Red Devil Pizza
3102 E Mcdowell Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85008 – 3702
(602) 275-5961
Red Devil Pizza
3004 E Bell Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85032 – 1921
(602) 493-0009
Red Devil Pizza
208 W Southern Ave
Tempe, AZ 85282 – 4939
(480) 968-2155
Blog
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Red Devil Pizza – Review
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No Good Deed Ever Goes Unpunished
I was going to write a review about Rosati’s Pizza, but, alas, this is going to be a rant instead.
Today was System Adminstrator Appreciation day and several people at the office (thank you, people, your appreciation is appreciated) went in to buy the computer staff pizza at Rosati’s for our lunch.
A brief background. Sometime in the early-mid 1980’s, I lived in Chandler, Arizona – back in the days when it was few fields and the occaisional tract of homes. We were so isolated that no one delivered pizza. One day, Rosati’s opened. They were still too far away for delivery, but within range of pickup. As you may know, I like to judge a pizza fresh, in the restaurant, but Rosati’s has no seating space. Nonetheless, the first pizza I ever had there I tried a stuffed pizza – my first – and it was, without doubt, one of the best I’ve ever had – to this day.
I promptly moved 30+ miles away, and, as I had nowhere near Rosati’s to take a pizza to eat, I didn’t have another one until 2005 when one opened near my office.
Since they opened near my office, I’ve had a couple of their stuffed pizzas and one thin crust, rated A, B and C respectively.
However, they have failed the customer test today. Two pizzas were ordered, one the computer staff and one for some other people who don’t factor into the rest of this story.
To make a long story short, 50 minutes after the pizzas were ordered (and long after they were supposed to arrive), we received a call saying they had sent the wrong pizzas. Specifically, they’d sent one wrong pizza and one right pizza. There’s no need to even guess whose pizza was wrong, is there?
We were given two options, take the wrong pizza (even though it was smaller) or wait another 30-35 minutes (ha!) to get a replacement. They wouldn’t even consider leaving the wrong pizza and sending the right one later. We did get an option for a credit towards our next pizza, but with crap service like that, what makes them think there will ever be a next pizza???? Optimistic, aren’t they?
Needless to say, we got no pizza from Rosati’s (Phoenix store, Thomas Rd, between 40th and 44th streets) today. (And their manager and corporate headquarters are getting a nasty-gram in the mail, too.)
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Ninja Team Episode 1
Posted the first episode of Ninja Team Video Project over at ninjateam.com, you can link to episode 1 here.
To be honest, there’s not much in the episode, but I wanted a short, explanatory piece posted first so that people could go back and refer to it later on.
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The New Doctor Who
BBC just posted the first pictures of the 10th Doctor’s costume. The series is currently in production for airing next year (with a Christmas special this year, probably around December, I’d guess)
Well, at least it is a lot more traditional. I have hopes the new Doctor might actually do something in the new series, not just watch everyone else save the day…
Check out the official Doctor Who website for more information!
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Review: Grass Jelly Drink
Yuck!
Worse: Sickly sweet yuck with lumps!
They were handing these out free at 99 Ranch Market today, so I (foolishly) thought I’d give it a try.
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Park Signs in Taidong City
I want that sign on the left as a T-Shirt
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My Kid Moved!
Yesterday, James made his first forward-motive action, crawling (lurching, really) off his tummy pillow towards a toy he wanted. I missed the moment, but Chu-Wan was ready with the camera.
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Lee’s Sandwich Shop
Lee’s Sandwich Shop is part of a California-based chain of sandwich shops which has recently opened a branch in Chandler.
As you might imagine, Lee’s stock and trade are sandwiches, but not just any sandwiches, these are Vietnamese-inspired. (The French colonial period in Vietnam’s history has apparently indelibly left the baguette and croissant in their cultural heritage.) Their menu consists of roughly four main areas, European sandwiches, Asian Sandwiches, Specialty Drinks and some miscellaneous items such as appetizers, ice creams and pastries.
There are 30 types of European sandwiches, 15 Asian sandwiches, 2 columns of specialty drinks including coffees, iced drinks and a dizzying 26 flavors of smoothies (ranging from avacado to taro by way of such choices as carots, durians, green beans, mangos and strawberries) to choose from. The choice of 30 European sandwiches is a bit deceptive as there are only 15 types of sandwiches, but each is offered on either a baguette or croissant. The Asian sandwiches are all on baguettes.
I’ve only had baguette-based sandwiches and although the baguettes themselves are not the most flavorful, they are always fresh and crusty. In fact, one of the centerpieces of the enormous 8,000 square foot establishment is what I call, “the Infernal Baguette Machine” which is prominently displayed behind glass in the center of the restaurant. The claim is that baguettes are made every 30 minutes. Considering how busy this restaurant is, I can believe it.
The European sandwiches are quite tasty, and come standard with lettuce, tomato, mayonaise and cheese (the default cheese is American, so it you want Provolone or Swiss, make sure you ask for it.) On the side you get pickle, pepperoncini, red onion and mustard. Unlike other sandwich chains that prepare the food in front of you, Lee’s has a vast work area where your sandwich order disappears to for 10 minutes or so until they call your number. Good luck keeping your receipt as they insist you turn it over to pick up your food.
The Asian sandwiches are topped differently, coming standard with their house pickle (a mixture of pickled daikon and carrot), onion, jalapeño, cilantro, house mayonaise, salt, pepper and soy sauce. Some of the sandwich types include “sliced jambon, headcheese & pate”, “shredded pork” and “sliced chinese BBQ pork.” the Asian sandwiches are very different from the European ones and can be quite spicy for the unsuspecting.
For some reason, Asian sandwiches are served wrapped in paper, while the European sandwiches are served in large, wasteful, ecologically unfriendly plastic serving containers. Although there is plenty of seating, all food is packaged “to go.”
The restaurant itself is always clean, modern, and almost always busy. (I was there at 9:30 AM on a Monday and there were only 15 people eating.) On the weekends, especially around lunchtime, it’s packed. The crowd seems to be predominently asian and I most commonly hear Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese being spoken by the other patrons. They have free balloons for the kids, 3 available computers for free internet access and a large plasma TV showing CNN.
Lee’s takes cash only.
My conclusion: recommended.
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Maxtor: Is this really a smart business practice?
Less than a year ago I bought a Maxtor One-Touch 250GB external drive at Costco. It’s both firewire and USB and I usually use it on my Mac as the target area for video processing. The drive gets really hot, even though it is sitting out with plenty of airflow around it, but apart from that, I’ve been generally happy with it. Until recently.
About 2 months ago, I was rendering a DVD to the drive when it started head clacking, a sure sign of imminent death. In addition to clacking, the either disappears from mt available drive list, or it remains, but becomes completely unresponsive until I get the beachball of death. I’ve had this happen several times, invariably after a long period of continuous, but generally light, drive activity.
For the sake of diagnostics, I reformatted the drive and tried again, with the same result. I also tried formatting the drive with a full wipe, and before it can finish, it goes into head knocking. I also hooked it up to a (gasp) PC to make sure it wasn’t some Mac/OSX problem. The results were the same. I’d pretty much resigned myself to a dead drive.
Then I thought about it for a while and realized the drive might still be under warranty. I hopped onto the Maxtor website, followed their menus, keyed in my serial number and, lo and behold, 3 more months on the warranty!
I entered the information into the RMA form and received an e-mail saying they wouldn’t issue an RMA without me calling them.
The first problem is, they won’t take calls during the hours I’m not at work. I’m pretty scrupulous about not making personal calls like that from work; however, there’s a window of about 23 minutes from the time I arrive home until the close – if I get off work on time, if traffic is kind to me, etc.
I’ve tried calling several times over the last 22 days only to be put on hold until they close.
Today, I got through.
I suppose there’s something else you should know: Since the drive is unreliable for me to put data on, it has been erased, turned off, unplugged and sitting on my desk for 22 days.
This should be a cinch, it’s a common type drive failure, I’ve seen hundreds of them. It happens.
The tech asks me a series of questions:
Is you computer a name brand? Yes, both of them.
What is the brand name? Apple and IBM.
Is that a G4 or a G5? The Apple is a G4, the IBM is… (cut off by tech)
What Operating System/Version? OSX 10.3… the IBM is Win XP.
What happens? (I explain the above problem and situations under which it occurs)
Can you put the phone next to the drive so I can hear the noise it make? No. The drive isn’t hooked up. Even if it were it might take an hour or more before it starts to fail.
I can’t issue you an RMA unless I can hear the drive make the noise.
At this point, I blew up in his face. That is the single most pissed I’ve ever been on a phone call in my life, and I’ve been pissed at the crap-in-your-face-and-tell-you-to-enjoy-it folks at Qwest.
There’s no point in relating what I said to them, it was a stream of consciousness invective that pointed out all the assnine qualities I saw in the way they were handling RMAs, from the lack of adequate phone hour coverage to the absurdity of having to “prove” I wasn’t lying about the drive noise to putting it up to the phone. (Like I couldn’t get/make a sound if I was trying to scam them!)
And when I was done, the tech still couldn’t help, so I blew up at his supervisor too.
At least he didn’t bother, he just gave me an RMA number.
Nonetheless, Maxtor lost a customer, and, I hope, if you read this, you’ll think twice about purchasing Maxtor, too.
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Weird Dreams
I don’t put much stock in the theory that dreams means something. I’m more of a “it’s a jumble of recent thought slung together in random ways” kind of person. That doesn’t alter the fact that, sometimes, a dream feels like it is trying to say something.
Sometimes it’s more fun just to try to let your brain work some meaning out of the rubbish – works for modern art, why not dreams?
Anyway, this morning I dreamed that Michelle was ready to try a “test day” as school. We’d take her to school for a day and see how it worked out. For some reason, we took her to my elementary school in Tucson. (Blenman Elementary School, in case you’re wondering)
It was my job to pick her up halfway through the day. I arrived at the school by car and I realized I’d never driven to my elementary school, so I had to hunt for the parking lot. When I found it, I walked through the halls, following signs saying “visitors must immediately check-in with the office, follow the designated path, do not deviate from the path” There were lots of signs leading me through hallways, the cafeteria and classrooms on the circuitous route to the office.
The path also led me outside to the front of the school, where, in reality, there used to be large stone steps. In my dream, the steps were a Castrovalva-esque jumble of up and down glass stairs. Along the way, many of the stairs had stainless steel additions to them, plates and panels and trays. When I finally reached the top, which was elevated a total of three floors, the “office” consisted of a bar, complete with 1800’s bartenders with handlebar mustaches. Many of the parents were hanging about getting drunk.
I tried to have a conversation with the principal about the school’s performance, when I noticed a stack of computer monitors balancing precariously. I had to steady them as a student came in and warned me that they were unstable.
In turn, I showed him the proper way to stack monitors to achieve maximum stability. At least somebody learned something at school that day.
