The new movie Gamer is coming out very soon and it stars Gerard Butler, personally the movie looks like a remake of The Running Man with some technology updates. This post isn't specifically about the movie but of a trailer/advertisement about the movie.
The ad shows clips of the movie with a voice over guy talking it up. Here is the dumb part:
"The last time Gerard Butler kicked this much ass was 300 years ago"
I believe he is referring to the movie 300, which is a fight between the Spartans and the Persian Empire...you have probably all seen it. Now any rational person knows that there weren't Spartans fighting the Persians in 1709, America was being born, the Greek empire had ended, the Roman empire had ended and many more. The movie 300 is supposedly to have taken place in 480 BC which is 2489 years ago (just a small difference). But this was the best the ad agency could come up with to advertise this movie!
Remember how bad ass Gerard Butler was in 300?? yea he is bad ass in this movie too! Instead they come up with a ridiculously incorrect "fact" that was off by 2189 years.
The last time Ryan had a job was 1 day ago. (you can make anything sound good)
Even as I am writing this the commercial comes on again, maybe they thought that the title 300 was the number of years ago it happened? instead of the number of Spartans that fought against the Persian Empire when no one else would.
The last time Ahn-Tuan touched so much ass was 300 years ago. See it just doesn't work!
The last time Gerard Butler was in a movie this bad was Beowulf.
The last time this movie was made was in the 80's.
Etc, Etc, Etc.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Phillies Game
We attended our first Phillies game last Friday. This is something we were both really looking forward to because it was a first for us in this new area. Unfortunately it ended up raining the entire day, like a good house husband I sat at home throughout the day checking the status of the game. Even though it rained the majority of the day (and I mean it RAINED) the Phillies felt having the game was a good idea...seriously?? As we paid $28 each for these tickets we decided what the heck we'll go prepared (rain gear in hand) and take our chances. As we got there and paid $12 for parking the rain had stopped but the clouds had not gone away but we thought maybe we would break our curse of always having rain when we plan something. The excitement built as we got in the park and got our free knitted winter cap and found our way to our seats as we tried to take in the enormous Citizens Bank Park. We found our seats without any trouble and check out that view! As soon as we sat down I'm thinking...FOUL FREAKIN BALL...so I am really amping it up with the thought of catching one (apparently I have th
e dreams of a 5 year old). The game starts and Pedro Martinez is pitching...so there is the 3rd thing that was going for us (no rain, FOUL BALL, hall of fame pitcher). And then things fell apart...not surprisingly it started raining and we got 1.5 innings into the game and the tarp came out. Long story short, it rained a lot, they tried playing again (even though the rain didn't really stop) and the tarp came back out so we finally gave up after the 5th inning which took about 3.5 hours to get to and headed home (once they hit 5 innings the game is considered played). What really grinds my gears is that IT RAINED ALL DAY! there wasn't a chance of rain IT WAS RAINING AND WAS SUPPOSED TO RAIN ALL DAY! So the Phillies felt getting people to come down and pay $12 to park their car on a piece of land come to the game they paid for and eat/drink a bunch of expensive crap was the best idea. We might as well have had gone to a movie theater that didn't have sound all day, and didn't expect to except for short periods of time. We could have gone to an amusment park just to eat the food and play the games - no rides. My foul ball dreams were crushed just as fast as they were dreamt like Heidi Montag's singing career (although she is still singing and I am catching no foul balls). We did get to see 2 Home Runs which brought some excitement, which at the end of the day was as exciting as seeing a bum fight at that movie theater would have been.
Baseball Tix = $56
Parking = $12
Knit Cap = Free
Getting to use my Marmot Rain Gear to watch 5 innings of baseball = worthless?
p.s. i was dry as a bone in that rain gear....GOOOOOOOOOOOOO MARMOT
Is that a Kami in your pants?
Quick little story, it involves our cat Kami and myself taking a poo.
Late last night I got THE urge and quickly made my way to the bathroom. Fortunately for most of you that is where the poo portion of the story ends!
So I am in the normal stance, and I am (more like my ankles now) wearing undies and khaki shorts and Kami happens to be in the bathroom. She has been known to jump on your lap while sitting in the bathroom but this time it was different. She climbed into my underwear and made her self right at home, and cuddled up. I WISH I had gotten a picture (of the lower portion, not the whole picture) because it was hilarious and extremely cute at the same time.
Late last night I got THE urge and quickly made my way to the bathroom. Fortunately for most of you that is where the poo portion of the story ends!
So I am in the normal stance, and I am (more like my ankles now) wearing undies and khaki shorts and Kami happens to be in the bathroom. She has been known to jump on your lap while sitting in the bathroom but this time it was different. She climbed into my underwear and made her self right at home, and cuddled up. I WISH I had gotten a picture (of the lower portion, not the whole picture) because it was hilarious and extremely cute at the same time.
NJ DMV & NISSAN
So this will be a commentary on laziness and outsourcing customer service
As a new resident of NJ you are supposed to switch all your car info over by 60 days of living here, which seems to not really be a rule but a give us some money and I'm sure each state has some sort of rule about for the same reason. The process is loosely described online in how it should work in a perfect world (no time line is given).
Step 1: Get your brand new NJ driver's license --- No problems
Pick up your registration paper work --- Here is where the issues begin
Step 2: Fill out your registration paper work (now you have a few choices depending on if you are paying a loan on your car or not), as Angela is paying hers off she had to go that route. The paper work states that you fill it out then mail it to your loan people (Nissan) and everything takes care of itself (how nice)! The NJ DMV is actually supposed to call you when everything is ready and you can come back to finalize the process. After about 2 weeks of hearing nothing a call is made to figure out what is going on...DMV hasn't received anything so time to call Nissan. Nissan (who has outsourced their customer service to India, like many other companies) claims that the state of NJ requires the form to be faxed (now contradicting NJ's form), so we get the fax number and head back to the DMV. The form is filled out again and taken to the counter--this is the best part--Angela asks the woman to fax the form as she was instructed to do by Nissan, the woman's response, "Why would I fax it? It isn't my paper." This woman was not willing to fax something for a customer because it wasn't something for herself...So a disheartened Angela decides to fax it herself from work the next day.
She is told that it should take about 6 days to get things turned around (assuming Nissan receives it). After 6 days we make another phone call to Nissan to ask if they received it (as we have heard nothing from anyone) and guess what? They didn't (even though the fax was received according to the fax machine). So Angela is more persistant this time and asks for the fax number again to verify, then calls again after she faxed it to verify that they received it. So yay they did it! She is then told it will take about 30-45 days to get the title transferred from PA to NJ (I guess to prove ownership). At this point the inspection has become out of date as well as the PA registration making her Nissan Sentra not able to be driven until this gets resolved. Who knows what the next step in the process is but we'll see what happens.
Here are the 2 main issues: LAZY & POOR COMMUNICATION
The laziness of people today is remarkable, no one at any point during these events acted as if they had EVER encountered the situation before (which I find hard to beleive). No one went through the next step until an angered customer pushed and pushed for it. "It's not my paper" is one of my favorite quotes now because it signifies everything that is wrong with the workforce, especially those working for the state (all states not just NJ). The bigger issue is the incredible amount of money that is wasted through government agencies, and the lack of motivation for state employees to do a good job. Frustrating...
The issue of poor communication does not have anything to do with ethnicity, I have no problems with Indian or any other group of people. It is the act of outsourcing and what that means to the quality of customer service. These people who are outsourced to are trained to answer certain questions and anything past those certain questions are very difficult to deal with. At my last job, if you had an issue you could speak directly to the person that could help you (usually me, or one of my co-workers) and we would give you a specific answer to your specific question, not this cookie-cutter crap outsourcing creates. I understand the cost implications of the process but cutting customer service leads to frustrated customers who will go somewhere else that has better customer service (especially when product differentiation is not huge...Nissan, Honda, Toyota).
Final Word: The economy would be in a much better place if people stopped being lazy at work and did their fair share or were paid based on the amount of work they did instead just holding the position. Outsourcing customer service can work but I haven't seen it yet.
As a new resident of NJ you are supposed to switch all your car info over by 60 days of living here, which seems to not really be a rule but a give us some money and I'm sure each state has some sort of rule about for the same reason. The process is loosely described online in how it should work in a perfect world (no time line is given).
Step 1: Get your brand new NJ driver's license --- No problems
Pick up your registration paper work --- Here is where the issues begin
Step 2: Fill out your registration paper work (now you have a few choices depending on if you are paying a loan on your car or not), as Angela is paying hers off she had to go that route. The paper work states that you fill it out then mail it to your loan people (Nissan) and everything takes care of itself (how nice)! The NJ DMV is actually supposed to call you when everything is ready and you can come back to finalize the process. After about 2 weeks of hearing nothing a call is made to figure out what is going on...DMV hasn't received anything so time to call Nissan. Nissan (who has outsourced their customer service to India, like many other companies) claims that the state of NJ requires the form to be faxed (now contradicting NJ's form), so we get the fax number and head back to the DMV. The form is filled out again and taken to the counter--this is the best part--Angela asks the woman to fax the form as she was instructed to do by Nissan, the woman's response, "Why would I fax it? It isn't my paper." This woman was not willing to fax something for a customer because it wasn't something for herself...So a disheartened Angela decides to fax it herself from work the next day.
She is told that it should take about 6 days to get things turned around (assuming Nissan receives it). After 6 days we make another phone call to Nissan to ask if they received it (as we have heard nothing from anyone) and guess what? They didn't (even though the fax was received according to the fax machine). So Angela is more persistant this time and asks for the fax number again to verify, then calls again after she faxed it to verify that they received it. So yay they did it! She is then told it will take about 30-45 days to get the title transferred from PA to NJ (I guess to prove ownership). At this point the inspection has become out of date as well as the PA registration making her Nissan Sentra not able to be driven until this gets resolved. Who knows what the next step in the process is but we'll see what happens.
Here are the 2 main issues: LAZY & POOR COMMUNICATION
The laziness of people today is remarkable, no one at any point during these events acted as if they had EVER encountered the situation before (which I find hard to beleive). No one went through the next step until an angered customer pushed and pushed for it. "It's not my paper" is one of my favorite quotes now because it signifies everything that is wrong with the workforce, especially those working for the state (all states not just NJ). The bigger issue is the incredible amount of money that is wasted through government agencies, and the lack of motivation for state employees to do a good job. Frustrating...
The issue of poor communication does not have anything to do with ethnicity, I have no problems with Indian or any other group of people. It is the act of outsourcing and what that means to the quality of customer service. These people who are outsourced to are trained to answer certain questions and anything past those certain questions are very difficult to deal with. At my last job, if you had an issue you could speak directly to the person that could help you (usually me, or one of my co-workers) and we would give you a specific answer to your specific question, not this cookie-cutter crap outsourcing creates. I understand the cost implications of the process but cutting customer service leads to frustrated customers who will go somewhere else that has better customer service (especially when product differentiation is not huge...Nissan, Honda, Toyota).
Final Word: The economy would be in a much better place if people stopped being lazy at work and did their fair share or were paid based on the amount of work they did instead just holding the position. Outsourcing customer service can work but I haven't seen it yet.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The "Why New Jersey Sucks" Series - Jug Handles
JUG HANDLES!
The Jerstarded version of a left turn lane, approximately .25 miles of road to turn left rather than a left turn lane. Always remember in most places you have to turn right to go left. How does this make sense? That's right it doesn't make sense at all!
Only in New Jersey.
The Jerstarded version of a left turn lane, approximately .25 miles of road to turn left rather than a left turn lane. Always remember in most places you have to turn right to go left. How does this make sense? That's right it doesn't make sense at all!
Only in New Jersey.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Movie Review - The Soloist
We watched The Soloist Saturday night, Jaime Foxx and Robert Downey Jr are the main characters. Foxx plays a former Julliard attendee whose obsession with music drives him a little crazy. Possibly a little autistic, more likely schizophrenic (hearing voices in his head). Jaime Foxx again plays this character wonderfully, he is completely beleiveable as a homeless crazy ranting incredible musician. Jr. plays a reporter who finds Foxx on the streets and decides to write about him in his human interest column for the LA Times. Throughout the movie Jr feels he has to become Foxx's protector and kind of over steps, Foxx never asking to be helped. Jr. doesn't realize that music is all Foxx wants, he wants to play it and he wants to listen to it, he doesn't care if he is homeless or whatever. Jr. does a pretty good job but nothing extraordinary, Foxx is really the highlight of the movie. One thing the movie is missing is that it never really tugged at my heart strings, it was just kind of nice to see someone take an interest in what most would have thought to be a lost cause. Renting it would be good for a nice relaxing night.
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