They seemed to go away for a bit, but they are back…its those phone calls you get at home, to let you know that your auto warranty is expiring (yeah, in 2 more years), or its your “credit card company” that wants to tell you something, or some other jazz like that. It’s a pre-recorded message, which at the end it tells you to press 1 to talk to someone, or press 2 to stop receiving calls. Amazingly, pressing 2 seems to have no effect. So, how do you stop them from calling? Continue reading
Yearly Archives: 2008
4 posts
Just not my day today…after a lovely day at work which will end up with me working all night because a customer decided at the last second they don’t want to do any of the work, I come home to an envelope from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, the Disney arm that puts out DVD and Blu-Ray discs, and was offering 5 free BD discs (from a limited selection – only one of which I would have actually purchased, mind you) for buying a qualifying Blu-Ray player (like the Playstation 3). My 5 free Blu-Ray discs I’m supposed to get for buying my PS3 has been rejected because they claim I didn’t include the UPC symbol. I most definitely DID – I checked several times before sealing the envelope that it was in there, and all I have now is a hole in the box where it was. So what am I supposed to now? They are asking me to send them the UPC code, which I already did, and THEY lost. Sigh…
Update [2/5]: I e-mailed. They said to call. I called. They said to fax…we’ll see…
Update [2/23]: Called again today…they apparently “received my request into the system” last week. Only took them 10 days from when I faxed. Supposedly I’m qualified now, but it can be another 5 weeks to receive the discs. We’ll see…
Update [3/30]: 5 weeks TO THE DAY of my phone call, the movies arrived – even though a few days ago the web site still listed me as unqualified. At least now I have a couple movies I actually want to watch…
I forgot to mention this – back in October, just before the World Series, I finally broke down and got an HDTV – which would eventually result in the shutdown of my little DirecTV TiVo network, but moving me in to the wonderful world of High Definition.
I had thus far stayed away from HD because 1) I didn’t see a need – I had a 32″ behemoth Toshiba CRT and a big entertainment center that wouldn’t take a big flat panel, and I had DirecTV – which to get HD I’d probably have to cut down another tree to get the line to the satellites. Plus, I had three hacked DirecTV TiVos which gave me all the features I wanted. Continue reading
I’ve dropped by the local CompUSA several times since it was announced that they were sold to a liquidating company, figuring I’d see some good deals. After over a month, most of the discounts are still around 15% – but look closely. It says its off the “original price”. Apparently the original price means the price it had over a year ago, in some cases.
For instance, I was looking for a MicroSD memory card for my new mobile phone. I looked a couple weeks ago, and they wanted $69.99 less 10% for a 2GB card. That didn’t sound right – I checked online, and the same exact card was $25. Well, I checked back today, and it was the SAME price – but the discount was now 15%. I went to Costco and paid $24.
I looked at a 4GB USB thumb drive. They wanted $99 less 20%! Costco had a 3-pack of 2GB thumb drives for something like $45. If they think these discounts are going to clear merchandise, they are sadly mistaken – but I don’t think that’s their intent. As I was there, they were taking all the recordable media, etc. and taking them off the shelves. I think their intent is to liquidate wholesale to other retailers, and not provide any real value to consumers any more.