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Apr. 2nd, 2014 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyAll kinds of weirdness floating around in my brain today, so let's get down to business.
First up, HIMYM Causes Internet to Explode.
Nope, still not over it.
That was posted somewhere and y'know what? TOTALLY WORKS.
Watching other people's heads explode over this is both cathartic and annoying all at once. On the one hand, I am not alone! On the other, I kinda am!
Look. I think if you watched all 9 seasons and made it through that hour long trek of pain and walked away thinking Ted loved Tracy second best, you're as dumb as the writers who thought they had to not only stick with a finale they wrote back when their show was on the bubble but also told an entirely different story than the one they were ACTUALLY wrapping up (not to mention if this was your endgame all along, YOU FUCKING BLEW IT. You work towards that or you scrap it, if you try to have it both ways you get burned, numbnuts!).
Because I didn't get that at all. There is absolutely no hint that Ted had any interest in Robin besides as a friend while he was with The Mother. Nooooooooone. Probably because those scenes are about three seconds long but still.
Nope. That's not the problem with the finale. (I say like there's only one problem.)
Nope, nope, nope. The problem is that the ending they chose to go with could totally have worked if they hadn't done everything in their power to work against that being endgame for I dunno, years now. And even if they woke up and realized last spring/summer, when they knew Season 9 was it, and thought, "Craaaaaaaaap!" because they felt obligated to stick with the ending as they originally saw it, they had an ENTIRE SEASON to work towards that. And y'know, I think they could have done it.
I really do. I think if they'd spread out everything they crammed into that final episode a little more, and gave us more time with Tracy, and cut out the whole "spend an entire season at a wedding we're going to undo twenty minutes into the finale, if we take that long" shtick, they could have made it work for a decent amount of the fan base.
But they didn't. They KNEW going into this what their endgame was and they also knew, and have admitted it elsewhere, that things changed over time due to amazing chemistry between actors/characters. Instead of deciding to do either of the intelligent things, they just tried to have it both ways and burned just about everyone in the process.
You had a chance to change the ending and just use the kid's reaction as a DVD extra, or a Clue-like ending where you go, "That's how it COULD have happened" or something. You adapt to the story you've been telling lately and not the story you thought you'd be telling waaaaaaaaay back when you were pretty sure you'd never make it to syndication length let alone 200+ episodes.
OR
You had the chance to change the story you were telling and tailor it to fit the ending you thought you wanted to tell.
Didn't do either one of those and if you can't figure out why people want to hit you with a stick in vulnerable places, well, you deserve those whacks.
Also, um, the whole making Robin miserable every time she appeared was just uncool. Robin deserved better than that, okay? And so did Barney.
Geez.
Also, I will personally wish all sorts of terrible things on the next person who assumes that all people who disliked the finale are just bitter Barney/Robin 'shippers. Dude, no. I shipped Robin/Ted and Robin/Barney and I could probably have been swayed back to Robin/Ted if they'd done a better job in the execution.
The sad thing is I would totally have watched "How I Met Your Dad" if it had been about Tracy. Y'know, even with this shitty ending. But it's not and I'm not going down this rabbit hole again sooooooo... Have fun with that, guys. o_O
It's been awhile since I had such feelings about a finale, I guess. Psych's made me happy and sad all at once but it didn't make me want to murder anyone, so I just kind of wait til I can catch up on the episodes I've missed.
Now, let's change gears and talk about why the Papa Johns in West Ashley sucks ass. I should point out that it's been awhile since I had a problem with them and not because I didn't order anything, because I did. Thing is, when they fuck up, they go big. They go massively big.
So. Yesterday I decided I wanted a pizza and I had a free one coming because of points. It was sometime before the restaurant opened and I waffled for ten minutes on whether to order or not. Decided fuck it, I was going to. Because of "ordering ahead" you have to give them an hour at least. So I went with noon. My order was made (one pizza, extra extra cheese and half black olives, so not a terribly difficult order) at 10:49am. Noon delivery. I figured it could be earlier or it could be a little later because sometimes lunch time traffic, y'know?
