Twitch

You know when you encounter something (taste, smell, thought) so unpleasant that you scrunch up your face and bleat out "erk"? You know the face... the kind your mom warns you will stick.  I had that today. And then when I told someone else what had caused my face, they involuntarily did it, too.

I was reading an article from the other Robert X. Cringely today and he mentioned two companies that shouldn't exist:

Yo - an iPhone app that lets you send "Yo" to others who have the app installed. One million dollars in venture capital was thrown at it after it reached 50,000 users who'd sent a combined four million Yos. That's a quarter a Yo. And we thought cell phone companies were overcharging for text messaging. And that's before it was discovered the app was so poorly built that you could find the phone number of any user and sent them unsolicited Yos or other words or even music that apparently would play on their own.

Speaking of quarters, here's a subscribe-and-lose offering for you... Washboard will let you subscribe to a service that will mail you quarters on a monthly basis. Let me repeat that. You can subscribe to have someone mail you a roll of quarters.  $10 worth of quarters for $15 or $20 for $27. Nice looking website. I used to get quarters from the grocery store or any bank or change machines or the manager's office at our apartment complex. Before they switched over to the reloadable keycard. Quarters? Really?

It finally dawned on me. It's not that I can't come up with any good ideas, it's that I don't have the nerve to foist absolutely horrid ideas into the marketplace where supremely ill-advised people will undoubtedly fall for them.

I guess I just have too much respect for my fellow humans.

F minus minus

Seriously, how racist is this company?

"Kreative Kookies for Kids - Ready to Kut - Kreate & Bake - Kreative Kookie Cookie Dough" - thirteen words and six are spelled incorrectly. 

Manipulation, Much? @GerberLife

Gotta love this mailing from Gerber Life Insurance Company.

Photo of a baby with a thought cloud that wonders "You love me, right?" The cute little guy has been forced into child labor to guilt grandparents* who don't remember what their grandchildren look like to "Do something today to show your love now... and for years to come."

*This was addressed to my dad but delivered to my post office box.  They must have the same low-rent data source that General Motors uses.

Facebook is lazy.

Greedy Facebook is misguided and greedy.  And possibly lazy.

Hey Mark, you're so rich, you buy her the mug.

Wha.. Why?

Behold!  I give you the "Lowes Hardware Danger Challenge Course Extravaganza" - a three part rather silly and seemingly unnecessary and potentially hazardous bike lane that crosses two car paths and at one point has car traffic on both sides of it.

I think you park in the Lowes parking lot, ride half a block and then walk back to your car having killed and 2 minutes and avoided getting run over by fast moving traffic.

Click to enlarge

Here's the street on Google Maps*.  That whole section to the west was entirely moved south and rebuilt after the Lowes was built and the corner rebuilt, so it's not even like they can claim that they would add more as they rebuilt the streets nearby.

*I would have zoomed in more but it wants to do that stupid 45 degree tilt thing which makes it very difficult to see the street.  (You can turn it off when you're in Google Maps, but there doesn't seem to be any way to create links that have it turned off.  Very stupid.  Boo, Google!)

Are you KIDDING me?!??!?!

Jury duty.

Well, I guess nothing can be worse than having to drive from the valley to Beverly Hills every day for jury duty. But still...

Crash Call Pilot

Ok, I've only used it for a couple of days now, but Nortel Call Pilot is a really crappy, crappy voicemail system. Probably the worst one I've ever used.

To do anything requires several keystrokes, the recorded voice is abrupt and unpleasant and it's just annoying and frustrating. This is the first one where I'm going to have to keep the menu tree handy for years.

It only does three cool things (based on the level of access we've been given).

1. Separate internal/external greetings
2. Can put an expiration date on temporary greetings
   
3. Can control some functions via ugly website with cumbersome plug-in that only works on Internet Explorer.

So if you're the maker of a voicemail system and it doesn't have these features -- but does have a pleasant sounding recorded voice and is easy to navigate, these would be great features to add (except that Firefox support and a nice design for the website would be plusses).

If you're Nortel, please start over because Nortel Call Pilot is a stinky piece of cheese.

Bad Water

CONSUMERIST.COM -- And in Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji. More...

Match.com: "Hey hey hey. Over here. Yoo, hoo, girlfriend!"

MSNBC.COM -- Ok, this is downright moronic. Woman's suing eHarmony because of its policy of only catering to the heterosexual community. This is all about picking a fight. There are plenty of other dating websites that do allow "men seeking men" and "women seeking women" and I'm sure there are some that only offer such pairings.

In my opinion, it's one thing to demand that someone sit at the back of the bus, or Wal*Mart passing someone over for a promotion because of their skin tone/hair color/sexual preference/accent/etc. and entirely another for you to sue because someone's trying to make money by catering to a specific demographic.

It'd be like a Christian suing JDate or me suing Goodwill-competitor "Out of the Closet" thrift stores for not offering non-flamboyant used clothing. Or Olive Garden for not offering Lobster and Hummis on the menu. (Ok, the last one's a stretch, but still...)

Of course, in our sue-happy culture, this is all about the lawyers and people wanting to get something for nothing just because they can say "boo hoo" and claim they've been slighted because they couldn't find a size zero at Catherines, a size 21 at Forever 21 or a well-made car at a GM, Ford or Chrysler dealership.

If it's the sophisticated matching that eHarmony does (and I've heard people say it's bunk and that they didn't find any matches) that they're after, then it probably won't work to find compatible matches amongst gay people. Instead of harassing eHarmony, go start your own gayHarmony with your own sophisticated matching algorithms designed for the gay dating scene.

