Okay here is my rant for the day.

I am sick and tired of calling businesses and having the automated system ask me for an account number, phone number, or any other piece of information, only to finally reach a real person and have them ask me for the same thing. If your automated system asks me for it, that should be it. Why are you asking me twice? If the live agent can’t see the info I enter into the automated system, WHY DOES IT ASK ME FOR IT?

Yesterday I had to call both Bell and a government office. Both systems asked me for info (one was my phone number, the other my social insurance number) and in both cases, I had to repeat the info to the live agent.

I told my wife that I was going to bitch about this in my blog today and her comment to me was:

“I don’t even bother, I just hit ’star, star, pound, star, zero, star, pound’ till I eventually get a real person.”

I think I will have to take up that technique cause it seems to work for her.

There are some companies out there who do the job a bit better though. For instance, when I call Mazda to book my car in for servicing, their call display pulls up my account info before they answer the phone.  They usually answer “Hi Scott, calling to schedule servicing?” or some other comment relevant to my account. I like that, makes believe that they remember me and care (even if it is an illusion).

Not too long ago the provincial Government announce the launch of the HST (Harmonized sales tax) which is to be put into place later this year. This tax came as a surprise to most, and for the vast majority, most people are seriously ticked off about it.

The new HST will also show all restaurant bills jump up from the previous 5% tax up to 12% tax. That’s an additional 7% on all food purchased in restaurants.

People are fed up.

A petition has been started at www.NoMealTax.ca . I urge you to visit the site, and if you agree, sign the petition. As of the writing of this article 164,315 people have signed the petition so far.

Last year I put up a post (I Don’t Care What They Say – Merry Christmas), asking if readers would be offended if someone wished them a happy holiday for a holiday they did not celebrate. Out of 180 voters, only  6 voters said that yes, they would be offended.

I wanted to re-introduce this poll to see if any new voters/readers out there would like to cast their opinion here.

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I celebrate Christmas. Its my favorite time of year. I would like to say Merry Christmas to people I come across, and send “Merry Christmas” emails to my clients, but because there are a few out there who are offended by this, I am reduced to saying a generic “Happy Holidays”.

If someone came to me and wished me a Happy Hanukkah, or any other holiday greeting for something I don’t celebrate, I would never be offended, in fact, it would probably put a smile on my face.

I was at the Home Depot looking for a Christmas Tree stand, and when I asked an employee where I could find one, he quickly developed a sour look on his face and said “I don’t Celebrate Christmas, I think they’re over there somewhere” and he pointed in the general direction. Are you kidding me? You don’t celebrate it, but that doesn’t give you a right to be rude to me about it – especially when I am looking for a product that you sell!

Why can’t we all just get along.

Well the contest has closed and the winners were announced. Before I go on with my rant, I do want to congratulate the two winners. Out of all the videos submitted I do actually believe that theirs were in the top 5 for sure. The winner “Captain Kirk” I thought very early on had a strong chance of winning, and I do believe that he was a good choice for the grand prize winner.

But here are my complaints.

The rules stated that the grand prize winner would be chosen by a panel of judges from the top 10 videos with the most votes. Second place would be determined by the video with the most votes.

Well, it seems that for some reason the judges scrubbed ALL the votes resulting in a score of zero for all videos. They then chose the grand prize winner out of ALL videos, not just the top 10. Kirk was somewhere in the mid-teens in terms of his position.

If for some reason they deemed the voting system to be flawed and as a result resent it, then fair enough, but then why was the second grand prize winner chosen based on votes, should he not have also been chosen by the judges review? Perhaps he was, but there is simply nothing stated about this… Read the rest of this entry »

This is just a brief review, my opinion, of Monopoly City Streets. I know I have missed a bunch of stuff that I wanted to say when I first thought of writing this, but here goes anyways.

When I first heard about Monopoly City Streets I was interested and looked forward to giving it a try. After the first couple days of chaos with the site being down and simply not operational, Hasbro finally got their you know together and the system started to run smoothly – but not without issues.

The issues in the game have brought me to the point where I have completely stopped playing, and have permanently turned my back on the game.

