Great Customer Service or Another Sign of the Times?

To much chagrin, I made the decision to call Sirius Satellite Radio to cancel my service today. The reason is that I received a great new radio to replace my factory one for Christmas. The new Kenwood radio is satellite radio ready; however, I would not be able to use my Jeep's factory Sirius antenna with it to pick up the signal, and would have to purchase a new Sirius antenna. (This took much research to confirm... tried my damnedest to get the factory antenna to work!) After all these years of Sirius and XM radio being around, I would have figured they would have made it easier to exchange radio units!

Don't get me wrong; I own stock in Sirius, love the service, and enjoy listening to Howard Stern. Even with those feelings, I still wanted to cancel the service due to having to purchase a new antenna for a service I'm already paying $20 a month for.

I figured that Sirius would somehow try to keep my business, but I didn't expect that they could change my mind. After speaking to an initial representative, I was transferred to a 'cancellation specialist' of sorts. I explained my situation with the new radio, and without pause she said, "what if we sent you a new antenna?" I quickly asked what the charge would be, and she responded "None, we'll provide the new antenna with no charge for the hardware or shipping. Please accept this with our apologies for the inconvenience." I was blown away and stated that I would keep my service if they sent a new antenna.

That was either great customer service, or just another sign of the hard economic times. I think its a lot of both. I have been a customer of Sirius for over 3 years, and it would have been a shame for them to lose me over a $50 antenna. Kudos to Sirius for making the smart business decision! Sirius Satellite Radio, if this antenna works as planned, then you will have a customer for a long time to come.

Winner of 95.5 WBRU's Weekly SOUND OFF

So my article below about protesting ALL Laundry Detergent apparently won the WBRU Weekly Sound Off! That's pretty darn exciting! Makes me sound so damn cynical though...

Funny thing is, which I honestly didn't even realize, I have actually been using ALL's Small & Mighty detergent. Hey, I had a coupon! Guess I can't be that mad at them. Still think the ALL executives were d-bags on the Celebrity Apprentice...

On another note, it looks as though one of my pictures from Flickr will be included in a Rhode Island travel guide on Destination360. I am in no way a professional photographer, hell... I'd have a hard time even calling myself an amateur, but it's pretty cool that one of my pics from Misquamicut Beach in Westerly may be up on a professional site of sorts!

That's all for now.
-Caz

Protest ALL Laundry Detergent!

95.5 WBRU's current Sound Off is asking their friends on the internet to post something they would like to protest and why... You will find my submission below:

I'm protesting ALL Laundry Detergent and want you to join me!! For those that saw this Sunday's, 4/5/09, Celebrity Apprentice: ALL Laundry Detergent decided to utilize their time on the show to have the two teams create a 'viral' video about their ALL Small & Mighty product. Seemed like a fun enough idea, which may serve the purpose of entertaining and creating positive exposure for ALL's product(even though you can't purposely create a 'viral' video, but thats a protest for another day). The two executives that ALL chose to represent them were complete 'tools' - not my word, a description from a fellow twitter user. It was a male and female who basically said they wanted a 'viral' video that 25 y/o+ women with kids might pass on to other women with kids (their apparent target market). First of all, I'm not sure how many 25+ women with children have the time to pass on viral ALL Small & Mighty videos, but I digress. It basically came down that one of the teams shot a video with Jesse James (West Coast Choppers, TV Personality) being scrubbed down by 'Small & Mighty' midgets... get it?? The video was actually really funny, in large part to Jesse James hilarious acting and the little people playing the part perfectly... they even had the midgets flipping out and cursing about why they were dressed up as little ALL laundry detergents in the end of movie bloopers, of sorts. (did I forget to mention the costume?? Brilliant...) Donald Trump had Perez Hilton (Celebrity Gossiper/Rumor Guru) view the video and he thought it was hilarious. The video was then played for both teams involved in the contest and both teams found it hilarious, the Donald even admitted that it was funny! HOWEVER, the ALL executives deemed the video offensive and that it went way too far in regards to Small & Mighty. They claimed that this was not a 'viral' video and would not be passed on. They decided to reject both team's videos submitted in the competition, and instead have Joan and Melissa River create some type of cutsy cleaning fairy video?!?!? So, as stated, I would love to hold a protest against ALL Laundry Detergent, due to the company being so out of touch with their customer's, as well as being clueless about viral marketing. I can't imagine how much money they spent to have their product featured on the Celebrity Apprentice and how much money they will lose due to completely mishandling what should have been a fantastic opportunity to market their product!

Anybody have a good anti-ALL chant???

TheLadders.com TYPO!

Pfft.... $100 to even look at the job listings. Won't be happening anytime soon with a simple typo on the page!!

Headline: Goat Apprehended

This blew my mind... causing me to laugh uncontrollably and have slight anxiety at the same time (don't ask why).  Check out the following link: Suspect Transforms into Goat.

Ridiculous!!!

Favorite Primetime Network TV Shows... at the moment

In no particular order (only listed currently aired shows):

• The Office-- Hilarious and sooo true at times!
• Bones-- Like the chemistry between the main characters and it doesn't hurt that Dr. Bones is hot.
• The Mentalist-- Even a guy like me can't resist the Australian's (Simon Baker) charm.
• All CSI's-- In the following order 1. Original 2. NY 2. Miami, easy to watch.
• Lost-- Have been hooked since the first season and like everyone else, just want answers!
• Numbers-- I'm not very good at math, but the characters make it a fun show to watch.
• American Idol-- Not the early episodes with the auditions... I start to really tune in when the top 12 are chosen.
• Family Guy-- A Rhode Island guy can't resist all of the Ocean State humor and social commentary littered throughout this hilarious cartoon!

The Office: Season 5, Episode 12 (Prince Family Paper)

Just watched the new episode of the Office.... great as always.  Loved the sharks, licking lips, and Dwight chasing Michael around the office and outside.  Oh yea, Hilary Swank is attractive.... NOT HOT!

Netflix on a Mac.... finally!

Just a quick note about how much I love Netflix... I'm a night owl, so long after everyone else in my household has begun dreaming I'm still up, not ready to call it a night.  Sometimes I might get lucky and find a CSI or a good movie I haven't seen in the wee hours of the morning on TV, but most of the time I resort to poking around my iPhone hoping an app will keep me interested until I can finally fall asleep.

I've enjoyed Netflix's movie delivery service for a couple of years now and was extremely excited when the whole 'watch instantly' concept was released; however, much to my dismay, it was not ready to be used on a Mac... BUMMER!  Well, a couple of months ago, Netflix finally got its act together and worked with (get this) Microsoft to get Netflix running on a Mac via Silverlight!

The reason I write this is that I have been taking this newfound abundance of movies at my fingertips for granted.  Being able to watch instantly has added great value to my subscription and will keep me on as a subscriber for many years to come.... next step I'm waiting for is Netflix streaming to my PS3 (rather than the 360), so I can watch the instant movies on the big screen!!