Shen Yun Performing Arts Show in SF - Totally Misleading

Shen Yun... you've seen it literally on nearly every Muni bus, shopping mall kiosks, full page ads in newspapers, and they justify that they are a great program by selling tickets for orchestra level at $100 a pop and only being in town for just a week.

The reality is, ain't worth your money and your time.

I saw it today and I feel duped.

Why do I feel duped? When people see the ads for Shen Yun Performing Arts, it seems like the show is all about dancing and showing the cultural history of the Chinese people. It's like the greatest show spectacle around if they can dish out tons of dough on tons of bus ads, signage, promotions, and mall kiosks. Heck, they were even promoting the San Francisco show at the Great Mall in Milpitas with an aisle kiosk.

That's until I got my ticket. My folks paid for the tickets so I got one in my hand at the moment I was to enter the War Memorial Opera House, and it said: "SF Falun Buddha Study Association presents..." and I was intrigued if it was being supported by Falun Gong/Falun Dafa or maybe just some organization that has a name similar to Falun Gong.

I shrugged it off and went to my $100 seat in the orchestra section.

Then the show begins, the first few parts was interesting, showing their dances and cultural history; that was until they started force feeding the audience with politics and religion. Surely enough, the hosts of the show was talking about Falun Gong and people getting persecuted; and even simulations of people clubbing Falun Gong practitioners.

Once it hit that, it started getting awkward to be watching the show. What the hell did I spend my $100 on? Why didn't the advertising tell me that it's just a show to help promote politics and religion? Did I get the bait and switch? Was I duped? I sure was. Then the stories of prosecution and beatings kept going in other acts mixed with acts with nothing mentioning or relating to Falun Gong.

To give you something similar: Ever been in a situation that made you real uncomfortable?

I remember going to a church service for a five year anniversary of my late grandmother's passing away because my parents made me go, I felt almost immediately very uncomfortable and literally stormed out of the building almost in tears. It wasn't because I did not respect the church or its religion, I just didn't feel like I belonged there; I felt like a fool trying to say the verses out of the song book, and being pressured be indoctrinated into a religion I had no interest in. My parents was pissed, and I told them why I didn't want to be there; all I wanted to do was to pay my respects by putting flowers in my grandmother's niche in Colma. My parents respected my reasons and my wishes, and I visit my grandmother's niche every few weeks with a fresh bouquet of flowers.


What Shen Yun did was cram stuff down my throat, and making it worse, I paid them $100 to do it. They were misleading. If you brought your kids to see that show, they would be asking you why the heck are people hitting other people with batons? Is it appropriate for the young ones? No.

I wonder why the show tickets was so expensive and they only stay for a very brief period; once people finds out about being force fed the politics and religion, and being mislead through their advertising; they are long gone (with your money). Newspapers would review the first night's show and likely there would be some negative publicity, and be published the next day; but thousands of tickets was purchased before the show even came to town, and are non-refundable, and the rumor mill of the regular people telling others it ain't worth it is pointless because with such a brief time at each city, they are already on their next stop. If they did shows non-stop for a month in one location, they would barely sell any tickets after just a couple of weeks.

I've got nothing against freedom of speech and religion, but if you don't tell people what you are selling, you are just duping them and you get a lot of people pissed off. At least I know that if I am going to a funeral, some type of religion will be embraced; Shen Yun on the other hand didn't tell me they will be talking about Falun Gong and the Chinese government busting their ass on the stage; I was expecting some wonderful dancing and promotion of the Chinese heritage.

And to take it home, I sat through the whole show, even though it really felt awkward; but the six people sitting on my left, didn't come back to their seats after intermission.

Best one hundred dollars spent... fuck.

Costco Takes Away Executive & Business Early Hours (Again)

One of my most popular posts on Akit's Complaint Department is from September 28, 2008 when I mentioned my regular Costco location at El Camino Real in South San Francisco eliminated executive/business hours. Not long after that blog post and some heat on Yelp, the executive/business hours was back on the board.

It's 2011 and it happened again.

The photo above shows Costco El Camino's new hours for weekdays, now open to all member levels at 10AM, instead of Executive/Business at 10AM and Gold Star at 11AM. It's a little strange they wiped off the other operating hours, such as optical, pharmacy, and all holidays.

Below is what the old board used to say.

The early member hours was one of the big benefits to those who held an Executive or Business membership because everyone was able to get into Costco one hour earlier than the Gold Star members, and that meant less crowds inside the warehouse and shorter lines for check-out. When I was working part-time, I'd go to Costco at 10AM and was able to get out the door in less than 20 minutes.

This member hour benefit also helped the business members because they can grab everything before the crowds show up, and especially when rolling a flatbed in Costco, you don't want to break someone's ankle.

As of today, Costco's website for that particular warehouse still mentions executive/business hours is still from 10-11AM while the photo shows it not correct. I feel they eliminated the special hour, but with such huge omissions on their new sign in the other stuff like holiday closures, their other services (gas, pharmacy, etc.), are they trying to tell people that the special hour is still enforced, but not in writing?

If you love Costco's Executive & Business member early hour, call the El Camino Real location: (650) 757-3003 and demand to speak to a manager.

An Extra $24.50 in Four Days on Nine Giants Ballgames I Want - Dynamic Pricing is Evil

I'm really frustrated with the SF Giants and their dynamic ticketing system. I did a comparison of the pricing lists I printed from January 31st and today, February 3rd.

Just last night, I used the January 31st list to pick nine single games I can attend that was a good balance of cost and still get to see the bitter rivalry against the Dodgers. Using the pricing sheets, I compared just how much the prices have changed, and it's drastic.

I'm going to list the 9 games I picked by telling your the price listed on January 31st and February 3rd, and the cost difference:

1. $18.25, $18.50; +$0.50
   
2. $27.00, $31.75; +$4.75
   
3. $16.00, $18.50; +$2.50
   
4. $20.00, $20.00; zero
   
5. $38.00, $45.50; +$7.50
   
6. $27.00, $31.25; +$4.25
   
7. $23.00, $23.50; +$0.50
   
8. $27.00, $31.25; +$4.25
   
9. $18.00, $18.25; +$0.25

• In a matter of a few days, the extra money I have to pay to buy tickets is: $24.50.
• Another way to look at this, the January 31st total: $214.25, February 3rd total: $238.75; a 10.26% INCREASE.

There's a lot of problems with this cost increase punching a hole out of my wallet:

1. The dynamic pricing system truly works when the Giants knows who is pitching, the weather, popularity of the opposing team, how the Giants rank in ERA, National League, and other numerical factors, and some others. But here's the problem, the season hasn't even started for the Giants and they have already jacked-up the price. We don't know who is going to pitch in the sixth regular home game, or what place the Giants will be in the standings.
   
2. The new price list I retrieved was updated today, prior to the start of the pre-sale of tickets for people with Visa cards. What factors caused the Giants to raise the price of tickets when the regular season hasn't even started? Did Brian Wilson's visit to the George Lopez show jack-up the need to see him pitch? Or is it the gimp (a.k.a. "The Machine)?
3. Nearly all of the games I chose went up in price, except for just one.
4. The dynamic pricing list shows a lot of opportunities to just pay a few quarters more and you can get a better seat in the View Box level versus paying for View Reserved Infield.

I'm wondering how much more I'm going to have to pay before tickets go on sale starting February 5th at 9AM. For those who wants to beat the surcharges by buying in person, you'd better review the pricing list before lining up this Saturday for tickets at the ballpark.

What's next, raise the price of garlic fries on the "dynamic fries" system? How about raising the price of a cup of beer when the weather is hot?

What will it take for the Giants to kill dynamic pricing?

Akit says: Don't Exploit the Clipper Card - You Ruin it For Everyone Else

Remember the Muni gate controversy where people could wave their hand and get free entry through the gates? My blog entry said that we live in a society full of rules, and if you don't respect them, you'll pay a serious price for it. I wasn't amused that a news reporter mentioned this to big TV audience, but this is nothing new because people have always ripped-off Muni in some way; hell, I see it every time I ride the 38L-Geary Limited.

In today's news, it seems like the mass media wants to grab the news football, run like hell, and at the same time, carry a megaphone and yell at people just how to exploit one of Clipper's benefits. In summary, Streetsblog SF published an article mentioning about how the Clipper card's negative balance benefit can be exploited by having someone add just a couple of dollars and ride an expensive public transit ride (like BART to SFO), get the card into the negative balance, and just throw the card away. Since obtaining the card is free with a minimum purchase of $2, going one way to SFO is a huge savings (for scumbags).

Unfortunately their co-publishing deal with SFGate made their story headline news on that website and people are tweeting the crap out of it saying it's some sort of scam, cheat, or "dirty little secret."

I'm not at all against Streetsblog SF for posting their story, the media have a right to expose weaknesses. But the co-publishing with SFGate and putting it on the top of their page as a major story just made the can of worms explode. I would have kept it low profile so only a few hundred knew, not the tens of thousands. Now, I'm going to bet the local TV news stations will start reporting all about this exploit, and making the problem even worse.

Now, all because of this mass exposure, the people who use the Clipper card honestly are now screwed because this exploit got out like a rabid dog on the loose. The negative balance feature was to help passengers prevent getting stuck without a transit ride as long as there's some kind of positive e-cash balance on the card; if there is zero balance or a negative balance, the card cannot be used again until the funds are replenished.

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Akit's opinion:

Heads don't need to roll and people don't have to be fired. The folks at MTC and the Clipper board had good intentions to have this great benefit to have the card go negative so you don't get trapped, now, it's ruined for all of us honest folks who don't abuse our transit system.

Well, there's no turning back now; the negative balance issue is going to go nuclear by who else (assuming it will), BART Board President, James Fang. Yeah, you know the guy, the one who spent $350K on a cell phone program to pay transit fares and said TransLink (former name of today's Clipper) is a total waste; but the truth is, Fang's gamble went down the toilet fast because TransLink picked-up steam big time when it was available to the public.

There is no easy solution to fixing this problem. They cannot simply eliminate the negative balance program because BART does not have exitfare machines capable to add enough value to a card to match the distance taken by the passenger, and Golden Gate Transit & Caltrain customers may go into the negative balance because they charge the maximum price and must tag-off to be charged the appropriate zones from point A to B.

To resolve this issue, MTC and Clipper will likely have to take one or more of these suggestions:

1. Stop giving away free cards, even ones where you add a minimal value to get a free card. Clipper was supposed to charge a $5 after a brief free card promo period. But... someone decided to extend the free plastic Clipper cards to JUNE 2011. Even if someone exploits the card, it won't be such a bad impact.
   
2. Raise the $5 fee to the price matching a one way ride on the most expensive transit option available (the deposit is not credit to one's account, only to be refunded if the passenger quits Clipper). If Caltrain is the most expensive at $11.25 for a one-way trip, then make that the deposit fee to obtain a card. This will piss a lot of passengers off, but it's a way to prevent ripping-off the program. If the card is negative and a person wants their deposit fee back, the deposit funds wipe out the negative balance, and the remaining deposit balance is refunded to the person.
   
3. Continue the negative balance option, on one condition: BART will not let passengers exit with a negative balance and they must use an exitfare machine that has been modified for Clipper cards to pay the balance to exit the system. Other agencies like Golden Gate Ferry may also demand it too because people can exploit the expensive cost of a ferry boat ride with the tactic used by Clipper card users exploiting BART.
4. Modify the negative balance policy in a way where the maximum is not $10 negative, make it $5; or, to gain entry to certain higher priced transit agencies (BART, Golden Gate, and Caltrain), the card must have a higher minimum balance.

In another perspective, I just wonder how many people have even exploited this at all? Sure, one is too many, as transit agencies are financially hurting. If it's a few, it's not a huge problem, but since featuring the story on SFGate to a wide audience has now destroyed its reputation, how many more will exploit it?

Be honest people, you don't want to cheat the transit agencies. Doing so may benefit yourself with financial savings, but in the long run, it hurts the transit agencies with reduced fare revenue to run buses and trains, and hurts the public with higher fares and taxes.

As usual, those cheaters and scammers will give some lame ass excuse like some little kid who just lied to their parents. They'll say something like, "I'll do what I want!" Here's my reaction to such a childish comment, "I don't mind humiliating you on my blog! Let me get my camera."

As a previous commentator said: "morals, honor and respect: Amen!"

UPDATE: Muni to BART Still Not Accepted

In a previous posting on my blog, I said that the "Muni to BART" ticket was not being accepted for the return ride home from AT&T Park.

Thanks to Phil Bronstein and Eve Batey, they were out helping the little guys like me with this issue. They picked-up the phone and called San Francisco Muni's representative to get an answer why. The Muni representative promised to make the appropriate changes and the vendors who sell the tickets/transfers at AT&T Park are instructed to accept the discount ticket starting July 18, 2008 (first game of the homestand).

I also informed Bronstein about 12 hours away from the event that the Muni website did not reflect the policy change. Phil got on the case and Muni didn't exactly do all the changes. They did fix "Major Points" section, but did not correct the "Leaving the Ballpark" section on their AT&T Park service section.

The "Major Points" section says:
"BART discount coupons are accepted."

While the "Leaving the Ballpark" section says:
"Muni tokens or token coupons and "Muni to BART" discount coupons cannot be used at this time to purchase proof of payment at the Giants sales window."

And this is all ON THE SAME PAGE. How can our public servants just skip over and not read the entire webpage before publishing it?

Well... it turned out that it did not happen as planned. I didn't get my 25 cent discount, and it looks like Muni once again violated the trust of the people they serve.

Here's a video I've recorded and edited as proof: