Harper Kingsley blog

September 2, 2016 0 comments

Walmart: Pick it up Today program is garbage

I thought I would get over my anger, but you know what, days later, I’m still angry. Why? Because the Kid had to go to school with handfuls of nothing because Walmart’s Pick it up Today program is garbage.

School started Aug 31. Knowing that I didn’t want to have to push and shove my way through crowds of people all trying to get supplies for their kids, I had the bright idea of using money from Paypal and buying things online. Which led me to Walmart.com.

I’ve attempted to shop at Walmart.com before and it didn’t go well. (I had a cartful of stuff carefully curated over an hour of browsing, but when I clicked to checkout, everything in my cart disappeared.) I should have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to shop at Walmart.com, especially considering how jank their site is. Seriously, their listings are nonsense, their pages take a ridiculous amount of time to load, and the UI is infuriating, like a step back in time to when the Internet sucked.

Anyways, I thought I’d give them another chance. More fool me.

I picked out a bunch of stuff with the expectation that I could get things delivered to my door. Instead, I was notified that only part of my order could be delivered, everything else would be gathered up waiting for me at Customer Service as part of the Pick it up Today program.

Considering I didn’t want to have to go to Walmart to pick up anything, I still put in the order and was told my Pick it up Today stuff would be ready by 10 am Aug 26. Plenty of time before school.

And I waited.

Meanwhile, packages are coming in the mail and we’re getting stuff, just not an email saying to come pick up the rest of the school supplies. Finally on the 30th I see on the website that my Pick it up Today stuff was still processing. So I called Walmart.

The local Walmart told me that there was nothing on their computer saying to put my order together. And without an order, they couldn’t do anything for me. Here’s the number to the guys running Walmart.com.

So I call Walmart.com, where I’m transferred to a supervisor and expect that my difficulties will be handled. Instead, I’m told that Walmart.com has nothing to do with my order once it’s placed, all Pick it up Today things are handled by the store. Oh, and by the way, “I can cancel the order for you and put in for a refund. That’s all I can do. It will take 5-10 days before processing.”

At that point, I was really angry. And even though I wanted to yell at the woman on the other end of the phone, I didn’t. Though I did say, “I feel so angry and disappointed right now. I feel like I might want to Tweet about your company’s horrible customer service, and post things on Tumblr” and whatever. I was mad.

But here I am. Days later, and I’m still angry and frustrated.

Why?

Because instead of soothing an angry customer and helping them get the things THEY PAID FOR, I was told by the Walmart.com rep that the only things I could do was cancel the order and request a refund, or call the local Walmart and talk to a manager.

And when I called the local Walmart and asked to speak to a manager? I was left on hold for 15 minutes with no hold music, after being on the phone for OVER AN HOUR begging someone to give me my stuff.

So I canceled the rest of the order myself and drove to Walmart to scavenge through the wreckage in search of school supplies. On the night before school starts.

And what do I find? They were out of graph paper, which was part of my order.

And I can’t help thinking that rather than tell me they couldn’t fulfill my entire order and giving me a partial refund, Walmart instead went “Pft, she won’t want the rest of this stuff without that graph paper. We won’t bother to tell her we’re screwing her over.”

But whatever excuse they have, they boned me.

Because of Walmart.com’s terrible customer service and lack of ability to do ANYTHING to fix the problem, the Kid had to go to school without some supplies. And once again, I’m the one that didn’t come through for him. Once again, I’m the disappointment that couldn’t get him the things he needed to have a good first day of school.

And that’s on me. Because I ignored my instincts and ordered from Walmart.com. Something I will never do again.

August 7, 2016 0 comments

WIP: Death and Layla Hanson [game]

I’ve been working on a couple of Ren’Py games and they’re coming along… okay. It’s been a lot better since I learned how to use screens (namely what “tag” does) and I think my first (very simple) Ren’Py game will be ready in a week or two.

At the same time, I’ve also discovered Twine. It’s a very simple to use CYOA story engine that produces html pages.

My first Twine “game” is “Death and Layla Hanson“. It is currently a work-in-progress, but you can take a look at it if you’re interested.

I’ve been adding to it and changing the styles and formatting, so you might see it change from one visit to the next.

To help with tracking the changes, I’ve added navigation at the top.

Death and Layla Hanson

This is the first screencap I took:
Screencap of Death and Layla Hanson

And this is the second screencap:

Screencap of Death and Layla Hanson

If you’re interested, you can check out “Death and Layla Hanson” at Kimichee.com/games/Death_and_Layla_Hanson.html.

July 19, 2016 0 comments

Aeridale: Working on my game

In case you were wondering what’s been going on, I’ve been working on my Ren’Py game(s). The first one is called Aeridale, which is the story of an orphaned girl that grows up to find adventure, romance, and possibly aliens. It all depends on the choices you make while playing.

^ Above is a screencap of the script.rpy file. The “[mc]s” will show as Aeridale’s name when the game is played. Because the name is left unspecified, this will allow the possibility of giving the player the ability to input their own name if I add that option. (I’m still thinking about it.)

When the player gets to the startingchoices option, they can choose Action/Adventure, Romance, Horror, or Science Fiction storylines. There are trophies to be gathered and bonus content that can be unlocked.

Depending on the storyline chosen, there’s the possibility of a love-interest, friendship, or just Aeridale learning to kick ass and take names. She starts as a lonely girl desperate to survive and becomes a woman that refuses to lay down and die.

