It took nearly 11 months but I saw my favorite film of the year tonight on DVD: An Inconvenient Truth. I highly recommend checking it out even if you’re not an Al Gore fan, although he presents his case very well. There’s so much information packed into 90 minutes that I’ll have to watch it a few more times in order to take it all in.

“In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”

–Roger Ebert – Link to his review of film

We had family in town from Utah this week. Our kids were very excited to spend Thanksgiving with their Grandpa and Grandma. After the feast we watched the Snowman on DVD. I bought this a number of years ago and it’s become a tradition to watch on Thanksgiving night. I really enjoy the story and the music from George Winston.

I went to Fry’s tonight to look around. I found a Zelda: Twight Princess guidebook for 15 bucks and went to register where this dialog took place:

Fry’s Clerk: Did you find everything you were looking for?

Me: Yep, I did. (as I’m holding out $17 in cash)

Fry’s Clerk: Would you like to put this on your Fry’s account?

Me: No thanks, I’ll just pay cash

Fry’s Clerk: I see that. We have to ask everyone and I don’t want to get fired

I wrote about these dumb questions employers force their associate to ask customers a few weeks back and here’s yet another example. I have the cash out of my wallet. The clerk can clearly see I want to pay with cash. But because of some lame corporate mandate, he has to ask me a dumb question and make both of us uncomfortable.

Why not train your employees to use good judgment in offering credit and let them figure out the best time to make such an offer? Asking me to put a $15 book on a credit card I probably don’t have is just lame and the clerk who asked me that knew it. I knew it and Fry’s corporate should know it too.

I knew a Nintendo Wii was going to be a hard find on the evening of the launch. I showed up at Fred Meyer around 10 pm, a couple of hours before the Wii would go on sale at midnight to stand in line with a group of passionate Nintendo fans. The crowd included a lot of teen boys but mixed in were moms, grandparents and a number of teen girls with $250 to burn. It was an eclectic crowd to say the least.

I was #60 in line and there were only 54 Wii to go around. Bummer. But I was so impressed with the manager of Fred Meyer in how he treated the crowd, many of which were surely disappointed after having spent hours standing in the cold rain only to come up empty handed. The manager walked up and down the line of people explaining to everyone how things were going to go down. He explained that, although only 54 consoles were available, he expected shipments every Tuesday. He expressed empathy to those outside the lucky 54. He was kind and respectful and hung around to answer all questions. He made me want to support Fred Meyer with my business.

Contrast that experience I had a while later at Wal-Mart who was also selling the Wii at midnight. I went from Fred Meyer to Wal-Mart hoping they might have more than 54 in stock. The line here wasn’t as long but there was no manager to be found. People in the line were confused. Nobody knew how many Wii were available. There was contention in the air. It was cold and raining and this crowd was in no mood to go home without a Wii. Just before midnight a police car pull up near the entrance of the building and escorted the Wal-Mart manager to the Wii crowd. He didn’t say a word as he passed out vouchers to about the first 30 in line. No explanation. No questions answered. No going through the crowd to explain when more might be available and expressing sympathy to those customers who waited in line to purchase a $250 item from his store.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Both Fred Meyer and Wal-Mart had the same opportunity to show appreciation to those who stood in line to purchase an expensive game machine. At Wal-Mart I felt like an inconvenience. It was as if Wal-Mart corporate required the store to open at midnight while the manager wished he was back home watching Conan. On the other hand, the manager at Fred Meyer made me feel like I was valued as a customer. He was happy to be out amongst his passionate and sometime rowdy customers.

This experience has made me think about the companies where I choose to spend my money. Are the people there excited to help me find the right item, or do they just want to sell me something? Or worse, am I viewed as an inconvenience when what I’m there to buy, is out of stock? How do you treat your most passionate customers? If you have customers who are willing to stand in line for hours, in the middle of the night, in the rain…how can you make sure they will return when all they need is a gallon of milk instead of a hot gaming console?

Since Scoble left Microsoft to join Podtech, nobody has stepped in to fill his shoes from what I can tell. Sure, Microsoft has probably hundreds if not thousands of bloggers, but nobody has has gained anywhere near the following Scoble had. Jeff Sandquist has an interesting blog but doesn’t post very often. Heather Hamilton is also interesting and posts quite often but she’s a recruiter so I expect her to take the high road given her position to fill jobs at Microsoft. I like her variety of topics and sense humor.

