This is my letter to Amazon.com's Executive customer service email line (ecr@amazon.com). It has been a long day of dealing with uncaring folk on the phone. This letter outlines my plight.

Hello,


I am writing you as a last resort. I have had a horendous experience with Amazon and Sprint today.


I placed my original order 103-5789548-06xxxxx at around 11am 10-25-10. Shortly after, I received an email stating I needed to call Sprint. I called Sprint to get credit approval. I was approved for the phones and was Sprint would notify Amazon of my approval. Sprint made an error and informe Sprint I had a previous account.

I have not ever been a Sprint customer. At this rate, I never will be. In 2008, I did attempt to purchase a cell phone from them. I canceled the order after they wanted an insane amount as a deposit. I called Sprint to get this sorted out. They say that I am a new customer and the agent shouldn't have appened my new account to that old account from the canceled order. Sprint confirms that I am approved for the phones.

I have spoken to about 14 different Amazon employees about this. I have had it escalated. Amazon has canceled the order. I am informed there is no way to reverse this. I have tried to climb the authority ladder on the phone, but came to dead ends. One customer service agent even told me that there was no one higher than him. Even though he admitted he was not the CEO. He informed me that as far as I am to be concerned, he is the most important person at Amazon and what he says is final. His name was John B. out of a call center in Huntington, VA. He suggested I just re-order the phones.

I explained that I cannot just reorder the phones. To qualify for the price on Amazon.com, I must be a new customer to Sprint. Since Amazon opens an account in my name with Sprint to get approval for the service plan, I am now a customer with Sprint. Sprint shows that the order for the phones is complete. Sprint cannot cancel a 3rd Party order. There is an obvious disconnect between Sprint and Amazon.

I tested my luck anyway. I tried to reorder the phones. Sprint customer service informed me that they approved the phones, but that due to a system glitch I may be rejected anyway. That order number is 103-8844314-372xxxx. I was rejected as the Sprint warned. Amazon canceled that order too.

So here I am, ready and willing to give Amazon $xxx and Sprint over $xxx/month, but I still cannot complete the order due to computer glitches. I cannot get a customer service agent that understand customer service or solving a problem outside a script.


I have never had any problems with Amazon.com before. I am even a seller on Amazon.com. However, after this experience, I am about to swear off both Sprint and Amazon.

Please help me solve this problem.


Mike Brooks

Sometimes repairs stop being about a quick fix and become a vendetta. This is one of those instances.

Recently, a Toshiba Satellite L305 was given to me for repair. The OS had been accidentally removed, but the person had the Vista 32-bit recovery disks. I figured no problem, I can do this in a hour.  Well, the recovery went find until disk 2 went into the recovery process and hit about 30%. I received a 10-FC12-0017 error.  A search of the net found nexperts (net experts) divided between bad recovery disks or bad hard drive.

The hard drive wasn’t acting or sounding bad. Plus ,my friend had said the only reason she ran the recovery disks originally was because the touchpad wasn’t working. It’s ok to laugh. I assumed the HDD was fine since she didn’t complain of operating issues.  So I figured it was the recovery DVD’s, as they had some serious scratches on them even after I cleaned them.

The L305 had a 64-bit processor so I figured, let me try my OEM 64-bit Vista disk.  It actually installed fine with no errors.  However, I had no valid product code and the product key on the bottom wasn’t validating.  So I knew I had to use the recovery disks.

Toshiba has quite a racket with these recovery disks. It’s $25 for a new set. I wasn’t about to go that route. 

I booted freedos off a CD and made sure all the partitions on the drive wiped before attempting a new recovery, With a raw drive, I attempted the recovery again, using the recovery disk to setup the partitions. It failed again.

At this point I was frustrated. I also think Vista sucks. I re-wiped the drive with freedos and attempted an install of windows 7 32-bit. It is what I had laying around. It failed with a “cannot install on this hardware error.”

At this point I knew something was up. I then ran CHKDSK on the drive and it took damn near 8 hours to complete.  I ran the recovery and it failed again.

So extremely frustrated, I put a spare SATA drive in it, and ran the Vista recovery disks. 

After about 14 hours of attempted recovery, the OS came to life.  So error 10-FC12-0017 on a Toshiba recovery, is a bad hard disk.  Save yourself the trouble and just replace the HDD.

What is most frustrating about this is the touchpad never did work, it was bad. The owner opted for an external mouse instead of paying to fix it.  It didn’t work during the recovery. That should have been my clue that more hardware (like the HDD) could be damaged.

And that is one of the lessons I learned.  The other lesson is, check the disk before running a recovery (something I normally do anyway for computers I don’t know the drive’s history).  The third lesson is never detour from your usual practices because you are doing a favor for someone.

