twitter fail blog
sharing the good, and exposing the best of the worst on twitter
Twitter FTW!
We went to Las Vegas earlier this week, because the Fail Bird Handler was speaking at a conference. It involved a 52-slide Powerpoint presentation (oooohhhh), handouts (aaaahhhh), and everything. “Everything” included lavalier microphone, tech guys, hotel pens, munchies, little bottles of water… the works.
A good time was had by all.
The event was at Caesars Palace, so that’s where we stayed. Although the bed was nice and cushy, Fail Bird had a hard time sleeping because the feather pillows gave him the creeps.
He did venture out to check out the fountains with their creepy animatronics, and to pose with Joe Louis, the greatest heavyweight boxer of all times.
Unfortunately, not everything went as smoothly as it should. Hotel staff never was able to get our reservation right. When we checked in on Sunday, the clerk said, “checking out Tuesday?” We said, no – Wednesday was checkout. After 30 minutes of running to the back, talking to his supervisor(?), and playing with his keyboard, he said it was all fixed. Keys in hand, we made the trek around the corner, past the Bell Captain, traversed the Palace Casino, through Cleopatra’s Way, took a sharp left in the Forum Casino, into the elevator, up to the 52nd floor, and down the hall to our room, which included, among other things, a breathtaking view of the parking garage. (view map)
Tuesday morning, our housekeeping dude (who did a fine job of cleaning our room, no complaints there) said, “checking out today?” We told him, no, not until Wednesday. He said he’d talk to his supervisor and get it fixed. So, we thought, one little glitch, and all was well. Until Tuesday evening when we went back to the room to change. Neither key worked. We were locked out, which meant we were going to miss our chance to see Big Elvis. (If you haven’t seen him, you’re missing one of the biggest attractions on the strip.)
We went down the elevator, took a sharp right in the Forum Casino, through Cleopatra’s way, into the Palace Casino, past the Bell Captain, around the corner, and back to the front desk. Where we faced the same interminable line we encountered the day we arrived. (Important note: “Early” check-in starts at 1:00 p.m. If you want to check in before 3, get in line well before noon.) Fortunately we got to get in the “short” line, for Premier guests, and people who lost their keys.
When we finally made it to the front of the short line (20 minutes), we were told we had checked out. And that the room was not assigned to us. And that no one was in that room. And, we didn’t have a reservation. And, we had checked out. Pretty funny, because we were still here, our stuff was still in the room, and besides, the clerk on Sunday said he fixed it, and the housekeeping staff dude said he’d have his supervisor fix it, we still planned to stay that night, as was originally booked, paid for, and promised to us a couple of times already. So, after another 20 minutes, the nice clerk gave us new keys and said she fixed it.
She didn’t. When we checked out the next morning, they charged us $123.20 for the room. The room was okay, and was probably worth $123.20, if everything had worked. However, the tv in the bathroom mirror was on the fritz. It was like we were camping.
Not happy with the charge, but needing to get to the airport, receipt in hand, we went on our way.
Since three different people claimed to make things right, and no one did, here’s where twitter comes in. We posted this:
and these:
Which got a response.
Wow. We were stunned, and shared our good fortune with the world.
We DM’d them our information and waited.
And waited.
The next day, based on great advice from @mk_rodgers,
we publicly tweeted the information we had DM’d a day earlier to Caesar’s.
Moments later, we got 3 DM’s back from Caesars. Coincidence? What do you think?
Just after 5:00 p.m., a call came in from Caesars. Kevin Donnelly, Director Hotel Operations, apologized for the bad experience, and tried to explain how it wasn’t their fault, exactly, but he was sorry we had a bad time, anyway. He offered us a complimentary 2-night stay at any of their properties in the future, said he would take care of the credit card charge, and would be sending us an email later that afternoon.
The next morning, we got the promised email. Which included the 2-free nights he promised. And an upgrade to a Deluxe Tower, whatever that is. Maybe a room with a working mirror-tv. Which would be nice, because if you’re staying in a luxury hotel, you really shouldn’t have to rough it.
The moral of the story? Twitter Rulez, y’all. We’re convinced nothing would have happened if we hadn’t gone public with our complaints. We’re not the betting type, but if we were, we’d bet this isn’t over. Is Kevin Donnelly proof that the 4th time is a charm? Or are we just cynical?
We’ll give you an update, after our next trip to Vegas. You know we’re going to tweet about it.
They’re dead, Dave
Everybody, Dave. Everybody’s dead, Dave. They’re all dead. Everybody’s dead, Dave.
