So today, us Rochesterians woke up to something like 13 inches of snow that fell yestderday and overnight. It was so nice yesterday morning…no snow on the ground, no snow to worry about, and then BAM…SNOW!! Apparently this is the single greatest amount of accumulation that has fallen at one time since Christmas Day 2002. The massive amounts of snow and freezing, below zero temperatures remind me of a funny news story I saw on CNN this winter (yes…I watch CNN…because the local news up here sucks!). The newscaster started the story by saying “And hell has frozen over” and just pasued for a bit. The news graphic that was up next to her said “Hell has frozen over.” It was the kind of thing you expect to see in a movie. The newscaster than continued by saying that she was, of course, talking about Hell, Michigan, we’re temperatures had dropped to below freezing. Obviously the news director of CNN Headline News has a pretty good sense of humor…you wouldn’t see that sort of thing on Fox News. It definitely feels like hell has frozen over here in Rochester, for the umpteenth time already. I’m just glad I’m driving around in an SUV with 4-wheel drive. That’s right, my Saab happens to be in the shop having some warranty work done on it, and the rental place actually gave me an SUV…I guess I had perfect timing since I got the SUV right before the snow fell and had it to use during yesterday and today.

Speaking of Hell, I’m reminded of another funny little thing. My family and I vacationed to the Cayman Island a few years back, and believe it or not, there’s another city named Hell there too (of course, this one definitely doesn’t freeze over often). They even have a post office there where you can send postcards that are postmarked from Hell. Pretty funny…yes, we definitely send a few postcards out, including some to ourselves

The following are items I’ve listed on E-Bay for sale:

• Gyration Ultra Cordless Optical Mouse – Item #: 2794913659 – Auction Ends: 3/23/04 7:07:01 AM EST
  

Also check out my “About Me” Page on E-Bay!

Please stay tuned for additional items I will be listing on E-Bay for sale!

Buying Items on E-Bay is very easy. Please feel free to contact me if you need any help setting up an account or purchasing my items on E-Bay.

It’s spring cleaning time (I just wish it felt like spring already…I know, I know…it’s not yet even spring technically, but you get my drift) and so I’m also selling a lot of stuff over the Internet, including all my old textbooks that have just been sitting around for a while. I’ve listed them for sale on Half.com (which is now part of eBay), Amazon.com, TextBookX.com, and UR CIF’s Book Sale Forum. However, I figured I’d also list them here as well. If you are interested in purchasing any of these textbooks, please feel free to contact me at any of my email addresses listed under Contact Information. All the prices listed below are negotiable. Since they’re also listed for sale elsewhere, I can’t guarantee the availability of any of these textbooks, but I’d imagine that most should be available for a while at least. And so, without further ado, here is the list of textbooks for sale:

• Multivariable Calculus – Barbara Frank (Paperback, 2000)
  
  ISBN: 0534359574 | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $20.00
  
• Calculus – James Stewart (Hardcover, 1999)
  
  ISBN: 0534362982 | Comments: includes CD-ROM
  
  Condition: Like New
  
  Price: $25.00
  
• Single Variable Calculus Early Transcendentals – Daniel Anderson, Daniel Drucker, Jeffery A. Cole (Paperback, 1999)
  
  ISBN: 0534363016 | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $15.00
  
• Law and Revolution – Harold J. Berman (Paperback, Reprint, 1985)
  
  ISBN: 0674517768 | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $25.00
  
• Freedom of Speech in the Marketplace of Ideas – Douglas M. Fraleigh, Joseph S. Truman, Joseph S. Tuman (Paperback, 1997)
  
  ISBN: 0312117159
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $10.00
  
• Freedom of Speech in the Marketplace of Ideas – Douglas M. Fraleigh, Joseph S. Truman, Joseph S. Tuman (Paperback, 1997)
  
  ISBN: 0312117159
  
  Condition: Good
  
  Price: $17.50
  
• The Spread of Nuclear Weapons – Kenneth Neal Waltz, Scott Douglas Sagan (Paperback, 1995)
  
  ISBN: 0393967166
  
  Condition: Good
  
  Price: $5.00
  
• Arms and Influence – Thomas C. Schelling (Paperback, 1966)
  
  ISBN: 0300002211
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $7.00
  
• Conflict After the Cold War (Paperback, 2001)
  
  ISBN: 0321081706
  
  Condition: Good
  
  Price: $25.00
  
• Understanding the Old Testament – Bernhard W. Anderson (Hardcover, 1986)
  
  ISBN: 0139359257
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $10.00
  
• Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance – Richard K. Betts (Paperback, 1987)
  
  ISBN: 0815709358 | Comments: almost qualifies as good condition
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $7.50
  
• Not Whether but When – James M. Goldgeier (Paperback, 1999)
  
  ISBN: 081573171X
  
  Condition: Very Good
  
  Price: $10.00
  
• The United Nations and Changing World Politics – David P. Forsythe, Roger A Coate, Thomas G. Weiss (Paperback, 2000)
  
  ISBN: 0813397502
  
  Condition: Very Good
  
  Price: $10.00
  
• The Fate of the Earth and the Abolition – Jonathan Schell (Paperback, 2000)
  
  ISBN: 0804737029
  
  Condition: Very Good
  
  Price: $7.50
  
• The Price We Pay – Laura J. Lederer (Paperback, 1995)
  
  ISBN: 0809015773 | Comments: could even possibly be qualified as very good condition
  
  Condition: Good
  
  Price: $5.00
  
• The Analytical Engine – Rick Decker, Stuart Hirshfield (Paperback, 1998)
  
  ISBN: 0534953654 | Comments: includes CD-ROM
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $17.50
  
• Nuclear Deterrence – Russell Hardin (Paperback, Reprint, 1985)
  
  ISBN: 0226317048
  
  Condition: Acceptable
  
  Price: $6.00
  
• The Art and Practice of Argumentation and Debate – Bill Hill, Richard W. Leeman (Paperback, Illustrated, 1996)
  
  ISBN: 1559344482
  
  Condition: Good
  
  Price: $25.00
  
• Foundations of Astronomy With Infotrac – Michael A. Seeds (Hardcover, Illustrated, 2002)
  
  ISBN: 0534392040 | Comments: never been used before; includes CD-ROM unopened
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $50.00
  
• Introduction to Economics – Stockman (Hardcover, 1999)
  
  ISBN: 0030224144 | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $45.00
  
• Principles of Economics – Karl E. Case, Ray C. Fair (Hardcover, 2001)
  
  ISBN: 0130406058 | Comments: includes ActiveEcon learning tutorial booklet with CD-ROM
  
  Condition: Like New
  
  Price: $25.00
  
• Elementary Statistics (Hardcover Textbook, Teachers Edition, Instructors Manual, etc., 2000)
  
  ISBN: 0201614804 | Comments: never been used before; includes CD-ROM unopened
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $20.00
  
• Elementary Statistics Using Excel – Mario F. Triola (Hardcover, 2000)
  
  ISBN: 0201699427 | Comments: never been used before, includes CD-ROM unopened
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $40.00
  
• Religious Freedom – John Thomas Noonan (Hardcover, 2001)
  
  ISBN: 1566629624 | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $55.00
  
• Computing Concepts With Java Essentials – Cay S. Horstmann (Paperback, Illustrated, 2002)
  
  ISBN: 047124371X | Comments: never been used before
  
  Condition: Brand New
  
  Price: $35.00
  

Stay tuned for a list of other items that I’ll be selling over eBay

I thought these parodies of the current threat level were pretty funny:

they should change depending on the current Homeland Security Threat Level

Most of you know that I’ve been involved in mock trial for a long time. Ever since high school, I’ve been doing mock trial in one way or another. I participated in competitions in both high school and college, and over the past year my participation has evolved more into a coaching role than a competition role. However, I’ve recently come to realize that there are several shortcomings and problems with the methods and mechanisms that are used by the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) to score tournaments at the college level. I posted my thoughts on the issue on Perjuries.com (an online college mock trial community), and what followed was a discussion between myself and some other members of the Perjuries.com community (with lots of long posts). To see this discussion, please visit this topic. Also, please feel free to respond to this discussion on Perjuries.com.

Have you noticed lately that customer service representatives on the phone are generally clueless and curt? That receiving good customer service while your spending your money is getting harder and harder to come by? That most companies today are more concerned with attracting new customers than keeping their current ones? If you have, then your not alone!

It seems like in today’s day and age of the internet and the global economy, customer service has taken a backseat to companies mad rush to attract as many customers as they can while expanding as fast as they can. As a result, consumers are generally lucky to even reach a human being, much less a courteous, professional, responsible, and most importantly, knowledgeable representative willing and able to help them. Instead, most customers either reach automated lines, received automated replies, or worse still, spend countless untold hours waiting on hold listening to dreadful hold music (is it written somewhere that hold music needs to be terrible and repetitive – and even when its good music, either the reception is terrible, or some automated voice interrupts every 15 seconds telling you to continue waiting…is that really necessary? If I’m not waiting anymore, then I’ve hung up, in which case, there’s no need for the automated voice, and if I’m still waiting, then obviously I’m there waiting, in which case I don’t need to be reminded I’m waiting every 15 seconds…I’m well aware of it already!!! – this seems like something George Carlin would get pissed about ). Consumers are constantly frustrated with the level of service they receive, and unfortunately, companies don’t seem to care. The reason is that even though they probably lose a lot of these customers to competitors (who aren’t much better), their profits are still rising and their infrastructure is still expanding. With the advent of e-commerce and global communications, companies are now able to attract many more customers than was possible years ago, and as a result, are not nearly as concerned with customer retention as they used to be. This is a sad state of affairs that we are in currently, and regrettably, it is exactly that which we prize most, the free market system, that allows this to continue (I’m not at all advocating a different form of economic system…I love the free market system, I just wish customer service improved). I haven’t lived long enough to know what it was like 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, but from what I can imagine (and from what my research tells me, as well as people who were alive back then), customer service used to be a cherished part of commerce, and was just as important as the product or service itself. Unfortunately, that idea seemed to fly out the window when computers and technology changed our idea of the “marketplace.”

Take for example, the Airline industry. The US Government (and our tax dollars) are continuing to bail them out of bankruptcy to the tune of billions of dollars. You’d think they swallow their pride, realize that they’re floundering, and at least start to treat customers with more dignity, decency, and respect (considering we’re not only paying for the ticket to fly, but our tax dollars are paying for the airlines and their employees’ salaries), but no, the airlines are some of the worst offenders in the customer service game. How many people can honestly say they flew from point A to point B on Airlines X and had a good time with absolutely no problems whatsoever? I mean, I’d bet that half the people the airlines employ are just to deal with all the problems and angry consumers resulting from those problems. I recently had to book a group rate for the University of Rochester Mock Trial team traveling to a national tournament on Continental Airlines. Was it an easy process? Of course not! Did I spent an inordinate amount of time on booking the flight and end up paying through my nose? Of course! And the thing that really makes me angry was that after all my arguing and fighting with them, in the end, it was a simple representative (not a supervisor, or a corporate representative, or a corporate supervisor) that was able to take care of all my concerns and get everything straightened out for our group to travel…why can’t there be more people like that in the customer service industry? And you know what…I wrote a very long angry letter to Continental (praising this one representative of course), and got absolutely no response back from them. Then I emailed it to them…twice…and got a nice little meaningless note of apology, and before I could ask for some type of compensation for my troubles, was told the issue was closed and no more of my emails were answered. I called a few times, but all I got from that was a headache for my troubles. And here’s the kicker…I’ll probably continue to fly Continental…because even as bad as they are, the other airlines are just as bad, and I already have frequent flyer miles on Continental (they’ve already sucked me in and they know they “own me”), and at least they generally go to where I want to go to without numerous layovers and transfers. But, I mean…c’mon…can’t these industries with terrible customer service problems, like the airlines, the cellular phone companies, etc. actually do something about this problem. If I was in charge, I’d make it clear to the rest of the company that customer retention and reputation was just as important as growth and new customers, have much more stringent screening and hiring processes for customer service representatives, have a special troubleshooting team that would deal with tough customers, randomly sample customer service representatives interaction with customers, and strive to improve the customer service experience, and even get down in the trenches with the rest of the customer service staff and deal with customers. The head of a company is not supposed to be some high and mighty un-reachable deity-like figure, but someone that can effect change and help the company and its consumers. I think companies need to seriously re-examine their priorities, because the first company in an industry that realizes that customer service is just as important as other facets of the company, and effects such a change in their customer service strategy…well, they’re going to steal the market share from the rest of the companies pretty easily I think. But these are just my opinions

If you want, take a look at the following link I found on the Internet…it’s kinda funny (the ideas expressed on this linked page don’t necessarily reflect my own): About This Airline Bail Out…

