The general category for posts on this blog.

Today

It’s 10:10:10 on 10/10/10.

… and it’s also my birthday.  I am a thirty-six year survivor.

I apologize.  I just can’t help myself.

Okay, I’m done now.

The Sacrifice

Left 4 Dead: The SacrificeThis shouldn’t be news to anyone who is a fan of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, but yesterday the final chapter of The Sacrifice comic came out online.  Such a good story.  Go read it.  I’ll wait.

These sorts of things are why I love Valve Software.  Not only are their games well built and fun to play, but they understand story.  From Half-Life to Left 4 Dead to Portal to even Team Fortress 2, a game will little story of its own but surrounded by tons of great videos and other stuff.

Anyway, to get back on the Zombie Wednesdays bandwagon, yesterday also saw the release of The Sacrifice DLC for L4D and L4D2.  It’s great to fill in the gap of how our original survivors get down to New Orleans, and it’s also nice that they released it for the original game as well, just in case there are some purists out there still clinging to the L4D2 boycott and never bought the sequel.

Want to play?  On Live, I’m Jhaer.  Friend me, but also be sure to tell me who you are…

Red Undead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption: Undead NightmareToday’s Zombie Wednesdays post was going to be about my initial impressions of Dead Rising 2, however due to a slew of free movie screenings this week I might not actually get to play it until Friday.  Instead, I bring you the artwork for Red Dead Redemption’s upcoming Undead Nightmare DLC.

Now, some people are upset at this because they feel that it detracts from the realistic feel of the original game.  That the supernatural has no place in the world crafted by RDR.  Then again, no one is forcing them to buy and play this expansion.  I can see why they might be upset since Rockstar is “wasting their time making crap like this” or whatever, just like people get pissed when Harmonix releases another batch of DLC songs they don’t care about.  Get over it.

Personally, I can’t wait.  Zombies in the Old West?  Yes, please!  And this time the bulk of (or all of) the DLC is single player, so I don’t have to rely on finding random people to play with when I want to play.  I look forward to the new missions and retouched world with an undead flavor.  Squeee!

There is supposed to be a trailer available on Thursday, so look for it.  The only question is… will I have to go up against zombie John Marston?

Not Enough Information

I deal with a company on a fairly regular basis.  When I call in about any issue, we open a trouble ticket and I’m given the ticket number.  They have a Quality Assurance team, and before I go bad mouthing them know that I think having a good QA team is awesome and more companies should do it, however… their QA team will call and based on whatever report they are looking at will ask if a) I’ve been contacted, b) my problem is being resolved, or c) if I was satisfied with the completed work.  I have no problem with this at all, and as I said, I wish more companies would do it.  The problem I have is that the QA team is not given enough information.

They call and say, “Hi! I’m [insert name] from [company X] and I’m calling in reference to ticket number [ticket number]…” and then they ask their question.  Given that at any one time I may have three to five tickets open with them my first question is always, “And what is this ticket in reference to?”  They never know because they aren’t given that information.  They get contact info and a ticket number, that’s it.  I could always look it up myself, since I keep my own notes, but I’m not always at my PC when they call.  This company also has a website where I can view my open tickets and add details.  Only, all I can see is the original ticket and the latest update.  This means if there have been multiple updates to the ticket, I cannot see anything but the last one.  The last one is usually the most useless too.

  1. [original problem] Stuff is broken, please fix it.
  2. Assigned to dept A
  3. Researched, found errors in logs that indicated dept B is actually needed
  4. Assigned to dept B
  5. Resolved source of log errors, item still not functioning
  6. Assigned to dept A
  7. Trouble appears to be on external lines
  8. Assigned to contractor Z
  9. Z found damage, repaired
  10. Assigned to dept A

After the above series of events, I go to the website and can only see:

  1. [original problem] Stuff is broken, please fix it.
  2. Assigned to dept A

which is pretty unhelpful and looks like they’ve done nothing at all.  Why have a customer viewable ticket if you are going to have it be that useless?

All in all, this is something I run into all over the place.  So many people want to control information because they feel like controlling the information gives them the upper hand… which it does, but it also often slows things down.  Or worse, they’ve been told to never admit fault, ever, and so they hide all those details so they can do some hand waving and things will be magically fixed without ever telling the customers that a problem actually existed.  It is just so frustrating…

Hey You!

Yeah you!  I know being Customer Service is tough.  I used to do it.  Listening to people bitch about their problems and blaming you for them when there isn’t anything you can do.  But you know what you can do?  Your job!  When someone calls you and gives you details about a problem, how about adding them to the ticket, huh? When the technician reads it and it has no details, I’m pretty sure he won’t be a fucking mind reader and know all the things you didn’t write down!

And hey, while we’re here… you!  Yeah you, Mr. Technician.  When you get a ticket that is light on the details, how about you call the customer and ask, “Dude… WTF?” or, you know, something more business-ish like “Excuse me, sir, but what seems to be the problem?”  You know what you shouldn’t do?  Wander around on your own trying to decipher the cryptic garbage in the ticket and figure out what the problem is all by yourself.  You really don’t want to waste six hours working on the wrong thing when three minutes on the phone would have told you it was a five minute fix.

