Tag Archives: medieval

goodness, humor, nerd

In Communist Russia, customer serves you

totally accurate

totally accurate

Occasionally I poke around Medieval Collectibles to see what’s on sale that I might add to my Renaissance Faire costume.  I’d been poking around for years before I finally got around to buying a legitimate Renn Faire costume, so of course I bought the wrong size.  I chatted with some very helpful online service reps who assured me that if I bought the right size and sent back the too-big dress, I would be refunded the amount of the too-big dress and all would be well.

Well.  That was almost a year ago, and I only just got around to sending the too-big dress back this week.  I sent with it a note that essentially said, “Hey, I spoke with some very nice people at your company who assured me I could get a refund for this dress since I bought another one, so here it is and since you’ve all been so nice, please enjoy this group of photos of Benedict Cumberbatch transforming into an otter.”

I received an email from said company today:

I wanted to let you know that we received back Irish Dress and saw that you wanted us to process this as a return for refund. Typically a 15% restocking fee is removed before refunding, however since you already placed an exchange order, we are waiving this fee.

How nice!  They’re refunding me in full.  Then it said boring stuff about waiting a few days for the full refund without freaking out because where is my refund raaaaaaaagh!! /table flip.  Then there was this:

P.S. Thank you for the pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch, they were very funny! 🙂

Success!  Hahahaha omg I love that a human looked at my little note and smiled.  Totally made my day.

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goodness, life

I < 3 Ancient Warfare Technology

I know I’m a couple millenia late coming to this party, but trebuchets are awesome. I enjoy the simple, yet elegant design. I love the use of various materials (cloth, leather, metal, wood) and distinguished concepts (slingshot, lever, gravity) that makes them work, and I love watching them hurl shit farther than should be humanly possible. I’m just such a fan.

Leave it to the Japanese to turn it into a gameshow of some kind involving a picture-in-picture reaction to the chaos unfolding. How many Gs do you think those people experience? Having poked fun at the Japanese, I seriously doubt that the French (or the Greeks or Chinese for that matter) never did this way back in the day. How brutal would that be? Take a prisoner, then hurl them back into their own camp. Wow. Color me enthused.

[I just looked it up on Wikipedia and found this gem: “Occasionally, disease-infected corpses were flung into cities in an attempt to infect and terrorize the people under siege, a medieval form of biological warfare.” I know I should be horrified by this but OH MY GOD that is such a great idea. Remember in Lord of the Rings when the Urukhai hurl the heads of the fallen men of Gondor back into their base? I was all, “Eeeew, that’s gross, hahaha, cool!” Anyway…]

Which brings me to the topic of the French. My slight dislike of them (based on some extremely stereotypically snooty–and downright mean–experiences I had in Paris over a decade ago, and my Australian family’s inherent, if harmless and often funny prejudices) is rapidly diminishing due in large part by their health care system (generous), their education system (boisterous), and the growing secularism of their government (awesome). And let’s not forget the most important part: trebuchets. Any culture that uses something that awesome deserves a second chance at my adoration.

So ok, French people. You’re got your second chance. Thrill me.

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