Pauls Rants and Revelations

Here is a happy story about the customer service folks. They get a lot of bad press, but these folks are really quite amazing.

I know that a lot of people like Popcap games. They are fun. Ridiculously fun. One of their more fun games is called Peggle. My whole family played it and they loved it.

A few days ago I noticed that they had a version of Peggle for iPhone. I though ‘finally, my 3 hand-writen letters a day produced something’. I checked the requirements and from what it said I could play it on the iPhone. I quicky clicked the Buy link in iTunes and plugged in my phone to sync.

Now, I was checking the apps and noticed something not sweet. The version was for the iPod (video and nano-video) but not for the iPhone or Touch. Go back to the app store page and in small print it said “Not compatible with iPhone/Touch”.

Begin short-lived temper tantrum.

I immediatley contacted Apple who in turn said “we do not offer charge reversals for mis-bought products”. So I contacted Popcap to inform them of the problem I now had. The requirements for their software were pretty clear in saying that it would run on the iPhone. Going back to the site I realized that it was a blanked statement for all of their mobile software.

So I sent their CSR gurus an email explaining the whole deal and asked them to please update their requirements boxes as I cant be the only person to make this mistake.

The got back to me the next day (surprisingly) and said they were sorry for Apples response, and offered me a coupon for their games. They also asked for my mailing address which was kinda weird.

I sent them my address and thanked them for the coupon and told them that I appreciate them changing their website. All is now right in the world.

Skip to the following Saturday. I return home to find a UPS note on my door. I go get my package and was again surprised as it was from Popcap. A smallish box with something soft inside is what I guessed from the vigorous shaking I did.

I open it up and was delighted by what was inside.

Lots of fun stuff

Inside was 5 cute Chuzzles, a stuffed Splork (a character from Peggle), bookmarks for their Bookworm Adventure game, some pens, a branded cap, and a set of Peggle character card.

Now, most would say that this wasn’t a great lot of stuff. But I say this is fucking fantastic! Not only are they neat little things (my kids loved the Chuzzles), but I was greatly heartened by the fact that someone cared about their customers to this extent that they put together a “customer love” box. I was seriously pondering graciously returning it with an appreciative note (the original charge was only $4.99 after all), but these things are neat (plus the cat already chewed on a chuzzle).

In short, a great deal of thanks to the customer service department (Dana in particular who wrote me the follow up) of Popcap Games. This is one of the few companies that really try to make its customers happy as best they can. I would say they soundly succeeded in this instance.

- Cheers

Update: Here are some images of my kids playing with the stuff. Not really relevant, but damn cute.

So my friend pointed out a website called Gender Analyzer (http://www.genderanalyzer.com/). Not sure how he found it but its pretty interesting nontheless.

If you plug in my blog (linky) it says its 71% sure that its written by a man. It also worked when looking at Twitter feeds (check it). However, it can be wrong. I pluggin in Mikipedia (linky) and it said that it was a man (91%) that writes it when in fact its a chick (a hot roller derby chick at that). Strange how a chick can score higher than a dude when analyzed solely their their writing.

Anyways, check it out for a bit of fun. Or if you want to see if you write like a girl. You little girly writer you.

- Cheers

Don’t ask me what’s with the title, I just thought it sounded neat (plus I always wanted to start with a title like that, so there).

Hopefully this will be my last political rant (yay) if/when the new president does something to really get on my tits.

Its been about a week since President-Elect Obama was named. And its been a somewhat tumultous time in some parts of the country and in some homes. Mostly, I going off of what people I know are saying. And some of what they are saying is downright scary.

One fellow I know and I got into a discussion about what will happen in the coming 4 years under Obama. He had his doubts (as do a lot of people) but what irritated me was that he voiced his opinion in a short sentence:

“Well there goes the country.”, he said.

I promptly flicked him in the nose and asked him to please explain what me meant by that, seeing as he voted for Bush twice and for McCain. He said that with all the threats America is facing, we need to have a strong military and he believes that won’t happen under a Democrat. Earlier in the prez race, he said that he was  quite displeased with what Bush had done to the country and our international standing, and wanted someone strong to lead us. I pointed out to him that McCain voted mostly the same way in regards to past actions the US had taken. He said that was different because he didnt vote that way all the time.

Apparently, 10% difference is enough for him. I promptly flicked him on the nose again.

Its at this point I should mention that my friend was duct-taped to a chair, unable to move (I love college pranks). He also started spouting the standard Republican rhetoric that the GOP was saying all through the race. I was about to flick him again when a friend of mine (his girl friend) did it for me.

The point is this. I don’t mind what people believe in. I don’t mind that my friend voted differently from me. What I do mind, especially in the case of my friend, is that he was just accepting what was handed to him as the absolute truth, never venturing out in the great world of information to find out for himself if it was true or not.

Now, I’m not so different. A lot of information I get are from people I trust, so I often trust that its true. I would say about half the time I dig deeper to find out more information or to see if its accurate. The other half I usually accept until someone else says something differently or I find info that doesn’t jive with it.

What has me worried is that a number of people I know are just accepting what is handed to them as the truth. Case in point, I played a trick on my friend and emailed him a “live” broadcast (god bless Flash players) of a well known news agency saying that the worlds honey bees have all died. He’s smart and saw this as a bad thing. But instead of calling someone to confirm or even checking the link I sent him he (according to his roommate) started inventorying their pantry and told his roommate that they needed to stock up on non-perishable food for at least a year. He was totally convinced and it took me calling and two other friends going over there that this wasnt true. He then sent me an email virus (god also bless Macs immunity to windows viruses) and a short 11 word sentance on where I should put all my risting farm implements.

To make a long story short; check your facts people. Don’t be sheep. If someone says something outrageous, check it out on your own. If someone else says something innacurrate, make sure it is and confront them about it.

And, Dave, if you are reading this, I am really sorry about the duct-tape trick. So, please, give me back my iPod.

- Cheers

I think that has a nice ring to it.

My wife and I were watching on the CNN website as the poll data started coming in. Aside from the slight anxiety we felt over whether or not Obama was going to win, it was pretty exciting to watch. CNN, for their part, did a pretty good job covering the thing with their real-time data and coverage of the speeches made by both candidates.

For me, though, I was a little nervous watching Obama give his speech to the crowd in Chicago. Not because I had doubts about if he would make a good president (I voted for him, so I obviously thought he could do the job, but because I was worried about some moron going and putting a bullet in him. Call it an irrational fear if you want, but I wasn’t the only one fearing this. Hence why he was flanked by 3 inches of bullet proof glass on either side of them.

So when he finished his speech (his best yet in my opinion) with no bullets flying his way, I was pretty relieved.

Still, that nagging fear will be with me probably until he steps down from office, hopefully in 2016.

But for now, I ‘ll just try to think of how I can best help him bring about the change he promised, happy in the knowledge that my vote made a difference and elected a man who, I think, deserves to be my President.

-Cheers

Its election day in the United States. And on this important day, I have only a short message to say.

Dear America, Please don’t screw this up.

- Thank You