Letter to the Internet Movie Database

This is a letter written to the Internet Movie Database, IMDB.com, on December 27, 2009. It was prompted by my response to the new "Sherlock Holmes", which in my opinion was an unwatchable mess. (My review is here.)

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I have been an IMDB follower for as long as I can remember, for at least 12 years. What has always attracted me to it is that the reviews are done by amateurs, people who want to express their personal opinions about films. Most of the time, that's still apparent. The reviews don't see to come from people in the business, or connected to individual movies, or from professional reviewers, or from the ivory towers of academia. We can find those kinds of reviews elsewhere; that's what makes IMDB special.

This particular review of "Sherlock Holmes" is an exception.

• It has a total of 993 words. Clearly written to be just short of the IMDB limit of 1000 words.
• The last line states that the review is from another movie review site. Sure enough, the same review is posted there.

I realize that IMDB is not run as a strictly "commercial" site, and thus doesn't have traditional competition. But this is not in the spirit of amateur reviews.

Finally: The whole tone of this review reeks of somebody who is being paid to push the movie. That's certainly subjective and harder to prove, but it's true of more and more of the reviews written for recently released movies.

Verizon rant

A letter to Verizon. Sent December 22, 2009.


My family does not have a "constant" number of minutes for cell phone service. Many months we use less than 1400 minutes, and it would seem that that plan is okay. Then once in a while, we have a series of unforeseen events -- death in the family, business travel, a move. That month our usage will climb to over 2000 minutes. Those extra minutes cost us something like 35 or 40 cents per minute, meaning that our bill doubles from about $190 to over $400.

Every time I call and explain, Verizon issues some sort of credit and I raise to another plan, that covers 2100 minutes.

Why can't you automatically do this for me?

I sometimes get helpful reminders to update my roaming capabilities, or a letter (by postal mail) telling me that maybe I should speak to a Verizon representative about a plan that better suits my needs.

By now you know what my needs are. Any of the following would be preferable to the way we get "hit", once or twice a year.

1. Make our plan unlimited, for an extra $10 or $20 per month.

2. Introduce something like rollover minutes, so that when we don't have much of a need for them, we can "save" them for those months when lots of other (expensive) events are happening in our lives.

3. Reduce the charge for extra minutes to something more reasonable, like 10 cents per minute.

4. Whenever you see that our usage is over the allowed number of minutes, automatically switch us to a plan that includes more minutes.

I asked a Verizon representative why you can't do this, and she answered, we need your permission to change your plan.

That's nonsense.

You have my permission to change my plan ANY TIME THAT IT WILL SAVE ME MONEY.

Besides, your company already changes plans without telling us.

I used to have web access from my phone for $5 per month. Then we changed some unrelated features on our account: acquired a Blackberry, and changed our total minutes. You eliminated the $5 per month web access plan, and switched it to a per-MB plan that was costing me over $30 per month. You didn't tell me about any cheaper options until I called to complain.

Also, on the Blackberry, you signed it up for a data plan that cost $45 per month (using corporate email), instead of the other option (individual) that costs less.

One of these days I'm going to get tired of this nonsense and switch to another carrier.

Sincerely,

Steven Marzuola