Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

« Older Entries

2009: The Year Entropy Accelerated

By Chief Oddball on November 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 3 Comments

As the ill-fated 2009 starts to wind itself down, it’s making it more clear than ever that it’s not going to let us forget how much pain and suffering it inflicted on us all. Some more than others, obviously, but by-and-large it’s been a pretty depressing year. My family in particular was hit harder by more cataclysmic events at once than at any point in my lifetime, with my dad losing his job due to the slowing economy, the deaths of two family members (just a month apart, no less) and a myriad of other problems besides.

Although Apple and I have fared pretty well in comparison to many other Americans — even other members of our families — we’ve still received a disproportionate amount of negative reinforcement from The Powers That Be. This week, in particular, was like a microcosm of that very idea, presenting us with one out-of-left-field event after another: breakdowns, unforeseen events, ridiculous instances of lightning striking twice. The Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to have conspired against us to accelerate entropy to an almost comical level.

I used to do a lot of bitching on this blog. Not so much anymore. But today is one of those days where I feel like if I don’t get it off my chest here, I’ll take it out on someone who doesn’t deserve it, so away we go with a little old-fashioned rant.

Forfeiting the Comcast Battle (But Not Quite the War)

My seemingly eternal struggle with Comcast over the billing and service for my TiVo HD came to an anti-climactic end early this week. (You can follow the history of the saga here.) After apparently getting a solution from corporate to the two HD service fees I was getting charged — one for each CableCARD in my TiVo — the celebration came to an abrupt halt last weekend when my second tuner lost all HD service. Again.

Sick and tired of it, I bypassed phone support altogether and filed another corporate complaint. This time, however, despite the corporate head office’s agreement with my position, the “corporate liaison officer” at our local Comcast department gave me a call to say there was nothing that can be done. In my area, she explained, the billing system requires that a separate HD service charge be assessed on each single-stream CableCARD. So, if I want HD service on both tuners of my DVR, I have to pay for it twice. And that’s that.

So I asked her, if Comcast would offer me a multi-stream CableCARD to replace my two single-stream cards, would I only pay one HD fee despite getting the exact same service? She said yes. Of course, Comcast still doesn’t have multi-stream CableCARDs here. As a result, I pay twice as much for the same service, because of their lack of equipment. Oh, that’s really nice; I’m so glad I could help. Is that extra money I’m paying you going to finance, say, acquisition of any fucking multi-stream CableCARDs, by any chance? (The woman did say that multi-stream cards were currently being tested and would be offered to us early next year, but I’ll believe that when I can hold one in my hands.)

As a consolation, the Comcast corporate liaison officer told me that they’re already crediting me for the extra $6.95 HD service charge by lowering our second CableCARD fee to $1.50, because it’s normally like 8 bucks. Huh? According to Comcast’s own CableCARD FAQ, the second card fee can be only “up to $2.05.” They’re saving me 55 cents, not $6.95. And if you check that same link, you’ll see that I wouldn’t even be paying a second card fee if I just had a multi-stream card. That’s another $1.50 I wouldn’t be paying if Comcast could offer current equipment.

But by this point I had had it. I’m sorry, I really had. I just can’t do this fucking song and dance anymore. I told the woman to just go ahead and restore service to my second CableCARD, and I’ll pay their extra $6.95 monthly fee. What else am I gonna do? At some point you have to recognize that it’s just seven fucking dollars. I will be hounding them next year to make sure I’m one of the first people to get a multi-stream card — assuming that wasn’t just a line of bull — but until then, I have more important things to deal with.

Speaking of which…I’m just getting started.

Continue Reading…

Comments (3)

Apple (Computer) is Starting to Piss Me Off

By Chief Oddball on August 6th, 2009 at 11:56 am ··· 2 Comments

Today comes news that Apple has started blanket-rejecting third-party eBook reader apps, claiming that because those apps can be used to read illegally obtained copyrighted content, they will no longer be published in the App Store. So what happens to eReader, Stanza, et al? I use both to read PDB eBooks that I have hand-built from my own written works.

