I have known for a week or so what would be the subject of this blahg. It’s Phyllis Diller. Why? I have to be honest but I really liked Phyllis Diller. I’m not one of the band wagon jumpers who say nice things after an artist passes. I’m a true fan. I have some history with Phyllis Diller or rather I wished I had history with Phyllis Diller Confused? Relax, here comes the story. Did you doubt for even a moment that I had a story?
When I was in grade 7 I had a friend named Steve Bailey. There was nothing really significant about Steve except he had me convinced he was rich. I never questioned why a rich kid was going to a public school nor why a rich kid wanted anything to do with me. He had elaborate stories about his family’s wealth which included fancy cars and a mansion in Hollywood. Again, I never questioned any of it. Maybe I should have been suspicious when he said his mansion in Hollywood was next door to Phyllis Diller’s. Who would make that up? He even promised to take me down there in his family’s helicopter. I waited and waited but that never happened. Eventually I saw him cutting the grass outside an apartment building in the neighborhood. He tried to tell me his family owned it as an investment property. I didn’t question that either until his cousin told me he lived in the building and his father was the superintendent. My dreams of meeting Phyllis Diller were shattered…but hey, I now had a friend who had a father who was a superintendent. Cool.
Over the years, my enthusiasm for Phyllis Diller has not waned. She was someone who was over the top and under-appreciated. She had three great pairings with Bob Hope in, “Boy, Did I Get A Wrong Number!”, “Eight On A Lam”, and “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell.” Maybe Phyllis Diller is an acquired taste and certainly pairing her with Bob Hope, although in my mind a stroke of genius, might not seem significant to most viewers. Throw in Jonathan Winters on “Eight On The Lam” and you’re cooking with comedy gold. Luckily, all three of these funny films are available on DVD.
Click on any of the images for a larger viewing of the pictures in this blahg and check out this clip from “Eight On The Lam” with Jonathan Winters & Phyllis Diller. You don’t get to see that kind of pairing every day.
Funny stuff, right? But you’re probably wondering what Ben Affleck has to do with Phyllis Diller. Let me back up a little bit. I have spoken before about my friend Bryan and his penchant for movies. Bryan and I both share one thing in common when it comes to Phyllis Diller and her movies: “Did You Hear The One About the Traveling Saleslady?” This 1968 forgotten comedy gold has been an elusive film that Bryan and I have been trying to find. I remember that the last time I saw this film was over the Christmas holidays during 1984. I don’t know when Bryan saw it last but it’s been just as many years since his last viewing. It has never been released on video nor DVD and we often talk about wanting to see this film. About two weeks ago the subject of the film came up again between us. Here’s an ad for that film:
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) summary for this film reads:
Agatha Knabenshu arrives in a small town in Missouri to sell player pianos to the locals. She’s fired after her disastrous sales attempts nearly destroy the town. The stranded saleslady becomes friendly with an equally bumbling inventor and moves in with his family. The two then try to sell his automatic milking machine, but things turn sour when their demonstration causes a stampede.
It may not sound like much but I remember it being funny and also featuring Bob Denver who was infamous in the role as Gilligan from “Gilligan’s Island”. It might not hold up well since the last time I saw it but it doesn’t deter me from wanting to see it again.
Cut to two weeks ago and the conversation Bryan and I had about this film. Well, maybe not that far back. Jump instead to about a week and a half ago and Jeanette and I finally get away to the movies again. I had seen numerous films recently with Noah and I thought it was time I take my wife. I had wanted to see “Argo” since I first started seeing the trailers for it. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything for you but I will again quote IMDB with this movie summary:
In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans are taken hostage. However, six manage to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA is eventually ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devises a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez creates the ruse and proceeds to Iran as its associate producer. However, time is running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House have grave doubts about the operation themselves.
I am a Canadian and I didn’t know that my country did not play the big role in getting those hostages out of Iran as my government would lead me to believe. We just took the credit so the Americans wouldn’t get into more trouble over Iran. Sure, put Canada in the target sites! I digress. “Argo” is a fantastic movie.
So, now to Phyllis Diller and the Ben Affleck connection. In case you didn’t know, Ben Affleck stars in and directed “Argo”. Ultimately, I give him most of the credit for what is seen in the film. At one point, Ben Affleck’s character, along with the character portrayed by the brilliant John Goodman, go to visit a Hollywood Director portrayed by the also brilliant Alan Arkin. They need the Director to help them pull off this phony film by advising them on how to put over a film that doesn’t exist. At one point, in the Director’s home I spot this framed poster on the wall of his study. I can tell from the face on the poster that it is Phyllis Diller. Somewhere in my history I have seen a poster for “Did You Hear The One About the Traveling Saleslady?” but I can’t recall if this it. I lean in close to Jeanette and tell her I want another shot of this poster. A few minutes later we get another glimpse over Alan Arkin’s shoulder and I can spot the film’s title. It is indeed, a poster for “Did You Hear The One About the Traveling Saleslady?”
Let me tell you, I let out a squeal of delight while watching “Argo” but the squeal was not so much for “Argo” as it was for the Phyllis Diller poster cameo. Why was this poster featured in this film? I don’t know. I’m just happy it was there. It was probably something the set dresser threw in there but you have to think that Affleck, as the Director, had to be okay with it. How appropriate it was that this homage to Phyllis Diller was there. She died in August of this year and the film didn’t come out until October. Was it a last minute decision to include this poster as a nod to Diller’s passing? Again, I don’t know. If Ben Affleck reads this blahg, maybe he’ll send me an answer.
I thought I would close this blahg with my own personal salute to Phyllis Diller. When Byran and my other friend, Stephen Dafoe, and I were recording our infamous Dead From The Neck Up comedy show in the mid-90s, we would often have a canned comedy section where we would play a comic routine by a famous comedian or comedienne. One week, I brought in my LP copy of “Are You Ready For Phyllis Diller?” I don’t remember if I had listened to the full album but we were looking for something to fill the canned comedy slot so we chose a track called “Cheese and Turkey”. We busted up rather raucously in the studio that evening. I’d like to close with a YouTube video with audio of the whole album
Phyllis Diller, the original double bagger of comedy has left the building!
Well, my birthday came and went and now I’m starting in on the next fifty years.I don’t really feel like a 50 year old. I feel like two 25 year olds but my wife won’t let me have them. That’s a joke people. Laugh now. I actually do feel like two 25 year olds. They’re both in the same body. One is the fun loving not quite mature version and the other is the rational “it’s time to be a grown-up” person. It’s not easy trying to balance those two. The libido of the one is not tempered well by the other who is constantly asked by others to handle adult issues. I’m tired of having to deal with issues that concern my senior parents and having to be the watchful eye or counseling father to my own children. Somewhere in there, where both of those 25 year olds overlap is the small space where I get to be me. So is this blahg. As an aside, I’ve been using an old picture of myself for this blahg because I was having a good hair day that day. For today, and maybe today only, I’m going to use a current, as of this morning, picture of myself. You’ve been warned.
Last weekend I had a situation that challenged me both to act and to think. It was as if the two 25 year olds in me were being challenged. My computer started to have problems a week ago Friday and I had to enact some repairs. For some time, the video display on my monitor would go all yellow or blue and if I wiggled the cord in the back of the computer, everything would be fine for a time. I of course had ignored this for some time. Well, that day I decided maybe the video card wasn’t seated properly in the motherboard (that’s as technical as I’ll get) so I decided it was time to tackle this. I had built this computer myself four years ago from a bare bones kit. The kit consisted of a new case, motherboard, fan, CPU (processor), memory, and power source. I later added a larger hard-drive, new DVD player/recorder drive, video card, and sound card. It’s really not that hard once you learn the basics and with all the videos on the internet, you can learn to do just about anything. I don’t however suggest that new parents learn to change diapers from Youtube. Learn by trial and error. Get your hands messy.
I opened up my computer and removed and reseated the video card. I started up the computer and I had no more problems with wonky colour display. Unfortunately neither of my DVD drives would work properly and I had promised to burn some disks for somebody. So I opened up the case again and removed all cables connecting my drives and reattached them. That did the trick. Both of my drives worked fine for the rest of the day and the display gave me no further problems. Cut to Saturday. My computer will not load into Windows. It starts with the black bios screen that recognizes all my drives but stalls after that. Several restarts later, I realize that the several restarts are not doing the trick. I open up the computer again and check all connections and try again. Still no go. I start with the basics and disconnect all drives and try with just my one hard-drive connected. The computer starts fine and loads into Windows. This is fine but I need those DVD drives to work. I try adding one DVD drive along with the hard-drive. Now my computer won’t even load the Bios screen!
I could bore you here with the number of attempts I made and the various combinations of what I hooked up and what was not but I will just tell you that I stopped after an hour of getting a “no signal” message on my monitor and no apparent life in the computer. I decided to go out and cut grass. Three hours later, I tried it again. Nothing. I grab my laptop and research the Internet for possible solutions. Many sites suggest it might be the memory, the video card, the mother-board, the processor, or the power source. I don’t think it is the power source because my fan on the mother-board runs fine. I removed and reseated the memory, the video card, and the processor. Nothing changes. It’s now 7pm. I quit and we drive to Dairy Queen and have dinner. When we get there, all of their Interac machines are down. It’s cash only. Now I get it. It’s the revolt of all technology.
Several hours later, I’m lying in bed thinking out the problem. I can’t sleep and so I pull out my laptop and do some more research. It becomes apparent to me in the wee small hours that I’m going to have to replace the mother-board. This isn’t as simple as that may seem. A new mother-board requires a new processor and new memory. I’m also thinking it might require a new case, new power source, and possibly a new video card. I had almost ruled out the video card because the old mother-board had on-board video which meant I could use that if I didn’t have a faster video card. I wasn’t getting any display through the on-board video either so that’s what made me think it was the mother-board. The other hurdle was that the next day was Sunday and the only decent place that would be open to buy these components was Canada Computers in Kingston; an hour’s drive east.
After a few hours of sleep and a print-out of what was in my dead computer, I drive to Canada Computers. I explain to one of the technicians/sales persons there that I needed a new mother-board, processor, and memory but I might need other things as well. The sales person tells me she is not technically savvy enough to assist me and that Scott is the best person to assist me. I tell her my name is Scott and thank her for telling me I am the best person but I’m admitting I still need some help. She gestures to Scott at the back of the store. I knew that. That Scott assesses my situation and explains I don’t need a new case nor power source because those in my dead PC will work with the new components. It was a good thing that I had printed out the specs from my old system so he could look this up.
It is at this point that I think to ask him about connecting my old hard-drive with all of my installed programs and saved personal data. He tells me I can’t just hook up the hard-drive and expect it to work. There are all new drivers and a chip-set with the new mother-board and it won’t work with my old hard-drive. He tells me I have to hook up a different hard-drive with a Windows operating system and add my old hard-drive as a second drive. I will then have to back up everything onto the new hard-drive from the old hard-drive and then eventually reinstall every program I have. Either that or hook up my old hard-drive, wipe it completely, lose everything, reinstall Windows, and start from scratch. I feel sick.
On the long drive home my head is spinning. I don’t understand why I can’t just plug in my old hard-drive and expect it to work. If you own a bunch of DVD movies and your DVD player dies you can just get a new DVD player and it’ll recognize all your old DVDs. Isn’t it that simple? Then I remind myself, I own a Toshiba Blu-Ray player. Nothing has been that simple with the Toshiba. In a couple of other blahgs I have detailed how my previous Toshiba had problems and I ran into a nightmare with customer support at Toshiba to get it replaced. I thought everything had been settled when they upgraded me to a newer BDX2300. It too, has some issues. Some video formats will not play on it despite being able to be played on my normal DVD player. But the most frustrating of all is that it will fail to power off and I will have to unplug the power to the unit to shut it down. There goes Toshiba hijacking another of my blahgs! I’m done with Toshiba; back to the story at hand. I didn’t understand why connecting my old hard-drive with Windows 7 wouldn’t work.
