drunkencomputing

My ire for Best Buy can no longer be contained to the 140-character limitation of Twitter. The only other way I know of expressing my frustration is via this blog, albeit the first time in over six months this thing has seen content. But it’s important to me to put down my thoughts that woke me up out of a perfectly good hangover this morning.

A few people have asked me about my recent change-of-heart about Best Buy. For years, I was a staunch Best Buy supporter. Of course, every relationship has it’s hard times, and mine with Best Buy was no exception. But until recently, the relationship faded and became way more taxing than I’d care, hence my blockade of purchasing from Best Buy, and this post.

First off, it’s important to qualify my relationship with Best Buy (which I’ll refer to sometimes as just “BB”). I’ll go a little deeper than how BB sees me—as just a number and revenue stream—and break it down a bit more.

When I was young, my dad feared Best Buy. He was an 80s/90s tech-head, and had computers for as long as I could remember. But even with all this, he stayed clear of BB, opting to shop at Sears and Montgomery Wards instead. I always wondered why until one day he was forced to go to the store and return something. I remember the way the store was laid out, and back then, the Returns counter looked dark and droll. They had some mean person working it, and attempting a return was like doing battle. My dad had the hardest time returning something that day, and it made me quite fearful of the store myself.

Fast forward some years and I’m leaving on my own, and obviously a tech-head in my own right. I’m 20 years old, living alone, and pulling down an adult salary. With no kids, no worries, what else would you do? Buy shit. Lots of shit. Lots of tech shit, like TVs, stereos, video games, and computers. In these times, Montgomery Ward had met it’s death, there was no Office Max yet, and Sears was where old people went shopping for clothes. Being young and impressionable and Best Buy being flashy and shiny, our relationship started. And it continued since then, expanding to every facet of my life…no longer just entertainment (but mostly still entertainment).

Here’s an off-the-top-of-my-head list of my purchases over the years from Best Buy:

• Five TVs, including two big-ass flat screens
• Four desktop computers
• Five laptops (FIVE!)
• A Sony Playstation, PS2, PS3, and a Nintendo Wii
• A vacuum
• A washer and dryer
• So many DVD players it’s hard to think
• Countless DVDs, blu-rays, and CDs. COUNTLESS. (I had a 500+ DVD collection at one point)
• Most of my Christmas shopping

I’m sure there’s more, but this is the list of the really big things. So as you can see, I’ve given a lot of business to Best Buy. If they were a hospital or school, they’d name a wing of it after me I’ve spent so much there. I’ve got a Premiere Reward Zone membership (if you spend more than $2,500 a year at the store), and I have been a Best Buy credit card since before I can remember (it’s probably the foundation of my credit history, actually). I’ve sent so much business Best Buy’s way in the past because of my old free-lance computer repair that I did, and my roots as “IT guy” at three well-established businesses. In our relationship, I was the bitch… Best Buy’s bitch. And that’s OK, because I loved everything I got from them. It was trendy, fun, and fun.

Of course, my love affair with Best Buy was never reciprocated (the Reward Zone program in its infancy was close, but the program has since been brutalized and turned into nothing but a “sense of ownership” falsity.) The only time there was a semblance of “Best Buy Loves Me” was when the security guy at the front door would say “hey” and actually—really truly actually—recognize me. But that wasn’t really BB loving me, of course, just that guy knowing I had a problem.

For about two years, between 2006 and 2008, Best Buy was the perfect spouse. They had baller sales, all the cool tech, and I never had a problem with a return. The Reward Zone was an amazing program where I thought I was getting away with highway robbery back then (and so did BB, because they have since curtailed the program). I probably spent $10,000 at Best Buy during the Golden Years of the store. It was a thing of beauty, and BB could do no wrong (nor did they).

They one day, around late 2008, Best Buy started on their path to shitiness, where the retailer currently resides (in my eyes, at least). I was looking to buy a new netbook—the latest up-and-coming rage—and was standing around in the computer area for ever, waiting for someone to assist me. Since I work very part-time in retail sales, I always expect the mantra of “the customer is priority one” to apply wherever I shop. So I waited for a sales person to come to me. They weren’t busy, and there were three of them standing around. So I waited some more. One of them left, and the other two just sat there. In the end, I waited for 45 minutes and received no assistance on what would have been a $400 purchase. So I left, and went home, and fired off an angry email.

