Can I talk about MS here on the Internet and say not very complimentary things –without being kicked offline completely and forever?

Well, I’ll take that chance.

So MS comes out with a cool new console, and the game “Halo”. My son got hooked on it, and played a lot – and he’s very good. Then we get snookered into buying “Halo 2”. Okay, fine, we can handle that.

Then “Halo 3”. The big deal. The top gaming experience. The only catch: you have to have a new Xbox console, the 360. After listening to the kids, and mulling it over for quite some time, we finally caved and bought the Xbox 360 as a joint birthday present for the two of them. Fortunately we were able to Ebay the older one, so ended up spending closer to $200 – not counting games, of course.

Fast forward to just over a year later; yes, the warranty is just a year, unless you experience the “red ring of death” – that’s good for a fix for three years. A free one, too.

Let’s just say that, so far, we’ve spent well over $1000 on Xboxes, games, accessories, etc. Now let’s try to navigate MS’s “help” website. Have you ever noticed that anything at all, on a PC, that says “help”, is actually NOT helpful at all? Well, it’s just like that on the support site.

First, you have to login with your email address; they’ll tell you it isn’t valid. Then you try your Office Live account email, which you didn’t use when you signed up for Xbox Live anyway – heck, you didn’t even have an Office account then.

So you manage to sign in with Office; the next step is to create your gamer tag, etc., but – and this is important – you already HAVE a gamer tag. You can enter your gamer tag till the cows come home, and MS will keep telling you it’s “already taken”. Somewhere there’s a glitch. Sound familiar?

When you try to bypass all this and enter an online repair request, it gets even more exciting. You have to enter the serial number a minimum of five times before it’s accepted; they ask questions as to which lights are blinking, which error messages you received, etc. Finally they’ll tell you that your console is no longer under warranty, even though it’s just a few weeks past the anniversary of your purchase date.

They tell you that you can box the thing up and send it back for repairs, but it will cost you a couple hundred dollars. Is this really fair? After we bought the thing in order to play a game that MS designed to ONLY be playable on one particular console? After all the money we’ve sent their way, we’re getting screwed. And I know it’s not just us – it’s probably you, too. And you, and you, and you.

I hear they’re laying off a few thousand workers – is this the beginning of the end for MS? Has the revolution started? Count me in! I want my money back. And I’m living with a very, very disappointed 11-year-old.

I saw part of an interview the other day with some financial guru, and he said that people who are in debt and have poor credit scores are simply lacking in integrity.

That’s a pretty broad statement. Not to mention fairly inaccurate. I know people from any different walks of life, and I can tell you, quite bluntly, that this guy is off his rocker.

I know professionals, doctors and lawyers, who charge people over and above the cost (all costs) of providing service – just because they can; I know others who “give their word”, only to go back on it when it seems most opportune – for them, of course.

I know regular people too, who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, pay the utilities, and have food on the table – if they say they’re going to come help you with some project or other, by God, they show up. If they say, “Trust me”, you can believe that statement and count on it.

One could assume that these doctors and lawyers are merely making errors, or don’t realize the impact their decisions have on others; this would make them thoughtless, not necessarily uncaring. Of course, they could certainly change that – no one can be thoughtless without, on some level, realizing it. And yes, there are some professionals who truly do care, who do empathize, lest you think I’m leaving them out.

And, too, I know people who can’t be counted on for anything; people who lie, who try to “get away” with things that aren’t strictly illegal – but immoral, and wrong.

I would imagine that highly paid, well-regarded individuals would have decent credit scores and do pay their bills. But I also find it difficult to believe that anyone with a salary of $100,000 or more would find that hard to accomplish. They truly have no idea, or have forgotten, what most people struggle with on a daily basis.

The average person, trying to make ends meet, doesn’t inhabit a lavish life-style and overspend; they merely spend to make those ends meet.

Suppose a person has a medical condition – they obtain treatment, they heal, then the bills arrive. The hospital frequently will not accept “I can’t” for answer – they want their money. Now. After receiving bills he cannot pay, phone calls he cannot answer, most people will start avoiding. Does this make the bills go away? Of course not. But it lowers the stress, to a point. It’s always there.

The average person will tell a bill collector that he can’t pay; the collector harasses and threatens; the collector takes him to court. Then what? The average person now has interest charges, court costs, possibly attorney fees. Does any of this get the collector’s money any quicker? NO!

It does affect the health and well-being of the average person; it does contribute to the coffers of the court; it does inspire an attorney to rack up more billable hours. Yet, this financial guru says the average person in this scenario lacks integrity.

Who lacks integrity? The bill collectors who call every day, demanding money; the ones who, especially, laugh at a small amount that the average person can perhaps pay and demand a higher payment, over the phone, right away.

Who else lacks integrity? The doctors, lawyers, professionals who make in excess of $100,000 a year – the ones who overcharge, who delay court appearances, who claim to be so “busy”. These are the people who lack integrity.