Now we get to the crux of the matter and the part title of this blahg: THINK FOR YOURSELF. All the way home, I was sure that that other Scott was wrong and that this Scott was right. It was the battle of the Scotts this time as if it was the two 25 year olds inside me duking it out to see who knew better. Again I turned to my laptop and the Internet. Within a few minutes I had the answer I was looking for and this Scott was victorious. I promised I wouldn’t be too technical and I’ll stick to that. I’m just going to post the link here to a website that was invaluable: http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/microsoft-windows/windows-vista-and-windows-7-8/threads/281576/using-a-new-motherboard-with-windows-7-on-an-old-hard-drive. Half way down, is a post by a user by the name of “dcoetzee”. He suggested downloading a free program called Hirens to create a boot CD that will allow you to load up a mini-version of Windows to click hard-drive repair and it will fix all your problems. After installing all of the new components in my old case and hooking all connections I downloaded the Hirens Boot CD, which contains a program to burn it to CD, booted from this CD on my newly rebuilt PC and followed dcoetzee’s instructions. I removed the CD, loaded up my PC and it loaded right into Windows 7 and installed the new drivers for the mother-board. Those drivers that it couldn’t find were on the CD that came with my new motherboard. No fuss no muss. I didn’t lose anything and all my programs were installed and all my data was where it should be.
I don’t like to rub it in but I’m right and the Scott at Canada Computers is wrong. Think for yourself has always been a motto I’ve tried to live by. When I worked for Hewlett Packard and Time Warner Road Runner providing telephone technical support I applied that methodology almost daily. Sometimes I would come across a problem I could not resolve but was positive the scenario had an answer. I would abandon the employer directive to not go outside our support boundaries. I would scour through search engine results and forum postings to find a solution. Most often I was right and I would use this to provide resolution to the customer’s issue. I would always qualify the support I was providing with the direction that it was being offered for information purposes only. Most customers followed the direction and fixed their issue. If I couldn’t resolve the issue on the call, I would go home and research the issue further so that the next time I encountered the problem, I would have a solution. I guess that’s why I won all those employee of the month trophies.
THINK FOR YOURSELF. That doesn’t mean you can’t listen to advice or suggestions but it’s all about making up your mind. Having said that, I’m going to give you a suggestion. I would have qualified what I’m going to provide as a good suggestion but I’m encouraging you to think for yourself. By the way, this will be a good suggestion.
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I am a fan of the Stargate franchise. Stargate started as a motion picture with Kurt Russell and was later picked up as a popular television series. The first of these shows was Stargate SG1, followed by the spin-off Stargate Atlantis, and then Stargate Universe. I have enjoyed all three of these shows and this past summer Abbie and I went to Chicago for a Stargate convention and got autographs for some of our favorite stars from Stargate Atlantis. Highly unrepresented at this convention was Stargate Universe. It only ran two seasons and was very much different than the other two shows. It was darker and it didn’t resonate with many fans. I however thought it was brilliant. One of the things I really enjoyed about the show was the soundtrack. There were some great songs used in the show and, although no official soundtrack has been released, I’ve been able to acquire many of the songs used in the different episodes.
One of the great talents I have discovered from watching Stargate Universe is the singer, Deb Talan. In one episode, they used Deb Talan’s song “Comfort”. Let me share that with you:
There was something about her voice that evoked something in me. There was a fragility in her singing and it was something different than the top 40 that you are subjected to on FM radio. Maybe she’s been played on FM radio but not in my area and certainly she’s not someone I had heard of before. I wanted more.
If you research Deb Talan you will learn she is a member of the group “The Weepies”. I didn’t know that and I don’t know who they are but I’ve listened to a few of their tracks and I enjoy them. Somewhere during your research you might find out about a concert Deb Talan gave at Finney Chapel, recorded on May 3, 2003 at the Fifth Annual Oberlin College Spring Folk Festival in Oberlin, Ohio. I’m not promoting the bootleg of this CD but if you want some fine acoustic playing and singing then find and listen to this concert. Here’s another sample of her singing at that venue a beautiful song she wrote called “My Mother Now”:
If that’s not enough then listen to a more upbeat song called “I Don’t Know Why”. She encourages the audience to sing along on the chorus.
As always, if you like a singer, especially an independent artist who doesn’t get the airtime like some of those others who should go back to street singing, in my humble opinion, then go out and buy their CDs or attend their concerts. Check out Deb Talan’s website for more information: http://www.debtalan.com/about.html. I don’t know if she’s going to come to Canada anytime soon but if she does, you can bet I’ll be there…both of me.
Wow, has it really been the extant of the whole summer since my last blahg? Time flies when you’re having fun. I don’t know how much fun I’ve had but I’ve been really busy and it looks like the fall is shaping up to be the same way. At least, my wife and children will not be at home in the fall to distract me from writing here. So this blahg is going to be a little different.
In my last blahg, I mentioned that our eldest daughter, Emily, since the beginning of May, has been serving as an Intern with the Digital Advocacy Research Group at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. At the end of June, we decided to drive down to Washington over Canada Day Weekend to see her. Canada Day was July 1st and it fell on a Sunday. We decided to leave Friday, June 30th and I want to tell you the whole trip was one experience after another.
We did not get away until after 4pm on Friday afternoon after my wife got home from School. We were delayed two hours in Ganonoque, Ontario as our GPS attempted to get us past a huge accident on the major highway. That’s as much time as I ever want to spend in Ganonoque again. It’s probably a nice town but creeping at a snail’s pace through the downtown core is not what tourism is all about. We didn’t get to Binghamton, New York and our hotel until 10:30 after our detour, border crossing, and stopping for dinner. It was a nice hotel but nothing to write home nor here about.
Saturday, we stopped in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to do some shopping and someplace else I do not recall to have lunch. We didn’t get down to Washington until after 3pm. It was obvious that there were some problems in the area because many of the traffic lights were out and many tree limbs were down. We later learned that a major storm blew through the night before. In Canada, when you come across an intersection where the lights are out, we treat it as a four way stop. Apparently in Washington, you treat that scenario as an excuse to speed through the intersection and not give the cars from the other direction a chance to cross through. Our GPS only failed us once when we got to the street where our daughter lived and found it was closed off because power lines were down on the lower half of her street. We just took a side street and came it from a different direction. Luckily, the upper half of the street, where our daughter’s townhouse was situated, was not without power. That was a blessing because it was 101 degrees and she had air-conditioning. Luckier still, the air-conditioning in our van worked well the whole trip.
A few quick hugs later with our daughter and the use of her washroom and we were on our way to our hotel a few blocks from her home. When we got there, we noticed a makeshift sign that said that there was no power in the hotel. When I checked with the front desk, the manager explained that I could not stay there because of the power outage. It was a tricky communication thing between he and I because initially he told me I would not be charged for my stay there. I thought I was going to get to stay free but he was just trying to say I couldn’t stay there and my credit card used to book the room would not be billed. Using the GPS, we tried three other local hotels and found there was no room at the Inn.
We didn’t panic. We went to a mall and did some shopping and then went to an Ihop Restaurant for dinner and the use of their free WI-FI so we could find another hotel. We located one about 30 minutes outside of Washington and quickly booked it. With that resolved, we decided to go visit the Lincoln Memorial. When we finally got to the Lincoln Memorial it was dusk and the Lincoln Memorial was actually the Jefferson Memorial. It was still 100+ degrees and we were sweating but we enjoyed the Jefferson Memorial. We then drove around in circles for 30 minutes before finding the real Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial was well worth the wait, the heat, and 30 minutes of circling and arguing trying to find a parking space.
After both Memorials we decided to drive to our hotel. Emily decided to stay with us and she had packed an overnight bag. By the time we stopped for gas and two other stops to try and find a public bathroom (which are scarce) we finally got to the hotel about 11:30. It was pitch black. Everything else around it was lit up but the hotel was dark. An inquiry at the front desk gave us the explanation that they had no power (why didn’t the online booking tell us that) and didn’t expect to have power until the next day. We were welcome to stay at the hotel but we’d have to use the stairs because there was no power for the elevator. We were so tired, we agreed and the night manager found us a room on the third floor so we wouldn’t have to walk up too many stairs. There were two queen sized beds in the room but that was the extant of the luxury. No power meant no air conditioning and the windows didn’t open. We were all exhausted from the walking around the memorials that we fell asleep despite it being 90+ degrees in the room. The next morning I had a quick shower because there was enough water in the lines for that. My son managed to get one in too although it was cold. My wife and daughters just wanted to go back to Emily’s place and shower there. I never did get a discount from that hotel and when I complained to their day manager, I was told they agreed to provide us with a room and did not guarantee power. Act of God or something. I didn’t catch his act but who would you get to open for him?
We managed to get back to Emily’s and while the girls took turns with the shower, Noah and I went off to a local McDonald’s to get breakfast for everyone. Most of us had some variation of Egg McMuffin but Abbie just wanted a Chocolate Chip Muffin. When I tried to order this through the McDonald’s drive-thru I encountered another language communication issue. The tinny voice at the other end of the receiver didn’t understand my request for the muffin and kept asking if I meant a McMuffin. She even said, I obviously wanted a Chocolate Chip Frappe. I don’t know who you get Frappe from Muffin but because it had Chocolate chips she assumed I didn’t know what I really wanted. I guess they don’t have have Chocolate Chip Muffins in Washington. When I tried to describe this type of pastry, they informed they had never heard of such a thing. Emily made Abbie a bagel back her place. Muffin people! Muffin! Have you never seen Seinfeld? Mufffin!
The remainder of that Sunday was spent walking around the Smithsonian and the outside front and back of the White House. It was now 104 degrees. We had lunch at a restaurant called Potbelly’s and then we took Emily home and started the drive back north to Canada. I was glad to be out of Washington. We stopped at a hotel in Wilkes-Barre that night and the air conditioning worked. The next day we drove home and were ecstatic to be back in our own Country. It’s true: Nice Place To Visit But I Wouldn’t Want To Live There. Emily flew home about two weeks ago after finishing her internship. She too, was tired of Washington.
I know this narrative has been rather short and bleak but I did take some nice video while in Washington. I want to end this part about Washington by posting those videos here. The quality is a little grainy because the conversion to Youtube type videos was to a lesser quality. Believe me, the originals look better.
Night time at the Jefferson Memorial (which I thought was the Lincoln Memorial) :
Night time at the real Lincoln Memorial:
Walking near the Washington Monument:
Part one of our trip inside The Smithsonian:
Part two of our trip inside The Smithsonian:
A nice man at the Smithsonian tells us about Lincoln’s Hat and other things that went on the night of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln:
Front and back views of The White House:
Driving near the Capitol Dome and The Canadian Embassy in Washington:
I will close on a more upbeat but disturbing note; to me anyway. The other night, I made a comment about our cat Frank lying about and living the life of riley. My children looked at me as if I was crazy and asked what I meant by the phrase: “The Life of Riley”. I couldn’t believe it. What have they learned in school all these years? Why didn’t they know the meaning of that phrase? It means to live the good life or an easy and pleasant life without much effort. My children explained that nobody uses that phrase and doubted it was still in common use. Again, I was flabbergasted. Besides being a popular radio show and later television show, the phrase has always been in common use by me. I was sure I was often heard to comment on someone living the life of Riley or the fact that I wasn’t living it. I know I wasn’t living it when we went to Washington.
What’s the world coming to? Are phrases dropping out of speech because we older people, and I don’t consider myself that old, have forgotten to pass them on? It worries me. In fifty years, will this phrase be all but gone? What about “Bob’s Your Uncle” or “So’s Your Old Man”? Is it to be goodbye to “You and the horse you rode in on”? Can I no longer get away with “Another one bites the dust”? Sure, expletives continue and many use them far too much. But if I drop an occasional “take the bull by the horns” will people look at me like I just spoke an offensive string of four letter words. Well, I say “What’s Up With That?” and “More Power To You” if you can get away with these colloquialisms. “My Hat’s Off To You” who keep these phrases alive and “Lead Me Up The Garden Path” to a better time when eyes weren’t cocked (there’s another) when I described something in a unique way. “Live and Let Live”, I say and “Live Long and Prosper!” Okay, I don’t think that last one will die out anytime soon. You tell ’em Spock!
I know it’s been more than a month since I published a blahg. I tried…really I did. I sat down to write this blahg and my server went down and I lost part of the blahg. So, many things happened since then and I’m going to try and get to them all now. First, the Toshiba saga is done. I’m going to start off with that because I’ve paid far too much attention to Toshiba and they deserve none of it. The end to my Toshiba experience is one of the things I have to celebrate. It took two months of persistent phone conversations with far too many representatives of Toshiba. I’ve been very clear that this is not the way customer service should be. But let’s close this experience. The last interaction with Toshiba that I noted was that I returned my BDX2155KC to Toshiba via UPS on May 23rd. In the box, I had included a letter requesting a phone call from Toshiba to tell me they had received the Blu-Ray player and a subsequent phone call providing a tracking number for the replacement BDX 2300.
