Check out this clip of Faith Hill at Monday Night’s Country Music Awards. They’re getting ready to announce the best female vocalist of the year. Look at Faith’s reaction when they announce Carrie Underwood won – priceless!
Sweet picture from the CSU Suites
Picture on Flickr
Originally uploaded by romeyinfc.
Got a chance to sit up in the suites for the CSU game.� It’s an awesome view!!
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Sent by Romey on the road through his Treo
Half.com / eBay gets my blood boiling
I received an email this afternoon from Half.com that made me irate!
Back in August when school started, I went to eBay’s Half.com to buy a text book for once of my classes. I found one that looked like a decent deal ($75 for a $95 text book). I put in on my credit card, and was told the book shipped and to expect it by September 12th.
The 12th came and went and I still had no book. I went back to Half.com to contact the seller, sent him an email and got no response. More time passed and I found out that he high-tailed it. He was no longer an active member with Half.com/eBay. I initiated the "Buyers Protection Claim" process to try to get my money back. I filled out the form, attached all of my correspondence and did the whole nine yards. Half.com gave me a confirmation that they received my Claim and basically said "This may take up to 30 days. Don’t contact us because you might delay the process, we’ll get back to you with the result.". (Nice way to keep customers off your back by the way!)
A month passes and I have yet to hear anything come from Half.com. I was well aware that my credit card company had a 60-day window as to when I could dispute a charge. Rapidly approaching the end of the window and no response from Half, I was left with little choice but to file the claim with my credit card company.
Now, a few days later I finally get a response from Half.com – not with an answer about my original claim – but rather a response that they got a "Chargeback" from my credit card company. I love this part of the message (I bolded the part of the message I appreciated most):
We recommend in the future you attempt to resolve your problem with the Seller through Half.com’s email forwarding system before you submit a Buyer Protection Claim. While there may occasionally be problems, most problems are simple misunderstandings. In addition, you may not contact the seller (or submit a Buyer Protection Policy Claim to Half.com) if you have instructed your credit card company to charge back the disputed item. Buyers that go though their credit card company to dispute a charge may have their Half.com membership suspended. Buyers and sellers may use the Email Forwarding System for 60 days after the order date.
After reading that paragraph, I was fuming. Immediately I hit "reply" and sent the following message:
You bet I initiated a chargeback through my financial institution. I followed your process for attempting to contact the seller through email forwarding, then filed a Buyer Protection Claim on September 18th and got your "Don’t call us, we’ll call you" response. 35 days later and no response from Half.com, I was left with little choice but to dispute the charge with my credit card company.
Now you have the gall to send me an email that says "Buyers that go though their credit card company to dispute a charge may have their Half.com membership suspended"?!? If your Buyer Protection Process actually worked I wouldn’t be forced to resort through these measures.
Your lack of customer service is appalling, and you can be sure that as an eBay customer with over 100 buyer transactions, I will never use Half.com again.
I stand by my personal boycott of Half.com, and right now I’m even contemplating extending my boycott to eBay. I’m not upset because the seller fled town mid-order and ripped me off. After having 122 successful transactions, I was bound to have a fraudulent seller.
I am upset with how eBay handles these issues and how the buyer essentially has no rights. An auction site is nothing without their buyers and it’s crap if they expect us to accept being tossed over the fence. I follow their process and yet I still get chastised. No thanks, don’t threaten me for spending money at your stupid store.
Moral of the story: 1 – The headache is not worth the $20 discount for a stupid textbook; 2 – Always use a credit card and not a debit card for on-line purchases; 3 – Avoid Half.com
Great day in the studio!
Back from our first session in the studio earlier today. It turned out to be a total blast! I was a little nervous going into it this morning, but after everything got set up we were completely relaxed. We managed to get most of the songs done within 2 takes, and I’m really happy with how things have initially turned out!
Because of the acoustics in the studio room, the sound engineer had me remove the front head from my bass drum, then he attached two microphones to the drum: one right where the beater from the pedal hits the head of the drum. Then he took a blanket and wrapped it around the front of the head towards about 2-3 feet out, creating a tunnel. He then placed another microphone at the end of the "tunnel" to capture that sound (you can see the maroon blanket taped to the bass drum).. I was pretty skeptical about what he was doing, but when I heard the mix the bass sounded great!
The sound engineer then placed two microphones on the snare, then placed two overhead mics above the set. Intially I was a bit taken by his approach. The last two times I was in the recording studio all of the toms were mic’d as well as the hi-hat and then overhead for the cymbals. I was really unsure whether the two overhead mics would pick up the sounds (especially the crisp hi-hat). After listening to the mix I was blown away. The sensitivity of these mics were like nothing else, and it was amazing to hear the drum set’s sounds.
I got some really cool pictures from the day in the studio:
My drum set at the studio
The view from the recording booth (you can see my drum set through the window
Check out all the pictures on my Flickr site
We’re half-way through the demo recording process. Next weekend we’ll go back to the studio to finish the vocal tracks, touch up on a few solos then do the final mixing. Hopefully by this time next week we’ll have a demo CD ready to go out to the world!
Heading into the recording studio
I am getting ready to head to bed as I have an early morning Sunday. My band, Greenfoot will be heading into the studio to cut a 4-song demo CD. I am really anxious to do some recording, as the studio is also a great experience. I am also excited because this will enable us to put together a press packet for the continued promotion of our band (and hopefully landing some more shows). Wish me luck!