I hope someone finds this helpful.

Also, if you aren’t reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

This is a quick article on how to download videos from youtube (or any other supported site) and batch convert them into mp3 files.

First, how do you get the videos downloaded from youtube? I use the software from http://www.downloadhelper.net/   . It is a Firefox plug in.  Unfortunately, I have not found a Chrome equal.  SO I used Firefox for this task.

Using Download Helper, you just select download from its toolbar when you find your desired video.  You can select between flv and m4p file types.  I choose flv as personal preference.

Now the real reason for writing this, step 2: converting the video to a mp3.  I spent a portion of today trying out freeware that is supposed to do this easy task.  It all pretty much angered me.  Let me tell you what I tried so you don't go down the same path:

Freez FLV to MP3 - Not Free, can use once before getting a registration prompt. If you don't register, the program closes.  It also wouldn't batch encode more than 30 items.
FLV2MP3.org - It kept giving me 0 byte mp3 files.
A file from richapps.de: It wasn't a batch converter.

The program I ended up using, was VideoLan player.  It is an absolute favorite program of mine. There is no batch conversion feature of VideoLan.  However, a quick and dirty BAT file will do the trick.  I found the following code on the videolan help wiki and changed it for flv files.

Create your BAT file (How to create a bat file) in the top most directory where you downloaded your FLV files.  I plan to use this frequently so I called mine vlanFLV2mp3.BAT. It will convert all the files in that directory and in all the sub-directories below it. For instance, if you downloaded the flv files into C:\Documents and Settings\MYPC\Desktop\FLV and then have sub-directories of musical artists, you would want the BAT file in that top ..\Desktop\FLV directory.


Here is the code you need to past into the BAT file:

@ECHO OFF
REM ########################################################################
REM # A Windows XP cmd.com script to batch convert flv files to mp3. #
REM # #
REM # Copyright (C) 2008 Andrew Boden #
REM # (boden@graduate.uwa.edu.au) #
REM # #
REM # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify #
REM # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by #
REM # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or #
REM # (at your option) any later version. #
REM # #
REM # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, #
REM # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of #
REM # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the #
REM # GNU General Public License for more details. #
REM # #
REM # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License #
REM # along with this program. If not, see .#
REM # #
REM # Version 1.0 (June 27th 2008) #
REM # Uses VideoLAN VLC 0.8.6h (www.videolan.org) #
REM # Gracefully handles commas and apostrophes in file names. #
REM # Not aware of any other characters needing graceful handling. #
REM # 512kbps encoding with 44100 sampling. #
REM ########################################################################

@ECHO OFF
FOR /R %%G IN (*.flv) DO (CALL :SUB_VLC "%%G")
FOR /R %%G IN (*.flv.mp*) DO (CALL :SUB_RENAME "%%G")
GOTO :eof

:SUB_VLC
SET _firstbit=%1
SET _qt="
CALL SET _newnm=%%_firstbit:%_qt%=%%
SET _commanm=%_newnm:,=_COMMA_%
REM echo %_commanm%
CALL "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc" -I dummy -vvv %1 --sout=#transcode{acodec="mp3",ab="512","channels=2"}:standard{access="file",mux="raw",dst="%_commanm%.mp3"} vlc://quit
GOTO :eof

:SUB_RENAME
SET _origfnm=%1
SET _endbit=%_origfnm:*.flv=%
CALL SET _newfilenm=%%_origfnm:.flv%_endbit%=.mp3%%
SET _newfilenm=%_newfilenm:_COMMA_=,%
COPY %1 %_newfilenm%
DEL %1
GOTO :eof

:eof


This is the original code, it might be easier to copy.  Remember to change m4a to flv if using the linked code.


If you already have all of the software, it isan easy 2 step process. 1: download all the videos you want. 2: run the bat file.

I am posting this because I couldn't find a solution to the problem online while I was working with ICVERIFY 4.0.  It is a relatively dated program used to process credit cards.  Basically it is just a GUI on top of a few SQL databases.

In the past, if some one changed or lost the admin password to the user manager and forgot it, deleting the UserDB files from the SQL directory and reinstalling the app cured the problem.

However, yesterday, I was doing a new install on a XP machine. I choose a custom user name and password for ICVERIFY, as is an option, then completed the install.  When I went to open ICVERIFY, it thew back an error saying invalid user name password. After making sure I wasn't making a typo, I tried the default password and it didn't work.  Neither password would let me into User Manager either.

So I did as above, deleted the database files, uninstalled user manager, rebooted, then reinstalled. I tried to let it use the default login info this time.  I kept getting errors saying invalid login basically.

