Holy crap, dude. The Poor Man is right. You simply must read this.

So I left a brief comment at Lloyd’s coffee blog pleading with him to never buy anything from Best Buy. He asked, of course, the obvious follow-up: “Why not?” Since “Because” just didn’t seem to quite capture the nuances of my objections to that foul retailer, I thought I’d take a moment to explain my position.

Now, I’m well aware that one can Google the word “hate” AND [any store or service provider] and find blog posts, forum rants, and even whole websites full of venom. But Best Buy seems to work diligently at finding new and ever-stupider ways to lower the bar of customer service.

Take the guy who got arrested when he tried to pay an installation charge in $2 bills (see here, too). And did you know that the company is being sued by the Ohio State Attorney General’s office for hundreds of reports of “unfair and deceptive acts,” such as repackaging used goods as new, and failing to honor rebates and extended service contracts?

Mistakes happen, right? Well, actually, Best Buy has openly declared their desire to weed out unprofitable customers (whom they call “devils”—how charming!) from profitable customers, or “angels.” Best Buy seems to think that customers who take advantage of specials, rebates, and loss-leaders are stealing from the company. Moreover, to weed out the riff-raff, Best Buy secretly collects data on customer shopping habits and uses that data to discourage repeat visits. Best Buy wants to identify their best consumers and treat the rest of us as second-class citizens. Fine. Please yourselves. But don’t expect your attitude to make me want to do business with you.

My frustration with Best Buy goes way back. They opened their first store in Orlando in the mid-90s, and from the beginning I had trouble just finding prices on the things I wanted to buy. There were no prices on the boxes, and the shelf labels were maintained haphazardly. The seemingly perpetual problem with maintaining appropriate staffing levels meant that I wasted gobs of time just trying to determine whether I was going to buy something from them or not. When I could get someone’s attention, they were rude or abrupt. From the high-decibel noise assault to the disorganized shelves to the surly staff, the whole place exuded an air of cynicism and disdain for the customers that was beyond the pale, and I have seen the same pattern repeated consistently in each Best Buy I’ve entered. My reaction was no doubt due in part to working 50-60 hours a week in the hospitality industry at companies who set the standard for good customer service. I’m well aware that there’s a better way to behave as a retailer and it isn’t hard. It just takes determination and effort. Pissing off your consumers is simply not acceptable.

Look, nobody deserves to get ripped off—Best Buy included. But most retailers take the approach that customers are basically honest. Those are the companies I want to deal with. I don’t want to give my money to any company that doesn’t even seem willing to pretend to make their customers—not their profits—the most important element of their business. My money and my time are valuable, and if Best Buy doesn’t want to treat me with respect, they don’t get to have me as a customer.

If you need more reasons to hate Best Buy, head over to BestBuySux.org. They’ve kept an archive of comments – both pro and con – about the retailer since 1999.

Technorati Tags: customerservice, rants

Short review: Must love bombs.

Extended review: Must love sitting in the movie theatre gnawing your fingers off. This movie was so bad… by end of the opening credits I wanted to leave. By the half-way mark, I was hoping that Sam Peckinpah would make a guest appearance as director so that everyone of the characters—including the extras… and the dogs—would die in a slow-motion ballet of gunfire. Then I hoped that Sadaam Hussein would make a guest directing appearance and that he would actually gas the cast.

We left the movie theatre about an hour ago, but the cinema staff can’t leave yet because they have to wait for the movie to stop sucking.

If you think about going to see this movie, consider disemboweling yourself with a dull spoon instead. It’ll be less painful and more rewarding.

Technorati Tags: moviesthatsuck

Never “utilize.” Never, never, never, ever “utilize.”

“Use.”

That is all.

I was listening to the podcast of the April 8th edition of NPR’s On The Media today, and just had to retch at the interview with John Stossel. The 20/20 anchor was on the program to defend the side of the “Global Warming Is Nonsense” contingent. Here are a couple of exchanges that brought me up short:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You don’t believe that is the case [that the vast majority of scientists believe that global warming poses a serious danger]. The consensus seems to be clear. Why don’t you believe it?

JOHN STOSSEL: Because scientists tell me that the people writing the alarmist reports do not reflect the majority of scientists who really understand it; that the way you characterize it is not the way I’ve heard good scientists characterize it; and that the idea and the tone of voice you use is very telling – it’s saying “Yes, there’s a crisis. How can you refute that? You’re such a jerk.”

