Pauls Rants & 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

So today is my friend Peggy’s 29th birthday. She was a little bummed because none of her friends were getting back to her about festivities for the evening. So it’s Paul to the rescue! Also, you can drop a comment on her myspace page if you feel so inclined.

Were going to meet up with a few friends who finally for back to her and go bar hopping in Portland.

She sounds a little down with being almost thirty, so maybe a night of drinking and kareoke will cheer her up.

- Cheers

Update: a picture of the birthday girl.

So asod from my categories disappearing, the reason I upgraded was so I can update from my iPhone (this being the first test).
So far, it works pretty well. Except that I may have a stroke from typing a whole entry on this tiny keyboard. But other than that it’s working pretty well.
If I can upload images that would be cool. It says that it’s possible but I’m not sure how yet. If I can figure it out before my rafting trip that would be nifty.
Ok, enough lolly gagging, back to work.

-Cheers

Image test

SO I finally updated my wordpress install from 2.1 to the latest 2.6.

At first I was like “Way Neato!”. Then I realized that all of my categories and link categories were gone. Like, really gone. The only identifying mark was the slug with was a lot of “-2″‘s. So, if some posts seem to be misplaced, this is the reason. I renamed what I could (had to edit the datbase directly to do it) but its sorted now.

Well, at least its working.

I mean, I read the documentation changes for the most part but didnt see any part about your categories fucking getting axed from the update.

Anyways, should you be upgrading, take a snapshot of the data in your wp_categories. This will be invaluable as you can map the IDs so you can rename the items in wp_terms (the new table) so that your categories are correct.

OK. Back to the digital salt mines.

-Cheers

Did you ever notice that if you swing your Macbook Pro around the room really hard, the hard drive sounds like a lightsaber?

Though you might find that interesting.

-Cheers

My sister-in-law received the entire Planet Earth series from the BBC for Christmas this year. She loaned them to us as she doesn’t have a DVD player and because she thought we might like them. She was right.

I have always been a fan of nature documentaries for as long as I can remember. The ones that were narrated by James Earl Jones and Avery Brooks were among my favorites both from an entertainment and educational point. The Planet Earth series was by far the best made documentary made to date by any standard.

Shot entirely in HD, it has been 3 years in the making. The workmanship put into it by the cameramen, editors, naturalists and even the narrator (David Attenbourough) shines in every scene and shot. The best segment from the series (and we have watched nearly all of them) is a tie between the Desert and the Ocean, with the Mountain one being a close second.

If you get a chance to watch them, do so. We have been watching them on my widescreen Mac, which is great quality, so I can only guess what it would look like in native HD or Blue Ray on a large plasma.

Oh, and a word of caution: if you are afraid of creepy crawlies, don’t watch the Cave episode. And if you are fine with them, don’t watch the cave episode. It was creepy enough to watch it so I can only imagine what it was like to actually film it for weeks on end.

- Cheers

To supply the world with energy, this idea is certainly one of the best I have seen. I would love to see this idea come into being and perhaps even have an ‘energy island’ or two off the coast here in Oregon; even though it wouldn’t take advantage of the amoinia turbine.

Solar, wind and wave energy potential is great in pretty much any coastal town within 1000 miles of the equator so I could see some version of this coming to more places than just the tropics.

Full article: Inhabitat » Artificial Energy Islands Could Power The World

And if the benefits weren’t enough for you, they just plain look cool too.

-Cheers

Thats about the only thing I feel at the moment. Since this big project I’m working on is almost done the lack of sleep is starting to take its toll.

However, there are some bright spots.

…

I can’t name any at the moment, but I’m sure they’re there.

If you can think of any let me know.

-Cheers

I just finished watching season 5 of Red vs Blue from Rooster Teeth. I’ll be brief in my synopsis.

Immensely. Fucking. Funny.

I was laughing so hard I woke up my son. To whom I gave a glass of water and tucked back in before resuming watching at a quieter level.  3 years this has been going on and the fans are always rabid for the next show. I myself have forked over the membership fee to get the high rez versions (and for those who know what a cheap bastard I am, this is monumental).

One of the great things is the music that was provided by Trocadero. The song “Blood Gulch Blues” is catchy and worthy of hitting the repeat button for. Check out the band to see all the other tunes they have available. The rest of their songs are equally enjoyable.

If you are a fan of Halo, hell even if you aren’t, you have to view this series. Random low rez versions are available but if you want you can also get the DVDs of the series, along with a shirt from the store (I got the “I Like Me” one; watch the show to get what it means)

In closing, I just want to say the following to get you interested:

Cockbite. Chupathingy. Team-killing-fucktard.

-Cheers