Happy Halloween

Today is my wife's favorite holiday, which means it makes me pretty happy too. We went to a cool party last weekend and I went to a 2nd party without her. Lots of fun. I went as a lamer tourist Saturday....hawaiian shirt, cameras, shades, black socks and sandals. 2Chav4U! Dar went as a princess, with a very cool medieval gown that she made herself--she's quite proud of it. Cam was a knight ("an evil knight?" "No, a true knight!" ha ha), and Patrick was a frog prince. Obviously someone in the family didn't get the fantasy motif memo... bad dad. Shoulda been a dragon. Sigh.

By the way, that whole evil djinn story is true. Be careful what you wish for. I've been wanting a challenge at work lately and I got a new project that is now occupying a lot of my time. Work is good though, can't complain.

My dad's going to be 60 in a few days! That used to seem so old, but now he's that age and I know he's not that old of a guy. Weird. I love him so much. Happy birthday Dad! I can't tell you yet what I'm getting him, but it's cool.

Eragon

Very good book. I think it can be a good movie too. As fantasy novels go, I think it was just good enough, but not so overly complex, that it could be a good film. A lot of what I consider high fantasy, for example the Riftwar Saga, the Wheel of Time, or a Song of Fire and Ice, or even the Dark Tower series by King, is just too deep to make into a good popcorn movie that Joe and Jane Moviegoer are going to enjoy. Eragon like Harry Potter, can be made into a movie. The chronicles of Thomas Covenant... umm, no way.

I look forward to this one. I may be hoping for too much from it, but until I'm proven wrong, I'm going to keep hoping.

h@x0rd!

So I was at the store today and they declined my card! What!? I swiped again..no luck. Used my other card, came home and called. Hold for 15 min or so..and then I answer a bunch of authentication questions..yes yes..blah blah..yes yes.
Then I get a list of charges... $14.01 at business type 'grocery' ? Check..that's the one that didn't work just a while ago. $69.80 at Pizza and Wings? Huh? Another $69.80 at Pizza and Wings? Another $69.80...

Hacked--omg! Luckily the total stopped there and I wasn't forced to wonder how many times you could charge pizza in a night before the restaurant realizes you don't look like you belong on that show Entourage. It seems it was 3, and either this guy had stolen my stripe code, bought it from some resell business, or cloned it, etc...
Oh well, no harm done. There were no other fraudulent charges, and my new card is on the way in 5-7 business days. And hopefully the doofus who stole my card # has his door beat down on Cops! soon and I get to see it.

Oh well, it could have been far worse. My limit would have let them buy a bit more than some pizzas, assuming the merchant didn't check the signature, etc etc.

Thumbs up to MBNA (That's Bank of America now) and their handling of this. Good work guys.

How to be a squeaky mouse

Okay, if you don't know this already, kids, here is a lesson.

1. Saturday - Review SBC, er, AT&T DSL bill...find that my normal expected bill of $50 is $85. (For $50 I get $15 internet service, a phone line, call waiting, caller ID and a load of taxes) $85!?? My brain verbalizes the 3 letters w, t and f as the sound 'whatthefu--'. I look for the phone and glare at it for a second. Bastards.

2. Call SBC, er, AT&T customer service. Resign myself to being on hold next 10 minutes. Review other bills in the meantime. Bastards.

3. Get through to Cust service and explain problem
Squeaky Mouse: 'What's the deal here? I usually pay $15 and now it's $50? Explain please!'
ATT: Let me look that up sir
ATT: Ah, well you signed up in Sept 05 and you had a promotional rate of $15...that promotion ended in September 06. You now pay the standard rate. It was a 12 month promotion.
SM: Actually I was told then that my 'normal rate' would continue after 12 months, and my 'normal rate' was $15. I don't think $50 is a good deal for DSL, and I really don't want to have to switch services. Am I really going to be charged $50 now?
ATT: Let me see if we can review your account for promotions....do you want me to do that?
SM: Yes. I have to switch my cable soon to another provider and I need to know if I'm going to be changing ISP as well.

4. Customer service addresses primary concern
ATT: Okay sir, your rate for the express service (1.5Mbps if you're wondering) is $19.95. Can I interest you in the higher speed for $25, or the superl33t highspeed for $30?
SM: You said l33t!
ATT: Er, I mean premium.
SM: Well, I used to game and may have needed it then, but for now it's good enough as it is, gimme the $19.95. The service is good and $5 for inflation/lack of promotion/Standard DSL cost is fine I guess. if you go up next year, I'm gone though
ATT: Okay, so your rate will now be $19.95 and will start the 19th.

