Here is an MP3 of a “real” recording of Blondstar customer. It’s a parody of the usual Onstar commercials I’m rather sick of so I find it pretty amusing.

Oh. And for fun I got suckered into attending a meeting for a MLM called Quixtar. The person I had met prior to this meeting led me to believe he worked for a large e-com site and needed some part time help. In reality he wanted me to join the MLM so he could get money from me buying and selling overpriced crap.

The meeting was all rather pathetic and very amateur. I stayed and listened because frankly it was rather funny. I asked a few questions and it seemed pretty clear that even though these guys were throwing numbers out like $5000 / mo they really know where that money would come from although both of the people kept saying how they were about to retire on this income (which I found odd as we were meeting in the “wealthy” speakers beat up slumy apartment). Oh well.

They told me that Quixtar was mentioned in such business mags as Forbes and the BBB. Well after a bit of research I discovered it is but not in a good way (http://www.forbes.com/best/2001/0625/040.html ). As for the BBB sure Quixtar will be fine. Quixtar the e-commerce site conducts business fine as far as ordering, shipping, honouring returns etc. It’s just that the totally milk their IBOs.

Some of the quixtar bigwigs are pushing numbers like $250,000 / yr with only 10/15 hours of work per week. Right. At the top I have no doubt they make that much off the suckers below but telling the people at the bottom they can make that is rediculous. Some stats that Quixtar publishes (in small print) state the average income for a Quixtar IBO is $1200-ish per year! Wow. What an awesome opportunity.

I also found Quixtar is the web-enabled version of Amway and a quick google on Quixtar produces hundreds of pages about people complaining about it. Quixtar (and these guys too) were pushing huge monthly earning potential while very, very few ever make money. Seems only the people at the top make money and they do it my selling promotional / training stuff to the people under them. A real gem. It also seems many of the Top Dogs have crimal records or are wanted by the feds. Amway has gotten into to trouble numerous times for publishing misleading earning numbers. A classy bunch all the way.

For fun I sent a really angry sounding e-mail basically saying I was annoyed he wasted my evening with this grabage. Yet when I referred to articles from Dateline and Forbes (and other pages) he said “Most base decisions on fact, so remember where you get your information from, is it credible? Are the people experts in business and e-commerce? It’s like asking
your mechanic advice on changing a gall bladder.”. (This from the guy who hadn’t the slightest idea of what I meant when I said I build web applications. Some expert.). Yeah so I’m going to take this one guys word that this business that defies all logic is somehow a good thing even though hundreds of independent sites (including some reputable ones) say exactly the opposite. Duh.

Anyways after reading about this whole operation I am rather disturbed by how gullable people can be. He finished his reply to me with this stuff: “Sharing this opportunity has been very rewarding to me, I have found a new lease on life! I thank God every day for the great friends, relationships and growth
that I have experienced. I wanted to “Pay It Forward” like others have done for
me. ( If you’ve seen the movie) I don’t need to explain myself any further, it
is
you, your wife’s and your daughter’s future, not mine. Hope you make it a good
one! Call me in 5 years and we’ll compare salaries! If you still would like
credible information, come talk to us in person about any concerns before
sending
an email.”. Yay! What is amusing about this is that I’ve seen pretty much the same message posted all over the Internet. Does Quixtar give these guys canned responses for non-believers?

More info on this:

• http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4375477/

• http://www.amquix.info/amway.html
• http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/

Sorry about this long rant. I was rather insulted that they fingured I’d go for this and disgusted the more I read. People are too greedy and are common sense isn’t as common as it should be.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted and lots has happened (since the reason for no updates). At the end of may we moved out of our condo and, temporarily, into Anji’s parents house. Our house is currently being built and should be done mid August (we are really looking forward to that!). So far it’s all frames, insulated and wired. The shingles are in-place. Hopefully they’ll get the drywall and siding in soon. At the moment we don’t have highspeed Internet at the house we are currently living in. This is rather wierd for us and I really miss it. It also makes it really tough to post my website updates.

I bought a new computer a couple weeks ago and have started playing with it. It’s a Dell Inspiron 600m Centrino based machine. It is a 1600Mhz, 512M ram, 60GB HDD, DVD+RW, integrated 802/11b, 1000/100/10 ethernet, 1400×1050 Radeon 9000 laptop. So far I’m very impressed. I tried booting Knoppix on the unit and the only things I’m having problems with are the winmodem (which does seem to have drivers available) and power management. I can tell the laptop to sleep but suspend and hib. modes do not work yet. I’m very pleased that video, sound, wireless, wired lan, some power management, etc do work. Yay!

We just got back from our trip to Disney Land. We had a great time and have lots of photos and stories (I just dropped off 16 rolls for printing and I’ve got another role + 2 rolls of slides yet to be developed) + the digi cam pics. I’ll be posting the good ones eventually here. Kailey had fun. We even took her on quite a few rides (she didn’t like Pirates all that much). I brought along my SLR and carried it most days. I’ve only looked through a few rolls of shots but so far I’m very pleased. The quality of the pictures is consistently quite good and I like the look of them more than most of the point and shoot pics.

Happy Canada Day! We had a great one. We drove up to Drum Hellar to watch the parade and then had a great BBQ at Anji’s grandparents place. Food was excellent and tonnes of family there so it was wonderful.