Nick

Honestly, I work customer service in a call center and I could care less if someone were to tell me that they were recording the conversation. The company records every conversation that takes place on incoming calls (inbound call center) anyways so it really would have no bearing on how I conducted myself as a representative.

In certain circumstances like the one the author mentioned I can see the usefulness of doing something like this but I've found that in my own personal experience that it's usually the person calling in that you have to be weary of. Many times have I just had customers flat out lie to try and get something that they don't deserve only to have prior calls by that person reviewed before proceeding which revealed blatant and extravagant lies.

If anything, working in a call center environment has made me aware of how truly insane, rude, deceptive and uneducated a good amount of people are. That being said my center is local/regional. It's even worse when you know that you share the same roads as some of the people you speak to.

Granted this is a blog with reader feedback but the little commercial did it's job. You're all talking about it!

Jeramy,

"even though black people have access to public schooling, it would be laughable to insinuate that inner-city schools are comparable to white suburban schools. hence black kids get poorly educated/drop out and get stuck holding crappy shifts, repeating the cycle. if you implied that the racial economic divide exists purely by coincidence, and not because of historic disparity, you're not looking between the lines hard enough"


Poverty doesn't discriminate. It affects every "race". My point was simply that doors have been open long before President Obama came along. What opportunities have just become available that weren't available last year or the year before that when President Obama wasn't on most peoples radar. That a peoples optimism and aspirations are so influenced by one mans success when in reality nothing but the fact that he is now the President of the united states has changed is a bit puzzling. (I use that wording because he's only been in office for a day)

As for inner city schools....I bet most readers parents actually went to those schools. I know that my mother did. What happened to those schools in one or two generations that now make them such a laughing stock? (Don't think racial because that's not where I'm going. I'm going towards discipline and moral standards)

Not all students that attend inner city schools drop out. A good number actually graduate. But most are poverty stricken you say. How will they go to college. Some don't and some do. The fact of the matter is that there are doors open for poverty stricken students to attend college also. You can go to college for free thanks to Federal Grants and if you have to student loans. All you have to do is want an education and there are more than enough ways to receive it. Want to compare the quality of education between community colleges and state or big name colleges? It doesn't matter. Simply having a degree to set you apart from those that don't makes a huge difference when applying for jobs. That and you can do 2 years at a community college and transfer (if you do the work and get the grades) to a state or big name college to save money.

Opportunities exist and have existed. The past isn't a crutch unless one decides to let the past determine their future.

As for your idea that past slavery translates into generations of poverty I'd have to disagree with that idea. What of the immigrants that came to this country with no education and nothing but the clothes on their backs? Most whom didn't speak any English at all. They took many of the jobs that you spoke of as well. They were also heavily discriminated against. What of the Irish, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Polish etc etc that found themselves in similar situations as African Americans.

I'm Filipino, My mother was born in the mid 50's. Her Father was 100% Filipino and her mother is white. She remembers people looking at her with her parents in public with disgust and disapproval because hers was a family of mixed race.

People have no idea what I am. People have told me that they thought I was Italian, Hispanic or Asian. You name it. I actually had someone call me a taco head because they got mad at me after asking them to leave a store that I worked at because they were drunk and abusive towards other customers.

What's my point? I have none. Who cares about any of that. It happened in the past and was the result of others ignorance. It has no bearing on who I am or the person that I choose to become.

Shoji,

Almost all cultures practiced slavery. Even the Tribes of Africa. It was a common practice for warring factions to make slaves of the opposing faction all throughout history and many different cultures.

The African Slave trade started with Tribal Leaders trading their own slaves for guns and gun powder to get a leg up on the neighboring tribes.


Slavery is no doubt wrong and we've made great strides over the years to combat racism.

So why do some talk today as though slavery in America just ended yesterday even though such great battles have been won against racism. There are those that cling to the past as an excuse for current day shortcomings that have nothing to do with slavery or racism.

Yesterday on the local news I saw such odd reactions from African American high school children that somehow now they can do anything when the doors to their success and prosperity as Americans had already been open for generations. If the African American culture has been bearing a chip on their shoulders for so long only to have it magically relieved by the inauguration of one man than perhaps there is a greater cultural issue prevalent throughout African American culture than racism and past slavery.

If people would just quit looking back to the past and start looking forward to their futures perhaps America would be an even greater nation than it already is.

The price for the keyboard is pretty crazy. If you think about it you can get a nice samsung 19" HD LCD monitor for just a little more. I still can't understand why anyone needs a screen on their Keyboard. A lot of games don't support it and the ones that do just display useless information. Why would you look at your keyboard while your playing to check information that's readily available and displayed on your computer screen. I bought the G11 on an impulse but it was on sale. That's the most I'd ever spend on a keyboard. I ended up buying a nice wireless kb/mouse combo for the same price to replace my G11 and Wired mouse. (I hooked my comp up to my 32 inch hd tv and played MMO's from my recliner for a bit until i swore them off completely lol)

Well said LT.