Yeaaaaaaahhhhh. 12:45 and no pizza. o_O Um, not cool. I always double check my orders to make sure the phone number is correct because they're supposed to call if there's a problem, y'know? Thing is, the WA store never calls. The one time I made a delivery order from the James Island store and told them to deliver as close to midnight as possible, THEY called me to make sure it was legit, but WA never calls.
And they always have the same fucking excuse because it's always the same damn manager. Rachel (Racheal?) is always short staffed on the days when my pizza is late, and she always promises the pizza will totally get there hot and tasty and they're just so overbooked and understaffed and she really should have called but she didn't and why are you just so mean?
JESUS, WOMAN. Maybe you're understaffed because apparently you are a complete failure as a boss? When something is going to be an hour late, you fucking call the customer when it's a plan ahead order. YOU PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL.
So Mums talks to her and Rachel there tried to placate her with, "So do you want a free future pizza or a free two liter now?" to which I'm thinking, Um, duh, pizza and also if the two liter is available you clearly haven't even sent my pizza out the door yet. o_O Or maybe the drivers keep drinks in a cooler? I dunno.
Mom tells her pizza, duh. Annnnd fifteen minutes pass and the driver calls because she's lost. Eventually she realizes she took the wrong entrance and goes back on the highway and enters the right way and Mom finally hears me pounding on the glass for her to go out to the parking lot and not just the backyard. Yeah, Mom's pretty sure the driver was on something because the lights were most definitely not on in this poor girl's head. She seemed nice enough, but she wasn't playing with a full deck.
I'm a little apprehensive because the box has that "this pizza ain't hot, and if you're lucky it'll be lukewarm" feel BUT that's okay, right? I mean, pizza's an hour late and the manager's a fuckwit but hey, free future pizza so we can do this dance all over again!
And then I open the box and the entire center of the pizza is stuck to the cardboard lid.
THE FUCK.
Mom calls back because I'm just in shock because this is a new low, man. New low. Now, I will admit the Mums went in with the crazy and the grr, argh, but when you're asked, "Can you hold" and they put you on hold anywayyyyyy... you're asking for trouble. Rachel doesn't seem to understand why someone would be ticked that their food is more than an hour late and basically inedible at this point, because hey, we're getting a free pizza at some other point in the future. Mom points out that that's all well and good but the pizza they delivered isn't really a pizza at this point. "Ma'am, it's just a pizza."
And it's just your job. Mom yells, Rachel ignores the whole "you can't eat it, you fuckwit!" (mom didn't call her a fuckwit) point and then hangs up and I'm 99.9% sure my pizza ain't coming.
Still, I wait a few minutes.
And then I call them. I hate calling people for a confrontation. Hell, I hate calling for just a chat.
So I get the whole, "Can you hold?" and I decide what the hell, saying no didn't work so I say "Suuuuuuuure." And hold for ten minutes.
It's funny because I know the person who answered is Rachel. When she finally gets back on the line I ask about the likelihood of my replacement pizza because you guys done fucked up and I cannot eat this one. Only super nice and super polite because I find that infuriates people who want to yell at you but can't.
She says no, there is no pizza because Mom didn't ask for it. I politely state that she did, no less than twice, and I would very much like for my replacement order to be put at the head of the line and delivered, thank you. "It'll be two hours," she says, like that's going to make me say no.
"That's fine. It'll be hot though, and not stuck to the top of the box?"
You can hear her grind her teeth. "Yes."
"Excellent."
Look, lady. I'm sorry your employees ditched you, but you fucked up my order in every way possible so no, I'm not cutting you a break because I feel bad for you. Because I don't. Or didn't, until Mums started the yelling but she started that when you fucked up my order and then blamed us for it soooooooooo... (Really, what kind of explanation is, "Your pizza must have been on the bottom of the stack."? I mean, duh, of course that's how it happened but when you do that you don't expect your customer who still had to pay for their "free" pizza to be cool with it.)
She then hung up on me because clearly she so enjoys her job.
It took an hour to get my replacement and it was delicious (the first one was disgusting so I just stole the cheese not stuck to the roof of the box.) but I really think I'm going to have to start planning my pizza purchases better. The sad thing is the JI location is always super fast about delivering the work pizzas and they're a million times better, taste wise. But it would be stone cold by the time I got it home.
So in conclusion: the WA store will be fine on your normal orders but the ones that are free, they fuck up and will use the old, "Everyone called out!" excuse but will not call YOU to warn you it'll be late. (Which, if they had done, and delivered a pizza that was pretty warm and not caved in, I'd be okay with. But they didn't and instead things got ugly and now I am actively wishing someone out of a job.)
And finally, dream time.
Had a dream with many parts this morning. In it, it starts out with a group of who knows how many people visiting a new planet. There's something off about it, because of course there is, but no one's really worried too much about it because look, a new home is possible!
Only dream!me is a princess or someone kind of important and I realize either I've had this dream before or been here before and it's a do-over day and I must try and save people from the whole, "don't touch the ground that isn't covered by things because these weird huge slugs will try and kill you and ohmygod, they illustrate this with a dog and I can't see that again, I just can't!" problem.
And people believe me and the war isn't exactly averted but it does end up in our favor. Thing is, dream!me isn't completely soothed by this. Probably because the geeky friend is hurt in the process and I do have to admit that I've tried a thousand different ways to prevent bad things from happening in this scenario and I've learned that some people do die and do get hurt and sadly, this is the best outcome. And the best outcome leaves the brain permanently injured, not to mention other people dead and slug world is still not a viable option for... anything, really.
Soooooo, naturally geeky friend goes crazy and starts trying to exact her revenge on people and it's very sad panda making and a lot of this is either glossed over in my dream or I don't remember it. She gets away and dream!me is heartbroken because her injuries and resulting insanity feel like they're my fault.
Third part involves a giant mall with an indoor skating rink. The bitchy one on the fringe of the group (the Libby?) was also hurt in the attack and she's still healing. She was an amazing skater and has managed to teach a bunch of girls this amazingly choreographed number that is absolutely breathtaking (and a little violent at times) and of course, someone sabotages the final number so that the star of this little show, the next great hopeful, winds up the victim of an act that turned out not to be an act. (Something about a rope that shouldn't have snared her, thus causing her to go flying and snap her leg) Bitchy gets blamed and additionally re-injured and then you find out that no, she was set up!
Next bit is still at the mall, or back at the mall? I dunno. I'm going through a lunch line or something and wind up sitting at a table with two guys who aren't all that impressed by my groundhog day skills and the other best friend who didn't go psycho. The lights flicker, and then go out and everyone panics and dives under their tables like it's an earthquake drill? And then the guys I'm with decide maybe being near me isn't the best idea ever and they skedaddle and I realize y'know, they're probably right, so I get my friend to leave, too.
And then I crawl out from under the table and call out to geek!friend. "Will you leave everyone alone if I come with you?" and she's there and says, "Of course!" and things seem to be okay until someone shoots her and I realize aw, hell, I shoulda seen that coming.
Then Ozma woke me up. :P
First up, HIMYM Causes Internet to Explode.
Nope, still not over it.
That was posted somewhere and y'know what? TOTALLY WORKS.
Watching other people's heads explode over this is both cathartic and annoying all at once. On the one hand, I am not alone! On the other, I kinda am!
Look. I think if you watched all 9 seasons and made it through that hour long trek of pain and walked away thinking Ted loved Tracy second best, you're as dumb as the writers who thought they had to not only stick with a finale they wrote back when their show was on the bubble but also told an entirely different story than the one they were ACTUALLY wrapping up (not to mention if this was your endgame all along, YOU FUCKING BLEW IT. You work towards that or you scrap it, if you try to have it both ways you get burned, numbnuts!).
Because I didn't get that at all. There is absolutely no hint that Ted had any interest in Robin besides as a friend while he was with The Mother. Nooooooooone. Probably because those scenes are about three seconds long but still.
Nope. That's not the problem with the finale. (I say like there's only one problem.)
Nope, nope, nope. The problem is that the ending they chose to go with could totally have worked if they hadn't done everything in their power to work against that being endgame for I dunno, years now. And even if they woke up and realized last spring/summer, when they knew Season 9 was it, and thought, "Craaaaaaaaap!" because they felt obligated to stick with the ending as they originally saw it, they had an ENTIRE SEASON to work towards that. And y'know, I think they could have done it.
I really do. I think if they'd spread out everything they crammed into that final episode a little more, and gave us more time with Tracy, and cut out the whole "spend an entire season at a wedding we're going to undo twenty minutes into the finale, if we take that long" shtick, they could have made it work for a decent amount of the fan base.
But they didn't. They KNEW going into this what their endgame was and they also knew, and have admitted it elsewhere, that things changed over time due to amazing chemistry between actors/characters. Instead of deciding to do either of the intelligent things, they just tried to have it both ways and burned just about everyone in the process.
You had a chance to change the ending and just use the kid's reaction as a DVD extra, or a Clue-like ending where you go, "That's how it COULD have happened" or something. You adapt to the story you've been telling lately and not the story you thought you'd be telling waaaaaaaaay back when you were pretty sure you'd never make it to syndication length let alone 200+ episodes.
OR
You had the chance to change the story you were telling and tailor it to fit the ending you thought you wanted to tell.
Didn't do either one of those and if you can't figure out why people want to hit you with a stick in vulnerable places, well, you deserve those whacks.
Also, um, the whole making Robin miserable every time she appeared was just uncool. Robin deserved better than that, okay? And so did Barney.
Geez.
Also, I will personally wish all sorts of terrible things on the next person who assumes that all people who disliked the finale are just bitter Barney/Robin 'shippers. Dude, no. I shipped Robin/Ted and Robin/Barney and I could probably have been swayed back to Robin/Ted if they'd done a better job in the execution.
The sad thing is I would totally have watched "How I Met Your Dad" if it had been about Tracy. Y'know, even with this shitty ending. But it's not and I'm not going down this rabbit hole again sooooooo... Have fun with that, guys. o_O
It's been awhile since I had such feelings about a finale, I guess. Psych's made me happy and sad all at once but it didn't make me want to murder anyone, so I just kind of wait til I can catch up on the episodes I've missed.
Now, let's change gears and talk about why the Papa Johns in West Ashley sucks ass. I should point out that it's been awhile since I had a problem with them and not because I didn't order anything, because I did. Thing is, when they fuck up, they go big. They go massively big.
So. Yesterday I decided I wanted a pizza and I had a free one coming because of points. It was sometime before the restaurant opened and I waffled for ten minutes on whether to order or not. Decided fuck it, I was going to. Because of "ordering ahead" you have to give them an hour at least. So I went with noon. My order was made (one pizza, extra extra cheese and half black olives, so not a terribly difficult order) at 10:49am. Noon delivery. I figured it could be earlier or it could be a little later because sometimes lunch time traffic, y'know?
Yeaaaaaaahhhhh. 12:45 and no pizza. o_O Um, not cool. I always double check my orders to make sure the phone number is correct because they're supposed to call if there's a problem, y'know? Thing is, the WA store never calls. The one time I made a delivery order from the James Island store and told them to deliver as close to midnight as possible, THEY called me to make sure it was legit, but WA never calls.
And they always have the same fucking excuse because it's always the same damn manager. Rachel (Racheal?) is always short staffed on the days when my pizza is late, and she always promises the pizza will totally get there hot and tasty and they're just so overbooked and understaffed and she really should have called but she didn't and why are you just so mean?
JESUS, WOMAN. Maybe you're understaffed because apparently you are a complete failure as a boss? When something is going to be an hour late, you fucking call the customer when it's a plan ahead order. YOU PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL.
So Mums talks to her and Rachel there tried to placate her with, "So do you want a free future pizza or a free two liter now?" to which I'm thinking, Um, duh, pizza and also if the two liter is available you clearly haven't even sent my pizza out the door yet. o_O Or maybe the drivers keep drinks in a cooler? I dunno.
Mom tells her pizza, duh. Annnnd fifteen minutes pass and the driver calls because she's lost. Eventually she realizes she took the wrong entrance and goes back on the highway and enters the right way and Mom finally hears me pounding on the glass for her to go out to the parking lot and not just the backyard. Yeah, Mom's pretty sure the driver was on something because the lights were most definitely not on in this poor girl's head. She seemed nice enough, but she wasn't playing with a full deck.
I'm a little apprehensive because the box has that "this pizza ain't hot, and if you're lucky it'll be lukewarm" feel BUT that's okay, right? I mean, pizza's an hour late and the manager's a fuckwit but hey, free future pizza so we can do this dance all over again!
And then I open the box and the entire center of the pizza is stuck to the cardboard lid.
THE FUCK.
Mom calls back because I'm just in shock because this is a new low, man. New low. Now, I will admit the Mums went in with the crazy and the grr, argh, but when you're asked, "Can you hold" and they put you on hold anywayyyyyy... you're asking for trouble. Rachel doesn't seem to understand why someone would be ticked that their food is more than an hour late and basically inedible at this point, because hey, we're getting a free pizza at some other point in the future. Mom points out that that's all well and good but the pizza they delivered isn't really a pizza at this point. "Ma'am, it's just a pizza."
And it's just your job. Mom yells, Rachel ignores the whole "you can't eat it, you fuckwit!" (mom didn't call her a fuckwit) point and then hangs up and I'm 99.9% sure my pizza ain't coming.
Still, I wait a few minutes.
And then I call them. I hate calling people for a confrontation. Hell, I hate calling for just a chat.
So I get the whole, "Can you hold?" and I decide what the hell, saying no didn't work so I say "Suuuuuuuure." And hold for ten minutes.
It's funny because I know the person who answered is Rachel. When she finally gets back on the line I ask about the likelihood of my replacement pizza because you guys done fucked up and I cannot eat this one. Only super nice and super polite because I find that infuriates people who want to yell at you but can't.
She says no, there is no pizza because Mom didn't ask for it. I politely state that she did, no less than twice, and I would very much like for my replacement order to be put at the head of the line and delivered, thank you. "It'll be two hours," she says, like that's going to make me say no.
"That's fine. It'll be hot though, and not stuck to the top of the box?"
You can hear her grind her teeth. "Yes."
"Excellent."
Look, lady. I'm sorry your employees ditched you, but you fucked up my order in every way possible so no, I'm not cutting you a break because I feel bad for you. Because I don't. Or didn't, until Mums started the yelling but she started that when you fucked up my order and then blamed us for it soooooooooo... (Really, what kind of explanation is, "Your pizza must have been on the bottom of the stack."? I mean, duh, of course that's how it happened but when you do that you don't expect your customer who still had to pay for their "free" pizza to be cool with it.)
She then hung up on me because clearly she so enjoys her job.
It took an hour to get my replacement and it was delicious (the first one was disgusting so I just stole the cheese not stuck to the roof of the box.) but I really think I'm going to have to start planning my pizza purchases better. The sad thing is the JI location is always super fast about delivering the work pizzas and they're a million times better, taste wise. But it would be stone cold by the time I got it home.