And the whole lot of you… yeah, ALL of you! Stop lying to people.  Don’t tell the customer they’ll be getting a call in a few minutes unless it’s true.  An hour is not a few minutes, not even close.  Two hours is way off, four hours is even further away, and six hours is a giant waste of everyone’s time.  The real kicker?  You all work at a communications company and the one thing you suck at more than anything else?  Communication!

Movie Round-Up: September 3rd, 2010

Going the America Machete DistanceApologies if you saw this earlier, Dragon*Con got in the way and I didn’t finish it…

The American:

I have no idea what this movie is about.  I haven’t even seen a trailer for it.  It just isn’t on my radar.  But Clooney is pretty much always good, so… I’ll see it at some point.

Going the Distance:

Saw a screening of this last week, and before going in I didn’t pay any attention to the rating of the film.  So, I entered expecting a typical PG-13 romantic comedy that the wife would love and that I would tolerate.  What I got was an R rated hilarious masterpiece on the frustrations of long distance relationships.  There was just so much funny and good about this film that I don’t know where to begin.  Totally worth paying to see, in my opinion.

Machete:

Just two nights ago I went to the Fete Machete down at the Plaza Theater.  It was awesome.  If you liked the Grindhouse double feature from a few years back, you’ll love this.

You are doing it wrong

We all hate spam.  But I suspect that some of you out there are ruining the Internet for the rest of us.

The good thing about spam is that either by content or by source 99% or more of it is fairly easily identifiable.  Spam filters look for words or groups of words or sources or other characteristics of the content or sender to flag undesired emails and put them in the spam bin.

However, if you sign up for a newsletter, just because you don’t want it anymore that doesn’t make it spam.  I have seen tons of people do this.  Sadly, because spam filters often strive to be better they try to learn from items people manually mark as spam in order to better filter.  Many legitimate newsletters get thrown in my spam folder, not because they are spam, but because other lazy people have been marking them as spam instead of unsubscribing.

And while I’m at it… Gmail?  Just because I delete mail from a particular sender all the time doesn’t mean I don’t want to get their mail.  Stop marking them spam.  I’m deleting them because I don’t need them, not because I don’t want them.  Cut it out.  Unlike many people, I don’t keep emails that I’ll never need again ever.  If I send someone an email and they send me back a “Thanks!” reply, I delete it.  If I happen to send that same person too many emails, each of which they reply “Thanks!” to (which I like, mind you, I love when people acknowledge getting an email, that way I don’t have to ask them later “Hey, did you get my email?”) and each of which I delete, Gmail decides they must be spam since I keep deleting them and now I have to go to my spam folder every day and look for the falsely accused.

So, to recap… People, stop marking things as spam that are not spam.  Google, stop marking things as spam that are not spam.

Thank you.

Not as private as you may think

Are you a Facebook user?  Do you like posting photos and status updates?  Do you enjoy posting on people’s walls and having them post on your wall?

One of the main issues that I have with Facebook is the illusion.  You log in and you are presented with your news feed.  Over on the left you see the smiling faces of your friends that are online, and your feed is full of them telling you about random stuff.  And see all this friend-centered stuff and you think, “Hey, I’ve got something to say, let me update my status and share it with my friends…”  Who can really see that?  If you’ve gone into your privacy settings then it might just be your friends.  More likely, it’s your “Friends of Friends” or even “Everyone”.

You might have heard that horror story about someone who bitched about their boss and the boss saw it and it got them in trouble, so you haven’t friended your boss.  However, you are unaware that your boss actually went to high school with someone who is your friend.  You’ve got your status updates set to “Friends of Friends” which means your boss, who is a friend of your friend, can see that you just called him a twat, so maybe you don’t get that raise or promotion.

That photo you posted of your girlfriend meeting you at the door when you got home, naked with a beer and a steak… sure, the plate covered all the naughty bits, but you just posted that to your Mobile Photos album (since you uploaded it from your phone) and that album is marked visible by Everyone!  That’s on the Internet now.  Tagged and cached, for-ev-ver.  The next time your girlfriend goes looking for a job, someone just might Google her name, see that photo and decide her future based on it.  Maybe she doesn’t get the job… or maybe she does and her new boss treats her like a girl willing to have half-naked photos of her posted on the Internet… or maybe it doesn’t matter…

I prefer to err on the side of thinking that it matters…

A caution about privacy and the Internet might seem odd coming from a guy who blogs and mentions his real life now and then, but know that every tidbit of information I put into a blog post is carefully considered.  I ask myself, “Do I mind if everyone knows this?”  I have over 1,100 posts here and I’ve probably put just as many in the trash bin.  It’s actually common for me to come here, write out a diatribe on the latest frustration at work or amongst friends, let it sit in draft form for a couple of days and then delete it.  It’s one of the reasons I love blogging and haven’t been a huge fan of most social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, because they are immediate, there is less chance for careful consideration.

So, my Monday morning bit of advice this week is to go to your privacy settings in Facebook and make sure all your sharing is at levels you are comfortable with.  At the very least, be aware of who can see what you say…