There was a great deal of trial and error after that.  I won't go into it.  However, my fix is the following: Uninstall ICVerify, User Manager, and the MSDE.  Go into Windows Explorer and delete the ICverify data, and the SQL data.  Use Regedit, to remove any instance of ICVERIFY, UserDB, and the SQL path.

Now, I was using a user account that was set as a local admin.  But after removing all that info, I went into my actual local admin account and reinstalled everything.  Worked fine for all users on the machine after that.

Last note, don't bother with calling their tech support line anymore.  I called today and once about 3 years ago.  Prior to today, I got a English speaking person who was well acquainted with the software and solved my problem quite quick. Today, the tech support number got me to what was obviously a 3rd party, English as a second language shop. Dude actually made it worse poking around turning off services and crap.  When he couldn't solve the problem, he gave me the "Oh you don't have a 2nd tier support contract, please buy one to continue" speech.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone out there.

Do you have old Books, VHS, DVD, CDs, Cassettes, or computers you need to get rid of?

I have been involved with book redistribution/recycling most recently.  But I can also make sure other old media you want out of your house gets the love it deserves.  It won't end up trashed or pulped (unless it's authored by Rush Limbaugh).  I'm happy to come pick it up if you are in a 60 mile radius from  me (Springfield-ish area).

I can also make sure your old computer gets either a new life or properly recycled.

Let me know if you have some stuff you don't want.  I love transforming unwanted items into a good day for someone. :)

Did you notice that I added some tabs right below my logo on this site.  I recently started selling books on Amazon.com and am still selling on cafepress.com.  I also have books to trade on swaptree.com and titletrader.com.  I have added links to each of those in that section.  Please check them out.  If you are a member of any of those, leave your link in the comments :)

I went shooting last week.  My dad gave me an old 22 single shot rifle and I've been dying to see how it shoots. My cousin Steve and I loaded up a small arsenal in my trunk and headed over to Vandalia Tactical.  Between us we had 3 old rifles/shotguns, a derringer, and a compact 25. Vandalia Tactical is a really nice range.  They have a load of guns, ammo, and accessories for sale.  They are not the cheapest on ammo. Can't blame them though, if I had a range, I'd make sure my prices were higher on ammo too. They weren't super high, maybe a dollar 2 or higher than elsewhere.  It did make us decide not to shoo the two 25 caliber hand guns we brought with us.

Also, if you need pink 38 rounds, they have them.  Yes, I said pink. Nothing pisses off a macho bad guy more than getting snuffed by a girlied-up bullet.  Although, putting pink on a 38 round is like putting a dress on a MMA champ. All looks aside, it'll still take you out.

Having never shot a shot gun, I wanted to have at those first. I'm a pretty good shot, even with the first round.  There is a definite difference in kick between the short brass and the long brass cartridges.  Couldn't tell a difference in the carnage to the target though.  We shot a single shot and a 4 +1 pump shotgun.  The single shot was an antique in that it was over 30 years old.  It kicked like an angry mule, but was accurate as hell.

We moved to our antique 22 next. His was a store branded Mauser and mine was a Sears & Roebuck branded rifle. Both shot really well.  They were like cap guns compared to the shotguns. I was more accurate with mine (even though it hadn't been fired downrange in 30+ years) because it was a slightly shorter and easier to wield barrel. Both had excellent grouping (for my shooting skill), but the sights were a bit.  We were both glad they didn't blow up in our faces.

The old shot gun left a huge bruise on my shoulder though.  It was worth  it.  The whole day was fun.

My place has an enclosed front patio that leads to the front door. Yesterday, As I was leaving to run errands, I noticed hundreds (no exaggeration) of lady bugs on the walls and ceiling of my enclosed patio.  It was quite a sight.  A creepy sight.

After all the rain and snow melting, most of us in the area noticed the Mad River at significant levels.  Some of the carnage from high, fast water is big log jams. I had been driving past one near Aaron's Canoes (off upper Valley) for a couple of days and wanted to check it out. Daniel and Dusty were there with me.  It just so happened the log jam wasn't as interesting as the bridge it collected around.

So after Hooters Dan said we should go checkout the kayak playground being built in Springfield. I guess they have built one of several play spots so far.   This one is behind the Springfield Art Museum (Yeah, I didn't know they had one either).  We didn't have our kayaks with us, so we didn't get to play. Plus it was cold.

The pictures don't do it much justice.  The first slope goes into a hydraulic that was bigger than I expected.
These pics are of that.

This pic shows the slope into the hydraulic and the eddy that follows.  I am standing next to the 2nd slope into another smaller hydraulic.

Just wanted to post some embarrassing photos of Daniel getting sung too at Hooters.  The sweet girls there made him some balloon hooters and made him shake them while they sang.  It was quite funny!.

So if you have read or sen the news lately, you have heard about the companies taking a non-cash charge as a result of the healthcare reform bill.  The way this is worded is to intentionally mislead you into thinking this is a bad thing.  At first glance (or vocalization), it sounds like healthcare is costing these companies revenue.  That's not exactly the case.

For those who want to know what a non-cash charge is, from investopedia.com:

A charge off, made by a company against earnings, that does not require an initial outlay of cash.  Non-cash charges are typically against the depreciation, amortization, and depletion accounts on a company's balance sheet. Companies take these charges against earnings due to extraordinary circumstances such as accounting policy changes or significant depreciation of asset's market value. Any sort of charge will usually result in lower earnings in the period when the charge was made. Sometimes also referred to as a write down.

Please notice that I added some tabs right below my logo on this site.  I recently started selling books on Amazon.com and am still selling on cafepress.com.  I also have books to trade on swaptree.com and titletrader.com.  I have added links to each of those in that section.  Please check them out.  If you are a member of any of those, leave your link in the comments :)

My friend Daniel thinks poop and farts are the funniest thing on the planet. Other than stupid people getting schooled, I tend to agree.  This article is for you Daniel. Go ahead, Click the link already.

The game Territory War Online is a simple turn based stick figure assault. You build your team very simply by picking names and hats. Then you play against other people worldwide while trying to eliminate their stick figure team first. It amuses me greatly.  Anyone else play? What's your handle?

Let me preface these photos with a few things:
1.) The photographs aren't great. I had to use a flash
2.) The flash hides alot of the finer details, color,  and texture
3.) They were made specifically for the wall/room I am hanging them in.
4.) Please ask questions or leave opinions in the comment section

These first 2 took decent pics. There is still alot of detail missing from the pics.

Dear Springfield/Dayton/New Carlisle artists,

Where do you find the best prices on art supplies?  Specifically, Stretched Canvas framed around wood, acrylic paint, spray paint, and oil paint.

I have found 18" x 24" stretched canvas at Big Lots for $7. Smaller sizes are cheaper. I'm no expert, but they work great for me.  Anyone know where to get them cheaper?  I don't really want to make them myself.

I get spray paint at Walmart or Meijer.  It's a couple bucks a can I think.

I haven't really found a spot for quality discount acrylics/oils.  Any ideas?

Please comment with your thoughts/info.

I have pulled up to the drive-thru at the New Carlisle McDonalds after 1130pm about 3 times over the last month.  It is a 24 hour, 7 days a week facility. All three visits, varying in time from 1130pm to 230am, I was told they were accepting cash only.  I was also told they stop serving ice cream and shakes after midnight.  Furthermore, the employees have some attitude.

I was willing to write off the cash only as maybe running the daily reports. The more I thought about it, the more I realized McDonald's is to smart to have a system that needs to be taken down to close out the day.  Computers would just need the date/time stamp and the associated data.  The machine wouldn't care about any data after a given threshold.

Then I was just annoyed that a 24 hour facility would consistently take part of their machines offline. If it is for cleaning, why wouldn't they clean them during breakfast?

Lastly. as a fat guy, I visit many McDonald's. I have always thought the ran their businesses very intelligently.  From customizing decor and menus to local tastes while maintaining a global standard to moving to older, more experienced employees, and everything in between.  Some of the friendliest cashiers have been at McDonald's. The New Carlisle store is an exception after the lobby closes. Ya'll may wanna find some new third shifters.

//Rant over.

So I recently got a good deal on shoes at Kmart, via Kmart.com. The shoes were good quality and dirt cheap.  The rarely have my size in stores, so I check out the selection in store, then order offline.

They were marking down lots of shoes, and having a buy one get one half off.  I ordered 6 pairs of shoes, for about 10 dollars apiece.

They all shipped together in the same box, they were all the same size, a size 13.  I received 5 adult pairs of 13's and 1 kids sized 13.

I am pretty sure I made the mistake on the website as the sizes came up in a different order than the other 5, but I was shopping in the adult male section.  My question to the guy packing these shoes is, did you even stop to think why a kids shoe the numerically the same as 5 adult shoes were shipping together?  Could you have called?

I know the answer is no.  I bet the majority of the fulfillment is automated. However, computer foul ups like this is why I never worry about the Terminator scenario playing out. At some point, Skynet will parse some misinformation and build all the terminators to 1/52 of actual size.

