YouTube to the rescue

I am a Comcast subscriber and I also like to watch CNN Headline News. However (and I've written Comcast about this), Comcast News Network INTERRUPTS Headline News at :25 and :55 to insert some boring interview topic of their own - like they don't have enough channels they already own they have to interrupt something else! The response I got from my e-mail complaint was that they never actually interrupt real news - just the human interest stories at the end of the half hour - yeah, the ones they tease the whole half hour to keep you watching only to have them yanked for some boring Comcast Newsmakers spotlight that can barely hold my attention. I will say that I lodged the complaint a while ago and was surprised at the swift and relevant response from Comcast.

Anyhoo, I was flipping thru and the story they were teasing was about Marie Osmond on Dancing with the Stars. They wouldn't tell you what happened to her in the promos - and of course, that story on CNN Headline News went up at five minutes to the hour so I never got to see the story.

I found it on YouTube. It's much more dramatic that her dance partner doesn't catch her, because she makes a really big thump when she hits the floor. The Headline News promos made you think she went nuts or made some out-of-character comment. Nope, she just fainted.

But if it weren't for YouTube, I wouldn't have seen it. Stupid Comcast.

My sorta free popcorn

Yesterday, my sorta free popcorn from Dale and Thomas Popcorn finally arrived. I ordered it on Wednesday, the 10th. My confirmation e-mail said it would be shipping on Thursday, the 11th. It was only going from NJ to PA, so I expected it by Monday, the 15th. On Tuesday morning, I replied to the confirmation asking for some more information. My credit card had already been charged (yeah, for free popcorn they ask you to pay for shipping and handling - I'll get into that later) and I wanted to know if it had even been sent out or could be tracked. I got no response. When the package arrived, it had a UPS shipping label on it and when I check the tracking details, turns out the origin scan is for Monday the 15th at 9:47 PM! It didn't even get to a UPS facility until MONDAY NIGHT! I know UPS doesn't shop ordinarily on Saturday and certainly not on Sunday but why did Dale and Thomas tell me they would ship on Thursday - but it not actually ship until Monday? How fresh is this product, then. Did the confirmation mean that they only made it on Thursday, but they let it sit in their warehouse for four days before they saw that it made it's progress to me? Or are they so overwhelmed with orders for their sorta free popcorn that they simply can't handle the load? Hell, I could have gone to one of their locations and picked up a bag for full price on my own TWICE in the time it took them to ship me my sorta free product.

The reason I say it's "sorta" free is this:
If you go to MyFreePopcorn.com they'll send you two bags of their flavored popcorn for free - plus shipping and handling.

First it's just the fine print on the TV ad (+shipping), then at the top of the web page it says they only ask for $2.95 for shipping and handling per bag. When you scroll down, you're choices are for two different "combos" - where you can choose for them to send you two bags... so that's where the $5.90 comes into play. Unless you live in NJ - apparently there's tax on shipping in NJ.

Sneaky, yes? Slowly upping the ante for you to pony up for their free popcorn.

Yeah, I did it. Because, well, gourmet popcorn sent to my door for under $6. I had never had it before so I thought I would give it a try. Now that it's finally arrived, I will say you get a decent amount of popcorn shipped to you - plenty to share (though I have no intention of doing so). The chocolate one was OK - not as great as I expected it to be. Almost too sweet it hurt my teeth. Now the butter toffee walnut - yowsa, that's good! More than half of that is gone.

So it's an interesting marketing tack - sending sorta free product to try to drum up sales for the holidays. However delicious I found their one flavor sample, however, I will not be throwing them any of my future business because this experience shows me I can't trust what they say. I expected my product to ship earlier based on their communications and when I questioned it, I got no answer. Based on that, how can I trust that any other orders I would consider for birthday or holiday gifts would arrive on time at all? I can't. So thanks for my sorta free popcorn. I will enjoy eating it now that it's finally arrived. But that's the last of Dale and Thomas Popcorn I'll be paying for.

Does this Jeff Paul system really work?

I'm sure you've seen the infomercial for the Shortcuts to Internet Millions. If you haven't, check out a five minute clip on YouTube. Maybe it's because I'm a heterosexual woman, but I don't take anything that Kelly and Tina say seriously as long as they are wearing those low-cut shirts. Not that their scripted claims hold any creditability regardless of their wardrobe (or lack thereof).

I've searched the web, and I can't find one positive, independent review at all. There are plenty of ones which call it a scam and a ripoff.

Prove me wrong. I'd love to make tons of money on the internet without doing much work at all. Heck, if you want to donate some money to me to make my wish come true, be my guest!

First Ladies Traveling Exhibit - a review of sorts

Today, I stopped by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to see the First Ladies exhibit. I originally thought I'd go down last week, but it didn't officially open until Friday and then I thought it might be crowded today with it being a holiday, but it wasn't all that bad. It was $15, they offered no student discounts (I still carry around my grad school ID) and it included the "Freedom Rising" presentation and admission to their permanent exhibit on the Constitution itself "We the People," which was nice bargain, since you usually have to pay $12 to see just that, but I had already seen it last year - apparently there's no way to get an exhibit only ticket. It didn't appear that I was taking a seat in the theater away from anybody else, but once the woman heard I had been there before she tried to sell me on the membership for $35... I didn't think I'd be back twice more in the next 12 months seeing as this is the first exhibit I'd wanted to see since the place opened, so I said pass... even though they had this cute teapot ornament that said "first ladies" on it when you joined.
I looked in the gift shop, and they didn't have anything like that. They did have expensive china patterns: cups, saucers, mugs, plates... mostly with flowers that were supposed to be the favorites of particular first ladies, but nothing that even resembled the cool official china patterns that you saw in the exhibit. Anyway, the exhibit was smaller than I thought it would be. I had seen most of it as a result of the local news sponsor's teaser show on NBC-10 this weekend. They had some interesting artifacts and personal items I don't remember seeing before and a number of examples of the official china patterns, but I overheard more than one patron say that they expected to see more gowns on display. I guess this is just the traveling exhibit, and the rest must be on permanent display at the Smithsonian... or not, as it seems from their website that the American History museum is under renovations until the Summer of 2008. Realizing that now, I really wished there had been more gowns on display, too.

Do any humans work at eBay?

For the first time in a long time, I wanted to buy a book off of half.com the other day. Now, I had to re-set my eBay password to log in (half.com is an eBay company) and I found out that my account was suspended. The links said that I could pay an outstanding balance or "find out more". I wanted to buy a book, not read a help file, so I clicked on the outstanding balance tag - hey, if it's like the library or Blockbuster video and I really do owe something and didn't know about it - I'll pay up and no harm, no foul - then continue with my original transaction. Only the balance was $0.00! It wouldn't even let me pay $0.00 - I thought maybe that would trigger it to unsuspend my account. Which left me the help file - I skimmed it and none of the reasons even applied to me. They stated that I should have received an e-mail about it. Yeah, whatever. E-mail is not guaranteed delivery and since I rarely use the account who knows when that happened if it did. They suggest contacting them - which leaves me to another online help featured where I pick my own answers - you guessed it - it's the same darn help file I already read which was no help to me at all. Sense some frustration here? A simple transaction for a book which was under $10 used is now taking up more than 10 minutes of my time.

So the next alternative is their live help feature. Sure, I'll quick chat with someone and get this all straightened out pronto. First, the application terminates on me early. Great. Then I finally get in the queue and it says that there are seven people ahead of me and my wait time is approximately 15 minutes! I've already spent nearly that just getting to this point. No way am I waiting for this!

So I dig a little deeper and figure out a way to send an e-mail to their customer service department. I've got to go thru the same darn help file twice, but finally there's a link to send them a real text e-mail via an online form.

A short time later, I get an e-mail reply. It's the text from THAT SAME DARN HELP FILE AGAIN. I'm fuming now. Do they think I'm stupid? As if they keep sending me the same information over and over and over again that I'll finally say "OH, RIGHT - I get it NOW! Sorry it didn't make any sense the first seven times you send me the same text." That's simply insane.

I decide I want no more of this crap ever, and I log into eBay - with my new password - and click on the link to close my account. Guess what - I can't close it if it's suspended and they want me to go back to online help!

Now I'm totally convinced that eBay is the evil empire for taking up so much of my time and giving me the run-around when all I wanted to do was buy a book on half.com. I don't even want to take the time to re-register under another e-mail address I'm so pissed off at this point. I feel bad for the seller, as it's not their fault, but I'm taking my business elsewhere. I fire off a reply to their canned e-mail saying as much.

Back in the day, I used to be a very good half.com seller. Then eBay came in and bought them. That's about the time I got out. I still had the account, but I've got to tell you the last time I bought something off of half.com was last spring. I've never bought anything off of eBay and after this experience, I'm certainly not going to start now.

Several days have passed and I still keep getting the automated canned responses requesting I do the very things I say I have already tried. I keep sending back in all caps CANCEL MY ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY! What a customer service nightmare!

Great Mystery Shopping company

I've worked for several mystery shopping companies in the past and I can highly recommend imyst. If you're going to sign up, I respectfully ask that you use the link provided, as they do have a referral program.

Happy Shopping!