So in conclusion: the WA store will be fine on your normal orders but the ones that are free, they fuck up and will use the old, "Everyone called out!" excuse but will not call YOU to warn you it'll be late. (Which, if they had done, and delivered a pizza that was pretty warm and not caved in, I'd be okay with. But they didn't and instead things got ugly and now I am actively wishing someone out of a job.)
And finally, dream time.
Had a dream with many parts this morning. In it, it starts out with a group of who knows how many people visiting a new planet. There's something off about it, because of course there is, but no one's really worried too much about it because look, a new home is possible!
Only dream!me is a princess or someone kind of important and I realize either I've had this dream before or been here before and it's a do-over day and I must try and save people from the whole, "don't touch the ground that isn't covered by things because these weird huge slugs will try and kill you and ohmygod, they illustrate this with a dog and I can't see that again, I just can't!" problem.
And people believe me and the war isn't exactly averted but it does end up in our favor. Thing is, dream!me isn't completely soothed by this. Probably because the geeky friend is hurt in the process and I do have to admit that I've tried a thousand different ways to prevent bad things from happening in this scenario and I've learned that some people do die and do get hurt and sadly, this is the best outcome. And the best outcome leaves the brain permanently injured, not to mention other people dead and slug world is still not a viable option for... anything, really.
Soooooo, naturally geeky friend goes crazy and starts trying to exact her revenge on people and it's very sad panda making and a lot of this is either glossed over in my dream or I don't remember it. She gets away and dream!me is heartbroken because her injuries and resulting insanity feel like they're my fault.
Third part involves a giant mall with an indoor skating rink. The bitchy one on the fringe of the group (the Libby?) was also hurt in the attack and she's still healing. She was an amazing skater and has managed to teach a bunch of girls this amazingly choreographed number that is absolutely breathtaking (and a little violent at times) and of course, someone sabotages the final number so that the star of this little show, the next great hopeful, winds up the victim of an act that turned out not to be an act. (Something about a rope that shouldn't have snared her, thus causing her to go flying and snap her leg) Bitchy gets blamed and additionally re-injured and then you find out that no, she was set up!
Next bit is still at the mall, or back at the mall? I dunno. I'm going through a lunch line or something and wind up sitting at a table with two guys who aren't all that impressed by my groundhog day skills and the other best friend who didn't go psycho. The lights flicker, and then go out and everyone panics and dives under their tables like it's an earthquake drill? And then the guys I'm with decide maybe being near me isn't the best idea ever and they skedaddle and I realize y'know, they're probably right, so I get my friend to leave, too.
And then I crawl out from under the table and call out to geek!friend. "Will you leave everyone alone if I come with you?" and she's there and says, "Of course!" and things seem to be okay until someone shoots her and I realize aw, hell, I shoulda seen that coming.
Then Ozma woke me up. :P
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-03 10:06 pm (UTC)I gather they pre-shot the kids' reactions because y'know, the kids grew up since it took damn near ten years to tell the story. But it's not like anyone ever interacted with the kids nor did we really need their reaction, especially when the last three years of the show detailed every way in which Ted/Robin was not gonna work out on any planet. Bonus points awarded when they continued to do that all of the last season. The season which ends with, "ha! Just kidding, they're totally right for each other in fifteen years."
I really think I prefer my endings to be, "and they continued to be awesome, just like you will always remember them to be" and fade to black.
Much like how I get twitchy when shows who know they aren't likely to be picked up for another season end on a friggin' cliffhanger when they didn't have to.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-04 09:15 pm (UTC)THIS! In the early seasons we saw more of the kids but as the show went on they appeared less and less. They were still referred to in the very first lines of most episodes, just to remind us that he was telling them a story, but they were no longer important elements of the show. I'm so annoyed with the writers for clinging so desperately to an ending that didn't fit and wasn't relevant. That's not loyalty or anything positive, that's just stubbornness. There's a fine line because on the one hand it's hard to create something and love it and then years later just scrap it, but on the other if it no longer works then keeping it just because you don't want to throw it out is dumb and infuriating. I wonder how the cast feels about it.