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My Treo 700p from Verizon – Broke AGAIN

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The worst phone that I have ever purchased in my entire life is broken once again. This phone is the Treo 700p from Verizon Wireless. It’s a disaster – a complete and total disaster of a phone. Not only have I had problems from this “smart” phone in the past, but the contract that I’m locked into keeps me with this piece of shit until August 2008.

I’m being held hostage by Verizon Wireless.

The problem this time around is that my touchscreen seems to work on all parts of the screen, except the middle. So this means that any time I put the stylus on the center of the page, the phone doesn’t recognize it. And what’s so bad about that? Well, the obvious – I can’t get this thing to work the right way and I spent over $600 on the package when I purchased it.

But through some no-good online help, I’ve managed to reset my phone and gotten it stalled out where it asks me to “Use stylus to tape center of target one last time.” And where does this target appear? That’s right – the exact middle of the touchscreen!

So I have a stalled out, piece of garbage phone. Not only is this the worst phone that I’ve ever purchased, but I am going out of my way to dissuade other people from buying this piece of shit. I’ve already gotten two people to stay away from this phone (and the now-tarnished Palm brand) – here’s hoping that this post gets more people to stay away from this brand.

Sigma Pi Fraternity’s Mid-Year Conference 2007

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This past weekend I was fortunate enough to spend Thursday – Sunday in St. Louis at Sigma Pi Fraternity, International’s 2007 Mid-Year Leadership Conference. The Mid-Year Conference is a free event where the Executive Office and National Governing Board of Sigma Pi get to train the new undergraduate Presidents and Treasurers.

This year they had Recruitment Chairmen come along to listen to a completely outstanding presentation by Phired Up’s Josh Orendi. For those of you that do not know, Josh is co-author of the best book on recruitment that I’ve ever read: Good Guys – The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for Fraternity Recruitment. His presentation was both timely and on-target for today’s undergraduates.

For any fraternity or sorority folks out there – I cannot recommend Josh highly enough to come and speak to your chapter or your campus. Great presentation.

This was also my first chance to do a little touring of the St. Louis area even though it’s my fourth trip out there. I got to ride up to the top of the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch as well as go on a tour of Budweiser’s World Headquarters. I should have pictures of both up in my Google/Picasa photo album soon.

Anyway, these events are great for volunteers like me because it recharges our “fraternal batteries” and gets us back on track to help better advise our undergraduates. I had a great time out in St. Louis with my undergraduates and my fellow alumni volunteers and I can’t wait for Sigma Pi University to take place in Nashville, Tennessee this July!

Black Friday 2006 Review

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Sometimes it pays to have a blog of your thoughts. From my Black Friday 2005 Review:

The worst part of the day were the lines at Circuit City. Someone at Circuit City has got to get their act together and NOT have a bunch of high school teenage girls running all five registers in the place. First off, you don’t have enough registers for the crowds – fix that.

Just like last year, the worst part of the day was Circuit City’s lines. However, I didn’t stick around this year when there were dozens of cashiers available at the local Wal-Mart and Target stores. And Best Buy has got a great, fast checkout system even though the line looks deceivingly long. But Circuit City – they ought to be ashamed of themselves. This is almost 2007 and an electronics store that specializes is gizmos and gadgets to make life easier can’t manage to figure out a way to put in a few more registers and NOT have their lines wrapping around the store?

Disgraceful.

The sales today were so-so, nothing really to go crazy about. I got a nice 6-in-1 Remington shaving set at Wal-Mart and a few DVDs at Target and Best Buy. The problem with the DVDs on sale this year is that they were all mostly crappy movies and box sets! When I get back to Monmouth County tonight or tomorrow, I’m going to take a swing around the stores down there and see what they have on sale.

My Mom also got a really great leather jacket for my Dad at an amazing price from JC Penney. I didn’t venture out to the K-Mart or Kohl’s today because the K-Mart was too far and the Kohl’s is guaranteed to have a line that actually does wrap around the store. During our travels this morning, there were no Playstation 3’s or Wii’s to be seen (as expected), though the demos were good to look at.

All in all, this was a decent Black Friday. I saw a lot of people cramming their car trunks full of gifts, which is great. Unlike Black Friday 2004, which was a total bust, this year there were some good deals on some quality items. Now that being said, it’s only 2:20pm my time so I could probably go out for round two tonight!

Black Friday 2005 Review

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There was a lot of good and bad things that happened yesterday – let’s review!

The worst part of the day were the lines at Circuit City. Someone at Circuit City has got to get their act together and NOT have a bunch of unprepared kids running all five registers in the place. First off, you don’t have enough registers for the crowds – fix that. Second, you’ve got a bunch of kids that are more concerned about their appearance than telling Mr. and Mrs. Asshole in line that the $100 box set of their favorite musician is NOT on sale for $9.99! It’s Black Friday – get your act together Circuit City.

That’s my only criticism of Circuit City. On the flip side, they had some tremendous sales! Good job on being able to lure the customers in to the store with promotions! You gotta respect a company that knows how to put together a good Black Friday marketing scheme. I applaud Circuit City for their DVD prices – but someone really has to get a completely new checkout system over at that place…

Best Buy was alright – much better checkout situation. Nothing like the 45 minute line that my Mother and I waited on at Circuit City. The sales at Best Buy were alright – nothing crazy.

Same goes for Wal-Mart. The lines were alright, nothing too terrible. The best part of the Wal-Mart promotions that I saw was at the third Wal-Mart that I went to (you have to shop around at these places!) – they were selling box sets for $20. I was going to get the box set of Smallville because I heard it was a great series. Anyone have any thoughts on that? They actually have seasons one and two for $20 each…

I didn’t go into any actual in-door malls today because in my view, they can’t compete with the discount stores like Wal-Mart, Circuit City, and Target. Ah – Target! I went in there today and was completely unimpressed. It reminded me a lot of Black Friday 2004 in Wal-Mart – lots of hope and nothing to show for it.

All in all, I got 16 DVDs for under $100. Some of these movies are pretty good (Kingdom of Heaven, I Robot, Robots, Anchorman, Arrested Development Season Two) and some are pretty funny just to own (Masters of the Universe starring Dolph Lundgren, Jeff Foxworthy: Totally Committed). I was hoping to get more movies today, but I guess that sixteen is a good start.

Of course now that I’ve shopped for myself, I should probably make some time to go Christmas shopping for the family and friends…there better be good sales coming up in the next few weeks!

Oh, and what was the deal with Kohl’s today? I went in there and the line was literally wrapped around the entire store! That’s ridiculous! I don’t know how long some of those people were waiting in line, but there was no WAY that I would have waited there! I’m one of those big “Cyber Monday” folks…in other words I see a ton of people in line at Kohl’s on Black Friday, I say screw it – I’ll buy whatever I was looking for online when they offer free shipping (which is usually this Monday).

I hope that you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving and Black Fridays! Starting Saturday morning it’s back to the hum drum of plowing away at papers for Rutgers, beating myself up at the gym, and trying to find time to plan out my volunteer-based events. Fun!