Amazingly, some store manager sub-type called me. She read of what was surely a script fed to her by the archetype managers, and it seemed as if it was her first time handling a customer call-back. Normally, I’d thrive on the situation—my chance to beat up on the lesser-dominant Corporate America—but I took it easy, let her read through her script, and then rattled off my real concern, of which none of her script addressed. I got back the standard “ok, we’ll look into that” response, but at least my voice was heard and there was now official record of my complaint. Plus, Best Buy had made the attempt to show me that they actually gave a half-fuck.

Since then, I had watched first-handedly the customer service at Best Buy greatly degrade. People were numbers nowadays to salespeople because we all needed technology—be it phones, computers, or TVs. Best Buy switched from “we want your business” to “we are providing you what you need” and the thought stuck in sales people’s minds. Gone was the Golden Years in which I actually thought people cared somewhat about me when I wanted to find a TV. On top of all this, since the public was thirsting for tech, BB could hire anyone with a pulse to “sell” the stuff. Here’s another falsity in BB: just because someone greets you at the door, and asks you RIGHT AWAY if they can help you while you look for TVs doesn’t actually mean that they give a shit—or know what they are talking about. 99% of the time if you ask a question that isn’t answered by a product brochure or the price placard, you’ll see the sales person go to someone else for answers.

At this point in my story, I think it’s only fair to bring light to one person at Best Buy who was a helpful salesperson…since I’m an equal-opportunity hater. When I bought my current (beautiful, sexy) plasma TV, a little red-head girl working the area bent over backwards to answer my questions and work with me. While not the most tech-savvy of salespersons, she did her best, and got me immediate and prompt answers when I needed them. In the end, Best Buy got my business solely on her work. A great story, true, but a small glimmer in the swirling cesspool of Best Buy sales in the end.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I had bought a cable modem from Best Buy for my internet connection through Charter (another story for later, kids!). The cable modem seemed to work fine, until my internet connection kept dropping. Charter did “everything they could” and eventually figured it was the cable modem. Being a tech guy, I agreed somewhat with their prognosis, and returned the modem. As I walked to the Returns desk, I saw the same dark cloud hanging over it as I did so many years ago when I went to BB with my dad. And I was not mistaken.

The returns desk lady was short, curt, and overall rude. Of course, I didn’t have a receipt (that’s my bad, seriously, I usually keep them), and it was past the 30-day return window. I could swap the modem, however, and so I set off to do so. But of course, the modem I needed was gone, as was the other DOCSIS 3.0 modem. There was one different modem left, at $50 more in price, which would satisfy my needs. I flagged down a salesperson (ugh) and asked if they had any more of my modem in inventory. He looked at the rack of modems, said “no” and left. My pulse and temperature raised. I went back to the Returns desk told the evil girl my story. Obviously irritated, she said that they could give me in-store credit, since Best Buy has a small sliver of a soul. She told me that I could order the modem online. Of course, the problem was that I had no modem and therefore no FUCKING INTERNET, I told her. Since none of this was her concern any more, she continued to stare blankly at me, and then turn away. She didn’t bother to even try and sell me one of the modem off the shelves, let alone say “sorry.” This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I forgot to mention: earlier that day when I went to Best Buy (that’s right, I went there twice in a day), I went to get a gigabyte network card (yes, to those of you seven readers of this blog who are techies, I needed a network card…weird, right?) and again, of course, they were out of both types they stocked. And yes, again, I asked if they had some more in inventory, and the salesperson responded “no” without even a cursory glance at the shelves.

I have blogged, Twittered (I hate the word “Tweeted”), and Facebooked about the death of customer service, and at this point in time, I had had it with Best Buy, and all those Social Media-based updates came floating to the service. Anyone who knows me knows that I can harbor a retail grudge very well and efficiently—my long-standing ban on shopping at Wal-Mart is now a decade old, and my hatred I harbor for local Ski Hut (for reasons other than what you may think)—so this is why I’ve arrived at this point. While my absence at Best Buy will go unnoticed, it’s important to know that I will have quite a bit of impact on them besides my own personal financial input. Again, as company computer guy for two local businesses (one of the, kind of a big, nudge nudge) I have certain clout in the areas BB focuses sales on. Additionally, as that well-known and oft-consulted IT guy with my friends and family, I’ll make no qualms in sending business another direction.