Rumor has it that Apple is about to launch a 6″-8″ tablet-sized device which could compete with Amazon’s Kindle eBook device. This could be Apple’s way of clearing out the competition in the eBook space before launching their own solution. If that’s the case, it’s extremely distasteful and takes my opinion of Apple Computer down a huge, huge notch.

Edit: I should mention that the eBook reader ban rumor is apparently false. The reader app that touched off this firestorm was rejected because it allowed iPhone-to-iPhone sharing of eBooks, which could have potentially been a copyright violation.


What a Pain

By Chief Oddball on July 29th, 2009 at 10:26 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 2 Comments

I thought I’d wrapped up all of my side jobs, but one came back to haunt me this week in the form of some changes that needed to be made to something I did a couple weeks ago. A whole lot of changes.

Actually, let’s just say that the client’s entire frigging site design is broken — and was from the get-go — and I must fix it. By the end of the week.

I’ve been trying to put in a couple hours on this job each evening this week, at least since Monday when I received the changes. I’ve made some progress, but not nearly as much as I expected given the nature of the changes. On any normal website, these tweaks — “fix gaps here,” “align these blocks there” — would have been fairly simple. But on this website, they’re not simple. Because the site was designed in ImageReady (yeah, that old Photoshop companion program before it was merged into Photoshop itself). And then cut up into ImageReady slices. And then saved automatically into HTML by ImageReady.

If you’re not a web designer, you won’t understand the significance of what I just said. Let me put it into layman’s terms: What I described was an old-fashioned way for inexperienced people to quickly throw a web page together. The problem was, the method resulted in a badly-coded web page that was assembled using the most inflexible HTML known to man, and which looked fine as long as you didn’t touch it, but which quickly went to hell in a handbasket once you started trying to fiddle around.

Worse, somebody started fiddling around before I was even brought on board with this project (yes, the design and its assembly have been done by someone else who remains unidentified). So what once probably looked like a very nice design on ImageReady’s canvas has already been rendered a jumbled, gap-filled mess. Now the client wants me to fix all these little things.

That’s hard enough on the face of it, but there are additional factors working against me, to wit:

  • I’m having to make all of my changes in a Remote Desktop session where I have access to only Notepad. (This is because the site has built-in ASP.NET dependencies that have stymied my efforts to get a local copy running on my machine.)
  • I don’t know what the original design looked like (in ImageReady) before it got sliced up, nor do I have access to the master files.

I’m rapidly discovering that this is going to take a lot more time than I’d hoped, to the point where I’ll likely need to spend Thursday and Friday evening, followed by all day Saturday, to meet the deadline. I am also starting to think that I should email the client tomorrow and let him know that the hours involved are going to result in what may be a bigger charge than he thought. This guy is usually very laid-back when it comes to money, however — being rather flush with it himself, as I understand — so that probably won’t be a concern, but I don’t want to drop a bomb on the guy.

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

I’ll Never Give You My Money

By Pooch on July 19th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

Filed under Rants ··· 3 Comments

You may have heard: the Beatles’ albums are being re-released.

On the surface, it’s a Beatle fan’s wet dream: the new discs have awesome packaging, (apparently) superior sound, and best yet — there will be mono releases, just like fans have been wanting for years! It’s a dream come true!

Hardly.

Being the hardcore fan I am, I’ve been salivating over these new remasters…but also dreading them. Dreading them because I know Apple Corps and EMI would not waste such a glorious opportunity to stick it to fans with outrageous prices, and I’m glad (?) to see I was not wrong: the new CDs will retail at the same old, gouge-tastic $18.98 MSRP the old, circa 1987 Beatles CDs were priced at. Oddly, though, The Beatles (aka The White Album) gets $10 knocked off its MSRP, and is now $24.98 (also, Past Masters is now a single, two-disc set that also retails for $24.98). So, I guess $35 for two CDs is ridiculous to Apple Corps, but $20 for one CD isn’t. Gotcha.