*sigh*

Hey Google: April was last month

iGag. What, were the Google Personalized Homepage (go to Google.com and click on "Personalized Home") people feeling left out after Google TPS and GMail Paper? Seriously, is "iGoogle" some sort of Maypril Fools or something?

This is a really, really awful name. The "i" thing has been done to death and we must once and for all cede it to Apple and walk away.

Seriously? I mean, for real? This isn't some kind of joke? It just looks stupid and sounds stupid. Like some cheap rip off copycat from a second-run has-been trying to take one last stab at glory by copying from someone else. Not the market leading innovator.

Ugh, ugh and ugh again.

California DMV: Red Tape from Hell

The level of uselessness astounds me.

In January of 2006, I renewed my tabs. We moved in March. It pained me to pay a full year when I knew I was moving, but I wanted to stay legal and there's no such thing as a partial payment.

In March of 2006, we moved. Lori received a notice of renewal, forwarded to our new address. We checked the box "Moved out of State" and wrote down "Washington." I'm not sure we provided them with our new address. We also noted that it applied to my car, including license plate number and VIN.

In June of 2006, Lori got the "Notice of Delinquent Renewal" with assessed penalties and the bill for Planned Nonoperation and threats of collection. She called and went around and around on the phone with them, again also mentioning my car. Ultimately she had to mail in a statement to the fact that the cars had been registered in another state and provide proof of that registration.

In August, we started receiving political advertisements at our Washington state address. By the buckets. Several a day. They went on until a week or two after the elections.

In January of 2007, I got a renewal notice for my car. I checked the box "Moved out of State" and wrote down "Washington" and returned the form.

This week, I got the "Notice of Delinquent Renewal" with assessed penalties, threats of collections, etc., etc., etc. I called the 1-800 number. It doesn't take too many keypresses to get to the operator, but if they're not on duty yet, it just asks you to call back during normal business hours without actually informing you as to what those hours are. I finally talked to someone who demanded a faxed copy of my registration without letting me finish my story in the first place.

I sat and fumed for awhile and then called back. As soon as I was connected, I asked to speak to a supervisor. He said "Supervisor... hmm... what did you need?" I sighed and began to explain it to him. After awhile he said "Hang on a second." and set the phone down on this desk noisily. It was quiet for awhile, then I heard a printer, then it was quiet again. Then he picked up and said "I found someone." After more silence, Gloria picked up. I asked her how much the operator had told her. She said that he had handed her the printout and then she asked me to again give my license plate number and details to confirm I was me.

I told my story again and she explained that there was nothing she could do because I was talking to the "Campbell office" and I had sent the form to the "Sacramento office." and that she was willing to help me clear this up. I explained (again) that I understood all that but was trying to communicate that there was a larger problem, that someone who was processing renewal forms wasn't doing their job. She again explained that she was in the "Campbell office" and not the "Sacramento office." I tried to explain that maybe she could tell someone. She offered to give me a 916-area-code phone number so I could call the "Sacramento office" with my concern.

In the end, she offered that I could mail it to her if I didn't want to fax it. I liked that idea much better because I figured she would be more likely to get it and that I trust the US Postal Service more than whoever happens to walk by the fax machine in the Campbell office. ("like the soup!" she said, as a way of avoiding spelling it. I bet she wishes the street name was spelled "Daryl" so she could have said "Like the movie!")

We're government. We don't have to be smart, efficient, or customer-centric. Thankfully, government is one arena I've never been employed by and hopefully never will.

Will we have to go through all this again in 4 years when our California drivers licenses expire?

Worst. Rap. Ever.

Yeah, I think if you're dropping ref to "Whole Foods" and the shape of the Audi logo, your rap's kind of a lame sell-out. Is it supposed to be clever? It's, well, not.

I said, "what time you get off?"
She said, "when you get me off"
I kinda laughed but it turned into a cough
Because I swallowed down the wrong pipe
Whatever that mean, you know old people say it so it sounds right
So I'm standing there embarassed, if we were both in pairs
I would have grabbed her by the waist and kissed her, but
We in the middle of whole foods, and those foods
Ain't supposed to beef, but you'd think I hate tofu
Check-in line got rowdy, my vision got cloudy
I started seeing some circles like some audi
Emblem, I'm hearing them say, come on man
Do this own your own time, get the hell on, man
I walked out, hm, I got bout
Half-way to my car when I heard shorty shout
"3000, forgot your credit card, smart move
By the way, my little sister loves your cartoon"
Well, here's my name and numb
If I ain't the one, lose it, if I am, use it
If a man chooses, and he can, do's it
And he don't, don't take it personal, he might be might be swamped
With making mozarella - no, making laws bettter
Cheese will come, believe me, I'm, never focussed on the cash
Ask Mel Gibson, Jesus Christ, I'm bout the pass... ion

The bridge, though, is brilliant. (And by bridge I mean "chorus, second stanza.")

Ahh, ahh, ahh-ahhh, ahhhh...
She's fine too, but I want you...
Ahh, ahh, ahh-ahhh, ahhhh...
She's fine too, but I want you...

Does sample a song I like. But the minute he says "Whole Foods," I'm like, yeah, no you didn't. Awful. Thanks for that, LaunchCast.

Bit By Bit

I wonder what would happen if I added up all the "there's x minutes of my life I'll never get back." I'd probably get really depressed. Here's something Lori sent me for its sheer awfulness value. Probably the most talented thing in it is Ryan Seacrest, if you can believe that. (I stopped watching American Idol and moved out of L.A. -- has he come out of the closet yet?) For your viewing displeasure... Gwen Stefani.