By Friday, June 1st, I had heard nothing from Toshiba so I decided to try Mike’s personal number to make yet another inquiry. I was put through to his voice mail and I left a detailed message requesting an update. Mike finally called me back around noon on Monday, June 4th. He explained that there had been a delay in sending out my replacement BDX 2300 but it had been sent out late Friday afternoon (sure, after I called and left a message asking for it!). I was provided with a tracking number that I checked online and verified that the Blu-Ray Player had been shipped and I further discovered it was out on the truck for delivery to me. Unfortunately I had to go out and missed the Purolator delivery (yes, Purolator, even though everything had been UPS up to that point). When I got home later, I found a delivery card and arranged for Jeanette to pick up the BDX 2300 at the Purolator depot the next day. Cut to the chase. It was the BDX 2300 and I hooked it up and to my delight found that the USB port that had been on the rear of the BDX2155KC was on the front of the BDX 2300. Finally, Toshiba got something right. I inserted a USB drive and played a one hour file from beginning to end and the machine did not shut down. If you’re confused about all of this then read my previous entries because I’m done with Toshiba now.
The title of this blahg is “Some Things To Celebrate…” and I want to get onto more important things. Yes, I celebrate the fact that I finally got something from Toshiba but there wouldn’t have been cause for celebration if Toshiba Customer Service had done their job right in the first place. But as I said, enough about Toshiba and more about those other things to celebrate.
On May 30th, of this year, Jeanette and I celebrated 25 years of marriage. In my family, other than my parents and my sister and her husband, there hasn’t been a great track record in marriages. Twenty-five is a milestone that you don’t make every day and I want to take a moment to celebrate that. We did have a nice gathering of some friends and family and there was way too much food left over. My son took lots of photos but I’ll only share this one of us looking happy and cutting the cake.
Ten years ago I created a DVD Picture Show as a gift to Jeanette on our 15th Anniversary. I had scanned in many old photos and created slideshows to music of our life together and separate ones of each of our children. All of the slideshows were set to the music of Frank Sinatra (surprise, surprise). Sinatra had recorded songs with the names of two of our children: “Emily” & “Noah” but there was nothing in his repertoire with the name of “Abbie”. With a little creative license I utilized the song “Pocketful of Miracles” which is nice child like song that Sinatra recorded with a children’s chorus. For the menu, I chose the song “You Will Be My Music”, which was the Sinatra song at our wedding. For the slideshow of us as a couple, I chose Sinatra singing “As Time Goes By”. I’d like to share that with you here:
Let me share a couple of poems I’ve written over the years about my union with Jeanette. The first was written about two weeks before our wedding:
love poem # 3 (of sorts)
marry me I said
and she said
yes
but if it were
that easy
to get what I wanted
then maybe
I woulda asked fer
world peace instead
Now let’s jump ahead about 5 years later:
I’m rememberin’ a girl who could raise hackles
I’m rememberin’ a girl
who could raise hackles
in humans?
and as I remember
she turns to me half asleep
and kisses my back
where I think my hackles must be
It’s been a long time since I wrote my wife a poem, maybe in a card, but if I do write her a new one, she’ll be the first to know.
Now back to the “some things to celebrate”. A couple of weeks ago we had some graduations to attend. First, my youngest daughter, Abbie, graduated from grade 8. This may not seem significant to anyone else but to her, and us, it’s a big deal. She’s leaving a country school, well it’s in the country anyway, that all of our children have attended and she starts High-school in the city come September. This is an even bigger deal because she is not attending the same school that all of her classmates will be attending. Most of them will be going to the big Secondary school here in the County while Abbie takes a 30 minute bus ride to Belleville to Centennial Secondary School where her two older siblings have gone. The choice was hers. Most grade 8 graduates of schools here in Prince Edward County go to Prince Edward Collegiate in Picton unless they get special permission to attend a school elsewhere. Elsewhere being Belleville. Abbie applied for the Arts Program at Centennial, as did my oldest daughter Emily, and was accepted. Her brother, Noah, will be there for one semester in January but she’ll be the new kid on the block in September.
Back to her graduation. Abbie’s dress was stunning and she was beautiful (as can be seen in the picture above with my wife and I…at least Abbie’s hair looked better than mine that night). She received three awards the night she graduated. She tied with another girl for the highest academic award, tied for the highest marks in Math, and won the Language Arts award outright (pictured at left). Her Principal credited her receiving this award to all of the comics she reads but corrected herself to the term of “Graphic Novels”. Abbie does read those but she’s a voracious reader of regular novels as well. She looked beautiful in her dress and her hair, which took about an hour and a half, was gorgeous. I’m very proud of her.
The second graduation we had that week, two days after Abbie’s, was Noah’s grade 12 graduation from Centennial.
He was also an Ontario Scholar which meant he graduated with an average of 80+ and he also received a technical award for his work in Theater Arts.
He has been very active in theater and theater production at his school. He played the second lead pirate in the school’s production of “Peter Pan” this year. Last year he was Mr. Salt, the father of Veruca Salt, in the production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. He’s also been in Centennial’s productions of “The Music Man” and “Sound of Music”. Check out the photo of his proud parents from the night of graduation.
Now, readers of this blahg (again, do I have readers?) will recall that I have three children. Our eldest daughter, Emily, was not able to attend our Anniversary celebration nor her siblings’ graduations. She has been very busy herself out of country. Since the beginning of May, she has been serving as an Intern with the Digital Advocacy Research Group at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. We miss her very much but a couple of weeks ago, and the subject of an upcoming blahg, we managed to drive down to Washington over a hot long weekend at the beginning of July and spent some time with her. The picture above is the only recent photo we’ve been able to snap of all three of our children since Emily has been in the USA. Emily’s the one in the middle…not the absolute middle, that’s Lincoln. She returns in August and we can’t wait to have her home.
The last bit of celebration, which has some sadness attached to it but I will save that, too, for a later blahg, concerns a new addition to our family. We recently adopted a new kitten. It’s been about twelve years since we’ve had a kitten in our home and Abbie, being the youngest child, has never had the chance to name one of our cats. I named Frank, the subject of a previous blahg “The Christmas Cat” and before that, June was already adopted pre-named. She was adopted from Robyn’s Nest in Picton, Ontario. This store adopts out animals that have been brought into the local animal welfare society so it’s only fitting that we provided a home for a rescued kitten. I don’t know the story behind our kitten but she was either brought into the local shelter or was born there. She has made a loving addition to our home and after two days, Abbie provided her with the name “Stella”. She’s very playful and she likes to sleep on me early in the morning. She is so small that I don’t feel her walking up me while I’m sleeping. I’ll close with two cute videos of Stella on the back of the sofa watching television.
Hopefully, my next blahg won’t be so long in the making.
Let me start off this blahg by saying something positive. I own an Epson Stylus NX515 wireless printer. It hasn’t given me a lick of problems. I owned a previous Epson printer before this and I liked that printer too. The only reason I upgraded to the NX515 was for the convenience of wireless printing and the fact that this printer was on sale for half the retail price. I am giving these accolades to this printer because I’m impressed with the quality of Epson products thus far. I haven’t had cause to call their technical support and having been a troubleshooter of Hewlett Packard printers, I can tell you that if a model is good then there won’t be many support calls. There’s the positive for today. Pleasantries are now set aside.
For those of you who read my blahg from two weeks ago “SHAME ON YOU TOSHIBA, EXCEPT AL…MAYBE” then you are aware that I was left hanging by Toshiba in regards to my Blu-Ray Player BDX2155KC. The last conversation I detailed in that blahg was with a Case Manager named “Al” who promised to send me an upgrade of a BDX2300 and that I am to return the defective BDX2155KC in the BDX2300 box with an affixed return label that he would email to me. That conversation was on April 27th.
Jump ahead to May 8th. At around 6pm Al from Toshiba calls me. He’s inquiring about the return label that was to be sent me by email and whether I had received it. I had not. It’s been a week and a half since our last conversation and there had been no follow-up calls or emails. He does not mention anything about the replacement BDX2300. I ask him if he received my fax of the receipt showing that my BDX2155KC was purchased on December 26th, 2011 and should still be in warranty. Al is not sure if he has received that fax. He will check his documents and will call me back. NOTE: THIS IS THE LAST TIME I HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH AL…MORE TO FOLLOW.
On May 15th, I received an automated email from Toshiba directing me to a website to print off my return label. The return label will only be available to me for 30 days. I check out the link and it is a printable return label for UPS. Clearly, I’m to print this off and attach it to a box and call UPS for pick up. Again, it is an automated email and there is no mention of the BDX2300. The original instructions from Al were that I was to attach the return label to the box of the BDX2300 and return it with the BDX2155KC inside. I have a return label and no box and no BDX2300.
The following is a timeline of what has happened since receiving the return label by email on May 15th:
May 16th, 6:15pm: I speak to Victor, a front line agent and provide my case number. I recognize the voice. This is the same Victor who was rude to me before when we spoke on April 27th and told me that he only troubleshoots issues for customers from the United States. He does not say that this time. He was either lying last time or he’s been transferred. I don’t get into that with him. I explain that my last conversation with Case Manager Al on April 27th leaves me waiting for the BDX2300. When I receive the BDX2300 I will remove it and place the BDX2155KC in the box, attach the return label, and will ship it back to Toshiba. I also explain I have the return label now but I’m still waiting on the BDX2300. Victor tells me that Toshiba’s policy is that I must return the BDX2155KC first before they can ship me the replacement BDX2300. I tell Victor that I was told by Al that the BDX2300 was to come first and then I would ship back the BDX2155KC. I am placed on hold at 6:21.
6:24pm: Victor is back. He tells me there is no record in Al’s notes or my file that I was told the replacement BDX2300 would be sent to me first. I tell him that I made notes and that’s what I was told by Al. Back on hold at 6:27 while he consults someone.
6:36pm: Back with Victor again. Explains that the policy has recently changed and they want the defective unit back first. I am adamant that I will not return the BDX2155KC first. That will leave me without a Blu-Ray player and at the mercy of Toshiba trying to get anything from them. Given their track record of not returning phone calls would I honestly trust that they would return me a Blu-Ray player? Victor is insistent on the new policy. I am insistent as well. I demand to speak to a Supervisor. Victor doesn’t want to get me a Supervisor and says I will be told the same thing by the Supervisor. I demand to be transferred to a Case Manager. Victor tells me that because it’s already 6:40pm, he cannot transfer me to the Case Manager department because everyone in that department has left for the day. Their hours are only 8 to 5. Funny, the last time I talked to Al, on May 8th, it was near 6pm. I accept my fate and agree to call back the next day during the appropriate hours.
New day. It’s now May 17th. Here’s what transpired:
9:15am: I speak with a pleasant female named Bless (I asked for the spelling). I explained what Al told me about receiving the BDX2300 and then returning the BDX2155KC. I also tell her what Victor told me about returning the BDX2155KC first before I can receive the BDX2300. She is very sympathetic and says it was obvious that I was told something different by Case Manager Al. She places me on hold to see if she can reach Al. I’m on hold at 9:22.
9:25am: Back with Bless. Al is on the telephone with another customer and he will call me back within the day. I provide my cell phone number in case they cannot reach me on my house phone. I do have a life and have to go out of the house sometimes. Bless assures me that Al will call me back “within the day” (her words). I’m off the call at 9:27. Al does not call me back within the day. No one from Toshiba calls me back. Surprise!
Day 3 this week. It’s now May 18th. Still no call from Al. Here we go again:
11:20am: New agent, Chris. I explain to him that I’ve been calling for two days for Al. I want to speak to Al. I’m placed on hold at 11:22.
11:26am: Chris comes back and cites the recently changed policy. He insists that I have to return the BDX2155KC first. I insist on speaking to Al. I don’t want to go through this again with another front line agent. Placed on hold at 11:28.
11:30am: I get Karl. I’ve spoken to this person before but this time he says he’s a Supervisor. Last time he was a front line agent. They get promoted or transferred a lot at Toshiba. Karl is not clear what “Mr. Al Cameron” told me as it is not in the notes. This is the first time that I’m given Al’s last name. Karl says the policy has changed but because I tell him something different was told to me by Al then I will have to clarify this with Al. That’s what I’ve been trying to do! I am placed on hold at 11:36 while Karl tries to transfer me to Al.
11:40am: Karl comes back and says Al is currently not available as he’s dealing with some other issues. He promises me that Al will call me back. I don’t press it but I’m not hopeful for the callback. O Al, Where Art Thou?
11:58am: Someone named Mike from Toshiba calls me back. He says he is a Case Manager and he’s going to handle my case because Al is on holidays. I tell him that he needs to get his story straight because I’ve now been told by three different people, three different stories about the whereabouts of Al. It’s the Friday of a long weekend and maybe Al has left early. I don’t ask this but I’m suspicious. Mike takes the hardline and spouts policy and says I have to return the BDX2155KC first. He also says there are no notes from Al saying he will send the BDX2300 to me first and then the BDX2155KC will be returned. I am defiant. I make it clear that Toshiba has terrible customer service and that it has now been six weeks since I started calling and this issue is unresolved. I tell him that I don’t trust that I will get the BDX2300 because Toshiba has lied to me about callbacks and the whereabouts of Al so I’m not budging. I also told him I’ve been told more than once the BDX2155KC was out of warranty when it clearly is not and that at one point, I was told they had already replaced the unit when they have not. Mike says there is a record of the replacement but that it was sent to another customer. Some cases got mixed up and that’s why I was told the BDX2155KC was already replaced. I am livid. It is clear that nothing good will come of this. I offer up a concession. I promise to return the BDX2155KC first but I want Toshiba to send me an empty box first with a tracking number for the empty box. When I receive the empty box then I’ll attach the return label and send back the BDX2155KC. I will expect a callback when they have received the BDX2155KC with a tracking number for the replacement BDX2300. Mike agrees. He also offers to provide a full one year warranty on the replacement rather than transferring the remaining balance of the warranty over from the BDX2155KC. He also provides me with this direct phone number and extension. I’m off the call at 12:06.
6:45pm: Mike calls me back. I thought Case Manager’s only worked until 5? Hmmm!? Anyway, Mike tells me the empty box has been shipped and provides me with a tracking number for the box. He explains that there will be a return label inside and that I’m to box up the BDX2155KC with the manual and remote and return it to Toshiba.
On Tuesday, May 22nd, UPS delivers me an empty box. Monday was a holiday so it came on Tuesday. I package up the BDX2155KC for return and slap on the return label that was included. I take it to the UPS store on Wednesday May 23rd to have it shipped out. It’s a good thing Toshiba is paying the shipping costs on this or I’d have forgotten the whole thing and just kept the defective BDX2155KC. The man at the UPS store is pleasant and I joke with him. I tell him I have special instructions for the delivery. “Find the President of Toshiba and ram it down his throat.” The UPS store man doesn’t know whether to laugh but he does. That’s the last I see of the BDX2155KC.
I was going to end this blahg with the line “this story yet to be concluded” but something happened yesterday that I think is worth mentioning. I’ve been going on and on about this poor experience with Toshiba and their terrible Customer Service. I want to now relate to you how Customer Service should work.
Yesterday, in my many errands, I went to the local Walmart to purchase some liquid chlorine to shock my above ground pool for the season. I picked up two jugs and because I hadn’t grabbed a cart, I was leaning the jugs against my shirt front. I was wearing a plain navy blue t-shirt and I noticed that there was now a pink ring along the front of the shirt. One of the bottles of liquid chlorine had leaked and discolored my shirt. I put back the leaky bottle and grabbed another one. I wanted to report this but couldn’t find a Walmart representative. I grabbed a cart and placed the two jugs inside while I went to the men’s department to buy a new shirt. I found another plain navy blue shirt for $7 and headed off to the cashier. I mentioned to the cashier about the leaky bottle and that someone should check on that. I showed her the discolored ring on my shirt. She told me I should report this to Customer Service because they would probably reimburse me for the shirt I just bought.
I went to the Walmart Customer Service and explained the situation and the Cashier had suggested I should receive a refund for my new shirt. The lady at Customer Service said she’d have to check it with the Day Manager. She paged the Day Manager and a couple minutes later a nice gentleman came over and heard my story. He said he would authorize the reimbursement and furthermore they would give me a $20 gift card for my troubles. I said this wasn’t necessary but he put his arm around me and said it was necessary because he wanted me to be a happy customer. Boy was I surprised! People can say many disparaging things about Walmart but their Customer Service is a model of how to take care of the customer. Toshiba take note!
Oh, by the way, I changed into the new shirt and it fit perfectly. Unfortunately I wore it when I emptied the contents of the bottles of liquid chlorine into my pool. Some of the chlorine splashed onto my new shirt and I now have serveral pink dots on my new navy blue shirt. Oh well, it was free and I have a gift card and can by a two or three more. Lesson learned.
I wanted to call this blahg “Toshiba Sucks” or “Toshiba–To Hell In A Handbasket”. It wasn’t that I thought my readers (do I have readers?) would not get the play on words on that last one but rather that I want to give Toshiba some more time to resolve this issue or more rope with which to hang themselves. After all, it’s not my reputation on line here, it’s the good name of Toshiba that’s at stake.
Before I get too far ahead with this blahg, let me clarify that I’m not a pessimist. The glass is neither half full or half empty with me; it’s a glass and that means it can be broken and someone can be injured. I know that in previous blahgs that I’ve been quick to point blame or fault where it is due. In the past I’ve blamed David Letterman for breaking my cookie and cell phone users for ruining my movie going experience. To my own defense, I have also given praise where it is due. I’ve given accolades to Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, and Margaret Ann & The Ja-Da Quartet. I’ve also praised Whirpool for my new washing machine. If you are scratching your head at this point then it’s because you haven’t read my previous blahgs. Do yourself a favor and look back through my archives. There’s some fun reading there. All that aside, I can compliment just as easily as condemn. I wanted to make sure that was straight before I began my latest tirade.
Back in December, on Boxing Day to be precise, I bought a new Blu-Ray Player. I’m not an overly big fan of Blu-Ray and there’s been a great deal of material released on Blu-Ray that is sub-standard. The only reason I made the investment was there are some new materials being released with bonus material or special features that I cannot access on a regular DVD. This purchase is actually the second Blu-Ray player that has come into our home. The first was an inexpensive Seiki player BD660 that I purchased from Walmart. My son had been bugging me about getting one and when this one came on sale at Walmart for about $50, I made the purchase and made him happy. He quickly claimed it for his room and occasionally it was allowed to make an appearance in the living-room when he wanted to watch something on the big screen. It really didn’t matter because I hadn’t begun to purchase that many Blu-Ray discs and if I had something, then Noah was gracious enough to lend me back the Seiki that I had paid for.
The Seiki served its purpose until I began to acquire more Blu-Ray discs and the player begand to spend more time downstairs and Noah began to spend more time complaining about the situation. So, to get back to the story, I purchased a new Blu-Ray player for our main room. The source, which used to be Radio Shack, had a sale on the Toshiba Blu-Ray Player BDX2155KC. It looked liked a decent player and it certainly was a decent price. I enjoyed the player right away because it had a feature that I really wanted in a player. If you take a close look at the back of this Toshiba Player then you will see that there is a USB port where you can connect a USB Flash Drive. This is very important because it allows me to play content that I have downloaded from the Internet.
I don’t want to get into the legality or illegality of downloaded content. I have discussed this all before in my blahg, “The Death of A Big One”. I detailed how I have had to download current TV shows because I live in the country and get 4 channels.Not all current shows air on any of those channels. One of my new favorites,”Smash”, about the struggle to put on a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe, has started airing on CTV2 after first airing on CTV. CTV is one of the 4 channels I do get and when they switched “Smash” to CTV2 then I had to start downloading the new episodes. Shame on you CTV and CTV2 and your parent companies…but that’s another story. I download some new shows like “Smash” & “Psych” and some older classic movies that have never been released on DVD.
The important thing to understand about downloading video content from the Internet is that the content can come in different formats. There is the standard AVI or DivX format that most regular DVD Players can play and then there are the MP4, MKV, WMA, MPEG formats that regular DVD players cannot display. If you don’t understand these formats then research them because I don’t have the time nor inclination to do that in this blahg. My new Toshiba Player has the ability to play all of these formats. All I need to do is put the downloaded content on my USB Flash Drive, plug the Drive into the back of the Toshiba and then we’re away to the races…or the movies in this case.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. I have a normal DVD Player with a USB Port in the front and if just want to watch a TV show or movie in AVI format then I can just use the USB Thumb Drive in this player and watch the content. When it’s any of the other formats, mentioned above, then I have to use my Toshiba. Let me be clear that the Toshiba has no problems playing any of the content in those formats. The problem is that if the show or movie is longer than 30 minutes then the Toshiba shuts down. It powers off right at the 30 minute mark. That’s a pain. Imagine trying to watch an hour or longer show or a movie and, just when things get interesting, the Toshiba turns itself off. Here’s my description of that feeling/experience: arrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhh! Do I make myself clear?
I knew that this wasn’t normal. I can play a DVD or Blu-Ray disc in the Toshiba without a problem. The movie or show on the disc will play from beginning to end without interruption. Use the USB and the Toshiba shuts down after 30 minutes. I checked through the manual and the only thing that I could find that applied to this problem was a note in the section about Screen Saver Duration: “The unit shuts down automatically in about thirty minutes if it remains idle and no activities are made.” I checked the on screen menu settings and the maximum time at which you can set the screen saver is 30 minutes. There is also the option to disable the screen saver. This does nothing. With the screen saver disabled, the Toshiba still shuts down after 30 minutes when playing content from a USB Drive. The only way that I discovered to avoid the shutdown is to pause the show or movie before 30 minutes and then resume play. If the show is one hour then I only have to pause it once but if it’s a two hour movie then I have to pause the Toshiba three or more times. Again, certainly not a normal procedure for a Blu-Ray player.
I struggled with this problem for a few months. I tried searching the Internet for a solution but to no avail. I was resolved that the Toshiba was not functioning properly. Finally, when I had some time, on April 4th, I telephoned Toshiba support for the first time. I wish I had had the foresight to record all of these conversations or to document the names of all of the people I spoke to at Toshiba. The first time I called, I spoke to someone who didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell him. I’m sure it was a language issue because Toshiba has clearly outsourced their technical support as everyone I spoke to subsequently, with the exception of Al (who will come up again later), had a foreign accent. I’m not knocking that. I worked for Hewelett Packard for a while troubleshooting their printers and some of their technical support was outsourced to India and The Philippines. There were many great technicians in those countries handling complex issues. The problem lies with Toshiba, in this case, in making sure their agents are qualified or well-trained in technical troubleshooting and appropriate customer service.
The first agent, as I said, had a hard time grasping the technical problem I was having with his company’s product. He put me on hold three or four times to check with his supports and each time he came back he would reiterate my problem but he would keep saying that my problem was that the Blu-Ray player would shut down after 30 minutes whether I played Blu-Ray discs or USB content. I kept having to clarify that the problem was only with the USB content. After the last time he had put me on hold, he came back and told me that they had determined that this Toshiba Player was malfunctioning and that they would need to replace it. They had all of my contact information and the serial number of the Player and there was no conversation about the Warranty. I never questioned the Warranty anyway because the manual clearly stated there was a full one year Warranty on the unit. The agent explained that I would receive an email detailing how they would be replacing the BDX2155KC. That was the end of the conversation I had with that agent other than that he provided me with a reference number.
More than a week passed and I received no emails from Toshiba. On April 13th, I phoned Toshiba once more and had to explain everything all over again to a new agent. When you first speak to these agents, they want the serial number of the Player to determine if the product is still in Warranty. This was the same procedure we used at Hewlett Packard. I learned early on however to just quote my reference number so they could quickly pull up my file. With this second agent, I did have to explain the problem again and to explain that a previous agent had told me the unit would be replaced but I had not received an email communicating any of the necessary details. It was clear that the first agent had not put any of this in his notes because the second agent could find no reference to a replacement. He put me on hold to speak to his Supervisor and then came back and told me they couldn’t help me because my Player was out of Warranty. I explained that I had only purchased it at the end of December and with a full one year warranty, the unit could not be out of Warranty. I had even gone online and registered the Blu-Ray player shortly after purchasing it. Why didn’t they have a record of this? Surely, they could look up the manual themselves and see what I could see about the Warranty:
There was not question in my mind about the Warranty.
The agent had to put me on hold a few times as he tried to update the Warranty. I offered to fax or email a copy of the receipt from The Source but he told me it was not necessary. Finally, after numerous times of putting me on hold, he told me he was escalating my case to a Supervisor and that I would receive a callback to resolve this issue. I should have started balking at this point but I didn’t have any reason to suspect I would not receive a return call from someone higher up at Toshiba.
Jump ahead a week. It’s now April 20th and no one has called me back and still no emails and still the Player is shutting down after thirty minutes when playing content from the USB Drive. Again, I get a new agent and have to provide the case number and I have to detail the problem again and the previous conversations with previous agents. This new agent does not question the Warranty so I assume the Warranty issue has been resolved. This time I’m only on hold once before he comes back and says he will be escalating me to a Supervisor and that I’m to hold the line for the Supervisor. While transferring me to the Supervisor, the call disconnects. I wait an hour and no one calls me back. I call again and get yet another agent and provide my reference number and a back story detailing my issues with the Blu-Ray Player and my issues with all of the previous agents. I am immediately connected to a Supervisor and the call does not disconnect. I have to provide all details and history again to this Supervisor. I am told by this Supervisor that his records indicate that they have already replaced this unit. What!? Previous agents couldn’t find anything in the notes about a promise to replace the Player yet this Supervisor tells me they have a record that they have already replaced the BDX2155KC. I am very insistent that the unit has not been replaced and that I’m very disappointed with the customer service that I have received to this point. The Supervisor apologizes, like every agent before him has apologized, and promises that he will get this resolved by escalating my case to Customer Service. Again I’m assured a callback. Again, the callback never comes.
April 27th, a week later, three weeks since I started calling Toshiba, I place a call to Toshiba and get yet another Agent who is unfamiliar with my case. This time, I begin recording times, names, and what I’m being told. Here’s the timeline from April 27th:
1:15pm: I speak to Phil and provide my case number, explain the problem with Player, detail my frustration with Toshiba and the lack of support I have received to date. I ask for a Supervisor. Phil says it will be a ten minute wait on hold for a Supervisor. I am placed on hold at 1:30pm.
1:55pm: Someone named Victor comes on the line. I ask if he is a Supervisor. He explains that he is not a Supervisor and it becomes apparent that after 25 minutes on hold I was routed back to another front line technical support agent. I provide the case number and case history so he doesn’t have to read through all of the notes. Victor explains that he only troubleshoots issues and customers from the United States and that because I am in Canada, he cannot help me. I request a Supervisor. Victor becomes belligerent and says I cannot speak to a Supervisor because he does not provide support to Canadian customers. I become belligerent and complain about the poor support and service I have received from Toshiba. Victor does not apologize but maintains he cannot help me because I am Canadian. I demand his employee #. He tells me his ID # is 1326932. I have requested this number because I want to report this agent and make sure he is properly trained in Customer Service etiquette. I then demand to be transferred to someone who can help me.
2:06pm: I am transferred yet again to a front line agent but this time to someone who services Canadians. His name is Karl. Again I offer up the reference number and case history and overall dissatisfaction with Toshiba. I also explain the inappropriateness of Victor, the US only support agent and that I would be happy to provide his ID #. Apparently this is not necessary. I don’t push the Victor issue. I ask for a Supervisor. Karl tries to be helpful and wants to troubleshoot the original issue about the unit shutting down after 30 minutes. I thought this might be useful because no one else had tried to do that since the first agent back on April 4th. Karl does not place me on hold but his answers are not helpful and are not correct. He explains that the BDX2155KC does not support playback of any video file formats other than MPEG files. I read to him from the manual:
Again, I fail to understand why Toshiba agents do not have access to the same information as I. It’s in the manual. Nowhere in the manual does it say that MPEG files are the only supported USB content for video files. I thank Karl for trying and request a Supervisor. I am placed on hold again.
2:23pm: I have been on the phone for more than an hour and have spoken to three different people and been transferred three times. A female voice comes on the line this time. Her name is Karen. I explain all problems and frustrations. Again, I receive apologies. She explains she is escalating my case to a Case Manager. I know about Case Managers. We had them with Hewlett Packard. When a Supervisor cannot resolve a case then it is escalated to a Case Manager. I am asked to hold the line. Here we go again.
2:37pm: It’s the old waiting game. New voice. Another man. This person identifies himself as Al and that he is a Case Manager. This is the first time I’ve spoken to someone without an accent. Again, not an issue. I detail everything to Al. I don’t press the Victor issue. Again, I receive an apology. I’m a little snippy with Al and tell him that apologies don’t mean anything if the same things keep happening again. I ask him if this is how customer service is supposed to be. He says “no”. I tell him that’s the correct answer. Al asks if he can call me back in ten minutes because he has to review the manual and find out why the unit is shutting down after thirty minutes. I refuse the callback. I explain that Toshiba’s track record with callbacks is very poor and I’m not going through that again. Al says he has to have time to review the manual. I ask him what does he need to know because I have the manual in front of me. I cite passages about the screen saver and the shutdown feature. I explain about supported content and tell him where he can find it in the manual. He still presses for the callback because he needs to investigate this himself. I concede. He promises me it will only be ten minutes. I’m off the phone with Al at 2:47pm.
3:12pm: Al calls me back. It’s been 25 minutes. Another promise not kept. Al explains that he can find no reason to explain why the unit is shutting down during USB content playback. He says that Toshiba will replace my BDX2155KC with a newer BDX2300. Again, a promise of replacement. Al says that he doesn’t currently have any of the BDX2300s at his location in Toronto and would I wait for them to be shipped to Toronto from Vancouver. This is the first time I realize I’m speaking to another Canadian. I tell him that I can wait. I’ve waited this long. I’m off the phone with Al by 3:17. I think that I’ve finally reached a resolution.
3:25pm: Al calls me back. Will wonders never cease? Two callbacks from this guy and only one was expected. Bad news. Al says that they cannot send me a replacement because my BDX2155KC is out of warranty. I wanted to blast Al about this but he’s been nice up to this point. I explain to Al that I had already gone through all of this before and my receipt shows I purchased it on December 26th, 2011 and the manual says I have a full one year warranty. He asks if anyone had asked me to fax a copy of the receipt. I tell him no, but that I offered and was told that it wasn’t necessary. Cut to the chase. Al asks me to fax a copy of my receipt to him and he will update the Warranty. He also promises to send the BDX2300 directly to me from Vancouver by UPS rather than having to wait for it to arrive in Toronto and then relayed on to me. I get off the phone, fax the receipt to Al, and that’s the last I hear from anyone with Toshiba.
It hasn’t been a week yet but I’ve heard nothing from Al or Toshiba. I’m assuming everything is fine and the Warranty has been updated and I will soon receive the BDX2300. Stay tuned.
I am a huge Jerry Lewis fan. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. With a nod to Charles Dickens, from whom I stole that line, I will relate to you something wonderful that happened to me a week ago.
First, let me back up 30 years. I graduated from Quinte Secondary School in Belleville, Ontario, Canada in June of 1982. Nothing about that is really significant but in my High-school yearbook, next to my photo, was printed the caption “most likely to shine Bob Hope’s shoes”. It was published at the suggestion of my friend Bryan who wanted to see something unique listed next to my mug shot. I guess, ‘most likely to succeed’ or ‘most likely to sire 100 children’ was already taken.
Let me tell you that a legacy to shine a celebrity’s shoes are tough shoes to fill. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. After all, Quinte Secondary School and I were about as far removed from Bob Hope as you can get. The truth is, I never got within 100 feet, kilometers, or miles of Bob Hope within his lifetime and mine. Bob Hope’s lifetime spanned 100 years and he passed away in 2003. The closest I ever got to him was seeing Dave Thomas, of SCTV & Bob & Doug McKenzie fame, at a fan convention in Toronto three years ago. Dave Thomas does the world’s greatest Bob Hope imitation. I actually saw a video interview with Bob Hope and Dave Thomas several years ago where Bob Hope stated that Dave Thomas was the only one who could do a proper imitation of Hope. A further accolade to Thomas is that he was chosen to do a Bob Hope voice over for the Academy Awards a couple years ago when they did a tribute to Bob Hope. When I met Thomas at the convention, he was signing autographs but not interacting with fans. My son and I stood in line for his autograph and when we got to his table, I told my son, loudly enough for Thomas to hear, that this man was the greatest Bob Hope imitator. Thomas looked up a little surprised then said in his best Bob Hope voice “that’s what the man said.” You can see Noah and I in the photo to the left with Dave Thomas at the very moment I pointed my finger and gave Thomas credit for his Hope imitation. My son and I were very pleased. No one else had received any reaction from Thomas.
I never shined Bob Hope’s shoes. I don’t know why Bryan set me up like that. I was, after all, a bigger Jerry Lewis fan although I have several DVDs of Bob Hope movies and several books by or about Bob Hope. My dedication to Jerry Lewis is probably a little deeper. After Hope passed away, I remember telling Bryan that I would probably have to set my sights on Jerry’s shoes. My fascination with Jerry Lewis has been constant for many years. There are many people who don’t get his type of comedy and don’t see the appeal. They often point to one thing or another about his personal life that they insist should tarnish the image of the man. I don’t really care about all of that. Jerry Lewis, for me, is that image in his films or television appearances.
I’ve read three books about Jerry. The first was by Richard Gehman, entitled “That Kid: The Story of Jerry Lewis”. It’s an interesting read but only significant up to its publication date of 1964. It focuses greatly on some touring he did to promote the release of “The Nutty Professor” and more so on preparation for his ill-fated 1960s talk/variety show.
The second book, “King of Comedy, The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis”, by Shawn Levy in 1997 was a great read. Here was a well researched book that even included excerpts from interviews with Jerry. It’s not meant to be a hatchet job or a fawning opus. There’s dirt and there’s flowers throughout the book and it really delves into who Jerry Lewis is and how he developed into the person he has become. I highly recommend it.
Jerry’s own book “Dean & Me (A Love Story)” is exactly what the title says it is: it’s a love story about the relationship between Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Maybe it’s a little one sided because Dean Martin died in 1995; more than ten years before the publication of this book in 2006. Somehow, though, Jerry doesn’t meander on or give us treacle. The book is heartfelt and it’s an insight into a great relationship from the viewpoint of one of the partners. Maybe it’s colored or jaded or whatever but Jerry does a great job and, if nothing else, it lets us in on the secrets and the success and the problems with Martin & Lewis.
So, I approach Jerry Lewis with bias. I have read two great books and one good one. I’ve also seen almost all of his films. As a DVD collector, 2012 has been a great year so far with the release of several great Jerry Lewis films. The first three months alone, saw the release of “Rock-a-Bye Baby”, “The Geisha Boy”, “Boeing Boeing”, “It’s Only Money” and “Who’s Minding The Story”. More significantly there was a DVD release of “The Jazz Singer” which was a 1959 television drama that has never been seen since its original airing. It’s the classic story, done brilliantly before by Al Jolson, Danny Thomas, and even Neil Diamond, of a performer who shuns the interest of his Cantor father to continue in the family tradition at the local synagogue. I came across an audio clip from Jerry explaining why he feels that this type of production isn’t made anymore:
I could probably go on and on about the great and not so great Jerry Lewis material out there but then this blahg wouldn’t get finished. I am just hoping that the release of material continues and Jerry gets his due on store shelves. One more thing on the release of “The Jazz Singer”, which will bring this blahg back to where it should be going, Jerry Lewis did some promotion for this DVD release and was signing copies of the DVD in Los Angeles. Up to that point, I had not heard that Jerry was actually making public appearances anymore. The closest he ever got to me was about ten years or so ago when he had a one man show “An Evening With Jerry Lewis” that played in Toronto. I’m two and a half hours away from Toronto and I couldn’t swing it at that time.
Jump ahead to 2012. Thirty years had passed since my high-school graduation and that Bob Hope’s shoes remark had been attributed to my picture in the yearbook. I’m driving in the car and listening to the top ten at ten on AM 740. I’ve mentioned this radio station before, out of Toronto, and you can listen to it live at: http://zoomerradio.ca. The top ten on that day was dedicated to 1965 and the announcer, before going to a commercial break, gave a hint regarding the number one song. His clue was that the song was by the son of a famous comedian and that the father would be appearing at Casino Rama in Orillia, just north of Toronto, in April. I quickly struggled to guess the song and the singer before the program resumed. The only name I could think of from the 1960s who had a father that was a famous comedian was Gary Lewis and the song would be “This Diamond Ring.” As I began to think of the possibility, I excitedly wondered if this meant that Gary Lewis’ father Jerry Lewis would be coming back to Canada. After the commercial, my suspicions were confirmed. The top song was that one by Gary Lewis and this meant that I had the possibility of getting to see Jerry Lewis!
When I finally got home and could check Casino Rama’s website, it was confirmed for me. Jerry Lewis was playing Casino Rama on April 13th. I was, to say the least, extremely excited. I called my friend Bryan and mentioned that Jerry Lewis was coming and that he and I had to go and see him. Of course Bryan shared my enthusiasm. The excitement, however, became tainted when I mentioned to my wife about going to see Jerry with Bryan. I was immediately informed that if I was going to go away overnight to see Jerry that I was going to take her. We’re celebrating our 25th anniversary this year so the request was clearly not a request. Bryan understood but I’m still sure that his disappointment hasn’t waned. He has since said he is not really a big Jerry Lewis fan but I think that’s a lie and he’s just trying to make me feel better about choosing my wife over him. If you think I’m going to rethink my decision….YOU’RE WRONG! (my wife might be reading this).
