I’m going to rant a little on evite.com. 

But first I’ll recognize - it’s a free service.  You get what you pay for.  I understand that.  So I’m not really *bitching*, I’m ranting.  There’s a difference.  To me, “bitching” is when you’re griping and you don’t have a reason, a say, or a place to have the opinion or be vocal about the feedback.  “Ranting” is having an opinion, but not having the delusion that one is owed something.  When you “bitch” about something, you actually expect something to change and if it doesn’t, heaven help the bitchee. 

For the past two (2) weeks, Evite hasn’t been sending my recurring evitation reminders.  The invites are now set up as “drafts” for some reason… it started over 4th of July weekend and I just went through the 2nd week of my weekly Pool League evite reminders not being sent out.

Our event is for Wednesday nights.  The reminders are supposed to go out three (3) days before.  When I go check, the event shows up as a “draft”.  In fact, when I go back and check on previous weeks, I can see when it messed up

You can see in yellow that these invitations were sent 2-3 days before the event.  The last two, however, were sent on the day of the event because everyone was asking “what the heck is up with the emails” and I manually sent them out.

The second thing that’s screwed up with evite is all of it’s scripting, cookies, or processing that just makes it not work sometimes.  If you open up a case with them, their pat answer is “clear your cache, erase all your cookies, blahblahblah”.  Even so, the forms, editing fields, and various pieces just don’t seem to be stable.  It doesn’t matter if I’m on IE7, IE6, firefox or what computer I’m on… I seem to spend a lot more time than I should trying to get stuff to work.

Take this for example: When resending today’s evite, I tried to write in a little sumfin sumfin to say I’m sorry it’s late, yadda yadda, and look at the feedback I get on the screen.

I have 76 Characters remaining, but I’ve exceeded maximum text length.  Brilliant.

Well you know what?  I *did* exceed the maximum text length. I piped my text into wc (Unix tool that counts characters, lines, paragraphs, etc) and I have 57 words and 288 characters.

So I remove ~40 characters or so.  It still bombs.  I remove more.  It still complains.  I end up clicking “Save for Later” and it SENDS THE EVITE instead of saving for later.

And I still don’t know why it’s not sending my evites each week.

Two weeks ago, I was walking Luna like normal in the morning.  I usually walk about 1.25 miles (according to the “Distance Measurement Tool” I found on Google Maps)

For your convenience, I’ve marked with yellow all the places Luna marked with yellow.

On this given day, I notice half-way through that there’s a tipped over garbage can, a good half mile away from any houses.  It was half-empty and just on the side of the road.  I thought that was odd.

Later in the day I find out one of our trash cans is missing.  Gone.

Then later I find out other neighbor’s trash cans are missing.  After checking with our trash pickup provider, they said that several cans were reported missing in the area.

Combine this with multiple occasions where we’ve found all the mailboxes on the street opened up at the same time (as in, the mailbox doors are just sitting wide open and no mail inside), I’ve come to the belief that our neighborhood has been targeted by identity thieves.  This has only happened the night before our weekly trash pick-up day.

So my poll to the Internet is thus: what do you think my reaction should be?

1. Super-passive: not do a thing and try to understand why someone would steal my identity.
2. Semi-passive: not do a thing and hope the problem goes away.
3. Self-protective: start shredding my documents, and only put trash can out the morning of trash day instead of night before.
4. Semi-aggressive: report the violation and seek updates.
5. Pranksterish: put something really nasty in my trash so the people going through it go “ick!” and decide on new course in life.
6. Semi-evil: put something dangerous in my trash so the people going through it go “Gah!” and die.
7. Evil: Put trash out night before, then sit and wait on my property with a shotgun and be prepared to eliminate the problem

I’ve blogged about it before, and I annoyingly remind everyone in my sidebar everytime someone is nice enough to come by and visit.  The PepsiStuff promotion starts today!

So what are you waiting for?  An engraved invitation from Michael Jackson with his afro in flames?  Go and drink yourself some of the good stuff, save that cap, and email it on over!  Who knows what incredible gifts and karma-induced benefits will come your way?  I sure as heck don’t.  But better to err on the “safe” side, right?

I mean, come on, people.  Think of THE CHILDREN.  Won’t anyone THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!?!

(by the way, today I’m still without a working blackberry and my email is all whack-a-doo.  Do you have any idea how horrible it is for a technologist of my stature to be so disconnected?  We’re almost at 36 hours!!!)

Wait, no I mean HOO-RAY!

