Netflix's Customer Service Box

Dear Netflix, please let me out of your little customer service box.

I hooked up the PS3 streaming disc as was watching a movie. One of my PS3 controllers was low on battery after an extremely long session of "Demon's Souls" which is almost impossible to pronounce correctly. Go on try it and remember, apostrophe 's' and plural.

Anyway, I plugged the cable into the PS3. The controller wasn't actually connected to the cable which may or may not matter. The result; however, was the PS3 shut off. Is this a problem related to the PS3 or Netflix. I dunno but I thought I would report it to Netflix. ...only I can't.

Netflix's website insists on pre-defining your customer service experience. There is no way for you to actually enter an issue they haven't expected you to have.

Let's start with even trying to report an issue with streaming through the PS3. The only options you are allowed to have are:

• The disc arrived broken
• The disc is scratched or unplayable
• I received the wrong disc
• I have lost the disc, and need a replacement
• I haven't received the disc

Absolutely nothing about any problem you having with the service itself, not even an option for "other."

What if I went to the section to report a problem with the movie? That doesn't work either; because, the only options that come up are to report problems with movies that I already watched. The movie that I was in the middle of watching isn't listed.

What if I decided to go off the sidewalk, and just report the problem with the movie I failed to watch by selecting one I did watch, did not have a problem with, but is on the list that I am allowed to choose from? I could just explain that this wasn't the movie I was having a problem with and detail my problem, right? Nope, because there is no way to explain the problem again, only pre-defined choices:

Please tell us if you experienced any of the following problems. (Check all that apply)
• Audio did not match the picture/was out of sync
• Parts of the audio were missing or cut-off
• No subtitles on a foreign language film
• Picture was blurry
• Picture was unwatchable or missing
• Wrong movie/TV episode started playing
• Unexpected pauses/frequent stops and starts

There is a continue option at the bottom, and from the way it words the question, leads me to believe I don't have to select any of those options and can go onto the next page where I can actually tell them about my problem. Nope. You press continue, even without selecting a single problem from their list, and you get, "Thanks for your input. We will investigate and resolve the problems as soon as possible."

Good to hear, glad their on top of things.

Though to be fair, I am enjoying my Netflix subscription and really haven't had any other problems. Now that I'm working again, I have even increased my disc limit to two DVDs at a time. I really can't believe all the good, new TV shows that came out and you people let get canceled while I was in Australia. Shame on you.

I Break Things

Things don’t work for me, mostly electronic / computer type things. Unless somebody is watching. I may have mentioned that before, but this is a story of what my evening has been like.

I got one of the new Xbox 360 Wireless ‘N’ Network adapters. It is brand new, ordered from Amazon and shipped the day it was released. I put the Driver disc in my new Xbox 360 as instructed and it doesn’t install any drivers. It just tells me it is a “Mixed Media Disc” with only the option to eject it. I popped it into the computer and I can see the files on it just fine. But I am told that just popping it into the 360 should start running the driver install process.

I went to the Xbox website. They don’t even list the new wireless adapter on the site. I filled out an email service request form. When I pressed submit, it told me that nothing matched my search. I am sure I wasn’t filling out a search. Luckily, when I pressed the back button my data was still in all the fields. When I pressed submit again it went through. I gave me an email service request number, but oddly enough didn’t send me one of those generic “We have received your service request and somebody will answer you soon” generic emails. It has been 24 hours and no response, they not work weekends?

I decided to see if I could Google some information. I found an article on the new adapter on Tom’s Hardware. Mostly the comments section was divided between the people who were going off about how Microsoft and the Xbox suck and those people who just thought the adapter was way to expensive. I posted a comment… I know, I know. But that isn’t the point, and please don’t bring up the Xbox/PS3 debate or even how expensive the wireless adapter was. I needed one for reasons that are none of your business, and that isn’t the point of this.

The point is that Tom’s hardware lets you make the comment and then just asked for you user name and an email address. It then sends the follow email:

Thank you for your participation in Tom's Hardware!

You have less than 48 hours to register with your Username and Email Address.

