Open Memo to Netflix

To whom it may concern at Netflix,

First, I LOVE your service. You have absolutely revolutionized the way I watch and keep track of movies.

One suggestion: Fix your "Queue" feature so that it can hold more than 500 titles at a time. Currently, I have a queue, and so do my girlfriend and two of our cats. The cats let me keep some of my movies on their queues. It would be much easier to manage the total number of titles that I want to keep track of if I could have them all on one list.

What's the magic about the number 500?

Many thanks.

Hawk Ford in Oak Lawn, Illinois Is Awesome!

So as I mentioned, we ended up locked out of the car at the Petco yesterday when we went to pick up our new doggie. I think my AAA card has expired, and we were at least an hour from home with no one at hand to bring down the spare keys. What to do?

We went in to meet the nice people from the rescue place from which we were adopting the puppy, and I left The ♥G♥ so she could play with him and buy some pet supplies. Fortunately, there was a car dealer one block down where I thought might be able to find some assistance.

I have cast aspersions upon Trutech VCR/DVD players in the past, because they have crappy products and crappy customer service. But the opposite side of that coin is that I want to point out places that have excellent customer service, so let me give mega-props to Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn, Illinois. If you are thinking about buying a car or getting your car fixed or whatever, please consider them!

I walked down there thinking that I might have to cough up some cash to pay a mechanic's one-hour minimum or something (if I was lucky) but some very nice people told me that they'd help me get the local police non-emergency number, and then some other very nice people told me that a couple of the technicians had some gear they could use. Two of the guys walked over to the Petco parking lot with me and had the thing open in about 30 seconds. I asked them a couple of times if I could pay them, but they said it wasn't necessary. So, big pain in the ass averted on D-Day (doggie day).

I know that Googlebombing is supposed to have been algorithmically minimized, but let me just say this anyway, based on my own (admittedly non-customer) experience:

• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service

Good, Prompt Customer Service From MIT Technology Review

I am still getting several hits per week on my post on my sucky TruTech VCR/DVD combo player. Yesterday The ♥G♥ had a bad experience waiting in line at Home Depot that might find its way into the Blogosphere sometime. My friend SSMW has been upset with Maytag recently. And there's always plenty of interesting stuff of this sort over at The Consumerist.

So, let me just point out that the other day when my copy of the April Technology Review came in the mail with some pages scrunched up and torn out, all it took was a quick call to their easily findable 1-800 number, and a nice young lady on the other end of the line (who answered the phone promptly, btw) immediately had a pristine copy mailed to me in a sturdy envelope.

So, props to the TR Customer Service department. I'm sorry I didn't get the name of the person who helped me, but I think your boss should buy pizza for the whole department next Friday.