Crapp Store

I am on my second iPhone and I love it.  While AT&T’s service is rather hit-or-miss, the phone itself is the best cell phone I’ve ever owned.  Hell, it’s probably the best phone I’ve ever owned, period.  Although, to be fair about AT&T, they are getting better; being only terrible in my house and just shoddy in the town I live in.  Fortunately, I rarely use the phone when I’m not working, so when I leave town, the service is finally pretty good.  But should the iPhone lose AT&T exclusivity, I’d probably make a jump.

About two years ago, when Apple introduced the original iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0, they included something new: apps.  For those of you who don’t know what an “app” is, (HELLO PEOPLE OF PLANET NEPTUNE!!) an “app” is short for “application” and it is basically a small program which you can use to take advantage of the phone’s other computing capabilities.  When Apple introduced apps, they also introduced a gateway to them through their iTunes software called the App Store.  Over the past two years, Apple and their app store have been wildly successful, selling approximately two billion apps and hosting over one hundred twenty five thousand different apps.  Many are free, but many more are for sale.  Whenever Apple introduces a new product or updates to their existing hardware lineup, they boast about the success and number of applications on the app store, and how it is a virtual goldmine for some of the programmers who have built apps. And Apple isn’t kidding, either.  Open up your iTunes software and go to the app store.  Get past the main page and take a look at how many apps you have to choose from.  Rather impressive, isn’t it?  People wouldn’t keep writing them if they weren’t making money off of it.

Here’s the thing: most of them are crap.  I don’t mean crappy, I mean crap.  They’re shit.  Poopie.  Ka-Ka.  Useless.  Idiotic.  In plain English, “A-WASTE-OF-MONEY.”

Now I admit that I’m actually not in the majority.  My iPhone is a business tool, not a personal cell phone.  When I’m not working, the phone mostly sits and charges.  The only time I really use it when I’m not working is to take work phone calls.  Most people buy the iPhone as a personal cell phone (between the phone and the service, it is a very expensive personal cell phone.  I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need something like it for business reasons).  And the apps tend to lean more towards the personal use side of iPhoning (a new word?) instead of business use.

I have 42 apps on my iPhone right now.  Many of them are news readers, one is a business card transcriber.  A couple of coupon aggregators (which I do use occasionally for personal use), prescription drug finders which I use in my work, Skype, a price checker, and an ereader.  Most every app I have on there is free.  I’ve purchased three apps only, with the most expensive app being a $15.99 business card scanner.  But everything else was free.  I’ve pulled off over a dozen other applications because they were all crap.  Either poorly written or totally useless, including an app to write or monitor this very blog.  And there’s even more apps than that which I’ve browsed but never grabbed because I either thought it was crap, or I thought it should be free and passed on it.  There was a joke last year, when Apple said they had over 80,000 apps, the response to that was usually, “and how many of them make farting noises.”  That’s the kind of app that gets sprinkled around the few gems of the store.

But Apple, for all its hype, at least innovates.  If they aren’t the first to market with something, they’re the first to market with something usable by the average person.  And the app store is no different.  Now that Apple has shown other large companies how to create and sell apps, everyone wants to have an app store of their own.  I’m going to write a post one day about the lack of innovation and how so many companies want to be a “killer” of some competitor’s product and they are doomed to fail.  Anyway, have you noticed how there are app stores popping up all over the place now?  Palm has an app store for the Pre.  Android cell phones have an app store.  For god’s sake, I had to buy a new printer a couple of months ago (don’t get me started on that one) and HP was advertising there’s now an app store for printers!  Yes, you read that right: you can now get apps for your printer.  Hey HP, I’ve got an app for you: make your printers print stuff.  How’s that?  Think I can sell it on your app store for $9.99?

I think I saw a refrigerator advertising it is net enabled and now has the ability to download apps.  This deserves no comment from me.

Netbooks are also coming out with an app store.  A netbook is basically a very small, underpowered laptop which is usually very inexpensive.  But it is a freaking computer!  And they’re going to add an app store for your computer.  They already have an app store: it is called the internet!  Go to download.com, Google in what you want and you’ll find it.  What the hell is an app store for your computer all about?

And finally, even my beloved Kindle is getting into the loser’s game of Apple-see, Monkey-do.  Last week, Amazon announced they’re putting out a software developers kit so people can create their own apps for the Kindle.  Why?  Yes, Apple came out with a tablet this week that reads books.  Big deal, it won’t be as good an experience as it is on the Kindle.  Yeah, tech people are saying how great it will be.  But just as Amazon has a second rate music download store to compete with Apple’s iTunes, Apple will have a second rate ebook store to compete with Amazon’s Kindle store.  The LCD on the new iPad won’t compare with eink.  You think you want a color screen for reading books?  Why?  How many paper books do you read right now that has color in it?  I’ve got hundreds in my house and very few have color (although I think the iPad might be the thing we’ve been looking for to read comic books and graphic novels).  What the hell are people going to try and get their Kindles to do?  I want my Kindle to do one thing: display a book I can read without turning my eyes bloodshot.  And do it in such a way that my battery doesn’t need charging by the end of the day.  They don’t need an app for their device!

I’ll bet you within a year, people will be laughing at the amount of crap and uselessness in all these app stores, including Apple’s.  There’s just too much junk there.

The reason Apple is where it is today is because they innovate.  The reason Amazon excels at a few things and is quite mediocre at others is they innovated at what they’re good at.  A consumer can smell quality vs. a quick grab for money a mile away.  It is time companies stop trying to rip off other people’s ideas and start trying to either come up with their own or improve on existing ideas and make them truly better.  When history looks back on this period, I think they’ll be laughing at us for our “app store craze.”  And they’ll be right.  One company got it right (albeit there’s a lot of junk surrounding the true genius in there), everyone else is just freaking embarrassing.

The Work-Home Balance

I recently finished the book Inspire! What Great Leaders Do by Lance Secretan.  I received a copy of this book from him when I met him in Orlando, FL a few months ago.  The book itself is an extremely good read, however it is the first book I have read in over ten years where I actually think I am too young to read it.  I think the concepts put forth in the book are above my head, something which I do not feel very often anymore.  What truly frightens me, is that I might never be old enough to understand the book.  It is frightening, because I feel what the book says is important and should be read by everyone who is in any kind of leadership position.

I’m not going to do a book review on Inspire! because I don’t understand enough of it.  However, that book and a movie I just saw, Office Space, got me thinking about something that seems to be changing in the workplace.  The relationship between what is work and what is personal time.  Where does work end?  Where does your home life end?  These questions have changed over the past ten years as computers and telecommuting have become more commonplace.

The history of working for a large corporation used to be simple: work your 40 hours, go home, wash, rinse, repeat.  In the 1980’s, as the “global economy” became more commonplace and competition became fiercer, people started bringing their work home with them, and the reason for that was because they not only had more work, but these people’s managers demanded the work get accomplished faster.  So work began invading the home life.  However, companies didn’t change as the families did.  When you were at work, you could bring some of your family life there.  So as a result, people’s personal lives fell into disarray while their work life got better.

Thanks to the computer, things are changing.  Families are becoming more connected during work hours and companies are starting to change their response to it.  Stories life this one are becoming a thing of the past.  Companies are starting to let workers have some family time during their work hours if they are asking their workers to have some work time during family hours.

Again, I have no point here, this is just what’s been on my mind because of reading that book by Lance Secretan.  The basic premise, as I understand it, is to define an inspirational leader.  There were some quotes in the book that got me thinking about the short-sightedness of people I have known and the demands they’ve made of people.  The “sacrifices for the job” they’ve asked, yet never giving an inch if you cared about personal development.  The book got me thinking about all the “leaders” I’ve been around in the past, and how they’ve sacrificed long term gains for short term successes, and how many of them no longer hold the positions they once did.  They are either in another job, or worse, in the same job, but the company which they work for never became anything more than a second-tier organization rather than the great one they aspired to be.  These “leaders” saw no further than the current task, they had no power beyond that which was given to them, and they had no loyalty from those around them.  These are the lessons which I hope to learn from and these people are my role models with which I will try to not live my life.

Interpretations on the American Dream

In my job, I see people as they are getting ready to retire or have recently retired.  I am fascinated by some of the comments I get about how our seniors interpret getting ahead in the United States:

• “I’ve been good to this country all these years, they are now good to me.”
• “Social Security is great!  Medicare is a bargain.”
• “I don’t get it.  I work my whole life and pay my taxes and now I am retired and have to pay some more.”
• “Medicare is useless.”
• “What the government gives you with one hand, they take from the other.”
• “It’s great when they give us stuff like social security benefits, it just adds to my retirement program.”

Notice there are positive and negative comments about the American government?  That’s what I see all the time.  And you can tell after just a few minutes with these people exactly which way they are going to respond.  People with a nice house and a nice retirement think America has been good to them.  People with crappy, smelly houses that are living just on social security think America sucks.  Why is that?  I believe a lot of people are misinterpreting the “American Dream.”

The way the American Dream was originally taught to me was, “work hard, get a good job, and you will prosper.”  As I got older and started reading up more on U.S. history, not the crap you are required to read in public school, but the actual scholarly works and first person accounts of American history that is shamefully ignored by history teachers.  I think I figured out what the American Dream truly is.  “Every American, no matter how they were born, no matter what background they come from, no matter who their family is, has the same opportunity as anyone else to succeed and prosper in life.”

OK, conspiracy theorists, I’ll pause for a moment while you think to yourself the usual excuse for how only the “old boy network” or only the “people who came in on the Mayflower” can succeed and how these forces are keeping you down.

[pause]

Get that all out of your system?  Good.

How do I know a lot of you were thinking that?  Because that is how I was brought up to believe as well.  But as I grew up and moved away from home and started experiencing life for myself, I started seeing things a little differently.  Basically, life is hard, success is hard.  Deal with it.  If you are looking over your shoulder every time you make a move to see if somebody is going to slap you down, then yeah, someone is going to slap you down.  But if you are trying to succeed, take a few risks here and there, you’d be amazed what you can accomplish.  That’s what I am finding out now.  Starting a business from scratch with a partner, I find that we are filling a market demand that others are not and two years later we are starting to see the first small light of success.  Does that mean there isn’t competition?  Hell, no.  This is insurance.  I turn my back and there’s competition left and right.  But my partner and I have hit upon a formula for the specific market we are working in and it is working well thus far.

To me, that is the American Dream.  So where does the American Dream fall down for so many people?  Let’s see.  Part of the dream is to work hard.  Americans work hard.  Hell, if I am not mistaken, we are the hardest working, lowest paid culture on the planet.  So we all work hard.  I recognize most people get paid a specific amount of money each month.  I don’t.  I’m a business owner who makes money off the sales his business makes.  You know what I’ve found?  I’m at a disadvantage.  So why am I more optimistic than people who have had thirty plus years of salaries coming to them?  Because I also see where people have been spending their money.  You get a salary?  Great!  You also have a new car and get a new one every two or three years.  You take wild and exotic vacations.  You paid off your house early, exchanging a tax deduction on interest paid and money that could be making money in an investment account so the bank wouldn’t own your mortgage any more.  You remodel your house every five years.  You have no investments outside of your 401(k).

Starting to see what I’m seeing?  You made some decent money in your working lifetime.  Probably over one million dollars accumulated over thirty years.  But what have you done with it?  It isn’t government that has kept you down, it isn’t some sort of conspiracy, it is your own habits.  The people that I’ve seen that are more than happy with being in America learned this early on.  And I have seen people make six figure annual salaries that are miserable.  Because if you make $100,000 annually, to be miserable all you have to do is spend $100,001 annually.  Social Security is not meant to be your sole source of support.  So you had better have some other means of saving.  “Entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare?”  They are not American traditions.  Those are socialist programs.  We are a capitalist society.  That means you keep what you make.  That’s all.  We varied it slightly to add Social Security and Medicare, but it isn’t true to our American roots.

In other countries, the family you are born into dictates the job you will have in your lifetime.  Some babies are born in a prison cell and will be there their whole life because of crimes committed by their parents.  Women are not allowed to work outside of the home in MANY countries around the world.  Skin color still precludes you from advancing in other places.  None of that crap matters in America.  You have the same chance as everyone else has here.  And that, is the American Dream.

What got me thinking about this post is an article I was forwarded from the weekly newsletter of the Napoleon Hill Foundation.  I’ve mentioned before that I love reading and following the works of Napoleon Hill.  His teachings really did start me on important changes in my life.  I strongly urge you to get some of the Books by Napoleon Hill, and visit his foundation’s website.  While you are there, subscribe to their weekly newsletter.  What follows is an article Napoleon Hill wrote for his magazine when he was editor back in 1956.

Stop Making Failures of Your Children
by Napoleon Hill

Do you realize that your child’s success or failure depends on you? The schooling and the religious training your children receive will play an important part in their lives, of course, but the influence they will pick up from living close to you can be and should be one that puts them on the success beam.

