Worthless eTrade

I decided to sell a few stocks and close my eTrade account, since their annual fees and commissions make it impossible to get any more returns than I can get from a savings account.

This is not as easy as you might expect.

One of my stocks has a value of $0. It's not even something I purchased - it's one of those mystery stocks that got created when there was a merger, or spinoff, or something. Well, I can't close my account until I liquidate these shares. And the only way to liquidate these shares is to print out a paper form ("Worthless Securities Authorization Form") and mail it in to them. And, by the way, there is a $5 charge to liquidate my worthless security:

Once I liquidate my worthless security, and sell everything ($12 commission for each), then I have to figure out how to transfer the funds to another account. Then I can ask them to close my account. Of course, they'll probably have hit me for two or three more annual fees by then.

Please Select Your Country

I am willing to embrace the flat world and its global market. However, this does not mean that I want to sift through a list of EVERY FREAKING COUNTRY to select United States from the bottom of the list on a web form.





This company did the list in an intelligent way, listing the most likely countries of origin on the top:



There are many examples of other ridiculous pull-down lists as well. Another one that really annoys me is time zone selection. Blogspot, for example, gives you over 150 time zones to chose from for your blog. As far as I know, there are only 24 possible hours of the day it could be at any given location at any given time. What ridiculous pull-down lists drive you mad?

That really...

Makes me mad!Gets my panties in a bunch!Burns my moustache!Pisses me off!Rubs me the wrong way!Ruffles my feathersDoesn't fly with me!Isn't Kosher!Taxes my patience!Crashes my hard drive!Bursts my bubble!Stinks!Sucks!Blows!Makes me flip!Pushes my buttons!Burns my potatoes!Raises my blood pressure!Sours my milk!Sticks in my craw!Doesn't add up right!Irks me!Blows my fuse!Grr!Are you still reading this?Move along now!Go back to work!

Apple iPod Incompatible With Polarized Sunglasses

As the weather gets nicer, I found myself outside more, enjoying my iPod. It's only now that I've discovered that I can't see the display in bright daylight when I am wearing my sunglasses. That is because I wear polarized sunglasses, and the iPod display, being liquid crystal (LCD), is also polarized. They oriented the polarization of the display screen to be at a slant with respect to the normal viewing angle. This means that the display is only roughly half as bright as it should be, unless I tilt the iPod at a funky angle.

Apple's engineers must be lazy. I can't think of a good reason why they didn't oriented the screen for maximum brightness when viewed horizontally. They went to such an effort to make the screen super bright, so that you can enjoy it in daylight. Did they not expect you to wear sunglasses? Maybe they are working on iShades (coming out in August) that will be more compatible with the iPod.

I wonder if the screens are installed randomly (though I seriously doubt it)? Does anybody else have the same problem with their display? I will be examining my friends' iPods closely.



For what it's worth, I checked my GPS unit display and it is set up properly for full brightness when viewed horizontally. Kudos Garmin!

Please Consult Your Tax Advisor

I am completely sick of advertisements that say "please consult your tax advisor".

First of all, these companies are just making this disclaimer so they can say anything they want in their marketing campaign. "HOME EQUITY LOANS - FULLY DEDUCTIBLE" (to determine deduction eligibility, please consult your tax advisor)


Newsflash: We are normal people! We are not rich marketing executives. I do not have a team of advisors. The only advisor in my house advises me twice a week to take out the trash. I have never had a tax advisor. And if I did, he'd charge me an arm and a leg to find out that your scheme is not tax deductible because I am not blind and disabled. I don't even know anyone who has a tax advisor. (The guy at the mall who, once a year, charges you $150 to punch your W-2 into a computer does not count).

Search for "consult your tax advisor" on the web and you will get 694,000 hits. All of them are people trying to sell something to us that we are not smart enough to understand. I am going to start selling a set of car tires that are guaranteed to last for 300,000 miles. I will include a disclaimer that says "consult your hydrocarbon polymer engineer".

Worst Passover Math EVER

Happy Passover!

Manischewitz may have the best Matzo Ball Mix around, but they sure aren't any good at math. Looking at the nutritional facts, it's clear that a package makes about 18 matzo balls. Then again, looking at the back of the box, you get a different story. First of all, is a "package" a packet, or a carton? Apparently 12 (or 24?) is about 18. Which is it???

This really isn't Kosher!

