Category: Money

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Stick this in your “cloud” and smoke it.

Everywhere you look these days you hear about that newfangled cloud thing…. and most people ask what the hell is the cloud. I tell them its a pile of shit buzzword. Watching TV you see the Microsoft commercials about the cloud and how you can access your stuff at home…  Or your job… or the moon whatever the fuck.. Here’s and example of said “cloud”

For those whom have had there head buried in the sand or are quite possibly dead… this innovation is as old at the internet it self(of current not arpanet you silly ass).. its called network storage. Introduced in the 1980s

 

Network-attached storage
Connects to Local Area Network via:

Hard Drives via one of:
Common manufacturers HP
NetApp
Dell
Cisco
Netgear
CTERA
Sun Microsystems
Introduced 1980’s

 

 

Yes this amazing new cloud of bullshit buzzwords yay!

And this.. hmm this is not “cloud” like .. the fact these people are accessing there pc at home tells me …. Remote desktop .. YAY MORE OLD TECH CALLED CLOUD! Mind you the guy says “I just brought up our PC at home” yeah… that’s safe.. you’re flying to who the hell knows where and your leaving a PC on 24/7 while your away from the house, when the PC overheats and sets the house on fire – Your house will be a cloud! YAY CLOUD!!

This should be called the windows FartCloud technology

It’s the Cloud! ZOMG!

Microsoft’s idea of the cloud is pretty much rebranding old technology and calling it new.. Some of the other cloud innovations here are just blatantly scary , Such as software as a service .. that’s pretty much a baaaaaaaaaaaaad thing.. Your Office software you bought.. You know the 365 one … You don’t own it. at least the could portion.. also when Office 366 comes out.. and they shut down 365 … Forced upgrade… since your only paying for a service. your stuck in an upgrade cycle for money …  Also you will have zero expectations of privacy .. Your account gets hacked? your shit is good as stolen.

What companies are banking on is that you buy into the cloud without any research thinking “Hey this is cool wizbang tech!”

When it comes down to office level this is going to be a nightmare.. as to finding your document or having documents that are not supposed to be public leaking out to the public, since the information would be on the “cloud” it maybe a passworded folder and you give it out and someone cleans out the office bank account because the boss left the banking information in the “Cloud”.

Better yet.. this is all on the internet.. the office connection goes down and productivity goes to zero since no one can access the files..

All these “cloud” services are going to open a black hole when some random company hosting your cloud goes out of business and you cant access your data anymore. not to mention there will likely be a monthly/yearly price to pay for this rather than paying a one time costs.. Its Like renting a car that you have no control over and only can do simple things on like turn on the lights and honk the horn yet your paying a cost X infinity , rather than a one time license cost. These companies will at first seem cheaper than buying software outright but when you figure that over a period of months or even years . the “cloud” costs will greatly exceed the software costs.

And I’ve said it many times… the cloud is just rehashed shit with rainbow farts and ponies with glitter just to stuplify the average user into thinking he is getting something better than it really is.

The risks building a company around the cloud is just insanely risky … From buying ultra cheap terminals that can only access the cloud, to having to build a connection that can handle massive amount of data throughput. if you have a company of 100 people all using the fartcloud you need 100 networked computers that has a zero lag time connection to manipulate data. if you have a crowd-sourced project with lag you will have 50 people fixing one problem and not realized that the other 50 just did the same thing and wasted about an hours of productivity due to each person wasting 30 seconds fixing a problem that was fixed by 1 person.

The idea of the cloud is just totally not a good idea in its current form since corporations are not looking at this as a productivity tool but more as a subscription for cash run.. since they have to sell nothing and get a fuckton of money.

 

In the end I really hope people understand what the cloud is and its not anything new nor is it worth it in any means of the word.

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Phone fun CDIV: WTF HTC?!

SO………………
Yeah..
IN the last issue of phone fun.. it actually turned out to be not so much phone. err fun….. well the Story might of stopped if it hadn’t been time for a new contract and me wanting a new phone due to the horrid life of the HTC touch. The HTC touch at the time i thought was a good phone but the thing is those phones seem to SUCK. I had gone through 11 or More HTC touches.. Now in the end Sprint made good on there end and offered me a HTC Diamond to make good. the HTC diamond was a much better phone.

