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Unnecessary Complications: Absolutely Horrible Customer Support from FYE.com

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Sometimes these “unnecessary complications” entries write themselves. Seriously. For example, I think you’ll enjoy reading this ridiculous situation that I experienced with the online arm of my friends at F.Y.E. I stress that this experience took place with the FYE.com website because I really enjoyed my interactions with the folks employed at the physical F.Y.E. store.

FYE.com Has Horrible Customer Service

A brief background before I share the e-mail exchange with FYE.com’s customer service… As you might already know, last year I purchased a set of season tickets to Monmouth University’s men’s basketball team. I’ve always liked basketball, but after I began attending high school I really didn’t have time to follow the sport as a fan because of playing football and wrestling. I think I went to one New Jersey Nets game with my uncle, cousins, and brothers when I was in high school (although that could have easily been when I was in grade school – I just can’t remember too clearly). Anyway, I began going to the basketball games at Monmouth and really enjoyed the whole experience. Sure, part of my enjoyment was due to the fact that I purchased great seats where I could really watch the game uninterrupted. And yes, part of my enjoyment came from the fact that, as a donor, I have access to a nice pre-game and post-game lounge area. But the truth is that I really enjoyed going to the games because I enjoyed watching the games themselves. In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted to begin watching NBA games again.

Now remember, I hadn’t regularly watched NBA games since I was in grade school and at the time I was a huge Chicago Bulls fan. Of course, I was probably a Bulls fan because when I was in grade school, Michael Jordan was destroying his competition. These days, I didn’t really feel a connection to that team so I turned to the Nets. The first thing I learned about the Nets was that they’re probably leaving New Jersey. Great. I’m not rooting for a team that is leaving the state. And what does that leave me with? Either the New York Knicks or the Philadelphia 76’ers. No thanks. I thought to myself that maybe I could find a team to root for if I had more time around the NBA and started looking into which basketball video games were popular. Not that I have time to play video games, but I thought it was a decent idea.

I did a little bit of research and it turns out that this NBA 2k11 game is supposed to be the best thing to ever grace a video game console since anything ever in the world. Or something like that… anyway, I pre-ordered the game for Nintendo Wii way back on August 31, 2010. Seems like a long time ago, right? Well, that’s the background that you need to know for my story. Oh, and you should know that the game was released for the Wii at some point last week and thus I should have had it in my hot little hands at this point.

As you might imagine, I didn’t get the game delivered to me. So, I sent the following message to FYE.com:

I’m sending this message to inquire about my order #XXXXXX. The online system shows it still listed as a pre-order and “in process.” Could you let me know when I should expect this game to be delivered to my home?

FYE.com sent me the following response which, I have to admit, reads like it was written by a robot. Take a look at this:

We appreciate your recent order.

Unfortunately, the item ordered is currently out of stock. We have placed this item on back order and expect it to become available for shipment within 30 days.

We will ship the item when it becomes available.

If you wish to cancel your order, please see the cancelation instructions below.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in processing this request.

And yes, they did provide extensive cancellation instructions below this note. Well, I thought that this didn’t sound right. How could a video game that I ordered months ago not be in stock when I was a pre-order? In my mind I started thinking, “Ugh. This is going to be one of those customer service experiences that you read about on Consumerist.com and, frankly, I’m really not in the mood for this type of crap. I’m going to cancel this thing and move on with my life.” With that in mind, I wrote the following message to the folks at FYE.com:

Thank you for the update. I just have an additional question. Since I pre-ordered this item back in August, how could it possibly be out of stock for a pre-order? Isn’t that the purpose of a pre-order – to have the item in stock so that the person that placed the pre-order doesn’t have to wait for an additional 30 days?

I’m going to cancel my order, but this is pretty ridiculous in terms of serving a pre-ordering customer. Unreal.

Look, I have no reason to bow down or cow-tow to a company that clearly doesn’t give a shit about me as a customer (just wait until you read the tirade I’m getting ready to unleash on Honda in the next few days). I normally wouldn’t write that last sentence and the “Unreal” comment, but FYE.com really had it coming to them with their robotic response and completely unacceptable additional 30 day delay. To their credit, I guess, they responded within 24 hours with this message:

Thank you for contacting the fye.com Customer Assistance Center

Please log into your account online or contact us at 800-818-1941, option 7, to submit a cancellation request.

