Unruly Behavior

So, eating lunch at my desk, minding my own business, phone rings from a number I don't recognize. 281-250-2706. Dude on the end, barely speaks English, wants to know why I am calling him. WTF? So, I explained to him, when my phone rings, and I answer, you called me. I've been using phones for a long time, this is how it has worked forever. Hang up. Phone rings again from same number, ignore it. Then, a few minutes after that, another new number, 832-659-7446. A woman, demanding to know why I am calling her husband. (Was tempted to tell her 'for anal'.) Explained to her how phones work. She says her husband does not speak English and she is going to call the police on me. I told her, "Ok you crazy bitch, you go ahead and call the police and tell them I was calling your husband." Hung up. Then, just because I'm an instigator, texted her, "I'm not wearing any pants." Then, as I'm typing this, another call from the first number, wants to know why I'm texting his daughter messages like this. So I asked, "she said she was your wife, what kind of family life do you have?" For someone that does not speak English, he was suddenly quite fluent. From there the argument degraded into an argument about anal sex, sword fighting and who was bringing the condoms. The woman in the office next to me is now laughing uncontrollably. Wonder if they will call again.

Since I posted anything here...  Heading to the store right now for some awesome snack cakes!

We were watching The Walking Dead tonight, when one of the kids came down and I had to pause the show, when we went back to start the show we noticed the dude on the right hand side, looks like he is taking a dump and watching a zombie try to eat Glen.  What an asshole.

Last month I had some XBOX 360 256MB Memory Cards ordered through BUY.COM from one of their partners, Silverstone Wireless. These were supposed to be Brand New cards for $9.99 each with $3.99 each shipping and handling. I thought this would be a great deal for a discontinued product. Boy was I wrong.

Here is what arrived in the mail:



I paid $3.99 per unit or $7.98 for shipping and handling. Didn't get a padded envelope, didn't get anything better than First Class Parcel shipping, and the units are missing their protective carrying cases which Microsoft normally includes with every unit they ship. Clearly not brand new units.

Below is the packing list sent from Silverstone Wireless, clear stating NEW as the condition of the units.



So, I contacted BUY.COM, but they stated that they are not responsible for the veracity of what their embedded shops do, and would offer me no help with this issue. So, FIRST WARNING - DO NOT BUY FROM BUY.COM sub vendors, you have no recourse with BUY.COM, and they DO NOT CARE if their vendors rip you off, it is not their problem.

So, next I contacted Silverstone Wireless, let them know what happened, and asked what they would do for me. Their offer is below:



That's right, if I lie, and say their store is great, they will give me $9.99. So, SECOND WARNING - DO NOT BUY FROM SILVERSTONE WIRELESS, and DO NOT TRUST THEIR ONLINE REVIEWS, THEY PAY FOR THEM. That's right, if they are willing to pay me for a good review when they didn't do what they advertised, it is a safe bet I'm not the first person to be made this offer. Who knows what has been reviewed on their site under such a plan.

So, how do I know that these are really used and not new memory units? Check out this screen shot from the contents on one of the units:



Yes, I now have a copy of the Gamertag profile "SW", and a game save for Medal of Honor for that Gamertag. THIRD WARNING - When you sell something that has memory, game console, computer, camera, etc. WIPE THE MEMORY BEFORE YOU SELL.

Here are a list of Silverstone Wireless Stores to avoid on the web:

http://www.silverstonewireless.com/

http://stores.ebay.com/Silverstone-Wireless

And here is a list of posts from other, dissatisfied costomers:

http://somedirection.com/2007/10/16/silverstone-wireless-craptastic-customer-service/

http://www.ripoffreport.com/computer-stores/silverstone-wireless/silverstone-wireless-on-ebay-o-7pabd.htm

Labels: bad service, dishonest, fraud, silverstone wireless

Ok, a couple of weeks back the WHOLE family went on a vacation to Southern California. We (wife, myself, 5 year old son, 3 year old son, 3 year old daughter) all flew via Frontier Airlines to San Diego, CA. From there we drove up to Palm Desert and spent the week. Our final day the wife, oldest son and I all went to Legoland and had a great time while the twins stayed with my parents. Then we flew home from San Diego.

We had a flight from San Diego to Denver. My wife, daughter and oldest son took 3 seats in one row, my youngest son and I took the first two seats across the aisle from them.