AMF Village Lanes

I took my children to AMF Village Lanes for an afternoon of bowling, along with their cousin who was staying with us for the week.





The first issue is that they would not take my coupon. Even though they are clearly listed on the website I went to as "AMF Village Lanes", they said they were privately owned and thus could not honor the coupon. I don't think it would kill them to honor our "Buy one kids game, get one free" coupon, to drum up some loyal local business. So I guess they don't mind the prestige of the AMF name, except when it comes to taking my coupon.

The bigger issue was when we violated the snack policy. Since my kids generally don't eat 3-day old hot dogs and beer, I took some Nutri-grain bars and juice boxes out of my backpack for the kids to eat. We went over to the designated tables, to make sure we wouldn't get food in the bowling area (even though this would have only added to the crushed chips and other debris that was already there next to the lane when we arrived). The alley guy came over and told us we would have to throw out our snacks because there is "No outside food or drink" permitted in the premises. (By the way, outside cigarettes are clearly not a problem). I told him he could try to take the juice box away from my 3-year old. Then he gave us the other option, which was to take it outside. So the four of us go outside the side door and sit on the asphalt in the parking lot eating our snack. A few minutes later, the guy comes out and says we can't take bowling shoes outside, so we will have to take off the shoes or go back inside. We went back in and the 3-year old hid in the corner to finish his snack bar while his cousin acted as "look-out".

By the way, for some very funny discussion about Village Lanes, look at some of the comments on this bowling2u page. I think Heather sums it up best with her commentary on 11/3/06. I won't spoil it for you, but she manages to precisely describe the decor, staff, activities, clientele, pricing, and equipment in one short paragraph.

Dear Microsoft Access

Dear Microsoft Access,

I just selected this database and clicked to open it. So can you please stop asking me again whether I want to open it? I have already thought about it, and I'm sure I want to open the file.

I know that sometimes files may not be safe to open. Thank you for the reminder. And thank you for reminding me every time I open this file. So can you please just open it now?

Love,
Mike

New Fangled Copiers Suck Ass

Advances in photocopier technology are one example of technology run amuk. I tremble with fear and intimidation any time I need to make a copy. You need a PhD from M.I.T. to operate the damn things. Not to mention that most office copiers also function as a networked printer/fax/breadmaker.

Sometimes I try to copy something only to find it won't make my copy because there is some print job error clogging up the queue. That's just great, because some idiot is trying to print to 24"x36" paper, which doesn't exist, I can't photocopy my important memo. And instead of just printing my little memo, I have to press all kinds of buttons because the copier can't imagine that I just wanted to print my 3"x5" note on a standard 8.5"x11" paper. No, I don't want zoom! I don't look forward to the day they add speech technology. "Are you SURE you don't want me to enlarge that? It's gonna look small at actual size. And you'll have WAY too much white space."

I have a solution. Apple needs to come out with the iCopier. It would just have one button on it, "Copy". Oh wait, that sounds just like the copiers we used to have many years ago that worked just fine.

Apple iTunes Annihilates Windows Computers

The last time Apple QuickTime alerted me, on my Windows 2k computer, that a new update was available for download, I noticed something new. There was an (automatically selected) option to also download and install Apple iTunes. I didn’t know much about iTunes, and I don’t condone software bundling with updates, but I figured it would be innocuous enough to try it out.

I was dead wrong. What happened next was worse than any blue screen of death. It was total annihilation.

After the installation was complete, I had to trudge through that all-to-common compulsory Windows restart. After the computer shut down, it never started up again. You would think that Windows “Safe Boot” or “Boot to Last Known Good Configuration” would be able to start up even after a bad installation. You would be wrong. You would think that the Windows emergency recovery disc would save the day. You would still be wrong. In fact, the only resolution I (and many others) had found was to reinstall Windows and start over.

I did an extensive search for solutions before resorting to a full re-install. Reinstalling Windows 2000 is a major headache (a rant for another day). The most disturbing thing I found is that Apple has been cognizant of the problem for a very long time (at least since 2005) and has done nothing about it. The problem is caused by a conflict with a commonly installed Win2k CD writing software application. Apple, and Steve Jobs, should be ashamed for not resolving the problem. Or in the very least, should modify the iTunes installer to abort if the conflicting software is detected on the computer. It is irresponsible to allow a bug to remain that completely and irrecoverably (to any common user) crashes a computer, even if it only affects a portion of users.