That was it. Nothing else. No direct answer to any of my questions or an explanation of what was going on. By the time I received this absolute joke of a customer service response, I had already canceled my order. But this was pretty damn insulting and it led me to share my experiences with you fine folks. The lesson that I learned here is three-fold. First, FYE.com’s customer service absolutely sucks. They either have you talking to robots or people who act like robots. Listen up, FYE.com: when a customer asks a question – no matter how rude you think that question may be – you respond to that question. Second, FYE.com clearly doesn’t care about my business and thus, I’m not giving it to them. I happen to have a small credit over at GameStop and I’ll be going to their website to spend my money now. And third, FYE.com sucks when compared to the folks in their brick and mortar store.

What a shame. I wanted to like shopping at FYE.com but, instead, found it to be an annoying, aggravating experience. For shame, FYE.com. For shame.

A Banner Weekend for the Usable Web Solutions, LLC Suite of Websites

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Not that I want to make a habit out of uploading two entries in a row with comments and stories about Usable Web Solutions, LLC – the small website design and maintenance firm that I started in January 2006. But I thought that I’d put a short comment up here today in a method of celebrating some of what was accomplished over the past weekend. Oh, and I guess it makes sense to comment that the good news which I have to report deals specifically with the suite of websites that are actually owned and operated by Usable Web Solutions, LLC.

If you don’t know, that suite of websites consists of the blog that you are currently reading and a variety of professional wrestling websites. When I was younger, I was a big professional wrestling fan. However, as I was in college and then graduate school, I began to grow apart from watching the sport. Plus, I was a big fan of the old World Championship Wrestling (WCW) promotion and once it was bought up by Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) group, I gradually stopped watching the shows. Once the wrestler that I hated watching the most married his way into the McMahon family and, essentially, wrote the scripts so that he always won at the end of each feud, I was turned off to professional wrestling completely.

And then this upstart promotion out of Nashville and Orlando started putting out a product. I watched here and there, but my watching habits were nothing worthy of merit. Then about two years ago I started watching that TNA Wrestling promotion more and more and more and you know what? It began to grow on me. It reminded me of the old WCW and the old Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and it was fun to watch. More than that, though, it made me want to get back into the business of professional wrestling websites. When I initially started making websites back in 1996, I was making primarily professional wrestling websites (The Balrog’s Lair, The Brood, and Wrestle Universe were the three wrestling-themed websites that I worked with back on the old GeoCities platform).

But this entry isn’t supposed to be a history lesson, so I’ll get on with it!

These days I own three professional wrestling websites – TBLWrestling.com, XHeadlines.com, and TNAStars.com. Of the three, I actively manage and operate the TNAStars.com website. TBLWrestling.com has been around the longest as it has existed in one incarnation or another since 1996. XHeadlines.com was the next site that I created and I think that, for a long time, it was my best work in terms of laying out the design of a professional wrestling website. However, I began working on TNAStars.com on and off during the summer of 2008. Once it was announced that Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were moving to TNA Wrestling during the fall of 2009, I kicked the development of that site into high gear and we went live completely live on January 1, 2010.

On the first day that TNAStars.com was live back in January, it received 2 hits. And believe it or not, that is where this success story begins.

Viewership on the site gradually increased as the news articles were picked up by the various search engines. By the middle to end of January 2010, TNAStars.com was routinely pulling in around 500 hits per day and I was really pleased that the site had a decent presence with less than a month of existence underneath its belt. However, my goal for all of the new websites that I start is for them to be at 1,000 hits per day on a consistent basis – then grow from there. Sometime in March 2010, TNAStars.com began generating 1,000 hits per day, but then the summer months came on and – as has been my experience with professional wrestling websites – the hits began to go down until August, when they started to pick up again.

But I’m always looking for a consistent 1,000+ hits each day and I knew that TNAStars.com was so close. I’m not sure what it took to make the jump, but sometime around the end of September the website began consistently generating 1,000+ hits per day. Then on October 1, 2010, TNAStars.com generated 1,989 hits in a single day – the most in the site’s history. I was very pleased!

Until October 7, 2010 (last Thursday), when the site drew in 3,189 hits in a single day. I was floored at the great response, but knew that hard work always pays off in the end. Last Thursday I began to wonder – how high could this thing go? Then on Friday, the site drew in 3,147 hits – only a small decrease from the day before. But it didn’t stop there…

On Sunday, October 10, 2010, TNAStars.com drew in some 5,017 hits in a single day. Phenomenal! I was convinced that this number was going to be the high mark in the series of banner days for TNAStars.com. Then yesterday came around and wouldn’t you know it, but the website drew in some 8,500 hits in a single day!

Let me put this in perspective and explain why this is significant and worthy of celebration. The most hits that any of my websites ever received in a single day was on June 26, 2007 when TheBalrogsLair.com (which eventually became TBLWrestling.com) received 25,305 hits due to its thorough coverage of the Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Not really something to go screaming around about, but it’s true. The next highest day of hits in the history of my suite of websites? That would be the day before – June 25, 2007 – when the Chris Benoit coverage began. Blech. The story is the same with the third highest day in my suite of websites’ history – June 27, 2007 – Chris Benoit coverage.

You have to go to the fourth highest day in the history of my suite of professional wrestling websites to find a banner day in terms of visitors that were not drawn to the site because of a tragedy! And that day was Monday, March 15, 2004 when TheBalrogsLair.com took in some 7,299 hits in a single day due to its excellent coverage of WrestleMania XX. That was a good day for my professional wrestling websites.

Incidentally, the fifth and sixth highest traffic days in the history of my suite of sites are both Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Annoying.

But all of that changed over this weekend when TNAStars.com’s Bound for Glory 2010 coverage took the number one traffic spot away from the original TBL’s post-WrestleMania XX coverage. And it changed again when the post-Bound for Glory coverage pushed TNAStars.com ahead of one of the Chris Benoit coverage days back on the original TBL.

I hope that the momentum stays with TNAStars.com as it’s a great little website that isn’t bogged down with crap and annoyances. If you’re into professional wrestling, I highly recommend heading over there and seeing what we’ve done. Here’s hoping that the days of growing hits continues for the entire suite of professional wrestling websites that I own!

Trading in Dusty DVDs for Store Credit – Round Two

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About two and a half months ago I went to my local F.Y.E. and traded in a bunch of DVDs that were doing nothing but collecting dust on my DVD stands. Well, earlier today I was looking at the remaining DVDs and video games that are sitting on my shelf (collecting more dust) and I thought it would be a good time to engage in Round Two of trading in these unused movies and games.

Since F.Y.E. doesn’t take video games, I stopped at GameStop, too. Oh, and since I wound up with a few DVDs that F.Y.E. wouldn’t take, I dropped for movies off at the local SPCA as a donation for them to sell in their thrift shop. A final note – F.Y.E. had some deal where I was getting 20% more than I would have received if I opted to get cash back instead of store credit so I obviously went with that deal! Here’s what I wound up with at the end of the day:

Thanks, F.Y.E. and GameStop!

From F.Y.E.:
Star Wars (4 – 6) – $7.50
Viva la Bam Season 1 – $1.50
8 Mile – $2.25
Batman Begins – $2.25
Garfield as Himself (cartoon) – $1.50
Garfield the Movie – $2.25
Kids – $3.00
Kingdom of Heaven – $1.50
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – $3.00
Road to Perdition – $1.50
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – $8.25
Seabiscuit – $1.50
So I Married an Axe Murder – $2.25
Super Troopers – $2.25
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane – $1.50
The Amityville Horror – $2.25
The Aviator – $1.50
The Exorcism of Emily Rose – $1.50
The Gate – $1.50
The Gospel of John – $2.25
The March of the Penguins – $1.50
The Shining – $3.00
Van Wilder – $1.50
Waiting – $1.50
War of the Worlds (new version) – $2.58
Total: $61.08

From GameStop:
Children of Mana (Nintendo DS) – $5.09
Sonic Rush (Nintendo DS) – $7.33
Super Mario Advance 2 (Nintendo Gameboy Advance) – $6.50
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nintendo Wii) – $6.33
Total: $25.25

Donated to SPCA:
Big Momma’s House – Special Edition
Little Shop of Horrors (Jack Nicholson Edition)
Barber Shop
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (New, CGI-based Musical Version)
Total: Not applicable, but I feel good for having donated these otherwise unusable DVDs!

All told, at the end of the day I’ve got two gift cards worth $61.08 and $25.25 each. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t have that extra $86.33 worth of buying power so I feel good knowing that today I translated some unused, dusty “assets” into usable store credit. And while I had some very minor, almost nonexistent, conflicts about whether or not to trade in some of the titles listed above (which I definitely didn’t have when I traded in the titles two and a half months ago) I know that trading in these DVDs and video games was the right thing to do on so many levels.

As people, we all run the risk of getting too involved with our physical objects. For me, what it boils down to is that there’s no reason for a person to feel any type of connection or need for a DVD that they haven’t watched in years and that has contributed nothing to a person’s life or space other than acting as a dust catcher. Frankly, I don’t need any more dust catchers thank you very much.

All of that being said, I now look at my remaining DVD collection of about 150 titles – easily half of what I used to own – and I’m wondering what Round Three of this purge may look like one day. I have a bunch of Christmas movies that I know I’m not going to part with because I watch them all at least twice a year. Same thing with my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs – I enjoy watching them once or twice each year. However, I look at my Family Guy box sets and I know that I haven’t opened them up in over a year and a half, if not longer. Same thing goes for my Smallville box sets, though I think I’d like to watch the Smallville box sets again one more time before sending them off to F.Y.E. I also have a bunch of WWE DVDs that I certainly haven’t watched in a long time. Instead of bringing them to F.Y.E., though, I’ll probably wind up giving them to my younger brother and letting him do what he wants with them, I guess.

Then I have some movies that I really do like, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch them on a consistent enough basis to warrant allowing them to continue to collect dust. These titles include (among many others) Nothing But Trouble, Funny Farm, The Great Outdoors, Private Parts, Caddyshack II, Spaceballs, Office Space, Wedding Crashers, Shrek, and Shrek 2.

Stay tuned and see what I trade in or donate next! I’m thinking that it’ll be some of my used books to those good folks at EcoEncore.org. Oh, and on that topic – does anyone know where I can donate used cell phones for a good cause?

Results and Pictures from My Recent Attendance at a TNA Wrestling House Show

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About a week ago I promised you all the match results and nearly 150 pictures from my recent attendance – along with my younger brother, roommate, and buddy – to a TNA Wrestling house show. Well, wait no longer. Below are the match results followed by about 150 pictures from the show. Some of the pictures are blurry, but I think that you’ll enjoy flipping through them to pass the time.

Some of you may know that I already posted this information on the wrestling website that I own at TNAStars.com. If you’ve seen this all already, then I apologize, but I wanted to share the pictures with all of my audience! Enjoy!

__________

Source: TNAStars.com

What’s up, everybody!? Most of the time, we scour the internet looking for the best set of house show results to share with you great fans. However, for the Asbury Park house show I was actually in attendance with my roommate, my buddy, and my younger brother (and about 1,200 other TNA fans) so here are some results and notes on the show directly from me!

Attendance: I’m not the best estimator of attendance at these types of shows, but I would suggest there might have been about 1,200 fans in attendance. When I went to the Asbury Park house show in 2008, there might have been half as many people there so to more than double the amount of attendees in two years shows tremendous progress in this fan’s eyes. When the official attendance numbers come out, I’ll report them here.

Excitement: While the action in the ring was mediocre at best (the house show two years ago had more exciting action), the fans seemed into almost every big move from the start of the show through its completion. I’ve been to two TNA house shows and a TNA pay-per-view thus far and I think that this crowd (comprised mostly of younger fans and their families) were the most “into” the show that I’ve seen for this company. Frankly, they were more into the show than the people at the iMPACT! Zone ever seem to be (and why is there always a high pitched girl screaming in the iMPACT! Zone? Somebody shut her up already!)…

Acoustics: Just like two years ago, I found the acoustics in Convention Hall completely over modulated and hard to understand. For some reason, all of the wrestlers and knockouts that opted to use the sound system also opted to yell into the microphone which, to my ears, resulted in an electronic muffled sound that had way too much reverberation on the output. No one normally writes about these things, but for me it was such a pronounced pain in the neck that I felt compelled to put it on here.

Pictures: Coming soon in another post – I’m going through them (I took over 300 pictures) and weeding out the crappy ones (about half). When I have the pictures weeded out and uploaded, I’ll place a link to them right here. Update: The pictures are available below this post!

Sightings: My buddy, roommate, and I met Jeff Hardy at The Beach Bar which is connected to Convention Hall and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and Asbury Park’s southern beach. It was about as brief a meeting as you could imagine – he walked by, shook our hands, and went on his way. In my view, he was shorter than I thought he’d be; all of these online listings show him at 6′ 1″ or 6′ 2″ tall and I’d say he’s maybe 5′ 9″ or 5′ 10″ at most. Either that, or he was incredibly slouching when my buddy, roommate, and I met him (and I don’t think he was slouching).
 
 

Homicide vs. The Amazing Red vs. Brian Kendrick

This match was a pretty strong show opener and it got the crowd excited. I admit that I didn’t get a chance to really watch the full match because I was looking for my brother, roommate, and buddy during this match, but I did manage to see The Amazing Red jumping around like a crazy person. Brian Kendrick also had a few good moves, too. Red took the match in the end.
Winner: The Amazing Red
 

Angelina Love vs. Sara Del Rey (Jersey All Pro Wrestling Women’s Champion)

I’m pretty sure that Angelina Love took on Sara Del Rey in this match, though I didn’t catch her name and I can’t see facial features too well. The match wasn’t so bad and in my humble opinion I think that the action in this match (and the one following) was among the best on the entire show, period. Angelina Love was quick and smooth with her moves, as always, and Sara Del Rey certainly did the JAPW organization proud in her loss. The winner of this match was awarded with a title shot against Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne.
Winner: Angelina Love
 

Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

As soon as Angelina Love beat Sara Del Rey, Madison Rayne came out and beat the hell out of her to begin their match. Apparently, the match was “supposed” to take place later in the night, but Madison Rayne took the opportunity to beat up on a weakened Angelina Love and eventually beat her in about 5 or 6 minutes. Overall, though, it was a good match and even though Angelina Love was fresh off of her match with Sara Del Rey, she did a good job fighting back against a fresh Madison Rayne.

Earl Hebner was the referee (he received a decent reaction when announced to the crowd) and this match ended with a spot where he happened to catch Madison Rayne in a swooning position and the crowd egged him on to kiss her (which he did). Then he did this weird dance that got the crowd going. Angelina Love was laughing at it until Earl went up to her and smacked a kiss on her, too. More dancing after the kiss, of course, Madison Rayne used the distraction to roll up Angelina Love for the win and Earl Hebner did a little more dancing out of the ring area.
Winner: Madison Rayne
 

Desmond Wolfe vs. Jay Lethal

Lots of “Woooooo!” hollers from the audience for Jay Lethal, who was way over with his home state crowd. I would say that next to the Knockouts, Jay Lethal was among one of the most “over” guys on the night’s card. Lots of good back and forth action in this match that ultimately saw Jay Lethal pick up the victory. Jay Lethal did some of his Ric Flair impressions by strutting a little bit on the ring apron before the match started and chopping Desmond Wolfe throughout the entire contest. I would have liked to see these guys fight for another five minutes or so.
Winner: Jay Lethal
 

Kurt Angle Promo

Kurt Angle came out and thanked the audience for coming to the show. He said that people in attendance may be WWE fans, but he’s here to tell everyone the truth – that TNA is better (mixed reaction from the fans, but mostly in agreement). He was holding a can of some type of energy drink in his hand during the entire promo, which he eventually tossed across the ring on his way out. Nothing major to report here.
 

Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy

The most annoying part of this match was that Jeff Hardy seemed to thank every single fan that had their hand out during his introduction. Seriously, his entrance might have lasted almost ten minutes – they had to restart his music. Abyss did a good job of playing the monster heel, which is a role that I think he is more naturally suited for than the Hulkamaniac shtick. Jeff Hardy brought some fan signs in the ring before the match started – not sure what they said but you can check them out after I post the pictures.

Not much to say about the match here. Both men did their signature moves and Jeff Hardy eventually won by hitting The Swanton. After the match, Jeff Hardy took one of the cameramen’s camera and went around ringside taping the fans (I assume this is for TNA Today on TNAWrestling.com and YouTube.com).
Winner: Jeff Hardy
 

Intermission

Before the Intermission began, Don West came out and hyped his brown bag special and his super duper exclusive Ric Flair t-shirt that “you can only get here tonight and nowhere else!” During the break, Angelina Love had a line for autographs that literally wrapped around the entire inside of the arena. My buddy said that they were going for $10 each, so TNA and Angelina Love definitely made some money off of her signing autographs. There were hundreds of people in line to meet her – it was pretty nuts. My group and I took the opportunity to get up and go to the other side of the arena during the intermission.
 

Ink, Inc. vs. Team 3D

Team 3D was extremely over with this crowd. After they were introduced, the “E-C-W” and “We Want Tables” chants were deafening. So… this match became a tables match. The action was crazy to start this one as Brother Ray beat the hell out of Jesse Neal in the ring and Brother Devon took it to Shannon Moore on the outside of the ring. At one point, Brother Ray ran into the back and came back with a shiny new steel garbage can, with which he promptly smacked Jesse Neal in the head. After some posing, Jesse Neal took the garbage can and cracked it over Brother Ray’s head completely bending and destroying the can.

Once the match got along a little bit, Team 3D hit their “What’s Up!” headbutt to the balls before the crowd yelled for Brother Devon to get the table, which he did. And once the table was set up in the ring, it wasn’t too long before Jesse Neal went directly through it and Team 3D picked up the win. Funny note from after the match – Brother Ray asked Brother Devon to get some kids to give pieces of the ring to and he went up on the stage to grab a kid, but the kid was horrified and grabbed his Dad. Brother Devon tried to tell him what was going on, but in the end settled for a different kid off of the stage and a kid from the front row. Team 3D posed for pictures and thanked the crowd as Brother Ray said he was heading to Bar Anticipation in Belmar to find some Jersey girl (he used other words) for the night.
Winner: Team 3D
 

A.J. Styles vs. Rob Van Dam

Rob Van Dam was easily the most over guy on the card tonight, thanks in part to his entrance theme which encourages the fans to chant and yell for him. Both of these men looked good during the match, but A.J. Styles may really be taking his new heel role too seriously since he stalled the beginning of the match by about ten minutes (which was probably longer than the entire action part of the match). It was a bit excessive.

The match came to a head when A.J. Styles missed his flying punch from the top rope and Rob Van Dam hit his Rolling Thunder which set him up for the Five Star Frog Splash. At some point, A.J. Styles went to hit his Pele Kick and I have to tell you – it didn’t look so good. Anyway, Rob Van Dam picks up the win and the show comes to an end.
Winner: Rob Van Dam
 

After the show was over, Rob Van Dam stayed around and posed with fans in the ring with the championship belt for $20 per each group. This is the same thing that Kurt Angle did after the Asbury Park house show two years ago.

A final comment – the interwebs sometimes say how TNA’s house shows are the most profitable part of their business. Well, after attending my second TNA house show I can clearly see why. These people (led by Don West) sell, sell, sell! They are selling t-shirts, DVDs, autographs, meetings with the wrestlers, etc. TNA shows really have a type of fan interaction that you don’t get at WWE shows, but it would admittedly be hard for WWE to pull off this type of interaction with 15,000+ people at their shows. Overall, I thought it was a fun show even if the action in the ring was mediocre at best.

Congratulations Mike – The Biggest Loser for Spring 2010!

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Not much to say in this post other than a major congratulations goes out to Mike, the winner of NBC’s The Biggest Loser Spring 2010 season! Talk about a great story, here is a guy who lost 264 pounds after starting at 526 pounds. That is unbelievable – absolutely amazing. And, in truth, he looks like a completely different person. The picture that I posted below doesn’t even do the man justice – he was even skinnier and in better shape during tonight’s finale. I’ll try to get a picture from tonight’s finale uploaded to replace the image below. I’m just baffled at how much weight this man lost. It’s really awe-inspiring.

Even though Mike won (and, of course, he was the odds on favorite to win because he was the biggest contestant in show history), Daris has to have undergone the biggest overall transformation. Here’s a guy who looked horrible with his ultra curly hair and big fat man boobs, but wound up shedding 168 pounds, running a 26.2 mile marathon in 4 hours, and actually has significant muscle definition in his arms and shoulders. Daris should be extremely proud of himself – he literally transformed his body and his life. Great job!

The same goes for Ashley, who went from a massive girl weighing 374 pounds to a hottie weighing 191 pounds! Amazing! Ashley lost 183 pounds and no one even gave her a chance of winning when the season began. Ashley looked great at the finale, she really did. And you can tell by her attitude and demeanor that she has the drive and spirit to lose another 50 or even 60 pounds. Once again, The Biggest Loser has taken a girl that most guys would walk by without a second look and made her into a stunning woman that will definitely make guys turn their heads. What a transformation.

Tonight’s finale should be an inspirational wake up call to everyone who thinks that they can’t do it; that they can’t lose weight. Just look at O’Neal (lost 153 pounds) and Sunshine (lost 114 pounds) – those two may not have won the big bucks, but they looked absolutely awesome! Side note – I’m a big fan of O’Neal and Sunshine, but O’Neal’s sons (Sunshine’s brothers) have got to be the biggest fans of their Dad and sister than anyone on the planet! I love when those two guys go crazy whenever they’re around their father and sister. It’s fun to watch!

But, back to people looking good during the finale – the same goes for Darrell (lost 189 pounds). That man lost a ton of weight as did Sherry from the pink team. Awesome, awesome transformations. Cheryl looked great, too, but I think that Sam might have been a little bit too cocky for his own good. Same for Koli. But in the end, the two of them looked great after their weight loss transformations – good for them!

And congratulations (again) to Koli for being the at-home winner of The Biggest Loser competition! Not only does he look great and did he rid himself of all of that excess weight, but he takes home $100,000, too. Not so bad!

If I had any issues with tonight’s season finale of The Biggest Loser, it was that NBC (and all television networks, really), draw these finale shows out way too long. Thankfully, I started watching the show at 8:30pm and rewound my DVR back the extra half an hour so I could fast forward through the commercials and the extra parts of the show that I’ve already seen (look, if you’ve watched the whole season then you’ve already been through each of the contestants’ ups and downs so you don’t need to be reminded of them before each weigh-in). Unfortunately, though, I caught up to the real time version of the show relatively quickly – by 9:20pm. So…for the last 40 minutes of the show I had to suffer through the ridiculous commercial breaks. Blech.

Actually, I guess it’s not that bad since I was able to write the bulk of this post during the dead time in the last 40 minutes of the show. 🙂 Another complaint – the show ends too quickly in the last few minutes. Why not show 2 – 3 minutes of the post-weigh-in celebration and maybe even had a brief interview with the winner? Why cut straight to a promo for a new show or an upcoming show? Bad move.

Oh, and I hated seeing Melissa and Lance again. Talk about two wretched people. I’m not a fan of that Melissa woman – I just don’t like her no matter what she does or says. She’s a sneak who thinks that she’s getting something over on everyone each time she speaks. Dirty snake. She’s the reason why lawyers have bad reputations.

But, once again, a major congratulations goes out to Mike for being this season’s The Biggest Loser champion, $250,000 winner, and an amazing inspirational story! Great job!