When tickets went on sale, I was quickly online at the Casino Rama website because I wanted decent seats. I wanted to be able to see Jerry and get as close to him as I could. All sorts of things were going through my mind. Could I get close enough to the stage for him to see me? Would he be signing autographs? What if I could meet him? I’ll be honest, the thought of shining his shoes never crossed my mind. I don’t know what the happier moment was for me: when the tickets arrived by mail and they were in my hand or the moment when I heard Jerry Lewis was coming. I knew that seeing him live or alive would top both of these experiences.
Let me say that attending the event was a joy! We drove three and a half hours and when Jerry stepped out on that stage, I was like a school kid. I remember elbowing my wife and squealing “there he is” with great delight. Jerry’s 86 years old and that did not stop him from putting on a fantastic show. He told some great jokes and sang a few great songs. One of the musical highlights was his version of “Old Black Magic” that he originally performed in “The Nutty Professor”. The crowd went wild. Fortunately, someone captured that moment and it’s available on Youtube.
I didn’t bring a camera myself because I thought they would be banned and I didn’t want to be ejected from the event. Jeanette and I had great seats and we could see Jerry very well and there were two large screens next to the stage that allowed even better views. These were used for close-ups of the performance and to show clips from Jerry’s movies. For some reason, Jerry made reference to Henny Youngman, the king of one-liners, being from a Canada and showed a clip of Jerry, Alan King, and another comic in a salute to Youngman. It was hilarious and I wish I could find that clip online but I haven’t had any success. I’ll keep looking. By the way, Henny Youngman was born in the United Kingdom. Well, Canada is part of the Commonwealth so I guess I can forgive Jerry that inaccuracy.
I mentioned earlier about the release of “Who’s Minding The Store” on DVD. In that film, Jerry did a great gag of typing on an imaginary typewriter while keeping in time with the music and sound effects. It’s a very funny gag and one that Jerry performed at Casino Rama last week. He never missed a beat while performing it last week and the audience at it up. I don’t have video of that performance but here’s a video of the original gag from the movie. The man is a genius!
Jerry Lewis had people in stitches the whole evening. Some of the jokes I heard him do before. There is a great VHS of “An Evening With Sammy Davis & Jerry Lewis” from 1988. Jerry repeated some of the jokes from that appearance. In the video, Jerry and Sammy are a delight. Sammy sings and dances and Jerry does his schtick. They have individual sets but when they get together or Jerry interrupts Sammy, the show is the thing. If you can track down a copy of the video, sorry no DVD release yet, then you’re in for a treat. This pairing, like Dean and Jerry, will never happen again.
All of the jokes, gags, and songs Jerry performed at Casino Rama were very memorable but Jerry Lewis did something I have never seen another performer do before or since (although that was last week and I haven’t seen any other concerts in that time). Half way during the show, Jerry sat down in a director’s chair and took questions from the audience! I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t sure I would have the opportunity to get close to Jerry but here was my chance. I wasn’t the first one out of my seat because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to ask Jerry. I got in line because I knew that something would come to me and I certainly wasn’t going to miss this chance of a lifetime.
Many of the questions asked by others that night are a bit of a blur. I do recall that most of them appeared to be fawning idiots who just wanted to thank Jerry for everything he had done. Others asked for autographs and were referred to see Security after the show. None of us knew if these requests would be honored. I had been toying with asking Jerry if there would be any new DVD releases in the near future because I really was interested in knowing the answer.
At some point, while waiting my turn in the long line, the shining of the shoes came back to haunt me. Was this appropriate to ask? What would be his reaction? When it came my turn I stepped up to the microphone and said “Hello Jerry, my name is Scott, and when I was in High School they printed next to my picture in the yearbook that I was voted most likely to shine Bob Hope’s shoes. That bastard up and died on me so I’m wondering if I could shine your shoe?” That’s right, I said ‘shoe’, singular. I was so excited by what I was saying and that I was actually saying it to Jerry Lewis that my mouth went dry towards the end and I could only utter shoe when I came to the end of my speech. Jerry’s reaction was priceless. He had just taken a drink of water and out it came in a spray when he heard my request. He sputtered and said “I had to ask.” I had cracked up Jerry Lewis and the audience. I was laughing too. I never did get a direct answer from Jerry but the interchange between us was palpable.
I thought that was it. I had made my appearance and others came up to the microphone and asked their questions. I don’t think anyone topped my request. But the question still remained: How was I going to get to shine Jerry’s shoe? After the performance, and what a performance, many audience members worked their way to the right of the stage where members of Security stood. Many had brought books or DVDs or records for Jerry to sign. They all were jostling with Security hoping to get backstage to have their items signed. Someone took some of the items backstage and said they would see what they could do to get the items autographed. I just stood among them. I had nothing to sign. I just wanted to shine Jerry’s shoe. After 30 minutes, they began to take a few VIP ticket holders backstage and they eventually came out with small autographed photos. Others who had sent items with Security were allowed backstage to retrieve their items. About 20 of us without items stood in line hoping to get to see Jerry and have our tickets signed at least.
As I mentioned, there was a great deal of jostling from the 50 or so people hoping to be lucky enough to see Jerry and maybe get his autograph. Some Security members doubted that Jerry would sign for long as he was old and tired. I could only hope. Eventually some people got tired of waiting and left. After another twenty minutes, the remainder of us were allowed backstage. We were told at this point that Jerry was very tired and that he would not be autographing tickets nor were photos allowed. What about shoe shining, I wondered.
Jeanette joined me in line and we eventually were led to a room where Jerry sat in his director’s chair. Most walked up and shook his hand. Then it was my turn. I shook his hand and reminded him that I was the one who wanted to shine his shoe. He smiled and gestured to his shoe. I got down on one knee and with my coat sleeve, I began to gently shine his left shoe. I only shined the one shoe because I had only said ‘shoe’ and I didn’t want to press my luck and go for both. I stood up, and without blinking an eye, I extended my palm and said “that will be a dollar.” Jerry laughed and said “get out of here.” It was a moment I won’t ever forget. I had cracked up Jerry Lewis…twice.
Jeanette was behind me in line. Neither of us had brought anything for Jerry Lewis to sign and we knew better than to ask him to sign our tickets after we were warned against it. Jeanette, however, had a small notebook in her purse and quickly offered a blank page to Jerry. No fuss no muss. Jerry signed it! What class! What style! What an end to an extraordinary evening!
I may have never had the chance to sign Bob Hope’s shoes but I think this makes up for it. I signed Jerry Lewis’ shoe. It was only the left shoe but that leaves me with a goal for the right foot. I’ll see him again, don’t you worry. Long live Jerry Lewis!
I have some time today so I’m going to trying and knock out this blahg.It has been ten days since April Fool’s Day and I haven’t written a blahg since March 22nd. That is no April Fool’s joke! I meant to write a blahg earlier and even thought about having it come out on April 1st but I just couldn’t find the time. Besides, if it came out on the first of April, you probably wouldn’t have believed it.
My friend Glenda, or I should say our friend Glenda because she was my wife’s friend first, has the dubious distinction of being born on April 1st. She also has the dubious distinction of having Henderson sideburns but if you look at my picture, you’ll see I haven’t kept my sideburns; I’ve barely kept my hair. For those keeping track, I am not losing my hair, it is just becoming more and more transparent. I digress. Glenda was born on April Fool’s Day and she has Henderson sideburns despite being anything but a Henderson.
Glenda always had to be vigilant on her Birthday because many people tried to pull some type of joke on her to help her celebrate her natal day. She was very vigilant indeed because when I met her in University, she maintained that no one had been able to slip anything past her on that day. She also had certain restrictions that she believed applied about April Fool’s Day and that mainly all pranks had to be played before noon if they were to count. I’m not sure if she made this up or if it’s the rule. But then, who’s ever heard of April Fool’s Morning? I’m digressing again.
This part of the narrative is not all that interesting and I’ll jump right to the point. I managed to play a successful prank on Glenda on April 1st. It wasn’t even all that great of a joke. Over breakfast at the Dining Hall, I told her she had a spider crawling up her sweater. I didn’t know she was severely afraid of spiders at the time or I wouldn’t have chosen that joke to play on her. To say the least, she freaked. She was also very angry with me. It wasn’t just about the spider gag but that I had successfully ruined her track record of avoiding all shenanigans on her Birthday. I will tell you that I didn’t push my luck and try again in the ensuing years. My record with Glenda stands at one. I told you that this part wasn’t all that interesting.
As you might have gleaned, I am a bit of a joker or jokester or whatever the correct terminology may be. I am quick with my wits and if there’s a great opportunity for a gag or great retort, then I’m all over the situation. I don’t remember all of the April Fool’s jokes that I’ve played or attempted to pull over the years but I’ll recite a couple. Once, before our youngest was born in 1998, I told some co-workers that Jeanette was pregnant again and that I wasn’t too happy about it. In fact, my wife Jeanette was pregnant at the time and Abbie arrived in December that year. We just didn’t know Jeanette was pregnant that April. The joke wasn’t all that funny in retrospect. We had tried for a while to have a third child and it just wasn’t happening and I was getting very disappointed. For me to use this as the focal point of a hoax made it even more compelling and the people at work soon bought into it. It was pretty mild really. I didn’t let it run the course of the day and when people discovered the truth they were disappointed because they knew how much I had hoped for a third child. As I said, the joke was on me, Abbie was already on her way. If Jeanette knew she was pregnant then she pulled the greatest April Fool’s joke by not telling me.
Another joke from that reoccurring April day, that I recall, also was delivered at work. I was working for the Community Development Council of Quinte and we were working on a report about poverty in our region. We came across the name of a small town in the outlying regions with which we were not familiar. I began to do further research on the community only to find there was nothing really significant about the area. I did not immediately share this information. Instead, I drafted a phony letter from a government official in response to a request for information that I hadn’t really made. The letter detailed how the community in question was a penal colony for persons who were caught cheating on their welfare applications. Welfare is a form of government assistance offered to individuals and families who have no other source of income. Our government, at that time, was overly concerned that these most marginalized of persons were cheating the system and acquiring funds to which they weren’t entitled. The government’s over-zealousness on this issue later lead to their loss in the next election.
The fraudulent letter that I drafted was never meant to be taken seriously and I even included fake names in the document such as Dewey Chetham (Do We Cheat ‘Em) & Anne Howe (And How). The insignia graphic I used on the letterhead even included naval objects such an anchor and life-preserver even though the community in question was land locked and the Government Ministry who drafted the letter was not genuine. The contact phone number also spelled out April Fools if you checked the corresponding letter on a number key-pad. My co-workers, however, bought it hook, line, and sinker. They missed all the clues that suggested the letter was not genuine. I had to let the cat out of the bag when they started protesting vehemently and were on the verge of phoning the number contained in the letter. There was no disappointment in that joke. Everyone thought it had been well played.
So you can see that I take April Fool’s Day seriously. I sometimes take weeks to concoct the perfect prank. One year, however, I didn’t play an April Fool’s joke and that backfired on me. I don’t know why I hadn’t taken advantage of the day to pull one over on my co-workers. I know that they had expected something but it never came. The following day was quite different and didn’t work in my favor. That April 2nd was a normal work day and according to my morning ritual, I dropped off our two oldest children at the home of some friends down the road.
I had to be at work early and these friends had two daughters who went to the same school. They agreed to put my children on the bus with theirs so that I could be at work on time. On the way to Bruce and Jane’s (the names of our friends in case you were interested), I encountered a strange situation. Their house was ten minutes down the road and there were only a handful of houses and a campground between our two homes. Passing the campground, I spied an ostrich walking on the road in the direction that I was driving. Yes, I said an ostrich. This part is all true. My children were reading books and when I cried out that there was an ostrich on the road, they didn’t even look up. They both believed this was my missed April Fool’s Day joke. Only when I slowed the van, did they look up from their books to find that I had been telling the truth.
The ostrich kept his pace trotting in my front of my vehicle for about half a kilometer and then he ran off down a side road just past the campground. We all were stunned and didn’t know what to think of it all. I continued on down our road and after a bend in the road, I encountered an older man and a young girl wrestling with another ostrich. I rolled down the window and informed the gentleman that there was another ostrich down the road. He yelled at me that he knew that and would I please just go. I guess when you’re wrestling an ostrich you don’t have much patience and manners are the first thing to go. By then, I had guessed that there must be an ostrich farm somewhere nearby. I took the fellow’s advice and continued on to Bruce and Jane’s and dropped off my children. I left it to my children to tell our friends about our strange encounter.