Then, Mr. Stinky man sat down next to us.



This dude smelled horrible, like he had sex with a wildabeast before boarding the plane, and didn't wash up. It was terrible. Then he decided to speak. He asked where we were heading, I said Houston. "Why would you want to go there?" he asked. I said, "because we live there." He then proceeded to tell me how bad Houston was, crime, traffic, polution, etc. So I asked, "have you been there?" He said, "No, I went to Austin once, that was bad enough."

I had my 3 year old sitting between us, so a debate was out of the question, so I let it go for the time being.

Here is a nice rebuttal for Mr. Stinky Asshole Man.

Here is a link to a list of the 40 largest cities in the USA, listed from most stressful to least stressful.

Fortune 40 Most Stressful Cities List

San Diego came in at number 16, Houston at number 32. Hmmmm.... Twice as far down the list, sounds better to me.

Lets see some stats:

According to the list Houston has better housing value, lower unemployment, and lower cost of living. Yes, I can see why you don't want to live here.

In addition, by being in Texas, Houston has NO STATE INCOME TAX, and instead of being bankrupt, Texas has a BUDGET SURPLUS. So, unlike California, people who live here can afford shampoo, toothpast, deoderant, and a daily shower.

Take that Mr. Stinky Asshole Man.

Update 9-10-2009:

Forbes has now put out a list of the Top 10 Cities in which to make a living, Houston is Number 2! Austin is number 4 and Dallas is number 1. Hey, Mister Stinky Asshole Man, know what cities from California made the list? None! HA!

Labels: asshole, body odor, california, san diego, texas

Was auditing e-mail today, and ran across one of the stupid warning/notices at the bottom of the message. If you're going to warn people about something, especially a Federal Statue, you should really read what you are threatening with first.

Here is the warning:

NOTICE: This E-mail (including attachments) is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521, is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please reply to the sender that you have received the message in error, then delete it.

So, I Googled "Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521" and got the following link to the US Department of Justice.

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/wiretap2510_2522.htm

Turns out this is a statute realted to Illegal Wiretapping. Read it, nothing in there about accidentally getting a transmission, only if you wilfully tap a communication. If it is sent to someone by acident, nothing is covered.

Furthermore, the US Attorney General's Office must be engaged to seek prosecution in this matter. So, they would have to be willing to make a Federal Case for sending you something by mistake.

Nice try, stupid sender.

Labels: e-mail, fail, legal, warning

Today I headed over to Long John Silvers near my office, a place I've eaten many times before. It was recently remodeled, and I was expecting a good experience.

Boy was I expecting the wrong thing.

Started off with this obnoxious sign on the front door, telling you before you even enter the restaurant, just how much you are allowed in condiments, based on what you plan to order. Is this really necessary? Is there a black market economy of which I am unaware that trades in illicitly procured Long John Silvers condiments?



So, I brushed off the sign as just stupidity. I ordered the #7 Value Basket Combo with extra Crumbs, which was $5.89, a little higher than what I remembered, but I was hungry, time to eat. The meal rang up at $7.01 When I inquired about this, they told me that Crumbs are now 39 cents. WTF? I've been eating at LJS since I was four years old. I've eaten literally pounds of Crumbs. I've never, ever been charged. This is something that is created as a by-product of their cooking. They throw away more than they serve of these, and now they are charging me for essentialy eating their trash? Stupid.



When I got to my table, I looked more closely at my receipt, only to discover that they had charged me an extra 20 cents for my drink. My menu picture is a little fuzzy, but if you look at the word "Value" in the upper left corner, there is a little sign that says "Includes 32 oz drink!", and this is what I got with my meal. By now I was too tired to fight or go back and argue. To top things off, they had three bottles of Malt Vinegar shared in the dining area, I had to find someone who was done with theirs and get it from their table. HOW CHEAP CAN YOU BE? Condiment rationing?



This is a copy of my receipt, I've complained at the longjohnsilvers.com website. Don't know if it will do any good, but I don't plan on going back any time soon anyway.

Labels: bad service, ljs, long john silvers, overcharged, resturant

So, I found this really cool product form iomega, the Multimeda ScreenPlay Pro HD, so I clicked on their "Where to Buy" link and got a list of stores near my zip code. Evidently I should check with CompUSA, very near my location. Only one problem with that, CompUSA has been out of business since last year about this time. Way to keep your site updated iomega!

