Muttroxia

Today at work I received an executive summary. It was 44 pages. I wonder how long the non-executive summary is.

Wow. What a fantastic tournament. Something like 20 hours of TV coverage, and I enjoyed every minute of it. If you enjoy poker at all, there’s nothing like the big one. What other tournament requires you to beat over 6,000 other players to win? Where you can win over $8,000,000? Where the qualification for entry isn’t your track record, the draft, or qualifying rounds; all it takes is $10,000. I’m still not sure if pokers a sport, but in it’s own way, the WSOP is greater than NCAA finals, the Superbowl, or the World Cup.

Now we finally know the winner. (Actually, we’ve known the winner for month, I’ve just been in a self-imposed poker media blackout so I could see it happen on TV.) Jerry Yang. Frickin’ amateurs! Now Jerry Yang is obviously a better player than Chris Moneymaker. But he’s also obviously worse than Raymer, Haschem, or Gold. I have to give him a lot of credit for this feat, but at the same time you can’t ignore the role of luck. Once at the final table, he went from one of the pack to building an astronomical chip lead mainly by getting great cards four or five hands in a row. He did not play particularly well at the final table. He read his opponent successfully about 50% of the time, in other words he didn’t read his opponent at all. But with that chip advantage it didn’t matter. Kravchenko beat him four all-ins in a row, but Yang only needed to win one. When he finally did, he got all his money back and then some. That’s how it goes.

I just found the hand-by-hand replay. On TV, it looks like heads-up play is decided after the first hand, but it was actually hand 36.

Best reason to be athiest:
Yang and Rahme are all-in, waiting for the last cards that will decide their fate. Rahme’s wife is shrieking to god praising his name hoping for the right cards, while Yang is babbling about the miracles and proving his faith for you O Lord. It must have been working, because my reaction was “Jesus Christ!”. The sight of the two of them praying as hard as they could was sickening. First of all, it’s idiotic. Clearly the Lord can’t answer both their prayers, do you really think he’s deciding whether the next card will be a queen by who prays the best, by which player is most worthy? Second, it’s gambling. Last I checked, this was a sin. Third, the odds were 19 to 1 at that point. God doesn’t really need to intervene at that point. Fourth, the loser gets over $3,000,000 at that point. C’mon!

Best reason to invite all the amateurs:
The two finalists were both refugees, one from Cambodia, one from Laos. Both of them were going to use a good deal of their winnings to help out their native countries. No getting around it, that’s nice, that’s refreshing. Pros don’t have that mentality, or they don’t talk about it during tourney time.

Pete Townshend: Dancing Machine!

This guy thought his chi or something would protect him when he sliced himself with a sword. He was wrong.

Other People…

The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title. Their irresponsible fiscal policies is driving big business away.

Rice Paddy Art (growing and harvesting)

A Beautiful Gold-digger gets an Honest Reply from Wall Street

Peter Sellers gives a primer on British accents.

Funny and clever math test answers

Jon Stewart had Chris Matthews on the other day to talk about his new book, “Life’s a Campaign”, and it got a little heated.

The Daily Show billed the clip (click to watch it)as “Jon Stewart gives Chris Matthews the worst interview of his life”. Andrew Sullivan referred to it as a savaging. It was #4 on Reddit. It got callouts from Tapped and others. Ha, watch Chris Matthews finally get taken down!

Only, it seems all of them missed the point. Stewart’s main criticism is that life is not a campaign. Campaigns are about lying and artifice, life is not. Matthews book is about using campaign techniques to achieve your goals. Whether your goals are good or bad is your own problem, he’s just showing you some tools to help. Objectives and tactics are completely different things.

Countless authors have written books in the same style. Stewart mentioned The Prince. I thought of How to Win Friends & Influence People. Or any of the hundreds of books on negotiation, The 7 Successful habits etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. At worst, these books are amoral (not immoral), they will not make your life sad and depressed, as Jon said.

(credit to Jabley for this find)

In the many forms I had to sign to buy the car, there was one odd checkbox:

If you received a survey asking for your rating of your customer experience buying a car from us, would you rate us as “Excellent”? [Yes / No]

This is a terrible methodology. You can’t find out what people think by asking them what they will say. Not only do people change their minds, but it’s blatantly pre-selecting a sample. The salesperson it was just to make sure that they gave excellent service. I said they did, but I wasn’t going to check anything saying that, it defeated the point of a survey. She was pretty annoyed.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If a survey is supposed to be an unbiased measure, then you can’t preselect people. If it’s really for the dealership to make sure that they did a great job, it’s not a survey.

Later, I discovered interesting information that cleared it all up for me.

After purchasing a car, customers typically receive a letter or a phone call asking for their opinion of their overall experience with a dealership. Did you receive something in the mail after you bought your last new car?? J.D. Power & Associates is a well-known company that frequently conducts this research. J.D. Power & Associates has been known to send out a survey after a car sale that includes a $1 bill to elicit your participation. Low and behold, the results of these surveys determine the direction of dealerships’ business in the future.

