Uhm, what? Do you really want your kids seeing these kinds of advertisements?

I purchased a 2007 Nissan Altima in January of last year, and it's been great. Even though I've driven over a 5-inch high piece of wood and bombed it off of a foot high drop on a dirt road. I felt it was worth paying the "extra" for the technology package. Bluetooth? Check. Navigation? Check. Traffic information? Check.

The Bluetooth works like it's supposed to, although it is hard to hear sometimes. I can't fault the car, because the inside of a car isn't dead quiet like the commercials would lead you to believe. The navigation works well, with some flaws. I've found some aftermarket devices that allow you to override the buttons while driving, but haven't implemented them in my own car yet. Kinda scared to do that, lest I turn my car's wiring into a rat's nest.

But that isn't what this entry is about. I'm talking specifically about the XM NavTraffic feature linked with my navigation system that is supposed to allow for real-time traffic information to be overlaid on your map. It works as advertised, and indeed does show green/orange/red lines next to the road if there is traffic, and little icons if there is an accident or construction.

The problem is, most of the time the data was completely worthless. I don't know if it's on a delayed update or what, but driving up to Riverside, the roads would be all green. I can tell you from personal experience that the I-15 to I-215 to I-60 route is not "all green", especially during morning or afternoon traffic. It got so bad that I eventually started manually setting avoidance areas in my navigation system.

The accident information was also delayed. If I was sitting in traffic caused by an accident, rarely would I see it on my screen. For the times it actually did show on my screen, it leads me to make my second point-- Nissan's navigation system doesn't re-route around bad traffic or accidents!

Sure, there is an option to enable the feature, but it does nothing as far as I can tell. At least on my old Magellan GPS unit, it would announce "re-calculating route due to traffic conditions." Heck, the Magellan unit would sense that I was on a freeway and doing stop-n-go traffic, then automatically route me 5, 10, 15 or 20 miles around the block of freeway. Unacceptable that this feature is not found in a much larger (and more expensive) unit.

So eventually, it just didn't make sense anymore to have XM NavTraffic in my car. Maybe your car interprets XM's data differently (and actually avoids problems), but definitely not in a Nissan Altima.

While I'm complaining, I think I'll point out that it seems the XM audio decoder in my vehicle is not the most current decoder chip utilized by XM (even though it's a 2007 vehicle) -- this leads to lower sound quality. It reminds me of the old Delphi SkyFi XM radio I had my previous cars. I wasn't very happy with the quality at all, until someone over at XM411.com revealed to me that the newer SkyFi2 had an upgraded decoder chip. Sure enough, I bought a SkyFi2 and had a much better sound quality experience. Again, it's a shame that a "new" car doesn't have this upgraded chip.

Anyways, I just thought I'd give everyone a post-mortem on my car. Enjoy.

Since getting my console back after having it repaired, due to the red ring of death problem, I haven't played it much. I decided today to sit down and play Assassin's Creed, and about five minutes into it, my screen starts to look posterized. Basically, it looks like the colors are reduced. Think cheesy 80's music video special effects. Here's some shots:

Of course, if I go to XBox.com and look up my repair information, it says I'm out of warranty. Fantastic. A console I hardly play is broken yet again. I'm going to try to call and deal with their customer service people (in India.. ugh.) But I doubt I will be able to get them to fix this for free.

I haven't found any other information online about this problem. I can't be the only one, though.

Stuff I've tried:

- Changing from 1080p to 1080i, 720p, etc. -- no change.

- Jiggling the entire cable, in case there's a short.

- Unplugging/re-plugging in the video cable.

- Performing the "Reset Video Settings" trick per Microsoft's KB article.

How *$()@% frustrating is this? Microsoft really doesn't get it sometimes.

Update: According to users who replied to my XBox.com forum post, the problem appears to be that the GPU is either overheating, or beginning to break away from the motherboard. This is similar to what causes the "Red Ring of Death" errors, but not the same. I think I'm going to just have to bite the bullet and pay for repairs, even though this is clearly a design flaw, and not a problem I caused.

I admit, the last two Verizon “rants” were problems that I could have prevented if I had been more aware and responsible of the matters at hand.

But this time, this isn’t really a rant. It’s more of a statement of just how little Verizon cares about you as a customer.

Back in October, I incurred $97 in data charges checking my e-mail during my honeymoon. It’s my fault, I admit it, whatever. In early November, I went to a Verizon store, while at DevConnections in Las Vegas, and spoke to a manager there about the situation. He agreed to give me a credit of half the $97 (approximately $48.50) if I agreed to add a data plan onto my phone right then and there. I told him yes, and then asked if I could just cancel the data plan in a week or so. He reluctantly said yes, and wrote down on a piece of paper the details of the credit. He added the data plan and that was that. No receipt or anything, and I didn’t catch this manager’s name.

It’s been two bills since then, and I still haven’t seen the credit. A few weeks ago I went into a local (San Diego) Verizon store, and the person there explained that there’s nothing noted on my account regarding a credit. I explained the entire situation and he agreed that I should be getting the credit. He said he was going to put a note on there, and if I still don’t see a credit next month (maybe the manager in Las Vegas just didn’t post it yet?) then I should call Verizon or visit a store again to make sure I get the credit.

Today I called customer service (via *611) and had the customer service rep explain that since I don’t know the name of the manager in Las Vegas, and because they didn’t put any notes on my account, she basically can’t do anything. I would have to find exactly who I spoke to and bring it up with them. I ask if she can tell me what store this happened at, since I don’t live in Las Vegas and was just visiting. It takes her at least three minutes to just tell me the name of the plaza the store is in. What, your database doesn’t show things like store numbers?! I also ask her about dropped calls and poor reception, since Heather and I can’t get reception worth a darn in our house. She said we need to call #832 immediately after a dropped call, and they will credit me automatically. Why Verizon can’t credit me automatically anyway (without calling a number), I’ll never know.

I’m starting to think at this point that the manager pulled a fast one on me. I decide to try and find the store. I end up locating the exact one I went into, via the plaza name the CSR gave me before. It’s on Tropicana Ave in Las Vegas. I call, and explain the situation to the first CSR, and say that I may need to speak to the manager to get this resolved. He explains that since I don’t know who I talked to, he can’t just ask everyone about my situation. He puts me on hold repeatedly, and in between holds, asks for my phone number. I finally give up after being on hold for five minutes and hearing ringing that entire time.

I’m probably going to call Verizon’s corporate line (thanks Consumerist!) and leave a message, see what happens. I’m just over Verizon in general now. The concept that the customer is right is totally lost on them. Who knows what other wireless companies are like. I want to just bail on cell phones entirely, but obviously can’t do that. Maybe Cricket wireless would work for Heather and I. I dunno.

P.S. — Read this awesome tale of woe from another person dealing with Verizon.

Verizon once again screws Heather and I over. We went 90 minutes over our “family share” plan, and will have to pay 45 cents for each of those minutes. $40 extra dollars this month.

Verizon can send you free texts to tell you your bill is ready, how many minutes are left, what your current bill is, etc… but they can’t send you an automatic “heads up” warning when your minutes are almost gone? Of course they can’t. It would kill their profits from these sort of scenarios. And do you really think those extra minutes are worth 45 cents a pop to them? No way.

I’d say we’re switching to another company when our plan is up, but they all suck. Some major reform needs to happen in that industry and fast. Bah.