I was a big MJ fan when I was kid. RIP. What do you do if you bought tickets to one of the July Michael Jackson concerts?
If you bought them second hand, or through an unofficial ticket agent, you’re probably out of luck.
On the other hand, those who bought them through Seatwave, O2, Viagogo, or Ticketmaster can get a refund that includes service charges.
The now-ironically named AEG Live, Jackson’s concert promoter in the UK, is facing a large insurance liability, and perhaps in light of that, is offering the choice of refunds or a commemorative ticket featuring a “special lenticular process”.
Here is how to get your MJ ticket refunded through 4 of the major ticket websites: Seatwave, O2, Viagogo, or Ticketmaster.
1. Seatwave
Go to the Seatwave website, download the TicketCover claim form, fill it in (instructions are on the website) then send by post to:
Seatwave Reimbursement Department
PO Box 5631
London W1A 1LE
If you are interested in one of the commemorative tickets rather than a refund (you can’t have both), then Seatwave has the following instructions:
- The purchase price for your order will remain as it is and no refund will be issued.
by Vince on June 14, 2009
“Ebook readers? Pah. I prefer reading on toilet paper.”
That’s what a friend of mine said a year ago, and recently, he, like many other people, are starting to come around to the benefits offered by ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony 505.
Having recently purchased a Sony PRS-505, and absolutely in love with it, here’s a brief head-to-head smackdown over my decision making process between the Sony PRS-505 and the Amazon Kindle 2.
Let’s assume you can get your choice of the Kindle 2 and the Sony 505. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Here are 8 features compared between the two.
1. The Amazon Kindle 2 has loads of books available - nearly 300,000. Of course, you have to get them from Amazon. There are a number of newspaper and magazine subscriptions available for the Kindle, as well as blogs, such as Boingboing, TechCrunch, and SlashDot. Stats on the Sony 505 are not as specific: there are “thousands” of titles available directly from Sony. But more importantly, it supports PDF well, and Google has about half a million free books that are in the public domain, so this was a big selling point for me.
by Vince on June 14, 2009
I recently read a book called The Money Tree Marketing. There is a concept in it that the author calls The ‘McDonald Complex’.
What is the McDonald Complex?
The idea is that most people assume that simply by starting a business, customers would flock through the doors, because the doors are open.
In reality, you can have the perfect shop, the perfect product, the perfect website, the perfect service… but unless you are McDonald’s, it is unlikely you will have a FLOOD of customers coming through from your opening day.
So how does McDonald’s gets its customers?
Marketing.
McDonalds has been around for a very long time. Even the BRAND is part of the marketing message. And let’s not discount the millions paid out to celebs like Timberlake just to sing a song to get a point across.
I have realised this myself recently, as I set out to increase awareness of one business where I have the knowledge, the skills, and even a pretty loyal following. Problem is, I need to let the rest of the world know about my existence?
“Your problem is never really your problem, your reaction to your problem is your problem” - Brian Kinsey
Intro to proactive approach vs reactive thinking
A few weeks ago, my friend Tynan was visiting. We were loading up to watch a movie, when suddenly, the screen went blank.I went over, and found the LED light on the Seagate Freeagent hard drive flashing.
The drive was dead.
I had close to 500GB of data that I have failed to fully backup, including photos and videos going back 2-3 years.
I did what I could to salvage the data, to no avail. So I got a specialist to drop by and have a look.
Not only did he stank up our living room with crap cologne, but his knowledge of hard drives pretty much ended with him asking me if I had a butter knife to crank open the drive.
‘No, I don’t have a butter knife,’ I told him.
If I did, ‘the hard drive was not the thing I would be stabbing it with.
I got over the hard drive thing, when a week later, I discovered that a company I work at is shutting down.
by Vince on April 25, 2009
“Schuler envisions a world where cutting tools no longer use blades, cancer treatments take a few hours and DNA treatment is a simple outpatient procedure.”- Daniel Dumas, WIRED
What is genomics? How will it affect our lives? Barry Schuler tells all in this awesome talk on Genomics from TED. “If you can remain healthy for just another 20 years, expect to see to 250, 300″. Entrepreneur Barry Schuler does a nice comparison between the growth of PCs and macs in comparison to the upcoming revolution of genetics.
Barry Schuler’s multimedia firm Medior built key interactive technologies for AOL, helping millions connect to the Internet through a simple, accessible interface. Now, through venture capital he is involved with Synthetic Genomics in genetic research. He served once as AOL’s CEO when it acquired Time Warner.
[TED]
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by Vince on April 24, 2009
I just came across the top 50 US TV shows in the news while working on an article.