These surveys also help determine how many cars the OEM will give to the dealership, and what incentives the OEM offers to the dealer. I was not aware that an OEM could have an incentive program with one particular dealer in an area that would never be disclosed. Interesting!

Us: No, dinosaurs aren’t monsters. Dinosaurs were real long ago. Now they are extinct.
Him: So the dinosaurs are all in heaven? The dinosaurs are in heaven. How do they fit? Maybe only the tops of their heads are in heaven, because they’re so big. A Tyrannosaurus wouldn’t fit at all. He would eat Jesus. I don’t like that dinosaur because he eats Jesus. He should be in jail. Why are dinosaurs in heaven if they eat Jesus?
Us: Good question. Maybe dinosaurs have their own heaven.
Him: Oh! Then all the dinosaurs would be there! Where is dinosaur heaven?
Us: Um… where is… um… hey, we’re almost home!
Him: I’ll bet it’s to the left. And they have someone who conducts dinosaur heaven. Is there a dinosaur Jesus?
Us: We’re home! Everyone out!

Here’s another one a few days later, after we let him have one toy at a garage sale.
Him: How long can I keep this for?
Us: Forever, it yours now.
Him: Forever!?
Us: Yes, we bought it.
Him: Forever? Even after I die? I can play with this after I die? I hope they let you take toys to heaven. I want to play with this toy in heaven!

I finally bought the new car. Most of you know we’ve been in market for, oh, 20 months or so. That’s a lot. We finally got our act together. On the advice of a random internet person from the Straight Dope Message Boards, I sent this message to eleven Toyota dealers in my area:

I would like to buy a new 2007 Toyota Sienna. I am looking for a Sienna LE, base model (no options package), 8-seat version. Tan or silver is preferred, other light colors are acceptable.

What is your best price for a car with these specifications? The price should be a final drive-out price (so it would include the $1500 rebate, taxes, etc). There is no trade-in or financing involved with this transaction.

I will write exactly one check. If I come in and the final amount is different than your quote by even one penny, I will walk out of your dealership forever.

Please note, I am ready and willing to close this transaction this weekend. I am writing this same message to several dealerships. Whoever has the best price will get my business.

Thank you,
bla bla bla

I heard back from four of them. Interestingly, they were the exact four that have the most new car inventory. One of them was eliminated quickly, because their price was highest. Also we’ve browsed there twice, and they’ve been complete and utter sales scumbags both times. World Toyota, I’m looking at you. Grow up.

Here’s how the other three broke out, in no particular order:
1) A good low quote, but for a car that included one of the basic options packages we didn’t want.
2) They don’t have any 2007s, but they have 2008s. Here’s a price for the 2008 version, and it turned out to be a very good one.
3) The best price by far. They don’t have it in stock, but they are positive they can trade for it.

First we eliminated #3. He was probably being completely truthful, but (a) this strategy only works if you hold the cards. If we agree, and have to wait for him, he holds the edge. This is important because (b) there was a $1500 rebate program that expires on October 1st.

On Saturday night, we went visit #2. We had hired a babysitter for other reasons, they were open, so we went to check it out. A major roadblock comes up when Mrs. Muttrox argues that the 7-seat model is better for us than the 8-seat model. There’s nothing bad about this except all the quotes are based on the 8-seat model, so we may have to start fresh. The dealership offers to let us take one home for a day. Oh, they’re smart. Sure, we say, and drive the 7-seater home. After that, it was no real contest, we were hooked.

We did call #1 back to see if they could match the price. But the person we had talked to wasn’t there, the new person hadn’t seen my original email, didn’t know what was going on, etc. So heck with it, we went with #2. And the winner is… Toyota of Roswell!

We spent today juggling kids, cars and carseats while making sure we weren’t getting screwed somehow. We had the loaner car, which we moved the seats into. I dropped the family off at Monkey Joe’s down the street, and brought the Sienna in. I took the carseats out. They took it for the final detailing/washing/cleaning, and lent me a Highlander for the next few hours. I put the carseats in the Highlander, went back to Monkey Joe’s until the Sienna was ready. Then we went back, and put the seats in the Sienna, gave it the ol’ once over (as if we’d ever be able to notice anything that was wrong), and went over to finance to close it out.

We were a bit nervous, seeing as how this was our first new car, and the biggest check we’ve ever written, but it was smooth. Except for when they almost sold us the wrong car. Finance had all the paperwork from the 8-seater, an honest mistake. They were kind of amazed when I said the VIN was the wrong one.

So how did the money turn out? I guess we don’t really know. I think we might have been able to chisel a few more bucks out, but we are satisfied. We feel like we may not have gotten the best deal ever, but we know we didn’t get screwed. Good enough for us. We had a couple things going for us. The 2008s had come out the month before, so the dealerships were trying to clear their lots. And it was the last day of the month and the quarter, so it their last chance to make quotas. According the finance person, he made nothing, and the two salespeople who helped us made $37.50 each. Of course they want to make us feel like we got a great deal so we’ll come back. According to Edmunds, we were a fair amount under invoice. It’s enough to make us feel good about the whole experience, particularly considering how little time it took once we finally got going.

