Another idiot with a blog: Liberal Atheist Rantings: April 2009

Monday, April 27, 2009

Attention XBox: F*ck you!!!

Today is the day Microsoft kicked me in the balls. It was inevitable. I’ve built a career around working with Microsoft technologies. I’ve bought thousands of dollars of their software. I’ve paid an outrageous amount of money for their XBox. I’ve bought their arcade games. etc etc. For fuck’s sake I’m writing this goddamned post using Windows Live Writer on my new Vista OS.

Recently My XBox fried, all of one month out of warranty. I let that slide. I sent it in and got it fixed for the measly cost of $99. I let that slide. I recently noticed, however, that the arcade games which previously worked for everybody with a profile on my XBox (e.g. the rest of my family) no longer allow them to play the full version of the games.

That’s right, the games which I paid money for and have legally can now only be played on my profile.

That’s new.

So I, being the dumbfuck Microsoft groupie that I am, innocently assume this is some glitch, probably a result of Microsoft’s hard-on for DRM. I figure if I e-mail support and explain it, they’ll fix it. Right? Today I got this in reply:

Hello X,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft online support for XBOX. I am Y and I will be helping you today with this issue.

We have received your email and as I understand that your other account are unable to play your Xbox Live Arcade Games on Xbox Live. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience you have felt regarding this unfortunate matter.

With regards to this, X, you may only use the downloaded arcade games if you use only the account in which you've downloaded. Also, some items that you have stored on your Xbox 360 console cannot be transferred from one profile to another profile.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

If you need to reply to this e-mail, please reply 'with history' (include any previous e-mail) or reference to Service Request Number N so we can expedite our service to you.

You may also contact Xbox Customer Service for US and Canada by calling 1-800-469-9269 at your earliest convenience, and we'll be happy to help you. We are open everyday from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. Eastern Time and 6:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. Pacific Time

For international customers, please contact Xbox Customer Service in your local region. (To find the correct Customer Service number for your region first use this link http://www.xbox.com/en-US/ChangeLocale.htm to select the appropriate country and then use the contact number found under the support menu). You may also choose to call international assistance (direct dial to the US) by dialing 425-635-7180.

Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.

Best Regards,

Y

Microsoft XBOX Support Services

http://support.microsoft.com/

Yep, a fucking form letter. That’s verbatim, with the names changed to protect the (somewhat) innocent. In case you got lost in all of that, it basically says “Fuck you. We’re Microsoft and we can fuck you if we want to and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it, dipshit!” Either that or “I hate my fucking job and didn’t really read your e-mail and hit the ‘Send the Fuck-You-form-letter’ button without thinking”.

Personally, I’m surprised. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I had actually bought into all of Microsoft’s bullshit, just to find out that I’ve been a fucking idiot. With a blog. So now I’m supposed to buy the same game four times? Fuck that!

I replied back and carefully explained the situation. Something that used to work on my console now does not. I don’t expect to get anything different, but after all of the money I’ve invested in my XBox, I figured I should try at least one more time before I chuck the piece of shit out the window and go buy a Playstation.

Companies usually only get to fuck me over once. I will never again have a Verizon account, even if they do have the cooler phones. I don’t care. I will never again buy Quicken or TurboTax. You only get to fuck me once, guys. I’m not that kind of girl.

This is a little different. My entire career is intertwined with Microsoft, so I can’t just simply say “Fuck off” and buy a Mac. I actually even wanted to work for Microsoft prior to today. I’ve even talked to the Channel 9 guys about a job opening before. We’ll see where this goes, but I can say I don’t have to buy anything that isn’t a development tool or an OS in the future. If Microsoft continually treats their end users this way, Steve Jobs has got nothing to worry about (unless Apple fucks their customers too, which I wouldn’t know. I don’t buy much Apple stuff).

Oh, and one more thing guys, every so often one of the customers you piss off will have a blog. Someday you might piss off somebody with a blog that actually has readers. Be careful…

Monday, April 20, 2009

My New Hero

Let’s be honest, these “Tea parties” are sponsored and architected by the Republican party. The people attending them may well have valid gripes, but they’ve been misled, and don’t really want to hear that they have. They’re unwittingly campaigning for the rich against the poor, which most of them are (if you define poor as making less than $250,000/year). I have to give credit to this guy, who had the balls to get up in front of a group of these people and tell them things they didn’t want to hear. The result is predictable.

As Americans, when we get angry we want to direct that somewhere, and we usually don’t care if it’s misplaced. That’s how Iraq happened. Bush used the momentum of American anger to vault us into a war that had nothing to do with 9/11. We’re a pretty gullible lot.

“I want to start off by honoring the service of our veterans, our current service members, thank you so much for all you've done for this country. I also want to say, a little history lesson here. Back in 2000, there was a bunch of surplus in the country. And then the next ten years, it was just destroyed by the profligate spending by the Bush administration. Here we are today in a situation where we have to...Cheer if you make less than $250,000 in a year. Just cheer. Your taxes are going to be cut under the current budget. Congratulations. I was laid off in September because my employer had to make budget cuts. That was before the election. Let's remember if you're going to argue about more taxes and less spending, to place the blame where the blame belongs and that's squarely in the hands of the Republican congress and...”

Just in case you were under the illusion that this is not a Republican event. That took some serious balls.

I’m very disappointed in the Republicans. Apparently their answer for recovering from the disaster that was the Bush administration is to put all of their efforts into making Obama look just as bad. When Obama starts a war that costs over 4,000 American lives needlessly, get back to me. When Obama starts pissing on the Bill of Rights in the name of “freedom”, get back to me. When Obama makes spying on and torture of American citizens legal (which it is, if you didn't know), get back to me. This crap is ridiculous. Obama hasn’t even been in office long enough to fuck up. It took Bush longer than that to really fuck the country up. Two years from now I might be joining you, but right now you’re all blaming Obama for the fuck-ups for the Bush administration, and it makes you look really, really stupid.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re right to be angry. The country is pretty messed up, just be honest about how it got that way, and about who is really promoting this event. Hint: it’s the same people who fucked it up. Stop playing politics and do something positive.

P.S. if you want to vent about Obama and the Second Amendment, don’t bother. You haven’t read it. I will ignore you and your uninformed opinion of what it means.