Life

General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.

My Movie Rating System

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For no particular reason that I can come up with, I was thinking over how I rate movies, and attempting to quantify the basic reasoning for each star of a five-star rating system. I think I’ve pretty much nailed it down.

* (one star): Two hours of my life that I won’t get back.
* * (two stars): Not a total waste of time, if the viewing cost is low enough (free coupon, someone else is renting it and I happen to be around to see it, a good Netflix plan with relatively high turnover).
* * * (three stars): Worth a rent.
* * * * (four stars): Worth seeing in the theater (at a matinee, or at an evening show if I’m either excited enough by the particular movie or feeling rich enough to afford it), possibly worth purchasing (preferably secondhand or after a while so the price has dropped, but perhaps at full price if I think it’s on the high side of four stars).
* * * * * (five stars): A keeper. Worth seeing in the theater if possible, worth owning at whatever price I think is reasonable.

Of course, as with any rating system, there’s some amount of variability, and my movie collection certainly isn’t entirely comprised of 4- and 5-star movies (Star Trek V? Honestly, it’s about a 2-star movie. But it’s Star Trek, and I’m a nerd and a completist). But on the whole, I think that’s a pretty good overview of my thought process.

Maybe @comcastcares after all!

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Back when Prairie and I moved into this apartment, we ended up with Comcast cable. I wasn’t super excited about this, given all the horror stories about Comcast’s customer service floating about the ‘net, but we didn’t have much choice. Over the air TV reception in the Kent valley is nearly nonexistent, and we’re on the wrong side of the building to get a DirecTV connection.

So we signed up for Comcast’s most basic, entry level, all analog “Limited Basic” package. $18 a month gets us local channels plus a few extras, and our favorite surprise in the package was Channel 99 CBUT, Vancouver BC’s CBC affiliate. We watched almost nothing but CBUT during the Olympics, and still tune in from time to time, having become fans of Canadian TV, and especially their sports (during the Olympics, they actually recognized that there were other countries competing) and news coverage (their coverage of the US Elections was an interesting break from the US media). In any case, our cable package isn’t fancy — we don’t even have a cable box, but just run the coax straight from the wall to the TV — but it’s enough for us.

Yesterday I stumbled across an article about Comcast Seattle’s upcoming digital transition. While separate from the broadcast digital transition, it’s the same basic idea (replacing high-bandwidth analog with low-bandwidth digital) and, through somewhat unfortunate timing, will be occurring at about the same time as the broadcast switch. Since our package is analog, I was understandably curious about what to expect.

According to the article, “Customers with limited basic — just channels 2-29 — won’t be affected at all. Those channels will stay analog, so those customers can still just plug their cable into a new or old TV.” So far so good…but what about those channels above 29 that we’re currently receiving? Admittedly, there aren’t a lot of them, but there are a few, including those friendly Canadians. Are we going to lose them? And if so, would we really have to nearly triple our monthly cable bill in order to keep them around (since the lowest digital package that Comcast offers is a ridiculous $56/month)?

I figured I’d see if I could get a quick answer. I’d been following the comcastcares Twitter account for some time, after stumbling across some of the impressive stories about their customer service approach, and fired off a couple brief tweets.

It’s hard for me to believe that @comcastcares when their TV tiers jump from $18/mo (bare bones analog) to $56/mo (entry level digital). #

@comcastcares BTW, that isn’t a rant at you or the stellar customer service you do through Twitter. I just think TV pricing is horrendous. #

@comcastcares When you go all digital in Seattle http://xrl.us/o2kzp will I lose the channels above 30 I currently get with Limited Basic? #

A little bit later that evening, he came back to me with a preliminary answer:

@djwudi I have to get the specifics but as I understand it all channels above 30 will not be available. I will find out more tomorrow #

Not bad — within just a couple hours, I had a response. Admittedly, not an encouraging response, but a response. Then, this morning, I woke up to find that within an hour after he’d responded, he’d referred me to a local Comcast representative, who told me the following:

@djwudi Hi,Re:Comcast–You will not lose channels, you will actually get more. If you have basic cable, we’ll give you very small conver … #

@djwudi Oops, meant to add that Comcast will give you (free of charge) a small box that will allow you to get additional channels. #

I’m guessing that the “small box” that Shauna is referring to here is the “DTA” also being provided to multiple-TV basic digital subscribers.

…Comcast decided to also start providing a secondary type of cable box to homes with multiple TVs.

Called a “DTA,” this device is about the size of a box of frozen spinach and can be mounted behind a TV. It allows the TV to display channels 30 and above without a full cable box. They do not record shows, display program guides or enable rentals like a full box.

So, if I’m understanding this correctly, sometime around the February switchover, Comcast should be providing us with one (or hopefully two, as we have two TVs) DTAs that will allow us to keep our Limited Basic bare-bones service, while still getting the channels we’ve been receiving…and possibly a few more. Not bad.

Also of note (to me, at least) is just how effective and easy this was. I’m used to “customer service” that actually prevents me from even making an attempt (calling Quest, for instance, involves navigating through a phone tree at a call center that operates on East Coast time, even though their customer service pages simply list hours of operation with no time zone listed, so us West Coasters don’t realize that closing at 6pm really means closing at 3pm when we’re still at work until we call and get nowhere). Being able to toss off a short, quick note and get a useful and polite response within a few hours is wonderful.

Comcast the corporate behemoth may very well have its fair share of issues (and then some — I must be honest, I’m not at all convinced that I’d trust my internet connection to them), but — at least on the Twitter level — Comcast’s employees are doing some very nice work.

Somewhat coincidentally, this morning Frank (the man behind comcastcares) posted on his personal weblog about his personal customer service philosophy, and it’s clear just why he does such good work. If only more people and companies would approach their customers with this kind of mindset.

I have seen a lot of press and blog posts about the efforts of my team on the web. I have always been surprised by this because I do not see what I am doing as that special. If you review how I defined Customer Service, you will notice that I believe it is everyone’s responsibility to talk with Customers. I also believe that it is important to be where they are when possible. The internet provides that ability.

To me if I hear someone talking about the company I work for I always offer to help. I have done this at parties, on the street, and one time in a Verizon Wireless store. I never have done it in a negative way. I would just say let me assist, here is my business card. My business card has my email, office phone and my cell phone clearly listed on it. It is very simple. “Let me know if I can help.”

So now we look at engagement in social media spaces. In many cases I write simple messages, “Can I help” or “Thank you.” I do not use the time to sell which many marketers have tried to do. Yet these simple acknowledgements have led to many sales. The key is to be genuine and willing to sincerely listen and help. I never press, I simply provide the opportunity for someone to obtain assistance. For me if I saw someone who wanted or needed help anywhere, I would be happy to assist. As many of you know I have been known to do this many hours of the day, but that is because if I see someone that needs help, and if I can, I will.

I didn’t even have a major issue, but between comcastcares and ShaunaCausey, it was a good experience. Thanks, you two!

Now we’ll just wait and see what happens come February. ;)

…that isn’t the question.

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A couple weeks ago, while planning ahead for our expected Christmas purchases, I asked whether to Blu or not to Blue. Turns out, contrary to the Bard’s already-mangled quote, that wasn’t the question. After some reviewing of finances and priorities, Prairie and I decided to stay in Standard Definition for the time being, and save our purchase of a fancy-schmancy new HDTV set for some as-yet undetermined future date.

The really fun part of this decision was rejiggering our plans for presents. Such jigs have now been re’d, and after a day of shopping around our old haunts in Northgate (which not-so-coincidentally also involved visiting and lunching with Hope and Peter) and an evening of wrapping presents, we’ve got a big ol’ pile o’ presents under our tree!

I did want to thank all of you who contributed thoughts and advice while I was researching the available options. Hopefully I won’t need to call on you again down the line when prices have dropped enough for us to feel comfortable diving into the HD pool with all you cool kids!

Seattle PI Getting Sued

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This isn’t much of a surprise:

An operator involved in a deadly Bellevue crane collapse has sued the Seattle P-I, saying the paper defamed him by printing details of his criminal history.

Warren Yeakey, the 36-year- old operator who was injured in the November 2006 collapse, filed the defamation suit in Pierce County Superior Court earlier this month. In court documents, Yeakey says the paper wrongly intimated that his arrests and convictions somehow contributed to the collapse.

“He felt like he was vilified falsely,” said Matt Renda, a Tacoma attorney representing Yeakey. The story, Renda added, “created an incorrect or false implication that operator error … was a contributing factor to the downing of the crane and the death of (Matthew) Ammond,” a Microsoft Corp. patent lawyer who was killed in the collapse.

I knew at the time of the collapse that the reporting of the accident was not the PI’s finest hour.

…when a crane collapsed in Bellevue last November, I was disgusted by the PI’s response: an immediate front-page article digging up and detailing five-year-old accounts of the past drug use of the poor guy operating the crane that day. As if this guy’s day wasn’t bad enough — he goes to work, climbs to the top of a tower crane, and then rides the thing down as it collapses into nearby apartment buildings — he then has to endure the ingominy and public humiliation of having his past transgressions dug up, splashed across the front page of the newspaper, and implicitly blamed as the cause of the accident. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had a drug conviction in five years, nor that his employer required drug tests that he had reliably passed, nor that there was no indication of drug use at the time of the accident. What mattered was that he was guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!

I wonder if the PI would be getting sued if they’d printed some form of apology or retraction at the time?

To Blu or Not To Blu?

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For Christmas this year, Prairie and I have decided to treat ourselves and upgrade our TV set from the one I bought when I moved to Seattle seven and a half years ago (!!!!!). It’s a nice enough TV (a Sony Wega 27-inch), but it’s huge, heavy, and while still in good shape, it’s old tech. The original plan was to wait until it died, but between Sony’s generally good longevity (my parents had a little Sony 13″ TV that went for almost thirty years) and my geeky techno-lust, Prairie surprised me by suggesting that we go ahead and upgrade to the new hotness.

So, the hunt is in progress. At this point, I’m pretty much decided on a 32″ Samsung, most likely either the LN32A550 or the LN32A650, depending on where prices land in the weeks between Black Friday and Christmas.

Of course, with the jump to an HDTV comes the jump to HD programming. Day-to-day entertainment will come courtesy of Comcast — we’re already getting our cable through them, so we’ll just upgrade that to the minimum possible digital/HD package. For movies, though, we’re doing a bit of back-and-forth (though, to be honest, Prairie’s on the “back” — that is, staying with what we have — while I’m on the “forth” side of the discussion).

My movie-loving, technology-geeking little heart tends to go all a-pitter-pat at upgrading to Blu-Ray. I jumped onto the DVD bandwagon as soon as it dropped into the realm of affordability, loved the jump in video and audio quality from my old VHS tapes, and have been looking forward to the next step forward.

Prairie, however, doesn’t really see what all the fuss is about, and her approach is one that I’m having an amusingly tough time arguing against: if we can see the show and enjoy the story, than what’s the big deal? She never saw a big difference between VHS and DVD, doesn’t really care about surround sound (a moot point at the moment, as living in an apartment building means that standard stereo at reasonable levels is far more realistic than full surround and gut-thumping subwoofers — something we really wish our neighbors would realize…), and just doesn’t see the point in adding another piece of electronics and another remote to the stack we have to keep track of already.

I’ve gotta admit, it’s hard to really say, “But…it’s better!” without realizing just how foolish that sounds.

Not that I don’t try. I’d have my geek card revoked if I didn’t at least try.