Where does that leave us? It sure seems like Microsoft Mini has become the blogger face of the company without a Scoble to balance things out. Scoble had no problems calling out Microsoft when he saw something stupid (New MS site with no RSS feed comes to find) but his posts were generally pro-Microsoft. But they felt authentic and honest during those times he decided to call out the dumb things they did on occasion.

Who else is out there from Microsoft that has gained much of a following? Maybe the Scoble void will be filled, but it will be done by committee instead of a lone blogger.

The 360 looks like a big improvement over the first gen machine but I can get many of the best games for it on the PC. The Playstation 3 is incredibly powerful but it’s from Sony (the same company that gave us the root kit) and I don’t want a machine that tries to take over my living room.

But the Wii. It just seems like the right decision, especially when you’ve got young gamers in the family. Plus it has the best collection of franchise games such as Mario and Zelda and many others you can’t find on the PC or other consoles. Nintendo may not have the flashiest graphics but they nail the game play. In my book, that’s what matters most. That the Wii costs hundreds less than the other two is icing on the cake.

Link to MSNBC article where familes and gamers had a chance to test all three consoles. By the end of the test, which console do you think they gravitated to the most?

Update: I waited in line for several hours to land a Wii and came up empty handed. I was #60 in a line at Fred Meyer that had only 54 available for purchase. But I did locate a Wii on Craigslist at a fair price. More to follow once I play with it a bit more. First impressions are very positive.

Digg linked to this video and I can’t stop laughing at this guy. At what point do you say to yourself, “It’s just not my day to rob the liquor store” and beeline it for home?
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Two experience this weekend left me thinking that some businesses still don’t understand the worth of customer.

Experience #1: Kim had her eyes checked a few months back and ended up buying some new glasses. The glasses arrive nearly 5 weeks later. One big problem though: The glasses are not the right prescription. Kim makes an appointment to get eyes checked again but the appointment has to be postponed when she travels to Utah on vacation. By the time the appointment can be rescheduled she’s out of the 90 day return policy window which starts the day the glasses were ordered not the day she received them. The end result is that today she finally got new lenses to the tune of an extra $115 on top of the price we already paid for the glasses and exam. Needless to say the worth of of a customer to this business is less than $115. Our family of five will find another Optometrist when we are in the market for glasses or contacts.

Experience #2: I purchased a car stereo a few months ago. I went to Car Toys and told the salesman I wanted a deck that was compatible with my iPod. He showed me a few decks and ended up having an Alpine model installed. I love the sound of the stereo, but I’m not sure how it hooks up to my iPod so I make a call to Car Toys and this same salesman tells me I need to purchase the iPod adapter. So I make another trip across town to purchase the $40 adapter thinking it just plugs in the front of the receiver. I made the mistake of not asking him how it works and head back home. It’s not obvious where I plug in this adapter so I get on the web and go to the Alpine stereo website and find my model. It shows the deck hooked up to an iPod but it’s now clear to me that it’s not something I can install. This should have been installed when the deck was put in. So I call back to Car Toys and am told they can install the adapter for $70. I tell him my story pointing out my main reason for getting the stereo installed in the first place so I could listen to my iPod. I ask him why this adapter requirement wasn’t explained to me when I first inquired about a new deck in the first place. His response, “Can you look at your receipt and call me back with the name of your salesman? I hope it wasn’t me”. I’m not sure what this will accomplish but this tells me my worth to Car Toys is less than $70.

Does this mean that Jerry Sloan could be considered for “Coach of the Year” honors if the Jazz make a surprising run in the west? I hope so. The Jazz knocked off Seattle tonight to go a league best 8-1.

But he’s fielding such a young team this it’s as if they don’t understand they should be playing this well, this early. With Malone and Stockton long gone, one of these days you’ve got to say that maybe Sloan is an excellent coach. They Jazz don’t have a superstar at any position. Boozer is decent as is Kirilenko. But they certainly aren’t household names outside of Salt Lake. Maybe it’s time to give Sloan some props for the work he’s done over the years. If he can coach this young team into the playoffs in the tough western conference, you gotta believe he’s got a shot at the award.

I drove by the Mervyn’s in Redmond this afternoon. I noticed two huge signs hung over the store’s entrance. First sign read: STORE CLOSING while the second sign right below the first read: NOW HIRING. I thought about pulling into the store to fill out an application and ask if the job openings were for temp or perm employment.