Yay!

This man followed every rule in the Bible for one year. Read about how it went.

Ten Things Congress Did Instead of Getting Us The Hell Out of Iraq

The Constitutional right you don’t know about.(This isn’t like the ”income tax isn’t valid” garbage, it’s a real right that you were never told about.)

The worst college recruiting video ever. Just… ever.

Gutter drains meet Rube Goldberg

Amazing wall animation. Not ”The Wall”, just wall.

Hypocrisy in Action

Could you get naturalized? Immigrants must get 6 out 10 to become a citizen.How do you rate?
(I got 9, and think that #5 was phrased poorly. These are pulled randomly from a pool of 100 questions.)

The seagull thief. With oddly addictive video.

See oodles of TV shows for free.

I just concluded my most recent adventure with Comcast. Previous adventures include this relatively minor incident (in which they hooked up my HDTV wrong and it stayed that way for almost a year) and the time (before this blog) where I was reduced night after night to bellowing swears at the top of my lungs for hours and hours.

I now have the top of the line TiVo. One of the features is a dual tuner, meaning I can now record and watch two shows at once. The cable company installs two cable cards into the TiVo itself, and then it can decode the cable signals. (As a bonus, there is no longer any need for the Comcast cable box at all, it gets sent back and saves me a few bucks.) These cable cards are provided by Comcast by law.

CableCard2 worked fine from the beginning. CableCard1 worked for most channels, but not extended basic (Vh1, Comedy Central, TNT, etc). No signal.

Are you following along at home? Here’s a quiz to find out how technical you are. With the symptoms I’ve described, is the problem likely to be associated with:
a) TiVo hardware (faulty cablecard slot)
b) Comcast hardware (faulty cablecard)
c) Comcast software (billing, signal, etc.)

The answer is C. Since it receives most channels, it must be something about the way the channels are activated. The technician is on the phone to headquarters, they send their signal nothing happens. They do a ping, they try a reset, nothing happens. Dispatch shrugs. They claim that it’s all fixed (since headquarters sent the signal), I must need to wait for the signal to propagate or repeat the TiVo setup or something, and they leave. Needless to say, it is not fixed. I call HQ, we do the dance again, they send more signals, eventually they give up and send Dispatch back over.

(Note that Comcast has no obvious incentive to train their people well on TiVo. It just makes it easier to use the competition’s product. On the other hand, it shouldn’t take more than two minutes to realize that it still to their advantage to make the transition easy.)

I am now caught in an endless loop of idiocy. Dispatch are nice guys, they follow their script well. When the script fails, they are helpless. They blame it on headquarters, and leave. HQ are nice people. They follow their script well. When the script fails, they are helpless. They schedule Dispatch to come out, and hang up. Repeat as needed. The two sides cannot talk to each other directly, only throw an obviously bad CRM ticketing tool. Every once in a while I am told I have a priority complaint, or a nonfixed visit, or I’m referred to sales, or a supervisor steps in to be helpless personally, just enough to make me feel like something is actually happening they are fixing as best they can oh I am such a chump!

Almost two weeks go by. I’ve spoken to headquarters about six times. I’ve had four, count ’em four, visits from technicians. The problem is the same as ever.

I blow a gasket with headquarters. It get elevated up a couple levels, and after 40 minutes of signals and discussion, they take decisive action. Dispatch is scheduled. NNYARRGGH!!

Finally, I do what I should have done (thank you Moleboy!) and browse the TiVo forums. It’s not their problem at all, as Comcast is legally required to make this work. Nevertheless, there is oodles of information.

When the guy shows up, I am ready. I have every code number documented. I have six pages of printouts with all kinds of debugging tips and probable solutions to try. I don’t let him near the system until I’ve explained everything I can. I tell him that he isn’t leaving the house until it works. Then I give him a few minutes to confirm that the last six things tried really didn’t work. He calls headquarters, they send a new signal.

And it works. It works! It works, it works, it works! What, I ask, exactly did headquarters do? I dunno, they just sent the signal. Didn’t ask for nuthin’ special. I am too happy to be enraged. Ah. Happiness is having The Family Guy Star Wars episode on TiVo, even when it was broadcast at the same time as Desperate Housewives.

…was not as soul-deadening as expected.

The money you pay there is for food and entertainment. The food is expensive. The entertainment is not. In fact, the entertainment is ridiculously cheap. All video games are a token, and tokens cost less than one quarter. That’s no big deal for playing skeeball and such, but it also applies to the big video games. Wave Runner is the only I remember by name — but there were about six video games that would have cost a buck a pop anywhere else, that were still less than a quarter.

I may go there on my own sometime, ignore the food, and just play video games.