Labels: compusa, iomega, outdated, wtf

So, it is 11 PM, I'm about to go to bed. My dog decides it is time to puke at the back door. OK, let the dog out to eat some grass. Take a piss, then head to the garage to find some cleaning supplies to get the puke up off the tile.

As I'm going into the garage, I happen to look down into the trash can. HOLY FUCK! A possum in the bottom of the trash can. Great now I have two problems to deal with at bedtime.

I don't fucking like possums. They are mean, they carry rabies, they hang upside down in trees. Not a damn thing to like.

Back to the bedroom, put on pants, put on shoes, get the wife to do the same. Grab the digital camera from the family room and head back to the garage.



As you can see from the photos, it is only a juvenile. Great, not in the mood to kill a baby anything tonight. So open the garage door, take the trash can out, tump it over. Fucker won't come out, he is "playing possum". Eventually got him to run off into the night. Kept hissing at me, like he was going to get me some day.



So, now there is a juvenile possum, with a vendetta, running around my house in the middle of the night. Great. I'm going to bed. Fuck Mother Nature.

Labels: critter, dog, garage, HOLY FUCK, house, possum, puke, varmit

Last weekend I took one of my sons and my dad to the Keels & Wheels car & boat show in Seabrook TX. It was awesome, so I shared some pictures with "The Keeper" , they are up on his site for one day only. Enjoy.

Labels: cars, cool, keepers

Really, parked like this. Just because you have money for a nice car doesn't make you smart.

Labels: dumb, illiterate, porsche

Hey, check me out at 360 Voice, if you have an XBOX 360, it will write a blog about your gaming exploits each day.

The Dren

Labels: 360 voice, xbox

OK, so let me start by saying, my mom does a lot of nice things for the family. This was an attempt at one of those nice things. However, at no fault of her own, this was an EPIC FAIL.

There have been persistent advertisements in the Houston Chronicle recently for a show called Artania, billed as an Acrobatic Horse Show. Mom saw this, and I had seen the ads, so when she called and offered to take us and the kids, I said sure.

So, yesterday was the big day. Out to Sam Houston Race Park we went. The event was set up in one of those huge canvas tents in the parking lot. There was an extra charge for parking, on top of the $22 per ticket cheap seat price.

Into the tent we went. There is a fairly large hospitality area when you first go in with food and drinks. The first thing you notice is that it smells strongly of Popcorn..... and horseshit. Nice combo.

So, we herd the kids past the snack bar, which has a nice selection of food and beverages, priced at the same low prices you see in movie theaters and sports stadiums. Whoopee!

The arena is rather small for a horse show. These pictures are a little fuzzy, my Blackberry Storm was having issues in the low light situation.

There was an announcement made several times, "Flash photography and video recording of any kind are strictly prohibited as they may spook the horses." OK, I get the flash thing, but video? Really? So, they have a horse or horses in the show that would say, "Oh, shit, that guy has a video camera, now I'm spooked! Run like hell!"



A crowd slowly gathered in the arena, but I'd say it never got past 40% full.



The rest of the pictures are kind of random, just taken throughout the show.

The show started on time, but roughly half the visitors did not, so the first 30 minutes of the show there was a constant procession of rude people coming in to sit for the first time. A show like this should have some no late admission process, or stairs to the back of the seating so that you aren't watching a constant stream of late comers and bathroom goers.

The show was awful, I think it was trying to tell some sort of story. But there was little or no narration. And even when there was talk, it was in some sort of incomprehensible gibberish, kind of like talking to someone who is really drunk and happy.

The show was broken into two segments with a lenghty intermission. The second half was much shorter, and better than the first half. In fact, if the show had been just the second half, it might have seemed like a good show.

There were VIRTUALLY NO HORSES in the first segment. And when there were, they were generally old nags led around the arena on a lead, and off the stage. More like misdirection in a magic act. The one time the horses did move fast, there were two different acrobats running and jumping at the horses, as if to mount them in motion, but both kept failing. I'm not sure if it was deliberate failure, or if they couldn't mount, but either way, I can run at a moving horse, jump and not land on the horse. Not much to that I'm afraid.