You come across some pretty interesting things while surfing the internet, and a while back I came across this girl’s page who calls herself Hot Abercrombie Chick. I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of her blog is (actually, I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of my blog is either…), but she posts a lot of political hot-button issues on there and surprisingly a ton of people discuss and comment on them. Apparently, she’s now decided to run for President as well. One of the ideas she advocates is closing down our overseas military bases so that terrorists will think we’ve stopped meddling in their affairs and leave us alone. Some of her ideas hold merit (more so because they’re not just her ideas, but general ideas that have been floating around for a while that she simply agrees with), such as the government staying out of abortion and gay marriage (obviously I agree with these ideas), and some of her ideas are just ludicrous, like opening our borders for all those who wish to immigrate. However, the danger in this base closing idea is that, on its face, it actually sounds reasonable, and many people who are normally not very pro-military or foreign affairs might just agree with it. In fact, this has to be one of the most dangerous ideas I’ve ever heard. First off, closing our overseas bases and giving up our influence in the rest of the world will not cause terrorists to leave us alone. Terrorists don’t attack American because of our overseas bases, they attack America because they think of us as evil and the Great Satan, and will stop at nothing to totally destroy us, regardless of our overseas bases. I don’t even begin to understand the motivation and ideologies of individuals who are willing to sacrifice their lives to kill other innocent civilians, but I’d be willing to bet that they would only think that by us closing our overseas military bases, that they are winning the war against the US and need to re-double their efforts to totally destroy us. If anything, closing our bases would be a victory for them and a defeat for us. Not only that, but doing so would severely weaken the US and diminish our influence over the rest of the world. Some of the reason that the US is such a great power is because of our incredibly sophisticated and large military force. Now, I’m not saying that we should immediately begin drafting to increase our force and thus our power, but we have to strike a balance. By closing our bases overseas, we’d be destroying such a balance, the same as if we started a draft. We’d also weaken the US’s ability to defend ourselves immensely by closing such overseas bases. They could be considered our first line of defense, and by removing them, we are removing a vital line of defense. Finally, such a move would be akin to reverting back to our isolationist policies and stance after World War I. And, I think we all know what would’ve happened had the US not broken with such policy and gotten involved in World War II…there’d be a nice large country covering most of Europe called Germany, led by the Nazi’s. I’m not saying something similar is likely to happen, but the US needs such bases to ensure that something like that could never happen again. We use our military power globally to exert influence (I’m not saying our influence is always correctly exerted) in order to avert future disasters and wars. Obviously, there are many good reasons to keep such overseas bases, and really no good reasons to get rid of such bases. And yes, if you haven’t guessed it already, I’m a proponent of the military. Not one who thinks the entire country should be drafted, but one who believes that a stronger military, even in today’s day and age, is a good thing for a whole host of reasons. However, I invite anyone who disagrees with a stronger military policy or agrees that closing our bases overseas would be a good thing to respond and share your views and philosophies…

Ok…so I’ve spent a little while updating my blog with a couple of cool new features (some you’ve already seen in action, and some are brand new – most are accessed in the left hand pane)…here they are:

• Comments (By HaloScan) – You can now post comments on each and every one of my blog posts by clicking the comments link right below the end of the post. Because I’m using the free comments service, you’re limited in the text length of the comment you post, but to get around this, simply split up your comment into more than one post.
• Trackback (By HaloScan) – Ok…this is a bit complicated…and most people will never use it. Basically, Trackback (as far as I understand from my limited research of it) allows people who post blog entries on their blogs that are related to a blog post I made on my blog to create a link under the trackback section of that particular blog entry on my blog that links to the blog post they just made on their blog (I know, I know…complicated!). For more information about Trackback, see:
  HaloScan Trackback Introduction
  HaloScan Trackback FAQ
  SixApart Beginner’s Guide to Trackback
  Remote Trackback Proof of Concept
• RSS & Atom Feeds – These feeds allow you to view certain portions of my site (blog posts, comments, and blogroll links) in a feed viewer, so that you don’t have to browse to my site to see changes. The feed viewer is dynamically updated whenever the particular item that you’ve selected the feed for changes (i.e. if you’ve set up the comments feed in a feed viewer, and a new comment is posted, very shortly that new comment will display in the feed viewer automatically (assuming you’ve set it up correctly)). A nice program that allows for RSS feed viewing, along with using AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ, and a bunch of other stuff all consolidated into one program is Trillian (there’s a free version and a pay version). I highly recommend this program, as the consolidation is really nice!
• Access to my Blog – You can browse to either http://mail.rochester.edu/~mb007i/blogs/ or http://mbressman.dnsalias.net to access my blog!

Please use http://www.marcbressman.com to access my site from this point forward
Edited on 12/7/05

• Guestbook – You can sign, view, or search the guestbook that I have set up for my site. I encourage all visitors to sign the Guestbook.

This version of the guestbook is no longer functional. Stay tuned for an updated version shortly.
Edited on 12/7/05

The new guestbook is now available. To view or sign the guestbook, please click here
Edited on 12/15/05

• Counter (By Site Meter) – There’s now a web counter that counts each unique hit to my webpage!
• BlogRoll Links (By BlogRolling) – The BlogRoll is basically a list of links that can by dynamically updated (rather than having to edit HTML code to change the list). If you have a BlogRoll, then BlogRoll My Site!

Stay Tuned for Photo Albums, new Blog Skins, and maybe even a new Blog!!

Ok…so I went to see Club Dread the other night. First off, the movie was way to gory for a comedy! And it really wasn’t that good. There were a few funny parts, but overall, it was pretty boring movie interspersed with some gory, horror scenes. This is not to say that Broken Lizard still isn’t a funny comedy group, but I wouldn’t really recommend this movie as a prime example of how funny they are. I would, however, recommend Super Troopers…as that is a hysterically funny movie!!

So, I finally got out to visit Ethan and Becca this past weekend. Yeah, I was supposed to go last week, but didn’t make it very far before my stupid check engine light came on. Now, I’ve endured some good-natured ribbing (god, I’m really a dork, aren’t I?) because I turned around after my check engine light, but if you had just gotten a new car after being in a bad accident, and didn’t want to damage the car, wouldn’t you turn around if you still had 4 more hours to go and another 6 on the way back before you could get the car serviced? Anyway, it turned out that it wasn’t anything big, and according to the assistant service manager, I could have driven on it, but I’m still glad I played it safe. And plus, I ended up getting out there a week later. Now, my trip out there this past weekend was not very pleasant either. I got stuck in a ton of traffic and even though I left at 10 AM, I didn’t get to Vermont until 7 PM – NINE HOURS!! (it should only take 5 – 6 hours). However, once out there, I had a really good time. Ethan and Becca have this enormous, incredibly nice house all to themselves on this large piece of property (they babysit for a family with small kids a few hours a week, and in return get to live in this guest house of theirs for free – pretty sweet deal if you ask me). We went out to dinner on Friday night at a really nice restaurant, and then (since I was sooo tired from driving a boring nine hours), I went to bed (actually, we rented a movie, “Cabin Fever”, but it was terrible and I didn’t feel like watching it, so I went to bed – don’t rent it, it really is a terrible movie). On Saturday, we went out for brunch at a cool little place in Hanover (where Dartmouth is), and then went ice skating. Now, for those of you who know me, ice skating is not something I’m very familiar with (read: I suck at it). The last time I’d strapped ice skates to my feet must have been like 3 or 4 years ago at Rockefeller Center…and all I remember taking away from that experience was a lot of bruises (I’m kidding…I had a fun time also). Through some miracle of gravity, I was actually able to remain on my feet for the most part while skating on Saturday (though Ethan tried to trip me a couple of times), but the real disaster was when Ethan took a pretty bad fall right after beginning to skate. You see, we’d borrowed a pair of skates from the family that Ethan and Becca babysit for (they also happened to be there skating too…Becca was babysitting them at that time…really cute kids – really little though), and they didn’t fit me. So, Ethan gave me his skates, and put on this pair of skates. Then, he got on the ice, and tried to show off of course (actually, I think he was just skating regularly, but it looked like showing off to me…just goes to show how much I suck at ice skating), and apparently the skates didn’t fit him very well, and he fell down and hit his head pretty hard against the ice. He seemed OK after a minute or two, but for the rest of my time there he was saying his vision wasn’t quite right, so he finally went to the Emergency Room on Sunday, and even got a CAT scan later in the week…but alas, all is apparently well once again with Ethan! Anyway, that night Becca cooked dinner for us (chicken and some other stuff…it was really really good – Thanks Becca!!) and then we went to see “Welcome to Mooseport.” It was a pretty good movie, but wasn’t nearly as funny as I’d been expecting (Ray Romano is much funnier on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Ethan wanted to go see “The Passion of the Christ” but I quickly nixed that idea. Afterwards, it was back to their awesome house for sleepy-time . The next morning I hit the road, as my too-short vacation was already over, and Ethan and Becca left to go to the ER (don’t worry…he was alright, just going to get checked out). On the way back, the drive was much shorter, and actually sorta pleasant. Definitely a fun little weekend trip (except for the traffic and the hit on the head)!