I must say I agree with the comments about the 4400. It was a great show. I was pretty bummed to see it go. The synopsis of the 4400 is about 4400 individuals who have super powers. Like Heroes, they had abilities like invisibility, shapeshifting, telekinetics, healing, etc.
In fact, I’m pretty sure Heroes was a total rip off of that show, just with a smoother script (especially with the timing coinciding). I also was sad to see Friends and Arrested Development finish.
Nevertheless I still love Lost, Heroes, 24, Entourage, Chuck, Fringe, and Prison Break, even though they are all deteriorating a bit lately. I occasionally watch the episode of CSI Miami, House MD, Desperate Housewives (GF insists!), Nip & Tuck, and The Dollhouse, even though the storylines tend to be a bit repetitive. I’m bummed that Arrested Development finished. I’ve never seen The Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield, Supernatural, Dexter, Deadwood, Madmen, nor Six Feet Under, and would love to see what you guys think of them!
by Vince on April 23, 2009
I was over at The Writer’s Coin today, reading a post by the author called ‘Why We Want More Money‘. It’s an interesting article into how we often take things for granted, and want a higher salary, more stuff, etc.
Question is, do we want all that stuff because it would make us happier, or for other reasons?
The book Predictably Irrational was mentioned, by bestseller and psychologist Ariely. As an Ariely fan myself, I read with interest on the idea of how relativity affects our perception. We are often comparing ourselves with people better/richer/cooler than us, which is why we want ‘more’. This is illustrated in the diagram to the right. Both orange circles are the same size, but when one is surrounded by larger circles and the other by smaller circles, they appear relatively different in size.
The author proceeds to suggest that as Ariely advises in the book, the solution was to “hang out with people who make the same or less than we do”:
Make it so your circle of friends makes what you make (or less), is less attractive than you (a wingman that looks like you but uglier is ideal), and just overall makes you feel like the better person.
by Vince on April 11, 2009
There are many times I want to write more on what’s on my mind.
But I then wonder if it would be appropriate or relevant to do so. Especially in a public space.
I keep a separate private journal. But even then, I still censor my thoughts. You know, just in case.
If you’re a writer/blogger or have people that follow you with expectations, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
It’s like a hypochondriac disease of the X-list celebrity, where you start worrying about how everything you write or say and how it will affect you in the long run.
It’s just human nature especially in a social world to worry how everything we say or do can affect our credibility. Everything from a Twitter or Facebook status update to a rant about your office job. Especially when most of us are moving towards living multiple lives with multiple identities in a ‘flat world’.
But in order to compensate, we filter our thoughts, words, and actions, to reflect on how we want to be perceived by other people.
After all, pretty much everything you write online gets attached to you, and will be associated to you.
by Vince on April 8, 2009
“Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.” - Warren Buffett
I like Warren Buffett. Let me tell you why.
I accidentally bought a copy of The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham when I was a medical student. I was ordering a copy of Clinical Medicine, when it came as a £2 bonus in my shopping cart.
But I never read it. In fact I think I sold it off for £1.50 after it collected dust for a year, at a loss of 50p.
Clearly I knew nothing about investing!
Benjamin Graham for those of you who don’t know, was Warren Buffett’s mentor. They have very similar investment strategies based on value investing. Coincidentally I came across a presentation years after selling The Intelligent Investor that Buffett made to a bunch of MBA grads.
I became fascinated with Buffett’s investment strategies behind Coca Cola and Wrigley. More than anything else were the simplicity behind his strategies, and Warren’s philosophies and approach to life itself.
by Vince on April 5, 2009
I love Santa Monica. But finding a nice yet reasonably priced place to stay there is a pain in the ass.
A big chunk of that is due to the cost of accomodation in the area, with hotels usually starting in the hundreds. I love splashing out on $500/night hotels, but only if I wasn’t paying for them. And considering that I’ve gotten old of pick-pocketing cheap toileteries and hotel sandals, I needed something that yieleded a bit more benefits.
So after scourging through Tripadvisor, Virtualtourist, Orbitz and Travelocity to find the best deal possible and calling 18 different hotels on speed-dial seeing if any of them could hook us up, we stumbled upon the Santa Monica Travelodge on Pico Boulevard.
Ranked at the #6 spot on Tripadvisor, its rates were surprisingly lower than the rest of the competition by at least $100-$150. The only downside was its location.
It’s located 2 miles away from Santa Monica Beach, and 3 miles away from Venice Beach. So at first we thought that would mean having to hitchhike to offset the price difference, but it turned out that it costs like $10 in a cab only, which still means we’re saving at least $100-$200 a day compared to staying in the other places.