You’re familiar with MyCokeRewards, right?  That’s the little promotion thingy, like a frequent flier club for airlines, where drinkers of Coke products (and there are millions of them: Coke, Minute Maid, Dasani, Sprite, etc) can enter in codes, gain points, and then redeem them for fabulous prizes.  Ok, you can redeem them for craptabulous prizes.  Ok, you can’t really redeem them for anything but it’s nice to dream sometimes.

I started my rewards account a few years ago, deposited a few points here and there, and then basically forgot about it.  In fact, I just checked and it looked like I had 70 points, but in Jan 2007 they got removed due to inactivity.  Anyway, a few months ago, I started donating my reward codes to a “worthy cause”.  I’m pretty sure I’m making a house payment per month for this guy with the reward points I constantly send to him, so I’m unsure how he’s going to take this news.  Someone put him on the watch list.

Yes, I have some news, and it’s fanTASTic news for me.  I can’t wait for 2/1 to come because then I can start participating in my new retirement plan!  YES!  It’s like buying stock!

Like I wished for not too long ago, Pepsi has decided to launch their own rewards program!  HOO-RAY!

Here’s how I think it went down: millions of people read my blog, right?  Well, ONE of those millions knew a Pepsi exec.  That one went to one of their board meetings and said “hey, look guys.  Wayne drinks Pepsi but he’s buying Coke sometimes to help out this perverted retard out on the ‘net.  If we do our own rewards program, then he won’t buy so much Coke and Coke will feel the pain!  We will finally be ‘the mcdonalds’ of soft drinks!”

I already have my first code - I found it on a bottle I picked up this morning at Rudy’s Country Store and BBQ.  Then when I went online I found out that it doesn’t actually start until Feb 1st. 

I also was more than a little bummed to see all the disclaimers in the rules on the side (to be fair, I haven’t read MyCokeReward’s rules)

• Sweepstakes ends 11/15/08
  What?  why is there an end date?!??!!?  I want to be able to rack up points!
• Limit 3,000 points per account
  EXCUSE ME?!?!?!   You want me to drink as much as possible, but then you want to limit me?  Well, I can’t wait to see what 3000 points gets me…
• Must be 13 years old or older
  OH GREAT.  Now I have to be a specific AGE… oh wait.  I’m older than 13.  whew.  I thought I was takin’ it from the man again with yet another oppressive rule.

Hmm, I just had a thought.  Maybe the person who ran the Coke rewards program left Coke, went to Pepsi and started it over there… and he decided to mix it up a little and add all these little rules.  We’ll see where this goes…

For me, *I* know where this is going to go.  I’m going to shamelessly beg PepsiStuff codes from you.  Yes, YOU!  If you drink a Pepsi product, and it has a Pepsistuff code on it, and you don’t want to keep it for yourself, please email it to me.

Help me find out what happens when someone hits the 3,000 point limit.  Help me break from the status quo.  Help me, help you!  SHOW ME THE MONEY CODES!

I’m all for advances in technology, especially when it makes a job easier, or eliminates unnecessary aspects of tedium.  And I understand concepts such as efficiency when it comes to contact centers - the more customers you can handle in a shorter period of time, the less expensive it is.

But I still haven’t had a good online chat experience.  Here’s today’s example, with an catalog company called Personal Creations:

The time between “personal shopper is joining you now” and “you are now chatting with Sarah” was a good 3 minutes.  The time between “it is probably best” and “thank you goodbye” was about 1.5 seconds.

The issues I have with this:

1. She assumes I’m looking for an approximate shipping date.  Maybe this is because she COMPLETELY IGNORED MY REQUEST.  She probably had other steamy instant messages going on with her prison pen pals in another window and I was interrupting.
2. I didn’t get to explain my issue.  Maybe she was doing her nails and only uses the mouse, no keyboard.
3. I didn’t get to complain about the bad service.  After the “chat session has ended” I couldn’t do anything - not send another line, not give feedback, not call a supervisor, nothing.  How can I rip someone a new one if they’re not there?

Thanx for nothing, Personal Creations!  We’ll see if we spend our hundreds and hundreds of holiday dollars with you next time.

Oh, and on top of that, I call the number, wait for 10 minutes and when they answer the first thing they tell me is that if I placed the order within the last two hours, I have to WAIT two hours for the order to be in their system.  I let them know that I can view the order fine on the web site, but she assures me that she can’t do anything for two hours.  Oh, and if I want to make a change, I have to call before the end of the day, because once it’s in the warehouse, there’s no changing.