…and so began the best scifi comedy series, ever.
Which brings us to LOST, which wasn’t a comedy at all. Or, so we assume. We watched part of the first episode, and kept up with the story line by watching The Soup. Just in case we missed something, our friend, @tremendousnews recapped the full 6 seasons in 60 seconds. He’s a genius.
Sorry, we probably should have said “spoiler alert.” But, in case you missed it, they’re all dead. Were dead the whole time. We’re guessing the writers were hallucinating their way through another season when the brass upstairs told them they had to bring this to a close. Suspension of disbelief can evidently be stretched just so far. So, like all good writers, they hunkered down to wrap everything up, all nice and clean.
Ha! We’re kidding. They were so far out on a limb, there was nothing left but air, so they thought, “what the hell, we’ll just say they were dead all the time. Kind of a Jacob’s Ladder-Dallas-Sixth Sense sort of thing. But with spooky smoke monsters and hugging. It will be awesome!”
Why didn’t we watch Lost? Because we hate remakes, and Gilligan’s Island was a Classic. It’s a pretty safe bet that Lost never featured a computer made with coconuts and bamboo. And, you never saw anyone on Lost in an evening gown. You don’t mess with perfection like that.
We couldn’t figure out why Lost lasted six seasons. But we’re not as confused as this guy:
Would anyone like any toast?
10 Tweets that don’t need to be preserved
The Library of Congress has determined that the public tweets we have all been creating over the years are important and worthy of preservation. Okay, so some major world events have been discussed, and news stories released, on twitter. But, do a few really good tweets justify saving all the 140 mafia hits, 4 square check-ins, tooth whitening spam, celebrity ego-stokes, and Justin Bieber album releases? Evidently, they think it does.
What will future generations deduce when they shovel their way through the daily drivel and minutiae of billions of tweets? Will the information gathered have historical importance? Not if these people have anything to do about it.
Here’s 10 tweets that really don’t need to be preserved:
1. @hamcamwiche might rethink this tweet if he ends up in the unemployment office. How many people need to lose their jobs before they learn not to say something like this on a social media website? At least one more.
2. Follow along, here: Public tweet = anyone can see this = boyfriend won’t wait until Thursday.
3. There’s probably no law enforcement people watching the goings-on here. You’re safe. Hello? ICE?
4. Speaking of cops: does this qualify as a confession?
We move from illegal to immoral:
5. This quote is from a message board and was most likely not written by this user. Years from now, that connection will be lost, and future generations will judge her harshly.
6. If he gets the lid off that canister, you know he’ll tell us. Count ahead 9 months, and 18 years. Someone’s going to have an interesting term paper.
And now, we get to the truly “Too Much Information” category.
7. Thank the gods this wasn’t a twitpic.
8. Don’t talk to this woman unless you have a big box of chocolate in your hands.
9. If you don’t know what twitterlooing is, we’re not going to tell you. We’re completely grossed out.
10. We were wrong. NOW we’re completely grossed out.
Only slightly less gross than telling us about it.
Have you said something on twitter you regret? Head to your account and start deleting before it’s too late!
And then take a minute to tell us about it in the comments. Your secret is safe with us. The Library of Congress doesn’t want any of our stuff.
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Sometimes Real Life Gets in the Way
We owe you a post. Had several good ones in various states of completion, and then gremlins came and ate everything.
We have this really kick-ass computer. Or so we thought. Until the power supply/motherboard/ram/whatever-it-was issue happened, and it had to spend three days in the shop. And then we had to play catch up with “real” work after struggling to get stuff done on the laptop we love, but doesn’t have all the awesome software we have installed on the supposedly kick-ass computer.
All that sucks, because we love blogging. If we could blog every day, we’d be thrilled. But since blogging doesn’t pay (Shock!) we do actual work to pay the bills. Here’s a video the amazingly awesome @thebloggess, told us about, which explains why we do it anyway.
So, we owe you an apology. And something cool to look at while we work on the next blog post, which will be up soon, we swear.
We’re sorry we abandoned you. It won’t happen again. Promise.
Here’s the cool thing. There’s a blogger named Greg, who wrote this fabulous song about how much bloggers love comments. Then he had someone record it, and a bunch of bloggers (not us) sent clips that turned into this really cool video. We mean every word in it, as if we wrote it ourselves.
Go read Greg’s blog, Telling Dad and leave him a really good comment. You’ll make his day.
We’ll see you soon.