According to this article a page went out over the Walmart PA system in a Philadelphia store asking all black people to leave, retarded outrage ensues. Basically, some dumb wank got on the PA system and said  "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now."

The article reports outrage, appall, and disgust. The people interviewed seem to wholeheartedly think the message was some how Walmart sanctioned. I asked, how f'n dumb do you have to be to think Walmart would approve that message.  The only color Walmart cares about is green...money for those less intellectual readers that may come across this.  People are calling for boycotts of the Walmart.  Further retardation in my opinion.

First, I accept that the news outlet found the stupidest, most uptight jackass they could to talk to them.  Second, I pray, yes actually pray, that the majority of the people that heard it laughed or at least said "damn teenagers."  Third, it is sad that news outlets report this as a racist scandal.

Common sense would tell us that most likely some non-employee used the PA system to make this dumb statement. I know we played with the local Walmart's PA when I was in high school.   We got on there imitating Beavis and Butthead saying "Uhhhh, testes, testes, 1, 2, 3? huhuuhuhuhuh."  It was stupid, but funny to us.  As I am sure the racist comment was to the person who made the announcement.

Let it go people, laugh a little. Or at least go make your own announcement. "Could all the red neck, cracker ass, honkies please put down their Nascar merchandise and exit the building. Jeff Gordon is signing autographs in the parking lot."

This story tells about how Dutch war ships are kicking Somali pirate's asses.  It's about time someone fought back.  Doesn't sound like the Dutch are killing many people, but are disarming the pirates, sinking their boats, and sending them to row back to shore in dingies. That is just amusing.  Hopefully, it will reduce modern piracy as it ups the stakes to play.  Thank's Dutch war ships :)

Hopefully, you read my post from early this morning about the issues I was having with my phone, CBW, and their insurance.

The phone issue has been resolved by some very diligent CBW employees. The beginning of the resolution comes quite abnormally.

This morning I received a comment on my previous CBW blog post from a CBW rep named Katie asking me to contact her via email. After verifying the email was valid and not a scam, I emailed her my phone number.

Two hours later the manager, Kent, from the Fairfield Commons CBW store called me to find a solution. He was quite helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable. He offered to replace my phone on a tiered pricing scale. That means I was given the choice of a nice discount on the 2 better models and offered the most similar model at no cost. I decided to go with the 8520 Blackberry (no cost) as I really just wanted my 8320 replaced. I certainly tried to justify my price of the newest model, but ultimately sided with the more financially practical.

I went to the store to pick up the phone and everything was ready for me. The employee, Shaun, was also friendly and professional. Since I didn't need my data copied, I was out of there in 3 minutes.

And this is why I always recommend CBW. It is this high level of service that always leaves me smiling. Aside from the initial snafu, CBW has always made sure I felt appreciated as a customer. And as a long time customer, I can say that I have never had a problem with their network coverage.

That is saying a lot as I have had issues with TMobile, Verizon, and AT&T (a long time ago). Furthermore, I used to work for Sprint, so I know they blow.

Lastly, another commentor suggested I wasn't aware of how the insurance worked. Quite the opposite actually. Granted I was more familiar with Sprint's insurance (their TEP is pretty good), but my issue was expecting to much from what is not a Total equipment protection plan. The insurance I HAD was basically a discount plan. I am also very familiar with equipment warranties. As a technology contractor, I deal with them frequently. The problem with dealing directly with the manufacturer is that they are usually intentionally slow. It forces you to buy a replacement.

Anyway, I am a happy CBW customer again. Thanks everyone

If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

This story isn't anywhere near as nefarious or as sexually adventurous as it sounds, but it does give you something scary to think about.

This weekend, I was out with a friend when we stopped by a local hotel to visit and hang with the front desk employee.  Turns out one of the guest got locked out of their first floor room.  It wasn't because they forgot the key, it was because they card reader went bad.

They employee has a master device that is used to reprogram/override a given lock via a hidden comm port. Which is kinda scary as the technology is available on the open market.  But, that was failing to override the lock too.  The employee understood how to use the technology, but that particular door was being very insubordinate (a term often used to describe me).  I offered to help as I have a knack for accessing things I shouldn't.

Most of you know I am good with technology.  Before I was good with technology, I was good with opening other things, like doors, windows, and crappy locks.  I would love to tell you I whipped out a laptop and went all hacker on the lock.  I didn't.

Initially, I took a run at the door, but even this dated hotel had decent enough door jams that I couldn't pop the lock with a credit card or my pocket knife.  First off, that is all I had to work with. Second, I have opened plenty of stuff using one of those.  Third, I had no tools with me in my car.