Really? Which scientists? Stossel never says, and Gladstone never asks. She’s diverted effectively by his whine that she’s pre-judging him, but instead of taking it like a man and countering her with evidence, he just complains that she’s implying that he’s a jerk.

Look, maybe it’s true that Stossel’s contacts in the scientific community are right to pooh-pooh the evidence. I’m willing to hear them out. But how are we to know or judge their claims without knowing who they are or why they believe the way they do. This is sloppy he-said, she-said journalism, completely unenlightening and not at all informative. Stossel’s rhetoric is hollow; it just sounds like he’s making a point.

But here’s the thing that really almost made me throw my iPod against the wall. Keep in mind here that Chrichton has been belittling environmental science of late…

BROOKE GLADSTONE: In December, you featured novelist Michael Crichton on 20/20, and you praised him for contradicting something most people believe and fear. You went on to say that environmental organizations are fomenting false fears in order to promote agendas and raise money. Why use a fiction writer to refute the scientific community?

JOHN STOSSEL: Because he’s famous, and he’s interesting, and he’s smart, and he writes books that lots of people read, and I could interview the scientists for 20/20, but more people will pay attention when this particular smart fiction writer says it.

Sweet Jeebus, John… do you hear yourself? You’ve just told us that you don’t particularly care about Crichton’s scientific credentials or the worthiness of his argument. All you care about is that he’s famous. That response tells me more about your character and values than anything about the nature of your argument. I think it’s the stupidest, most baldly cynical thing I’ve ever heard anyone in the media say… and that’s saying something.

Don’t know if I get a vote in this, but Stossel’s my choice for Wanker of the Week.

So, it’s April 1st. April Fools’ Day. I must admit, I’m feeling a bit like an April Fools’ Grinch. I’ve already been “gotcha’d” twice – once by a report of an Apple G5 with three processors, once by a report that there was another major announcement from the Mars rover team. Lord knows how much hokum I’ve swallowed whole from the blogosphere today. I guess my problem is that, given the level of discourse I encounter most days, given the slippage of ethics in journalism, given the inability of most people to spot logical fallacies and other rhetorical blunders, and given that I’ve pretty much come to depend on comedy news shows and newspaper satires to deliver the kind of insightful news commentary I once depended on the real world to provide, at this point it’s really hard to distinguish April Fools’ Day from the rest of the year.

What is an April Fools’ joke supposed to be, anyway? It can be a simple dime store gag, I suppose, like a joy buzzer or a pen that squirts disappearing ink. However, when I think of the classic fools I’ve encountered, I think of TV news reports like the spaghetti-growing bushes of Italy, or the farm that raises branchless trees for use as telephone poles. I think of any number of newspaper and magazine satires that were so well written that I really needed to check the date and the byline closely for clues that it was a joke.

A joke is a surprise on the mind. It’s like a head fake on the basketball court, getting you to move your mind one way while the joke goes the other. Laughter is the delightful recognition of the skill of the joke teller. I think we laugh at jokes because we recognize their fundamental truth, and the fundamental truth is that our conscious experience is not so linear or predictable as we’d like to believe. Meaning bifurcates, recurses, twists itself into a Gordian Knot. It is only through our conscious efforts that we construct a livable reality based on common perceptions, one which allows us to participate in a society.

But it seems to me that too much of what I encounter these days online, in the media, and from the political arena is like a bad joke. Our administration lies to justify a war, then denies that it lied, even in the face of proof. Journalists like Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley make up stories out of whole cloth. Members of the administration, who have continued to promote their handling of the 9/11 crisis as evidence of brave and capable leadership, refuse to testify before the 9/11 Committee, or agree only under bizarre conditions. Fox News calls itself “Fair and Balanced.” Wolf Blitzer insinuates that Richard Clarke’s personal life is “weird.” CNN lies that David Letterman doctored a video.

When challenged, the common defense these days is to attack the challenger, to question the perception of truth, or to further obfuscate details of the original event. The defenders turn the question on its head and pretend that, no, the challengers must be the ones that are mistaken. Like joke-tellers, they try to fake us one way and move the other. They depend on our innate understanding that meaning is fungible to maintain their veneer of infallibility. They thwart our attempts to straighten out the tangled threads of truth, to divine reason from bullshit, to construct a foundation of common perception that might provide a platform for social maturity. Through blinkered self-interest, those who wish to maintain their power weaken us all.

