Another failed bank, well not technically failed by the FDIC standards, but by my standards… fail.  Wachovia’s assets and losses will be absorbed by Citigroup in a deal that was brokered by the FDIC and a bunch of meddling kids, er, I mean meddling government types.  Do statements like this bother you (full article here):

The move, which was made following consultation with President Bush, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, was deemed necessary by regulators to avoid having “serious adverse effects on economic conditions and financial stability.”

“This morning’s decision was made under extraordinary circumstances with significant consultation among the regulators and Treasury,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a statement.

All I heard was blah blah blah, let’s not wait for the bailout to pass before we start poking and prodding.  We’re in for a hell of a ride people.

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My wife bought me a Bose “QuietComfort 2″ pair of headphones a couple of years back when I was a road warrior (no I wasn’t an Aussie with a mohawk that killed people for gas, I used to spend a shit-load of time on business trips). First off this product fucking rules, it makes most of airplane background noise go bye-bye and the quality of sound is excellent. So I’ve been enjoying these headphones for a couple of years and I’m pretty god-damned hard on most things (i.e., I can’t seem to NOT break shit like headphones, watches, balls, etc), when the plastic right above the right side snaps on my most recent trip to Vegas mid-flight. AND, it broke in the middle of the shit-tastic movie Jane Austin Club, personally, I think the headphones committed suicide because the movie sucked more than anything before… except Enchanted of course. Because I couldn’t find another set of headphones of better quality that didn’t cost my first-born, we went to the Bose store to buy another pair. It turns out that there was a recall on the model I had because of a plastic issue, and they offered to replace or allow me to upgrade for cheap. I ended up replacing it for free.

Let’s recap, 1) good customer service - they didn’t have to tell me about the recall and my headphones were over a year beyond the warranty, 2) free shit - they replaced the headset for free, and 3) good shit - quality product. That sounds like the winning combination for generating loyalty. Now I’m pimping their product to the person who reads this site, AND I’m listening to hard-core gangsta rap right now…. good times. “Fuck tha po-lice coming straight from the underground…”

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I had tinkered with Google AdSense to see if it could generate some revenue for the site.  I think I ended up with a total of 7 clicks out of 7 or 8 thousand page impressions for a whopping $1.33 of pure profit, not so good.  So I’m dumping the no-good bitch.  Call it a failed pilot, on the plus side, the site doesn’t look as cluttered.  I think it will take a lot of convincing for me to put ads back up and at least an order of magnitude increase in traffic before I reconsidered.

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I recently returned from a week-long conference/seminar hosted in one of the Disney resort hotels and have come to the conclusion that Disney really sucks.  Now there are typically two schools of thought regarding the previous statement, 1) guys like me who will say “no shit”, and 2) Soccer Mom’s who will be appalled that I dare criticize “the mouse”.  The conference I attended was top notch, the suckiness I’m referring to is in regards to Disney in general.  As I mentioned previously, I stayed at one of the resort hotels, I won’t mention it by name but it is named after a sea-faring mammal that can perform tricks and people seem to like.   I have laid out a few examples below to prove my point.

The first example is pretty much a no-brainer but worth mentioning, Disney exists to part your money from your person.  We all know this but it is worthwhile to cover the basics.

• Hotel room was in the upper $300’s per night after taxes, more taxes, hidden taxes, fees, more fees, hidden fees, and mouse pedicure fees
• I made the mistake of ordering breakfast room-service the first morning I was there.  Breakfast consisted of A bagel, bowl of corn flakes, toast, OJ, and hot coco (from a pouch).  Total cost, $47, before tip.
• Parking fee $16 per night… at first blush this might not seem excessive, but Disney owns half of Florida, with that much space there is no premium for parking, just a captive audience.
• Internet fee, $15 per day, with the high room costs, why isn’t this baked in?  And the speed was slightly better than dial-up, as an example, youtube clips couldn’t stream.
• Mixed drink at the lobby bar, $12

People are too friendly.  Why is this a problem you might ask?  Because it is fake friendly, and there is an underlying “fuck you” lurking beneath the surface of most interactions.  After the third “Have a magical day” spoken from a pimply faced punk, who was dying to say it, I was annoyed.

It is 95 degrees with 100% humidity in October.

The room wasn’t spectacular, I’ve been in hotels all over the world, and for this price the room wasn’t great. 

• I actually had to request a room change for the first time in memory after I found a cockroach the size of baby’s head. 
• In the new room, the AC was broken.  I didn’t feel like moving again so I dealt with it. 
• The bed was shaped like a U and you sunk into the middle after an hour.
• On the positive side, the view was really good and I had two balconies.  I had a view of the Epcot “ball” and could see the nightly fireworks from my balcony.

It seemed that Orlando and the state were in on the fleecing, there are two main approaches to the airport and both are covered with multiple tolls to and from the Disney lair.  In fact the most direct route to Disney has a higher toll fee than the longer route.

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