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2008-03-07 - $9,630,000,000 in Profit

$9.63 billion in profit. 2007 was a record year for the movie industry, despite any “piracy” that might have gone on. This is a company that has cried wolf over and over again about how the internet is slaughtering their business model. This is a company who has blamed college students for their loses and then posted numbers that they tripled the correct number.

This is a company that bombards us with advertising that attempts to put a face on people they think I am paychecks from. Of course the only time we see these commercials is before a movie that we paid to see. They’ve supposedly trained dogs to smell counterfeit DVDSs. They’ve attempted to have laws passed that would take away federal funding to schools that don’t actively check on the files that their students are accessing online.

I hop they have time to think about how little the internet has done to hurt their profits while they drive away in their Brinks trucks.


2008-03-04 - Things That Make Me Hate America: David Motari

I have three dogs of my own, and in each of their stories the words “kill shelter” or “death” are involved. The video that surfaced of a marine throwing a puppy over a rocky cliff have disturbed me to a level that I did not think I could be disturbed.

I don’t care what you think about the ongoing United States military efforts around the globe. That was disgusting and I believe that if he was wiped clean from the earth it would be a better place.

I think that comments from Digg will say it best…

David Motari MUST DIE- PUPPY KILLER

In case you were wondering where to send the candy-grams:

David Mortari
24419 Florence Acres Rd
Monroe, WA 98272-9662
Phone: (360) 794-7191


2008-02-24 - Maxim reviews the new Black Crowes disc without hearing it

Apparently this actually happened and the review was printed in this month’s Maxim magazine. Gawker has the coverage of the review, the band’s’ response and the magazine’s response to the band’s response. After a few months in the publishing industry I understand how frustrating trying to get review copies of big releases can be, but this is kind humorous. They reviewed the record as being of moderately good quality but less than excellent (my definition of 2.5 out of 5).

I wonder if they would have given a shit if Maxim reviewed it with a four out of five or a five out of five.


2008-01-25 - AT&T’s bad iPhone math

Recently, Amber bought an iPhone. I was the one tasked with figuring out the billing. I went into an AT&T store with a willingness to give AT&T my money to add a second line to my account. What I walked out with was a headache.

I have a wireless account with AT&T, the billing is straightforward.

Equation A:
$39.99 voice plan + $20.00 unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages) = $59.99

For the sake of this conversation, I won’t include the $15 of fees and taxes that I’m charged on a monthly basis.

I went into the store to add Amber’s shiny new iPhone to my current iPhone plan. I was told by one of the worst salesperson ever that they normally charge $9.99 for an additional line, but because we were both going to have iPhones, AT&T would also charge a second $20.00 fee for unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages). That’s reasonable, because I don’t expect to get an iPhone plan for $10.00 a month.

In theory this works out to be:

Equation A ($59.99) + $9.99 second line + $20.00 unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages) = $89.98

$90 monthly for two iPhones seems like a pretty good deal. Too good. Here’s the actual math she used:

Line 1 [Equation A ($59.99) + $20.00 unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages)] + Line 2 [$9.99 second line + $20.00 unlimited data (and 200 SMS messages)] = $109.99

Look carefully and you see three $20.00 charges for unlimited data and SMS messages. I don’t know why AT&T couldn’t just come out and say “You get $10 off the second line when you add it to your account” in this situation. Instead she introduced a third fee for data. Eventually, she gave up on the idea of math and got a flier about pricing (it was in Spanish… oh dios mio!) and told me it would be $109.99 monthly.

Confused? I sure was. To make matters worse, I was given a flier in Spanish and a business card with some kind of indecipherable chart on the back of it to remind me of the shoddy math that she had used in the store.

ps. If you’re one of those hip people who speak Spanish, do use the phrase ODM instead of OMG?

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