Updates and follow-up to previous posts

Miscellaneous updates, for those who are following along…

You might remember when I packed up the non-functioning MyPowerALL(tm) device and shipped it back to the manufacturer, Tekkeon, with a letter which I also published, unlocked in this journal, on October 4th. Here’s the follow-up on that! As soon as the parcel had had time to arrive in California, I missed a phone call from “Chris” at Tekkeon. I wondered what he might have to say, but I tried calling back and we played telephone tag for a couple of days until we connected. Chris said that he’d checked the device I’d shipped back, it was indeed defective, and he offered to send me a replacement. I accepted the offer, and the replacement arrived rather quickly. Chris even included the extra connector that I’d purchased separately to fit one of the Dell computers.

It took me a couple of weeks to get around to unpacking the new replacement, because I had so much else to do. I re-arranged the living room a bit and cleared out space to set up and plug in a lot of devices I wanted to be able to use easily and simultaneously, such as the scanner and the older Dell that it connects to, so I was getting out a lot of things and trying them out or charging them up. I plugged in the new MyPowerALL(tm) and set it to charge…

…and it won’t charge. At least, I can’t figure out how to get it to take the charge! It’s plugged into a power strip that charges everything else, so that’s not the problem. I give up! At least Tekkeon made an effort, and they needn’t have, I waited until long past the warranty period was expired. I just have bad luck with batteries! And that’s all the MyPowerALL(tm) is, a free-standing external battery pack. *sigh*

You might also remember the letters I wrote to Bath and Body Works about the case in Connecticut whereby a Wiccan was called a “devil-worshipper” and fired by her new supervisor. I wrote hard copy letters to the head offices of the parent company, Limited Brands, Inc., and the CEO/founder of the company by name, and I also published the letter, unlocked, in this journal. I really didn’t expect a response–but I got one (proving the power of snail-mail, cc’s, and posting copies to your blog, *heh*). Angie Grant from Customer Relations sent a polite, non-committal letter saying in part, “Thank you for your concern. We can assure you that Limited Brands has a strict policy regarding discrimination. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status. We are unable to comment on pending litigation.”

I wonder if she has all that in a template in her word processor or if she cut-and-pasted it? Ah, well. That all sounds just peachy (and they wouldn’t put it in writing unless they thought they meant it). But I notice that Limited Brands is one of the “ten worst companies” recently listed by Air America as places where you might not want to shop if you care about ethical business practices. Good thing I’m not into any of that girly frou-frou stuff, anyway! Now if L.L. Bean is caught pulling any crappy stunts like this, I’ll be devastated!

Thanksgiving with dad and his friend Ty went just fine, although it was kind of like cooking dinner for a couple of bachelors. When I got to the house, my dad was on the computer and Ty was watching TV, and when I said I didn’t need immediate help with anything, they resumed those activities. It was about an hour before I got to have an actual conversation with anybody! I also went and found a tablecloth and set the table with candles and so on. I swear, if I hadn’t, the boys would have been perfectly happy to eat off placemats on the bare table pad. But dinner came out really well and seemed to be enjoyed by all. Ty contributed some wine he’d brought from Chile which was just wonderful–the lightest, most delicate cabernet sauvignon I’ve ever tasted.

I had brought up the screen and projector because I wanted to try an experiment after dinner: watching a movie on streaming video, via Amazon Video on Demand, on my netbook over dad’s wireless network, projected onto the screen with the projector (whew. Yes, I’m a hopeless geek! Your point??). I also brought the external computer speakers that I bought for the room party at Anticipation, and which work so well, people complained that the party music was too loud. I knew this was a lot fussier than just renting a DVD, but I wanted to try it out. My dad was a little baffled as to why we were going through all this, and it took us a while to decide on a film, as our first choices weren’t available to rent yet. But we finally watched Outlander.

My experiment was semi-successful: the movie didn’t stream smoothly although the sound was fine. I’m not sure what caused the drag, but I suspect it was the projector. It’s really not up to the level of a home entertainment center projector, it’s meant for presentations and so on (and that’s what I bought it for). But it worked without a hitch otherwise–no problems interfacing with the netbook, brilliant picture, sharp focus, and so on. It was a good long test for the projector, which I haven’t yet tried out for a presentation or event.

As for the movie…we liked it enough that I don’t feel that I wasted my $3.99 to rent it. Outlander is about what you’d get if you ran Beowulf (the movie), Alien and Dragonslayer through a blender. Set in the 8th century, it has some cringe-worthy anachronisms, but it also has a good cast, strong character focus, and John Hurt who I will forgive for anything, even taking his clothes off in Scandal. It also has the most gut-wrenching solution to the perennial time-travel problem of, “but how can he understand the language?” that I’ve ever seen in a film! But it wasn’t a bad ending to the day. 🙂

That’s follow-up, new stuff in another post!