What more can I say?

New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce is in the middle of a US Senate campaign. He needed his current site modernized just a bit. What do you think? A good update? Too predictable? Would love to hear your thoughts after comparing the two. Have a great day!

(PS - I’ve got a brand new BrandonMuth.com in the works which will be my blog plus more “company” content. I’m excited to launch it shortly - stay tuned!)

I’m excited to give Jott a try.

One of the happiest news stories I have ever read.

So tags have been around for a while and they’ve proven very effective at helping narrow search results. It only makes sense that they should be added to ClickBricks. You can check them out here. Cheers!

In the complicated game of maintaining a good credit score we decided to keep a low balance Mastercard open. Recently I have become suspicions of Mastercard’s payment collecting process, which apparently, is not designed to make the customer’s life easier, but rather, is designed solely to pad their profits.

Case in point: Mastercard doesn’t accept online payments. You’ve got to be kidding me! I applied for your card online. Why can’t I pay for it online? I can do almost anything else online. Become a minister. Buy a car. A house. Groceries. Clothes. Golf clubs. Airline tickets. Books. Heck, I do so many online transactions every month that I don’t even need my debit card with me. I’ve got the number, expiration date and CSV code memorized. In an era when I can do practically anything online, it is inexcusable that I cannot make a simple monthly payment through your website.

But not to worry. We’ll get through this. So my wife gives Mastercard a call. Surely we can make the payment via telephone. And, yes, we can. But not before Mastercard charges us a $15 automatic phone payment fee!

So let me get this straight. We are half way through 2008. I can do more online now than ever before. But you force me to use your automated phone system to make a payment. Which is especially frustrating considering the voice recognition lady persists in telling me that I don’t speak English. And to top it off you charge me $15 a pop.

There’s got to be a way around this.

I guess we’ll just have to resort to placing a check in an envelope and mailing it the REALLY OLD fashioned way. No schizophrenic automated phone system lady. Good. No $15 fee. Also good. Just a twenty-nine, err, fourty-two cent stamp and good old Uncle Sam to hand deliver our payment. What’s not to like about that? Well, not withstanding the refresher curve on how to address an envelope, where to place the stamp and the irritating inconvenience of the whole ritual it’s not too bad. However, there is one last tricky hurdle to overcome. Timing.

You see Mastercard is great at making sure you get your bill late in the calendar month. So late, in fact, we’re concerned that there won’t be enough time to get the payment delivered before it’s due date. But it was worth a try. Everyday we scour the mail eager to try out our new fangled payment method. Finally, a week before it’s due, we get the bill. We quickly write the check, place it in an envelope, seal it, lick and adhere the stamp and drop it back in the mail for tomorrow’s pickup. Six days to go. Should be know problem. I don’t know how people did this with EVERY bill prior to the Internet, but I think I can live with doing it once a month. That is until…

…I GET SLAPPED WITH A $35 LATE FEE on my next statement! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! What did I do wrong? Did I write the wrong account number on the check? Did we address the envelope incorrectly? Surely something must have gone awry. But nothing so big a call to Mastercard’s customer service center can’t straighten out. After pushing a few buttons and convincing the scitzo that, in fact, I do speak English, I am greeted by a seemingly friendly customer service rep. He’s got to have the answer. He’s got to be able to help me. And sure enough he does. Come to find out our payment was posted to our account ONE DAY after it was due. Hence the late fee. Hence the title of this post. His advice for avoiding this in the future?

“Try mailing your next payment out sooner. Have a nice day.”

You suck, Mastercard. You may want to pretend that it’s too complicated to setup an online payment system and that you are serving your customers with your fancy online phone payment center. But I see through it all. You are simply playing a dirty little game of extortion. And since you apparently don’t know about this thing called the Internet let me introduce you to it, and something called the “blogosphere” - a lovely little (actually, a really, really big) place where consumers voices are heard. Yes, I may only be a single blogger, but I guarantee that if other people are having the same experience, it is only a matter of time before our frustration reaches critical mass and you have at best a public relations problem, or at worst, legal action. Either way, at some point you’ll likely see a decrease in customers. In fact, I’ve already applied to transfer my measly balance to one of your competitors. Add all those “measly balances” up and you’ve got something called the “long tail”. And just in case you haven’t heard its got a pretty fierce whip.

“When we reflect upon ourselves, let us consider that we are not a mere piece of organized matter; a curious and well contrived engine; that there is more in us than flesh and blood and bones; even a divine spark, capable to know and love and enjoy our Maker.”

- Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man

Remember in Minority Report when Tom Cruise controlled the computer by frantically waving his hands through the air? Well, this is not as complicated, but definitely a step in the right direction. Big props to Publicis for having the most unique navigation system so far on the internet. (You need a web cam and fast connection to utilize the motion feature.)

In a country that is already surpassing the USA in areas many thought impossible (internet usage, economic strength, etc) I suppose the last thing American businesses want is increased motivation within China. But, apparently, that’s exactly what Kung Fu Panda has done to people in China’s movie industry. If this prediction comes to pass I wonder how long until we see global blockbusters coming from places other than Hollywood.