Best Buy - Finally!

Usually I do nothing but complain on "All That Bugs."

In fact, it's been so easy in the past to just complain about Best Buy being a horrible store. They have been infamous for inventing the restocking fee, dragging out the repair game as long as possible before giving you a replacement product, and they never EVER answering their phones.

I would always hate going down there and finding out they didn't have what I needed.

As a blogger it is my responsibility to also inform you when something has been improved.

I called Best Buy yesterday. I was looking for a Linksys print server so my wife's laptop could print from anywhere in the house. Cassandra answers and asks if she can help me. She answered in 3 rings. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. They never pick up their phones.

Cassandra tells me that the computer is showing two print servers in stock. She takes down my cell number and says that she will call me back. She physically went to check to see if they were really two available before making me drive all that way for nothing.

A few minutes pass and I get a call from Cassandra telling me that my product was left at the service desk with my name on it. As soon as i walked in, I can cashed out. I was so blown away.

Did Best Buy answer their phone in three rings with a real voice?
Did Best Buy pull my product off the shelf and call me back to confirm.
Did Best Buy have it waiting for me when I walked through the door? YES!

Cassandra explained that Best Buy now has a new phone system and that every call will be answered by a person.

I told her that if this service remains, I would become one of their best customers.

Best Buy impressed me so much, I picked up a Playstation 3 while I was there. It's the only way I could show them my appreciation. :-)

Hell No - We Won't Go.

I can remember the exact day I had my movie revelation.

I was on a date night with my wife, Tammy. We are standing in line at AMC movie theater to see Bad Boys 2 and at that moment I realized it cost me $22 to get in.

I then asked Tammy if she wanted something from the snack bar while we were waiting to be let into the theater. it seem that it takes 5 teenagers 20 minutes to clean the theater and still there is crap on the floor, but that is another post.

I was about ready to buy a large coke for $5 and a popcorn for $5 and a box of candy for $2.50. This would have brought my date night to a total of $34.50.

Then it hit me. Why am I paying $34.50 to watch a movie that I am going to pay $14.95 for the DVD at Circuit City in 5 months.

So now I have to make a choice. I can pay $34.50 to watch a movie and walk out with nothing or pay $14.95 and own the movie FOREVER and play it as much as I want for my friends and family. Hmmmmm........This truly was a no brainer. We got a refund on our tickets and we will never go back.

Even if I hate the movie when I buy it on DVD I still saved $19.55 with an option of trading it in to the video store for credit or selling it on Ebay.

In addition, Hollywood has been putting out crap movies for years. I see better writing on TV. Why would I pay that much money to see a movie and walk out with nothing in my hand. That's like going through the Mcdonald's drive-thru and ordering a Big Mac. Once you pay for your food the guy in the window holds up the burger so you can see it, but never gives it to you. Then you drive home.

Stop wasting your money at the movie theater. Especially since Apple TV will be delivering movies in HD to your home for as low as $4.99. That' right $4.99 HD movies. Of course, that's another post.

The top 3 things not to do on a blog

I have been reading a lot of blogs. Most are either too long, no pictures, or just plain self serving.

If you are thinking on doing a blog here are three things you should never do:

1. never do stuff like "The top 3 things......" or "The 10 best reasons...." or any countdown stuff like that. Everyone's doing them and it's a cop out. Yes it will get you on digg.com and yes it will get you on del.icio.us and you might make lots of money off it, but it's just not right.

2. never use the words "Critically Acclaimed" to describe you or your blog postings. These words are protected and solely used to discribe TV and Movies. The entertainment industry owns the rights to these words and unless your posting about a new critically acclaimed series on TV, don't use these words.
By the way, what does "Critically Acclaimed" really mean?

3. Lastly, don't ever tell people you have 3 things to write about when you only have two. It's better to just change the title of your blog to "The top 2 things not to do on a blog"

4. and NEVER EVER add more than what you say. you might lose the attention span of your reader.

Honestly though, if you want to have a successful blog there are only two things that truly make a blog successful. QUALITY and QUANTITY of your blog. You must write something worth reading and you must keep growing your blog. The more topics you post the higher the chance of popping up on Google. If the blog is good, the people will come.

Don't believe anything else you read. :-)

Cell Phone Hell

How would you feel if you paid to ride the bus and as you were getting off, the bus driver told you that you needed to pay again?

How would you feel if you mailed your mom a package and as the mailman hands your mom the package, he asks for her to pay the postage, again?

How would you feel if you placed a call to your buddy on your cell phone and the phone company deducted minutes from your phone plan and also deducted minutes from your buddy's phone plan?

Oh wait.......that really happens. The cell phone companies always double bill.

let's try this again.

How would you feel if your satellite or cable TV blacked out in the middle of watching American Idol. let's do one better. How would you feel if American Idol blacked out the same time every week?

You wouldn't put up with that. You would fight the TV company to have it fixed.

So why do you settle for your cell phone calls to be dropped in the same spot driving home from work or passing the school or traveling on the toll road. We all know these spots as dead zones. We continue to call people back or even hang up quickly knowing we are going into a dead zone. How pathetic is that?

How many times have you put up with this crappy service and not complained once? Do you realize how bad cell phone service is and how much money they are making off of this bad service?

Do you know that the cell companies charge you for text messaging? Do you know that a text message is just a blip of information. One little blip that can cost up to $0.25 per blip. Oh.....and by the way.... they charge the person receiving the text message, too. What a shock!

Do you realize that a 10 second ring tone of a song is $2.99 and yet you can get the entire song on iTunes for $0.99?

I went to the hardware store last night and bought a magnifying lamp for $6.99. The store offered me a protection plan. Can you believe it. A protection plan for a stupid $6.99 lamp. I just bought the new $299 Blackberry 8800 with AT&T and they have no protection plan available for any of the Blackberry phones. What a rip! I could feel the new phone breaking in my hand as I walked out of the store.

If you think about it long enough, it's embarrassing that we have put up with this money scam called the cell phone industry.

I have blogged on it before and I will pray for it again. Google Phone (Gphone) is coming. I have heard that it will shake up the cell phone industry by giving us unlimited minutes, emails, internet, and texting for one low price. I hope Google is our savior from cell phone hell.