spoiled chinese girl

It’s VERY rare actually. To the point where I’ve been called a virtual Negative Nancy who does nothing but complain from some online personalities*.  But here’s some kudos! To GoDaddy.com! Surprising, I know! Wow, enough with the exclamation points eh?

Back-story:

Last year I received some frantic phone calls. And it’s kind of confusing.

• Someone set up domain (and hosting) the year before for a small/independent company.
• That person then left the country with very little information regarding the account.
• That company’s domain name (not hosting) was up for renewal.
• Seemingly no one had a valid credit card at the time who understood domain ownership.
• I was asked to put my credit card down for the $10.00 domain renewal, which I agreed to.
• I moved their website onto my own servers because I’m only charging them $60.00 for the year (and didn’t realize hosting was paid for, since, no one told me because… no one knew.)
• I got paid in trade for tuning up my track bike + some extra cash to balance it all out.

Forward 11 or so months later…

This month my credit card statement came in saying I had two charges from GoDaddy that were more than any random $10.00 domain purchase.  After logging into the account, it showed two invoices. One for a 2 year hosting plan, and one for a 4 year hosting plan about 3 days later. (Which in total added up to nearly $300.00 USD in hosting plans)

Sent an e-mail through their support interface, decided 24 hours was too long to wait for an answer, and Googled for a toll-free number to dial (which, by the way, is 1-866-GO-DADDY) since their website only offers an Arizona area code phone number, and ended up talking to a delightful gentleman who was more than willing to help me.

In short:

• Not a problem to cancel these hosting plans and get a refund after my sob-filled story of trying to help and not expecting more than a $10.00 charge.
• I had to cancel the hosting plan myself under his instruction while on the phone.
• He then finished everything else on his end.
• I would receive two e-mail confirmations about the cancellation (one for each hosting plan) within 24 hours.
• I would receive two refunds to my credit card within 3 to 5 business days.

(While this went on I asked why I was charged for two plans, someone had called in and asked for the 4 year plan after the 2 year plan was charged. Not realizing website hosting /= domain name I guess.)

Within 24 hours I received one(?) e-mail confirmation canceling the 4 year plan.  Nothing for the two year plan, but technically I only canceled one plan that was just prepaid for 6 years so I figured I’d leave it for now.  And also an e-mailed response to my initial e-mail, acknowledging that I also called in, and restating what was going to happen to my account.

Within three business days my credit card has two credits back to it, one for each hosting plan. Which significantly reduced my credit card bill (from around $450.00+ to just under $200!!) And I’m definitely a happy camper.

Definitely a positive experience with GoDaddy!

*By the way, that company… I have new beefs with. One regarding my original beef, and one regarding something completely unrelated.  But whatever, at this point I’ll just keep my 15+ month old and 5 month old beefs to myself!

If you’re here because you tried to get to www.mattcordy.com or www.torontofishandreptiles.com, please read the bottom 2-3′ish paragraphs to find out why you’re no longer where you expected to be!

I have a lot of websites. I mean… a LOT.  Well, not as much as some, but definitely a lot more than others!

Just for the sake of google mapping and links backs etc, here’s a list of domains names that I actively own and have websites on (in various states of activeness)

• www.angelapoon.com (my out-dated resume website)
• www.bigrockfinish.com (my indie band review site that turned into my band photography portfolio)
• www.jemounofficial.com (unofficial fan site for an indie band who’s since disappeared)
• www.lilfunky1.com (forwards here, was my first domain name purchase, not sure what to do with it now)
• www.philipbarbosa.com (perpetual birthday gift for one of my closest friends)
• www.snaksuxx.com (unofficial fan site for an indie band who’s since disappeared… I decided to stop making band sites because this keeps happening!)
• www.spoiledchinesegirl.com (this blog!)

I also have on my account the following domains. All of these currently forward to this blog (www.spoiledchinesegirl.com if you haven’t yet figured it out) Some of these are projects of mine I never started (other than paying for a domain name) and others “Aren’t mine” in that they’re for other people. While I know loads of people who continue to keep defunct domain names, with the attitude of “They’re so cheap! It’s only like $10.00 a year!” well… when you have a bunch, they add up. And I’d rather keep the $50.00 (or, in effect, pay myself $50.00/year) to do nothing, rather than paying someone else to do it!

These two were for a project I wanted to do, not really sure WHAT though. It was built around the <3 heart with a plus sign, so “I <3 you so much I <3+ you” was the basic catchphrase. I think this was all set up so I could make stickers. Which I designed but never bothered to order.

• lessthan3plus.com – cancel 2010/10/23
• lessthanthreeplus.com – cancel 2010/10/23

These three domains are for other people. One is a start up company that never started up. (So really, what’s the point in continuing to pay for it?)

• tamapulse.com – cancel 2010/10/01

These two are for a (former?) friend who decided keep forgetting to pay me.  I started reminding him in November 2009. January 2010 I messaged him on facebook, and we talked back and forth. February I sent 3 facebook messages, and we talked back and forth into March. March I sent one message. April I sent one message. Both went unanswered. My last message I sent privately as well as posted publicly (on his birthday no less) that if I was not paid by April 30th I was shutting his sites down.  And that’s what I’ve done.

• mattcordy.com – cancel 2010/12/23
• torontofishandreptiles.com – cancel 2010/12/23

If you’d like to have any of the last 5 domain names, let me know how I can transfer it to your account, you can have it for the low low price of $10.00 per domain name.

Unless you’re the guy that owes me money, if you’re him, you can pay me the $80.00 you owe me for this year, plus the money you owe from that bounced cheque, plus an extra $20.00 before I transfer the domain names to your own domain registrar account so you can start hosting yourself, because I no longer want to wait 4+ months trying to get money from you.

For those of you who are going to TL;DR: The Apple store is a nightmare to people with my shopping personality/mentality.  I couldn’t stand it, and I would much rather to never walk into there again.

I don’t like shopping. I don’t like talking to people. I don’t like crowded places.  I do most of my shopping online, and when needed to be in a B&M store, I would like to find/pick up my item, get cashed out and leave in under a minute.  I’d never been in an Apple store before.

Camera Guy had been talking for weeks now about wanting to buy a “Magic Mouse” for his iMac.  I was downtown while he was working so I thought I’d do him… what do kids say these days… “a solid”? (Which just sounds disgusting in my opinion, but whatever. Kids these days!)

Walking three feet into the store I became overwhelmed with the sense of “Must… kill… someone…”  Overstimulated does not begin to express my dislike for what I had just walked into.  I’m definitely in a complainey mood, I’m not really trying to complain about anything in particular.  The store was clean & bright & engaging, the staff were all very hapy and helpful.  I just couldn’t handle so much… of everything.

Walked along the first wall, didn’t see it, tried to find someone to ask, but all the staff was (understandably) busy, found what I wanted along the other wall, and my friend told me “Don’t bother waiting in line at the back, just find someone with a hand held POS (point of sale) thing to check you out.”

Person # 1 – Her POS system’s battery JUST died.  She brought me to someone with a wireless system who looked nearing done his transaction.
Person # 2 – He realized he would be longer than a minute, and flagged down a manager-like person to find someone to help me.
Person # 3 – She looked all over the store for an available sales rep with a wireless POS device, and finally lead me to the back wall to wait in line.
Person # 4 – Came out with a group of other staff (just off their break?) and started going up the line asking everyone if they were paying by credit card, he could check them out immediately.  I got to be one of those people.

I feel bad though now that I think about it.  The guy was very nice & friendly but I’d been overwhelmed for so long I was pretty cranky & no longer in a happy mood that this store seems to require.  Small-talk didn’t work out so well this time around.
“Are you all happy and excited about your new magic mouse”
“No… it’s not actually for me.”
“Oh. Well. Uh are you happy to be purchasing this today?”
“I was kind of hoping to have been out of here 10 minutes ago.”
“Oh… well…”

At that point I apologized because it wasn’t him, or the staff, or the store… just the whole environment I couldn’t handle.  I think he could tell anyways that I’m just not the type to yap mindlessly & just wanted out… but I didn’t want him to feel like it was his fault, and if he did… I’m really really sorry!

Item scanned, credit card swiped (no signature{?}), e-mail asked for (digital receipt), then “Have a nice day!” No signature makes me wonder about stolen credit cards/credit card fraud.  No hard-copy receipt made me think of how possible would it be to grab something off the shelf and if caught, say “Oh I paid for it already, my receipt was e-mailed to me” although I guess that would be easy enough to verify. If.

But really.  In the end it wasn’t the store that drove me bonkers.  It wasn’t the products they sell.  It definitely wasn’t the staff.  *Shrug* Is it the whole Apple culture I can’t stand?

So this was an odd one. He’s on okC, and he’s a photographer. And a computer geek. Anyone who knows me knows I’ll <3 anyone who knows their way around a camera, especially anyone who knows more than me, because I <3 picking at photography brains.

One problem. He shoots Canon. I shoot Nikon. It’d never work. Right?

I kid. I don’t care THAT much, although it’s weird picking up a Canon when I’m used to Nikon, and there’s ALWAYS this sort of rilvary between users of the two brands. Most of us are adult enough to make jokes about it, but there’s just SOMETHING about it that does hold true.

Anyways, we yap about general computer geekery, and we yap about general camera geekery online. The conversations head to more general topics, generally going out for wings and beer, at one point he invited me out or challenged me (not sure which) to 100 wings at one of his favourite wing & beer haunts. The stories he can talk about regarding wings & beer are pretty epic.

Finally one Saturday after his long day of work (and my long day of trying to sleep and failing miserably) we discussed hanging out & going out for… wings & beer. He had an outing planned with former co-workers at midnight for wings & beer at the pub (on a UFC fight night no less) and my mom was throwing a maj-jong party right below my bedroom so sleep wasn’t going to happen either way.

Agreed to go over to his, start an NCIS marathon running off my netbook until it was time to head out with the possibility of me taking a nap. Nap didn’t happen since… NCIS is pretty freaking awesome. But we hung out, talked about various forms of geekery, NCIS’ed until it was time to go to the pub.

Pub’bed it, while I don’t follow UFC a whole lot, it was exciting to be able to get in to watch the title match (which was a complete robbery in my opinion, the dude I predicted to win did end up winning… but me and everyone else in the pub and at the stadium couldn’t believe it.) where I got to meet a bunch of pretty chill guys while we all chowed down on… in total 8 pounds of wings & 4 or 5 pitchers of beer? The boys eyes were all bigger than our stomachs because they all tapped out so I guess the wings won that round.

NCIS in the morning & I finally went home for what would hopefully be sleep. Sleep STILL didn’t happen. (That’s a story for another day… wait, that story already happened. I ended up in a Futurama marathon.)

We need to find a day to go shooting (photos!) in Toronto. He wants to work on his night photography and I find it kind of boring taking pictures in the day time. And he wants to play with my Nikon set up, and I’ll try to not break his Canon. So it’ll be awesome running Toronto when it’s dark. Probably during the Xmas season I figure (even though it’ll be a bitch of coldness) since there will be lots of neat light displays.

WIN!

This one I may kick myself for writing… since I know that he knows I run a few blogs and I’m sure the address for this one has slipped up on occasion… and he knows I refer to him as Guitar Hero boy so… *waves* hey

(Edit: Not only does he know about this blog, he’s already (proof)read this post… and corrected my grammar, which reminds me, I need to change my password for my blog, my e-mail, and my bank account)

I found his profile on okC, he lived close and his profile (at the time) stated that he played guitar hero on expert and was really good at it. He’s since changed that, apparently thinking his claim of an expert GH player made him sound arrogant. (However, I’ve admitted to him that was the only reason I contacted him!) Challenged him to a game, and that was that.

We agreed to meet Thanksgiving Monday, in the afternoon since we both had dinner plans. I wore my thinkgeek shirt with some kind of unix code that I don’t really understand. Apparently he was super excited I was wearing the shirt… until I dashed his hopes of a total geek-girl by then asking him what it meant.

Meh, whatever, it was all about guitar hero. To make things fun (for me anyways) I insisted on playing games I didn’t already own/finish. (I own Guitar hero 1, 2, Rock the 80’s, 3 and Rockband 1 for PS2.) To make an even playing field I insisted we play pro-face off (forced same level & same notes played.) I also said loser pays the bar tab when we go out later but he recommended against it.

He wasn’t kidding when he had said he’s really good on expert. I think he was half-surprised I was able to at least keep up on the same level. Don’t get me wrong, I had my ass handed to me every song we played. And he started going easy on me by not using the star-power he very obviously had access to. (Yes, I noticed )

After a few hours we ended the GH extravaganza to go for some beer & wings & chat. He wouldn’t let me pay the bill even though I obviously lost the challenge, and ended up letting him drive my car to his friends for Thanksgiving dinner since I kept him too long. Which was hilarious in and of itself when he showed up.

He’s definitely fun to hang out with. I made him drive my car the first day we met, and he drove my car everywhere we went for a good long while. I’ve met his friends who also play guitar hero & rock band excessively (he wanted to show me off apparently) and we’re right now working through a Futurama marathon. Oh, and he has a twitter. *swoon*

Ooh, side-story. One night after having driven my car everywhere, we’re hanging out at his, both of us near asleep… and he goes “Are you tired? I can drive you back to your house if you want.”… I giggle & remind him it’s my car & I’d be fine driving myself. I should have just let him drive me home, to see if he ended up walking back to his place, or absentmindedly taking my car back with him. He admitted he very well could have driven back before realizing it wasn’t his car. Too cute

Extra note… I’m not so sure about him anymore, while he can Welp, LOL and OMG with the best of them, his FTW’s stand for “For the win” instead of “F*ck the world” which is the proper old-skool TLA.  You thought I wouldn’t write about that huh?

Oh, and SOMEONE insisted on being able to comment on this entry, so there you go.  Comments have been enabled.