Longklaw.com

Yesterday, I got an email from the Justice Department about the postal employee who stole one or more of my Gamefly and/or Netflix rentals. Last summer I found out that she plead guilty to 1 count of Delaying or destruction of mail or newspapers and 3 counts of Theft of mail matter by officer or employee. She’s finally been sentenced. She got 1 year and 6 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release. Her fine is $0.00. Well, that’s the end of that. It’s been interesting getting updates while not really being involved.

I’m still with Sprint for now. I’ll wait until the end of my contract and decide on something then. I had a hard time making a decision on whom to go to. It takes me a long time to make decisions like that and I came up with reasons not to switch to each of the other major carriers available in this area. I’ll deal with it later.

For a few days I was getting a lot of messages and emails from Sprint. The tone made it sound like I didn’t need to call back unless I had other questions. My guess was that they were feeling bad about how much they had screwed up. I finally called back and they basically offered to let me take as long as I wanted to on paying that balance. I’m going to go ahead and pay it all at once when my bill is due. I’m not as angry as I was, but I’m still not happy.

I have been a Sprint customer for over 5 years. I’ve done my share of defending them even when I’ve felt screwed by them because they always seemed to make things right in the end. This time it’s different. Now I can see why they have the worst customer service ratings and are hemorrhaging customers.

I bought a new phone from Sprint near the end of October 2008. The price I believe was $279.99 plus tax but they applied credits to bring the cost of the phone down to $50 plus tax. Before the end of the first 30 days, I decided the phone. It was freezing up all the time and I just didn’t like it. In early December I called to see how much I my balance would be after they credited my account for the phone. The CS Rep told me that I would be credited the $279.99 plus tax and with the credits they had already applied to my account I would have a negative balance. I got him to explain repeatedly that those credits wouldn’t be taken away and I would be credited for the full amount of the phone. I was happy to hear this and even though it seemed odd, I thought that was just the way Sprint did things. How silly and trusting of me.

I called in January about that balance still on my account. It takes them 1-2 billing cycles to credit refunds. They put in a payment arrangement on my account for the $279.99 plus tax to cover the still pending refund and I paid the difference between that and the balance on the account. The same thing happened in February. Later in February I decided to try a different phone model because I was still unhappy with the old model I’d had for a while and tried to replace in October. Somehow the lady got the returned phone credited to my account during that call. When I got my next statement I had a balance of over $300 dollars. It turns out that I was credited about $60 for the returned phone instead of the $279.99 plus tax that I was promised 3 times.

It was explained to me that I could be credited only the amount that I was charged and not the $279.99 plus tax. The Rep I talked to this day said that the earlier reps probably didn’t see those credits made to my account, but I know that at least the first person did. I feel like I was lied to for 3 months. Even if it was a mistake, they should honor the original promise that was made to 3 times. I was going on the assumption for months now that I would be credited $279.99 plus tax and a balance has accumulated. I have been a contract customer for over 5 years and have always paid my bills on time. If I can’t break a promise to pay them, then it seems like they can’t break a promise to me.

I had this case escalated to their “executive office” and I was once again denied a refund. He said that if I was unhappy with the decision he would discuss it among his colleagues and reach a final decision. Not surprisingly, they agreed with him.

I guess it’s time to finally end my relationship with Sprint. When I got the 2nd new phone in February, I had to renew my contract for 2 years. If I break my contract now, I have to pay a an early termination fee, which I think is $185. Of course they said that they wouldn’t let me out of the contract without the fee. I have to decide if I want to pay that fee and get out of my contract or wait 2 years until the contract ends. Either way I’m gone. It’s hard to do business with a company that I cannot trust.

I found out about this on Twitter and had to share.

When I was in college I downloaded a lot of stuff from the Internet using file sharing programs. I hope that saying this here isn’t going to get me in any trouble 🙂 . I downloaded music that way if I wanted to get only one song instead of the full album. I downloaded movies and TV shows. I even downloaded games where you had to get 30-something zip files, unzip them all, and then run a program that would combine the pieces into 1 game.

Now that I have a full-time job and I’m making decent money, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t really have the time or patience. I don’t leave my computer running all the time. Even when I tried to leave it running more so that stuff could download, it would take days or even weeks for it to finish. Why wait hours for a TV show when I can pay $2 and download in less than half an hour or instantly if I’m streaming? Also, when I’m at work and a song pops into my head I’m not going to start up a file sharing program and look for it. I go to Amazon MP3 or iTunes and get it there. The only time I might make an exception is when I check all my legit sources (Amazon MP3, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, Xbox Live, DirecTV on Demand, etc) and still can’t find it. That’s pretty rare these days and if it’s a TV show I’ll delete as soon as I’m finished. I have reformed.

I get way too many bills/statements in the mail each month.
• Car insurance
• Cell phone
• Car loan
• Credit card X3
• Internet
• Satellite
• Bank statement
• Electric bill
• Gas bill

I probably forgot something. There’s been a big push lately by companies for customers to only use electronic statements. It saves the company money and it’s good for the environment. I’ve been resistant to this because I like having a physical copy of each bill. Yes, you can view your statements online, but their archives usually go back only a few months. I have years worth of statements at home.

There’s another reason I like to have physical copies. When I get a bill in the mail, I tear off the stub you’re supposed to use to mail in a payment as a reminder. I keep all the stubs on my computer desk, arranged by due date. Since I moved last July, I hardly ever use that desk anymore. Because of that, I’ve completely forgotten about a couple of bills recently.

I may go with all electronic statements. I’ll have to find another way to remember due dates that will send me a reminder when bills are due. There’s no real reason for me to keep getting paper statements since I don’t use them for anything once I tear that stub off. I can always keep electronic archives of my statements if I want to. Electronic statements will save space and save the time I spend filing away all those letters each month. Also, a lot of companies give you a one-time $5 credit for making the change. Money saved is money you can spend on something else. 🙂

With DVRs and the Internet, we can watch TV shows whenever we want to. We’re not forced to sit down in front of the TV at a certain time on a certain night to watch out favorite shows. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

One thing you have to be really careful about is spoilers. Nobody really likes to be spoiled when it comes to shows that you watch, especially popular shows with big mysteries like LOST and Battlestar Galactica. We want to find out for ourselves what happened.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the articles I read online have carefully worded headlines that don’t give anything away. Also, on podcasts that I listen to they are usually carefully about not giving away spoilers or putting them at the end so that people can avoid them if they like. If there are spoilers contained within these articles or podcasts, there is usually a spoiler warning. Fortunately, avoidance of giving spoilers doesn’t last forever. After a certain amount of time people feel that it’s okay to talk about the important developments in an episode and it’s not their fault if someone hasn’t seen it yet. Depending on the source that amount of time could be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, etc. I don’t like getting spoiled, but it’s not that big a deal and I’m over it in a second.

My problem is with spoilers on Twitter. Whenever a big show like Heroes or LOST comes I see at least one person warning everyone not to spoil anything or scolding someone who gave away a big plot point. Yes, I do understand that West Coast viewers see everything 2 hours after we do and some people choose not to watch live anyway. But still. Twitter is all about the conversation, but I can’t talk about this show that I’m so excited about that I’m taking the time to watch it and watch it live and that. I hate being peer pressured into anything.

I’ve seen Twitter described as the tech watercooler. Haven’t TV shows traditionally been watercooler conversation topics? It seems to me like you shouldn’t hang out around the watercooler if you don’t want to have anything spoiled. If you go into the break room/kitchen at work and people are talking about an episode that you haven’t seen, would you tell everyone to shut up because you don’t want to be spoiled? I don’t think so. I think this may be another situation where people behave differently on the Internet than they do in real life.

I don’t remember spoilers being as big of a problem in the VCR days. Those tapes could only hold a few hours so you couldn’t wait too long to watch what you recorded before you needed that space back. And technological changes in general have made it easy now to watch an episode when you want and get spoiled before you watch it.

It’s just frustrating that when I’m most excited about a TV show episode, I can’t talk about it. As much as I want to blurt out plot points sometimes, I don’t out of politeness. Maybe some Twitter client out there will implement a filter where users can enter keywords (LOST, the hatch, Oceanic 6, etc.) and not receive tweets can contain those keywords. Maybe there is one already.

I wanted to read Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem because it was the latest selection by The Sword and Laser Podcast. I skipped their last 2 selections and really wanted to try this one. I tried. I tried. I tried. I got about 70 pages into it and quit. I decided to go ahead a finish it, but once I read another 2 or 3 pages I couldn’t do it anymore. I just hated it.

It takes place in 3149 after some kind of plight has destroyed most of the paper in the world. The book is basically somebody’s memoirs that were found preserved in volcanic rock. It’s a lot of gibberish and paranoia crap that I didn’t feel like reading. From what I’ve read, 1 of the Sword and Laser hosts didn’t like this book either.

The next Sword and Laser selection is The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I’ll be skipping it because I’ve already read it several times. Hoping that I like the next book that I try.

• Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Stanislaw Lem
• The Stormcaller, Tom Lloyd
• The Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Final Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• Inside Straight, George R.R. Martin
• Busted Flush, George R.R. Martin
• The Final Crusade, Chaite Naasiri
• The Darker Mask, George Phillips
• Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
• The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
• The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
• The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson
• A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

Like many others I got caught up in all the Obamamania today. For the last few weeks, I haven’t been too excited about the Inauguration itself even though I was excited about Obama’s presidency. It seems like he’s already been President for a while so the swearing in didn’t seem like much. Once I started watching the streaming coverage online, I started getting really pumped again. Too bad that the oath of office got messed up, but I liked the speech he gave. I’m glad that Bush is gone and I’m optimistic about the next 4 years.

I’m getting back into reading again. I slacked off at the end of last year. I think the only books I’ve read since I last made a post like this are Watchmen and Victory of Eagles.

I wanted to try out Watchmen by Alan Moore because I’ve heard so much about it and the movie is coming out soon. The previews for the movie look really good. I liked Watchmen a lot and I see why so many people like it. It truly is a must-read for graphic novel fans. It may have dragged on a little too long at the end, but I didn’t mind it much. I can’t wait to see the movie.

Victory of Eagles is the latest (fifth) book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series. I don’t know why, but it took me a long time to get into this book. It’s a good continuation of the story once you get going. And it’s barely over 300 pages, so it doesn’t take long to read. One of these days I’m going to do some research to see how closely the books follow actual history. It seems like in the next book the main characters won’t be involved with the war as much. I tend to like the books where they’re fighting against Napoleon better, but I’m sure I’ll still like it.

I started making a list for 2009 months ago and kept adding to it. Once again, I have set my goals pretty high. I copied the ones I didn’t finish in 2008 (may have left some off) and added a bunch of new ones. I want to read the Wild Cards books in which George R.R. Martin serves as the editor. It doesn’t seem like he’ll get any of his own books out anytime soon. I hope the last Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, is still on schedule to come out this year. Some of the books on my list were given to me by a friend that works in publicity. Most of them are books that I had never heard and I’m hoping that I find a few gems among them.

• Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Stanislaw Lem
• The Stormcaller, Tom Lloyd
• The Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Final Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• Inside Straight, George R.R. Martin
• Busted Flush, George R.R. Martin
• The Final Crusade, Chaite Naasiri
• The Darker Mask, George Phillips
• Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
• The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
• The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
• The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson
• A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare