Thanks for sending me all those great offers in the mail. Although I love shiny paper, please stop. The vast majority of the mailers I get from you are for deals that only apply to NEW customers. I am not a new customer. That bill you you also send me should be enough to tip you off.

At best, I throw your glossy adverts in the bin. Typically I do skim through them because the deals sound too sexy to ignore and I’m a big fan of heartbreak that is called Fine Print. You know what fine print is, right? It’s that little tiny-font paragraph that no one’s grandma can read without a magnifying glass. It always starts out with a sentence that sounds like “This offer applies to new residential customers only” or something like that.

You are wasting your money (which you don’t mind because you pass those expenses on to me) to tell me that you don’t care about your current customers and that you only concern yourself wooing people away from other services. I know you get discounts for mailing stuff out in bulk, but paper/printing costs + postage x a few million customers x thirty some adverts a year has to add up.

Oh but wait. Maybe you are sending me all those great offers that don’t apply to me because you think I will pass them on to friends. That idea might work, but there isn’t anything in it for me to do your footwork. No discount for me, no feel good moment, nothing…

Why not pretend you care and save money at the same time? It’s brilliant if you think about it. You annoy fewer customers and create less garbage and lower operating costs… All in one fell swoop. Considering sending all the New Residential Customer only deals out to existing customers is generating ZERO sales, it won’t hurt you to try.

Sincerely,

Existing Residential Customer

I’m pretty excited about the conference because there will be some well known people from the blogging and social media world there that I follow. It’s not that I’m all “OMG! Chris Brogan is a rock star! I wanna have Jason Fall’s baby!” It’s more of a “these guys are well respected in the real world for making the Internets the real world” and their blogs are very informative so I can imagine that they will share great info for people who pay.

Maybe I’m wrong. All the same, I’m more excited about this conference than pretty much all of the other work related conferences I’ve attended. The only thing I’m not so hot on right now is accommodations. Downtown Indy is cracked out on conventions/conferences during Blog Indiana.

With 30,000 extra people downtown just for GenCon (and more in the area for the state fair and the home preseason Colts game and Kelly Clarkson and 40 dozen other things), I still haven’t got my housing for the event set in stone. I’m only a little worried at this point.

I was trying to be clever and save some pennies by staying in a downtown area bed and breakfast instead the nearby hotels. Supposedly there was an available room for about 50% less than the hotels (inflated pricing for the events of course). I’m waiting to hear back to see if my reservation is an actual reservation or just a thanks for letting us see your credit card number…

The expo hall seemed to be about 1/8 of what GenCon 2008’s expo hall was. We stopped in early in the afternoon on Friday and either there were a lot of amazing games going on or everyone was still sleeping. That was a plus for me though because it made checking out things with my four year-old a lot easier.

We ended up buying all kinds of goodies. Most were clearance stuffs from different vendors. We did pick up Kids of Carcassonne because my son loved play testing it. We played a few other games there and checked out all the booths.

Going to Origins made me realize that I don’t want to skip out on GenCon this year like I was planning to. Even if it is to just head down on Sunday for a family pass, I still like to roam around the expo hall looking for deals.

Oh, and why I mentioned the 300 miles from home thing… I’m a dork (if you couldn’t tell from the previous bit about going to a game convention) so I snapped a picture while driving in Ohio.

OCW stands for Open Course Ware. A few years ago a group of schools joined a movement to help people get access to education. I know it isn’t the same as attending a university class, but in ways it might be better.

I attended a traditional well known university. It didn’t work. I attended a traditional tech school. It didn’t work. I attended “college” via online courses. It didn’t work.

I had very good SAT scores, was in the top whatever percent of my high school class, was accepted into a few public and private universities honors programs, etc. I can be a good student.

At times I can have the attention span of a gnat, I’m horribly stubborn when it comes who picks how I waste my time, I have trouble following through with things if I don’t see the merit in doing them and the prof can’t explain how it applies to a real world situation, etc. I can be a very bad student.

I know that I’ve gotten more out of a few of the classes I’ve watched/listened to via OCW than many of the classrooms I’ve sat in. Because I am only investing time in the classes (or in some cases just a few lectures from a class) I’m interested in, I am sure I pay more attention than I would be if it was just some class I was forced to take as a graduation requirement.

Of course, at the end of the class (or a 50 classes) I still don’t have an embossed and calligraphy covered paper to hang on the wall. The only part of that that bothers me is that it might bother potential employers.

If anyone cares, I’m currently browsing my way through Yale’s ECON 159 Game Theory class. I haven’t purchased the books yet. I might look into it though depending on how cheap I can find them…

Oh, and eventually I will compile a large list of links to all the OWC (and related) classes available online. After getting the list together, I’ll see what I can do about making it so you can search for subjects without having to head out and browse each university one by one.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a sign. It had more to do with this site being on Google’s front page for the search term “self educated” (quotes not required). I figure since I’m using up a slot that someone else is coveting, I probably should do something useful with it.

So accidental reader of this website, if you were searching for information pertaining to “self educated” what type of things would you like to see? I’m going to step up the frequency of my book reviews. I’m going to try to get more movie and music reviews. I’m also going to start hand picking quotes out of movies/books/music that I really like. I’m also going to talk a little bit about some of the educational resources that I’ve used (and/or still use) online.

If you are looking for something in particular, let me know.

I felt bad about the incident. Not so much that Bambi’s mom died… More so that my 3 year-old was riding in the vehicle at the time, booster seat on the driver side of the vehicle, close up witness to the snuffing out of woodland creatures and all that jazz. We weren’t injured. Three cheers for gas guzzlers.

Because of size of the vehicle and the fact that the deer was mid-air when we both attempted to occupy the same space, the impact seemed sort of like hitting a large pot hole. Except pot holes don’t usually Jackson Pollock my car with feces and other random stuff that is usually found inside a deer…

Oh and Jesus hates that vehicle, I swear. I just dropped around 800 in repairs to it two weeks ago. I’m guessing the deer damage will be more than that. At least this time the repairs will be offset by a deductible. The hood looks like a beer goggle worthy bar fly sat on it hard, the driver side fender is crushed, the grill and a couple of lights need replaced, but other than that everything can be fixed with a garden hose.

And in honor of the occassion, I found this lovely video…

If you are into shooting sports or follow news that shows up on 2nd amendment rights radar, you probably are already aware of what I’m talking about… Ammo has apparently turned into a collectible item. Big box stores like WalMart can’t keep it on the shelf. Gun shops are having the same problem unless they moved their pricing up.

My brother and I went to a range over the weekend to fire some rounds. The place we went has machine gun rentals. I guess though I should say that they had machine gun rentals. Because of problems getting ammo, they are for the time being not doing machine gun rentals. They also limit you to two boxes of ammo per customer. The lack of full auto play was a little disappointing, but it was still worth the drive out.

I think I’m in the market for a .40. The H&K USP Tacticals are great. They also run around $1000. Which means I’ll probably end up going with a Glock 23. From what I can tell, the G23 is a nice gun. It didn’t take long to get used to the sights and it’s easy to handle. The only downside that I know of is that I’ve heard some stories about them being a little riskier than other 40 cal hand guns with reloads.

Reloads void the warranty and I don’t shoot enough that I need to worry about reloads anyway. Of course if things keep going they way they are, reloads might be the only damn things you can find. I know when we walked in the range and started shooting, another shooter headed over to us to ask for our casings.

The call starts with a phony pre-recorded message about how it’s the 2nd and final attempt to contact me about extending my auto warranty and that it’s a bad idea to drive without a warranty. Then it tells you to press 1 to talk to a jackass or press 2 to pretend to have us remove you from our call list.

I like to press 1. Not that it matters. The “agent” answers by asking for the make and model of your vehicle. If you ask them pretty much any question, they will hang up immediately. The guy who I spoke with today hung up when I said I had two vehicles I was wanting to get extended coverage for… I was just saying that because I was hoping to reel them in a little before playing around with them.

They have used the following numbers to call my cell phone:
909-691-9104 (Woodcrest, CA – wireless provider?!)
404-537-0427 (Alanta, GA)
443-574-8441 (Ellicott City, MD)
603-214-3656 (Errol, NH)
202-527-6024 (Washington DC – wireless provider?!)
231-732-2334 (Morley, MI)
205-561-2815 (Tuscaloosa, AL)

People I know have reported getting calls from the above numbers and/or:
803-798-0305 (Columbia, SC)
626-207-9104 (Pasadena, CA – wireless provider?!)
256-261-7788 (Huntsville, AL)

For being a somewhat large organization that is breaking the laws, it’s quite amazing that they have lasted as long as they have. The douchebags, or some douchebags that sound just like them, were sued more than a year ago by the state of Missouri.

If you are getting calls from these shitbirds, let the FCC and the FTC know. You can file complaints if they call your cell phone or call your home phone if the number is listed on the do not call list. I’m pretty sure it’s reportable if you’ve asked them to remove you from their call list (which is pointless).

File a complaint with theFTC.

File a complaint with the FCC.

I don’t know if filing the complaints will do you any good (it hasn’t helped me as of yet), but it least it gives you a little something to point that rage at for a couple minutes while you stumble your way through those clunky government websites.

UPDATE: I posted this 5 hours ago and there has already been a large influx of hits coming in from google for those phone numbers. Apparently a lot of people are getting the same janky calls.

If anyone is interested in trying to get more info about the calls, try http://www.fonefinder.net. It’s a nice little tool that will tell you the city and provider of a phone number. Because of the number portability stuffs, I don’t know how reliable the provider information is. Also, there are ways to spoof your phone number….

To quote my childhood hero; knowing is half the battle. Of course in this case, the other half of the battle is probably surrendering.

I’m just wondering where Herb Weisbaum (AKA ConsumerMan of MSNBC) is on this? His old article is probably seeing a lot of new traffic thanks to the new flood of douchebaggery by what sounds like the same people (or someone using their model of scam). He finished his May 2008 article about this issue all hot and heavy with a “must be stopped and brought to justice.”

Update: Apparently US Senators don’t like getting robo calls about extended auto warranties.

Yet another update: Thanks to all that reported these asshats. They are being sued for the 1+ billion calls they have made. Unfortunately, the owners will likely flee with their cash and the robo call call center douchebags will be standing next auto workers in the unemployment line.

It was only sort of my fault this go around. I enrolled at a local branch campus of a tech school. They are extremely disorganized. For example, there were no books available until week five for one of my classes. Add another three or five days for shipping and you are six weeks behind schedule.

I foolishly signed up for 13 credit hours this semester. I took nine credit hours last semester without a problem. I know I know… It’s not like 13 credit hours is a lot. But I’m a working stiff. A salary man. My day job sometimes spills over into the night and an occasional weekend isn’t out of the question either.

I might give it another go in a few more semesters. I doubt it, but you never know. For now I’ve got a fancy office job and am doing well enough that the lack of a shingle isn’t hurting. With the economy like it is that might change, but school is a lot cheaper when your broke enough to apply for grants so I can wait for that day to happen.

If you blog and you aren’t a member, join BlogExplosion. If you are a member, I’d love to hear from you here or in the forums.

The forums have been spam free for a month. We are slowly seeing more users drop in and use the forums. Also, our daily traffic averages have just about doubled from where they were a month ago. Thanks to the very hard work of our half a dozen or so volunteers, approval times for new blogs has been cut from a sad 45 days down to much more reasonable 5 days.

I myself have found a number of great new blogs. When I have some more time, I’ll post about a few of my favorites. I’ve been able to fix up some troublesome code issues. I’m still discovering things here and there that need fixed but the site is definitely working better than it was a month ago. We are soon approaching the point where we can start working on bringing back some of the old discontinued features and/or looking at creating new features.