Here are the reasons I stopped playing after such a short while:

Glitches in Game
I had an offer from another player to purchase my best street. When I clicked on the offer I was never given an decline/accept option, the link merely took me to the street. After 7 days (had I kept playing) the user would have automatically got my street as I had no way to decline the offer. All offers are automatically accepted after 7 days if no action is taken.

Bonus Buildings and Hazards.
In the rules it states the bonus buildings protect streets from hazards and bulldozers, however, other players can still bulldoze your bonus buildings, a contradiction to the unclear rules. On my biggest money making street, I had a bonus building, and the next time I logged back in that building had been destroyed and several hazards had been placed on my street.

The only way to remove a hazard is to bulldoze it via luck of the draw and collecting the proper chance card. Getting chance cards is completely random, and I went a few days without any bulldozer cards (and I needed 3 of them). This frustration made me say, screw it, I just wont play any more. After all, why on earth would I spend my time playing a frustrating game, there is no point, I’ll spend my time doing something that doesn’t annoy me.

If the bonus building bulldozer issue is a glitch, then it needs to be fixed, or if this is supposed to be allowed, it should be clarified in the rules. In my opinion, that bonus building should keep the street safe forever, period.

Cheaters
After only a few days, there were people with literally trillions of dollars, yet they owned little to no property – this is simply not possible with out cheating, and unless these holes are filled by Hasbro, I see no point in playing a pointless game.

Here are a few of my suggestions

• My wife had an idea that I kinda of agree with – rather than getting rent income automatically from the bank each day, why not have rent taken from competitors. Every day each player could randomly be sent to a random street (either globally, or locally) and required to pay rent on that street to the competitor. This would make the game a bit more like actual monopoly.
• Make those bonus buildings immune to bulldozers
• Stop the cheaters – not sure how, but find a way, they ruin the game
• Change the “offer” system so that it actually works, when the “decline” option does not show itself, it is incredibly frustrating
• Add a “search for user” option within the leader board, rather than just the top 10.

So that in a nutshell is why I am no longer playing Monopoly City Streets. Some of you may think I am just a baby, and should suck it up – games need hazards etc. Sure, that’s true – to a point, but when it comes as far as to become frustrating, why bother? Life is too short – games are supposed to be enjoyable -  a way to escape and think about something other than the grind of every day life – when the game starts to frustrate me more than everyday life does, its just time out of my life that I could be spending out on the golf course, kayaking, or simply spending quality time with my family. As Eric Cartman would say, “Screw you game, I’m going home”.

I follow a lot of people on twitter, and that number is growing – well over 5000. Currently about 5100 follow me back. Some of accused me of being a twitter spammer, so I thought I would take a moment to explain why I choose to follow so many people.

It’s really quite simple. I like random stuff and tidbits of information. Now that I follow such a large number of people, every time I log on I see something different and unique – I really never know what I am going to find. Everything I read is from someone with a random lifestyle in a random part of the world. You see a lot of different perspectives.

I don’t consider mass following to be spam, quite simply because, I don’t ask for anything in return. Some people follow me back, some don’t. Either way that’s fine. I also don’t consider it spam because I am not messaging everyone pushing a product or service – the only time I DM or @ people is if I have something of interest to say related to their tweets. The DM’s I get from people saying “buy my book” or “visit my site” I tend to unfollow, unless their message has some meaning to me directly related to something I tweeted or commented on.

So, if you are one of those who think that I am a spammer, it’s simple, don’t follow me. I contribute, and try to be an active member in the twitter community – so I just don’t see me as a spammer.

If you were given two options which would you pick:

1. Get shot with a hand gun
2. Get shot with a taser

If you like me, you’d probably pick the tazer, granted, neither would be much fun. With the options of bullet ripping through my body, with an end result most likely being death, compared to being electrocuted with the end result most likely being life – I pick taser!.

I am so entirely sick of people complaining about the use of tasers – its all over the news these days, but tasers are a good thing. Look at all the criminals who have been stopped dead in their tracks with a taser, who otherwise would have been shot and likely killed… hmm… criminals killed, perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing?