Figuring my contract was up in 2010 , I figured I’d start with a brand New phone the HTC EVO, funny enough I didn’t even pre-order the phone I figured i’d goto the store and buy up the phone and they didn’t have it I’d wait. I went in to best buy On the day before the phone was due to be released and tried to pre-order the phone which didn’t work so well since the pre-orders we’re filled as of that day , So I was told to come back at the crack of opening at best buy, they were actually opening early that day to sell the phone. so on June 4th i got out of bed at the crack of dawn and headed out to best buy , Waited At the entrance and was told that it may not be possible to get the EVO , well since i was the first person in line which upped my chances, I got in the store first to find out they had only 2 EVO’s being sold on the floor and the rest were filled in as pre-orders. I was thinking Yee-fucking-ha as I got to the Mobile area first and started filling out the paperwork for the phone. The guy who was behind me was also in line heard the same thing i heard about 2 phones and thought i was going to buy both. Even if i wanted to i couldn’t.

But Happy i had the phone I walked out the door with a day one release phone and was Happy … Till about 6 months down the line. I had gone to the local store and was buying soda – I had been using the phone as a music Player after a bike trip and was thirstier than a man lost in a desert on mercury. So i took the phone out to shut off the music and while trying to manipulate the phone it happened….
The phone dropped and it was like slow motion. in a last ditch effort i grabbed the earphone plug…. Bad mistake… almost as bad as playing with a flamethrower in a gunpowder factory. As i had the cord thinking i was saved the phone stopped for what seemed a moment and the earphone jack disconnected and snapped the momentum of the phone Screen down to the cement … FUCK , I stirred at the phone for a moment like a dead animal not wanting to know if it was truly dead. After getting some courage and picking the phone up the worst of my fears were confirmed . the screen was smashed and only being held together by the screen protector. Well, the second thought swirled through my mind as to “AH HA , I have insurance.” so i picked up the pieces and headed down to the repair center , They quickly replaced my screen and i thought i was on my way again.. wrong…

Trip 1 phone 1:
WHen they had replaced the screen they goofed it up by somehow putting what seemed to be bad glass on the screen which was causing pressure on the LCD making the colors go all LSD on the LCD . I brought it to the original repair center and they said they would take a look at it. figuring i was in OK hands I left the phone with them to come back 2 hours later. when i picked up the phone sprint claimed to had have replaced the Screen and made sure of everything was ok. but, I did notice something. the Receipt for the back end service area your not supposed to see was in front of me , at the time i questioned the “DNR SENT BACK TO Customer”. not thinking what it meant i had left and was halfway home when it hit me…

DID NOT REPLICATE. FUCK….and behind the screen was the same dust that they had got in the phone from the first replacement.
So… Trip 3 i went back and explained my problems and how they did nothing and they offered to replace the phone. I was fine with that figuring I’d get a phone that was in better shaped than my phone. 2 days later I received that phone. that phone had its own problems Dead pixels and sounding like a constipated cat when getting calls.
Trip 4 Phone 3:
This trip ended up with sprint offering to send a Phone to my house in order to save me the trip of picking it up from the service center, well that was all good except this phone was also in sad ass shape. when you hit the touch screen the colors went into strobe mode and than freaked out………..
So another trip to the sprint repair center
Trip 5:
Again offered another phone i was still sort of happy with the service I’ve received from sprint. So this time it was offered that they would ship a phone from sprint corporate to the repair depot so they could inspect the phone themselves.
Trip 6 phone 4:
Miserable failure…. I had gone down the street and realized this phone had some pretty bad issues too..

In the end of this phone sprint again offered to ship the phone from corporate to my home.
I had asked and was told that I would be receiving a brand new EVO, which I would of been happy with Had i Actually had received on rather than Yet another refurbished problems.
Phone 5:
I ended up dealing with that phone for less than a month when i noticed the screen looked like it was badly put together and it had literally waves in the screen, that had looked like whomever worked on the phone crushed the LCD screen in there hands. The phones when it was off looked phone but when you looked at it it had whats known as the B-spot but about 10 times worse.