At work, I recounted my morning experience only to have no one believe a word. Frankly, I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me. I tried all day to convince my co-workers of the ordeal with the ostriches to no avail. They, like my children, were certain that this was the prank that should have been played the day before but I had waited to make it more convincing. My wife call at lunch time, as she always did, to see if there were any issues with the children because she was the one who always picked them up from Bruce and Jane’s on her way home. She also did not believe my ostrich tale. I urged her to check with the children and ask them what happened on the way to school that morning. I was sure that when she did that, the children would lend credence to my story.
When I arrived home that evening, my wife informed me that the children had not told her anything about ostrich’s when questioned about their ride to school. I was flabbergasted. Here was a great experience that no one believed had happened. I wasn’t sure why my children didn’t back up my claims. I called them into my wife and I and asked them what happened on the way to school. They replied that nothing had happened and it was a normal journey as usual. Again I was flabbergasted. I mentioned the ostriches and asked why they didn’t recall them from this morning. Their answers were simplicity. The experience with the ostriches did not happen on the way to school. The ostrich encounter had happened on the way to Bruce and Jane’s. So when questioned about their ride to school they thought they were being asked about the bus ride which had been uneventful. It’s all about the questions you ask.
Eventually I was vindicated with my wife. It took longer with my co-workers. I had to eventually bring one of the children to work to corroborate my story. I could have said they were elephants instead of ostriches for all they believed me. I am glad, however, that they weren’t elephants. I never did find out where the ostrich farm was but for a few days after this event, a ball of feathers lay dead on the ice near the campground. Obviously one of the ostriches had made it that far and had died there. I had noticed it but didn’t know where I could report it. If it had been an elephant, it would have gone through the ice and the no one would have been any the wiser. At least I was…wiser that is. I’ve since curbed my April Fool’s Day jokes. How can you even top the joke that you never played?
Where has the time gone? More than a month and no new blahg? Awwwk! I know, that’s a strange noise to make, and I’m sure I didn’t spell it correctly, but that’s the best I can do at this point. I have been so busy this past month that I haven’t had time to write a blahg and if I had the time, I was probably too tired. I won’t make any more excuses and I won’t make any more strange noises except caw caw. That’s even stranger but last week when we were in Toronto, I amused my thirteen year old daughter by randomly making that bird like noise in public to see if anyone would notice. No one did. Now on to the blahg.
This blahg is going to be an update to two previous blahgs and a little something extra thrown in. Right about now you’re probably wondering what I mean by “a little crazy in the head.” If you’ll stay with me, I’ll get there. First, let’s jump back to last September and the first blahg that I posted. You may recall that the title of that first blahg was “THE BLAHG AND THE MOST HAPPY SOUND”. If you can’t remember back that far, and believe me that I have those days, then you can just jump back and check out that blahg here: http://falseducks.com/theblahg/?p=5. The ‘Most Happy Sound’ of that blahg referred to the title album by Margaret Ann & The Ja-Da Quartet. I reviewed that album and offered a couple of tracks for your listening pleasure. I also noted two single 45 rpm releases by the same group but that I did not have a copy of one of these which included ‘Secret’ backed with ‘Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home’. I know this is a bit of a cheat because I have actually gone ahead and updated that blahg but if you’re only reading my new blahgs, and boy did you have to wait a while for a new one, then you probably didn’t know that first blahg has been updated.
I won’t dwell too much on this part of the update but I had previously reviewed “Secret” and commented that it sounded like a late 50s/early 60s vocal group. The flip side is completely different. “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” harkens back to the LP ‘The Most Happy Sound’. Here we have that roaring 20s jazz and swing coming through. Give it a listen:
Now on to the second update. I’m happy to say that Frank Sinatra is in the house! I guess I should clarify that in case a few of you believe I am a little crazy in the head and believe Sinatra is haunting me or at the very least that I’m hallucinating. This reference goes back to another blahg that I wrote back in January of this year. The title of that blahg was “THIS SPOT RESERVED FOR THE 2011 CARLTON CARDS SINATRA ORNAMENT.” Again, if you haven’t read that blahg, then you can check it out here http://falseducks.com/theblahg/?p=14. In that blahg, I detailed my frustration in finding the 2011 Carlton Cards Sinatra ornament to complete my collection that I started with the first release in 1999. I also exhibited a picture of my incomplete collection. That picture was in error because it only displayed 10 of the 11 releases (not including the missing 2011 ornament) and also did not include the Hallmark release in 2009 when there was no Carlton Cards Sinatra ornament. The picture at left now shows all of the ornaments; including the 2011 ornament.
The point of my original blahg was to draw attention to the missing ornament in my collection. Since that blahg I have now acquired the 2011 ornament and I want to comment a little on it. As I have mentioned (come on, read that blahg already so I don’t have to keep repeating everything), the 2011 ornament was withdrawn shortly after its initial release. The two answers I received from American Greetings, the parent company of Carlton Cards, basically pointed to a production error. If you look at the picture of my 2011 Carlton Cards Sinatra Ornament at left, you will notice that the skin coloring used for Sinatra seems to be quite dark. Maybe this was the production error or maybe Sinatra had a really good tan that year. Well, at least my collection is complete.
Now what about being crazy in the head? I knew you’d get around to asking that again. Well, the fact is it’s not really about being a little crazy in the head, although I will openly admit to that, but rather about ‘poco loco in the coco’ which translates that bit about being crazy in the head. Let me explain a little more. A couple weeks ago I was listening to my favorite AM Radio Station AM 740 out of Toronto. In fact, it’s the only AM station that I do listen to. Every morning from 10am to 11am they run the top ten at ten. This particular week they were running down the top ten hits from that week in 1950. Here’s how the list broke down:
10. / Enjoy Yourself / Guy Lombardo
9. / The Third Man Theme / Anton Karas
8. / Cry of the Wild Goose / Frankie Laine
7. / Rag Mopp / Ames Brothers
6. / I Said My Pajamas (and put on my prayers) / Tony Martin & Fran Warren
5. / It Isn’t Fair / Don Cornell
4. / There’s No Tomorrow / Tony Martin
3. / If I Knew You Were Comin’ (I’d’ve baked a cake) / Eileen Barton
2. / Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy / Red Foley
1. / Music Music Music / Teresa Brewer
You will notice that in the 3rd position was “If I Knew You Were Comin’ (I’d’ve Baked A Cake) by Eileen Barton. I’m familiar with this tune and have heard various artists sing it. It wasn’t extraordinary to me that the song was recorded by Ms. Barton but rather the flip side of that single caught my attention. When the radio personalities of AM 740 began to make fun of the title of the opposite side track, I was a little startled. The title of the flip side was “Poco Loco In The Coco.” I knew this song! I had only recently heard it for the first time a couple weeks before hearing this top ten list…and I have Frank Sinatra to thank for this.
In the mid-1950s, Sinatra had a fifteen minute radio show rightly entitled “To Be Perfectly Frank”. On this show, he sang a song or two with a small combo and played platters by other artists. At the beginning of this year, 2012, I decided to start listening again to material associated with Sinatra for every day of the year. I have so many recordings, radio shows, and concerts that I have enough material to listen to something different for all 366 days (don’t forget the added bonus of February 29th this year). For January 29th of this year, my selection was the To Be Perfectly Frank episode from January 29th, 1954. Besides crooning his own versions of “On The Sunny Side of The Street” & “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry”, Sinatra spun the wax version of Eileen Barton’s version of “Poco Loco In The Coco.” If you ask me, this should have been the hit because it’s a fun little number that jumps. Here it is:
Well that’s it for me. I know that this is a little bit of an abrupt ending to this blahg but given the month I’ve had, I think I’m going to make “Poco Loco In The Coco” my theme song for the next little while.
Here we go, two weeks later and another blahg. These past few weeks have been filled with many trials and tribulations. I’ve been fighting with my father over his health and now the struggle has started with my mother. She has more aches and pains than anyone should have and more medication than anyone should legally own. Her Doctor is a quack and I don’t care who knows it. A late night call also resulted in a trip to the emergency room of the local hospital to deal with a gall-bladder attack with my mother which we thought was a heart attack. Her Doctor had misdiagnosed her or missed a diagnosis would be more accurate. The short of it is that I’m getting a new Doctor for my parents. Oh, and our Washing Machine went on the fritz.
This blahg is not going to be about medical tribulations but the struggle with our Washing Machine. I love my parents but I don’t want to air their medical history here…not yet anyway. Let me be clear, that our struggle with our Washing Machine wasn’t all that intense or prolonged. It just wouldn’t spin fast enough to release all the water from the clothes that had just been washed. It’s a Kenmore and we’ve had it for 8 years. I guess that’s pretty good in the term of Washing Machines but I was determined to don the handy-man hat and at least see if I couldn’t prolong the the life of the Machine.
You are probably wondering, at this point, why I keep capitalizing the word “Machine”. It’s simple. There are so many Machines in our lives and I’ve read so many stories and watched so many movies where the Machines eventually revolt. I’m being respectful. I don’t want Killdozer happening all over again. (By the way, that was a fun movie from my youth that I viewed again recently…from a short story by Theodore Sturgeon).
One thing you should know about me, is that I keep manuals for all of my appliances long after I no longer own the device. When the Washing Machine started to suffer slower spinning speeds I believed it was a belt and kept putting off replacing it. Finally, my wife prodded me enough to look up the model of our Machine and see if I couldn’t purchase a replacement belt. I thought this would be an easy task because the Internet is vast and convenient and I was sure I could find a replacement belt and instructions on how to replace it. Quick research however showed me that there was no belt in this model. I checked that against the manual and list of parts in my manuals pile and sure enough, there’s no belt. It’s all gear and motor driven in these confounded new devices (I didn’t really mean confounded in case anyone or anything is reading this).
My research via the Internet suggested that the poor spinning problem might be caused by one of three issues. The first was drive motor to transmission coupling sleeves. Original parts were all plastic or rubber but the replacements are metal for added strength. One website even had a video that showed how to access these to see if they needed replacing. I’m no repair person, and I bow to those who are, but the video was fairly simple and something I knew I could do with the help of my wife supervising (it would be foolish of me to suggest any other role for her to play…I bow to her too). The major obstacle would not be accessing the location of these parts but easily accessing the Washing Machine.
I’ll digress for a moment here because the location of our laundry pair is significant because it will play a bigger part in the resolution of the Washing Machine dilemma. Our bathroom has two closets. The rear closet contains linens and the front closet houses our Washer and Dryer. Both closets have bi-fold doors. The linen closet has a single bi-fold door but the laundry closet has two bi-fold doors that meet in the middle. The laundry closet also contains a shelf with a hot water heater and all of the water and electrical hook-ups for the laundry duo. This limits the size of what Machines can fit in the closet and have the door closed. Width and height have never been issues but depth from back to front prevented us from…ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Removing the left bi-fold door from in front of the Washing Machine was fairly easy. It just required tilting the door and removing it from the tracks at top and bottom. Following the steps laid out in the video for the Washer, I was able to easily access the couplings I needed to inspect. The video suggested that the first thing I might notice would be rubber shavings beneath the machine as this occurs with time. There were no shavings on the floor and when I inspected the coupling components, I found that they were in good shape and didn’t need replacing. Step two required following another video, which I’ll detail momentarily, but it would require another day before I could get at this new part. The major problem was replacing the bi-fold door. I took 30 minutes, lots of jostling, and threats of injury, before my wife and I could re-secure the door.
As I said, the inspection of the second faulty part required another day. The main reason for this was that the part, a clutch assembly, was a little more expensive and a little more difficult to replace. The video for replacing this part suggested having a replacement clutch assembly on hand in case it needed to be replaced so that it did not need to be removed more than once. $70 later, I had the part, the bi-fold door was removed again, and my wife was supervising. I should note that when I purchased the part, I asked if I could return the part if I found that the original on the Machine did not need replacing and if I did not open the packaging. I was assured a full refund and was given further advice that the problem with my Washer might be a faulty transmission and that I was to look for a ring of oil around the inside of the Machine or to feel the bottom of the transmission to see if oil was leaking from there. This was good advice because I found a ring of oil around the Washer casing and it was leaking oil from the transmission. I did follow the video and check the clutch assembly but those parts looked fine. I returned the unopened new clutch assembly and received the full refund as promised. I also researched the cost of a new transmission and informed my wife we would needed a new Washing Machine. We left the bi-fold door off because we didn’t want to have to fight with it if we had to remove the old Washer and replace it with a newer model.
