• 12Jun 08

  Undeserved wealth

  So, despite the market having taken a beating, I got my first round of stock options and exercised them this week, getting the proceeds from the sale in today. It's far from the stratospheric highs of 6 months or so ago, but still a substantial amount, enough to get me out of my massive tax debt from when I did this in the 90's without understanding how I would be taxed. I went in to my bank to see if the funds were available, they were and I totally got rock star treatment, as they went all financial planner on me. What a feeling to be debt free and able to focus on longterm finances again That doesn't mean I'm going to be totally responsible, though. If I can find a home for my current rear projection TV, I have my eye on a fairly sweet-looking 58" plasma TV (with anti-burn in tech for games, of course).
  
  Appropos of nothing, I was part of a photo shoot BusinessWeek did at my office this morning on how tech companies are expanding here in SF; if you see a picture of someone playing Rock Band at work in BusinessWeek, it *may* be me.
  
  Update: I didn't make the cut for the businessWeek photo shoot, BUT I am now debt-free; given my druthers between the two, that is my preferred outcome
  • Posted Jun 12, 2008 1:04 pm PT
  • Category: General
  • 5 Comments
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• 21Jan 08

  How to really annoy a customer

  So a couple weeks ago, I was playing my 360 and suddenly it went off. Like just powered down, no lights or anything. I "uh-ohed", checked all connections, tried a different outlet that I knew worked and nothing. I also noticed that the LED on my power brick was not illuminated. I wrote an email to Xbox support detailing everything I had tried and sent it off on a cheery Tuesday Morning. Thursday evening, I got a canned reply telling me things to try ALL OF WHICH WERE ALREADY IN MY ORIGINAL EMAIL. I fumed for a few minutes, then sent a reply saying that, as I had already mentioned, I had tried all the steps they had given and asked what my options were.
  
  I was told to call in, which is one I met the most recent of my nemeses, Max, the unholy gatekeeper of Xbox customer support. If my call was recorded for training purposes, I'm sure the support center has had a good chuckle at the stream of profanity I unleashed at this jackass. A favorite part of my interaction was when he demanded my serial number. Obviously, I had to drag out the physical machine since I'm clearly not going to get it from the onscreen. What the hell- there is no serial number back here. I eventually realized that the genius design of the wireless adapter utterly conceals any sign of the serial number on the back of the system. Awesome!
  
  So, FINALLY, I have eluded the diabolical obfuscations and pedantry of Max and reached the grail of a REAL, LIVE PERSON! I describe the problem and my existing ticket number. After me telling the rep 4 times that I'm out of warranty and want to order a replacement, she finally realizes that I'm out of warranty and want to order a replacement. After an arduous ordeal, I place the order and she says to expect it by the end of the week (this was last Monday, 1/14). Wow, that's pretty good... except she meant expect it ship on its 2-3 week delivery by the end of the week. As a developer, I've had great experiences working with Microsoft, getting awesome support on issues as I ran into them (I once delayed the release of a version of IE for 2 weeks after talking to one of the developers on the project and isolating a bug in his code). My consumer experience with them has been pretty appalling, though. Obviously, I'm stuck on Xbox, but if they expect me to buy a Zune or any other consumer-oriented products that they are involved in, then they are in utter denial.
  • Posted Jan 21, 2008 5:38 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 10 Comments
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• 10Dec 07

  Why I love my PSP

  I know a lot of people look disdainfully on this system, but I have to say, I think it's an amazing piece of hardware, and is the second most used piece of electronics I own after my PC. I have a lot of games for it that I really enjoy (Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Marvel: UA, Loco Roco, and many others), including a number of PS1 games sitting on my memory stick (as well as Wipeout Pure, since that was also released as a downloadable game). And while games are the foremost feature of the system, I use it for about a zillion other things, too.
  
  I have 60 or so comics on it at any given time (thanks to Marvel Comics "40 years of..." compilations, I know have every issue of most of their long-running flagship titles in electronic form), and with a recent firmware update, can listen to music or podcasts as I read comics. Speaking of podcasts, I also subscribe to a half-dozen of those, and really enjoy my weekly fix of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me and the HotSpot. I also have about 1.3 terabytes of storage at home, slowly being filled by ripping my DVD collection to MP4. Those files I have shared by running a web server and media server on that machine, meaning I have access to about 1500 movies and TV shows from any wired location on Earth.
  
  I'm not above peripherals, either. I bought the more recent update of the LocationFree hardware, and love it. I am using it as I type this to stream XM radio from my DirecTV setup (XM radio stations are available in the 800s on DirecTV) to my eager ears, effectively giving me a Tivo and DirecTV on my PSP. Between this and Remote Play with my PS3, there is a pretty amazing amount of content I have available at will.
  
  The number of hours of entertainment this thing has provided me (especially on cross-country flights, or when I used to have to spend two hours each way on a train to and from work) amazes me.
  • Posted Dec 10, 2007 1:12 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 14 Comments
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