(And on a not-unrelated-at-all side note, I think it works wonderfully that our respective geek levels generally balance out into reasonable end results. I don’t know how couples made of dual übergeeks can manage!)

In any case, I think part of the conversation is simply the fact that we don’t really know how much of a change we’re going to see when we upgrade. Sure, I’ve looked at all the numbers and can see the mathmatical difference between SD 640×480 and FullHD 1920×1080, I’ve done simple little experiments looking at resolution increases, and I’ve been working with digital photography long enough that I can get a feel for the difference betweeen a .3 megapixel image and a 2 megapixel image (the approximate difference between SD and FullHD). But running numbers and reading webpages is no substitute for actually seeing what happens when we plug it all together.

So I tried a little experiment today, and tossed out two questions on Twitter…

You who’ve moved from “old school” TV to a new HDTV (pref. w/some form of HD feed): is it really that big of a difference? Turned up to 11?

Same question, part 2: Along the same lines, how about the DVD to Blu-Ray transition? Again, is it that much visibly better?

…and got the following responses:

  • axsdeny: DVD to Blu-Ray: yes. If you have even a 720p TV you can tell the difference. It’s beautiful.
  • lyracole: i don’t notice the difference between my standard and hd, but sir does. also, fuck blu-ray.
  • stoppableforce: w/r/t the difference between SDTV and HDTV: YES. YES. DEAR GOD YES. The difference in clarity is A-FUCKIN’-MAZING.
  • stoppableforce: w/r/t the DVD-to-Blu-Ray thing: Not so much. We’ve got both, Blu-Ray looks slightly better, not enough to make me buy a PS3 yet.
  • mellzah: I hate to admit it, but blu-ray looks great. DVDs don’t look sharp on my TV– non-HD projection 50ish inch–but Blu-Ray movies do!
  • skyler: Huge difference. I attribute most of it to HDMI, actually. Clearer interference free signal. Xbox 360 + 1080p is great w/DVDs.
  • antifuse: short answer? Yes. Longer answer? Depends what you watch. Plain DVDs upscaled by Blu ray look fab, and many shows look great too.
  • wnalyd: Finally answering your HDTV question: Heck yeah there’s a difference bwtn HD + SD. Turned up to 17. Wouldn’t go back.

So the final consensus (admittedly, since I used Twitter, drawing from a very weighted sample of at least somewhat geeky-type people), while not clear-cut across the board, seems to be that yes, there is a difference, ranging from “better” to “A-FUCKIN’-MAZING”. We’ll just have to wait and see where we fall along that spectrum with the equipment we have (we’ll have the HDTV and HD cable from Comcast for the pretty pretty pixels, and a non-upconverting DVD/VHS combo deck for movies), and maybe see if I can find anyone with a Blu-Ray player for us to borrow for a night to help us decide if we want to add that piece, too (of course, if the Blu-Ray players don’t drop into affordability, that’ll make the whole point moot as well).

Did I miss anything?

The Answer is Probably “Yes”

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I’m trying to decide if I’m a hypocrite for being unsure about how I feel about Kid Rock’s new single “All Summer Long” — which, though catchy, is little more than new lyrics on top of the riff from Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” — when I’m sitting on a 10.79 GB collection of 1,462 mashups.

(Update: Y’know, after watching the video, even if I am on the hypocritical side of things, I’m feeling less guilty about it, based solely on the fact that Kid Rock is incredibly skeezy. Ick. I feel dirtier just having watched that.)

(Second update: The worst part is, the song is damn catchy, though that says far less about Kid Rock than it does for Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose “Sweet Home Alabama” is also sampled.)

Human Cannonball

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Human Cannonball

Human Cannonball, originally uploaded by djwudi.

Another multi-image collage to tide things over while I try to get caught up with photos. I’ve never seen a human cannonball before, and actually didn’t even know this was still done. Pretty cool to see! It’s hard to see at this size, but on the top right image, you can actually see smoke and flame coming out of the barrel of the cannon as he exits.

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