I look at what's happening with some retailers going out of business as a natural selection of sorts. The strong/sound retailers are going to make it but the weak are folding. Personally, I'm okay with that. (It's unfortunate for those that will lose their jobs but like LT said there are more to be had.)


As for Circuit City and Blockbuster...

Like someone already mentioned Circuit City was already in serious trouble before the economic downturn. Before the downturn I read that Circuit City had planned on closing down 150 or more stores as apart of a restructuring attempt. http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/circuit-city-closing-20-of-u-s-stores-to-save-cash

I've never been fond of Circuit City though. Their carrot on a stick marketing approach years ago always left a bad taste in my mouth. (They'd advertise something in the paper then when you get to the store the advertised price is after a mail in rebate. So you then have to pay full price to get the sale price.)

Blockbuster is just a Dinosaur stuck in it's ways. They've made attempts to catch up with the times but it's too late. The latest nails in it's coffin are Gamefly,Microsofts partnership with Netflix and Redbox booths.

If you're not familiar with Redbox http://www.redbox.com/home.aspx

::Short Version:: Due to recent MMO releases I'm very wary of new MMO's. DAOC is in bad shape and I'm bored with WoW. I think it will be xbox360 for the forseeable future for me no matter how good a new mmo on the horizon looks.



It's hard for me to get excited for any new MMO on the horizon these days.

I love em when they're done "right" but the new ones just don't a) live up to the hype (actually deliver on promised content/gameplay) b) lack depth in character development, social gameplay (in aoc and war you're actually punished for grouping xp wise) and finally pvp (pvp in all mmos since WoW have been seriously dumbed down)

I started playing MMO'S with EQ1, A bunch of new friends in a new neighborhood I had moved to introduced me to the genre. Although EQ wasn't necessarily my cup of tea I still found certain elements very entertaining.

Once Dark Age of Camelot came out I was instantly hooked. I couldn't get enough of the games RVR and the 'fun' (some people may have hated it) of putting together armor templates. The game also rewarded and promoted socialization alot more than current MMO's (wow the exception). I played DAOC for 5 or so years.

I played WoW for about 2 years and some change. It was a satisfying experience. The first year I got my feet wet with entry level raiding. Got bored and sold my character. With the release of TBC I came back and was fortunate enough to fall in with a great group of people on a new server. In under a year we went from 1-70 and cleared all of TBC content. (although I quit while we waited for sunwell to come out) All in all I quit WoW because I came to the conclusion that after a bit all encounters are the same in WoW. The only challenge is making sure that everyone listens and is capable at the helm of their character. It just got boring and monotonous to me.

AOC/WAR Are just very watered down games in my opinion. I could go on but this is already a wall of text.

It's not the amount of currently open subscriptions. It's a misleading figure. It's just the number of people that have opened an account period. Basically it's just the number of activated box sales and doesn't factor in the amount of people that have already canceled.

Entire guilds are leaving this game, take it for what its worth but I know myself and my guild has. It's not so hard to believe other people saying they're experiencing the same thing on the boards when you've already personally experienced it yourself.

This game isn't worth the money or the frustration. By the time they get all the features into the game that are missing but were advertised on the box WAR and WoTLK will be out. If you haven't bought this game already but really really want to try it then do yourself a huge favor and wait at least 6 months to get what's actually advertised on the box. (hopefully the features will be in by then)


Also Funcom's cancellation page is "bugged" when a player cancels and cites a reason from the drop down box it automatically changes the reason you selected to "Financial Reasons" when you hit the submit button.

Dunno If I trust any numbers from Funcom after I experienced that little "bug".

AoC needs a good 6 months before it's worth checking out. I doubt I'll pick it back up again but its a shame that they released the game in it's current state.

Poor Communication with customers.

People have been canceling and during the cancellation process you select a reason from a drop down box and then you can fill out a box with a detailed personal reason. They have a "bug" in their system that is changing peoples drop down box reasons from whatever they selected to "Financial Reason". There was a thread about it on their forums but of course it was deleted as soon as the mods woke up the next day.

A massive amount of bugs that were reported during the beta made it into the launch client.

An enormous amount of content missing from the game.

Their patches break and stealth nerf more things than they actually fix.

The game is highly geared towards console play...


The list of problems goes on and on.

This game isn't out of beta yet so if you plan on checking it out please don't do so for another 3-6 months.

Good Riddance to Games for Windows Magazine. I've been a 4 year subscriber to that magazine and once it went from CGW to GFW something more than just the name changed it seemed. Good columns went missing and in came the 4-5 pages of Microsoft ads in the back. It just seemed to get sloppy and uninteresting. Granted the demise of the print version has alot to do with online gaming blogs (because the information is actually current and not a month old like print magazines) but the quality of that publication really went downhill and I lost interest in it awhile ago because of that.

Anyways, I'm glad the print version is gone. the last few months of GFW didn't do the old CGW justice.