5. But there is still cheese to be won. Squeak on brother.
SM: So am I still being charged the 50 for this month? Do we pay ahead or behind the billing cycle?
ATT: Ah, well yes, that rate was applied Sept 17, though you might get a partial back
SM: I am not happy paying $50 for DSL.

(pause...wait.... Let the silence work for you.)

6. I like cheese. Gimme!
ATT: You know what, I can issue a one-time customer satisfaction credit for the difference, would you like me to?
SM: Yes, please! SM mimics stabbing his enemy with a dagger and twisting it. 'Gotcha!'
ATT: Okay, that's all set. The $30 credit will apply next month. Please be nice if they send you a survey! because my bonus is linked to that part!


--------------------

So, you see... you need to ASK for these things, and you will get them. If you no ask, you no get. I'm not thrilled paying $5 more for my DSL now, don't get me wrong...if I could have talked them back into another 12 months at my old rate, I would have, but at least I got $30 just for the asking. You should ask, always. And be persistent...they are running you through a gauntlet and he who gets to the end will get a reward. If nothing else, you can exhaust your opponent and they will concede you anything they can to be rid of you.

You can do this with utility or credit card companies of course, or with poor restaurant service, car dealer or about any other business where two things are true. 1) The person listening to you is not paying the money out of their own pocket, 2) You are a customer with other options. Customers with other options are valuable. That's why credit card companies have entire departments called Retention. You say you're unhappy and leaving, they pull out a list of things they can do for you to make you happy. Remember that key phrase. 'I am not happy.' That works wonders, particularly if you say it more than once and then go silent and leave the ball in their court. Their resulting Christmas spirit is approved of by the customer service team's management for one reason. Only 2% of the mice squeak, and pissing them off isn't worth it. Give that small number what they want and you get goodwill. These particular customers, since they've already shown the willingness to attack you, are also the most likely to go out of their way to badmouth you if you don't treat them well -- they may even say nice things and do your marketing for you. Remember, even if you're not the magical opinion-shaper who influences others (and marketing people lust after those folks)...there's power in impersonating that guy.

Credit card companies are actually the easiest. They usually charge slightly more to everyone than they need to and only lower the rates if you ask...most sheep just accept what they're told, so in their mind they're doing nothing wrong. (Note that it helps if you actually ARE a good customer who keeps accounts in good standing.)
'Can I get a lower rate?' 'let's see...yes, you can'
'My payment is going to be late...strange circumstance. Never happens. Can I send it now and pay no fee?' 'Yes sir, I have noted it, no problem'
'Hey, there's a late fee here...I'm never late.' 'Ahh, indeed you are not sir...let me remove that fee for you. A one-time adjustment of course'

Oh yes, of course. One-time until next time I need something.

on blogs, mice and men

So if you're reading this, I think we can both agree that blogs can be interesting. I really enjoy reading those of my friends to see what they're up to. By the same measure, for some strange reason I like posting on here to let you know what I'm up to...even if half of the posts come down to just whinging about life. Hey, most places in the world you would have to pay some stranger $5 to hear your bad-beat poker story! So the point is...blogs, can be good. There are probably a fair number of horrid ones as well. Either they lack content or they have no point, or perhaps the author is just a hack writer. Perhaps they are just adventures in narcissism. And I'm not suggesting that I'm Chaucer here, but I try to hold your interest while at the same time keeping it pretty brief-- a bit of the Seinfeld concept.

Now to take the lameness to a whole new level...go look on youtube for vblogs. I was randomly tooling around in youtube tonight, since they have entered into their 'we get rich and you get to see if this concept really has legs' agreement with Google. There seems to be a small community that spends their time posting vblog responses to each other, i.e. 're: dudeman's response to lonelygirl15's response to...' bleh bleh bleh. And they're not even LOW-quality video--they are terrible. Come ON people. If you want to regulary toss out your opinion on things in a video media format, i.e. you think you are an underground Stephen Colbert, then at least produce the thing well, and have a point. Never mind. Comparing 99.8% of this video drivel to commentary by our established media, whether it's Jon Stewart or George Will, is much like pointing out that you could live on the hot dogs from 7-11. Technically it's food, but not really. Vblogs--same thing. Technically it's a medium, but for much of what's out there... drivel is being too nice.

