Monday, July 14, 2008

SMS Price Gouging

I am tired of the SMS price Gouging.

SMS, or Short Messaging Service allows you to send text to other cell phone users whose phone's support text messages.

Companies charge $5 for 200 or 20 cents a message. These kinds of prices figure at about a THOUSAND DOLLARS per Megabyte....$1000/ MB.

That is ridiculous. I have unlimited data on my iPhone for $20/ month. That could be many megabytes even gigabytes of data transfer. This awful price gouging for short text messages should not be tolerated. I am paying for access to the data network. I wish they would just figure out how to price that right and stop trying to scrape and gouge customers using small amounts of data that can simply be marketed differently. I am tired of being told how to use that access to the network and that some uses are more costly than others. Especially when the costlier uses have a very small data footprint but simply have a larger marketability.

The cell phone vendors need to remember what their product is, interconnectivity, not tying to fake us out and control how we use data. I want to be able to make a ring tone of what ever I want to as well. Presume I paid for the CD or digital download!!

And my rant is spent.

=sw

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Test of Basic Skills

Passing through Iowa I had a "What the Fuck is this!?" moment.

I know truck stops hear what people are willing to spend for specialty coffee drinks and they decide they can "pull this off" and the following happens...This is going to read a bit like "How it's made" but believe me...it's how it's not made.

I order a Latte from the menu for between 3-4 dollars. I ask for a double shot.

The server gets a waxy 20 ounce soda cup. She reaches for a coffee globe with drip coffee in it...fills the cup. She grabs the vanilla flavoring...administers exactly 2 shots of that into the cup then begins to mix in the flavoring with what looks like a milkshake blender machine. I realize there is no espresso machine nor espresso in sight.

The lid-less beverage IS slightly bubbly on top and looks a tan color, until after a few sips it is black coffee again.

They have cardboard hand protectors, at least, but no 20 oz. lids to be had. The server...one could never call her a barista until some steam or milk entered the scene... jams what looks like a clear domed slurpee cap with a big hole in the top onto the cup.

Voila!

And I think to myself...WTF is this? What planet am I on? I don't even have the patience or stomach to inform them how clueless they are...which is why they will never learn, as I am sure others feel the same way.

Latte...does mean "Milk" in Italian right!?

I was dismayed. When you are aching for a Latte...entered a building with a giant red Cafe sign...you dream of getting what you want. I learned...in some states...Cafe means "bacon and eggs at all hours" and trendy coffee drinks have a high profit margin, but are cheap fakers. It's amazing they have caffeine in them at all. It sure makes Salt Lake seem cosmopolitan by comparison.

WTF did I just say?

=sw