Of course, some crappy customer service isn’t the SOLE reason for disliking Best Buy…there’s many more reasons. Such as price gouging (yeah, $150 HDMI cable?) and brand favoritism, as well as just forcing the little guy out. Compound this with the bad customer service and the horrible inventory skills presented by the Duluth store, and I think I have a well-founded basis for my embargo of Best Buy.

So after I cash in my Reward Zone points (yeah, one more purchase, you giant corporate bastard!), I’ll pay off my Best Buy credit card, and never return to Best Buy. Can BB repair their relationship with me? Sure, but it’s not going to happen overnight…hell, if they even care at all. As far as they are concerned, I’m just another credit-card carrying number, going begging to them for the tech that I am required to have. I’ll monitor blogs, friends and families shopping experiences, and just normal word-of-mouth to see if Best Buy can return to the Golden Days.

In the meantime, I’ll shop Monoprice and Newegg. I’m sure Fedex and UPS won’t mind a few more trips to my house. I’ll give those companies my money anyway, because they actually seem to care about the customer still. For now, at least.

It’s been months since I’ve posted here. It’s easy to explain why: blogs are all but defunct now. With Facebook and Twitter, there’s no real reason to maintain a blog. Except if you’re doing something over 140 characters (a la Twitter) or don’t want to make your Facebook wall all Myspace-y with quizzes and giant status updates. That’s where this post comes in: it’s a list of what movies and TV I liked for 2009. Mostly posted because it’s Sunday, I’m drinking coffee, sitting at my computer, listening to The Walkmen, and am bored. But also because I was inspired by Mr. Stephen King in the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly. Stephen King is easily the best columnist in EW, with Doc Jensen’s annoying TV column being second. Normally I’d include music and books too, but I didn’t do a lot of new-music searching this year, and I certainly didn’t read nearly as much to warrant any feedback on books this year (it would be one book long: The Lost Symbol, which I’m only about 5 chapters into anyway). So in the spirit of Mr. King, here’s my top movies & TV of 2009:

District 9: This is the only thing that Twitter has inspired me to check out. Yes, I get a lot of info off of Twitter, but it was solely because of the buzz generated on Twitter that I checked out this flick. Yes, Peter Jackson produced it (I like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I’m not so hooked to it that I’d follow the man blindly on anything he makes). So because of Twitter–and the numerous articles written about how popular the buzz was on Twitter–I actually got Rachael to go check out this movie with me. I was very, very surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. I loved the impromptu acting, the pace was perfect, the special effects were awesome, and the story was great, making District 9 a very well-rounded movie. There’s the obvious parallel drawn between Apartheid and this movie (fuck, it’s filmed *in* South America), and it’s very intriguing. But it’s the documentary-style film-making, the fantastic spur-of-the-moment dialog, and great special effects that drew me into the movie. On top of all this, this movie is reason one of three as to WHY YOU SHOULD BY A BLU-RAY PLAYER.

Inglorious Basterds: Everyone who knows me, knows that I love Quentin Tarantino. I can quote the entire Pulp Fiction movie, and most of Reservoir Dogs. I can even throw in an obscure reference to Jackie Brown at times (a good movie, in it’s own right). So it’s a no-brainer that when this movie came out, I was going to see it. It’s easy to compare it to Pulp Fiction, and seems to me that doing so would not only bore the one or two people who read this, but also cheapen my loyalty to Tarantino. So I’ll just stick with what I like about the movie (and, essentially, most Tarantino movies): the long shots, the dialog (of course), the ratcheting drama between two characters just with a conversation, and the bloody good violence.  Christopher Waltz as The Jew Hunter has a new special place in my heart as one of those bad guys who are so good you’re excited to see him on screen, regardless of what he stands for (you’ll find a lot of that in what I like, I guess). One of my favorite parts in the film is when–nevermind, I won’t ruin it for you, but let’s just say that when one of the protagonists is in France talking to Dr. Goebels (SP?) about a movie theater and when a special someone walks in, you’re heart will truly race for the next few minutes. This is my favorite film on the year, because I can watch it over and over again (I’ve watched it three times on BluRay already) without getting bored with it (kind of like Pulp Fiction, no?)

