FIOS TV Prime HD – $74.99
HBO/Showtime – $11.99 + $16.99 – both free for 3 months
HD Set-top Box – $9.99 – free for one year
DVR – $15.99 – free for 3 months

The Activation Fee ($49.99), Installation Fee ($79.99), and cost of router ($139.99) would all be waived.

Ultimately, there would be three different rounds of pricing:

The first 3 months – $74.99
Months 3 to 12 – $110.99
Months 12 onwards – $120.98

Shortly after our phone call, I received an e-mail asking me to verify my order and for the part of verifying, here is how the information was presented:

Order Summary
Master Order Number: MD00101389386
Order Date: May 12, 2011
Product: Double Flex up to 15/5 Prime HD 24M 2010
Internet Speed: FTTP_15M_5M_TRUE

 

First Bill Estimate:
The Normal Monthly Charge excludes credits for promotions that last 3 months or less. This customized estimate of your first bill is based on your initial order and installation date. If you made changes after your initial order, those changes are not reflected below.⁺⁺

	Normal Monthly Charges	Change in Service and Partial Month	Estimated First Bill
Double Flex up to 15/5 Prime HD 24M 2010	$84.99	$14.16	$99.15
Other Current Activity (Voice, TV, Internet Additional)	$62.97	$271.97	$318.94
Current Activity Total	$147.96	$286.13	$418.09
Specials and Promotions	-$10.00	-$269.97	-$304.96
Taxes, Fees and Other Charges	$16.10	-	$13.51
Total	$154.06	-	$126.64

 

Ignoring the fact that the $10 off to make it $74.99 is temporary it seems, I found this order verification screen to be very unhelpful.  What about you? Now I have to call to figure this out.

Jon Chi Kirmani
That was the SCARIEST drive I have ever been apart of!!
January 26 at 6:34pm

• • Stacy
    Took me an hour to get home from downtown Martinsburg! Holy crap!!

    January 26 at 6:40pm 

    Rich Kline Ill be there soon Cuz….better get rid of all that damn snow!

    January 26 at 9:30pm

    Jon Chi Kirmani Lol, how the shit am I gonna do that?!

    January 26 at 10:02pm

    

    Jaffer Rizvi I -29 was a graveyard for the abondoned cars this morning. I hit couple of them with Shaheryar IS 350 Lexus, I piece of junk not meant to be built for this kind of wheather.

    January 27 at 9:43am · Shahryar Likes this
  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani ‎^^LOL, zoom zoom zoom!

    January 27 at 10:02am

    

    Shahryar Rizvi ‎^looks I’m saving money again this year by not getting someone a father’s day gift

    January 27 at 11:51am

  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani ‎^LMAO! Zinger!

    January 27 at 11:54am

  • Rida Bukhari-Rizvi lol what is up w/John’s catch phrases?

    January 28 at 9:23am

  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani ‎^^ and you get the womp womp for the spelling of my name, “Jon or JonShawn”.

    January 28 at 10:53am

  • Rida Bukhari-Rizvi LOOL! ok i def deserve that wompwomp

    January 28 at 10:54am 

  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani Hahaha, I struggled on wether to call you out on it…then I thought, what would Shahryar do?

    January 28 at 10:56am
    
    

    Shahryar Rizvi Shahryar would put a post-it on the back of Rida’s scarf

    January 28 at 11:12am
    
  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani ‎^^LMAO…KaBoom!!

    January 28 at 11:13am

  • Rida Bukhari-Rizvi please dont’ ever use the WWSD phrase as a guideline…

    January 28 at 11:21am

  • 

    Jon Chi Kirmani To late, the marketing has laready been done and the rubber wristbands have been ordered, “WWSD” BOOM Shakalaka!

    January 28 at 11:30am  Shahryar likes this

  • Ali Abidi LOL i randomly found this comment thread and its hilarious

    6 hours ago  Shahryar likes this

  • 

    Shahryar Rizvi I should make this IM Convo of the Day

    7 minutes ago

Change the info in the Expand option

Especially when it comes to the IT Specialist position, you really have to go through each one to see what you are or aren’t qualified for.  The “Expand” option should be changed to list out the first so many characters of the Duties and Qualificaitons.  That would immediately weed out what is or isn’t needed.  

Link directly to the Status Candidate position

I have no idea why on the page of a job listing, if there’s another listing (usually? all the time?) for a status candidate position, the announcement number is given like here:

Now you have to go and search for this announcement:

But it’s not that straightforward because this has to be searched in the ALL JOBS category so on the next results screen you will have to redo the search selecting all jobs.  Or sometimes the announcement doesn’t work (guessing the reason for the screen I got right below) so you’ll have to manually search on the job title, agency in the ALL JOBS section and then try to find it.  It’s annoying.

Allow sort by Location

Ok, so I want to see Nationwide jobs for something so I’ll leave the location blank but I should still be able to sort on order of closest to me

Location based e-mail search not working?

And finally, this one’s a little on the personal side- help me figure out why my New York jobs e-mail summary doesn’t actually show New York jobs – yet when I then click on “View all opportunities” link on the e-mail, it properly shows me New York jobs?

There were other cool things about this airport.  There was this locker thing where you could leave your phone in to charge and take the key with you.  There were a bunch of technology showcase areas with 3D demonstrations, 3D gaming, etc.  They had these really cool looking recycling areas which stood out too.

As long as I can remember we’ve had a subscription to the Washington Post in my house and it is one of the things my dad cannot live without (if he could, the bs I dealt with would have been the end of this tradition).  There’s something annoying the Washington Post does (as do most subscription businesses I notice) where they give you a nice promotion rate but don’t make it easy to opt out automatically when the promotion runs out.  We were paying $1-something a week for a good part of 2010 and then from mid November to Early Feb, they were delivering at their $5-something rate.  For the past few years, I call after I notice this, and they adjust the price they charged post-promotion back down to a promotion rate again since I’ll be subscribing to them again.  This time, while they agreed to give me a promotion rate for the next 6 months, they wouldn’t lower the full price $5-something rate they had been charging me.

If I was able, I’d fight some more but a) my dad wants the service to resume right away b) dealing with Washington Post subscriptions is incredibly annoying.

1) they close at 5pm on weekdays so you better be prepared to spend your working hours on the phone with them
2) the website doesn’t work (at least for me) – I was stuck on the login screen:

I was trying to get in to make the payment, this meant I had to work with phone.  They didn’t do check over the phone (I didn’t have my credit card on me) so I had to mail checks to Richmond to make payment.
3) I was given the wrong amount due – I called back in AFTER I mailed a check in to confirm something and was told the amount that was due did not include the tax.  Luckily, after waiting on hold for the phone rep to escalate to her supervisor, I was told they would issue the credit
4) And this is the kicker – I have to call back in after 7-10 days to see if they got the payment and ask them to resume the subscription.  It won’t automatically start when they get the payment. They’ll take the money, pay for the amount that was due and sit on the amount I paid for the next 6 months of service – until I manually call back and ask them to start.

You’re lucky you’re so deeply ingrained into my dad’s daily ritual Washington Post, otherwise you would have lost yet another subscriber.

But there is a lot to Tata’s decisions to rebrand or not when it comes to their foreign acquisitions.  Tata has to consider their Indian identity and what their fellow Indians think, and also what the foreign consumers of the company they are acquiring might think.  So there are times when rebranding is appropriate, like with Corus, and times when it is not, like with Tetley. 

Great lessons to consider for a company that has a strong identity with a group of people.

But, I just found out my wife had signed up for it because it was a really minimum amount extra so I might as well use it.  But, unfortunately, for me (and I assume many others) it’s not that easy. 

I called UHC Vision (formerly Spectera) to find out about what I could do with the insurance only to find out I couldn’t do anything because there were two authorizations which were pulled.  The vision insurance told me that I had to call the two eye care providers I had visited last year and have them let go of the authorization.  Why the insurance company itself couldn’t do anything is beyond me.

So I called the first place and they (of course) said they couldn’t find anything open for me and told me to call the vision insurance provider back and ask if they could call to the place.  I called the second one and I’m on hold there right now.

I set the ad to run from 12/27 (the day after Christmas) to give myself sometime to get a baseline of what kind of activity my site was getting BEFORE the ad ran.

On January 3rd I got an e-mail saying I was charged for the Facebook ad.  It was only $8.34 (the lifetime budget of my ad was $50)

I sent them a message about this and they replied the ad had to finish running by the coupon expiration date.  This is something I don’t feel is fair because it wasn’t spelled out clearly on the ad.  It should have said something  more meaningful than just “expiration date.”

We’ve been going back and forth on e-mails since then but seems they don’t feel they’re in the wrong.  I’ve stopped the campaign now and I’m not sure yet if another charge has occurred.

I was happy to see a letter from Nate Hammond of Laurel Maryland complaining to The Gazette (our local newspaper that covers Laurel, MD) about the placement of a new speed camera in laurel being at the bottom of a hill.  I was hoping to see a response back to the page with the letter ( Speed cameras aid city, not students ) but have not seen anything appear yet.  This is something that warrants a response. 

Oh, and this complaint falls  under a broader category of feeling that in many cases, speeding is used to just make money.