Tag Archives: thumbs down

Bouncehouse Done Wrong (Know Your Market!)

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Bounce HouseI’m pissed.

I just had to explain to my three-year-old girl that she had to leave the bounce house because “that man says her time was up”, putting her in tears. My five-year-old was more compliant with the instruction.

“That man” was the operator / staffer who also, moments ago, offered to let me pony up another 3 tickets (at $1 / ticket) for another 3 minutes in the bouncehouse. (3 tickets is the gate-fee for using the bounce house)

If you don’t understand why this is a problem, it is likely that you have never taken a young child to a bounce house, which I suspect is most likely the case for the teen-aged operator. The festival, as a whole, was organized by a large group of other youth in his age-group, and for the most part, was done well. But the bouncehouse was clearly not planned by someone who had done proper market research into what their consumers (children ages 2-7, typically, and the parents who bring them) are expecting.

Let me explain: Continue reading →

Open Letter about Time Warner Cable, Central NY and their lies, sent to the BBB

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What follows is the complaint I filed at 3 after midnight, Thursday, August 11th, to the Better Business Bureau of Upstate NY. The issue in question is the unethical business practices of Time Warner Cable, specifically regarding the nature of “transfer fees” for having Internet service moved from one home to a new one.

Please share this post with as many people as you can; I want everyone to know about this. Also, when the customer service representative tells you that his/her supervisor cannot waive the transfer fee, THEY ARE LYING. When the representative or their supervisor tells you that the technician must visit to “test the lines”, THEY ARE LYING.

If you have a similar experience with Time Warner Cable (or your own cable company), please also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of your region.

Timeline from this ordeal, so far:

  • Spoke with Time Warner rep (male of unknown name), August 2nd, (around lunchtime) to have service transferred; was told there would be a $42.50 fee, non-negotiable.
  • Any #twithaca have experience with Verizon DSL (the 1.1-3Mbps package) — what’s the average speed? Is it consistent? Netflix/hulu ok? (August 2nd, 4:38pm)
  • @xxxxxxx grr… Are any other broadband providers decent? Trying to kick TW and their ridiculous fees to the curb. (August 2nd)
  • Serious question: should I tell twc that they don’t need to send a tech to xfer my svc because my internet already works? $42 is at stake. (August 7th, 11:39am)
  • (On facebook) “Got the fee waived. When the rep says “you can talk to the manager but they can’t waive the fee”, they are lying.” (August 7th 12:19pm)
  • (On facebook) “Ok — I called and complained. They waived the $42 fee for me. The funny thing is, they said a tech should have already disconnected tihs [sic] internet service so they don’t know why I have it. But I definitely skyped with my kids this morning. Which prompted me to ask “Then why do I have to pay for it if you need to check the lines for problems you would have to look into anyways?”” (August 7th, 2:12pm)
  • As predicted, the timewarner tech, while very friendly, did literally NOTHING. No wires were touched OR tested. You are LIARS, timewarner. (August 9th, 7:18pm)
  • Submitted this open letter (below) to the Better Business Bureau of upstate NY (August 11, 12:04am)

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Droid Charge [Phone Review]

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The Droid Charge, produced by Samsung, was buzzed as being yet-another “iPhone Killer”, an unhelpful appellation that gets thrown onto pretty much every new phone that comes out that isn’t made by Apple.

As a member of Verizon’s recent class of 4G LTE smartphones, along with its fancy AMOLED, two cameras, HDMI out, and a prestigious manufacturer (Samsung), this phone looks to be yet another rock solid addition to the Android collective.

But despite my excitement and giving it a very reasonable 2 months of testing time (about twice as long as I prefer), this phone turned out to be a disappointment. The specs for the phone are correct — the display looks great, it does 4G, it has a sizable flash memory; this is all legit and most other reviews I’ve read all mention these things, and I was wow’d by them as well.

What the other reviews don’t tell you, and what it took me about 3 weeks to realize, are all the issues this phone has with the user experience: For all of its wonderful traits, the phone has proven to be flaky and unreliable, and those inconveniences are ubiquitous enough to outshadow the nice hardware the phone offers.

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The Last Airbender [Movie Review]

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As I had previously promised in my pre-movie speculation, here is my review.

Sullivan, Melissa and I all went to the theater together while my Mom, visiting, watched Freyja. Sullivan was very excited about seeing the “Fire Nation Movie on the big TV.”

For those of you only interested in my conclusion, I will simply refer to my tweet, posted shortly after seeing the movie.

Dear m night, please let someone else write, direct, and produce the airbender sequel. Thanks.

Yeah. He killed it. As hard as I tried to like it; as much as I tried to look past its flaws; it was overall a travesty. However, the wooden acting, poorly written dialogue, and bad editing have been covered ad nauseam by armchair critics all across the Internet — I’d instead like to focus on it from the angle of someone with a more intimate understanding of the show.

Remember the episode when the characters all attend a play that recaps the entire series to-date? That was a more faithful re-telling of the story.

Warning: This post contains spoilers, if spoiling this movie is even possible.

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Microsoft Kin 2 [Tech Review]

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My second review phone was the Microsoft Kin 2. I had seen many ads for this around the Internet, and was very excited to try it out. The phone focuses on social media and sharing content.

Up to now, I have not used any phones or devices by Microsoft, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

Because of reasons I’ll explain later, I also had a daughter of one of my co-workers use the phone for a few days, to get a different perspective.

(Side note: Recently, before I was able to finish this post, Microsoft decided to discontinue the Kin line of phones ENTIRELY. This review is then somewhat post-mortem, but i had it mostly written anyways, so I thought I’d share. :) )

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Satan, Cantor & Infinity [Book Review]

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book imageI picked this book up at Carroll & Carroll in Stroudsburg, PA; a bookstore I frequented in highschool.

I’ve always been a fan of logic puzzles although I would hardly call myself a logician — I actually find them somewhat challenging; but perhaps that’s the point of puzzles, after all.

In Satan, Cantor & Infinity, Smullyan weaves a lengthy fictional narrative into a series of many varieties of logic puzzles — from basic Goodman (always lie / always tell the truth) to very elaborate symbolic logic.

The title and the last chapter of the book share the same name, and it refers to a logic puzzle posed by Georg Cantor (famed mathematician). In this puzzle, Satan allows his denizens to attempt to escape damnation by guessing which number he has pre-selected, chosen from 1 to Infinity. It, among with many others, are imaginatory ways of grasping really elaborate abstract concepts such as “are some infinities bigger than others?” Continue reading →