At this point I had it with refurbished phones I had it with the EVO. I was sick of running across the state and i was sick of seeing people order replacement after bad replacement of phones. Whatever company that repairs and refurbished the Sprint EVO’s was doing a terrible job. I would not be surprised if they just cleaned the phones up and let them loose into the world. For One of HTC’s flagship phones they made no effort to make these phones aesthetically pleasing for being a refurbished phone.

Sprint or whatever company handles there repairs seriously needs to check themselves for Quality control. there is no reason in the world these phones should be sent out into the wild like they are. Also the costs involved with this is likely crazy.. Replacing a phone 5 times has to has some costs behind it that are expensive.

For now I’ve sworn off HTC. It may not be there fault but after being through so many phones it leaves a bad taste in my mouth…

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Explain the fee… Sprint and there goofy “Free” 4g Fee.

I recently got a new phone on the fact of the phone i had was starting to have some issues. I know my luck with phones is not exactly the best. but, I decided I’d go with a brand new phone rather than a older phone.

So I picked up the HTC EVO and Figured i’d go with a plan with unlimited text and data, the one curious part was the fact that sprint wanted a 10$ Premium data fee, which made no sense, at first i didn’t think much of the fee than I saw multiple sites post about how 4g was suppose to be free, so I got curious. So what does this “premium data” cover?

Strangely enough it has nothing to do with data as sprint.com explains

Premium Data

This phone can do it all and then some. Because we’ve boosted your data experience with this phone’s amazing services and features, you’ll need this add-on. Enjoy:
  • A wicked fast processor to make your apps run smoother and faster on our Sprint 3G and 4G network
  • Top quality media experience with oversized screen, high resolution video and HD recording
  • High-quality pics to snap and share with friends and family
What the Hell? So somehow the “wicked fast” Processor is somehow “wicked fast” with this fee? Not so much. If you research the phone you’d realize the frame rate of 30 FPS, the frame rate is about as smooth as watching a constipated cow, not to mention this processor is nowhere near new.
Oversized Screen? HD Recording, we’ve not hit a point that deals with DATA yet.
High Quality pics? try taking a picture or a video in a dim room it looks like your filming from a black hole.
the phone performance-wise is MEH… Its not super its not bad. although the screen is 4 inches that’s about the only driving point to the phone.  There is a noticeable skippyness to the frame rate , Even killing off most processes you end up with no improvement over all.
Sprint Really Needs to just out and say they are charging for free 4g.

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Gamestop/Moviestop the Next Chapter.

Now, I’ve written about moviestop in the past and there parent company is Gamestop . Thinking I’d heard the last of advertising problems with them, I’ve not posted about them till my last few stops at Gamestop.

The Gamestops near me are bunched together , there’s 3 in less than a 1000feet of each other it makes you wonder at night if they play tag or something. The One I had been frequenting was the one Gamestop near the Moviestop I had a problem with.  In this particular gamestop it has a pretty good selection, and the help is generally helpful until recently.

It seems that maybe these people were too helpful and were sent to india to be trained in how to be vaguely helpful without being helpful, I don’t know.  I’ve traded in a few games lately and waited till gamestop has one of the deals of “TRADE YOUR SHIT IN WE NEED X GAME AND WE ARE GIVING MORE THAN A PITTANCE FOR IT”. Looking through my game collection I eye’d a few things and brought down 3 games. which using gamestops Trade in deal sheet plus Prices from CAG . Figuring i had 3 games and a rough price of $52 of trade-ins I figured i’d get Red Dead Redemption and have a little leftover.  So I make my way down to the mall figuring I’d not have to put out cash and go to proceed with the trading process. Now If you’ve done this “trade” process its not really trading its more like pawning off your games for a lump of shit for your gold. Handing the guy the games He spits back “Ok, you have $23 in trades. What the fuck?

