House of the rising Moonglum

One of the things that the iPhone was initially supposed to do was change the way that cell phone purchasing was done. In particular, instead of sticking around for forever in the phone store, dealing with surly salesmen, you would buy the device, head home, and register and pick a plan in the privacy of your own home. The reason Apple was able to get away with this unbelievable invasion of AT&T’s personal space was by offering them exclusive rights to the phone in the US. That worked out great for a while, but the other side of that is that since AT&T has this long contract, they can start demanding things after a while. Too much grey market of their subsidized iPhones you see. So it was with some trepidation that I went to the AT&T store to purchase my iPhone today.

I couldn’t have had a better or more satisfying purchase experience. The staff was well trained, knowledgeable and excited about the product they were selling. They took my name and (once they heard I was switching from another network) saw us right away. I stated that 10 years ago I left AT&T and swore never to return. They asked what my issues were, helped pick a plan that would avoid those issues going forward, and brought out the store manager who gave me his card and told me to call him if I had any problems at all. In particular apparently over the course of the past year AT&T has been giving more empowerment to the individual employees to deal with specific customer complaints. Apparently working with Apple has taught them something about customer satisfaction.

So that initial impression made me much happier. Then it turns out that the employee I was working with was previously a Sprint employee. I said that I really liked my current sprint plan. He agreed that AT&T didn’t have exactly the same plan, but showed me how he could build a very similar plan. In fact it was (with the exception of SMS messages, and the tier-ing of overages) exactly the same plan. Not only that, but he knew exactly what needed to be done to get the phone numbers transferred over with no fuss no muss. He did all the leg work all we had to do was chat with him about the pros and cons of different plans. Then he asked who my and my wife’s employers were. Turns out they give a 15% discount on the monthly plans for teachers!!!

So to sum up, after being jerked around by Sprint for the past year and totally fearing dealing with AT&T, I not only have two iPhones (one for me and one for my wife) for less that one would have cost me a year ago, my new monthly plan actually costs LESS than the one that I had with Sprint that I was totally happy with. Now the only thing I have to do is be careful of not going over on minutes for the first couple months so I can bank some roll over minutes. I went from not really wanting to be an AT&T customer to being a totally satisfied customer in about a half an hour. That AT&T customer service rep totally earned his (hopefully large) commission.

Now I need to build a special iPhone version of this blog.

“No no dude, you need to listen for the paper.” My wife schooling me on how to unjam the printer when I missed the paper falling out. It turns out I am married to the printer whisperer.

Dude, these are totally awesome! Enough power for about 10,000 US homes for 7-10 years. And you just bury it, and it requires minimal monitoring and no maintenance. I wonder if it is an RTG? They don’t go too much into the details, but I bet that’s what it is. Those are totally safe and well understood. NASA has been using them for years. They cost $25M so assuming a 5 year maximally operative lifespan that’s only $500 per year which is less than I pay for electricity right now. Nice.

Just a little hint. If you see a motorcade with black SUV’s and a police escort, don’t cut it off. No really. Don’t do it.

Well it looks like they are throwing Sarah Palin under the bus. I have a friend who believes that all leaks happen on purpose, and that the leaker has something to gain from the leak. I’m not sure I always agree, but it is really obvious in this case. First of all the timing, and second the saturation. Newsweek reports that she was the one who spent all that money on clothes, and was out of their control. Fox news (video below) says that she didn’t know that africa is a continent and not a country, she didn’t know which countries are in NAFTA, and was out of their control. Aaaand, “there is to be an avalanche [of revelations] that will continue for many days.” All in all the long knives are out.

The interesting question is why. Is this simply to shift blame, or is it a start of a longer game to shift the Republican party away from the religious right? Since she is such a symbol for them I could see that. Of course the Neo-cons have gone so far away from the other traditional conservative values that my guess is they will have to do even more re-branding than that to continue.

I tell you one thing though, if these stories are true (and that is a BIG if, these stories serve a purpose remember), and she really was this bad and they let her keep running anyway… no re-branding will be enough. They simply don’t care about the country.

update: Campbell Brown thinks they are just trying to save their own skins. This makes them look so bad though, as she points out. I still think a re-branding is more likely.

I can’t say how pleased I am that our nation was able to move beyond its racist past and elect its first black president. McCain’s speech was great, and everything that I liked about him. If he had been allowed to run as himself, he would have done much better. Obama’s speech was inspiring, and the email he sent to all campaign workers, thanking them for all their hard work, and letting us know we need to be prepared for the work ahead was a great sign that he knows how much is left to be done. I am so overjoyed and hopeful for the future. If Obama can accomplish even a portion of the expectations people have for him, this country will become a place we can scarcely imagine.

People marching on Western Ave, chanting Obama, and Yes We Can. Heh.

The one sad note on the day, was that it appears that Californian voters approved Proposition 8. One of my best friends was married this summer, and just had her wedding annulled by popular vote. We may have shifted racism into the minority column, but bigotry hatred and fear still have a place in this country. Fortunately California has some laws in place to protect the rights of same sex couples, however many federal protections still only apply to married people.

Morse Hellhole points to some very good arguments for and against a constitutional convention. I still believe that the cost factor is the most important thing, but there are some very strong arguments on both sides. SCC also chimes in against the Con Con. They think that Blago and Daley will use their super powers to give themselves more powers. I’m still suggesting voting against the Con Con.

Nate Silver did his most recent simulations and grabbed the few hundred McCain victories that appeared. Things do not look good for McCain. For him to win, according to Nate’s simulations, he MUST win ALL of Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. In many of these states he does not look so good. Florida, Missouri and Indiana are still not easy wins for him. In addition he must almost certainly win Ohio and North Carolina, neither of which are tilted to him at all right now. In the most common scenarios he also wins either Pennsylvania or Virginia, both of which are leaning heavily towards Obama. This will be a very interesting election to watch. Fortunately the likelihood of a single state swaying the electing is much lower in this election than in past elections. Hopefully we will know Tuesday night who the next president is. (Please never have 2000 again. Ugh.)

It turns out we do have progress in this country. Things do change over time. This woman is amazing, she has lived in the 1800s 1900s and into the 2000s. She had a father who was born a slave and she saw poll taxes, and all other forms of indignation. And here she is today, at 109, voting for an african american for president. Pretty amazing. I’m always a sucker for uplifting public interest stories.

Also, don’t read the comments if you want to continue to feel good about our country. Freedom of speech seems to still be operating as well, and there are plenty of people that don’t like the progress we have made.