There are three important principles you can teach your children which will go a long way toward bringing them success and happiness throughout their lives. The first of these is Definiteness of Purpose. This habit should start when the child is very young so that it will become a fixed part of his character.

Not too long ago I was visiting friends whose little boy was playing with tinker toys. He was trying to build a helter-skelter design that soon crumbled to the floor. He began to cry when his understanding mother came to his rescue and asked him what he wanted to build.

“I dunno,” he sobbed, “just something that will stand up.”

“Before you start building,” his mother counseled, “you must know what you want, and you must have a plan to go by. Now, let’s see what you’d like to make.”

After the mother had mentioned several things that could be made from the tinker toys, the youngster decided upon a small house and set to work with great enthusiasm to build it.

“This will take more time and work,” cautioned the boy’s father. “but when you are finished it will stand up, and you will be very proud of what you have done.”

As I was getting ready to leave, the boy jubilantly grabbed me by the hand and asked me to come and look at his house “that wouldn’t fall down.”

“This is so much better than putting something together every which way,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

On my way out to my car, the boy’s father accompanied me. He was an executive in a large national chain store organization, who began as a stock clerk in one of the smaller stores, less than ten years previously. He advanced himself to a vice-presidency by following the habit of definiteness of purpose. “You understand now,” he exclaimed with pride, “why we are leaving no stone unturned in seeing that our boy grows up with a full appreciation of the value of knowing what he wants.”

All though your child’s “when I grow up” years of wanting to be a railroad engineer, a space cadet, or a movie star, inspire in him the faith that he can be a success in whatever he chooses, but tactfully influence him to make a definite decision to work toward some specific definite major purpose in life.

The second success principle you should teach your children is the Habit of Going the Extra Mile — the rendering of useful service beyond the scope of duty. This is a “must” habit without which no one has ever been known to rise to great heights of success in any undertaking. In addition to creating favorable opportunities financially for those who follow this principle, it adds great strength to character and gives on the ability to make friends easily.

Joe and Pete were next-door neighbor sons of unskilled laborers. Neither of their parents was well schooled, but Joe’s folks were wise enough to recognize the value of the habit of Going the Extra Mile, and they taught this to him from early childhood.

Pete’s parents, on the other hand, impressed on him the idea of taking everything he could get without lifting a finger, and he lost no time in making this idea his own.

While his son was growing up, Joe’s father was able to promote himself to a position as foreman, then department manager at his plant by following the habit of rendering more service and better service than he was actually paid for. He instilled this habit in his son.

Throughout grade school and high school Joe was a giving person — sharing generously his time in extra-curricular activities and his possessions. He was constantly going out of his way to make himself liked by both his teachers and his schoolmates. Moreover, his habit of thus Going the Extra Mile gave him great pleasure for he did it in a most pleasing mental attitude.

Meanwhile Pete did as little work as he possibly could to get by. Results, poor grades in school, difficulties with the teachers and his schoolmates, and no participation in athletics because, as he remarked, “There’s no pay in it.” Where did he learn this attitude? From his father who constantly griped about “slave drivers” down at the plant, in the school system, and about everywhere else.

Joe got a scholarship which paid his way through a fine college because of the excellent record he made in high school, and he went on to win high honors in college by continuing to follow the habit of Going the Extra Mile. He never asked, “What do I get out of this?” but, “What can I contribute to help someone out?”

Pete scornfully referred to Joe as “that eager beaver who tries to kill himself doing something for somebody.” But the “eager beaver” did all right for himself. As the result of his college record, he wound up with the offer of a job with a wonderful company right after graduation. He still has the habit of Going the Extra Mile. It has brought him two promotions with increased pay over a number of other young men who began work with the same company when he started. The other young men had as much education was Joe, and they had as much intelligence.

What about Pete? He got a menial job right after he left high school. He moans constantly about Joe’s getting all the breaks. To this day he doesn’t see that Joe promoted himself into the better things of life by GIVING before trying to GET and thereby starting the great law of increasing returns to move in his favor. And Pete’s parents haven’t the slightest ideas that they failed in preparing him for success in life.

The third success principle you should teach your child is the habit of a positive mental attitude. The habit of thinking in terms of things he can do and not in terms of things he cannot do. Henry Ford once said that what he needed most in his business organization were more men who didn’t know anything about the words “it cannot be done.”

Two teen-age girl friends decided to try out for the freshman class play together.

When Nancy told her parents about it, they were very enthusiastic and encouraged her to go right ahead with it.

However, when Joanne told her folks, all she got was negative comments – “Why do you want to waste your time with that? Besides, your voice is too squeaky. And you’ll spend too much time and catch cold in that chilly auditorium. You’ll never learn all those lines, they you’ll make a mistake and be embarrassed forever.”

The poor girl had failed even before she started. Failed because her own parents had sold her a negative “no-can-do” mental attitude.

Nancy tried out for the play. She didn’t get a part, but her positive-minded parents immediately helped her find the seed of an equivalent benefit in her temporary defeat. “Why, this will allow you to spend more time on your sewing for your 4H contest,” soothed her mother. Nancy went on to win second place in the 4H contest, and she grew up to be a poised, serene wife and mother who now has two beautiful children of her own to whom she is teaching the habit of a positive mental attitude.

Joanne didn’t get a part in the play either – but she didn’t even try. Once she did take courage enough to overcome her parents’ wails of doom and try out for the swimming team. When she didn’t make the team all she got from her parents was “I told you so.” Joanne today is a self-centered, withdrawn woman who spends her time and money trying all sorts of medicines to relieve her “aches and pains.” Her negative mental attitude has made of her a confirmed hypochondriac.

If parents think and talk in terms of sickness and poverty and failure, they will pass these states of mind on to their children who, in turn will use them as stumbling blocks to failure throughout life. Think, act and speak in terms of health, affluence, achievement — and give your children steppingstones to success.

Source: Success Unlimited. November 1956, Vol. III, No. XI. Pgs. 36-40.

Defending the Individual

Hi everybody!  It’s the new year.  And I’m back.  The crazy part of my job is over and now I’m back to a normal schedule.

I’ve spent a number of blog posts defending corporations, and rightly so.  I think large corporations aren’t given a fair shake.  Many of them try to do the right thing, but some of these companies are so large that they make themselves an easy, and in some cases, irresistible target.  A lot of times a company does wrong, it is simply a misstep, or as can often be, a misunderstanding between the consumer and the company.  A lot of this has to do with the consumer not doing their due diligence before engaging in a purchase of a product.  As an example: the insurance industry takes a lot of flak due to the ignorance of the consumer.

However, I don’t want people to think I’m only siding with the corporations.  I’d like to dedicate this blog post to the consumer, and point out some things that corporations get wrong.  The idea for this post came to me while I was reading one of the autobiographies of Henry Ford: Today and Tomorrow.  A lot of what made Ford and the auto industry great, at least during its initial years, was its ability to pay high wages and reduce prices for the consumer.  Ford emphasized repeatedly in his book that when times were getting tough and the industry was about to experience a downturn, they would raise the minimum wage of their workers and cut the prices of their vehicles.  This led to better workmanship on the product and more products being sold.  A magic formula for success in any industry even today.  However, many companies have gotten out of this habit.  Today, when business is going bad, a lot of companies either cut wages or cut jobs, causing a decline in the quality of a company’s goods and services.  Or worse yet, the company starts outsourcing its manufacturing.  Ford took this mentality a step beyond the normal thinking.  He hypothesized that his workers were his first, best customers.  And that an unemployed worker is not a customer.  And an underpaid worker is an unemployed customer, because they cannot afford to purchase goods and services.  A well-paid worker is a customer for everybody.  When workers have money, they buy, that money goes back into the corporations, and the companies can profit and pay more workers higher wages.  Ford wrote this in 1926 and I dare anyone to tell me this doesn’t hold true today.  A lot of the ill will we feel towards corporations today has to do with corporations creating too many non-customers or unemployed customers.  Where did this fall down: spend a few minutes and go to this site.  It’s a site of nothing but mission statements.  Take a look at the company mission statements.  You’ll find a number of manufacturing companies whose sole business, according to their mission statement, is to maximize shareholder value and increase the price of their company’s shares.  No mention of the consumer, no mention of the worker, no mention of the company culture.  These are corporations that are just asking, begging, to go out of business.  And I think that is where companies started going wrong.  When the emphasis started getting placed on Wall Street and the shareholders rather than the consumer and the worker, then big business started to lose the trust of the masses.  Not to say that’s the way it is with every company.  In fact, if you look at a lot of those mission statements, you’ll see a number of them place the customer in the center of their culture.  Those of the companies that are built to last and will survive virtually any economic downturn.  And I believe that the shareholders would be satisfied with that approach in the long run as well.  Shareholders know the driving force of a stock price is the quality of the business, and if companies would remember that’s where the money comes from, then everybody would win.

Another way big business fails us is in customer service.  This is kind of a personal issue for me, because I own a business that is built, primarily on the quality of the service I provide.  We all know the much-deserved cliché of a company outsourcing its customer service call center to India, where you speak with someone named “Tyrone,” but whose real name is “Tyronikeshasomaduvarickawickistan.”  Unfortunately, that particular joke came about because it is true, and while it might mean a company is saving some money by not paying American workers to handle American complaints, these companies are losing American business if word gets around their customer service reps are impossible to understand.  Another issue, and this is much more of an issue with older individuals, is when you try to call up a company and you get an automated telephone response system.  This makes the calls impersonal and gives the customer the impression that the company does not care about the customer.  Should anyone get into a situation where you must call one of these automated response lines, there is a fantastic site called gethuman.com which will instruct you how to bypass the machine and get straight to a person.  Bookmark that site and keep it handy for when that happens.

Remember that as consumers in the United States, we are the most powerful entities in existence, as far as companies are concerned.  Not the government, us.  In many cases, companies WILL change without government interference, but we as consumers must tell them how we feel with our wallets.  Government interference isn’t always necessary, although there are exceptions.  Writing letters, complaining to the person that answers the phone, that might help a little, but if you want to really get results, change brands.  I do a LOT of my shopping on the internet now.  Sometimes the prices are lower, sometimes they aren’t.  Why do I shop so much online?  Because I get horrible service from many of the shops in my home town.  I’ve been lied to, overcharged, ignored, and even pandered to by employees of companies locally.  And there was even one shop where they outright said they didn’t want to work on something of mine!  Imagine that: a business that doesn’t want my business!  I travel 50 miles sometimes just to do shopping because I know I can get what I need and get it backed with good service.  I get my car repaired at the dealer and pay for it.  Why?  I know the service is good.  I buy clothes at the Men’s Wearhouse because if there’s something I need, I know the people there will go out of their way to find it.  If they don’t have it, they’ll go the extra mile and order it for me.  I’ll have it in a week.  I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon because I know the price is fair and I can return it if it’s broken within a reasonable timeframe.  This is how I vote.  I need things, like everybody else.  And this is how I thank a company for providing me with the service I demand.  For me, just being local and conveniently located is not enough.  That’s why I don’t have too many customer service problems.

If you are looking to find out which companies actually care about customer service, I suggest checking out a site called getsatisfaction.com.  It is a bunch of companies that have actual customer service representatives that monitor the site.  If you were not able to get a customer service problem handled, post to that site and a company rep will contact you about the problem.  You can tell which companies are trying to improve their customer service experience by seeing which of them have their own area on that site.  Certainly not every company is there, but the ones that are make it known that they are available to their customers.  Another venue that wound up being surprising for me, was Twitter.  My internet kept on going out, so I tweeted about it and mentioned the company’s name.  In about six hours, my ISP provider called me and said a tech would be out the next day to look into the problem.  Considering I’d made three calls to tech support about it and wasn’t able to get anyone to do anything, my public tweet solved the problem.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s service!  The companies that don’t care, will get a reputation for not caring, and we, as consumers, will stop buying their wares.  Then, and only then, will things change and the service we demand will return.

ICBD On Hiatus till 2010

It’s that time of year again.  The time where work takes all my time and I cannot post.  Tune back in after the beginning of January for more posts from yours truly.

In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving, and have a good holiday — denomination of your choice.

Top 4 Video Game Beginnings

It’s that time of year again where work is taking much of my free time.  As a result, during day hours, I am working all the time.  At night, I’m playing video games (what else are evenings for, right?).  And I’m almost done playing through Metal Gear 1 through Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.  And it occurs to me that the things I appreciate the most in video games is the story.  There is nothing more important than the beginning to the story.  The beginning introduces you to the world, the characters, and sets up a plot.  So many games take the beginning for granted solely to drop you right into the action.  But the most memorable games I’ve played hang back on the action for a bit to set up the story a little better.  So here, without further ado, is my favorite four beginnings to video games.