He goes yeah these 2 games are worth 10 each and that one is worth 3$. I look at the guy and say , You guys have a deal going on these 2 should be $25 EACH!  This guy just looked at me like I just split a higgs boson particle in front of him and told him to explain it at gunpoint. There was an awkward silence followed by this gem of a comment “well If you have any proof of this You can show me , but our computers give us the prices and Whatever the computer says we Price at”  At this point I’m getting livid, I open my phone up to the exact page on the gamestop site with the listings for “GAMES FOR $25”

At this point the worker looks at me and says , Oh well yeah that must be an Online Only thing.  I look at the GS employee and say “REALLY?! Why the heck would gamestop do an online only, No one would trade stuff in” I Ask for my games back and walkout pissed.

I go across the street to the Gamestop there on the first floor of the mall and talk to the person who i’ve known for a couple years and explain everything that went down. He goes “Uhh wellllllll Was he new?”, now not being sure other than having the rage to kill at that point. I say I have no clue.  Game stop employee puts my trades in the system and proceeds to tell me “You have $53 in credit, and I Have NO clue whats going on over at the other gamestop because I didn’t have to do anything to bring this up. ” The employee than told me he was sorry for the treatment over there and gave me a small discount.

but what the hell gamestop? I really don’t feel like playing deceptive advertisement again from your company .

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The state of gaming.

Ever had one of those days where you look at something and say hmm.  Well, I’ve been doing that for about a few months.  For awhile Now I’ve been wanting to spread out my gaming more than just between the WII and the PC.  Both platforms in my opinion are suffering from bad development and bad companies.   Well, After long thought and wondering if I’d be better off with a Bluray Drive for my PC or Some other upgrade I finally decided against both and went with the black sheep of the decisions.

Continue reading “The state of gaming.”

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Phone Fun IV: A New hope.

In our last episode of phone fun I had got an HTC TOUCH , Well…… That didn’t work out so well. Exactly 360 or so days the HTC touch Starting having issues with the screen and Calls.  Now, from trials and tribulations with sprint I learned the last thing you want to do is call *2 on your phone.  Doing that is like crank calling the deathstar while its in orbit around your planet.  Sprint Over the phone support basically told me I had to buy a new phone. Which I don’t have money I can magically pull out of my ass.   So I did the next best thing, I headed down to a sprint corporate store.  Since I pay my phone bill locally by walking into these stores I figured I’d get a better idea of what to do. After a short talk they sent us down to Boxboro Massachusetts.  They have a repair depot up that way, anyways  after a 30minute drive and a 30 minute wait they told me the phone was shot(radio was damaged).  After a short wait they sent me on the way with another HTC Touch(#2), After getting that home with-in a few hours the audio on that phone sounded like a cat barfing in your ear.   Called *2 and sprint offered to send out yet another HTC touch(#3). They shipped it overnight which was very nice and it arrived on monday.

I had that phone no more than 48hours when the phone would just lock and gave a screen of death, Now I am fairly careful with phones and use screen protectors and such. After wasting 3 of them I was not exactly happy.  That Phone went back to sprint. To make a long story short, I’ve gone through alot of HTC touches and as Far as my last post about this phone in 2008 . How does the phone rate up?

A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone

Requirements for a Phone

  1. to make calls
  2. The Phone is configurable
  3. good battery life
  4. add/make ringtones
  5. Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
  6. Durable

Well… After a year with one phone and 1 to 2 months on 4 others.

1 The phone defiantly passes on. For a refurbished HTC-Touch that is debatable.

2. Again you can’t knock the touch on this, its extremely configurable once you figure out the interface.

3. battery life… That is actually pretty good.  Although using the GPS Or other intensive options I would recommend a car-charger.

4. You can make ringtones till you puke with this thing rather than jumping through hoops trying to convert soundfiles into strange formats.

5. As Far as applications go, you can find most of the common apps you need on the phone although I’d recommend downloading Google maps. With enough looking you can find pretty much any app you want for the phone but, this is where i’d give the Iphone or palm pre a small advantage with an “app store” for centralized buying of applications although the Iphone is more like Locked into the app store which I believe you can not install any 3rd party apps w/o jailbreaking the phone.

6. Lastly durability I seriously question, as the phone did make it One year. as Far as the refurbished HTC-Touches.. Those sucked ass.. there’s not enough swears in the English language to say what shit the HTC Touch Refurbs are. I may of run into a bad line of them but that is hard to believe that i’d of gone through that many phones.

as far as my current phone, Sprint has offered me a HTC Diamond,  Again i leave this post open till the next time I come back to phones.

