Tag Archives: Money

Phone Fun IV: A New hope.

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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.

Fun With Teva shoes

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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.

Retail Zombies riiiiiiiiiise!

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just when you thought circuit city was down and out there website is back up .

the only thing that’s weird is

Systemax Inc., a leading multi-channel retailer of computers, electronics, and industrial products, has purchased the Circuit City brand, trademark, website and other assets. The purchased assets include the customer records of the original Circuit City.

As part of our “Customer First” initiative, and respect for your privacy, you can opt-out of having your personally identifiable information transferred to the new Circuit City. Personally identifiable information may include name, address, email, phone, and purchase history. However, it DOES NOT include credit card data or other personal financial information; this information will not be transferred to us at all. If you opt-out prior to June 9th, your personal information will be purged and you will no longer receive email communications from Circuit City.

although they do include and opt-out form for the data retained by the new company.  but if you opt out, they will expell your data from the site.

compusa was also bought by the same company. the funny thing i’ve notice is they have a twitter feed on the compusa page.  I personally don’t like twitter due to its retard factor of dumbing things down to 140 letters. Media has attached themselves to twitter like its the best thing since sliced bread.

700 billion dollar bail out stinks.

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The Federal government has just authorized a 700 billion dollar bailout for banks, and immediatly I had my concerns about this.  Did the banks do anything to improve there situation , Fuck No. Instead they are right back to there old ways.

Reason i say this, My phone rang yesterday, I look at the caller ID and said what the hell! It was Washing mutaul, Now just for the pure sake of curiousity i answered the phone and was greeted to a Credit Card offer.. WaMu was offering me a credit card which i couldnt help but to inquire more on .

This is seriously stupid.

“Dunkin’ Donuts lookin’ out for java lovers” Are they trying to find some ….

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Or are they kidnapping them and forcing them to forms of torture that they wouldn’t even do in Guantanamo bay? Dunkin Donuts has been known for serving coffee that taste like burnt ass or as bluesteel would say my old cesspool.  Apparently they have a special going on which i find kind of funny since this article states that dunkin donuts is looking out for the java loving joe…

From the article,

When times are tough and money’s tight – don’t despair, Dunkin’ Donuts has your back.

For a moment i thought to myself Interesting but, I read further..

Today the coffee giant ushers in an era of cheap lattes to get you through the afternoon energy slump. Starting this afternoon, DD will offer 99-cent small lattes between the hours of 2 p.m. – 5 p.m., available in caramel, mocha or pumpkin. It’s apparently available for a “limited time only.

Look closely at that… somethings wrong… Oh yeah No normal person can get a coffee in those hours unless they work 2nd or 3rd shift,  I can see that fly at an office “hey boss I’m going to get myself a cheap coffee at dunkin, ok?” as the boss glares at you and says sit down asshat and drink the office coffee. Although I think the final comment was the kicker..

And check this out to read about other ways New Yorkers are cutting costs as the economy crumbles

Just what we need, people tweaked out on coffee as the stock market goes in the toilet or is that goes to the toilet after having cheap dunkin donuts latte?  My thought on this is Ditch the dunkin and either make your own coffee or find a local mom and pop coffee shop, often times there cheaper and will apprecaite your money alot more than dunkin donuts or starbucks would.

Phone Fun .. Katana LX mini-review

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I was on a Pay as you go plan for AT&T and it worked out well if you made next to no calls. but then again there were times you were forced to make calls. That got expensive quick, the silly rounding rules for minutes killed off money faster than anything. After signing up to sprint on there low plan  29.99 for 200 minutes.

The Katana lx is decent looking phone but looks do not make up for its problems. the problem maybe more from my point of view, but moreso they tend to be things I look for in a phone and i have basic requirements for a phone.

1. to make calls
2. that the phone is somewhat configurable
3. can add/make own ringtones.
4. Durable

well the phone right out of the box passes only on #1 and #4. I had started with a bluetooth connector the phone connected right up but after that the phone really as far as accessing data and such was worthless, the best that could be done is a tether if you had a DataPlan.

Another issue i have with sprint is the fact that the phones dont use Sim cards which makes programing your phonebook a pain in the ass and you look like an ass doing it with 2 phones in hand. As Far as a Dead basic phone the Katana LX is just that.

After the bluetooth try i figured maybe the USB Cable would be more fruitful in getting the phone to be somewhat responsive , I was wrong, as Far as drivers from Sanyo – Good luck with that. It took me two days of looking and when i finally did get it working , the phone did Even less than when connected to bluetooth.

But for being a basic phone it does have its pluses , You can hear it ring from jupiter on its loudest setting.  The T9 texting was decent..  but overall it was not what I would personally want in a phone.

So after talking to the rep at the sprint store I ended up returning the Katana after a good weeks use and learning its up and downs.

The phone would be good for someone who just wants to have a phone with not many bells and whistles.

The banking crisis and how it seems to stand now.

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Well right now with banks shuting down because of bank runs , Subprime Mortgages, and Idoits running the whole thing we are currently in an economic clusterfuck. Indy Mac and Fanny mae just got Picked up by the FDIC. I’ve been passively watching other banks and noticed that wacovia bank has lost over 72% of its value in the last 9 months.  My bank which i have a savings account through Has lost over 63% of its value in the same time.

It bothers me that you turn on the news and the financial news says “Everythings great! the housing market is up .5% , when year to date its actually down ALOT! If you go to sites that are out of the US basically you get the message of Hold on to your ass cuz your going for ride

The US needs to stop trying to save the banks and try to save the people. As far as i see it they have been screwing off and making inflation go batshit.

Every time we bail out a bank we are just setting up for a higher fall, every time the Interest rate is cut we are getting higher up. We are going to be up shits creek if we keep on saving banks. Unfortunatly at this time we keep doing this we if a major closure happens that we cant control , we are just going to go into freefall from all the propping up of the econimy , Its better off to slowly Fix the issues at hand , irony has it when i was a kid there was a cartoon that perfectly made sense of inflation . Its like a balloon, for every time you cause inflation the balloon inflates. cause too much inflation and it burst. we need to figure out how to slowly deflate the econimy and defuse the banking crisis. which Rather than gov bail out . they should fix it for themselves.

Sure jobs will be lost, but in the end by not keep bailing them out the landing will not be like jumping off a skyscraper

but overall the banks are to blame on this one. they are the ones that went out and offered dirtcheap mortgages that were effectively poisoned from the start. the ARM… will literaly cost you an arm and leg.

The US gov wants to give money to the banks. Why not do the more sound thing.. give the money to the people to save there houses, or at least give them an option to get out free if they can not prove a sound economic stance.  Its really bad that people loose there houses and yet the banks profit by getting huge bail outs.

Times are tough… even myself i’ve cut down on coffee =p