Some Cell Phone Advice...

This seems like reasonable advice. And for the record, this is copied from a Slashdot comment - I don't remember who or what user, but this isn't me.

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As I type this, my father is on his phone yelling at his carrier. He's now spent over 20 hours this month yelling at them over the same billing error. He's furious, and it all makes sense.
I have the same carrier. I'm very happy with my carrier. But I've done things very differently. And I continue to do things differently.

The carrier did mis-bill my father. Absolutely and without question. Whether or not it was intentional is optionally obvious. But it's irelevant. My father, like most people, calls them, expects them to work out the issue on the phone for him immediately. And while we all know they should, and they could, it takes twenty minutes and then they don't. Again, intentional or otherwise is up to you.
I've seen all of you guys get frustrated with this sort of thing. So I've solved the problem. Here's what I did, and what I do.

First, I have a "business account". The only difference between a business account and a consumer account is that I asked for a "business account" and they call it a "business account". Otherwise, it's the same. All plans are available to me the same way. If anything, it actually reduces the availabitily of customer support because I need to be transfered to a business account person. Again, true or not is up to your own belief system.

Second, I don't expect anything to ever get done immediately over the phone. About once a quarter, sometimes once a month, I have some sort of an issue to deal with. Maybe billing, maybe account change, maybe whatever. I call, I leave the phone on speaker-phone until I get the right person -- sometimes I'm on hold for twenty minutes, rarely but sometimes. Doesn't matter, I'm working to hold music instead of to my own music, big deal.

Then, I ask for whatever I want. If it doesn't get done and solved perfectly in five minutes by the first reasonable-correct agent, I simply say: "I need to go, please work this out and call me back tomorrow at this time." 90% of the time, that's exactly what happens, and it's perfect. The remaining 10% of the time, if they don't call me back and it doesn't get done, then I walk into the physical brick and mortar store, and say exactly the same thing -- to someone wearing a manager tag. I smile, I shake her hand, I flirt a little (it works between men too, by the way), and I ask them to do me the personal favour and call me back with the solution -- and I give them a full week.

I think a lot of you forget that, assuming your phone is functional, all of these billing- and plan-, and account-related issues can be worked out retro-actively. There really is no rush. It's not urgent.
So I live a very happy life. I get problems solved within a week, with minimal time and effort spent by me. Why does anyone need any more? You deserve to have your problem solved. You don't deserve to have your problem solved within an hour.

Last Friday was my second Weight Watchers meeting, which went well. It was a fairly successful meeting all around. One person hit "lifetime" status; another hit 10%; another hit 25 lbs. Me? I hit 11 pounds, which is pretty impressive (to me) in two weeks. I don't know how long I can keep up that pace, but even if it's only a short time, it'll be amazing. I've been pretty stable for a while - a slow increase, really, up to where I was - and I'm now the lightest I've been in about a year and a half. I'll be honest and say I don't really remember when I got this heavy - but it's been a long time. A depressingly long time.

So this week is looking very, very busy at this point, and I am... Tired. Tonight is Gumdo class; tomorrow is blood drawing for tests in the morning, and my son in the evening; Wednesday is a doctor's appointment in the morning, and class in the evening; and Friday I'm leaving as soon as I can after work. On top of that, I have to buy a suit, get my car inspected, take Nina food shopping and to BJs, get to the vet to get more food and refill Poe's medications, refill at least one of my prescriptions, do laundry, buy a power adapter, and pack.

I'll just hope I find time to squeeze "sleep" into there somewhere, but no guarantees.

Next week... I'm expecting to be stressful. I suppose this type of trip always is? At least I'll have a day or two either side of the funeral to deal with things, and after both flights. Fly out Saturday night, arriving Sunday morning their time; Tuesday the 2nd is the funeral itself; then flying back Friday and landing barely two hours after I take off, to decide whether I'm driving home Friday or Saturday. I'm just assuming class Saturday after I get back is a non-starter due to jet lag, but I suppose you never know.

Either way. The circumstances are sad, and I wish Nina was going with me, but I'll be glad to see my family. And this is also the first time I've been back since my grandfather's funeral, so I can visit his grave for the first time as well.

I'm tired. I just want to go home and sleep. >.<

First meeting...

So today was my first Weight Watcher's meeting. I have mixed feelings about it. The women there leading the meeting were very friendly, but the actual coworkers at the meeting seemed rather unhappy to be there. We went over last week's goal, the official "goal of the month", talked about eating out and things like that, went over a couple of success stories from the group, raffled off a basket of Weight Watcher's food (not a weekly thing, but interesting). As it turns out, I weighed in at 357.4 - approximately a 4.6-lb loss.

And no, I didn't win the basket.

The Best Buyer's List...

It's easier than I'd ever realized to buy your way onto the best seller's list.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864304578316143623600544.html

I mean, on some level, this is the most basic scam possible in that industry - best seller lists are based on unit sales, so the easiest way to elevate your ranking on such a list is to generate the sales counted... Even if that means buying 5,000 copies yourself (or through intermediaries). The fact that it's not an honest purchase is non-trivial to detect, though. You could go and white-list or black-list buyers for these metrics - but there's a fine line in there. Should a library be buying one copy, or ten, or one hundred? If a university bought 1,000 for "reference purposes", is that valid? (And don't tell me no universities - or even departments or professors - wouldn't be willing to make such a purchase to get a small premium on the check.) And if you have a heavy enough touch on the sales routes to determine more than very basic information, you have potential privacy issues.

Just another of those things, I guess, that I never really considered but is blindingly obvious once you see it.

The SMALLEST of Worlds!

Since I'm sure you all care (don't you?), the next Kickstarter I've supported is Small World 2:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daysofwonder/small-world-2-the-return

It's "2" in the sense that they're retiring the existing iPad app and replacing it wholesale. But, for those of you who aren't familiar... Small World is a board game by Days of Wonder (www.daysofwonder.com/smallworld/) specifically designed at being short and... Interactive. The map is designed to specifically be too small to allow non-interaction in a standard game. You start off by choosing a race and power combination, where each race and power has both an ability (or lack thereof) and a number of armies. So, the Peace-Loving (4) Skeletons (4) have a total of 8 armies, while the Swamp (4) Kobolds (11) have 15. You come onto the board (if your active race has no territories) through any edge space; and you have to pay 1 army to claim a territory, plus extras depending on terrain features (mountains are +1) and armies there (one per defending army) plus, sometimes, special powers (fortifications are +1, etcetera). If you don't *quite* have enough but are close, your last fight can roll a die with a 0-3 "bonus" to allow you to conquer it. For the defender, they lose one unit to death and the rest go back into their hand to re-deploy on their next turn. At the end of your turn, you score one per territory (plus and bonuses - like terrain bonuses for your power or whatever); and instead of taking a turn you can choose to put your race into "decline". Any in-decline races you have are removed; your active race loses all their units except one in each territory; and they're flipped over to their inactive side, where they lose all powers but still score until they're removed... And then the following turn, you pick a new race/power combo. So not overly complicated - very simple rules - but lots of potential complex interactions through power/race combinations. The big thing, though, is that it's designed to both be short (8-10 turns by default, based on number of players) and interactive (the map is intentionally cramped and encourages people to plan against the other players).

The existing iPad app has a few... Problems - the biggest ones being that it's 2-player only, and doesn't allow multiplayer except pass-and-play. Their new implementation will fix both those things, and they're offering it free to everyone who has the current version as a bonus. So yeah. Long story short... It's a good game, and the Kickstarter's a good idea, so I'm supporting it.

In other Kickstarter news, this one is about to succeed in a handful of hours:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1544851629/throw-trucks-with-your-mind?ref=thanks

Apparently, they're amused by the possibility of using the brain-scanner-headband-controllers to do interesting things, and want to encourage you to throw things in the environment at your friends and neighbours. I mean, it's nifty, but I think it's unlikely that I'm going to support it - just not really enough interest for me. Interesting as a concept, though, and I'm glad they  succeeded.

In Weight Watchers news... I need to get active and eat more fruits and veggies! Tracking things every day makes that far more obvious than it was. It's like, intellectually, I already knew that, and I'm being silly on some level by saying this; but looking at the glaring holes on the tracker for things I'm doing (and not doing) make it more obvious than it otherwise might have been, y'know? So I need to get into the habit of buying more fruit, and actually eating it; and eating more things like salads when I have the opportunity. Fruit being the big one, I suspect. I mean, hell - buying a bunch of bananas and just making a habit of eating one when I get home, or something similar, is probably a good idea. And I like apples and oranges (even if I have a tendency to shy away from oranges because of the effort involved in peeling them).

Watcher in the Wings...