Username : "XXXXXXXX"
Email : "XXXXXXXXXX"


To register, please click on the link below:
http://www.tomshardware.com/membres/#registerForm

If you don't validate your account within 48 hours, your Username and Email Address will be automatically deleted.

Tom's Hardware Team

------------------
This email is generated automatically; replies are not read. To contact us, please use the contact form on the site.

You can see the link isn’t tied to my email address as a confirmation or anything. I just takes me to their registration page which gives me two options: “Sign up for free by clicking 1” and “Already member.” You’ll note that both of those don’t actually make sense.

I suspect the first should be reworded to “Sign up for free!” and then have another title that says, “New Member.” he second one is missing the article and should be, “Already a member.”

Anyway, I fill out the first one. It tells me, “The email address is already in use.” If I click on the “Already member” option it asks for a username and password, which I don’t have. I try entering what I would have as a user name as password if I did have one, but that didn’t work. The window has its own “Not a Member” link but when I try to fill it out, it keeps telling me that my email in the two fields (you know, the standard thing where they make you type it twice just in case) don’t match. I copy and pasted them in making sure there were no extra spaces screwing it up and even reloaded the page and tried it again from scratch.

Finally, I go to the recover account information and enter my email which it tells me does not exist in their database.

I can’t find the “contact form on the site” which the email mentions but does not link to.

So, is it just me or is it Tom’s Hardware that is fubar? I am willing to believe it is just me; because as I've said, this stuff happens to me all the time!

So in the end I’m going back to playing Demon's Souls on my PS3.

Joining the Jet Set crowd

So it looks like I have procured gainful employment and am joining the work force again. The jet set gang over at Jet Set Games have decided they wanted their office adorned with my Homestar Runner figures. That means they have to pay me to show up every day and dust them.

Jet Set was formed last year by Westwood Studios Alumni Bret Sperry, Adam Isgreen, Rade Stojsavljevic and Steve Wetherill. Besides working with such wonderful talent again, this also means I get to stay in Las Vegas.

So let's add this up: new car, new job, possibility of being able to move back into my house next year when the tenants' lease is up. So that just leaves one thing... anybody know any cute single women?

Zoom Zoom Stripes!

I had planned on getting up really early this morning and heading up to Red Rock when the loop opens at 7 AM to take some pictures of the car with the racing stripes. I did get up on time, but I woke up with a monster headache. I didn't get out of the house till 9 and just took a couple of quick shots. I'm planning on staying up late playing video games tonight, so I probably won't get to Red Rock till next weekend.

I originally was going to go with Black stripes, then was thinking Dark Grey, then I saw pictures of White stripes on albeit, darker Grey car. I had one of those gut feelings that don't usually lead me astray, so I went for it. They guy at Eco-Tint had originally spoke up against White, but the result won him over.

I got the car registered after only three hours. I even got the same personalized plates I had on my old '99 Miata. It was still on hold, but since I was the previous owner, the woman got her supervisor to release it. It's nothing special, just my initials, JBHIV. I did get the "United We Stand" plate with the eagle and American flag. I thought about getting a space before 'the fourth' this time, but that plate only allows five characters. I still don't have the title for the car. The things I've gone through with the dealership in Van Nuyes you wouldn't believe. I thought I was done with them when they finally sent me the Manufactures Certificate of Origin, but they didn't fill in the millage section so I spent another two hours at the DMV for nothing.

I do want to say I am having a blast with the car. I'm zoom zooming all over the place. Though I do have one small problem. Cup Holder Fail:

Zoom Zoom is BACK!

If you don't hear from me for awhile, it isn't because I'm off on a fun filled, exciting road trip... more likely I'm still stuck at the DMV.

IMPORTANT SANDWICH UPDATE!

A long time ago I posted about how to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. You can read all about it here. I am writing you now to make an update. Somebody mentioned putting peanut butter on both slices of bread and then putting on the jelly. Yeah, I shot them down right away.

But then last month somebody brought it up again. Again I leveled my guns on them, but then they brought up a point that I hadn't considered. If you are planning on eating the sandwich right away, as you are want to do, let the jelly breath by applying it directly to the bread. However, if you are wisely planning for the future, packing away the sandwich for a quick, delicious snack later, THEN you want to apply peanut butter to both bread slices and have the jelly between them. The reason, as was pointed out to me, was that the peanut butter prevents the jelly from soaking through the bread.