When an officer is in danger, and he tazes someone to stop the attack, he gets criticized over its use. Now, what are the alternatives… He could do nothing and let the criminal attack and maybe kill him, or he could fire a bullet in his ass.

Hello people! Tasers, while they have their risks etc, are far more human than shooting someone.

The next time you hear about someone being tazed and want to complain, ask yourself, what if that were a bullet.

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P.S. I am not sure if it is “taSer” or “taZer”. Pretty sure its taSer, although I see it being used both ways. Which version do you use?

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I have to say I do watch my fair share of reality television. I am not a true Survivor fan, I miss it now and then, but for the most part I do tend to watch this show, and enjoy it. As for most of the others out there, I can do without them, the Bachelor can go away, I can’t stand it. When my wife has Americas Next Top Model on, I leave the room I dislike it so much. The only reality show that I do try to watch each and every week is the Amazing Race, My wife got me into this one, and now I can’t miss it.

My wife is also into the Biggest Loser. This is one of those shows that I don’t mind watching, but would never turn it on if it was just me alone with the TV. I watch it because my wife likes it and I don’t mind it, but it is not something I would choose. The problem with most reality shows, especially with the Biggest Loser, is the recaps they do after each and every commercial. Why do they feel it is necessary to recap everything that happened right before the commercial break, including a full repeat of at least a minute of the show! Hello, I JUST watched this. Why must they repeat themselves, why all the filler? Sooooo annoying.

Really the only part of the biggest loser that I find interesting is the final weigh-in at the end of each show. I am truly amazed at the amount of weight these people can lose in such a short time, it really is incredible. Last night, before revealing the weight of the final contestant, the show was “to be continued”. Give me a break – the show was already 2 hours long, and now you have to wrap it till next week?? Why not just cut some of the filler! Its things like this that make me want to boycott the show.

There seem to be more and more of these reality shows popping up, and then the networks go and cancel well written shows like “Life on Mars”, but that’s another blog post all together.

The last time I checked it was the end of February – Boxing day is about 10 months away, but still, for some stupid reason, The Brick has their “Boxing Day” sale on now! What the F is that all about?

It’s NOT Boxing day! Hello Brick, get real already. Cant you wait till October like you usually do – sure its not boxing day then either, but at least its within a couple months.

Save the Boxing Day sale for Dec 26 – if you want to have a sale in February, call it a Valentines sale, or February sale, or “it’s almost spring” sale, or something.

You’re as bad as Walmart – putting up their Easter display on February 15th.

When you are eating dinner and the phone rings, do you answer it? I know some people that don’t, but I for some reason, do – and in most cases will talk with the person, at least briefly, interrupting my dinner. The telephone interrupts my favorite TV programs, family time, work hours, and sleep. – it’s really a nuisance.

Sure I could unplug it, or turn off the ringer – but then how would people call me? I am learning to hate this device, but the reliance on it, and all technology has me hooked. I can’t even leave home without my cell phone – what if something happens, I have to have my phone with me. I hardly ever use our cell, but yet it follows me everywhere. What’s going on with this world? It’s almost like the telephone is a virus we can’t escape. When it rings I think, “Ah crap, who is it now.”

I am constantly checking my email, and spend probably half my life sitting in front of a computer or television. Sure I work on the computer, so that’s an easy 8 hours a day – but why must I watch TV, or use my laptop during my free time. I am sure that all this technology is causing mass tumors to grow in my brain.

My favorite part of vacations is that we often go to places without telephones. We’ll hit up Pacific Village in Tofino once a year – beach front cabins without TV’s, radios, or telephones. I leave my cell turned off, and watch in the car. Complete isolation from technology. Those vacations are the best times of my life. No email, no phone calls, no commercials telling me I need to call Sam. (That lawyer guy in Michigan – you know the jingle: “You can talk to Sam. 1-800-call Sam”. Grrr. Go away Sam Bernstein.).

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to a land before all this dependence on technology – but then how would I watch Judge Judy?

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