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Round Three of Trading in Old, Dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. – How Much Did I Get This Time?

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For some reason, I get into a “winter cleaning” mindset right around the post-Christmas time of year. It must be something about a new year coming in and an old year going out, wanting a fresh start, beginning the new year with a clean slate… or something like that. Who knows? Anyway, I took this week off from work and while I was snowed in for the past few days I had that winter cleaning bug bite me again. In fact, as I was sitting in the home office area of my bedroom I decided that it was time to start cleaning up and, frankly, cleaning out some of the stuff that was laying around. Granted, I’ve been cleaning out a lot of clutter for the past few years, but something in my mind told me that now was as good a time as any to take some of the dusty DVDs sitting on the shelf and trade them in for store credit.

Thanks again, F.Y.E.!

Of course, I didn’t just get rid of 33 different DVDs when the winter cleaning bug bit. No. Actually, I wound up taking down a bunch of pictures from my wall and putting them away while rearranging some other pictures that I had hanging up. Also, about two weeks ago I took a bunch of old textbooks that I had laying around and gave them to one of the undergraduates that I advise in the fraternity to trade in during book buyback. Made a few bucks off of that whole scenario and managed to clean off a bunch of shelf space on my bookshelves. But this entry is about the DVD clean out, so allow me to get back on track!

And so we have Round Three of trading in my old, dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. for store credit!

Amid the happiness that I feel about turning old, dusty DVDs into a functional asset (store credit) I have to admit that there’s something unsettling about the process of trading in these DVDs. I’m not sure what it is – it could be the fact that I’m receiving back in store credit only a fraction of what these DVDs originally cost me (and a small fraction, by the way). I don’t know what it is, but that unsettling feeling is more than squelched by the dual fact that I have less unused/not-going-to-be-used stuff laying around my bedroom and that, in return for getting rid of this stuff, I have a new functional asset in F.Y.E. store credit.

So how much did I earn in store credit for trading in all of these DVDs? Take a look at the list below and find out for yourself!

Ducktales Season 1 – $6.25
Smallville Season 1 – $3.75
Smallville Season 4 – $2.50
Smallville Season 5 – $5.00
Smallville Season 6 – $2.50
Smallville Season 7 – $10.00
American History X – $1.88
Beetlejuice – $2.50
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new one) – $1.25
Creep Show – $1.25
Dane Cook: Harmful if Swallowed – $2.50
Great Outdoors – $1.25
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – $1.88
Lewis Black: Black on Broadway – $2.50
Lewis Black: Unleashed – $1.25
Life – $1.25
Masters of the Universe – $3.75
Meet the Fockers – $1.25
Meet the Parents – $1.88
My Cousin Vinny – $2.50
Office Space – $2.50
Robots – $1.25
Rudy – $1.25
Shrek – $1.25
Shrek 2 – $0.63
The Addams Family 1 – $1.25
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – $1.88
The Passion of the Christ – $2.50
The Simpsons: Gone Wild – $1.88
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror – $1.25
True Lies – $1.25
Wedding Crashers – $1.25
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old one) – $2.50

I think that part of the unsettling feeling is seeing an entire season of the Smallville television series bringing in $2.50. I mean… good grief! Two dollars and fifty cents?! I probably paid $25 for that box set when it was released for goodness’ sake! Geez…

Anyway, in total I generated $77.53 in store credit from Round Three of my DVD trade-ins this year. As you might recall from Round One and Round Two, I’ve been trading in my old, dusty DVDs throughout 2010. In total, this year I generated $244.22 in store credit at F.Y.E. by trading in some of these unused old DVDs that were doing nothing more than taking up space in my bedroom. Add in another $25.25 that I generated by trading in some old video games to GameStop and another $54 that I generated by returning an unopened video game controller to Walmart and I’ve done pretty well this year in generating usable assets from completely unused stuff laying around my bedroom.

What remains of my once huge DVD collection

And I don’t think I’m done yet.

Take a look at the picture to the right to see what remains of my DVD and video game collection. It’s getting pretty scarce, don’t you think? Let me walk you through this thing starting with the media tower on the left side of the picture. The top and second shelves are filled with different DVDs that I haven’t yet traded in or that I’ve decided I’m not trading in. The third shelf with the stack of DVDs on it are product that I bought at a discount to give away on one of the wrestling sites that I own. The fourth shelf contains a few t-shirts that I’ll also being giving away on that wrestling site and a three-pack of DVDs that I received for Christmas. So in this media tower I really only have two shelves worth of DVDs that you can actually count towards my collection.

As for the media tower on the right, the first shelf contains all of my Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video games. The second shelf contains the wrestling DVDs that I’m holding on to as well as some PC and PlayStation 2 video games. The third shelf mostly contains my Christmas DVD collection and the first few Family Guy box sets.

And that’s it. That’s what left of my DVD and video game collection. Pretty amazing, I think – especially when you consider that I once had probably 400 or so DVDs and video games in my college/post-college collection. What about you? Are there any old DVDs or video games laying around your house that you can trade-in to a store for some credit or sell on eBay for a few bucks?

If so, then what are you waiting for?!

Unnecessary Complications: Absolutely Horrible Customer Support from FYE.com

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Sometimes these “unnecessary complications” entries write themselves. Seriously. For example, I think you’ll enjoy reading this ridiculous situation that I experienced with the online arm of my friends at F.Y.E. I stress that this experience took place with the FYE.com website because I really enjoyed my interactions with the folks employed at the physical F.Y.E. store.

FYE.com Has Horrible Customer Service

A brief background before I share the e-mail exchange with FYE.com’s customer service… As you might already know, last year I purchased a set of season tickets to Monmouth University’s men’s basketball team. I’ve always liked basketball, but after I began attending high school I really didn’t have time to follow the sport as a fan because of playing football and wrestling. I think I went to one New Jersey Nets game with my uncle, cousins, and brothers when I was in high school (although that could have easily been when I was in grade school – I just can’t remember too clearly). Anyway, I began going to the basketball games at Monmouth and really enjoyed the whole experience. Sure, part of my enjoyment was due to the fact that I purchased great seats where I could really watch the game uninterrupted. And yes, part of my enjoyment came from the fact that, as a donor, I have access to a nice pre-game and post-game lounge area. But the truth is that I really enjoyed going to the games because I enjoyed watching the games themselves. In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted to begin watching NBA games again.

Now remember, I hadn’t regularly watched NBA games since I was in grade school and at the time I was a huge Chicago Bulls fan. Of course, I was probably a Bulls fan because when I was in grade school, Michael Jordan was destroying his competition. These days, I didn’t really feel a connection to that team so I turned to the Nets. The first thing I learned about the Nets was that they’re probably leaving New Jersey. Great. I’m not rooting for a team that is leaving the state. And what does that leave me with? Either the New York Knicks or the Philadelphia 76’ers. No thanks. I thought to myself that maybe I could find a team to root for if I had more time around the NBA and started looking into which basketball video games were popular. Not that I have time to play video games, but I thought it was a decent idea.

I did a little bit of research and it turns out that this NBA 2k11 game is supposed to be the best thing to ever grace a video game console since anything ever in the world. Or something like that… anyway, I pre-ordered the game for Nintendo Wii way back on August 31, 2010. Seems like a long time ago, right? Well, that’s the background that you need to know for my story. Oh, and you should know that the game was released for the Wii at some point last week and thus I should have had it in my hot little hands at this point.

As you might imagine, I didn’t get the game delivered to me. So, I sent the following message to FYE.com:

I’m sending this message to inquire about my order #XXXXXX. The online system shows it still listed as a pre-order and “in process.” Could you let me know when I should expect this game to be delivered to my home?

FYE.com sent me the following response which, I have to admit, reads like it was written by a robot. Take a look at this:

We appreciate your recent order.

Unfortunately, the item ordered is currently out of stock. We have placed this item on back order and expect it to become available for shipment within 30 days.

We will ship the item when it becomes available.

If you wish to cancel your order, please see the cancelation instructions below.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in processing this request.

And yes, they did provide extensive cancellation instructions below this note. Well, I thought that this didn’t sound right. How could a video game that I ordered months ago not be in stock when I was a pre-order? In my mind I started thinking, “Ugh. This is going to be one of those customer service experiences that you read about on Consumerist.com and, frankly, I’m really not in the mood for this type of crap. I’m going to cancel this thing and move on with my life.” With that in mind, I wrote the following message to the folks at FYE.com:

Thank you for the update. I just have an additional question. Since I pre-ordered this item back in August, how could it possibly be out of stock for a pre-order? Isn’t that the purpose of a pre-order – to have the item in stock so that the person that placed the pre-order doesn’t have to wait for an additional 30 days?

I’m going to cancel my order, but this is pretty ridiculous in terms of serving a pre-ordering customer. Unreal.

Look, I have no reason to bow down or cow-tow to a company that clearly doesn’t give a shit about me as a customer (just wait until you read the tirade I’m getting ready to unleash on Honda in the next few days). I normally wouldn’t write that last sentence and the “Unreal” comment, but FYE.com really had it coming to them with their robotic response and completely unacceptable additional 30 day delay. To their credit, I guess, they responded within 24 hours with this message:

Thank you for contacting the fye.com Customer Assistance Center

Please log into your account online or contact us at 800-818-1941, option 7, to submit a cancellation request.

That was it. Nothing else. No direct answer to any of my questions or an explanation of what was going on. By the time I received this absolute joke of a customer service response, I had already canceled my order. But this was pretty damn insulting and it led me to share my experiences with you fine folks. The lesson that I learned here is three-fold. First, FYE.com’s customer service absolutely sucks. They either have you talking to robots or people who act like robots. Listen up, FYE.com: when a customer asks a question – no matter how rude you think that question may be – you respond to that question. Second, FYE.com clearly doesn’t care about my business and thus, I’m not giving it to them. I happen to have a small credit over at GameStop and I’ll be going to their website to spend my money now. And third, FYE.com sucks when compared to the folks in their brick and mortar store.

What a shame. I wanted to like shopping at FYE.com but, instead, found it to be an annoying, aggravating experience. For shame, FYE.com. For shame.

The Best Christmas Gifts That I’ve Received In the Last Few Years

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Talk about a random topic for the blog, huh? The other day I was recharging some batteries for my Nintendo Wii-mote, toothbrush, and wireless mouse and I thought to myself, “You know, this battery recharger and these rechargeable batteries are pretty damn handy.” And that got me to thinking about how I came into possession of the batteries and recharger. It turns out that they were a Christmas gift from my Mom a few years ago and I’ve been using them at least once each month since then.

So that had me thinking about some of the best Christmas gifts that I’ve received in the last few years. I’m not going to go through the trouble of defining what “best” is for this blog entry, but you’ll get the picture as I go on. “Best” probably has something to do with the utility of an gift, but I’m not defining the word.

The rechargeable batteries and recharger are a very handy gift and one that I use every month. What I also like about this gift is that it saves me a ton of money since I happen to have a bunch of electrical items that use batteries. With rechargeable batteries and a recharger ready to go, I really don’t have to purchase batteries any more. It’s great!

My Mom gave me a Fossil watch a few years ago and I love it. Not only do I love it, but I’m constantly getting complimented on the watch with everyone saying that its boxy style not only fits my wrist, but matches my clothing style, too. I really like that watch and it’s probably the best one that I’ve ever owned in terms of quality, too.

One of the girls that I work with gave me a green striped tie last year and I really like it for a few reasons. First, it’s a quality silk tie and it was the first green tie that I added to my collection. For a guy whose favorite color is green, you’d think I’d have more green ties, right? Second, the tie goes well with my black dress shirts, white dress shirts, and yellow dress shirts so I get a lot of use out of it. Being able to wear the tie with a variety of different shirts and styles definitely adds to its utility factor!

Last year or the year before (I can’t remember), my younger brother gave me a small shop vacuum. Now, I haven’t had many opportunities to use the shop vac, but I did fire it up a few times and I have a bunch of projects that really do require the use of the shop vac in order to be completed. For example, the trunk of my Honda Civic is packed with little bits and pieces of “stuff” that you can’t really pick up and take out (it’s a long story – we’re talking piles of rusty nuts and bolts and pins and pebbles and all of that type of little stuff). When I get a chance to finally clean out that trunk, I won’t be able to get the job completed without the shop vac. Plus, I always wanted a shop vac when I was in college – and now I have one.

Last year my older brother and his fiancée gave me a new leather wallet with my initials engraved on it. This one’s interesting because I was shopping for a new wallet right before last Christmas and I really couldn’t find one that I liked (I’m partial to the Fossil brand and I didn’t see anything that I liked in their lineup at the time). However, getting a personalized wallet from my brother and future sister-in-law was a great way to take an otherwise simple decision out of my hands (because I would have unnecessarily agonized over it). And the wallet is pretty durable and stylish, too!

A few years ago my Mom picked up a Black & Decker toolbox for me and it’s another one of those items that I use regularly. As I’ve begun to build up a small tool collection, now I have a place to store everything. Any guy living on his own in a post-collegiate/post-graduate school atmosphere can tell you that he probably has a bunch of tools in a bunch of different places. Well, with the toolbox (which I dip into at least once each month, if not more) I have all of my stuff in one easy to access convenient spot.

And I can’t forget the wireless presenter that my Mom gave me a few years ago. If you’re wondering what that is, it’s more commonly known as a “clicker” for when you’re showing PowerPoint presentations to groups. So as you might imagine, I use this clicker twice a week when I’m teaching my classes. It’s great and allows me to pace the room while I teach.

It’s hard to say that some of the other gifts that I’ve picked up over the recent years aren’t among the “best.” For example, one of the senior staffers at my office last year gave me a handy little screwdriver kit and I’ve probably used it ten times in the last two months while a buddy of mine is borrowing my electric screwdriver. Also, my Mom is good for picking up some books for me each year and I absolutely love reading through them (though I haven’t gotten through as many in the last year as I planned). I also pick up a few gift cards each year and who doesn’t love being able to use those gift cards to pick out their own “stuff” from the stores?

Anyway, now that I have this thought out of my head I guess it’s time to start building my Christmas list for 2010… 🙂

Getting Ready to Get Yelled at By the Doctor this Morning…

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Later this morning I’ll be heading to the doctor for my quarterly blood tests. Since I’ve been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes I’ve had to head over to the doctor once each quarter to have my blood tested. They look at the glucose levels and some other stuff that tracks the level of my blood sugar over a longer period of time.

However, I think that the doctor will probably not be pleased that I’m weighing in at about 350 pounds. During my last quarterly blood test I went in there and weighed 347 (might have been 348, I don’t remember clearly). Since I graduated from Rutgers University’s Bloustein School back in May 2006, I’ve had a harder than usual time keeping my weight down in the mid to high 200’s (where I feel most comfortable). As I’ve said on this blog before, I attribute this problem to the fact that I spend at least two hours each day in a car commuting into Trenton and then back to Tinton Falls. It’s annoying and something that I think students should be told about in their life skills courses in college (they teach that stuff now, right? I don’t know).

Some people think that the way out of this problem is to get a different job. Frankly, that’s a dumb choice given the fact that my job is great and I’m building a stellar professional resume at my current company. At 29 years old I’m doing the same work (with ease) that folks in the middle of their careers struggle to understand. Plus, my current job has allowed me to take on teaching gigs at the local college and the state’s online college that really help me out in terms of incoming cash. Who doesn’t want extra money coming in, right?

Other folks might suggest that I absolutely have to make working out a part of my daily schedule. Well, I’ve been doing that to some degree and I think it’s helping. Though it’s just the Wii Fit, I’ve managed to work out on it for at least 30 minutes each day for over a month now (I missed working out on those days that I was in Boston, obviously). The Wii Fit has helped me drop about 15 – 20 pounds from my recent peak of 365 – 370 (that was a few months ago). The Wii Fit is a great tool for those of us that are generally running around like crazy people and just don’t have the time to work out.

Anyway, according to my bathroom scale, this morning I’m weighing in at 349.6 so I’m not really that far off from my last quarterly visit to the doctor. However, the truth is that I need to be going DOWN in weight during each visit – not up! If anything crazy happens during today’s doctor’s visit, I’ll let you know!

After a Productive Last Week, Some Time to Relax This Afternoon

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Believe it or not, this has been a pretty productive week. By removing a variety of distractions from my daily life, I was able to dramatically move many of my projects at the office forward and to make progress on many different fronts, too.

For example, I began working out a little bit again this week. Actually, I started playing around on my Wii Fit Plus last Saturday, but I managed to meet the recommended 30 minutes daily of exercise for each day this week. In fact, on most days I exceeded the 30 minute mark (though I wasn’t trying to – I was just trying to beat these little mini games). Today marks my ninth day in a row of getting at least 30 minutes in on the Wii Fit Plus daily and I’ve actually lost about 6 pounds in the last week because of this increased exercise and movement. Sure, I’m at such a high weight that I can lose 6 pounds by simply reducing the amount of calories that I take in each day, but doing some of these simple workouts is not only fun – it helps to burn excess calories, too. I think that is the type of person that the Wii Fit Plus was designed for – those people, like me, who are too rushed to drive to a gym in the morning and who are too exhausted for a full scale workout at night. This little gaming device is made for those of us who need to get our workouts in by hook or by crook. Or, in this case, by video game.

Oh, hey. I’m looking to connect with some people on the Wii friend connect, so if anyone is interested, let me know! I’ve had this Wii for three years and I’ve only connected with my Mom (earlier today) and one of my friends from college (about a year or so ago). I’m not entirely sure how the Wii friend connect works or what the benefits are, but there has to be some benefit to it, right? Anyway, if you’re interested let me know!

My roommate and I also completed a few very minor home improvements this week, too. We took down the disgusting, busted venetian blinds that were hanging in our living room and replaced them with some drapes that I picked up on clearance at Wal-Mart. Also, my roommate went around puttying up some of the holes in the walls of this townhouse. Unfortunately, our landlord never really took care of this place so we’re stuck with a place that, for the balance of our lease, really needs some work done on it. But that’s okay – it’s fun doing little home improvement projects.

As I’ve already racked up my 30 minutes for today, I’m going to spent some time this afternoon relaxing. Sure, I’ve got some projects that need to be attended to, but I’m going to take some time and maybe sit out in the backyard and soak up some of this sun. One of my readers sent me an anthology to review for JerseySmarts.com so I’ll probably begin reading through it while I’m in the backyard.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!