UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

It’s hot.

Quick-hitters:

- Is it just me, or do Reduced Fat Oreo cookies taste disgusting compared to the original variety?

Methinks it’s time to do a double-blind experiment.  Any volunteers?

(My experiment will be BYOOs, by the way.)

- It’s that time of the year…FANTASY FOOTBALL TIME!!!

(W00t!)

If anyone is interested in joining the Bargain$hare Fantasy Football league, please let me know.  We have only 2/12 spots filled as of tonight.

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,070.

I can’t wait for the 2009 software to come around.

- So I know I said that I didn’t have much interest in the Olympic Games this year, but I couldn’t help but watch the Men’s 4×100 Freestyle Relay, just to see if the Americans could beat the favorites:  the French team.  What really got me interested in the event was the comments of French swimmer, Alain Bernard:  “The Americans? We’re going to smash them.”

Nice try, Alain.  I think he meant to say that new American hero Jason Lezak was going to smash the French with a world-record 50m split time of 46.06 seconds.  Seriously, though, how the hell did Bernard lose what looked like a half body length lead over Lezak with only the final 50m to go?

I hope Michael Phelps plans on sending the guy a fruit basket or something.

(Note:  Despite the blog title, I am not taking credit away from Lezak and the Americans; they won the race.  The French did not choke the race away.  It’s just fun to see the word “French” followed by the word “surrender” :P)

It was a damn shame, though, that I already knew the results of the race prior to air time.  Thanks, Yahoo! Sports and ESPN.com.

- I will interrupt the sports talk to give credit to Staples for a positive customer service experience.

(A POSITIVE customer service experience?  On THIS blog?)

On Sunday, I acquired a Staples coupon that, I later found out, was already redeemed.  I figured that I could place the order that night, find another Staples coupon to use (which I did on Monday), and then call Staples and see if they would manually add the coupon to my order.

Earlier tonight, I called Staples, and after spending about 30 seconds navigating through Staples’ IVR (Interactive Voice Response), I got a live operator.  I quickly explained that I needed to add a coupon code to my order.  The rep asked me for my order number, followed by the coupon code, and a couple seconds later, she explained that I would be seeing a refund of ~ $27 on my VISA in the next couple of days.

Total time of call:  ~1:45.  Nice.

- Finally, I gotta talk about my Dodgers, specifically the two come-from-ahead losses to the Giants.

(clears throat)

WTF?  WTF???  W T F??????

Two ninth-inning, one-run leads…POOF!  Worse yet, two freaking losses to the SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS???  Two losses that should have given us a half-game lead in the West, instead of the 1.5 game deficit we currently face?

And the losses themselves didn’t really hurt.  It was the manner in which we lost both games!  Leadoff hits, booted balls, poor defensive decisions, you name it!  It was almost as if the 2008 Dodgers were trying to replicate their failures of last year.

(EDIT:  Oh my.  Bases loaded, four run lead, ninth inning, and Chase Utley is up.  Gulp…if Broxton can’t close this one, I might have a heart attack.)

(EDIT #2:  Of course…Utley blooped a single into left.  8-6 now, and Ryan Howard is up.  Yikes.)

(EDIT #3:  Whew.  Grounder to the shift in super-shallow right.)

Hurry back, Takashi Saito!

Tags: alain bernard, bargainshare, coupon, customer service, fantasy football, jason lezak, los angeles dodgers, mens 4x100 freestyle relay, michael phelps, olympic games, reduced fat oreos, relief pitching, san francisco giants, staples, takashi saito by Peter
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Quick-hitters, the NBA version:

- I really want to see Golden State beat Utah and make it to the Western Conference Finals–Utah is now up 2-0 in their best-of-seven series–but after hearing about Derek Fisher’s ten-month old daughter, who recently underwent emergency surgery to treat Retinoblastoma (a cancer of the retina), I can’t help but root for the Jazz. The crowd’s standing ovation to Fisher, when he entered the game for the first time–after flying from New York Presbyterian Hospital earlier that day–was very cool, as well as the reception he got from not only his teammates, but also the Warriors.

Great article by Adrian Wojnarowski, by the way.

- Cleveland’s up 2-0 on the Nets, and I’m not terribly surprised by that. Detroit being up 2-0 on Chicago? I’m a bit surprised by that. Suns-Spurs tied at one game apiece? I hope that series goes seven games!

- An addendum to my Cordless Desktop MX3200 Laser review, the most popular subject (according to Google Analytics) on my blog: One thing I hated about the Logitech SetPoint software–the driver package for Logitech peripherals–is the fact that I had seemingly lost the ability to open/close new tabs in Mozilla Firefox via a click of the mouse wheel. After a few minutes, I discovered that I could open/close tabs using the mouse wheel only if I double-clicked the wheel. I don’t know about you, but I have enough trouble clicking the mouse-wheel one time, especially with a mouse wheel that tilts.

That’s when I stumbled upon this review on Amazon.com! In order to open/close tabs in Firefox with a single click of the mouse wheel, you have to assign the “generic button” option (the default is Universal Scroll, I believe) to the wheel button in the SetPoint software. No other functionality of the mouse wheel seems to be lost with the “generic button” setting.

Of course, you could also not install the SetPoint software

- So my “lost” USPS package was finally delivered to my buyer today! I’m so glad to finally get the transaction over with!

That being said, I am now 0 for 4 with customer service representatives in the last few days. This time, Parago–a rebate processing company that deals with rebates, mainly from Staples, as well as companies as McAfee and Symantec–has screwed me out of $40. Long story short, their CS promised me that I would qualify for a pair of rebates ($20 and $40)with the purchase of an item, and I found out that I could only qualify for one. Also, since I had already opened the item in question, I could not return it, so I was out $40.

I called Staples to witch about Parago’s misleading me, and it only took about five calls for someone to finally offer me some resolution: a $20 concession coupon. He said he was willing to go up to $30, but then reneged on that offer, so I accepted the $20.

By the way, my laptop is still not complete yet. Looks like I will not get it until next week.

- Some cities in the US, such as Pacific Grove, CA, are employing high-tech parking meters in the hopes of reducing costs related to ticketing of vehicles: reduced number of “meter maids” and increased ticket accuracy. These high-tech parking meters employ GPS capability to determine exactly how long a car has been parked in a given spot. Some also have the capability of charging a higher rate for longer parking stays, and some have remote sensors that reset the parking meter when a car leaves the spot. One could imagine the costs of the meters themselves: “‘Today’s meters are little computers,’ said Ross Hubbard, a former Pacific Grove city councilman who advocated for the switch. The city now leases 100 meters for $45,000 per year from Duncan Parking Technologies Inc.”

And I thought cops hiding behind bushes, billboards, and under freeway overpasses were ridiculous. If a person paid for an hour, and only used half of the time, why shouldn’t the next person be allowed to use those minutes? After all, they have already been paid for!

I would love to see figures as to how much extra revenue these new, high-tech parking meters produce. I wonder if those who pushed for the new parking meters took vandalism and maintenance costs into account.

- A Tennessee man requested, for his last meal, that a vegetarian pizza should be given to a homeless person outside the prison in which he was housed. The prison refused, stating that they do not donate to charities. A woman heard about the request, and proceeded to raise $1,200 between herself and her friends to purchase 150 pizzas for Nashville’s Rescue Mission, a shelter that services more than 800 homeless people per night. Even PETA got involved: “The president of the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals read a news story about the prison denying the inmate’s last request and ordered 15 veggie pizzas sent to the Rescue Mission Wednesday morning.” I must admit that this is a pretty cool story, and props to all those involved with the donations.

Tags: cordless desktop mx3200 laser, daughter, derek fisher, golden state warriors, homeless, logitech, lost usps package, parago, parking meters, pizza donation, rebates, retinoblastoma, setpoint, staples, tennessee, utah jazz by Peter
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