The employee then said, well maybe the window is open. So we checked the window. It was locked.  The employee was quite discouraged at this point. I tried to open it with my pocket knife, but I was afraid I was going to break it.  My knife has been a good friend so I didn't want it to meet its end.

I have always had good luck with windows, so I asked if there was a flathead screw driver handy.  Upon the employee's return, I had a good sized flathead and a smaller one.  The windows at this place are an older spring pressure lock.  They are made to open from the inside by pushing down and sliding the window.  Attempts from the outside to push the lock up are met via a very hefty meal ledge. However, the weakness still lays in the spring loaded lock. While trying to push the lock open doesn't work, getting the spring to work for you is as easy as a level.  Applying pressure under the window forces the window up at an angle.  In turn, that causes the spring lock to flex out over the latch and you can slide the window open.

What is scary, is it probably took you longer to read this blog post that it did for me to open that window.  Once I had a screw driver, I had the window open in 30 seconds.

That is what I want you to walk away from this post knowing, you are only as secure as your weakest lock, window, blind spot, etc.  Furthermore, I am far from a pro.  I also usually have the hindrance of not being able to damage what I am trying to open.  Professional thieves don't have that worry.  You should know that security is an illusion, but it doesn't have to be an illusion that scares you.  I recommend you read a short book called "Secrets of a Super thief" by John MacLean. Parts of the book will seem dated, but there are some serious fundamentals to thinking like a thief that will put you on your way to protecting yourself and your property.  Don't buy the book, just google the title and you will get a torrent link or a free ebook site.  You can probably read the whole book in an hour or two.


If you aren't reading this on http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

Last September I had issues with my Blackberry 8320, the keyboard started sticking.  I didn't at the time have the equipment protection, but I figured it would be a warranty repair, so I would be able to get it replaced.

Well, at that time I went to the Centerville CBW (Cincinnati Bell Wireless) store and was told I would have to send it into RIM (the company that makes Blackberries). It would take approximately 2 week.  That was unacceptable to me as it is my only form of contact aside from email.  I finally managed to talk them into selling me the equipment protection and then replacing my phone.  They did replace it. However, I ended up losing application data because they way they transfered it didn't use the desktop switch manager.  I also ended up with a phone that had the d/5 key sticking.  I figured I didn't wanna complain about the replacement that same day as I had been a big enough pain. I also had to get somewhere.

So fast forward to the last couple weeks.  The phone has been locking up when deleting emails and the d key still sticks.  I had decided Monday to go get it replaced under the equipment plan.  Life got in the way and I didn't make it out to the store.  Monday night I was working and I ended up dropping a piece of metal on it.  It smashed the top plastic screen (not the actual LCD). So Tuesday, I decided to go get it replaced.

I went to the CBW store in Springfield, only to be told they couldn't replace it, but to check with the Beavercreek or Centerville stores.  So I drove out to the Fairfield Commons CBW store, only to be told, by an employee who seemed quite bothered I was in his store and didn't look up from his damn phone, that I had to call the insurance company directly because they no longer swap phones.  While I was there I asked about getting a new phone as I was due for an upgrade.  I specifically asked him about the $129.99 price and then he said there is a $100 rebate. I said, so the phone is basically $30 when all is said and done. Without looking up from his phone he agreed.  I told him I would call the insurance company, but that I might be back.

So I call the insurance company. I get a low paid phone rep who seems to have been on the job a week.  After going through an endless array of canned scripting, we get to the part where I find out how much they want to charge me to replace the phone. I was expecting $15 dollars, as that was what I paid last time as a transaction fee or something.  I was told by this girl, that I would need to pay $180 dollars to get my phone replaced.  It didn't matter that I was having prior issues, it only mattered that I cracked the screen.

I told her to cancel the request and to put me on the phone with a supervisor.  After holding (of course) for like 10 minutes, I get some cocky wank that tries to explain to me how insurance works. I went round and round with him trying to get a lower price. No go.  I was told by a rep when I bought the insurance that it would be like $15 to replace a phone for any reason.  I really believe the sales reps are mis-informed intentionally to boost sales.  I told the supervisor that I thought what they were doing was predatory and that I was going to inform the state Attorney General.  I have drafted that letter and it is going out tomorrow.

So I decided at this point to just go get the new phone.  I headed back to the store and of course the rude guy that wanted to ignore me was the only rep in the store.  Regardless, I picked out a new phone, verified the price, and was all ready to check out. Then Ignorey Mctexterson informs me my checkout price is $367 and change. I was quite annoyed.  He then informs me that the final price after the $100 rebate is $129. I know there was a $20 activation fee attached to it, even with tax, I dunno where the extra hundred came from. I basically said no way and left.