As far as sprint is concerned – It seems they are OK as far as support as long as you get the right person.

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I’ve quit smoking* (part I)

Since Feb 8th I’ve not actually smoked one cigarette.  Although, I digress to say  that I’ve not quit cold turkey.  I’ve done cold turkey quits twice in my life and people say I become Hulk angry when I do.  My Cousin had bought in e-cigarette which i was highly skeptical about when I had first seen him with it but, after 1 month it passed what I had called the Timmy test.

At the beginning of the month i had purchased an E-cigarette after watching my cousin and friend use one with no issues with leaving the conventional cigarette behind.  when I had received ordered this it was actually  February 1st, little did I know I’d end up in the perfect storm of clusterfuck.  When I had ordered from Volcano there shipping department had moved so my order was delayed, not only that there shipping computers had crashed.  Usually USPS tracking takes a few days to update- You can often receive packages while tracking says otherwise. After stalking the mailman for a week – I started to email support for volcano, to which they will actually find time in there day to reply to you, well to find out my package was like alice in wonderland.  Figuring i was in for the long haul I had made a second order. which in the end that was the best thing i could of done with out realizing it.

E-cigarettes are a different experience of sorts but it keeps the feeling the same so to speak.  When you have smoked for a long time and a lot of people that fail quitting end up smoking again because of the fact they try to treat the chemical end of smoking without treating the mental end of smoking. If you have smoked and you have quit you’d know what i speak of. if you quit its best to find a bic pen or some other object in your hand to emulate that cigarette or you will be beyond hulk angry and quite possibly rip some walls out.

I’ve put the title as “i’ve quit smoking*” but I used the barry bonds method of scoring here Notice the *.  Because to a point i am still getting some level of nicotine, but No fire ,no combustion, no dirty ashtrays , No butts.  I am quite happy with this E-cigarette after a rough start from the company I bought it from.

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Fun With Teva shoes

In the early half of 2009,  I purchased Teva aravalli mens shoes. For years I have worn Teva shoes since Timberland shoe quality went downhill.  Now since I do not drive a car, quality of shoes are important to me.

Around Mothers Day in 2009 I purchased these shoes and out of the store they were very comfortable. but, after a month these shoes started to fall apart which aggravated me.  The glue to hold the sole together had was very inferior due to the fact that the more you walked the more that the sole separated from the shoe.

After I had returned the first pair I figured that the shoes were a fluke.  In june I the second pair and those too fell apart in no time.   Since I needed shoes and the older Teva shoes I had some holes in them, the retailer I bought the shoes from did everything in there power to help me out, but to no avail. finally I had emailed Decker shoes the parent company of Teva figuring that i’d get no response. About a week late to my surprise I received an email back

Hi Mike

Thanks for your email.  Honestly.  We really appreciate you taking some time to connect with us and share your feedback.

First, I’m sorry to hear of your most recent issues with Teva products.  You are absolutely correct in your frustration, we definitely owe you a huge apology and a new pair of shoes.  I hope you will accept both from me and know that I will help in finding a resolution.  Teva prides itself on high performance, quality and, as a sign of our camaraderie, our customer service.  I’m sorry to hear we fell short in these department for you.

As you may know, the Aravalli is no longer available in our current line.  However, I would be happy to replace your shoes with a pair from our current selection.  I would like to offer something like the Riva Leather eVent or the Riva eVent.  You can check both out here.  If these aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, just let me know if something else stands out.

Once you choose a style, please let me know your size and address for shipping.  I’ll go ahead and get these out as soon as possible.  Also, for all of your troubles, I would like to also extend an offer for a pair of our Mush flips.  I know it’s starting to change seasons but year-around these are a definitely a treat for your feet.

