The Matt Faus Blog

Well, I went and saw The Da Vinci Code movie this afternoon and I must say that it was pretty boring. I haven’t read the book and that’s probably why I didn’t find it very interesting, but there was no revolutionary evidence given about anything that was said. It seems like one more fictional story with plenty of marketing hype and controversy to give something that people can latch onto.

Anyway, I can’t make much of an argument since I haven’t read the book, but I don’t recommend the movie. Go see M:i:III.

Last night was a lovely evening up until I was blindly robbed in a Lewisville parking lot. I came out from the Dollar movies and noticed that my rear window (I have a vinyl convertible top - kind of like a Jeep) had been sliced open and someone had removed my rather expensive in-dash receiver. Isn’t that annoying? Two other cars in the parking lot were burglarized and one of them had a window shattered. I don’t know exactly what the thieves were thinking in that case - they broke the window and stole the faceplate for the girl’s receiver. What good is just a faceplate? None. The funny thing was that the girl who had her window shattered was worried more about the CD that she had been playing in the receiver than the actual unit, which was pretty dumb. Anyway, an officer showed up about 20 minutes after I called it in and a report was filed. Hopefully I’ll get some kind of compensation from insurance, I would think they could do something about my shredded window at the least, but we will have to wait and see.

Let me take just one minute of your time to complain about Waterview Park Apartments, the apartment complex that has a monopoly on on-campus living at my University.

Thank you for your time.

Today I ordered SBC DSL internet, again. When I moved into my apartment the beginning of this year Travis and I decided to go with SBC DSL instead of Comcast because it was a little cheaper and we had some connectivity issues with Comcast last year. Well, everything was going fine until we got the bill for October. On this bill we had our phone service (required for DSL), our internet service, and Dish network charges. Dish network!? Some brilliant programmer in the depths of the blue whale that is SBC decided to slack in his error checking and write the internal transaction software so that anyone with that was assigned a phone number that had had Dish network service associated to it before it was closed would also receive the services. I was getting charged for Dish network and I don’t even watch TV! I called as soon as I saw this on the bill and they told me that they would take care of it but that it would take a few billing cycles for everything to clear out. They also told me to only pay the amount shown for phone and DSL services and to disregard the Dish network charges. Two months later on Friday night after coming home from dinner my internet had been disconnected. I called DSL support that night and they told me to call Customer Support in the morning because my account had been suspended due to nonpayment. SBC suspended my account because I did exactly what they told me to. Anyway, I called in the morning and I was told that my internet would be turned on in 1 to 4 hours, but of course it wasn’t. Finally, I had time to call again this morning and found out that my DSL account had been closed. Not suspended, but closed. James (the sales rep) told me that he could order again for me for a higher rate than what I was at and it would take a week to get everything up and running. I complained, threatened to cancel my account and go to Comcast, and he caved. I will now have internet in my apartment again in about a week at a lower rate than what I was originally paying. A freakin’ week without the Internet! Ugh.

Well, as I was trying to buy some tickets on ticketmaster.com today and after clicking through a couple links I was greeted with the following message:

Please note.

We limit the rate of web page requests that can be made by individual users in any given time period. Your web page requests have exceeded these limits and your access has been temporarily disabled. We impose these limits to protect the web site from automated programs, as part of our efforts to promote fair access to tickets. Please allow several minutes and then try again.

I must be a Robot. After waiting 5 whole minutes I clicked back and was able to proceed searching, but it happened again. This is when I started to get a little frustrated. And by “a little frustrated”, I mean pissed off. After waiting another five agonizingly long minutes to use a website (while reminiscing on days of dial-up Internet service in disgust) I was able to click a link without being told to stop. Now it was time to get prepared. I tried to stop myself from browsing the Internet at my normal speed and wait a few seconds before clicking through again (so as to seem like a normal human being). To aid in this endeavor I opened the Windows clock and watched as the seconds ticked off - that’s right I timed my web surfing. Even with 10 seconds between web requests (yes, 10 seconds is a long time) I was told that I was browsing too fast, which is ridiculous. Imagine if Google implemented the same thing. Ha! They charge a $5 to $10 “convenience fee” for every ticket you buy there, but I am not seeing any convenience!