So while I was sitting in class, I searched Amazon.com for Blackberry replacement screens.  Yeah, they are like $5 dollars shipped. So the cracked screen is solved, I can probably solve the locking up issue, but my d key will still stick.

I have always sung the praises of CBW. I have had no unsolvable issues with them.  This one really annoyed me though. I am going to call CBW retention tomorrow and see if they will send me a replacement as a good faith.  I'll let you know.  Otherwise, I may be singing the praises of the google nexus one when it hits a carrier other the T-mobile.

If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

This story made me laugh and then shrug off the warm feeling I got from the story in my previous blog post. The media is presenting a story about how the black Barbie was discount priced under the white Barbie.

Walmart said it priced the doll because it wasn't selling, not because it was racist.  I am going to have to side with Walmart.  Knowing just a little bit about how they operate, I can guarantee the whole discount process is automated.  Low sales on a product SKU number trigger an automated discount of which the stores are notified.  The only person who ever knew that the discounted item was a black Barbie was the lowly employee who had to put up the discounted price tag.

I checked this story out on several websites just for the comments. They were damn funny. Some of my favorite comments were: informative - they wouldn't be on sale if black people bought less white Barbie's; racist - They aren't being bought, they're being stolen; and obvious - must've been a slow news day to report on this crap.

The truth is, this isn't an issue for most people. I do believe most people know that Walmart see the dolls a just a product and not a methodology for making a political statement over their corporate opinion of black folk.

If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

I read this today from the Boston Globe that made me think that people might not be as gullible as they seem.  It basically states that people may be realizing that this sky is falling global warming fear may be retarded.  The article mentions several key reason why I never bought into global warming as a world ending issue. It's a good read, check it out.

I do believe that living more in harmony with nature is a good thing. Especially when we are talking about huge corporation that have the potential to do much more damage than individuals.

I also believe Al Gore is a business genius.  He found a under exploited market and made billions conning people into thinking he was correct. At the end of the day for Gore, it doesn't matter if global warming is real or not. He'll be able to hide away in his climate controlled dwelling, rolling around in his money, laughing at us all.

Pic is from toothpastfordinner.com (http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/030910/what-did-you-have-for-breakfast.gif)

If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

I came across this website that allows you to arrange colors on a spectrum to show you how you see color. It really messed with my eyes. I found it I had to take a break and come back before finalizing my results.  It could be my big screen, but I was seeing wavy lines afterwards

Regardless, a perfect score is 0, a super failure is 99. I scored a 12. The results show where I have weak color discrimination :

I just checked my myspace account to verify my links are going through.  They are not.  All the other sites I auto-update are working fine as far as I know.  I want to apologize for the slew of broken links and false malicious site warnings.

However, I have come to learn that myspace blocks all shortened URL's such at bit.ly.  That is very annoying. Myspace claims it is because spammers were abusing the service, but I think it is to force people to log on to the actual site to update statuses.  It also doesn't allow http://beavmetal.blogspot.com or other blogspot addresses. Which is even more annoying. Ihaven't found or received a good reason for this. It says it is a malicious website which is false. What is the point of using a social service that doesn't let me share my work?  I am coming to find Myspace even more anti-social than Facebook.

The way I update my accounts to let you know I posted a blog post consists of 3 steps. First, I post the actual blog. Then twitterfeed.com parses my RSS feed and sends it to ping.fm. Ping.fm then sends a message to all my social networking services stating a blog has been posted, so you can see them.

I would like very much if I could turn off link shortening in twitterfeed, but we can't, so I have to deal. I have changed from bit.ly to digg. So we will see if myspace blocks that one too.

There are numbers in the article that should be alarming to anyone that can do math.  Total Fatalities for 2009 are 1028. Highest ever, 2778 fatalities.  Do you realize that the 1028 people who died only represent .0001%, yes 1/millionth of a percent, of the total state population of 11,486,000.  Total crashes is more impressive at 320,876 in 2008 (2009 numbers aren't up yet). So 2.7% of the population crashed in 2008.  So only .34% of the accidents were fatal.

I appreciate you all checking out the first round of this video I posted.  However, I discovered that the last few frames weren't showing up on youtube.  I was very upset about this as I spent a good deal of time on the last few frames.  So this is the Absolute final version.  Please check it out.  Please comment. And lastly, please check out all the other video cut here at http://www.youtube.com/beavmetal .

Later tonight, my group and I will be present a project where we had to market a product we created.  We decided on a cotton candy Vodka called Cloud 9.

Now I cannot take credit for the video footage. My project cohort Kevin did that. I cut in the audio, added the subliminal words, and cut in our product on the last few frames (Which you cannot see on youtube to my annoyance).