What is increasingly apparent in modern public discourse, is that there are certain powerful interests whose disdain for truth and accountability boggles the mind. It’s not too much to say that this behavior is anti-social and culturally destructive. Lack of accountability to the truth is hurting our ability to function as a society because it is undermining the trust in the people and institutions we depend on to inform us and keep us safe.

I’m no Cassandra. I’m actually optimistic that bloggers and others in the online community are finding a way to fight back, to hold people accountable and to highlight issues that might otherwise be glossed over. But watching the culture of distortion become increasingly transparent lately has left me with a hole in my heart that just isn’t somehow patched over by making a good joke. Where’s the fun in writing an Aprili Fools satire when the people in the institutions I look up to do a much better job of satirizing themselves on a daily basis?

Ah, hell. I’ll just go read The Onion and get over it.

Happy April Fools, y’all.

Hey, everybody. Long time no talk to. You know, after reading this and this, I’m getting a little tired of the idea that Ralph Nader should have stayed at home on his rocking chair this political season instead of trying to make a difference. Here’s my response to these people. It’s long and ranty. Fuck it.

Are Americans really so out of touch with Democracy that we’ve forgotten the point of it? Everyone gets a vote, and everyone can participate. It’s our responsibility as voters to choose our government, and we are not well served by having fewer choices. I would think that the land of Capitalism would understand that.

Last time I checked, Patriot Act notwithstanding, we still lived in a free country, where everyone gets a chance to have their voice heard. Ralph Nader has as much of a right as any of us to participate in the electoral process. If you truly want to see Ralph Nader stay out of politics, then vote for someone else. Encourage your readers, listeners, friends, and loved ones to vote for someone else. But, whatever you do, knock off the argument that Ralph Nader shouldn’t even be on the ballot.

I voted for a third-party candidate in the last election because I was moved by something he said when I saw him in person. He said that true change in politics never comes from the majority. Rather, the new, society-altering ideas come from third parties. Although it’s true that the fringe often comes up with ideas that are frivolous or unrealistic, it’s also true that the fringe is where many ideas of weight and substance find life and vigorous debate. It is vital that we understand this as Americans and not allow minority voices to be silenced, whatever we personally think of them.

If Nader’s ideas carry such sway that his piddly little 2-3% of the vote is going to make such a difference, then we’ve got a bigger problem in this country than Ralph Nader. Quit the chest-thumping and do something really hard – find and give voice to a reason to vote for the Democratic nominee that will convince even a dyed-in-the-wool Republican to change his mind. If you can’t do that, than any argument you make against Ralph Nader is just a bunch of hot air.

Carping at Nader to get out of the race serves no purpose other than to make you sound desperate and undemocratic. Getting rid of George Bush is a transitory, expedient platform that will carry no weight at the end of the day because people recognize on some level that Bush got to be president because we let him. We’re responsible. Half of us voted for him and the rest of us stood by and watched – as we have stood by and watched for years – while our public officials behaved without honor, yet with impunity. We’re responsible and we know it.

Getting rid of Bush is not the most important thing in the world; if he gets back in office, the world will not end. What should be important to all thinking, feeling, freedom-loving Americans is our Constitution, our principles and our integrity as a country. We cannot stoop to sacrificing them even for a moment if we truly love and honor this country and hope for its renewal.

See, the real dirty little secret about Ralph Nader is that he understands the game better than any of us. His candidacy is important not because he thinks he can win or because he thinks he’ll all of a sudden make the Green Party the Next Big Thing. Nader’s candidacy is about keeping the power elite on their toes, making them accountable, keeping them from getting complacent. Nader’s participation is exactly what it will take to “displace the corporate regime of the Bush administration.” It is a feint. It serves to scare the Democrats into working harder.

In fact, if you really want things to change, maybe you should be throwing your weight behind Ralph Nader. Do you think the Democrats on their own are going to come up with a principled stand and a vision for the future that will sway swing voters, that will energize the electorate? Or do you think that, left to their own devices, they would engage in endless carping and bickering over this or that policy, over this or that momentary scandal, and call it debate? (Hint: Look how long it took them to settle on the safest, most middle-of-the-road candidate.)

No one person’s presidency, no matter how damaging, is more important than the principles of our Constitution. Period.

I’ve got news for people – 2004 ain’t gonna be like 2000. It’s not going to come down to a few thousand votes in Florida. Don’t make the general’s mistake of fighting the previous battle. The vote needs to be won early. It needs to be won today. It needs to be won with ideas and integrity, with vision and with hope. We cannot win by simply arguing against George Bush. We’ve got to win by arguing for a better America.