For anyone who is experiencing this same problem, I ultimately found a way to avoid the reboot (see comments).

What Does It Cost For An $8 Treasure Hunt?

I was thinking about going to this treasure hunt that I saw advertised in the local paper.


But I decided to boycott this event on principle. The cost is not $8! The cost is $13. I don't care how you distribute the fees after I give them to you. Just give me one number to tell me what the actual cost is.

Flexible Savings Accounts

If you get health benefits through your employer, you may be familiar with a horrific thing called Flexible Savings Accounts.

The first thing you realize about Flexible Savings Accounts is that they are not at all flexible, they do not represent savings, and they are not accounts. It gets worse from there.

The idea of the FSA is that you should not pay taxes on earnings that you earmark toward out-of-pocket expenses for medical care. But since you cannot be trusted, the government decided that you have to GUESS at the beginning of the year how much you will spend. If you guess wrong, you lose the money. So sorry.

The following are the simple steps you need to perform to save money with a Flexible Spending Account:

1. Take a wild guess how much your family will spend out of pocket on medical care next year. Warning: Do not guess wrong or you will lose any extra money that you guessed over the actual amount.

2. Let you employer hold some of your paycheck aside, so you can possibly be reimbursed later.

3. Fax receipts and claim forms with all of the details of your medical expenses to a claims administrator. Warning: You must include all of the necessary information, or they will not give you back your own money (that they took in step 2 above). This includes date, provider, services provided, member name, amount, etc. Just imagine filling out a dozen rebate applications, and you will start to get the idea.

4. Wait and hope that your expenses are approved so they can give you back your money.

5. Any amount that you overestimated in step 1 above is donated to your employer at the end of the year. Any amount that you underestimated, tough luck because you can not change your election during the year.

6. Repeat the process, starting back at step 1 for next year.

Example: Suppose you set aside $200 in your FSA, you are in a 25% tax bracket, and by some miracle you guessed right and provided the paperwork to get all of your money reimbursed. Congratulations - you just saved a total of $50 on your taxes! (Try not to think about the fact that for all that time you spent you could have just gone out and mowed 10 lawns for $20 each.)

Peerflix

Don't waste your time with a website called Peerflix.

Previously, I raved about Lala - a site where you can send and receive used CDs. Peerflix is the same concept, but for movie DVDs instead of music CDs. The only difference between the two is that Lala is awesome, and Peerflix stinks.

The biggest problem - Peerflix decided to have users mail DVDs in paper mailers. This means that (a) you have to fumble around with printing out mailers and wrapping DVDs with origami and scotch tape, and (b) your DVDs will be delivered cracked and un-usable. My very first DVD, after waiting 2 months, arrived cracked. The idiot who sent it to me didn't even use the correct mailer. He made his own mailer that was marked postage due, barely legible, etc.

Other problems - The Peerflix website is annoying. When you have a DVD that someone wants, it sends you an e-mail. If you don't immediately respond that you are sending the item, it follows up with a "you lost your chance" e-mail and labels your DVD as "not interested". And the DVDs are not all of equal value. There is a cryptic system that assigns dollar values to your DVDs. Also, did I mention that the DVDs arrive cracked and unusable?


In case you are wondering what I need to do to get a credit for my cracked/unusable CD, I checked on the website. It took me a few minutes, but I finally located a page with instructions for "filing a claim". I need to print out one of those origami mailers, and send them the cracked DVD so they can examine it to determiine if I qualify for a credit !

That really herniates my disc.

Wind Blows

The other day, I came home from work to find an empty space where there had previously been two garbage cans that I put out in the morning. It seems that my garbage cans blew away due to high gusts of wind in the afternoon.

Unless you are planning to fly a kite, wind sucks. I hate wind. Tornadoes...hurricanes...wind burn...wind chill! It might be 75F, but it feels like fracking -20F with the wind chill.

Best Buy Sucks #3

According to the Hartford Courant, Best Buy has confirmed that they have an intranet site that can only be accessed by employees that looks almost identical to the internet site. Apparently, employees of Best Buy have used this intranet site to deny customers discounts that were advertised on the company's internet site. Could Best Buy be intentionally misleading customers by advertising one price on the internet, but then having sales people pull-up the identical looking intranet site inside the store with a different price? I certainly hope not, but it's hard to imagine that in a tech-savvy store like Best Buy, the salesperson couldn't have just checked the price displayed advertised on the web.