Right now I’m finishing up the script and drawing/painting/stealing artwork to be used as backgrounds, objects, and sprites. Though at the moment I’m actually thinking that I won’t use an Aeridale sprite at all, leaving her appearance up to the mind of the player? Because honestly, how often do you see yourself when you’re talking? Like almost never, right? So maybe instead of a sprite I will represent her with an image denoting the romance choice, or the action choice, or whatever. I’m still working on that, and it’s not really pressing as it doesn’t affect the script much — it’s just the addition of a few lines of code here and there (“show Aeridale happy at left” will display the image defined as “Aeridale happy” standing to the left side. Simply enough, I add the image definition in the pregame code, then I can use those images anywhere I want.).

Aeridale will be about 4+ hours of gameplay to run through all the opened options, plus however long to go through the bonus material. It seems like a lot of work to put the game together — and it is, hours and hours — but it’s basically a lot of me thinking “Aeridale does this and then she does this because of that, which leads to this and that, the end”. Everything logically follows itself, though I did manage to write a loop which kept going back to the same menu screen over and over again before I figured out where I’d messed up. I’m learning a lot as I’m doing.

Other games I’m scripting: “Harper Kingsley’s Heroes & Villains”, “Kimichee 001”, and “Romantica.”

I’m hoping to release my first free game by early next month. I’ve already got an itch.io page and I’ll be sending out download keys to my Patreon subscribers.

July 8, 2016 1 comment

I hate being poor; ATR-not; Excerpt: The Anomaly

The plans are as follows:
1. Paint the Kid’s room.
2. Grow and eat mung bean sprouts.
3. Get him a BMX bike.
4. Buy him clothes for school.
5. Wrap up all old stories.

* * *

OMAKE

Being a retiree wasn’t so bad. Not when he halfway felt as though everyday they lived like normal people was one more day when he’d kept the world safe.

Warrick would never say anything, but checking up on the things Vereint had gotten up to while he was indisposed and reading a few essays floating around the Internet about the minds of supervillains had really freaked him out. It was obvious that Vereint had gone a bit psycho.

It was somewhat flattering to think that he was the only thing protecting the world from Vereint going full scale SUPERVILLAIN Darkstar. He got to have the love of his life and save the world at the same time. Blue Ice was dead, but Warrick felt like more of a superhero than he had in a long time.

Having Nick manifest his first metabilities was a bit worrying. Warrick didn’t quite know how he was supposed to handle things, but he managed to at least look like he wasn’t throwing hysterical fits so he considered it a win. Vereint wasn’t even trying to cover up the fact that he was freaking out. It made Warrick feel a bit superior to be the controlled one for once.

“Remember, no showing off,” Vereint said with a pointed look at Nick.

“It’s fine, Dad.” Nick rolled his eyes, but didn’t try to move away when Vereint tugged his jacket straight. “I got this.”

A quirky smile curved Vereint’s lips as he looked at Nick. “You’re growing up really fast. Just don’t expect to get your own car until you’re twenty-five.”

Warrick moved in when it looked like Vereint was about to spit on his hand to smooth their son’s hair. “We’re going to be late.”

Vereint let himself be tugged away from Nick. Warrick wrapped his left arm around Vereint’s shoulder, less as a comforting gesture and more to hold him back from his fussing.

“I guess we better get out of here,” Vereint said.

Nick looked proud in his suit and tie, his hair styled to look careless and windswept. He had Vereint’s dark hair and Warrick’s blue eyes and was growing up to be a good looking kid. When he grinned, it was to show off Vereint’s dimples in a charm that no one could deny. “I look good, right?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and spread his jacket wide for a moment.

“Don’t get a big head.” Warrick clapped Nick on the back and nudged him toward the door. Vereint stayed curled against his side, their legs almost tangling when they stepped out on the porch. Warrick refused to let him go.

They walked up the sidewalk as a group, meeting up with others making the journey. Boys and girls dressed in their best clothes, excited younger siblings bounding around, and indulgent parents trailing along. It was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, this stream of people all headed toward the country school.

Warrick had never imagined that a child’s graduation between grades was such a big deal, yet here they were. Vereint was beaming with pride and fiddling with the camera hanging around his neck. Nick spotted a couple of his friends and ran up ahead. And suddenly they were taking a romantic stroll.

“Are you going to write about this in your diary?” Warrick asked.

Vereint slanted him a confused glance. “Huh?”

“Never mind. It was stupid. Life is good.”

“It is.” Vereint gave Warrick’s shoulder a squeeze.

Warrick smiled contentedly.

He had a husband he loved and a son graduating the fifth grade. He had sixty-one years of life experience and a thirty-one year old body. There wasn’t much more that he could ask for. Life was good.

/EXCERPT

* * *

They gave him the name Gellar Rembrandt when he was decanted. One more Bottle Baby sent off to the creche. And as soon as he had a mouth full of teeth and could walk and talk, he was bundled off to the Learning Center.

It wasn’t a bad life, being the clone of a clone of a clone. For everything he thought and did, there was a precedence. It gave him a sense of peace to know that he was a stereotypical representative of his genotype. One amongst thousands.

Until the Graduation Exams when he was 20. Until his world was ended with the declaration that he was an Aberration, and Unclean.

He was not the perfect copy he’d always known himself to be. He was an anomaly.

Gellar was taken from the Learning Center in the back of a van. His wrists were shackled together and he was treated like a prisoner, an inevitable threat.

He could see the disgust and disquiet in the faces that looked like his own. (His type is used in the police and military.) Every single one of them was forced to wonder what they would have done if they were him. He was the possibility of failure that any one of them could have been.

He was their worst fear brought to life.

Aberration. Discord. Failure.

/EXCERPT