There are also two box sets being released: one with all the stereo CDs, and one with the albums in mono (God forbid they actually put the stereo and mono albums together, like with the recent Capitol Albums box sets — the only albums you couldn’t do that for are The White Album and maybe Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). In true, Beatle-price-gouging fashion, the stereo box set — 16 discs in all — is barely worth it: at $260, it’s only $17 or so less to buy the box set than to get all the albums individually (though this is better than the first Beatles CD box set from the late 1980s, which actually cost more than if you bought all the CDs separately…which would seem to defeat the purpose of a box set in the first place).

As for that mono box set, filled with mono mixes fans have been anticipating? It’s the only place you can get those mono albums — no single discs will be available. Better yet (?), the mono box set is limited to a whopping 10,000 copies, meaning the majority of fans who wanted these mixes most likely won’t get them (not in a store, anyway — watch Apple Corps claim piracy is killing the music industry when fans start trading the mono tracks online because they can’t buy them in stores). Better still (?), the mono box set will retail for…$300! No, I’m joking — it actually retails for only $298.98. What a bargain! But wait — not every Beatles album was mixed into mono, so the mono box set will only have 12 CDs in it. So…a 16 disc stereo set retails for $260, but the 12 disc mono set is $40 more. That makes perfect sense! It is a limited edition, after all!

I was pretty angry when I first read about this, because I wanted the mono versions of the albums…but for $300, Yoko, Paul, Dhani and Ringo can keep them. I’m sure $300 is a drop in the bucket to the Beatles — billionaires all — but to those of us living in the real, recession-hammered world, it’s not such a light sum of money. Eventually my anger subsided, and now I just feel sad. Sad because I’ve forever read about how the Beatles — in the 1960s — were always conscious of giving their fans “excellent value for their money.” Sad because that obviously no longer holds true — today, the Beatles & Apple Corps are just as money-hungry and greedy as everybody else in the business. Who cares if one in ten people in the U.S. doesn’t have a job — this is the Beatles! Sell your car, jackass! Sell your kids! They’ll understand! This is THE BEATLES! No price is too much for the greatest music ever recorded!

I’d seriously love to meet Paul McCartney and ask him to his face if he really thinks, say, Yellow Submarine is really worth $20. $20 for four Beatles songs, essentially, because “Yellow Submarine” (the song) and “All You Need is Love” are on other albums, and no one really cares about the George Martin orchestrations on the second half of the album. Is that excellent value for my money, Sir Paul? Is Let It Be — an album you have ripped quite a bit over the years, and which the other Beatles have all said is lackluster — worth $20? Are your mono albums really worth $25 apiece, which is flat-out ridiculous, no matter how you look at it? Is Apple still being run like in the ’60s, with people walking out of your offices with supplies left and right, and this is the only way to stay in the black? Whose idea was it to make the mono albums a limited run? If Apple wants money so badly, you’d think they’d offer the mono albums as separate, non-box set entities, if only to get your devoted faithful to buy the same albums over and over and over again. But that might be pushing it, right?

And before anyone brings it up, yes, I know the stereo CDs all have QuickTime documentaries about the making of each album on the disc. And the album art will be faithfully reproduced…blah, blah, blah. That doesn’t matter. I’d rather have (reasonably priced) mono/stereo two-fers than a freaking QuickTime documentary. And CD packaging isn’t that expensive. I’ve read various interviews with people associated with the Beatles and Apple Corps, complaining that the Beatles are losing money in this age of digital music. Whose fault is that? Who are the ones reacting so slowly to changes in the music industry (the Beatles are still one of the few major acts to not be on iTunes, largely because Apple feels Beatle music is worth more than 99 cents a track), slavishly clinging to the old way of doing things? We’re no longer in the bubble economy, guys, and if you think the Beatles name is enough to get people to plunk down $600 on your CDs, no questions asked, I have a feeling you might be in for a bit of a surprise.

It used to be about the music, guys.