How many of you are still banking with a bank? 

(GASP)

*THAT* Many?!?!?!?

Look folks, you need to RUN, don’t walk, and join a local credit union.  I’m amazed at how often I hear of friends, family members, and friendly neighborhood superheroes I know who still put their money in a bank.

EWWWWWWW! 

If you need just ONE good reason, it’s this: a bank is for-profit.  A Credit Union is non-profit.  Unless you’re an owner or an investor at the bank, there’s absolutely no reason for you to give them your money.  You’re just making someone else money.  Conversely, when you’re a member of a Credit Union, *you* are part owner of the bank.  *You* get the profits.

There are many other benefits:

• You probably will get much better loan rates for cars, houses, consolidation loans, boats, etc.
• There’s a good chance  you’ll get a better rate on investment, like CD’s, checking accounts, etc.
• You’ll probably be able to avoid a ton of fees commonly associated with banking.
• If the credit union makes a lot of money, you get it back, either in the form of lower rates or an actual refund.  I remember one time back before 2000 that for  three years in a row, our credit union gave back $5 million to it’s members.  I personally got about a thousand dollars in the form of cash back, refunds on interest paid on loans, etc.
• The employees are fantastic.  They’re nice, courteous, professional, funny, and really good folk to do business with. 

I’ve been a Credit Union member since 1994 when I started work at Motorola in Austin, and have always been pleased with my decision to move from a regular bank to a credit union.  They’ve always been there for me for car loans, investments, and an extreme lack of fees that would normally eat up into my cash.

I also wanted to give shout-out to Malinda and Monica at the Parmer branch of TruWest credit union - your smiling faces always make my day better; thank you!

I hate it when people get my hopes up and then they’re dashed in an ohnosecond.

Ok, some background first.  I own a few domain names that sound cool but are not trademarked.  I liken it to buying up real estate on the Internet.  I don’t take people’s names like the cybersquatters do, like taking cocacola.com and then trying to sell it to the Coke company.  Some examples include kikkitt.com, cheapyo.com, great-game.com, beebabies.com, dahits.com, etc.  These are names that might be of interest to myself or others later on, so I’m investing in that phrase’s ability to make money later.  For now, I’ve parked the domains at sedo.com (click on any of them for an example) to maybe make some money for paid searches and stuff (like Google AdSense).

I get an email from someone interested in purchasing one of my domains.  Read more in the extended entry below if interested in knowing more about domain scamming.

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Note: this was an ongoing blog entry I started some time ago. 

I’m starting a new color diet on Monday, January 29th, 2007.  Some of you who know me may be thinking “what the heck?” when you read more about what this color diet is, but hear me out.  I’m writing an entry about it because it’s pretty substantial, and we’ll find out if it’s any good or not.  Therefore, this blog entry started long before it was published.  I may start publishing somewhat into the project, or I may wait until the end.

The general idea is from Linda Goodman’s book “Linda Goodman’s Star Signs“.  Linda Goodman is an interesting astrologer who wrote many good books some time ago.  Some of her theories are a little out there (fairies, etc) but who knows; time may tell that she’s right on with those too.  She’s considered one of the top astrologers of all time by those who agree with her.

According to Goodman, the “color diet” consists of getting one’s aura back in balance.  She states that people who are underweght (the ’skinnies’) have too much red/yellow in their aura and the overweight people (the ‘plumpies’, me in this case) have too much blue/green in their aura.  The plumpies are to work on re-balancing their aura to have less of a blue/green saturation and get more red/yellow/orange spectrum into their aura. 

On the face of it, it does make some logical sense. Red/yellow indicates more activity, maybe a higher blood pressure, and a better metabolism by using more energy to convert the food we eat into usable energy.  Blue and green, on the other hand, indicate to me a more sedentary style, or to just lay back and relax.  Think about it - what do the fattest things on earth eat?  Cows, whales, rhinos, elephants, etc… all eat greens, blues, and darkish foods.  Bees, on the other hand, eat honey.  Monkeys eat bananas.

So there are three primary concepts in changing your aura to have more red/yellow/gold in it - 1) daily color light therapy, 2) drinking solarized water, and 3) eating foods from the red/yellow/gold/orange spectrum and staying away from green/blue-based food.  If you want more info about the specifics, I’d recommend buying the book.  But this blog entry here is about my personal experience with the color diet.  Read the massively extended entry for all the details.

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http://riaalawsuits.us/elektra_santangelo/transcript050506.txt

Interesting part: