When I started my blog, I made a promise not to post any long winded rants, and I don't intend to break that promise today. I just want to share a few stories. Okay I might break it a little.

Just over a year ago I started an Excel sheet called "why i hate tim hortons.xls" where I documented every single screw up that Tim Hortons made while ordering food from any of their locations. Unfortunately, with most things I start, I never really dedicated myself to it and I stopped keeping track of their mistakes. My original plan was to send a copy of it to every nearby Tim Hortons location and one to the corporate offices, letting them know the frequency of screw-ups that they make, and point out that these are just my documented incidents. The number of unreported mistakes would probably be tenfold. I was reminded of this again today when I ordered a toasted chicken club sandwich, and the bun wasn't so much toasted as it was black as coal. It smelled like it was in a fire. It bugs me that somebody there saw it and was like "Yes, this is acceptable as food". I made the effort to return it to their manager informing them that I did not care to eat their bun. I didn't expect anything in return, I just wanted them to have their bun back.

As much as I love living in the 21st century, one of the things that bugs me the most (besides kids these days) is how completely indifferent people are towards mediocrity. It's almost become accepted. I long to live in a time when an establishment would go out of business if they consistently produced shabby products or services. I suppose it still happens with locally owned businesses, but it saddens me that places can create a name for themselves as being below average, yet still thrive. People just accept it.

I pride myself in boycotting places that are consistently poor in service or quality of products. I know it probably doesn't make a huge difference to most places, but at least I know my money isn't going into their managers' pockets. I stopped going to a particular Subway because the staff consistently took 20-30 minutes to make a sandwich when I was the only person in the restaurant. I stopped going to a particular Starbucks because their wonderful barista told me I should speak clearer next time they screw up my order.

Today also marks the day that I begin my campaign of sending one email a day to Microsoft, requesting that they include support for disc number tags in their Zune software. A feature so basic that it should have been included in version 1.0 of their software, but still isn't included in version 3.0. Instead they add a clock and game support. I guess I could play Sudoku while my albums play out of order.

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