Category Archives: do not want

How do you determine if this is true or not?

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I’m sure by now everyone had read Matt Fisher’s post about how horrible Progressive Insurance has treated him and his family. What I’m trying to figure out is if this is a true story or not. I’ve tried looking around a bit, but I can’t confirm the story is either true or false. The things I’ve read make it sound more likely to be true, but if someone has information to the contrary please let me know.

If False, Fisher is a real asshole.

If True, Progressive needs to die in a fire.

 

The real sad thing is that corporations in this country have reputations that are so bad, that everyone’s initial gut reaction is that this is a true story.

EDIT: Looks like this is a true story and Progressive is in full CYA mode. Or at least that’s how it looks to my cynical eye. Maybe they really are just looking bad through no fault of their own, but I’m not buying it.

Progressive Response

That’s a lot of bots.

Edit: Follow up

Guess I won’t be playing the new SimCity…dammit.

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Ars Technica that wonderful website full of techy nerdness has just put up some information about the latest addition to the SimCity line of sandbox games. I’ve bought and played all the previous SimCity games but EA has found a way to keep me from coughing up my cash. The game sounded like a sure thing with all the improvements they’ve added and the fact that you could play online cooperatively and then THIS happened:

“With a required Internet connection to play, some might be worried that SimCity will run into Diablo IIIstyle server problems at launch.”

“That said, the game is designed to be played in that persistent, multiplayer world, so players won’t be able to gleefully destroy a city and then go back to an earlier save file as if nothing ever happened, for instance.”

EA is making one of my favorite all time single player games online-only AND removing my ability to use save games to fix a screw up? Thanks but no thanks and NO SALE! I’ve got plenty of other single player games willing to let me play offline like I want to take my money. EA seems to not care what it’s customers want.

Speaking of EA not caring about customers take a look see at this article from Destructiod about EA’s Origin service. Here’s the money quote:

“DeMartini also pointed out that Steam sales can engender in gamers a wait-and-see attitude, teaching customers, “I might not want it in the first month, but if I look at it in four or five months, I’ll get one of those weekend sales and I’ll buy it at that time at 75 percent off.” That’s not an unreasonable thought for cash-strapped gamers in an economic downturn, but it’s obviously not ideal for developers and publishers.”

I guess EA has never seen a game on sale before Steam. I’ve bought tons of games from Steam BECAUSE THEY WERE ON SALE! Hell I bet at least a third of the games I’ve bought from Steam were bought on sale and I would NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THEM IF THEY WEREN’T! I’m playing the hell out of Civ 5 RIGHT NOW, losing sleep trying to get in ‘just one more turn’ before turning it off, and I’m doing that because Steam had a MASSIVE 75% off sale on it. I simply wasn’t willing to pay more for it than that price point. I’ve got PLENTY of backlogged computer games to play. I really don’t need anymore for quite a while, but if you offer me a great sale you just might get my money. If EA isn’t willing to offer me great sales then that simply means THEY AREN’T GETTING MY MONEY! I swear it’s like EA thinks they are doing it’s customers a favor just existing or something. If they aren’t willing to offer sales as good as their competition (STEAM!) then guess what, I and MOST OTHER GAMERS, will simply keep going to Steam for our games.

So, congrats EA, if you keep this up, you’re basically putting yourself out of my(and everyone else’s) misery.

 

Before I post about PAX

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I just want to show everyone something.

My friend Rachel works for Turbine and she was working during PAX. She was handing out foam chainsaws for ‘Lollipop Chainsaw’. That game isn’t made by Turbine but is being produced by Warner Brothers so Turbine employees got called in to help, because they are located in Boston. What I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention is this fact:

The line for playing the demo to this game was always at least 2 hours long!

Believe it, Or NOT!

I give you a promo video of Lollipop Chainsaw:

 

Also the actress playing the part of ‘the cheerleader’ was asked to leave on the second day because her costume was too racy. You decide.

Datacaps are anti-competitive

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Take a look at this post by Ars Technica about Comcast’s announcement that they will not only start streaming their ‘on-demand’ video on the Xbox 360, but that it won’t count against your data cap. I’m sure Comcast and Microsoft will promote this as a great thing, but it’s pretty damn anti-competitive. Hulu, Netflix and Amazon WILL count against your data cap and those are competitors of Comcast. ISPs should NEVER be allowed to ‘own’ video content. This is just another in a list of reasons why ISPs need net neutrality rules.

 

EDIT: I encourage anyone interested in commenting on the Ars page. You can get some really good information over there.

Also Edit: AAAAARRAAH! This blog is so freaking slow I don’t even wanna post here!

A funny thing happend on the way to the Republican Nomination

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I had someone try and explain to me, why Ron Paul was still in the running of the Republican presidential nomination. I understood that Mr. Paul was just acting as a spoiler, and maybe thought he’d get some consideration if the Republicans ended up with a brokered convention, and I can understood why someone might want to vote for him, but I couldn’t understand why anyone would bother to give Mr. Paul’s committee any money to help him continue to run. It was explained to me that Mr. Paul really can ‘win this thing’ if the nomination process doesn’t pick a winner. The explanation eventually led to a web page of someone complaining about Mr. Paul’s follower’s attempts at becoming state delegates. The link is here and is decidedly anti-Paul.

I am grateful for the link and enjoyed the read, and now have a better understanding of the Ron Paul campaign.

However, I did notice something a bit ‘odd’ in the comment section of that anti-Paul website and wanted to share. If you bother to actually read through any of the comments you’ll see that most have the usual +1 to +9 of your typical forum voting ‘ups’. Look at the pro-Paul posts though. Suddenly those posts are anywhere from +45 to +400. I think the complainer’s website has been infested or he really kicked a beehive.