Public Enemies: I’ve always liked Michael Mann films for everything that’s said when there’s no dialog (come on, you can FEEL Tubb’s frustration on the way to the boat yard in the redo of Miami Vice, can’t you?). What he does with the camera is stupendous, and I always appreciate a good shot…similar to the opening scenes in the apple orchard of Public Enemies. I also like–suprise!–the high violence of a Michael Mann film. Probably the best since the street shoot-out of Heat is in this film, when the FBI raids a cabin in the Wisconsin woods, and Tommy guns run rampant. It’ll get your heart racing. Johnny Depp was also phenomenal–as he usually is–but Christian Bale is still only a “meh” actor in my book. Not sure why, but I can let it go, because he’s decent at his role. He just needs to decide on a dialect here.

Avatar: I really didn’t care for the story because it as way to predictable and only “meh,” but holy shit, the special effects. Skip this flick in 2D and prepare to have your mind blown in 3D. I kept taking off my 3D glasses just to see what real-life looked like again to prevent myself from letting the 3D world get “cheap.” The special effects along warrant a spot in my top flick of 2009, but acting and story line were only OK.

Terminator Salvation: In essence, a pretty bad movie. Special effects were awesome, but if you’re a Terminator franchise fan, then you’ll appreciate the flick as the first serious look into the world post-Judgement Day. Meh acting and a weak storyline, but very cool to see what’s going on with Skynet (our new robot overlords, for realsies) and how they are developed into what we saw in the first two Terminator movies. ANOTHER REASON TO OWN A BLURAY PLAYER. This flick’s sounds and special effects will rock your home theater.

I’ve always had animosity towards the iPhone, but never hated it per se.  I’ve always posted article on Twitter about how much the iPhone lacks or pales in comparison to the BlackBerry (which, of course, I love), but they’ve always been trivial because they are biased by the author (again, of course).  But today, a whole slew of iPhone versus BlackBerry topics came up.

It started with this morning, when on CNN they talked about “feature envy” that regular cell phone users suffer when they see users with smartphones.  They said that a Gartner review listed the iPhone as the #1 consumer smartphone, with LG and BlackBerry tied for second.  I completely believe in this survey: the iPhone is an extremely popular and sought-after phone, and it is a “smartphone”.  Unfortunately for the iPhone, it’s not the smartest smartphone…it’s just generic consumerism that make it the most popular.  What a BlackBerry power user–or even someone with a half a brain–can do with a BlackBerry blows the iPhone out of the water.  Sure, the iPhone has 75,000 applications, but are they useful?  Can they exchange data seamlessly with each other?  Or are they in there very own little universe–an “app-verse”–all by themselves, only sporting info and pretty, sleek graphics to itself?  This is generally in the case.  I’d love to see an iPhone–NOT jail-broken–be able to do what I do on my personal BlackBerry, not even on my work BlackBerry.  The iPhone can’t hold a candle to the multi-tasking, multi-data-flow BlackBerry.  It can’t efficiently manage four work email addresses, four calendars, and countless workflow management applications…all of which seamlessly exchange data with each other without so much as a single skip.  I can literally manage the ski shop, the golf course, and my home computers and networks from my BlackBerry.  On top of that, I can regulate all the data and business transactions for each one of those functions from my BlackBerry in real-time.  That’s something the iPhone can’t do.  Oh yeah, then all that personal junk too, from that device (which the iPhone does very well).