Thanks again Mike for reaching out.  We’re glad to hear from you and I apologize again, on behalf of Teva, for your troubles.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

jaime

Jaime Eschette

Teva Public Relations

Goleta, CA

(###) ###-### x1178

 please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

After a few email exchanges Teva sent me a pair of Teva Riva Event shoes, These shoes are amazingly comfortable, A little tight at first but after you break in the shoes. they are very light, durable, and weatherproof. I really have to hand it to Teva/Deckers shoes for helping me out and fixing this problem with my shoes.  Really as far as shoes go I never thought of Teva for shoes, I used to use Timberlands for shoes but, as there quality went downhill I was happy to find this brand.

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EA … Its not in the game anymore and the PC and the $$$$$ (for .99 cents you can buy the letter z in this post)

EA for years has been known for abysmal games of poor quality, although they have improved in some matters but, its really false positive in my mind.

Sure there are a handful of good games from EA as of recently – Crysis, burnout paradise,the sims 3(I guess) *orange box doesn’t count because its a repackage from steam

Continue reading “EA … Its not in the game anymore and the PC and the $$$$$ (for .99 cents you can buy the letter z in this post)”

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MovieStop gets stranger.. (possible employee reply)

While sitting here and realizing i’ve not updated in ages , I decided to check my comments sections, It was kind of funny .  I noticed a Comment sitting in moderation for my moviestop post that I had posted over a year ago. I had an problem with MovieStop, and after a few emails the situation was corrected, I thought it was spam until I decided to read it.

March 26, 2009 at 11:50 am

Policy is, if you reserve a movie they match the lowest “ADVERTISED” price. This means there has to be an in store advertisement stating the lower price. They do not match every price because they sell used movies which are always lower than any other store’s new prices. Sounds to me like you are one of those customers that all retail employees hate to have to service. You think that you should get the best deal even though the policy is different than what you want. Maybe step down from your high horse and come join the rest of us on planet earth.

Maybe I’m on a High horse maybe I’m not, but this comment is basically an attack,  let me break this one down.

  • Policy is, if you reserve a movie they match the lowest “ADVERTISED” price.

From my previous post: Before Leaving the Moviestop lot I had checked the window to see that there was a Large sign in yellow with black large letters “GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES”. When i had asked regarding this sign in the front of the store windows the person claimed that there was an asterisk in the sign on the front of the store. Checking the sign again there was No asterisk no Limitation no claim to see in store for details Nothing noting of any policy of what this person had spoke of.This item was new, and the price I saw was ADVERTISED, It was  in the best buy flier for the same week.

  • This means there has to be an in store advertisement stating the lower price.

See above

  • They do not match every price because they sell used movies which are always lower than any other store’s new prices.

That’s a given but, I purchased this product new.  generally used products fall under different rules which are printed in stores (Or at least gamestops that I’ve been too).

  • Sounds to me like you are one of those customers that all retail employees hate to have to service. You think that you should get the best deal even though the policy is different than what you want.

Now your getting a little snippy here, As far as being hated by retail employees, I don’t think so, Now i’ve been nice up to this point. I’m sure a lot of gamestop/moviestop employees are not like you, Hell I know my gamestop/moviestop managers and they know me but,you are a gamestop/moviestop employee In richmond, VA area, who has no  clue what went on and are assuming the customer is always wrong, I never believe the customer is always “right” but, there is a happy medium.  That right there is the first sign of bad customer service, Secondly I pointed out the sign issue, most states have laws saying they are bound by what the sign says unless its a grievously bad error, also by the federal trade commision .

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency that enforces advertising laws and regulations. Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:

  • Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
  • Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
  • Advertisements cannot be unfair.

But to get this kind of treatment almost a year later is kind of low, I’ve been mostly nice through this post but if MovieStop employees really think they are god to obviously which you think you are, you need to really sit down and think! How do i want my store to be and how can I keep people coming back to my store. Not find a post on the internet and bash the person because what you believe is right, quite simply you need to educate your customers and educate your self and CORRECT problems when you see them, If you store has a sign that says

“GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES”.

But, the sign only refers to preorders, The sign is incorrect! You need to correct the sign because the sign says quite different from the actual given “policy”.  A better sign would be

“GUARANTEED LOWEST ADVERTISED PRICES ON PRE-ORDERS: See inside for details”.

After this I think moviestop is on the shitlist again.