This is where things get complicated. If you thought repairing anything was difficult, barring the struggle with removing and replacing the bi-fold door the first time, then you should consider that researching the purchase of a new Washing Machine is much more difficult. We’ve always had a top loading machine but in the eight years since we purchased the Kenmore, front loading Washers have become more popular. We thought about updating the Washer to one of these fancy front loaders but of course it wouldn’t match our Inglis Dryer which is a normal Dryer that we have had for 3 years. We went first to view Washers at our local Future Shop. If you don’t know what a Future Shop is, it’s the Canadian version of Best Buy except the real Canadian version of Best Buy does not carry appliances. We had had success with Future Shop in the past and our Dishwasher, Dryer, Refrigerator, and Stove were all purchased there with great savings. The salesperson was very nice but of course he was pushing us towards a new LG front loading Machine and spouting the benefits of this type compared to the top loading Machines. Future Shop did not have any top loading Washers in the store. Oh, there was an empty spot in the appliance display where there had been a Whirlpool Washing Machine (model # WTW4800XQ) but they had none in stock and they had sold their floor model. This intrigued me because out of stock and selling the floor model suggested to me that this might be a very popular Machine. Certainly the price was right at $498 and Future Shop was going to pay all taxes…a savings of an additional $65.
The front loading LG Washing Machine that the salesperson suggested was also a good a model and a good deal with Future Shop paying the tax. We did like the look of it and the details about the Machine but we were concerned about the dimensions of the Washer. Height and width were fine but the depth was 32 inches and I wasn’t sure that this would fit where the old Washer was and that we could close the bi-fold door without hitting the front glass door of the Machine which sticks out a couple inches alone. This was our excuse to not make a purchase at Future Shop that day and to be able to go home and do a little more research.
Our excursion to Future Shop was on the afternoon of February 5th. I immediately came home and looked over the details of the LG Washing Machine they had in stock and the Whirlpool Washer that they couldn’t get us. Both had their merits and there were good reviews for both. The dimensions of the LG Machine suggested that it was going to be close when closing the bi-fold door. The door might bang into the front loading door or have an inch clearance. The dimensions of the Whirlpool Washer were well within range. I should add that the Whirlpool had an agitator which is significantly different to the high efficiency top loaders that are essentially front loaders turned on their back. Without an agitator in a top loading Machine then clothes don’t get as clean. In fact, I read a review for the Whirlpool by a University Professor where he “made a conclusion that a top load washer lasts longer than front load type, even though it is less eco friendly. (But if we have to change the washer frequently, is it eco friendly?)…this washer is extremely satisfactory and washes very well. Also washing cycles are much shorter than front load ones. So, even though it uses more water, it saves electricity and lasts longer (hopefully) in addition to lower price.” This review sold me on the Whirlpool.
Now we knew what type of Washing Machine we wanted but the problem was that Future Shop could not get us one. I visited Future Shop’s website and found that they did have one in stock in another store and they could ship it to us for an additional $90 but we would also be paying the tax not only on the Washer but on the delivery fee as well! That ended my long run of purchasing appliances from Future Shop. I then began to check the websites for other local stores that carried appliances. I found that our local Lowe’s carried the Whirlpool and the price was $448. This was $50 less than Future Shop but I would have to pay the taxes and it would cost me $8 more in the end than if I purchased it at Futures Shop if they had stock. Don’t get confused. The Future Shop in store price was $498 (including tax) but the online price with delivery and taxes was going to be $664. The Lowe’s deal was looking better and better.
It was still Sunday February 5th but by this time it was 5:20 PM. I telephoned Lowe’s and asked if they had the Whirlpool in stock. I was informed that they had two in stock and that the store closed at 6:00. We live 30 minutes way from Lowe’s so I motored into Belleville and got to the store at 5:45. Of course the person I spoke to on the phone had gone home but someone else told me they could sell me the Machine and they just had to retrieve it from the warehouse. I waited 25 minutes before two people came out, now the minutes past the time the store was to have closed, only to be told they couldn’t find the Washer. Their computer told them they had two in stock with one being the floor model. They suggested I come back the next day and speak to the head of the appliances department and that he might have better luck finding the Washing Machine. I thanked them for their effort and left the store. I still had the old Washer with the spinning problem but I had so wanted to come home with the new one.
I did not go back to Lowe’s the next day because I wanted to check and see if any other store had this Washing Machine in stock. I didn’t want to have to order one and wait a week to get it. I checked out the websites for Sears, Leon’s, The Brick, and Home Depot but none of them had the Washer in stock in their local stores. On Tuesday, February 7th, I visited the local Home Depot on an off-chance that they might have one in the store. They didn’t even have a floor model for this Washer! They did, however, have a sale on for all of their appliances where I could take an additional 10% off the ticket price. With this incentive, I began to look seriously at the Washing Machines on display at Home Depot. One, I really took a shine to was a front loader from Maytag, Model # MHWE400WW. I cannot remember the exact price but it was already discounted by $200 and with the 10% discount the price would be around $600. I wrote down the model number and went home to do more research on this Maytag.
I’m going to bring to a quick close this narrative about the Maytag MHWE400WW. The reviews were not good and the clincher for me to avoid this Machine was the following Youtube video showing the Washer, apparently possessed, vibrating violently and eventually attacking the Dryer. It was Killdozer again or maybe Killwasher.
We were still without a new Washing Machine. I wanted the Whirlpool but couldn’t get it. I then began to look at other top loading Washing Machines online with an agitator and with great reviews. I came across a Washer made by General Electric, model # GTWN4450MWS. Almost all of the reviews I read for this Machine gave it a 4 star rating. The dimensions of the Machine were perfect and it had a glass lid so you could see what was going on inside the Washer. It had a new hydrowave technology concerning the agitator and I found another interesting Youtube video that let me see the Machine in action.
So now I had a model that interested me and I just had to track it down. Unfortunately, the only local store that carried this Washer was The Brick and their website could not tell me the price nor stock availability. On Wednesday, February 8th, I phoned my wife and asked her to meet me at The Brick after work to see this General Electric Washing Machine. I was surprised to find, when we got there, they actually had a floor model of the GTWN4450MWS. Also, across from that Washer was the Whirlpool we had been looking for.
Of course, when you start looking seriously at any appliance in a store like The Brick, a salesperson is going to approach you. He could sense that I was very keen on the GE Machine but my wife was eying the Whirlpool. The price of the GE Washer was $700 and the Whirlpool was $500. I inquired about availability only to find out that he could not get me the GE Washer for at least a week but I could have the Whirlpool in three days. I still didn’t want to wait and asked if he could sell me the floor model for the GE Washer. He went away to check on this and my wife began to extoll the virtues of the Whirlpool and the fact that it was $200 cheaper. The salesperson eventually returned and said he could knock $70 off the price of the GE floor model but my wife thought this was still not a great savings. I didn’t want to get into an argument in the store so I told the salesperson that my wife and I had to talk this over and we left The Brick to have this conversation. There was no conversation. My wife wanted the Whirlpool and the cheaper option than the GE Washer.
In the parking lot, we decided to go back to Lowe’s to see if they had found the Whirlpool. It had been three days since my last trip so it was more than likely that the Machine had been located. The head of the appliance department at Lowes, a nice woman, who was not the person I had spoken to on the phone on Sunday, informed us they had two in stock. She assisted me in ringing up the purchase and we waited while she went to retrieve the Washer from the Warehouse. Twenty-five minutes went by before she returned. She started her speech by saying the old phrase about good news and bad news. The bad news was they couldn’t locate the Machine that their computer database told them they should have. The good news was that their delivery transport had just arrived and there were four of the Whirlpool Washers on the truck. The other bad news was that it was going to take 45 minutes for them to unload the truck to get at the Washers. Again, I didn’t want to wait but I had already paid for the Machine. I decided I would come back the next day.
In all of this, I have neglected to mention that we have a Dodge Caravan and after paying for the Washer, before they came back to tell us the bad news-good news-bad news scenario, I had gone out to the van and removed the rear set of the van. I had to take the seat out and the spare tire and put them in the trunk of our station wagon. Remember, I had asked my wife to meet me in town so we did have two vehicles with us. The next day, I took the Caravan to Lowe’s and picked up the Whirlpool. This time it was there and with the absence of the rear seat from the van, the boxed Machine fit easily.
Now a note about the removal of the old Washer and the set-up of the new one. My friend who had accompanied me to Lowe’s to pick up the Washer insisted on telling me horror stories about Washing Machines and how installing a new one usually ended in injury or divorce. I didn’t ask him to come home with me to help with the installation. The quick summary is that I disconnected the old Washer by myself, wheeled it on a dolly through the house and back porch, and put in in our driveway. My son then assisted me in removing the Whirlpool from the van and putting it in the washroom. I quickly removed the Machine from the box, located the manual, and installed the Whirlpool. It was so simple. Note to all: read the manual. The step by step instructions were perfect and to my luck, when I went to level the machine, I found that it was already perfectly level. No fuss. No bother.
There were a couple of things I discovered about the Whirlpool Washing Machine that I did not know. The Washer lid locks when the Machine is in use. You can push the pause button to open the lid but the Machine will not wash or spin while the lid is open. It’s like a leap of faith. You have to trust that the Washer knows what it’s doing and that the clothes you put into the Machine are going to come out cleaner than they went it. I haven’t been disappointed there. The Machine also takes about two minutes before any water starts to fill the drum. This happens because it’s going through a load balancing act. This scared me initially when I first tried to use the Washer as I thought maybe I had forgotten to turn the water back on. All in all it’s been a very reliable machine this past week and we obviously made a good choice.
Two more notes about the Whirlpool and I’m done. The first is the box it came in has been a nice surprise for my youngest daughter and one our cats. It’s currently in our dining room while they imagine, explore, and play to their hearts content. The other note is not about this Washing Machine but about the Kenmore that we replaced. The day after I took out the old Washer, I put it out to the road with a “FREE” sign on it and some details about the spinning problem. By the end of the day, the Washer was gone. I didn’t see who took it but it’s probably gone for scrap. I later learned that the Kenmore parts were all manufactured by Whirlpool. I didn’t really replace the Kenmore with a Whirlpool. I had owned a Whirlpool all the time and didn’t know it. No matter, it all comes out in the wash after all.
I have known for a week or so what would be the subject of this blahg. It’s Phyllis Diller. Why? I have to be honest but I really liked Phyllis Diller. I’m not one of the band wagon jumpers who say nice things after an artist passes. I’m a true fan. I have some history with Phyllis Diller or rather I wished I had history with Phyllis Diller Confused? Relax, here comes the story. Did you doubt for even a moment that I had a story? 
She had three great pairings with Bob Hope in, “Boy, Did I Get A Wrong Number!”, “Eight On A Lam”, and “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell.” Maybe Phyllis Diller is an acquired taste and certainly pairing her with Bob Hope, although in my mind a stroke of genius, might not seem significant to most viewers. Throw in Jonathan Winters on “Eight On The Lam” and you’re cooking with comedy gold. Luckily, all three of these funny films are available on DVD.
Well, maybe not that far back. Jump instead to about a week and a half ago and Jeanette and I finally get away to the movies again. I had seen numerous films recently with Noah and I thought it was time I take my wife. I had wanted to see “Argo” since I first started seeing the trailers for it. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything for you but I will again quote IMDB with this movie summary:
At one point, Ben Affleck’s character, along with the character portrayed by the brilliant John Goodman, go to visit a Hollywood Director portrayed by the also brilliant Alan Arkin. They need the Director to help them pull off this phony film by advising them on how to put over a film that doesn’t exist. At one point, in the Director’s home I spot this framed poster on the wall of his study. I can tell from the face on the poster that it is Phyllis Diller. Somewhere in my history I have seen a poster for “Did You Hear The One About the Traveling Saleslady?” but I can’t recall if this it. I lean in close to Jeanette and tell her I want another shot of this poster. A few minutes later we get another glimpse over Alan Arkin’s shoulder and I can spot the film’s title. It is indeed, a poster for “Did You Hear The One About the Traveling Saleslady?” 
When Byran and my other friend, Stephen Dafoe, and I were recording our infamous Dead From The Neck Up comedy show in the mid-90s, we would often have a canned comedy section where we would play a comic routine by a famous comedian or comedienne. One week, I brought in my LP copy of “Are You Ready For Phyllis Diller?” I don’t remember if I had listened to the full album but we were looking for something to fill the canned comedy slot so we chose a track called “Cheese and Turkey”. We busted up rather raucously in the studio that evening. I’d like to close with a YouTube video with audio of the whole album
