Rants
CES 2010 is calling…
Dec 2nd
Dammit, each day that comes brings stronger urges to go ahead and head to Las Vegas for CES. For each of the last 3 years, I have planned NOT TO GO and end up going last minute. Is this year going to be the same? I doubt it. If Alabama beats Florida in the SEC Championship game Saturday, there is no chance I will be at CES 2010. I have a coworker that is senior to me that will take that time frame off to head over to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl if Alabama makes it the the BCS National Championship game. That will make it impossible to get off for CES.
I have to admit, I have already looked up rates on flights. 
My cousin Bo just emailed me to see if I was going to be there. He is and wanted to meet up for some nightlife. I am just going to send him a link to this post in a minute. In addition to all the event and meeting requests I have already received (Digital Focus, Showstoppers, etc) and Bo’s email, I just got this one in.
Someone wants me in Vegas on Jan 7th…Damn!
If you think you’ve cancelled an Xbox Live Account, Double Check…
Nov 18th
I haven’t had a rant in a while, so here goes…
Since I purchased an iPhone 3GS on the day of the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch, I used my Zune(s) much. It’s been over a month now and I am ready to move on. This morning I went online to cancel my Zune Pass subscription that I have been using since January 2007 and I discover that I am still paying for Xbox Live Gold.
Why is this a big deal? I got rid of my Xbox 360 in June 2007. I cancelled the account on the phone a month or two after that. Then, about a year ago, I found out that I was still paying for it and called in to have it cancelled again. This time I was assured that it would be removed. I trust too much I guess. I don’t check my bills often and since I happily paid for Zune pass for almost 3 years, no red flags popped up for me when we saw a charge for Microsoft hit the account.
So, in closing, take the time to make sure that it’s canceled before moving on with life. Now I have to get on the phone again to waste another 30 minutes just to get Xbox Live removed again and hope that they will cancel my Zune Pass at the same time.
Nintendo is really beginning to piss me off…
Oct 23rd
Let me preface this rant by saying that I used to be a pretty avid console gamer before I fell into “Everquest” and then “World of Warcraft”. I don’t play either anymore, but I still don’t game a lot on consoles. I have had the Atari, Sega Genesis, The original Nintendo, Playstation, Game Cube, Xbox, Xbox 360, and now my 3rd Wii, YES 3rd. That’s why I am pissed.
When the Wii was released, I ended up getting rid of the Xbox 360 and moving towards the Wii for a better selection of games for my kids. (now 16 and 7) The Wii was great for a while. 6 months later, I got into a situation where it would stop reading disks. I thought initially that my son was ruining the disks with his poor handling, but I realized it wasn’t that. Brand new disk, old scratched disks, whatever… they wouldn’t play. I called Nintendo and they walked me through some stuff to try. All came up empty, so they replaced it with other console. So a week goes by, no Wii for the kids, no biggie. The new one (or probably refurbed) came in and we were back to the races.
3 months after getting the replacement Wii, the same thing started happening again. This time I was sure it wasn’t my son since he started to learn to take care of his games after the 1st incident since I used that opportunity to make him feel as if he caused the problem by leaving disks out everywhere, etc… It happened on a weekend, just after my wife rented a couple games for them. Instead of saying, “wait until monday and I will call Nintendo again”, I said, “F it” and went out and bought another brand new Wii. All was fine once again.
3 months later, AGAIN… the same freaking problem. Being too lazy to call and go through the hassle of swapping, I bought our 3rd Wii. That was 6 months ago. Guess what…
YEP… AGAIN! I am getting really pissed off and it’s taking ever ounce of my control to type clean words instead of what I am feeling right now. I am going to get a little work done here today, but I hope to get a block of time to call Nintendo today. If I can’t find resolve, I have about 50-60 Wii games I will be selling, so watch out here for that announcement. I will probably sell them direct rather than on ebay. If I leave Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360? I am leaning 360 since I have 4-5 games that I forgot I had when we got rid of the 360 initially.
Damn you Nintendo. Make a good product please. Ok, wait, the Wii is a good product, what I mean is make a dependable product. I have talked to others that say they have had this issue too.
Topps Exclusive MLB Deal – Good or Bad?
Sep 30th
1st off, I want to start by telling you guys something you probably didn’t know. I used to be a huge collector. I used to also be somewhat of a dealer. I worked at a card store in Seattle (for free) and I used to set up a booth at flea markets in Guam and Corpus Christi, Tx. One of the final blows that pushed me out of collecting was the “premium” brands. When a pack of cards costs you $100 each, it’s time to hang it up. The market became saturated with product. Each company was putting out 3-10 or more sets per year. To collect all the cards for a single player was ridiculously hard to accomplish. My last conquest was trying to collect every single Maurice Williams (Mo) cards during his rookie season. He played at Alabama and I knew he’d do well in the NBA. I did pretty well, but there were lots I still needed. (link)
That was the season I pretty much hung it up. The amount of subsets, the cost of the pack, it was getting out of hand… add to that an incident that happened with Topps that had me boycott buying their products as well and you have a disgruntled old dude. I really loved collecting. I started in 1978 and had a great collection, including complete, hand collated Topps sets from 1981 to 1991. Oh well. I still buy a pack here and there for grins, but nothing like I used.to.
Finally, here is where things get ugly. I saw a tweet this morning that caught my eye. Topps getting an exclusive MLB contract? That’s complete bullshit. It’s as stupid as Upper Deck getting an exclusive “Autograph” deal with Lebron and Jordan. It’s as stupid as Barry Bonds wanting to sign an exclusive with Topps. It’s just plain stupid, or it?
No more short trips for Microsoft…
Sep 9th
This is the last one. I can’t take it anymore. I left early AM Sunday and I am in a Town car right now on the last 1 hour of a short trip. Why am I done? Well, I am freaking exhausted. I left Seattle at 5am this morning, United Airlines threw us in a plane from Chicago to Birmingham without air conditioning, and did I mention I am exhausted?
Was the info I was presented in Redmond worth the trip. Yes and no. Yes, it was great info and I appreciate the opportunity to learn and provide input, but not worth the 2 day trip. I won’t be doing it again.
I also won’t be traveling United Airlines ever again. They are pathetic. 45 Minutes late leaving Sunday morning without anyone telling us what was happening. I had to sprint from terminal to terminal in Chicago to make my connecting flight by 1 whole minute. Luggage issues in Seattle, not to mention $40 to check in luggage now. Topping it all off, no AC on a 1:40 min flight.
Microsoft’s New Ad Campaign
Sep 5th
There is a ton of critisism all over the net this morning about the 1st in a series of new Microsoft commercials. Are we all this bored. WHO CARES WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT. THE F’ING COMMERCIAL WAS FUNNY. Microsoft doesn’t have to pitch a product, everyone already knows what MS is selling.
Engadget has posted a link to a letter explaining the ad campaign too. It’s got a progression theme.
SECTalk.com Sale Complete – 1 week later, work destroyed
Jul 8th
So, I really felt like I didn’t have time to maintain SEC Talk anymore, so I figured I would sell it to someone passionate about the site. I turned down a couple higher offers to keep the site as is and protect the users from massive change. I guess I was wrong.
A little history about the site. I started it back in 2004 with the idea of offering a place for all SEC Sports fans to chit chat, to have civil arguments, and to just have fun. I planned to have original news on the front page and make the site something great. It did become something great, but never really got it where I “really” wanted it.
One of the things I always stressed to staff and the members was the rules. I was strict on cussing, flaming, etc. We banned a lot of members over the years to protect this goal and keep it clean. A few years ago, we banned a couple members that caused a revolt and ultimately resulted in another site being born. Many of these disgruntled members left and started recruiting from my site resulting in even more bans. We moved on and didn’t waver on our stance. Some of these members that left snuck back in, but we let that slide as long as they followed the rules. So of them never came back. Good for them.
Fast forward to the site sale. In the process of selling, I spent 4-5 hours of my time helping the buyers by transferring the site off my server and on to a cheap server that a) I thought would work and b) they wanted because it was inexpensive. This server wasn’t that great. It was slow and the site suffered a bit while I waited and paid my server guy to check it out. He said it should be fine, but it wasn’t. The buyers decided to go ahead and spend the money and got a server with the company I suggested initially. They moved the site this time and the site spent 48 hours on/offline. When the site came back up, man was I surprised….
Do you think American Gladiators is rigged? I do.
Jun 23rd
That’s all. I’ve just seen some things in the last few months that make me think it is. The problem is that I have to continue watching it. My son loves it and that’s a good thing for us to watch together. Rigged or not, some of the female Gladiators are kinda hot, eh?
Fighting inside my head right now. Do I need a career change?
Jun 16th
I am tired of working short hand. Tired of being called out in the middle of the night. Just plain tired. Considering a career change again. What can I do with a 10 year Navy Electronics background, 10 years as a telecommunications tech, and experience online with my websites. Something in public relations?
I have to make $30/hr or better to live here in Alabama, probably more if I have to move to civilization. Tuscaloosa is a pretty nice town though…
What to do, what to do…
If we are gonna pay over $4 a gallon for gas, might as well….
Jun 10th
We might as well buy American? There is a chain letter floating around urging folks to boycott US oil companies that import their oil from other countries. Well, I don’t do chain letters so I decided to pass on some of the info here…
These companies import Middle Eastern oil:
Shell…….. ……………………… 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco……………… 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil………………….. 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway………… 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco………………………….. 62,231,000 barrels
And CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hates America and openly avows our economic destruction! (We pay Chavez’s regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)
The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $95 per barrel, that’s over $524 million PER DAY ($191 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!!
Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Sunoco………………….. 0 barrels
Conoco………………….. 0 barrels
Sinclair………………….. 0 barrels
BP / Phillips……………. 0 barrels
Hess. …………………… 0 barrels
ARC 0………………….. 0 barrels
Maverick…………………. 0 barrels
Flying J. ………………… 0 barrels
Valero…………………….. 0 barrels
All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.
Why not huh? I don’t know how true these numbers are and I am not going to take the time to verify them, but the creator of the email states they are from the DoE, so i’ll bite.