Anyway, i'm kinda proud of it. Kevin used iMovie to cut the scenese together. I am a PC guy so I used Adobe Premeire to edit the video and add audio. I used a combination of Adobe Soundbooth and Audacity to cut the audio.  I also used the latest version of Gimp to edit the bottle in the last frame.



Also, I have a bunch of cuts with other music on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/beavmetal.

Furthermore, if you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

This article makes it sound as if Springfield High is completely drug and weapon free.  What the article leaves out is that the "raid" was announced ahead of time on at least Channel 5 Springfield and probably other places.

They also didn't search the kids, just lockers and other student storage. Kind of a big-ass waste of money if you ask me.  It also gives people a false sense of security.  The article also doesn't tell us if the dogs gave any false positive reactions. Something that could give an idea on how man people had contraband in their locker, but moved it ahead of time.

Just another gov't waste of tax dollars in my opinion.

Original Article: On Springfield-News Sun

This was also awesomely funny and must be shared.



The original source is here. Click on picture to view complete pic.
If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

I got a kick out of this and wanted to share.


Original source is here. Click on the image to be able to view the whole thing.
If you aren't reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

This is sick, in a bad way:

A 24-year-old Ohio man is accused of raping a woman at a movie theater under cover of a bathroom break — then returning to watch the rest of the movie with his wife and kids, Fox8.com reported.

Below is a list of my favorite show. Do you watch any of these?  

Which are your favorite and why?

Animation

South Park
My all-time favorite animation show. Crude, rude, and funny as hell.

american dad

archer 

the cleveland show 

family guy 

the simpsons

Sitcoms

better off ted 
Another show I thought I would hate. Freaking love it. 

community 
Community started kinda rough, but it has really grown on me. I think I like it because it sort of has a slower tempo than other shows. Plus it has Chevy Chase. You may think he isn't funny, but he plays the awkward old guy fantastically in this show. He really does have good comic timing.

modern family 
I hated this show at first. It has gotten quite funny. It's not the obscene humor like Family guy, but more of a situational, inter-personal funny.

testees 
This show is like Beavis & Butthead get jobs as medical test subjects. The humor is crude and no other show has made me laugh as hard as this one did. Plus the low budget just added to the awesomeness.

scrubs

10 Items or Less
The pilot of this show was harsh to watch.  However, it grew fast on me and I really dig it. It's quite funny in an awkward way.  Plus my understanding is that the show is completely ad lib. They just have a rough idea of what the plot is, then the wing the rest. That's pretty freaking awesome.

Action/Mystery/Sci-Fi

bones

burn notice 
I like the mix of humor and action in this show. It's got a good style. Plus they always blow stuff up.

caprica 
Still not sure about this Caprica show.  Nothing is getting solved and I hate shows like that. I am about to stop watching.

chuck 
I absolutely love this show. However, Dear writers, Chuck needs to hookup with Sarah or the new girl. Give the man some freaking action already.  Also, by now, Chuck should be getting quite confident with his skills, let him be more suave.

dollhouse 
The only reason I watched this show is Miracle Laurie. I don't normally drool after actors, but damn this girl is the finest woman on TV. Anyone who says different can go die in a fire.

eureka

the forgotten 
I've always been a fan of Christian Slater so I gave this show a chance. It was decent. Pretty sure it is canceled now. Worth a watch on Hulu if you need new content.

fringe 
This show started me on my sci-fi kick. It's a good, fun, smart show if you can accept that in TV land the scientific method takes 30 seconds and vaccines are released to the public with no lab trials. 

house

human target 
This show is a fun action show. You gotta let go of reality to watch it, but it's fun. It's like watching a comic book hero in action.

lie to me 
This is one of the shows that is OK. I'm not to invested in the characters, but the story lines are usually amusing.

psych 
This is one of my all-time favorite shows. It's got decent action, its damn funny, the main characters are great together, and of course everything is wrapped up nicely in the end.

warehouse 13 
This was like Fringe meets X-files with a funny streak. I liked it. Apparently not to many other people did because it is now canceled.

white collar 
I didn't think I'd like this show, but I gave it a chance. It is entertaining enough. 

Food/Drink

kitchen nightmares

pressure cook 
This show is just fun.I am always entertained watching this guy try and earn his way home.

three sheets 
Best drinking education show ever!

There are a few other shows I loved to death that got canceled. Boston Legal is one, followed by Dead Zone, Lipstick Jungle, New Amsterdam, John Doe, Firefly, Raines, The Riches, My Own Worst Enemy, My Name is Earl, and Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles