apple juice

When you try to cancel service, they transfer you to a “retention specialist”.

They did not retain.

Not a day after we watched the PBS Frontline Documentary, The Persuaders (you can watch it online) I received a phone call asking if I would like to be part of a focus group for a local auto dealer. I would be paid $75 for my time. Sounds good!

We met on wednesday, in a nondescript building in the warehouse district. I had a number of conspiracy-related daydreams as I approached the building, found it locked, saw someone inside coming over to buzz me in. Then he used his key card to call the elevator, punch the button, and tell me to “just follow the signs” as the doors closed between us.

Anyway, I found the office, and was amongst the first few to arrive. We made small talk about focus group participation and experience, of which there was none. About this time, the previous group came filing out of a room. They were, as expected, a cross-section of american, (or at least minnesotan) demographics. Roughly distributed in age, gender and color, they seemed to be, if nothing else, not traumatized by the experience.

As we settled into the room, they explained how everything was going to work. Questions, discussion, one person at a time, don’t worry about the people behind the two-way mirror. I pretty much felt like I was in “The Persuaders” the whole time.

The evening focused on a particular dealership attempting various “alternative” methods of advertising. We gave our opinions on a campaign that ranged from the standard print ads, to coffee cup sleeves, to fake parking tickets, to bike tags encouraging you not to bike (downright offensive, in my opinion).

It was interesting to hear what a few of the members of my focus group were interested in as marketing tools… free t-shirts, floor mats, and air fresheners.

There was a particularly good moment after we were asked what radio stations we listened to… (as a group, mostly NPR). Next question: what radio commercials do you remember recently? I raised my hand, and said, “they don’t have commercials on NPR”

All in all, a pretty interesting experience. I was hyper analyzing everything, having just watched the documentary about it all, and I really wanted to be on the other side of the glass, listening to what they thought of our answers. Maybe in my next career.

On Friday, my new DSL modem arrived in the mail. I climbed up on a chair and re-wired the outside Qwest line to my shiny new ActionTec. After a bit of futzing around with my network setup, I pulled the plug on my Comcast cable modem.

Back when we signed up for Cable Internet service, Comcast was Time Warner in these parts, and we enjoyed decent service with steadily rising speeds for a couple of years. Then Comcast rolled in, and so began the wildly varying speeds (time of day), random disconnections, and really poor Vonage calls. Standard cable modem complaints, all of them. I would’ve switched sooner, but that top speed download of 7mbps is pretty dang seductive. When you’re pulling down a huge file, I have to admit it is pretty nice.

But it finally got to me, and I pulled the switch to DSL. One of the reasons I waited so long is that by some quirk of geography, the top line speed we are qualified for is 1.5mbps. On the plus side, the upload is speed is doubled over the cable modem.

Vonage, in my limited testing, has performed much better since making the switch. The faster upload is surely helping there. Yes, the download speed is slower, but honestly, this connection “feels” as fast when browsing the internet. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to respond faster.

I actually went with a local company for the ISP, VISI. Admittedly it is a bit more expensive than going directly with Qwest, but I was trying to limit my involvement with major corporations. And I when I asked the representative why I should go with them instead of the cheaper Qwest, he said “well, with us, you get actual human service and support, instead of MSNbots”

Works for me.

So to sum up:

Comcast for super basic cable (HD Locals)
VISI for an ISP (it is a Qwest line)
and Vonage for the “landline”

NPR ran a series of stories about the War on Drugs recently. The main idea being that the War on Drugs has failed because there has been too much focus on the supply and not enough focus on the demand.

They went through a number of different reasons why the focus is on the supply, and chief among them is that it’s simply easier to point at the tons and tons of drugs you’ve seized, and much harder to make a case for the drug addict that you’re helping wean off heroin. Makes sense from a marketing standpoint sure, but it seems people in government are actually getting serious about working on the demand side of the equation.

Another big topic of conversation lately has been immigration. First of all, I find it pretty hard to be “anti-immigration”. Give me your tired, weak and hungry! America is the place, always has been. I’m not sure what would’ve happened to my family had they not been allowed to stay. Or worse yet, how would my Great-Grandparents have liked getting forced back to their home countries, leaving their newly created families behind.

As I heard President Bush on the radio today, trying to turn syllables into words and sentences, I drew a parallel between the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Immigrants”. Read more »

X-Ray of my shoulder during surgery, originally uploaded by ajc3.

This is an X-Ray they took during surgery. I have to admit I was imagining a small little plate with a couple of screws, but as it turns out, it’s quite a bit bigger!

Everything was good at my first checkup!