#4: Out of This World: Remember when I said “memorable?”  Well, this is the opening to a story from a video game from 1992 and on my beloved Apple IIGS!  Yes, I still remember it.  In fact, I seem to recall I wanted to get this game because of the opening cut scene.  I remember thinking it is the most amazing opening to a video game I’ve ever seen.  My, how things have improved since then.

#3: Starlancer:   I saw this game for the first time as it was playing on the TV of a Game Crazy.  I remember thinking “wow!  What a great movie.  This would make a great video game!”  While the graphics look somewhat dated today, I still think it would make a great video game.  Little did I know when I was first watching it that the Starlancer game was created by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts. The reason I liked it, is he totally ripped himself off in this game.  When I saw this, it was 4 years after the game came out.  I found a copy of the game used on PC and found it again on the Dreamcast (also long gone by the time I saw it the opening).  I’m a little late to the party, but look at all the money I saved because of it!  Still would make a great movie, don’t you think?

#2: Halo 2:  I’m one of those rare specimens that likes playing Halo for the single player campaign.  I don’t really care for multiplayer.  Halo has a very good story.  While Halo 3 has a much better playable portion of the game, I happen to think the story in Halo 2 is much better.  I recently replayed Halo 3, and there’s a lot of gaps in logic there.  I had trouble following it.  The game was so good, I didn’t care.  But this is about story.  Here’s the opening to Halo 2.

#1: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: As I said, I’m replaying the entire series as well as playing MGS4 for the first time.  I haven’t decided if I like #4 more than #3.  But I’m sure I like the overall experience of #3 better to this point.  There are definite advantages to #4 that #3 didn’t have, but #3: Snake Eater presented to me the best overall package that I enjoy playing and replaying over and over again.  The opening of the game (see below) is one of the best openings ever, the game play is terrific, the ending chase sequence — they could make an entire game out of it!  And the ending is so emotional it brings a tear to my eyes every time.  Best story game ever!

The Wisdom of Solid Snake

As I stated in my last post, I was in the middle of playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty last week.  I’m now about done with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.  I’m working my way up to finally playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots for the first time.  I wanted to play them all starting with the original MSX Metal Gear and work my way through the series because I think it is such a great overall story.

As I finished MGS2 last week, I realized that the final soliloquy from Snake sums up very well for me my own feelings about children.  I am 33, married, and have no kids.  There is no biological reason for this.  My wife and I simply choose not to have any.  There are many things in my life I feel I have to live for, and while I do not begrudge anyone who lives solely for their children, I have believed for a very long time that I have other things to live for.

So in the future, should someone ask me why I do not have children, I am going to direct them to this blog post, which sums up my feelings and puts said feelings into words exactly how I wish I could express them.  You can see the speech delivered quite masterfully by Snake voice actor David Hayter.  Or if the link ever gets taken down, I will also include the text of the speech below the video.

Transcription:

Life isn’t just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies… what we’ve seen, heard, felt …anger, joy and sorrow… these are the things I will pass on. That’s what I live for.

We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with. The human race will probably come to an end some time, and new species may rule over this planet. Earth may not be forever, but we still have the responsibility to leave what traces of life we can. Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing.

They’re Comin’ to Get You, Man!

As I get older, I tend to think less positively about things like conspiracy theories, or the “good ‘ol boy network.”  I heard a lot about that sort of thing growing up and even believed it while I was in my teenage years through my twenties.  Some of the more popular conspiracies I heard about included:

• The government is listening in on our conversations and blacklisting people they think might threaten them.
• The government wants the rich to stay rich and the poor to stay poor.
• I can’t work for these people because I don’t have the right family background.
• They fired me because I am [insert reason of race/religion/color/gender here].
• All these corporations are in it for nothing except to give their CEO more money.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the idea from these examples.  This past week I just heard a bunch of fresh ones; this has been on my mind recently.  Additionally, I’m in the middle of replaying Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which is a massive, 12 hour long conspiracy theory.

Let’s look at some of these questions.  As an entity, do you believe your government is organized enough to keep a lid on mass kidnappings and poisonings of its population?  And secret police?  Really?  Aren’t you the same people who complain the government can’t even deliver your mail competently?  Do you really think they are organized enough to commit mass crime against their own population?  C’mon, that makes a great movie, or a great novel, but in reality?  Is the Man really that good at his job?

What about the large, greedy corporation?  The insurance companies, the drug manufacturers, the food corporations?  These are just a few examples that show up in the news, but virtually every large corporation is villainized over something.  Wal-Mart keeps their employees poor.  Pfizer severely overcharges for its prescriptions.  Every health insurance company is uncaring.  Yeah, sure.  The Man still keeping you down.

How’s about forty years of racial tension?  And I know that I’m skiing on a slippery slope here because of how deep these feelings go.  But do you think, in the year 2009, a person is fired because of skin color, ethnicity, or religion?  Are employers that stupid?  Are managers that dumb?  Are the “good ‘ol boys” really still there after the Equal Rights Movement?  After thirty years of protesting and racial violence?  To be fair, this is one area that still has a ways to go.  But I turn on the news today, and CNN’s reporting of inequality looks identical to Walter Cronkite’s reporting of it back in the 1970’s.  In thirty years, the same problems exist?  The Man still keeping you from getting ahead?

I have a problem with this.  I have a *BIG* problem with this.  I’m a little offended by all this talk, and as time passes, I find the voices are getting louder and the voice of reason is getting meeker.  I guess the reason this kind of attitude is distressing me so is because, at age thirty-three, I find myself *AS* the Man.

Yup, that’s right.  I’m to blame.  Why?  I’m a business owner.  Strike one.  I independently contract with insurance companies to get their wares into the public’s hands.  Strike two.  I am not only a local board member of the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, but I’m also the local chair of the organization’s national political action committee, as well as a contributor.  Strike three, I’m out.  I guess I’m your enemy.

Hi there, how are you?  Would you like to sit down?  Can I get you a soda?

So as your enemy, I guess I get to defend myself on this blog ‘o mine.  Feel free to comment accordingly.

Let’s talk about government a moment.  The American government gets more international play than any other government in the world; seconded by Great Britain (which, by the way, is a shame they come in second.  I find their Parliamentary debates to be a lot more interesting.  At least more action-packed.  And you get to see your elected official fight for your rights in a literal sense).  I think what we forget about the U.S. Government, or any Republic or Democratic government, is that the people that run it are placed into power by the majority.  That means that if a politician pisses off enough people then they lose their job come next election.  Let’s talk about that national political action committee that I’m the local chair of.  The reason I volunteered for this job is because I want to understand the inner workings of government a little better and how a group’s point of view is heard and taken into consideration when creating state and federal law.  Our committee is certainly not the largest in the nation (that would be AARP’s), but it is certainly one of the better-funded PAC’s in the U.S.  You know what I’ve learned so far?  You do not buy a politician.  You do not buy votes.  You do not buy into a law.  As far as I can see, and I’ve gotten somewhat involved in this process recently with health care legislation being up close and personal to me, the only thing the PAC’s money is buying is the time of the lawmakers.  All our money is getting us is the ability for our voice to be heard by the right people.  Our point of view is getting expressed in the right manner to the right people.  That’s all this well-funded PAC is getting me.  Why do I bring this up?  Because this particular PAC came under fire, incorrectly, I might add, by an MSNBC commentator who singled out our PAC as being in the pocket of the insurance industry and buying off politicians to kill health care reform (which, by the way, is not our PAC.  Our PAC represents the agents that are independent and has nothing to do with insurance companies.  They have their own groups).  I think we sometimes forget what government is.  It is people! 100% people.  That’s people-comma-Soylent Green is.  If we think of government as one large conglomerate of an operation, we tend to forget what it is.  And yes, a person can most definitely be evil.  And if you get a group of evil people together than you really have nothing more than a small group of evil people.  Do you really think 100% of your government representatives are trying to get you?  Actually, most people tend to find everyone in Congress except their own representatives are corrupt.  That’s not right either, folks.  I believe there’s a paradox in there somewhere.  A human being gets into a position where they feel they can make a difference, make a positive change.  I believe many of them spend their whole lives trying to do that; excepting for the one or two that truly do have evil issues.  But I believe they get found out over time anyway.  A politician doesn’t go into government to screw you over.  They go there because they believe they can bring about a positive change.  And yes, that means they get to hear the sides to an argument.  And if you believe your voice isn’t being heard, you need to speak louder.  If you believe the politicians are only in it for themselves, then you don’t have a lot of faith in your neighbor, your clergy, your family, your schoolteacher: all of whom got together as a large group one November day and voted that person in.

And what about the private company?  I seem to be a corporate apologist on this blog lately.  Part of that probably is because I own a company.  What I’ve been seeing as a general attitude by people towards corporations is that people feel the companies are not in business for anything except to make money for themselves and their shareholders at the expense of their customers.  Okay, if that’s how you feel, let’s talk about that.  First off, a company’s sole purpose in existing is to create jobs and bring business to the community it resides in while making money so those who work for it can get paid.  I admit some companies have been a little unethical in recent times regarding how they treat employees, but not every company has.  Are companies really out to screw everyone?  Tobacco companies are Public Enemy #1 right now, but have they put their products in your hands?  Yes, OK, back before the 1960’s they did lie about what they knew their products were doing.  But that was forty frigging years ago!  In 2009, there is no way you are getting their product unknowingly.  So if you smoke it and complain later … you are an idiot.  A moron.  A bombastic simpleton.  Since people still smoke, that means there is still a market for their product.  Therefore, jobs are created, wealth is created, communities flourish, and taxes are paid.  There are good things provided by companies, you know.  Hell, does anyone think McDonald’s serves food of any nutritional value?  Depending on where you live when you read this, you might be more or less aware, but I live only 200 miles from where CBS recently reported is the most unhealthy city in America.  And yes, it is reflected here.  I lost almost 100 pounds a year ago, I’m going to probably lose another 40 before I’m done, and even now, I’m a small person compared to almost everybody else around me.  They take their fast food seriously here, and there’s no outrage yet.  But mark my words, in less than 20 years time, fast food is going to be seen as the new tobacco company.  My question is, “why?”  Idiots come in and feed their children with this crap when there’s a perfectly serviceable supermarket the same distance away.  Why go to McDonalds for a burger when you could go to the market for a fruit cup?  Not cool enough for you?  Why is that McDonalds responsibility?  They hire people who might not normally get a good job.  They pay taxes, they serve a purpose.  Are they really evil because you walked in of your own accord to buy their “food”?  I don’t blame McDonalds.  A market exists and they are filling the need.  Nothing wrong with that.

And finally, let’s talk about the old boy network conspiracy.  What the hell is that supposed to be?  You think because you are a different religion, color, or background that I wouldn’t hire you?  Hell no.  If the job requires writing skills, you better know how to write well.  If the job requires good communication skills, you better know how to communicate clearly.  If the job I have requires you need some semblance of intelligence, then you’d better show me you have basic intelligence skills.  And if my job requires a motivated person who will start up their own projects themselves rather than wait for me to assign them tasks, then they’d better show me proof of them being self-starters.  If I know Ralph is looking for a job and I know a little about Ralph and what he can do, then yes, he’ll be the one I hire.  But if I don’t know anyone and I’m looking for someone, then I’m going to look at everyone that applies based on the skill set they put on paper and the eloquence they demonstrate in the interview.  But I’m not going to hire a white guy if he can’t talk well when the job requires speaking to the public, and I’m not going to hire a person of a minority religion if they can’t be available on a certain day when the job requires them to be available on that day.  It is not the right match.  And you know something?  My little company will act the same on this as the largest 1,000 companies in the U.S.  We don’t care about your background if it isn’t relevant to the job.  We care if you have the necessary skills to do the job.  That’s it.  So rather than complain it is it is a conspiracy that you didn’t get a job or lost your job, why don’t you look within yourself to see where you could improve for the future.  Maybe in your next position you’ll be a perfect match.

Remember, when you are reading a book or watching a movie, you need conspiracy to make the book or movie interesting.  Same with video games.  The problem is, we forget that these are fiction.  Real life is 99% boring, and that doesn’t make for interesting drama.  But it is true.  Cut the companies and the government a little slack.  They aren’t out to get you.  You have the same chance of failure and of success as the next guy.  Go after it.

Opinion: the new iPhone 3GS

The reason I title this as “opinion” and not “review” is that reviews are supposed to be journalistic, fair, balanced.  I don’t have enough information about other phones to balance this out.  My experience is between the original iPhone and the new one.

It was time for an upgrade.  I’ve had the original iPhone since about a week after its very first price drop and I’ve loved it.  The phone made calls well, was great for email, and was perfectly servicable for internet browsing.  As Apple kept on updating the software and apps came about, I found the device started working slower.  Although it still worked really well as a phone (please note that the compliments I am lavishing on the iPhone working as a phone are meant as a description of the Apple-branded hardware’s ability to make and receive calls well.  I am *NOT* complimenting AT&T on their service — we’ll get to them later).

As anyone who has had an iPhone knows by now, the apps are what make you keep your iPhone.  Being able to browse email and the internet is great and all, but the utility available through apps are what make you not change phones.

So my AppleCare warranty ended on September 7 for my original iPhone.  On September 10, I placed an order at the online Apple store for an upgrade to the iPhone 3GS.  By the way, if anyone is wondering if you should but the AppleCare warranty, here is my advice: 2 out of every 3 Apple products I’ve ever owned…..and I’ve owned Apple products for so long that my first Apple product was an Apple //e, have needed some type of repair work.  I’m pretty sure it isn’t shoddy workmanship on Apple’s part.  I simply use my tech more than the average consumer.  Given my history with devices breaking down, I usually figure the additional AppleCare warranty in as part of the original purchase price.  I also think Apple times when their warranties to run out perfectly.  When the warranty runs out, technology on whatever product it is advances to where I don’t want to use the old hardware anymore.  As a matter of fact, this computer I am typing on now just ran out of warranty two months ago and I’ve been giving serious consideration to upgrading the end of this year.

Anyway, the phone came about a week later (direct from China to my house, if the FedEx tracking information is to be believed).  I bought a 16GB white model; I figured every other phone I’ve ever owned was either silver or black, so a white iPhone will be a nice change.  I was originally going to get the 32GB phone and use it to replace my recently stolen iPod Touch, but when Apple announced the new iPod Nano, I was so impressed with it that I got a smaller phone and a Nano.

The front of the iPhone looks exactly the same as the original.  You cannot tell the difference.  The buttons went from plastic to silver (or metallic silver-painted plastic.  I am not sure which) and seem much more durable.  The back is slightly curved, so it feels a lot better to hold.  One of the few issues I had with the original iPhone was if I held it to my ear for a long, protracted conversation, my arm would cramp up.  That isn’t the case with the new back design.  The headphone jack is no longer recessed, so you don’t need an adapter to use standard headphones with the device (why did they do that with the original in the first place?), and the speakerphone is much louder and clearer than the original’s.  One of the weirdest sensations of the new iPhone is touching it.  Apple layered an oleophobic coating on it.  It gives a not-quite-liquid/not-quite solid feeling to the phone when you drag your finger around the surface.  What this is (and I’m going to refer to it from here on out in pronoun form because it takes me forever to spell “oleophobic” correctly) is a coating on the glass for fingerprints and face prints.  As anyone who has held any generation iPhone knows, it doesn’t take a lot for the iPhone to get smears and smudges on it.  Simple to clean: just rub it on your pant leg for a few seconds.  This coating doesn’t stop those smears, but when you wipe the phone on your pants or shirt, it comes off a lot cleaner and without a leftover oil film that never seems to completely go away on the original iPhone.  If you would like more information on this coating, I direct you to this page on Gizmodo where Bill Nye, The Science Guy does what he does best: ’splain things.

And the phone is fast.  How fast is it?  Everything takes little or no waiting.  The original has gotten to where there is a small delay for everything you do (and I assume the original 3G is the same way since it has the same brain as my original iPhone).  Turn the phone sideways, lag.  Type on the keyboard, lag.  Load an application, lag so long my beard grows.  Even when the phone interrupts something else I’m doing on the device to tell me a call is coming in, there’s a lag where nothing happens for a second.  All of this is corrected on the new 3GS and I welcome it.

Things that haven’t changed: really everything is the same except for the speed, the plastic back, the coating, and the camera.  I haven’t mentioned the camera because I haven’t really used it yet; but it shoots and edits videos now!  If you took a look at the front of the 2 phones, you couldn’t tell the difference.  That’s a good thing.  I very rarely comment on internet blogs because it is primarily a tool for 12 year olds with too much time on their hands, but I had to about a month ago when Apple answered the FCC’s question about why they rejected Google’s Voice app.  Apple claimed that when you installed the app, it rerouted your phone’s voicemail through Google’s system.  I said “thank you Apple.”  You wouldn’t believe how many people slammed me.  This is, first and foremost, my phone after all, and I appreciate Apple protecting my desire to keep it that way.  Get an iPod Touch if you want something else, but my iPhone will always be a great phone first and everything else second.  I like the fact that the interface, the design, and the experience with the iPhone hasn’t changed since day one.

Onto apps.  As I said earlier, apps (not copy and paste, which by the way, I still haven’t used) are what make you want to keep your phone.  They’ve turned my iPhone into something more.  And I’ve only bought a couple.  Most of this phone’s app functionality, I added for free.  There are a couple of apps that I use on a regular basis.  I’ll list a few of my favorite apps here along with the price, if any.

Skype [free]: While the app itself is free, I pay an annual fee to make outgoing calls with it.  I use Skype for free long distance calls both personally and professionally.  Most used app in my phone.

Facebook [free]: Yup, I’m on it.  Don’t use it on my phone too often, but glad it is there.

Tweetdeck [free]: My Twitter app.  Yes, I am on Twitter, but I don’t really use it.  I mostly use it as a way of following people I want to follow.  I don’t post much on it.

Regator [free]: While I have other news and event apps on my phone, this one is far and wide the best.  Regator, which is also available on your computer, is like a “best of…” featuring blogs on the internet.  One of the nest ways I’ve found to read any type of news.

Amazon.com [free]: There’s something zen about buying headlight bulbs on your phone on Amazon in the parking lot of a Pep Boys.  That’s all I’ll say there.

Snaptell [free]: A frakking awsome app.  You use the iPhone camera to take a picture of the cover of a book, the app uploads it and comes back with identifying information on what the book is and how much it costs at various e-tailers.  I’ve saved a lot of money with this app.

Kindle [free]: If you have an Amazon Kindle, you know what this does, if you don’t, then there’s no point in considering it.

Pzizz [$2.99]: I’ve been a fan of Pzizz for several years.  I go to sleep listening to it every night.  It is a soundtrack that you can customize for napping or sleeping.  You might think it is silly, but go to their website and try a free demo of it.  You will sleep better with their sleep module, and their nap module will leave you refreshed and energized when you wake up.  The iPhone app is the energizer module only (at this time) and it is just like the computer version.  My wife and I both use it and think it is great.

Postman [$.99]: Saw this on an Apple commercial and fell in love with it.  Use your camera to take a picture and then turn it into an e-postcard; share it over email or Facebook.

SkyVoyager [$14.99]: I got this when it was free, but now it has a charge to it.  Use the phone’s WI-FI location service or the GPS to find where you are and you can map the stars in the sky with it.  My wife gets more use out of this app than I do.

CardSnap [$15.99 or $.99 for the lite version]: The most I’ve ever paid for an app is $15.99 and it is well worth it.  I get a lot of business cards in my work.  LOTS of them.  Unlike Palms or Blackberries, there hasn’t really been a way to get them scanned into the iPhone until this app came out.  What you do is take a picture of the business card and then upload it to the Card Snap people.  They OCR it for you and drop it into your iPhone’s Contact List format and then send it back to you.  It takes anywhere from 2 to 12 hours, but when it comes back, I have that card’s info placed right in my phone.  It isn’t 100% accurate, so check it over, but I’d say it is 90% accurate,  Certainly good enough for me to trust.  One thing: it only works on the new iPhone 3GS.  Gotta have the better camera.

That’s a sample of why I’m still an iPhone user.  Now, a word about the only bad thing about the phone: HI, AT&T!  HOW ARE YOU?  CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Jumping from the original iPhone plan to the iPhone 3GS plan meant a $10/month increase in cost because of the faster network.  Unfortunately, the “faster network” doesn’t work in my home town.  Hell, frakking AT&T doesn’t work in my own house!  When I work, I get to experience AT&T’s 3G network and it is just fine, but not when I’m home.  To AT&T’s credit, when I’m NOT at home, I never get a dropped call anymore, something that was a fairly frequent problem when I first got my original iPhone, but the phone doesn’t work in my house!  And until I’m at least 20 miles outside of Mansfield, Ohio, I can turn off the 3G radio to save battery power because there is no 3G here.  Yet, I get to pay the additional $10 a month for it.  No consumer resentment here; not at all.  Should Apple make a CDMA phone so I could keep the phone but make a move to Verizon or Sprint, I’m there.  Unless AT&T gets their act together, of course.  When people ask me what I think of my phone, my answer is always, “love the phone, hate the service.”  It really is the best phone I’ve ever owned, but the worst cell signal I’ve ever had.  Strangely enough, it isn’t the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had.  That award goes to Verizon, who I originally left to get my first iPhone because their customer service was so bad.  I wonder if Verizon gets an iPhone, if I’d want to switch and risk more bad customer service and good signal strength or stay with AT&T which has good customer service and bad signal strength?

More Info About Healthcare Costs

I’m actually amazed how often this sort of thing happens to me.  I post something on this blog, and then someone else, someone much more reputable than I, says the same thing.  And to top it off, a lot of times they say it better than I do.  This is no exception.  I posted my three part essay about health insurance almost a month ago.  A week after the final post was published, I am down in Orlando, FL at the national NAIFA convention.  At what turned out to be the last AHIA meeting (the health insurance portion of AHIA.  They aren’t gone, they just folded back into the full NAIFA), they gave out this booklet that agents can purchase and give to all their clients as a door opener to discuss health insurance.  We get these sorts of things all the time in insurance.  Most of them, in my opinion, are gimmicky and the return is not worth the dollars spent into getting involved with these things.  Plus some of them are outright wrong.  This book, however, is a very interesting exception.  It is called “Why Health Care Costs So Much? The Solution: Consumers  Book One.”  It is written by Greg Dattilo and Dave Racer.  It is a very easy to read and easy to understand background into skyrocketing costs regarding healthcare.

The authors put into one succinct sentence what I was trying to explain in a much more complicated way in my essays.  I like this book’s way better.  Want to know the secret?  You’ll kick yourself for not thinking about it yourself.  All the authors want people to do is to start asking their doctors the following question:

“How much does this cost?”

Think about that a moment.  If you have insurance, do you ever ask your health care provider how much anything costs?  No, you ask your health care provider how much your copay is.  Not how much is the total bill.  So what happens: we get our low copay and the insurance company gets charged the rest.  Then what?  Insurance companies are overcharged for routine examinations and so they have to raise premiums to compensate for increased claims costs.  If you don’t care about any other cost except your copay, you really should.  If your copay remains at $20 but your premiums hike from $100 to $350 a month, are you really concerned about the right thing?  Remember, in a free market economy like the United States, prices are set by the consumer.  If consumers are not asking how much something costs, then health care providers can charge whatever the hell they feel like charging.  The book contrasts this with Medicare, which is the largest insurer in the U.S.  Medicare always asks how much something costs.  As a result, people on Medicare’s costs are very low.  Contrast that to non-Medicare costs for the exact same thing.  It’s frakking out of this world!  Try it sometime and see for yourself.

As I said in a previous post, my health insurance is a high deductible plan, which I like and am happy with for a number of reasons.  However, ever since I’ve had it, I’ve been conscious of the fact that I must always ask the doctor how much something will cost.  Unless it is an emergency or I am being an idiot, I’ll be paying everything up front for a few thousand dollars.  That’s my incentive for asking.  But, I admit I was just like everyone else when I had traditional major medical insurance where I paid my $20 and didn’t think about anything else.  My move to a high deductible plan forced me to be a conscientious shopper of health care.  Maybe while we are talking about health care reform in Washington or our Town Hall Meetings, this should be a more visible option to solve our problems?  After all, when was the last time you got your car serviced without asking how much it cost?  When was the last time you brought a contractor into your home without asking how much the work would cost?  Even if insurance pays for these services due to some unfortunate accident, we still ask how much something costs.  Why don’t we do this for our healthcare?

This book is primarily meant to be purchased in bulk, but you can purchase it individually at this site.  Be aware there are multiple quantity options for ordering at this page.  The button at the bottom is for a single copy.  One copy at the time of this post is only $3.50.  It is more than worth that.

The book is supposed to be the first book in a series of six.  It came out the beginning of 2009, and frankly, if the others aren’t out by now, what with healthcare being in the news and all, the others probably, and unfortunately, won’t be coming out.  It doesn’t matter.  This book concerns you.  It concerns your family, and it concerns your money.  Get a copy.  Hell, get two give the second to someone you care about.

Again, the website to order the book is http://www.alethospress.com/howmuch.htm And by the way, there is no Amazon link here.  I get nothing by sending you to this site, and I’ve never met or had contact of any kind with the authors of this book.  I just believe it is important you read this.

And if you haven’t read my essays on health insurance, here is Part One.  Part Two.  And Part Three.