Thursday, September 27, 2007

". . . would do the same me."?

After being interrogated by an insurance auditor yesterday and breaking a picture this morning on accident, I received a plea from an amazon.com seller attempting to get excellent feedback from me. The seller wrote, “Thank you for shopping at seller’sname@gmail.com. I left a excellent feedback for you would do the same me. ” I have some feedback, “Uh . . . what?” (I’ll write a blog about you if you can tell what commercial that line in quotes comes from). I am protecting the seller’s name for his or her own privacy. Below is my reply:

Well, the book did have a lot more markings in it than the description led me to believe, but I just might give you some feedback because of your plea. However, there are more pressing issues. For instance, your message was really confusing. You wrote, “Thank you for shopping at seller’sname@gmail.com. I left a excellent feedback for you would do the same me.” The second phrase does not even make sense. Your first one is okay, but the second is awful. In primary school I learned that the articles “a” and “an” are used at different times depending on the first sound on the following syllable. Please consult a primary school grammar book for further instruction. The funny thing is, you do not even need an article in there at all, but I see how it could be confusing, so I will keep it in there! What I am trying to say is that your sentence should read, “I left an excellent feedback for you . . .” I am not going to get technical about the second part of the sentence because I don’t want it to get confusing. It read, “. . . would do the same me.” It literally hurt to type it like that. Is that even English? First of all, it is a run-on sentence, but some simple punctuation would help. Second, I can’t even tell if it is a question or a command. The command would read, “You would do the same for me.” The question would read, “Would you do the same for me?” I would prefer the question because it feels less manipulative and needy, although it still has a strong sense of neediness. I do not want to pick on your tactics for trying to get excellent feedback, but I do want to help you with the wording of your plea. If you are going to ask for excellent feedback, please cut and paste the following: “Thank you for shopping at seller’sname@gmail.com. I left an excellent feedback for you. Would you please do the same for me?” Or, if you want to keep the second sentence together, you could write, “Thank you for shopping at seller’sname@gmail.com. I left an excellent feedback for you, would you please do the same for me?” I will guarantee that you will get better feedback if you will use correct grammar. At the very least, you will avoid people like me.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Work, Work, Work

Due to the overwhelming responses to our last few blogs, I thought I would write something not boring. We realized when we go to blogs and we see pictures of happy people on vacation, it makes us hate them, and I mean hate. So, if you hate us, we totally understand. We hate you when you go on vacation. There has also been some controversy surrounding the amount of skin we are showing in some of those pictures. Sorry, but we were in Jamaica and they boo and hiss at you if you have clothes on—we did not want to offend.

We are both now full-time employees. And I am not going to speak for Monica, but it feels good. Grad school finally ended and all my fears about finding work have been vanquished. Work, work, work . . . it’s what we do. I figure if we write a blog about work, we won’t be as much of a threat as when we talk about incredibly awesome vacations to Jamaica with white sand beaches and crystal blue water.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Where Would You Move?

Disclaimer: This blog in no way implies we are about to move anywhere, so no jumping to conclusions.

The question: Where (in the USA) would you live if you could live anywhere?

Follow-up question: If you are not living there already, what keeps you from living there?

My answer to get things going: Denver, CO. I am not living there because I just finished school and do not have a job lined up over there and haven’t had time to look. Plus, I am fairly content in Memphis and major change scares me.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Jamaica Mon

Regretfully, we returned from our 4-day Jamaica trip Monday evening. We celebrated our 4-year anniversary and Ben’s completion of his degree on this beautiful island. For all who want to know, the hurricane really did not affect the place we were at all—it was sunny skies and crystal blue water for us.

It was terrible getting back to Memphis after being in paradise. Sometimes near the end of vacations we both have that feeling that it is time to get back to our normal lives, but neither of us had that feeling at all. We had no desire to get back (except for seeing Cali again). We highly recommend going to Couples Swept Away when you go to Jamaica because it is an amazing resort and we were spoiled from the second we got there.

Hammock
Catamaran Cruise
Our Last Night
Sunset