Shortly after that, I read a Boy Genius report and Lifehacker article about how AT&T and Apple were going to put the hammer down again on iPhone users.  AT&T is talking about data rate caps, and how the latest OS update for the iPhone further restricts a bunch of things we BlackBerry users take for granted.  I’ve been in these shoes before, however, and can relate to iPhone users…but I can’t justify their existence.  When I first got my BlackBerry, Verizon crippled the damn thing.  No GPS, no fun applications like Pandora.  But consumer actions do have consequences, and after numerous emails (from myself as well) and some FCC complaints, Verizon smarted up and let BlackBerry users go hog-wild with their devices.  There’s now NOTHING we can’t do on them.  The world is our oyster.  So nowadays, I can’t stand to see what AT&T does to it’s premier customers…the iPhone users.  The restrictions that they as a company perform and would like to perform is unholy, but not new.  And the fact that Apple maintains such a strict, communist-style control over a device that the consumer owns seems completely shady.  Having to hack your phone to free yourself partially from these restrictions is silly.

Lastly, a friend at work asked me about the iPhone.  I told him pretty much the same thing as what I mentioned above.  I added on to that with some personal quips about the iPhone.  For one, it’s completely trendy.  Now many may think that me saying that is hypocritical (and you may be right), but it’s completely true.  Look at how much the media mocks the iPhone, such as in SNL or Leno.  And how many complete toolkits and douchebags do you see sporting the iPhone as a status symbol and not as a powerful hand-held computing device?  A lot is the answer.  On the flip side of this, the iPhone has also undeniably had an effect on our culture, but my shared view is that it’s mostly negative (iPhone users == douchebags).

Would I ever talk anyone out of an iPhone?  Only if they needed something more for the multi-tasking, tech-saavy people.  For moms, dads, douchebags, I-like-pretty-pictures, and high-performance texters/Facebokers, this device is nuts-on what you need.  It’s an amazing device with media capabilities that simply crush even the best BlackBerry.  But it’s not a tool.  It’s a toy.  If you want a phone that’s a toy with lots of games, multimedia capabilities, and tons of useless apps (like to find an apartment?!  How many fucking times are you going to use that thing?  Once maybe?!  Come the fuck on), then get an iPhone.  You won’t be upset.  But if you want a device that can completely keep you connected with everything in your life–personal and business–in real time, you need a BlackBerry (maybe an Android phone, soon!).  There’s little valid comparison between the two on that level.

Oh yeah, and when have I had to update my BlackBerry for a security issue?  Fucking never, that’s when.

I’ve pulled another one of those spans of time where I’ve managed to neglect this blog; allowing it to become extra clutter on the internet.  I’m more sorry to everyone else for adding junk to the Googles.

I’ve been busy, and I know I’ve said that every time after a long span of non-blogging.  Rach and I sold our old house (we miss you, 1929), moved into a new place a few miles away (still in Superior), I had the biggest work event of my life occur (an inspection) around the same time, and then some personal travel.  If that wasn’t enough, it seemed like every other weekend was Guard drill.

Now to all the fucking haters out there, I know, I know, “I don’t know what busy is until I have kids and blah blah blah.”  Fuck that, everyone can still be busy.  I have a friend who lives by himself and works full-time and goes to school full-time.  He’s fuckin busy.  He doesn’t have kids.  So shut the fuck up.  And you try moving out one household by yourself and then moving in another household by yourself (unless you have a wookie to help, thanks Hodge!).  So eat my ass.  Besides, blogging would be the nearest thing from my mind when I did have downtime anyway.

I’ve managed to make commenting on my blog a bit more easier…you can now log into my blog with your Facebook account and comment, so since everyone and their mom literally has Facebook, it should be no problem to provide me some feed back.  So fire away.

And yes, I’ve finally embraced the words “blog” and “blogging.”  “Posting on my website” has finally been an assimilated phrase.  I guess I’m weak.  At least I don’t own a fucking iPhone.

Everyone knows I’m addicted to my damn Blackberry.  Most people are, although some are less inclined to admit it (I’m looking at you, Rachael).  I use my Blackberry so much, that sometimes my computer goes untouched for days.  This is because I can essentially do everything I needed my computer to do from my Blackberry…I can pay bills, read and send emails, check Facebook, etc. etc.  Shit, I’ve even bought shit on my Blackberry (damn you Amazon application!), and checked in for a flight on it.  Computers are depreciated, I reckon.  As a matter of fact, it had been so long since I last actually used my computer that I didn’t even know that I had some virus or spyware action on it from some torrent I must of downloaded way back when.  Whoops.

So to find out just *exactly* how much I used my Blackberry, I downloaded an app from Early Sail called “I Love Blackberry”  It’s available for an OTA install here: http://download.earlysail.com/i_love_blackberry/ It runs in the background and tracks how much you use your Blackberry.  I ran it for exactly 7 days to see what happened.  Here’s the results:

Daily Average

Total: 72 Times for 2h 44m 8s
Work Hours: 34 Times for 52m 0s
Nights and Weekends: 38 Times for 1h 52m 8s

Weekly Average

Total: 246 Times for 8h 4m 17s
Work Hours: 170 Times for 4h 20m 2s
Nights and Weekends: 76 Times for 3h 44m 15s

Monthly Average

Total: 1051 Times for 34h 35m 31s
Work Hours: 727 Times for 18h 34m 26s
Nights and Weekends: 324 Times for 16h 1m 5s

A few things to note is that “work hours” are considered from 0700 to 1600 monday through friday.  Nights and weekends are from 1600 on Friday to 0000 on Monday.  Additionally, since I only ran the application for a full week, the monthly average is an estimate based on the daily & weekly average usage.  Lastly, of special concern, is the fact that I’m not allowed to have a Blackberry or cell phone with me in the area that I work, so the usage during “work hours” is very interesting.

I wanted to draw a comparison between my personal Blackberry usage and my work Blackberry usage, but our corporate IT policy on the device (who woulda set that shit up??!) doesn’t allow the application to be installed.  But I’ll fill it in for you: it’s probably only a third as much usage.

This should be rock-solid proof that I’m addicted, and should sober me up a bit.  I remember telling someone that “I can’t live without my Blackberry,” in which he responded that “that is sad.”  I agreed with him, but that exchange still didn’t make me change my habits.  This is for a multitude of reasons.  For one, as mentioned above, my Blackberry *is my fucking computer*.  I use it in place of everything on do on my desktop computer.  And this is of importance, since everything I do–from managing finances, to shopping, to reading news, and to communicating with friends and family–is accomplished on the computer.  Next, there’s the simple fact that a Blackberry is still a goddamn cell phone. Although my minute usage since getting Rach and I a Blackberry is astronomically lower (by at least half), I still use it to–gasp!–talk to people.  Then there’s the fact that I’m much more active the average cell phone user is.  I have my job job, my ski shop job, my golf course “job”, and then my personal life.  All are managed from the Blackberry.  This obviously adds a lot of time to the device’s usage.  Finally, the Blackberry is a toy.  Once you have it, you’re going to use it, just like anything else fun and dynamic.  The Blackberry can be anything you want it to be.  Just a phone?  Done.  Phone and email machine?  Done.  Super ultra mega social networking machine?  Done.  Your life on the go?  Fucking done.

So looking back on the conversation with that person, and the numbers above, I’m not really turned off from using my Blackberry any less.  There are times, in fact, that I could curb my usage (like in a wedding ceremony, but it’s not every day Tiger Woods comes from behind to win the Buick Open), but for the most part, it’s all reasonable usage.  So thinking about how I said “I can’t live without it,” I stand by that statement, and take solace in the fact that I really, truly can live without it, just as I have done when I go backpacking, camping, and skiing.  I can live without, although life is just a bit harder to manage then.  Oh, and then there’s the whole “it’s the fucking 21st century, move out of the goddamn sticks and ditch the flip phone” mentality.  We’re about to colonize Mars, being reliant on a cell phone is no different than being reliant upon a radio 50 years ago.

While I’m not going to wear my Blackberry usage as a badge of honor (although this post would seem to indicate that I’m doing just that), I’m not going to deny that I’m a power user.  And I’m OK with that.  I’ve turned many people on to Blackberry since I’ve had one.  Most of them admit that their lives are easier, that they couldn’t live without the device (in a manner of speaking), and some of them flat-out are power users, like me.  That only further validates me shameless usage.  So yeah, I’m a crackberry addict.  As if I didn’t already know that.