Okay, now I'm ranting about other people who produce craptastic cyberspace flotsam, aren't I? Yes, they are kicking up the equivalent of cyberdust and leaving it out there in our internet cosmos (the one that Al Gore sacrificed so much for to bring to us) and unwitting surfers may just waste 15 minutes watching this junk. I weep for the future.

And you thought that we Children of the 80s - Gen X - Star Wars Geek - Brat Packers were a bunch of ritalin-popping zoomed-out weebies who grew up watching too much junk TV? Let me assure you, our kids are going to grow up to have the attention span of a clapping cymbal monkey.



Random Cameron commentary as he just walked in here: "you got nothing! The Blues are bad!" Thanks Cam...I know we don't have a win yet, but hey, they're a lot better than last year. Note to John Davidson: My 3 year old thinks the team needs work. Maybe you should have signed a #1 center?

ouch II -- Doh!

Well, we won 6-2 in dominating fashion, clinching the division series at home, which sets off a huge downtown party that was no doubt awesome. And the game was moved back to 7:00 instead of 2:00, giving me just enough time that I could maybe have gone to the memorial service 4 hours away and made it back in time... but, it would have been a) inappropriate, and b) close, so... pobrecito. I will now lament forever that I missed the game for a good reason.

sigh...at least we won. rams too...and mizzou. Another good weekend.

Blues -- 0-1-1... not so good.

ouch

I had to send a painful email today.
It was most painful because it included these phrases:
"thank you but" "unfortunately I cannot" and
"please return the Cardinal playoff tickets to the pool".

Family thing Sunday, so I'm going to that and not going to see Padres/Cardinals in the division series. (If I'm lucky Cards will win game 3, there won't BE a game 4, and I can be relieved that this didn't matter.)

Go Redbirds...just don't win it in game 4 by 10 runs or something silly...I will be most perturbed then.

Game on!

Hockey...
And so is Fantasy Hockey. I enjoy both the NHL and our little group of friends who play in a fantasy league. It's a geeky pursuit, but that's what geeks do when they're not playing other games...they obsess over people who play games for a living.

I did okay at our draft last week, but not spectacular--I probably have as good a chance to win as the Blues do of making the playoffs, which means I need to get some breaks now. I usually draft really well (past few years) and last year after the draft, I was convinced I had one of the best teams. Which was right, they kicked butt for me and I had a very good year. This year...well, I made some poor choices and didn't get as lucky as I needed to on a few things. It's early, and my team is very well rounded (we have 11 categories, so just picking high scorers doesn't necessarily win anything for you), but some of the other teams look much more fearsome. I'm guessing that means some of my assumptions were wrong...like drafting goalies early. There were very good ones left near the end, so obviously while I was taking care of that, everyone else went for the Jagrs and Kovalchuks...that was fine if I gained an advantage to offset theirs, but almost everyone else went scoring scoring early. A few other people sought balance, but for the most part, there was a lot of drafting of scorers. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the season. Also, I just remembered that a hockey geek like me who's always wondering about box scores... shouldn't carry a pager which has scores on it 24/7.

Poker...

Won $17 at poker tonight, which is good, but I was not a good winner...whinged a little bit about hands I didn't win, and argued too much with a friend of mine who is a better player than me. I admit to being only a slightly-above-average poker player who doesn't play disciplined enough. As much as I would like to learn to play limit poker better, I seem to remain slightly-above-average after playing for almost 20 years now. Maybe I am actually a good player when I try to be, but I just throw that out way too often and play loose and wild. Then again there are some professional players who play lots of pots and some that even play very wild...but they only get respect because when they have a good night they win a tourney. When I have a good night, I just double my money.

Oh well, note to self--do some more studying, use some more discipline when playing, and spend some more time analyzing my game, not just winging it.

Cards are playing well right now...won again today. Maybe we'll make it to the series again and actually play well when we get there, something our much better team couldn't do two years ago. Go team. Blues...playing badly tonight but managing a tie at the moment. The Rams haven't played well yet and are 3-1, so that's good if we can pick up our game and actually start to play to our potential.

First week of fantasy hockey--- no standings yet. About even with Kevin at the moment, but a terrible night tonight for the team.