anything. I just pay for what I use and $1.25 for some dumb fee.

I give him my email address and he emails me this morning. He�s glad that I contacted him since this is not the first time that half.com has done this to him. I do the $5 thing with him, overpaying him a whopping 12 cents.

I think I�ll hold off Half.com for a while. I know I will, as I have Gran Turismo 3 A-spec pre-ordered, and that just casts a shadow over all frivolous internet expenditures.

I need to make little icons for music. I made some for House, Playstation, and Movies yesterday, but didn�t get around to scanning them and touching them up.

Irritated Cat icon comes closest to the general feel.