PS – I really feel sorry for whatever schlub decides he (or she) wants to buy both CD box sets and The Beatles: Rock Band on release day (9/9/09!). All You Need Is…$850 or so. Unless you want to get the replica John and George Rock Band guitars too, in which case add another $200. Or you could take that $1100 and put a down payment on a car to enjoy your old Beatles CDs in while driving (or not, because you probably couldn’t get financing to buy the car).

Comments (3)

And I Thought Last Week Was Bad.

By Chief Oddball on June 25th, 2009 at 11:59 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 2 Comments

What is it, Thursday already? It’s been nothing short of a ridiculous week from start to finish. I’ve worked until after 11:00 p.m. every day thus far. One night I went to bed with a headache severe enough to blur my vision. Tonight I paced back and forth in my office for nearly an hour, hashing through the apocalypse running through my brain. Tomorrow I’m expecting a sidework client to review the completed work I sent him last night, but assuming he doesn’t drop a bombshell on me, I might actually be looking at a fairly quiet Friday night…and even a quiet weekend.

This particular client doesn’t have a habit of dropping bombshells — quite the opposite, actually — so I think I’m safe. Probably.

Most of this week’s frustration, however, came from a project with a somewhat tight deadline that I signed on for, and which progressively became more and more difficult to deliver on as further and more detailed requirements streamed in. It recently reached the point at which I had to take a serious look at the way things were going and be brutally honest with myself: Did I have any hope of meeting the requirements given the time and resources I have available to me? I spent literally hours hashing this question out, trying to find a formula that would produce an answer of “Yes,” but in the end, I could not.

I still don’t know where that project is going to go from here, but I couldn’t continue to watch it spiral further and further out of control (if it was ever within control, a thing of which I am doubtful). I did some research, analyzed the situation as I saw it and wrote up an honest report for the client. Not much else I could do, in good conscience. Now I guess we see how it pans out.

The current state of my various jobs, however, seems to suggest that I’ll have some time to recover some sanity this weekend. I have another acupuncture appointment on Saturday afternoon, but other than that, I’m hoping to not make any plans. The only thing I might do is go see the new Transformers 2 movie, although in that case, I’d want to first watch the Blu-ray disc of the first film which has been gracing my countertop for the last month and a half. We rented it from Netflix, you see. It’s been weeks, I think, since I had time to watch anything from Netflix. (In the interim, Apple has been going crazy renting Korean shows, so more power to her — at least somebody’s using the service.)

I’ve also continued to enjoy my iPhone 3GS, what little time I’ve had to use it. The few calls I’ve placed or taken have sounded phenomenal, and I haven’t even bothered to look at the signal strength indicator because I never worry about it dropping a call. Slowly but surely, as well, the apps I use that were broken by the OS 3.0 upgrade (eReader chief among them) are being fixed. Now I can finally read my eBooks again. I still haven’t had an opportunity to take much in the way of interesting photos or video with it, although I did set myself up with a YouTube account so I can upload whatever I shoot directly to their service. I tested this feature once and it worked pretty well then.

Having spent next to no time on any of my own pursuits in well over a week, and only insignificantly more before then, there’s a lot of stuff stacking up around the house that needs doing. Apple’s laptop (which used to be my laptop, actually) needs a serious dose of reformatting; I’ve never seen anything run so slow. I’ve got Netflix to catch up on, a story I want to get back to, and even some minor modifications to make to this site. It’s fortunate that I’ve been feeling energized by some unknown force these last few days, otherwise I shudder to think how I might have (or not have) gotten through the week.

One last warning: I’m probably going to be switching web hosts again soon (possibly very soon) due to some email issues, so yeah, you’ve been warned.

That’s all for today, I guess. Somehow, it’s already midnight.

Comments (2)

Escapism as a Lifestyle

By Chief Oddball on April 25th, 2009 at 2:52 am

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 1 Comment

Originally, this post was going to discuss the official launch of our final week here in Thailand. It was going to feature details of the fun stuff we’ve got planned for our last weekend, our trip prep activities over the coming week, and even a list of “10 things I miss about the U.S.” juxtaposed with a list of “10 things I’ll miss about Thailand.”

