If you’ve been to a Starbucks lately, you may have noticed that the speed of service and customer experience has substantially suffered from what you may remember in the past. Corporate policies have come down hard on your local baristas, as the company tries to ramp up its business to compete in all the wrong markets. While the changes I propose will certainly cost the great coffee company some of its current customers, … Continue reading
Heroes: Amazon.com Dethroned
Oh, Amazon. Why must lovers quarrel? This is a terrific example of the limitations of good-will.
Starting in April, Amazon.com raised the price of its Prime membership program by $20 per year. The news may have made some grit their teeth and reevaluate renewing their subscription, but many others like myself took the news in stride, considering the service well worth the premium. … Continue reading
Tape Talk: Wings of Desire (1987)
Per Netflix’s 4-star recommendation, I sat down and spent a couple of hours with the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire. Oh, Netflix, you rarely disappoint me so.
Three things that I love: long, slow, absurdist movies. In that context, Netflix had the best intentions in recommending this tape to me as it fits all three criteria to a T. Unfortunately, the film in question … Continue reading
Guild Wars 2: Cash Shop “Refunds”
Fair warning: game-speak ahead.
After the recent Guild Wars 2 update (2014-04-15) I logged into my account to grab the free “transmutation charges” they were giving away and to see how badly they had broken the trait system (hint: badly was the correct expectation). I quickly noticed that the arguably worthless town clothes costumes I had purchased had disappeared, and to get them back … Continue reading
Contrast (2013)
Well that was mercifully quick. Though the folks over at Compulsion Games had started to rub me the wrong way through a Steam thread where they were too spineless to tell one particularly moronic misogynist where he could stick his $15, I’m left with a good feeling after completing their first game, Contrast. A significant part of my good feeling came from finally seeing a game that looked like it belonged on the Unreal engine. … Continue reading