vile vile Amazon

5th Aug: ordered EEEEEE, purple Linuxy EEEEEEEEEEE, for delivery 12th Aug.
12th Aug: after waiting in all morning: received email indicating that delivery had been delayed to 19th Aug.
19th Aug: wake early full of glEEEEEE.
- Check order: not despatched: est. delivery date still 19th Aug.
- Check item page. 'in stock, despatched by ADMI'.
- Contact ADMI who have no record of me.
- Contact Amazon, who put me on hold for ages, talk to me in American accents and tell me that my order is being fulfilled by another supplier and will not be despatched for another 1-3 weeks.
- Express my displeasure at poor communication + inflexibility of Amazon order system (you would think preorders might be assigned to suppliers who actually stock the item, no?).
- Cancel Amazon order. With prejudice. With a stroppy little note.
- Order EEEEEEEEE from ADMI, direct.
- wait. Not patiently. Until at least tomorrow.

Good Fizz Guide

Further to last week's poll on Weird Shopping Experiences, I can now -- post delivery of mmcpoland's birthday present -- highly recommend both Quaff (who didn't have the item in stock, but phoned around to locate a bottle, went online and printed me a map, and were generally Very Nice) and Toast, who did have a bottle or two in stock (plus Gosset candles!) and have the most marvellously decadent decor.

Quaff are especially good for deals on cases. Toast are good for range, gift-packaging and shiny black counters. Both are in Hove, but have online shops, and both have helpful, friendly, sympathetic and charming staff.

On Saturday ...

... I did a wardrobe purge. Luckily, I still have a couple of jumpers left.

Reasons to wear long sleeves

1. SUMMER: DOEZ NOT WERK

2. Shiva thinks I should be paying attention to her instead of coding*, and keeps reminding me by swiping my bare arm with her spiky paw. Ha! Let's see how she likes it when she sticks.

*or, okay, spamming LJ.