I’m not so sure, however, that I want to write that post anymore. Not just now. I’m feeling a bit more philosophical at the moment.

When exactly was it that my day went down the crapper and into the proverbial sewer system? I was having such a good day, you see, until late this evening. During breakfast today, I started things off with a glowing email from my friend Pooch, who apparently really liked the sneak preview I sent him of the story I’ve been working on. During the day I worked on my various tasks, encountered some work-related problems and found their solutions. This evening we bought our last week’s worth of groceries and treated Apple’s brother and his family to a little dinner at Hachiban Ramen. They’re leaving on a weeklong vacation on Sunday, after which we may not see them again this trip.

I was riding high on good feelings throughout all of it, which is why it was a bit of a downer to come home and read the news that, according to a company insider, General Motors is going to officially announce the closure of the Pontiac brand on Monday. It’s still unofficial at this point, but would anybody honestly be surprised if it were true? And furthermore, even as an utter and complete Pontiac fanboy extraordinaire, would I be lying if I said it wasn’t a good move for the cash-strapped GM to make? By my reckoning, a smaller GM is better than no GM. For instance, I’d rather be able to buy a Holden Commodore badged as a Chevy Impala, as they are in most of the world, as opposed to not having the car at all.

Still, as a man who’s been a literally lifelong fan of Pontiac’s style, history and legacy, and who has never parked anything other than a red arrowhead in his garage, this is like watching a friend die. A friend who was terminally ill, and whom you knew couldn’t last much longer, and whose every remaining day was torturous and agonizing. None of that makes it any easier when the end comes.

Back in 2001, when I eulogized the Pontiac Firebird — my favorite car, and one whose permanent discontinuation had just been announced by GM — I could never have imagined that, less than a decade later, I might be prepared to eulogize Pontiac as a brand. But, come what may, we all have little choice but to accept the reality that’s handed to us by forces beyond our control.

My mood didn’t improve again today, not since reading this news. Speaking of which, since I previously announced that I was removing myself from any and all news consumption, you’re probably wondering how I even came across Pontiac’s death warrant. Sadly, I read it on my favorite video game blog, Joystiq. Joystiq also owns Autoblog. And at the bottom of every Joystiq page are links to the latest articles on all of their affiliate sites, sooooo…you can imagine what happened. Sigh. Sometimes you can’t win for losing, y’know?

Continue Reading…

Comments (1)

Trial of the Marketer

By Chief Oddball on April 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 2 Comments

I don’t recall exactly when it was that my job description broadened to include “marketing,” but it did, at some point in the early 2000s. Back then, I worked for a small tech company in my local town whose staff had just been decimated in a round of layoffs following the 9/11 attack on New York City, where most of our client base was located. I was still the new hire, the protege of our senior graphic designer — but when she was let go, I became the graphic designer.

Shortly after that, our New York office folded altogether, after it was revealed that the marketing staff blew through millions of venture capital on tchotchkes. Since this malfeasance was my first exposure to marketing, I was immediately disgusted by our own marketers and by the very concept. So you can imagine how I hung my head in ironic shame when I was made the acolyte of our newly-hired in-house marketing director.

To her credit, she was quite talented and devoid of most of the typical stink of self-serving corruption you often smell around self-proclaimed marketing gurus. (The only time I seriously shook my head and said “WTF, lady?” was when she asked me to embed a Flash animation in an email campaign. That’s notgonnahappen.com.) I learned a lot about marketing from her, and when she moved on in 2005, the company approached me and said they’d be willing to pay for me to get a bachelor’s degree in business administration if I would agree to be placed on a course to become the new marketing director.

In response, I resigned.

Now, to be fair, I didn’t quit for being offered a BBA. I quit because, at the same time, I was offered an exciting new opportunity by some former coworkers who had started their own little company, and who were creating a much more compelling product that I could really get behind. Additionally, I’d get to hang out with some seriously cool dudes, spend most days working from home, and make more money. That — and the fact that I really did not want to become a full-time marketer — led me to make my choice.

Of course, I still wear the “marketer” hat these days. That small little company I joined in 2005 got bigger, then smaller again, but throughout it all has constantly been on a path to greatness in our market. It’s the kind of company where nobody really has a title — you can make up whatever sounds good at the moment you’re asked — because we’re all multitaskers who have our hands in a million things at once. Ironically, I’ve done more marketing since I’ve been with these guys than ever before — Google AdWords, email marketing, print advertising, banner campaigns, Flash videos, yada yada. It’s tough keeping all of those balls in the air, and keep up with my product development, tech writing and webmaster responsibilities, but somehow it happens.

But the trials of the marketer are still many…and great. I was reminded of that today, when one of our houses of marketing cards collapsed.

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

Looking Out For Number 1

By Chief Oddball on January 5th, 2009 at 8:19 pm

Filed under Rants ··· Leave a Comment

This is going to be one of those rare politically-themed entries, so be forewarned.

As we Americans prepare for the inauguration of our newly-elected president, I’d like for everyone to take a few deep, calming breaths. Because you’re not going to have time to stop and collect yourselves when the new Congress gets in session and starts trying to legislate from the bully pulpit, which — mark my words — is exactly what’s coming. The primarily Democrat Congress that We The People™ have assembled by way of our votes over the last couple of years has earned its utterly miserable track record, and I think we’d all be fools to expect them to display anything other than continued failure blanketed in self-aggrandizement, regardless of the integrity of the man at the top.

The point is this: Just because we have a changing of the guard, we are not exempt from our collective responsibility to monitor our elected representatives’ performance and deliver a response in kind. In fact, we need to be mindful of what our government will try to do to us, now more than ever — because it is a government whose revenue stream is eroding, thanks to the escalating recession.

Case in point: The report in various news outlets over the last few weeks that claim the federal government would like to raise the national gasoline tax to Europe-like levels — that’s a nearly 50% increase — and is also looking at new means of collecting revenue from drivers, in the form of GPS transponders. In layman’s terms, the government would like to keep track of how many miles you drive, where you go and when, so they can bill you accordingly. A pilot program for exactly this sort of thing is slated to begin this fall in the state of Oregon. In Great Britain, they’re considering a tax rate of US $2.44 per mile.

And why are the governments of the Western World attempting to foist this on us, at a time of economic catastrophe when many of us can least afford it? Because they’re upset and frightened at the loss of gasoline tax revenue brought about by — wait for it — the new driving habits of their constituents. In other words, because Americans got spooked by $4 and $5 gasoline, started driving less and buying more fuel efficient cars, the end result is that we’re collectively buying less gas, so the gas tax revenues are going down. The federal government uses that money to finance the upkeep and expansion of public roads and infrastructure, and that fund is running in the red.

So after bitching and moaning for months about how Americans need to stop wasting fuel and buy hybrids; after imposing a “gas guzzler” tax and creating incentives to buy more efficient cars; after setting chokingly strict new CAFE restrictions on the automakers; the federal government is now whining that they’re not getting enough money back from our sins, so they need to find some other sin to make money from.

Abso-fucking-lutely genius.

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

A Thai Thanksgiving

By Chief Oddball on November 27th, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Filed under Journal, Rants ··· 2 Comments

First off, to my American-based audience, which I suspect is the entirety of it: Happy Thanksgiving!

Obviously, there’s no Thanksgiving holiday in Thailand — that’s a uniquely American (and, OK, Canadian) tradition. Nevertheless, being an American in Thailand, and one who often cited Thanksgiving as one of his favorite occasions thanks to my love of turkey and mashed potatoes, the holiday is certainly on my mind. It was oddly surreal, an hour or so ago, as I watched the local CBS morning news broadcast on my Slingbox while I wrapped up the day’s work. There was all manner of talk about traveling weather, airport delays, how to avoid eating yourself into a coma, and so on. Even special turkey graphics on the five-day forecast.

Naturally, since there’s no Thanksgiving here, I figured I might as well work; it’s not like I have much else to do. Actually, I had originally planned to spend part of the day playing games on my new Xbox 360. That was always one of my private little Thanksgiving traditions, one that even my parents may not be aware of. I’d secretly relish getting up a little early in the morning on my day off from school, and indulge in playing my favorite computer games — Comanche, Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom or The Legacy: Realm of Terror — while my grandmother bustled busily about in the kitchen, and the delicious smells of roasting turkey and stuffing began to fill our home.

There’s not much roasting turkey around these parts; even Apple remarked thoughtfully that there’s no such thing as turkey in Thailand, as far as she knows. But there are plenty of family gatherings, smells of food cooking, and celebrations of other occasions. And there are also games, courtesy of my Xbox. As it turned out, though, I was unable to replicate that part of my personal Thanksgiving tradition, because this day got off to a particularly poor start and I spent most of the morning and afternoon trying to catch up.

It’s been an interesting couple of nights. I’ve been sleeping pretty well on this trip so far, thanks to the excellent accommodations here at the new house. Two nights ago, however, I had a particularly lousy sleep. I chalk it up to the wild and unsettling dreams, although from practically the instant I awoke in a cold sweat, I couldn’t remember anything about them. After that disjointed slumber, I hoped that the next (Wednesday night) would be an improvement, but it was even worse.

Last night, around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., I awoke to the fundamentally disturbing sound of a near-indescribable humming, whining…thing. It’s hard to describe exactly what it sounded like, so about the best I can do is to say that it reminded me of a tornado siren running on two almost-depleted AA batteries. It mostly held its pitch, but occasionally modulated a half-note up or down like some kind of diseased…thing. Really, it was quite unsettling at four o’clock in the morning.

Continue Reading…

Comments (2)

Truly Nolen: Truly Incompetent

By Chief Oddball on November 7th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Filed under Rants ··· Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, I had good things to say about Truly Nolen pest control. Now, I’m convinced that the only “true” thing about them is their felonious incompetence.

Edit: This post has been updated. Click here for the latest info.

Never have I been so incensed by a company in my entire life — not even with Comcast. Comcast irritates me, but they at least listen to me and I get the feeling that they’re trying to do their best with what they have. Truly Nolen, by comparison, seems almost willfully negligent, incapable of listening to or comprehending us, and perhaps even engaged in a campaign of double-billing customers in the hopes that they won’t notice. Can I prove the latter point? Certainly not, but after everything else I’ve been through, you can see how the theory might creep in.

When we discovered rats in our attic this past January, we weren’t quite sure where to turn at first. When I called Truly Nolen, who had been handling our pest control service for years, I was pleased to learn that they also did rodent control. We had to enter into a second agreement for rodent service, and prepaid for the entire year’s worth of quarterly trap checking and baiting (which netted us a 5% discount.) The quarterly charges consisted of $120 for three quarters — April, July and October — at $40 per quarter.

The trouble began in April. For our first quarterly service call — which takes the technician all of about five minutes, and which he does without even knocking on our door — we were billed $40. Obviously, since we’d paid for all three remaining quarters up front, this confused us. We called our local Truly Nolen office, which handles all of our billing, and they told us it was a billing error. “Oh, just forget about it,” they said.

So we did. Until July, when our Q3 service was done, and we were billed again. This time, when we called the local office, the customer service rep didn’t seem to understand the issue and would not waive the bill. My wife got into a verbal altercation with her until the manager was called on the line, at which point he said that the $40 charge “wasn’t worth losing a customer over” so he would forgive it.

Although that was the end result we wanted, I still felt dissatisfied. I didn’t want the charge waived because of some manager’s desire to retain a customer. I wanted it waived because we shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. But they could not understand that. It boggles my mind why they couldn’t look into our customer file and see the same carbon paper contract I myself am looking at, which clearly states 3 x $40 quarterly payments for a total of $120, already paid in full on January 29th of 2008.

Continue Reading…

Comments (0)

« Older Entries