With a few exceptions, the show was mostly human acrobatics, set to funky new age music. Horses figured into less than 10% of the show. Yet, when you go to their website, it talks about how great the horses in the show are, and the pictures there have horses in about 80% of them.

The second part of the show was a little better, they even had a segment that featured four lovely women in tight outfits dancing seductively. How bad was the show? I found myself wishing this part would hurry up and end. If you know me at all, you know something has to be truly awful for me to not be interested in suggestively dancing women.

By the mid point of the second part my wife had to take our daughter out, she loves horses, was very excited about the show, but had lost interest. My oldest son had lost interest and spent the rest of the show aggravating his cousin. The only one interested till the end was my youngest son, he loved the whole thing and clapped a lot when the crowd would start clapping.

At the very end they finally brought out some healthy horses that could run and did some acrobatic stunts with them. However, by then I was just ready to make a run for the door.

Did I mention how hot it was inside the tent? There was very little ventilation. It was at least 20 degrees cooler when we walked out into the sunshine.

This was an awful show. Don't waste your hard earned dollars on Artania.









Artania Website

Labels: Artania, awful, horse, show

My mother wanted me to get a respectable job. Instead I choose to be an IT Jockey. I should have listened to my mom...

This mail graced the box of EVERYONE in IT this morning from one of our uers.



Essentially the user is upset becuase their trash was emptied, apparently without warning. How amazing, trash, thrown away. This happens about once a week here from our users, "My Deleted Items are gone, I needed those, that is why I deleted them."

WTF - ? - Look up Delete on the Internet you dumbass.

Here is a picture of the "Deleted Items Folder". Damn, if that does not look like a trash can. Imagine, taking out the trash... unholy activity!



We had to send the user a message that on our system, she would have had to click an OK box or manually start the emptying of her trash. Please open a ticket if you would like your trash bin recovered. Genius!

Labels: e-mail, Outlook, stupid users

Ok, this is my nineth cube in 2.5 years at the job. I average about 3.5 months between moves. It takes about two days each move, so I've been paid now for about 18 days of moving.

Check it out, I have my main laptop with 2 19" displays. A small Thinkpad that I use for Network Analysis. A desktop with 2 17" Displays that I use for development and testing. And finally I have a Lenovo Ideapad that is mine from home I use for games and dinky stuff at lunch.

Labels: cubefarm, netbook, work

Yes, this product was much needed, the world will be a better place.

Because when it comes to lips and assholes, ground up and grilled, you only want the finest, corn fed lips and assholes. No, no low quality lips and assholes for you.

Me, personally, I'm holding out Kobe Beef Frankfurters.

Labels: dumb idea, stupid marketing, weiner, wtf

Got this from EMC tonight, this guy has to love his e-mail address:



Really thought it was going to be SPAM.

Labels: e-mail, funny

I can't make this shit up, really.

This is an actual ticket that was opened while I was at lunch. Mine is the longer of the two responses.



I can fix the Exchange Server, fix your Outlook, manage the VMware farm. But I'm not looking for a fucking ghost.

Labels: stupid users

Ok, I've been at the office since NOON YESTERDAY. We're trying to replicate our Exchange Server with a product called Double Take. We've had nothing but problems, solved one at a time through extensive troubleshooting.

Finally, just when it looks like things are working... I look up at the just started process and ask, "Why is Double Take deleting the Windows directory on the Target Server?" Over the tech support line, "Stop the process!"

Arrg...

Now they are waking up the Level 3 Support guy. I have this sneaking suspicion I am going to be loading Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003 from scratch again.

Update:

After a comment from a reader, I thought I should elaborate on what happend early Sunday morning...

In a nutshell, we were having some performance issues with our Target machine, and ainchient Compaq ML350 G3. We updated the Firmware on two RAID controllers and a NIC. We were not using Double Take Application Manager any longer to do the replication, we were using the Application Console. When we rebooted the machine after the updates, Double Take lost sight of the partitions on the seconed RAID controller. We did not catch this error, and the Application Console has fewer safetys than DTAM. As a result, it tried to wipe the C: drive to make it look like our first Storage Partition.

The techs at Double Take stayed on the phone with us for over 12 hours to work on the issues. They also called back the following day to tell us they had determined what happened. The logs were completely zapped, but they had a BOMGAR sessions recorded. Several of their Level 3 techs watched the BOMGAR session to figure out what happened.

