Junto Boys

THE DVD WAR AND A CRIME STORY

A few weeks ago I ordered an Up-converter DVD player from Amazon.com.

While Blue Ray and HD DVD compete to win the format war, Samsung and some others are producing Up-Converter DVD players that take the normal DVD resolution and boost them to HD quality. A few weeks ago I purchased the Samsung DVD-HD-960 that boosts the signal to 1080p, a standard that my television supports, but broadcast hasn’t reached. Due to some circumstances that I will get to in a minute, I had to settle for the 860 model they sell at Best Buy instead. That version raises the picture to 1080i or 720p.

The first movies I tried were old favorites Rio Bravo and The Maltese Falcon. They both looked great, especially Rio Bravo shot in widescreen. You could really tell a difference. I would highly recommend Samsung’s up converter to anyone with a HD ready TV. It looks so good that I don’t really know if buying the new formats is really worth it.

The 960 that I originally wanted wasn’t easy to get at any of the local stores. Best Buy carries the item on their website but even there it is listed as sold out. I was lucky to find it at Amazon.com $30 less than Best Buy with free shipping, but I had to wait ten days for delivery, which I decided was reasonable.

The item was delivered to my door at 4:32pm on Thursday November 30, and although I was home by 5:30 it was nowhere to be seen. My neighbors on either side were gone, but the suspicious construction workers across the street had a clear view to my house. Only a few weeks ago, workers from that very site were "suspected" of breaking into a house whose alley faces the pool they were working on. My neighbor on the Architectural committee for the Association said that there has been a rash of thefts, especially appliances after installation.

I emailed the warranty lady at Transeastern (The builder) asking who I should contact. She said she would get back to me with the answer. A phone call to the main office and then to the builder gave me the name of the construction manager. And I left a message asking what contractors were working across the street at 4:32pm that day. I’m still waiting for an answer. The other lady didn’t get back to me either.

The property manager for the Homeowner’s Association suggested I write a letter that he would pass on to the board. I wrote one on Monday and when I received no answer I followed up by writing a second one on Thursday. The gist of the two letters was that Transeastern isn’t policing the people who work here. The second letter brought on a call by Gale from the builder’s office transcribed here paraphrased a little but the essence in tact.

GALE: Mr. Stamper, there have been an awful lot of emails going back and forth and I thought I should call so we could clear this up.

TOM: Back and forth? I still haven’t had an answer to any of them.

GALE: I’m here to answer. Unfortunately, thefts are common during this time of year. I live in a real nice section of Metro West and I have had packages stolen from my front door. You need to let the police handle this.

TOM: There was a break in here recently attributed back to the same construction site. And my neighbor on the Arc committee tells me that numerous things have been stolen from houses during the construction process. And that the chandelier in that very house was stolen last week.

GALE: Sir, thefts at construction sites are common occurrence.

TOM: I’d like to have copies of all the police reports you filed for thefts here.

TOM: I’m not going to gather those up for you, sir.

TOM: How many there have been then?

GALE: This is not our responsibility. We can’t just go accusing our contractors without evidence. You need to file a police report and they can do an investigation.

TOM: Let’s say that the contractors are perfectly innocent. Why not ask them if they saw anything? Tell me who they are and I will ask them.

GALE: Listen, sir, that’s entirely inappropriate. You can’t just call the contractor. You need to file a report with the police.

TOM: How many convictions have you had for the all reports you’ve filed?

GALE: It’s very difficult to get convictions for theft because you have to catch them in the act.

TOM: So you people consider theft just a part of doing business. It may be for you, but for me it’s a matter of personal safety.

GALE: Call the police, sir.

TOM: What do you know about the people working here? If I went across the street and shot photos of them, could you identify them?

GALE: We hire contractors and they hire their own people.

TOM: So how do you know if the people working here have criminal records and are in this country legally.

GALE: House construction is the last handmade product in America and we build houses the same way every builder in town, the same way yours was built. ( I can tell that I’ve been put on speaker phone)

TOM: So you are not interested if the people working here have criminal records or are in the country legally?

GALE: We do not hire anyone that we know to be illegal.

TOM: (using the wise knowing voice) But you don’t ask because you don’t want to know.

GALE: Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m going to have to hang up on you if you continue talking to me this way.

TOM: Put words in your own mouth then. How would you describe the process in which people are screened to work here?

GALE: Be careful, you’re on speakerphone and I have a whole group of people here listening to this.

TOM: Fantasic. Any one you sitting there tell me whether you ask the contractors if their people have clean records and are in this country legally.

(CLICK—She hangs up)

She began in a very condescending tone referring to me as “sir” in that way that people do when they’re trying to gloss their superiority. She would have loved me to use one curse word so that she could hang up on me. I just clung to the Socratic method and she was so flustered in her voice that she hung up not wanting to directly admit what the accidentally admitted indirectly.

I wrote another letter yesterday summarizing the phone call and pointing out that making contractors sign affidavits saying that their people have clean records and are in the country legally would be of minimal cost, pass the liability to contractors, and ensure that far fewer criminals would have the legal right to stand around in this neighborhood gawking at the residents and their property.

I hit two political issues in the letter pointing out that John Lindsay, Ed Koch and David Dinkins all said that crime in NYC was a way of life and nothing could be done and then Rudy Guliuani proved them all to be fools. As citizens we have the obligation of preventing crime before the fact.

I also said that business is always complaining about over-regulation and taxation and yet here you are punting your problems to the overworked police when your own policies are causing the problem.

Then I did the Rush Limbaugh being absurd to demonstrate absurdity. I asked the board if they would be comfortable with the current policy if the people working here knew when their houses were vacant during the day. If so, then please send the names and addresses of all the board members and Transeastern Employees with their work hours and I will gladly deliver it every morning to the construction site.

STAY TUNED. . .