Thankfully I was able to get you this information to you before it was too late.

Retro Gamer - Lands of Lore

Issue 67 of Retro Gamer is finally out unless you live elsewhere in which case you already missed it. Not sure why the U.S. is a month behind. Why issue 67? Because that is the issue with the long over due "Lands of Lore" article. Damien McFerran actually interviewed Rick Gush and myself over two years ago, back when I was living in Brisbane. Damien's finishing of the article was interrupted by his wife having a baby, his triumphant return to the Tour de France and drafting Obama's Presidential acceptance speech. Did that come off as funny or mean? I was trying for funny. Writing it a little off at the moment, I'm watching the Emmy award show and I'm a bit upset Neil Patrick Harris wasn't in the red and black Dr. Horrible uniform. Why would he go back to the white uniform when the red and black one was so much more evil?

Okay, sorry. Seriously Damien's wife did have a baby. Again, congrats on that! Then the article was originally supposed to be in issue 64, but the editor felt that that issue had to many "making of" articles so he decided to push it back.

Unfortunately, the layout artist of the issue was too smart to publish the picture I gave him of members of the team. Actually, it is a picture of the "Eye of the Beholder" team, though it was pretty much the same people on "Lands of Lore." Note to the guy who wrote the Wiki article, Westwood did not split from SSI over artistic differences. Westwood became a part of Virgin Games, though we still provided a lot of help, support and love to our friends over at SSI while there were doing the EOB III. And if you don't beleive me, you'll have to deal with my bad-ass self from the early 90's in the picture. Oh yeah, don't mess with me!

It might be obvious by now that I am really just typing away trying to add some meat to this post to balance out the two pictures. I don't want to actually post a copy of the article itself until it has been off the shelf for a few months. It a glorious 3 page article with a nice shout out to the late great Rick Parks. I think you should rush right out and buy at least two issues. I did.

How to win friends and influence people

My beard is starting to turn grey. It is really annoying that it is doing so in patches so it looks really bad and I’ve had to start dyeing it. I have been thinking about how I can turn this to my advantage. I’ll admit that my thoughts were initially more along the lines of dating, but as that hasn’t been working out too well I’ve decided focus on other areas.

I am hoping that I’ll be getting a job pretty soon (praying) and a new job brings new people, new opportunities to make a first impression. So, I am thinking of ways to convince these new people that I’m a time traveler. This may have something to do with the fact that I’m watching Journeyman on Hulu. You people sure let them cancel some good TV shows while I was out of the country.

First thing is that I am going to start sneaking off to dye or shave my beard back down during the day. The ‘shaving it back down’ thing has to do with how I keep it pretty short and am always shaving it back to stubble. After four or more days since my last dye job, I can go from brown back to grey-ish. This means that I can appear to alter my apparent age.

I am also going to start carrying around another set of cloths and change in and out of them at odd times. If anybody notices I’ll either deny it or make overly lame excuses. One trick I just thought of is to have two identical shirts and pre-stain one with ketchup or something. That is the one I’ll start the day in. Then I’ll switch to the non-stained shirt and make sure it’s noticed by some people who I’ll later let see me “accidently” spill some ketchup on it.

I’ll also throw in some more subtle conversational bits. I am going to start asking people the date and then when they tell me, I’ll say, “yeah, but what year?” I’ll spend time on movie spoiler sites and then casually working in tidbits of information about movies that aren’t out yet into conversations. Occasionally after asking a question about whether or not somebody has done something and told no, I’ll follow it up with a serious sounding, “good, that means there is still time!”

Now you are probably thinking that these new people may read my blog and see this post. Experience has taught me that although people I work with may occasionally read my blog, they never read too far back into the older posts. But in thinking of this I realize that I can also leverage the thing I discovered about how Blogger publishes posts that started as drafts by the time and date I first started writing them. By occasionally starting posts and saving them as drafts, I’ll be able to go back and seemly make posts in the past filled with things that I wouldn’t have known at the time of the postings, like this post I made back on December 14, 2008. Hey, that reminds me those aliens are due to land next month!