So on some level, in the back of my mind, I've always considered Weight Watchers a scam. I know that's ridiculous. I mean, it's one of the most popular diet plans ever, it's been around for a while, and it's still around. It's successful, and for something that's 50 years old and still running, that's saying a lot. But in my head, there's always been this... Assumption, that there's something just a little bit off about it. I guess I was forced to confront it this past week, though. My employer recommends Weight Watchers. My insurance (being the same, it isn't a surprise) recommends Weight Watchers. And when a second one of my doctors specifically recommended it... Well, I thought I should actually take it seriously.

I weigh something on the order of 360 pounds. I mean, it ranges from 355-365 depending on when I weigh myself and the context around it - time of day, whether I've eaten recently, what I'm wearing, etcetera. But that's just too much. So... On Thursday I joined WW, after research and procrastination and internal bitching... and this week I'll be going to my first meeting at work.

Nina joined with me, both as support and to lose weight herself. She has... I think it's 39 points a day, based on her weight and height. I have 71 using their default method, and that's sortof terrifying to me. That's... A lot. So I've been carefully watching what I eat, recording everything (or at least recording everything that's non-zero points - I've been slacking off on recording things like grapes and undressed salad) and I'll start weighing myself regularly. Probably mornings, after showering and getting dressed but before eating.

Why then, you ask? Because the two meetings at work at 7:30 Wednesdays and 11:30 Fridays... Which means I'd end up dressed (in the office) but they're right before meals. And if that's what my group weigh-ins are going to end up being (fully dressed and right before a meal), I figure that's what my non-group ones should be, also.

So... I'm vaguely nervous about it, which is dumb. But, well, if things go well, it'll be good for me. Hell, maybe this time next year I'll be one of those "I lost 100 pounds on Weight Watchers!" success stories. Who knows...

The sad decline of a giant...

This, kids, is why I've given up on the SimCity franchise. Requires an always-on connection for a single-player game. 20+ minute queues for login just to play (not even multiplayer play). Problems connecting and following friends. Problems finding multiplayer games. Hours for the game to fully unlock after going live. People being booted from games - with no progress saved. Saved games not loading properly. Metacritic score low and sinking - the game is being panned almost across the board. There are plent of comparisons to the (arguably) disastrous Diablo III launch.

More to the point, though, this is why I'm finding big-name game publishers less appealing and more frustrating. They make games with questionable features, little/no community involvement, and architectures that seem blatantly aimed at making profit at the expense of the community rather than in collusion with it. When did the industry become so... Hostile? Has it always been this way, and we've just never seen it? Is there such an enormous disconnect between executives and their customers, or is it really just the niche view of a small crowd? Facebook games have become big, the "freemium revolution". Play Farmville, and make money off of people putting in voluntary payments towards some in-game gems or coins. Or if not Farmville, then maybe Hay Day. Or if not that, then City Folk. The same thing has become big on mobile devices - look at Pixel People, or Pocket Planes, because Chillingo is a master of this. Free games where the only profit is from microtransactions. Even much bigger games are going this way now - look at how many MMOs are free-to-play, either entirely, or up to a level limit. Look at MechWarrior Online and Planetside 2. Games which are good - which are great! Games which are some of the best ones out there right now.

Piranha Games Interactive (PGI, the people making MWO) is an interesting, almost transitional company, in my mind. It's a smallish team, working with a traditional production stack and funding, putting out MechWarrior Online as a "big-name" game. It's free-to-play and supported by pre-orders (the "founders") and microtransactions, but also, they're doing one of the best jobs I've ever seen or heard of of getting the community involved. They (devs as well as designers and community managers) monitor the forums closely, and are actively involved in discussions. They get on podcasts, talk with people - live - and answer questions. They listen to feedback. They discuss things, and explain the reasons why things happen. They don't give excuses, they explain the decision-making process. Not everything they've done is something I necessarily approve of or agree with, but at least I don't think I'm being ignored - they just don't agree with my reasoning. I find myself supporting them more than I otherwise would purely because of their attitude. This is a game company I want to survive, and I'm willing to vote with my dollars to make my contribution to that end.

But look at some of the Kickstarted games. Watch the original video for Wasteland 2. This is a game with a big fan following and rabid supporters; a game that's been pitched so many times; but a game that no big publishing house would touch. They refused to accept the designer's vision, saying it was old-fashioned and going to be a failure. It wasn't going to sell a million copies on pre-orders, so they ignored it. It made it on Kickstarter. It only got 61,290 backers... But it got 61,290 backers. It got almost $3,000,000 in fundings. The fans stood up at the campaign and said "Yes, this is a game we will pay for. This is a game we will put money into, knowing we won't see it for a year. This is a game we want to exist, and we'll vote for it with our wallets."

Amanda Palmer's TED talk is an interesting one. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm more than a little bit of a Kickstarter junkie; I've supported more games than I'll ever be able to play, and other projects to boot. But one quote summarizes my feelings perfectly:

And the media asked, "Amanda, the music business is tanking and you encourage piracy. How did you make all these people pay for music?" And the real answer is, I didn't make them; I asked them. And through the very act of asking people, I'd connected with them; and when you connect with them, people want to help you.

Her record label, on her first album with the Grand Theft Orchestra, declared it a failure because it only had 25,000 sales; but then 25,000 backers put up $1.3 million for her second album and tour.

I love crowd-funding. Kickstarter will, itself, eventually die off; but this - letting fans pick their own projects - to me, is the future... And SimCity is a shining example of why it's so much harder than ever before to support the big publishing houses.

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* The list of Kickstarter projects I've supported so far, in the order I've funded them:

HexBright (the "open source", programmable flashlight)
The Silk Road in Stereo (supporting a road-trip across Asia with musical rewards)
Mystic Empyrean (a player-driven role-playing game)
Creatures (one of the most adorable card games I've ever seen)
Biochemies (DNA molecule plush dolls)
Lance T. Miller's Steampunk Playing Cards
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City (expansion to SotM, a card game)
Velociraptor! Cannibalism! (a silly board game)
Double Fine Adventure (a new take on an old computer adventure game genre)
FTL (an awesome, sci-fi, vaguely rogue-like adventure PC game)
Wasteland 2 (post-apocalyptic PC roleplaying, and sequel to the founder of the genre)
Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Assault (a lego-based wargame)
Dinocalypse Now (a role-playing expansion and fiction-writing project)
Shadowrun Returns (a new game set in my favourite setting ever)
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics (another expansion to SotM)
Carmageddon: Reincarnation (a re-boot of the original gratuitous car-crushing pedestrian-killing video game)
HAND Stylus (a pretty good stylus for tablets)
Dead State: The Zombie Survival RPG (yay zombie apocalypse computer RPG!)
Zombie Playground - 3D Action, Online Battle RPG (computer game)
Solforge (electronic CCG focusing on iOS)
Castle Story (computer strategy/survival game with strong Minecraft influences)
Project Eternity (an old-school fantasy CRPG of grand scale)
Strike Suit Zero (transforming mecha space shooter)
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Shattered Timelines (yet another expansion!)
1 Second Everyday (an awesome art project and iOS app)
Aero 3D Bird Flight Game (supported by Bill Nye, of all people. This one failed...)
Forsaken Fortress (post-apocalyptic survival CRPG)
Girl Genius and the Rats of Mechanicsburg (video game based on a popular web comic)
Claymation "Mourning Riturals" (a musical album)
Elite: Dangerous (massively multiplayer re-boot of the founding member of the space sim genre - and a huge source of nostalgia for me)
Antharion ("old-school" CRPG)
Galcon 2: Galactic Conquest (a sequel to one of the first iOS games I ever bought)
Smallworld 2 (cancelled, but an updated version of the iOS port of the Smallworld board game)
Monster of the Sky (a claymation/puppet movie I found through a band I've recently fallen in love with)
Ledo and Ix: Season 2 (web comic/video series)
Ascension Online (a PC and Android implementation of an awesome deck-building card game which is already on iOS)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment by one of my favourite computer game designer/producers)
Dungeon Roll (cute- and silly-looking dice game)

Higgins!

So Higgins is apparently having a series of "Women in Armor" events this month:

Women in Ancient Times: http://www.higgins.org/women-ancient-timesWomen of the Roman Legion: http://www.higgins.org/women-roman-legion
Women of the Celtic World: http://www.higgins.org/women-celtic-world
Elizabeth I at Tilbury: http://www.higgins.org/elizabeth-i-tilbury
An Audience with Elizabeth I: http://www.higgins.org/audience-elizabeth-i
Women in Viking Times: http://www.higgins.org/women-viking-times-9

 This should be interesting. I'm hoping to hit one or two of those, especially the Celtic and Viking one.

In related news, the History Channel has started a series on Vikings:

http://www.history.com/shows/vikings

Nina's psyched, and I'm interested. Apparently we're going to be watching this sooner than later. :-)