A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush? Are you shitting me? Who the hell do you think you are to tell me that if I decided to vote for Ralph Nader, or any other candidate, that I’d be throwing my vote away? A vote for [insert candidate’s name here] is a vote for America. A vote for [insert candidate’s name here] is a vote for Democracy. A vote for [insert candidate’s name here] is my choice. Shame on you for suggesting that my moment in the ballot box should be one of expediency and gamesmanship rather than a moment to fulfill the long-fought, hard-won privilege of participating in a free society.

When I pull back the curtain on Election Day, it will be with my integrity and principles and love of this country intact, thank you very much. And if George Bush is back in office, it will let me know that I have to work that much harder to sway the hearts and minds of my fellow countrymen through the next four years.

If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of democracy is eternal toil. You haven’t won the race if you’ve gotten rid of the competition. I thought that might be one thing we in this country would understand.

P.S. Lay off the unjustified attacks on the man’s character. It is unbecoming. If you really have so little faith in the American electoral process that you have to resort to slander to defend it, then you’d better take a long hard look at just what kind of country you’re defending.

Here’s a little piece that lit a fire under me this morning:

MSNBC – GlennReynolds.com

EXPERTS AGREE:  WAR GOING WELL!

“I’ve written here repeatedly that things are going better in Iraq than anti-war critics have been claiming, and that the whole WMD issue is overblown.”

Reynolds goes on to quote Tom Daschle’s comments about the success of the war effort, including the fact that Daschle apparently isn’t worried about the debate over pre-war intelligence. Then, in a bizarre twist, he ends up saying that Kerry’s insistence on talking about his Vietnam War record is proof that things are going well in Iraq.

What Did I enter a time warp while reading this article?

Well, of course I couldn’t let this pass. Read the extended entry of this post for my response to Mr. Reynolds. 

Hey, Stumax. Don’t you ever post, buddy? Looks like it’s up to The Hammer once more. You ready for my Super Bowl rant? Let’s rock…

The Super Bowl, with all its hype and circumstance, is so incongruous an event in the football season as to be something altogether different. While I’m sure the kids love it, true football fans, the ones who follow the season faithfully every weekend and appreciate the nuances of the game, must on some level be disappointed with what they see at this beached whale of a marketing event. For 18 weeks during the regular season, we get a war. On Super Bowl weekend, we get a happening.

What with the sappy song that preceded the national anthem and its laughably embarrassing attempt to tug the heartstrings, and the big halftime event that tried to cram in more rock stars than the bus to Coketown, I felt more like I was watching the Grammys interrupted occasionally by a little football than a true sporting event. And all the ceremony hurts the game. The Panthers and Patriots put on a heck of a show eventually, but any coach or player will tell you that the pace of the weekend dictated by the hype hurts the game.

And the game’s the thing, or should be. Janet’s bare nipple notwithstanding, does anyone really tune in to the Super Bowl for the halftime show? Does anyone care about or listen to the pre- or post-game ceremonies? I know we want to see the ads. I want to see for the ads. But even so, wasn’t Jim Nantz the least bit embarrassed that he was doing a commercial for Cadillac when he was supposed to be honoring Tom Brady’s MVP award? Didn’t he hear us laughing at his barenaked pandering?

Sponsors and glory hounds crawl out of the woodwork on Super Bowl Sunday like unwelcome party crashers. Not that I want to make football seem like some lofty and untainted enterprise, but these players work their asses off all season to get to this point, and those of us who appreciate the game come to expect a certain flow. We should get to see a truly great game, free from baubles and bangles. Football is one of those rare sports that actually seems enhanced by the television coverage, except during the Super Bowl, where it feels more like an MTV awards ceremony. (Oh, wait…)

How can the NFL look itself in the mirror when it gets all in an uproar over Janet’s nipple, knowing that it gorged itself on the corporate teat like a starving baby? If the NFL thought it would bring ratings, they’d have had the players out there buck naked.

Get over yourself NFL. Shape up, CBS. Don’t pretend this game is about anything but the Benjamins. And don’t expect me to love you when all you care about is my big bankroll.

The Hammer has spoken!

UPDATED at 10:36 am. – I just found the link to the BBC’s Real Audio of this program (World Today News Europe, January 30th 2004, about the 6-minute mark of the program), so I’ve updated Sundwall’s quotes for accuracy… tH.

[Editor’s note: Stumax.com is proud to welcome guest author The Hammer as a regular contributor to the site.]

