Scamwagon

Ok, here's another scam to watch out for. "Reward" debit cards. These are becoming all the rage. If you haven't seen one yet, rest assured you will. They may eventually replace all offer checks sent to you by companies (things like rebates, rewards, gifts, etc.) Popular amounts are $25 - $100. They are basically debit cards with a fixed limit for the amount the company is giving you. If you have used one, here's a familiar scenario. Joe has a $50 debit card he got from a cell phone rebate. He used it to buy dinner last night, and has $35.42 left on it. Today Joe finishes pumping his gas. The total comes up to $38.42. Joe inserts / hands the clerk his offer debit card and attempts to pay. Uh oh, transaction denied . No big deal, Joe can use it to buy something cheaper. Except, HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU BUY WITH A DEBIT CARD UNDER $35.00? Here's the short list of reasons why these cards suck: Transactions for more than the balance of the card are den

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but since last night, I am unable to call any Vermont landline (a.k.a. FAIRPOINT) phone numbers from my Broadvoice line. Message is: "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." The same issue also exists at work, where we also use Broadvoice. I called Broadvoice tech support, and they said the problem is on Fairpoint's end. They've reported it several times. On an interesting and semi-related note, I have experienced (twice in the past) a problem where people with Verizon Wireless couldn't dial my Broadvoice line (similar message). I got through to someone at Verizon Wireless, and they were able to confirm and fix the problem. They said the issue was with routing tables (the dialing kind, not the IP kind). Of course, being a Verizon Wireless customer also, it was a lot easier for me to get them to listen.

You see the craziest things driving down the road in Vermont. The other day I was driving over a mountain in a snow storm, and thought about how now one would believe what I was going through unless I had some video. Unfortunately, the last thing I was going to do was try to hold a camera while driving, rally-style, through heavy snow. I glared at my Droid, perched in the perfect position to record the view out the front windshield. All I would need to do was hit the camera button, and hit record! But alas, the Droid dock has no hole in the back for the camera to see through. I vowed that day that I would take the 5 minutes to drill the stupid thing, and easily open up a whole new world of hands-free video footage.

I finally had the chance to play around with xtranormal.com . It's pretty addictive. You can make a machinima movie very quickly (once you learn how to deal with a few idiosyncrasies). I would recommend steering clear of the "Take 5" button, as it pretty much ought to be relabeled "trash my video". If you aren't familiar, there is a subculture of "premise technicians" (technicians that go on site to make repairs), for certain well known cable and telephone companies. It's not a rewarding job. There is a raft load of satirical videos on Youtube, using xtranormal machinima, in the format of sort of "a day in the life" of a prem tech. So, with that as my inspiration, here's my first piece. Yes, this is based on a true story. Some liberties were taken, and the names were changed to protect the guilty. Audio track is NSFW.