November 25th is a sham.

Why do people rush out at 3:00am the day after Thanksgiving to stand in a line with 100 other insane people to go into a store at 5am? What is the point of that? Do they realize that they're basically just being sold leftovers? The stuff your standing in line in the middle of the night for is called overstock. That's right, leftover product that the store is trying to get rid of so that they can then bring in the product for the Xmas season. The real product comes in the following week, along with sales throughout the rest of the year. There is no great deal if you shop on the 25th. Yeah, sure, they put some item in an ad like a laptop for $299, or flat panel tv for $99, but right next to it they write (limited qty available. not available at every store.) This means "we have 7, and if your lucky, the store you go to will have 2." November 25th is a means for the stores to dish you their leftovers, and the consumers are all too hungry to eat up.

On a side note, if you have anything you need to return, this is the best day to do it. There isn't a single person in line at the service desk. You can get in an out real quick.

Holy annoying neighbor batman

Umm...I'm pretty sure this guy would get asked to leave my neighborhood pretty quickly. At the same time, it is strangely impressive.

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Walk The Line

Johnny Cash is a legend. End of argument. I saw Walk the Line today and it does a great job of telling his story. He was a man that didn't let fame go to his head. A man who worked hard from the time he was a little kid for everything he had. A man who knew what he wanted and got it. A man who did what he wanted, and didn't care what people thought. A man who couldn't sing, but had more feeling than most. A man who overcame the death of his brother, a discouraging father, a failed marriage, a very long bout with drugs and an even longer period without a record label, a career, or anybody who cared. His songs told the stories of vagabonds, criminals and the less fortunate...people he seemed to relate to more than celebrities. He may not hit the high notes like Christina Aguilera, or have the posse of Jay Z, but he had heart, and feeling and you can hear it in all his recordings. He left his mark on music, a mark unlike any other left before. He was and forever will be the Man in Black.

On a side note, props to Joaquin Phoenix. I haven't seen him in too many movies, but his portrayal of Johnny is uncanny. He captures his mannerisms, stage presence and spirit. I think even people who aren't fans would enjoy this movie.

The tips industry is expanding

You know what irks me? People who just keep your change after they ring you up. For starters, what's the deal with all the places that tips cups have appeared? Coffe shops, sub shops?? When did these become part of the tips industry?

I'm by no means cheap, and most of the time, I tip fairly well, but I see no reason to give a tip to my local coffee shop cashier. What is that for? For pouring my coffee? Get out of my way and I'll pour it myself. It will be quicker and probably taste better.

What really bothers me though is when they just keep my change. I guess it's like when a restaurant automatically adds 15% for parties of 10 or more. I don't particularly care about the nickel or dime, but it's the fact that they just assume it's theirs that gets me. Then they look disgusted when they look back up and I'm still standing there waiting for my change. They say something like "oh", or just moan, then dig back into the cup to get my change, as if I'm inconveniencing them. Gee, I'm so sorry.

Comcast's service is dropping faster than GW's approval rating

When my service was first switched over from AT&T to Comcast, Things were looking good. I couldn't believe the great service you received when you called them. Polite, quick to react, etc. The techs actually showed up when they said they would, and twice even called to say they were in the area and wondered if they could come by earlier. That's unheard of.

Unfortunately, they seemed to have slacked off a bit lately. In the last year, I've lost my internet service 3 times for a few days each time. Each time, it turned out to be that my modem had kicked the bucket. Where is Comcast getting these modems...Building 19?? Call me crazy, but a modem should last more than 4 months.

Two weeks ago, my HD cable box decided it had had enough as well. That was less than a year old. They should hire some of the people from the Twinkie company as consultants. They can make an item of food that lasts 1000 years, perhaps they'd have some insight on increasing the lifespan of Comcast's equipment.

My girlfriend has had a multitude of issues with them for her phone, cable and internet service. It's been going on for 2 months and they still haven't seemed to figure out what to do. The best part was when she called them because her phone wasn't working. They never showed up for the first appt. they had. She called and they rescheduled. They didn't show again. The third time she called them, they said they called to confirm the appt, and since she didn's answer, they canceled it. THEY CALLED THE PHONE THAT SHE REPORTED WAS BROKEN???? A 6yr old could figure out why she didn't answer that call.

So over the last 2 weeks, I've received 3 calls from Comcast to confirm an appt I don't have and haven't requested. The first time, I told them I didn't have an appt. Last week they called again. I told them they already called and that I still didn't have an appt. It turned out the person they were looking for was not me. They have apparently put my phone number in someone elses account. They proceeded to state, "well that's odd, you both have the same number". IS THIS FOR REAL?? I told them, I don't think we do. Perhaps, you have my number listed in their account by mistake. They said they would look into it.

So today I get a call saying that there is a tech service guy who's been outside my house for a half hour. I couldn't believe it. Nobody updates their records. They acknowledge that it's wrong and then don't do anything. Even if you don't have the correct number, shouldn't you at least remove the on that you know is wrong??? This isn't rocket science. Needless to say, there wasn't anybody outside my house, probably because I DON'T HAVE AN APPT!

I really don't know what's behind this drastic turnaround in service, but they should probably look into it. These aren't exactly challenging issues to solve. Having correct contact info for you client is a pretty basic concept. I just feel bad for the poor woman who's made 3 appts and still hasn't had anyone show up because I keep canceling them.

Tech support people make me wonder

Sometimes I really do wonder how some of these tech support people have their jobs.

I've been testing various HTML mailer marketing services that allow you to create and send HTML email campaigns and track results. One of the one's that I'm testing, Vertical Response, for some reason sent out 8 emails to each address on my contact list. You can imagine that didn't make a good first impression with me.

So I contacted their support team of experts to find out why this may have happened. I got a response today. They said there is no reason why the software would send out 8 emails unless I hit the send multiple times. They then asked me if that's what I did.

I still haven't formulated the email that I'm going to send back. Perhaps it will go something like this:

Hello [tech support person's name], Thanks for your quick and insightful response. However, I pretty much assumed there was no reason why the software would do that. Why would it really? I can't remeber any time in the past when I've said to myself, gee, I really wish I could send 8 of the exact same email out to someone all at once. Oh, and don't you think I'd remember if I pushed send 8 times? Why in the world would you ask me that? If I pushed send 8 times, do you think I'd be emailing you to find out why I got 8 copies in my inbox?

Or better yet, maybe I'll just respond with "Thanks", and send it 8 times.

Myspace.com...Making friends I didn't know I had

So the other day, I'm checking through my hotmail account and I have an email from MySpace, the online community site that seems to be all the rage. I open the email and it's informing me that my registration with them was a success, but to complete the process, I needed to respond to the email to confirm. I thought to myself, wow, they have really streamlined the join process, probably better than anyone has before. See, I had never even visited their site, yet had apparently successfully joined. Now that's customer-centric design!

I assumed this was one of two things. One - someone signed up for an account an used my email address. Two - this was one of those spoof emails, the ones that aren't really from the company they say they are, and are designed to get you to give them your personal info. I ignored the email, essentially solving either case. At least that's what I thought.

A few days later, I checked my email and had received several emails from people who wanted to join my space. Now I know I'm popular and all, but how is this possible? I don't have a space. I decided to visit the site and see if I could log in. Sure enough, with my email address and the password they had provided me, I did indeed have an account.

I had quite a few friends already in such a short time. I've always been pretty good at getting along with people. One of them was a girl who thought I was cute and had a younger sister she could set me up with. A few others were just excited that I had accepted them into my space. I even had a photo up of myself. Apparently, I'm a 12yr old from Oregon. Who knew I was leading this double life.

So although I had made a lot of new friends, I decided to cancel my account. I also contacted MySpace to find out exactly how this happened. What decent size web entity doesn't do any sort of confirmation before just signing people up? Or better yet, why did they send out a confirmation email if it didn't need to be confirmed? Isn't that the sole purpose of the confirmation email?

So far, I have received no response.