smorg

Does anyone ever think, “When i grow up, I want to have a job where I am constantly embroiled in childish politics between warring departments that usually end up with me being the bad guy!”.

I’m guessing no.

I’ve used Godaddy.com for about 8 years now to register my domains. I probably have 20-25 domains with them (I can’t keep up with all my forgotten projects).

Anyway, three of the domains are ones I got for my daughters. They all expired on April 14th, despite my checking the ‘auto-renew’ box on my account profile.

I didn’t really notice they had expired because the girls don’t really use the domains and I never check them.

Anyway, last night I *did* go to one of them and noticed it was gone, listed as expired! I logged into my account to se what was up and was greeted by a ‘better renew now!!!’ message. I tried, without success to renew them.

I emailed Godaddy and asked what was wrong and asked how to renew the domains. I got back the following charming email:

Thank you for contacting customer service. These domain names expired on 4/14/2006 and were held in a short grace period to allow the registrant to renew. Given that the domains were not renewed in a timely fashion, they have now entered a 30 day ‘Redemption Period’.

During this period the registered owner may renew a domain by paying a redemption fee in the amount of $80.00 (USD). The redemption fee includes one year of registration.

If you wish to recover the domains from the redemption period, please reply with the following information:

The beauty is that these domains were registered for a scant $6.95. And now they want me to pay $80 per pop?

I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Godaddy, in no small part due to the fact that I worked (with TLC/Mattel) in the old Parsons Technology facility in Iowa that was founded by Godaddy owner Bob Parsons. But I am really, really REALLY peeved about this.

There’s no way I am going to pay $240 for 3 vanity domains, and I will be very hesitant to send another dime at Godaddy because of this.

Oh, and to add injury to insult: only a couple of hours before, I had registered a com/net/org trio for another project I am working on.

Thanks for taking my loyalty and business and sticking it %#%$@$%@, Godaddy!

The AP says…

Former Guns n Roses guitarist Slash (Saul Hudson) has been quietly picked to replace the ailing Keith Richards (62) on the Rolling Stones upcoming tour, which kicks off May 27th.
The tour, expected to bring in approximately $600,000,000,000 in revenues worldwide, has been facing the prospect that Richards, who had brain surgery after failing from a palm tree recently, might not be able to return to the road.

I made this up, but that would be cool.

As much as I like this, I can’t bring myself to listen to it anymore. It’s depressing.
:(

Best track: Jacobs Ladder (imho)

IMDB says…

Tom Cruise has prompted a Californian politician to introduce legislation to ban the sale of ultrasound machines to anyone but licensed medical professionals. Last year, Cruise announced he had purchased a $200,000 ultrasound machine and admitted he performed sonograms on pregnant fiancee Katie Holmes “a lot.” Assemblyman Ted Lieu believes the Mission: Impossible III star has gone too far and wants to prevent unqualified people from buying the machines for personal use. Lieu explains, “If someone sees Tom Cruise buy one, they think this is the thing to do.” The assemblyman fears copycat fans might buy the ultrasound machines, which doctors say could harm the baby if used improperly. Doctors and technologists receive extensive training before they are qualified to perform ultrasound exams.

I’m quite positive that there are hundred, if not thousands, of people out there thinking, “Hmm…Tom Cruise bought an ultrasound machine for his pregant fiance. I too have a child coming with some woman I’m not married to… perhaps I should mortgage my home and buy a $200,000 ultrasound machine, so I can determine if my seed has spawned a little baby Xenu!”.

Thank God for legislation to stop things like this.