It’s that time of the year when all the new seasons are beginning. We’ve just about gotten caught up on last season, and gotten the DVR under 30%, when the new rash of shows starts. With most, it’s fairly easy. Since the title of the show isn’t changing, we didn’t have to do anything new when Heroes or Bones premiered this week. Survivor is always the exception, because each season is a new title, such as ‘Survivor: China”. In that case, we have to remember to setup a new recording.

We do a lot of series priority juggling, but for the most part we don’t have many conflicts (though some nights we have two shows recording at the same time).

Now how am I going to fit new shows into the schedule? Gah! I certainly want to check them out. I’m not sure I’m actually going to watch Kid Nation all season, but who knows what mindless drivel can entertain me during dinner. I’ve heard good things about Reaper and think maybe I’ll add that. I put on Chuck, but haven’t watched the first episode yet. From some of the reviews, maybe I’m better just deleting the recording now without bothering to watch it.

Since we watch a majority of our prime time shows on DVR, its very easy to miss the buzz about new shows, as we’re likely to be skipping the commercials anyway. I try to look at TV Guide/Entertainment Weekly New Shows This Season kinda guides, or just hear about items through the buzz on the interwebs. But sometimes, by that time, you’ve missed the first episode and wind up playing catchup.

Here’s a tool I learned about from LifeHacker, which gives you the prime time shows in a nice neat month view, highlighting season premieres in orange, with nice summary roll overs. It’s a helpful tool for trying to juggle that ‘too many shows’ calendar crunch and see if you have any room in yours! It looks like you can actually sign up and filter the calendar based on specific shows, but I haven’t actually gone that far.

Current Mood:  curious

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I was inspired by Megan’s post to take a few moments and mention some moments about my kids that I want to remember for this month. Both my wife and I blog now, and while we both have the desire to keep track of how things are going in our kids lives, our blog posts also include the chaos of the rest of our lives and the world in general. Sometimes it takes too much time to actually sit down and compose a full post. I don’t do many one or two  line entries  like other friends, but there’s a certain amount of freedom that gives you in just ‘capturing the moment’.

So for this month, here’s the things that I want to remember:

Connor is still struggling with his letters and words verbally, though his sign vocabulary continues to grow. One word that he does say is ‘Ah pull’ (Apple). Last week, Jean asked him if wanted a cookie, as she’d recently made a batch of fresh apple cookies. Connor looks at her and says “Ah pull” and then signs the word ‘cookie’. So he’s combined two methods of communication to get his point across.

Alia likes to give hugs and snuggle more than Connor. If you ask him, he’ll give you one, but not as unprompted as her. I was sitting on the couch Saturday watching the remaining episodes of Picket Fences (Season 1), while Jean was away doing exchequer training. Alia was playing at the table reading a book and I just happened to glance over at her. She saw me, smiled, put down her book, ran over and gave my leg a quick hug.

One for each of them. I’ll let Jean post one each as well and then we’ll have a whole honking 4 posted memories of our children who are growing up way to fast. Here’s the flipside, 20 years from now, I might not have remembered those particular moments, but this entry ‘will’, and I’ll look back and smile all over again.

Current Mood:  refreshed

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FYI: Long post

I really detest the sales practice I’m going to call ‘hidden bundling’. I’m not sure what the actual term is, but it’s certain not upselling. When you upsell, you add-on *additional* items that the customer may not have thought about, but make the overall sale more profitable. It might be an appetizer or dessert at a restaurant, or it may be additional memory for your computer, or a carrying case for the nice new spiffy MP3 player you bought. In all these cases, you get what you wanted, and then the salesman gets you to buy something extra.

That’s *good* salesmanship.

The process of hidden bundling is covert and sneaky. I know why it’s done, because I was forced to do it. Many moons ago, I worked at the Camera Shop. With all the cameras we sold extended warranties. As salesmen, we were measured on the amount of extended warranties we sold. If you sold someone a camera and told them they had a 1 year warranty on it, but they could buy an additional 2 year extended warranty for $X, you had a much harder sell than if you simply sold them the camera with a 3 year warranty and had the ext. warranty already ‘priced in’.

Now, the astute customers already knew what the cost of the camera was, as they had shopped around. And when you tell them the price, and they notice its higher than other shops, they would question as to why we were higher. Then you’d explain about ours having a 3 year warranty, and when they said they only wanted 1, you’d take ‘away’ the ext. warranty, price match, and still get the sale.

Others would look at their receipt, see the price of the camera, and then an additional line which said extended warranty $X, and question it there. Often you’d just tell them that’s the way it was rung up. Occasionally, they would ask to remove the ext. warranty and save the extra $.

More often than not, though, you’d see the bundled item, never let the customer know they *had* a choice, and get your sales numbers up. Was the ext. warranty a good thing? It may have been to some, and not to others. The point isn’t the value of the bundled item, it’s the fact that you never gave the customer a choice.

So that brings us to 2007. My father had the luxury of dealing with a horned salesman at the Verizon Wireless store the other day. I go over to see him for lunch and he tells me he upgraded his phone. It only cost him $50 after a mail in rebate. He didn’t get the bluetooth just the headset that came with it for free, as he was going to get a bluetooth headset from his nephew.

At that point, the bells started going off. I deal with cell phones alot, and I know that they don’t *come* with a headset, or a case, or a car charger. Those are the items that they normally try and upsell you. There is a huge profit margin there, and that’s where Verizon and the salesman made extra money.

Are you sure they came with it Dad? You didn’t pay extra for it. No, he tells me. The phone was $50 and it included all those things. I saw the scam already developing, and I don’t mind calling it a scam. I asked him to find his receipt and looked it over.

Sure enough. The phone was free (because of his contract renewal), and the headset, case, and car charger were all rung up separately equating to $49.99 - the cost of the add-on package. “Dad”, I asked. “Why is the case in the bag?” Because he didn’t plan on using it either. He got a RAZR and was just going to keep it in his pocket. So now, he’s got a $19.99 headset he wasn’t planning on using and a $9.99 plastic case he wasn’t going to use either. When he found out how they were rung up, he got pissed — and had every right to be. He’s planning on taking them back and getting his money refunded.

Unfortunately, my father was the exact same kind of person we used to prey on during my camera selling days. They aren’t quite as technically savvy as they could be, and by portraying a scenario which makes them thing they are *getting a deal*, they walk away happy, and don’t even bother to double check anything is out of the ordinary. He was told the phone was $50 and included those items, so when his bill was $116 (before the 50 mail in rebate), it was exactly what he expected it to be — and no flags went up.

The salesman should have *told* him the phone was free, and given him the *option* of buying the kit. A good salesman would have pointed out that they kit was much more economical than buying the individual parts, that you were required by NJ law to use a handsfree kit or headset in the car, etc. Then, he still may make the sale, but the customer is informed. In my dad’s case, he still would have bought the car charger. Even though it wasn’t as good as a deal, it was the only component he needed from the kit.

Instead, the salesman used deceptive techniques to sell someone something they didn’t need or want, but made them think it was ok.

I almost want to get the receipt myself, find out the salesman’s name, and go speak to his manager about it. Hopefully the manager would see it my way, and not be the one who taught his salesman the ‘trick’ in the first place.

Current Mood:  angry

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R

Current Mood:  restless

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When I was listening to Jumping Monkeys Podcast #3 awhile back, they discussed the use of an iHome for playing music for their children. It wasn’t that thought which caught my attention, but rather the choice of music. In this case it was a lullaby rendition of Metallica.

What a great idea! I was getting really bored with listening to the same old Pooh lullaby which emanated from Alia and Connor’s night light.

I’m not using an iHome, but rather just my iPod connected to a set of external speakers.

My current playlist includes the following (in addition to Metallica): Coldplay, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, No Doubt, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Eagles, The Smashing Pumpkins, and U2.

When we put the kids down to sleep, we turn on the iPod’s sleep timer for 30 minutes. It’s configured to randomize the playlist, so each time it’s a different set of tunes (from the almost 150 in the playlist).

Now when we’re listening to the baby monitor downstairs, we actually don’t mind hearing it in the background. I’ve even been known to hum along to a few of the tunes. I absolutely love it - and so do the kids. How do I know? Because I ask them before they go to sleep if they want music, and they tell me yes. Granted, they might not differentiate what *kind* of music, but I’ll take it as a good sign anyway. They certainly sleep to it! We’ve been using this setup for almost a month now.

At first, I wasn’t going to get every album available, but the more I listen to the list, the more I’m also considering adding these other lullabye renditions to it: Bjork, Bob Marley, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, The Cure, The Ramones and Tool. I’m not going to link each of those albums for simplicity sake, but if you want to hear samples, you can go here.

The current problem with this setup is that somehow the speakers we are using are getting interference from someone broadcasting very early in the morning. It’s almost as someone is broadcasting too powerfully on their CB, or we’re picking up an emergency police broadcast or something. All of a sudden we’ll be sleeping and we’ll hear these voices really loud (with some technical jargon in the discussion) and it’ll wake us up. I need to run into the nursery and quickly turn off the speakers. Some mornings I haven’t been quick enough. It’s happened about a half-dozen times now. I’ll switch speakers and hopefully get a set that is less susceptible to picking up random RF.

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From Slashdot:

“James Oliver Rigney Jr, author of the long-running fantasy series The Wheel of Time and better known to millions of fans by the pen name Robert Jordan, died on 16 Sept 2007 from cardiac amyloidosis. Jordan announced he had been diagnosed with the disease in March 2006 and vowed to beat the odds, but determination and gumption sometimes just aren’t enough in the face of a disease with a median survival time of just over two years. Jordan was in the process of writing the twelfth and final book in the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, but the book was not slated for release until 2009 and is still incomplete. While there is hope that the book will still be finished from Jordan’s notes, this is devastating news to all of us who have been reading the series since 1990.”

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With next weeks’ Talk Like a Pirate Day coming up, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind folks that they need to start practicing. If you are unsure how exactly to talk like a pirate, you might find this instructional video helpful:

Compliments of LoadingReadyRun:

– video –

Current Mood:  amused

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I want to thank Monkeyfilter for providing me with this link to have an enjoyable start to my friday.

Fight for Kisses

I’m guessing this is a kickoff ad for a larger campaign.. I don’t actually watch commercials on TV anymore if I can help it (thank you DVR), but I wouldn’t be against watching them ON PURPOSE on a website if the ad campaign was good enough.. How strange is that?

Current Mood:  optimistic

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