They are also building in a safety to the Application Console to stop this from happening again. No data was lost, and everyone was very helpful. I also had a very solid tape backup of the Source and Data before we started on the project. It was mostly an inconvienence to reload an Exchange Server from bare metal at 4:30 AM.

Labels: 4 AM, bad support, double take, insomniac, microsoft

Over the weekend, one of my favorite webistes vanished. I couldn't find The Keepers Babe Of The Day. I've been reading it religiously for over 10 years. So, I e-mailed the keep. Evidently, without warning, his ISP went out of business. So he had to move. Here is the new link to The Keepers Babe Of The Day. I've mentioned it here a few times, even had some of my photos posted there, so here once again is a shout out to The Keepers Babe Of The Day webiste.

Labels: babe, keepers, nsfw

Ok, last month I got hit by the Microsoft Internet Explorer Zero Day bug. It might just be a coincidence, it might be the root cause of many of my problems.

Last week my Alienware 51M laptop started having the Wireless NIC fail when it would come out of Hibernate or Sleep mode. The NIC connects, shows the network. If I go to the Command Prompt and run IPCONFIG, everything looks good. But if I try to ping the gateway, I get HARDWARE FAILURE. This happens if I try to ping anything but 127.0.0.1.

Very odd indeed.

The only way to get the NIC back is to reboot. When I reboot, I get the following error in the System Log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: PSched
Event Category: None
Event ID: 14103
Date: 1/17/2009
Time: 9:22:37 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ALIEN2008
Description:
QoS [Adapter {F4518C6A-2EAD-44DE-9289-0B3C62A42D6F}]:
The netcard driver failed the query for OID_GEN_LINK_SPEED.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 04 00 02 00 56 00 ......V.
0008: 00 00 00 00 17 37 00 c0 .....7.À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 0d 00 01 c0 ...À

If I follow the link to Microsoft support for this error I get this:

Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 14103
Source: PSched
Version: 5.0
Component: System Event Log
Symbolic Name: EVENT_PS_QUERY_OID_GEN_LINK_SPEED
Message: QoS [Adapter %2]:
The netcard driver failed the query for OID_GEN_LINK_SPEED.

Explanation
This event record indicates a serious problem.

User Action
Contact your technical support group or the Microsoft Product Support Services.

Yeah, go Microsoft, this is a serious problem, but we don't have a solutoin.

So I called Microsoft support and got a far as I could with free support. They told me that they were aware of the problem, and that I should just continue to reboot my machine as a work around.

WTF? It is a laptop, rebooting it over and over kind of defeats the purpose of having a laptop.

I've disabled all power management on the NIC, still no change. I've tried manually turning off the NIC before shutting down, no change. I looked in System Restore, but I don't have a restore point before 1/2009. This is all very infurating.

Anyone else out there have a similar problem, know a solution?

Labels: bad support, microsoft, wireless, zero day

I worked for a little PC reseller in Houston when the Interent took off. As a result, I had T1 access at work as far back as 1995. Somewhere around then, I discovered "The Keepers Babe Of The Day". I've been checking it almost daily ever since.

The site varies widely, and sometimes is NSFW. It can feature cars, airplanes, toys, very often Corvettes, naked pictures. All good stuff.

So I sent him my Space Shuttle pictures from last week, and he featured them today.

Oh, one last thing, his content changes daily and is not availble on any day except the one on which it is featured.

Labels: cool, keepers, other blogs, shuttle

I had just come out of the office kitchen with my lunch when one of the other techs came up and said the Space Shuttle was flying by "RIGHT NOW!"

So I grabbed my trusty Sony DSC-P8 3.2MP camera and went out the door. Our office sits near the Johnson Space Center and Ellignton Air Force Base. The Shuttle is stopping off to refuel the 747 that is transporting it from California to Florida this week after mission STS-119.

This is the Space Shuttle Endeavour, I have also seen Challenger, Enterprise and Columbia here at Ellington Air Force Base over the years. Pretty dang cool, I never tire of watching this marvel of modern technology.

Labels: Endeavour, NASA, shuttle

I didn't beat Jake for posting pictures of snow this year, but it is snowing in the Houston, Texas area tonight, I'll try to post some more pictures tomorrow morning. Hope this keeps up all night, I could get a day off from work!

Labels: snow, winter

Ok, I take a lot of drugs. I have 3 prescriptions for blood pressure, 2 for insulin, one for diabetes testing, 2 for insulin needles, 1 for allergies, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else that I take occasionally.

So, the coupons in the paper that give you gift cards at different pharmacies are like gold for me. I'm going to spend the money anyway, so I might as well get some back. Friends and family save them for me.

So today I called my local Walgreens, when I got to the pharmacist, he seemed perterbed that I had just transferred a prescription away from his pharmacy, and now I was trying to transer another into his pharmacy. When I told him it was to use the coupon, he seemed annoyed, but took my information.

Ten minutes later he called me back, said I wouldn't be able to use my coupon, they had a new policy that prohibited any customer from using more than one of these coupons, ever.

I asked, since it doesn't say that on the coupon, are you telling me that you won't honor your own coupons? He said yes and hung up on me.

Here is the coupon.




If you read the fine print, the only limitation says, "Limit one gift card offer per customer, per transaction."

So, I called the store back, and asked to speak to the manager. I explained to her what I was told, and what the coupon said. She said the pharmacist was wrong to tell me this, and it was indeed not their store policy. She then called the pharmacist while I was on hold. After about 5 mintues she transferred me back to him to have my prescription filled. Guess he got a good, deserved, ass chewing.

Sometimes wonder why people are so stupid, or think I'm so stupid to believe such lies.

Labels: bad support, coupon, drugs, liar, prescription, walgreens

Ok, I posted some funny e-mails from my Dell rep, even told him to stop e-mailing. He hasn't learned, but he did send this funny e-mail about Christmas shopping and what a rip-off Dell products are at Best Buy. No crap, e-mail from a Dell rep, cutting down their new business and distribution partner.

Message from your AE at Dell (important please read)

alphonso_quesada@dell.com
sent: wed 12/3/2008 2:15 PM

Hello,

I wanted to follow up with you for your Holliday shopping. Your account is in the corporate division therefore you get cost on everything that is electronic and computer accessories and TV etc. I can tell you right now that if you are buying from best buy or any other retailers you are paying too much. I wanted to reach out to you and see what you are looking at and I will be able to get you a better price. As your AE at Dell I want to look out for you and let you know that I have over 200k products that you probably have no idea we sell. Here is a big example of what I am talking about;

Best Buy-

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=KDL40XBR6&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

price- 2,299.99 regular

their sale price is 1,999.00

Dell-

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Video_Conferencing/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=A2018549

price- 2,299.99

online sale price- 1,999.00

your price 1,400.00 saved 600.00 dollars

Use this Link to look at what we offer and email me for quotes. Be more than welcome to shop my price. Just email me the part numbers you are looking to make it easier to quote you. I have to discount the product manually and send you a quote. Once again your price bracket is lower than consumers so you will always get a better price.
Follow this link ;

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/default.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=mn

Alphonso Quesada
Senior Account Executive
RSR AcquisitionDell, Inc.
toll free number- 1800-901-3355 ext- 946-1562
Direct Line-# 512-946-1562
Fax: Fax: 512.283.9992
ATTN: Alphonso Quesada

Support Team;

Mason Lam
Software and Peripherals - Acquisition Account ManagerBusiness Sales DivisionDell, Inc.
1-800-901-3355
direct dial (512-946-0929)
Fax: (512-946-0929
Mason_lam@dell.com

I want to earn your business and shouldn't be beat on price. Call me today for networking equipment, MSOL Volume Licensing, phone systems, Tape Back-ups, and Power Products--as well as all other peripherals & upgrades!

Labels: best buy, dell, stupid marketing

This was in my work e-mail late today:

Hello,

I wanted to follow up with you again and see if you got my last few emails I sent you. Your account is set in our corporate division so your company gets the best pricing and service available at Dell. I must establish contact with you or someone in your company. Please let me know if there is any purchases you have coming up or any projects so I can start working with you to provide you the best solution. thanks

Alphonso Quesada

Senior Account ExecutiveRSR AcquisitionDell, Inc.
toll free number- 1800-901-3355 ext- 946-1562
Direct Line-# 512-946-1562
Fax: Fax: 512.283.9992 ATTN: Alphonso Quesada

Account Team;
Joseph Gibbonsmailto:GibbonsJoseph_Gibbons@Dell.com
Senior Server, Network, and Storage Specialist
800-901-3355 ext. 9460611. Direct dial 512-946-0611

Ok, they "must establish contact" with someone in my company? Or what? They will be out of a job? And examine the grammar of the first sentance. What is that, writing on about the third grade level?

Update! 11-18-2008:

Ok, I sent back a response telling this moron that we were an HP shop. So he sent me this message this morning:

From: Alphonso_Quesada@Dell.com [mailto:Alphonso_Quesada@Dell.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:24 AM

Subject: RE:

Great to hear that. My job in the acq team is to help you achieve your goals. Dell have changed around and have made all his focus to customer focus. What can I do to help you guys?

So, I had to reply again...

I’m having a difficult time believing you actually work for Dell. Your grammar is atrocious.

Unless you go to work for HP, I don’t see much you can do to help us out.
However, purchasing a book on English Grammar and Sentence Structure could be a major step in helping yourself. Although there are several sentences in the correspondence you have sent to me that are poorly constructed, this one stands out the most:

Dell have changed around and have made all his focus to customer focus.

Did you really read this before you sent it out?

Please, don’t waste my time and yours with poorly thought out sales pitches saying you MUST get in touch with someone at my company.

Labels: bad support, dell, stupid marketing

Hurricane Ike continues to have it's way with me....

We got a call Saturday night from the insurance adjuster. They have to e-mail us some paperwork to fill out, ok we tell them, we'll be watching for the paperwork.

So, here we are 5 days later, no paperwork. So I call the adjuster firm, Quality Assurance Adjusting, LLC. They can't help me, I have to call the adjuster directly. So, I call the adjuster directly, she hangs up on me the first time the phone rings, then lets it go to voice mail the second time I call. Great, left a message.

In the meantime, I take a closer look at my papwerwork from the Texas Wind Storm Insurance Association, and I realize that even though my e-mail address is supposed to match my name, the genius that took my information managed to misspell my name. So I call them. They can't help me, they don't keep records of the claims after they are filed. WTF? How the hell do you not keep records of insurance claims at a state agency when you are paying out hundreds of millions of dollars?

So, back to calling Quality Assurance Adjusting, LLC. The woman on the phone said she wouldn't change it on her "Screen" as it is a PDF, and my adjuster Jenny Finch wouldn't see it on her "Screen". No shit.

I've given up on contacting Nationwide Insurance on this issue, they've been less than worthless throughout the entire process of making a claim.

Labels: bad support, hurricane, ike, nationwode, Quality Assurance LLC, TWIA

Ok, got home today, and the Direct TV receiver wouldn't work. I had to open up the front cover and reset the system, then wait the 15 minutes till it came back up ready to run. Then, just after 7 PM, it comes up with a message asking my approval to "download data". So I said OK. The stupid thing reboots again, and I'm faced with this screen.




What the fuck? Come on, really, did you need to upgrade my software right at the start of prime time? How long till I can watch my friggin' TV again? Direct TV - YOU SUCK.

What a bunch of idiots. Why couldn't this wait till the middle of the night? Two weeks ago you zapped everyone with a bogus software upgrade, now this crap.

(update)

Called Direct TV, got their usual BS message about if you are having these problems, we know, reboot your receiver. We are having unusually high call volumes, please call back at another time. Continued horrible service!

Labels: bad product, bad support, direct tv

Woke up yesterday morning, my flaky Direct TV DVR wouldn't work. I had to reset it and remove power for about 15 seconds for it to work. Did the same thing for my wife later in the day.

I called the 800 number and got a message about 5 PM, indicating that they were swamped with calls and aware of this problem.

Today I got the following e-mail from Direct TV:



Yep, that's right, they updated the software in ALL THEIR DVRS AND MADE THEM NON-FUNCTIONAL FOR THE DAY. Stupid. Just plain amazing that a company this large can be so incompetent as to shut down a huge portion of it's customer base with a bad software patch. Irresponsible. Unacceptable. I'm going to give serious consideration now to calling Dish Network about their all HD packages that start at just $24.99. Direct TV doesn't even have a competiting offer like this for me to get what I really want from them either.

Labels: bad product, bad support, direct tv