I was driving home from Cinerama tonight, where I finally saw the Return of the King. The Hammer doesn’t usually wax poetic, but aside from the fact that all the guys in the movie looked like they were constantly about one frame of film away from tounging each other with naked homosexual affection, the LoTR trilogy is about as good as moviemaking gets. So my head was spinning a little bit when I switched on KUOW to listen to BBC World Service.

One of the segments sported an interview with Microsoft shillperson Sean Sundwall. Seems MS is a little pissed off now that someone’s gone and pointed MyDoomB at Big Brother’s own servers. In response, our favorite local employer has offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the b-variant’s author.

The virus is distributed as an email attachment – usually from an infected computer which sends the email to addresses it finds on the host’s computer system. The virus opens backdoors which could allow a hacker access to the infected computer. The virus also blocks access to popular anti-virus sites.

After spouting the company line about why Microsoft decided it had to dangle a reward out there for any finks or stool pigeons who think money’s more important than friendship (or at least professional courtesy), Sundwall was asked whether the latest virus illustrates the vulnerability of Microsoft systems.

Normal person woulda said, “Yes, regrettably, and it’s something we’re working very hard on.” Or something like that. Right?

Not our boy Sunny.

Get this: Sundwall says^1^ that “this vulnerability is actually independent of Microsoft software or any vulnerabiities that might be in our software.” Instead of showing any problems with the MS OS, the virus “simply relies upon social engineering tricks to get people to do something that otherwise they would not normally do, which is to open an attachment from someone that they don’t know.”

Brilliant! Oh, my God! That’s just f-ing brilliant! So MyDoom – a virus which according to Symantec’s website does not affect DOS, Linux, Macintosh, OS/2 or Unix – this virus apparently has nothing at all to do with the Windows OS. No, there’s no problem with your operating system, people. No, instead the virus writers are socially engineering the computer-using public to do something completely contrary to what we would usually do; namely to share information over the freakin’ internet.

But, I hear you saying, opening an attachment from somebody you don’t know is stupid and you really shouldn’t be doing that anyway. Well, sure, that’s stupid behavior if you buy into the argument that any program ought to be allowed to change your system files without your permission. (Sure, the benefits of that are obvious.) But, listen to what Sundwall says next. Mind you, this is in the same breath, just – I mean immediately after he said that users are opening attachments from people they don’t know:

“This particular virus is extremely tricky in what it purports to be. In many cases it purports to be an undelivered message, so sometimes it will come back as a postmaster; so even a savvy user would double-click on that because they would expect it to be the message that they sent, when indeed it’s not.”

Brilliant. I wish this had been on BBC TV instead of radio so we could actually see this guy talking out of his ass! Play the audio yourself and imagine Sundwall as Ace Ventura, bent over and making with the butt puppet as he spouts this putrescence.

No, there’s no problems with Microsoft’s products. It’s social engineering, that’s your culprit.

I, for one, sure hope they catch this little virus-writing bastard. Anyone clever enough to perpetrate social engineering on that scale is a dangerous f-er. Why, next thing you know, he’ll turn his criminal mind to making us drive our cars to work or, eat our breakfasts, or… buy Windows XP! He’s mad with power, I tells ya!

God forbid Microsoft should have to take the blame for producing a lousy product. Within an hour of hearing that interview, I read on Slashdot where the FBI is all on Macs because they’re – and I’m quoting an FBI security expert on this – the Macs are “secure out of the box!”

What’s more, I also picked up the Seattle Weekly tonight. The cover article is all about spam, and the author quotes one expert who asserts that up to 75% of all spam could be coming from virus-infected machines and another who claims that if you connect a PC to the internet without a firewall, you’re likely to be infected within five minutes!

Get with it, Microsoft. Your users are using your software in good faith. You’ve been socially engineering them for years to believe in the promise of interconnected computing, and that means you’ve been the ones training them to open attachments that they get in their email.

Just a little double-click, man. Everybody’s doing it. The first one’s always free.

Step up to the plate, Bill Gates. Tell your lackeys that Microsoft is big enough to take its lumps like a man. Then fix your g-d product so that it works like every other mature operating system.

(And, by the way, if you really had any integrity about catching the virus writers, you might have ponied up the reward money when it was your scum-sucking SCO buddies that were in trouble, instead of waiting until somebody pointed a bunch of virus-loaded PCs back in your faces.)

I’m Audi 5000, y’all. The Hammer has spoken!

¹ Don’t just take my word for it that this is what Sundwall said; go to the http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml yourself and listen to the World News report that ran on January 29th.