Enclosed Is Your Taxcut Software

It's tax preparation season, so it would be easy for me to rant about the crappy features in my tax software. But my dignity is above all of that, so I am ranting about the crappy marketing strategy of my tax software.

For the last 8 years or so, I have purchased H&R Block Taxcut software (formerly Kiplinger Taxcut). This year I was pleased when they sent me the following package, including the CD, at no charge:



As you can see, the package clearly says "Premium Federal + State", "Everything you need", "Full version", and "Enclosed is everything you need to complete your federal and state return". Let me repeat that last part again - "Enclosed is everything you need to complete your federal and state return". Right at the top of the package.

Why do I think they would give me the software for free? Am I some sort of idiot? Good question. I don't know. I thought maybe (1) they charge for filing the return electronically, (2) they give you the basic version and try to upsell you an upgraded version, or (3) they try to charge you for certain features, such as tax advisor or deduction pro.

Now, just in case the marketing people at Taxcut are a bunch of SLEAZY DIRTBAGS who LIE and COMMIT FRAUD I decided to load the software in February to make sure I indeed had "everything I need to complete my federal and state return". Sure enough, I loaded the CD and it took me to their website where I could buy the software for $19.99. So the package that they sent me contained precisely nothing but a pointer to their website (you have to download updates to all of the files after you purchase the software anyway). So I went to ebay and bought the software for $0.01 plus $3 shipping.

The people I feel sorry for are the poor souls who load the CD on April 14. They are stuck paying $20 (plus whatever it costs for State), with little alternative.

That really taxes my patience.

Mystery Pricing

I understand that companies like to play marketing tricks. It doesn't bother me TOO much when they say a hotel room is $79 per person, double occupancy (actual cost = $158 plus tax). The company flashed a "fake" number (79), but at least there was full disclosure.

No, what really stinks is stuff like this item I received from Snowshoe ski resort in West Virginia:


I think it is unconscionable to say "Rate does not include reservation processing fee". Is it a $20 fee? Is it $99? This is a huge factor. Why did they bother to print the $53 number? This number is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT without knowing the amount of the mystery processing fee. It would be equivalent for them to just say "My niece's favorite number is 53. Call us to find out how much the real cost of this package is going to be". Who are we kidding, they know how much the processing fee is. So why not just tell us?

Milestone: 100 Posts

This post marks the 100th submission to the Rants and Raves of Thickness. For the past 1.5 years, we have been ranting (and occasionally raving) about anything and everything. To mark this milestone, we've added a list of favorite rants to the sidebar.

You can expect to see the following during the next 100 posts:

• A new and improved look and feel to the blog
• 40% more angst
• Guest rants (you know you want to)
• Vista rants (would you expect otherwise?)

Thanks For Your Business

Ok, I appreciate when the auto repair guys try not to get the mat soiled in the car, but do they really need to leave behind the filthy paper mat that says "Thanks For Your Business"?


"Thanks for your business. Now look for a trash can where you can pull over and discard the thick, crumpled mass of paper we left behind."

Specialty Pool Products

As soon as I received my Specialty Pool Products catalog the other day, I was ready to dig in and order some quality items.


And what is this about Free Shipping? How wonderful! Let's have a closer look.


Looks like free shipping is going to set me back $8.95. Goodbye Specialty Pool Products. Hello ebay.

The Windows Experience IndexTM

With the release of Microsoft Vista comes the Windows Experience Index. While not as exciting as the Jimmy Hendrix Experience, the Windows Experience Index is intended to indicate, in a single "score", how well your computer will perform under the Vista operating system. Microsoft has made it clear that, if your computer is older than Suri Cruise, then you might as well just throw it out, because Vista will simply cause the hard drive to melt down into a blob of goo if you try to install it.

This may be more obvious than Paula Abdul's substance abuse problems, but...

You should not need to buy a new computer every time Microsoft introduces an updated operating system!

It seems every time Microsoft introduces a new operating system, it raises the bar for minimum system requirements, without good reason. As far as I can tell, the reason you need a faster computer to run Vista is for the new Aero^TM glassy windows with "dynamic reflections". I have no doubt, once I run out and buy the latest computer pre-installed with Vista, that it will operate just as slow as my previous computer, because it will be overburdened with these new moronic and useless operating system "features".

So, if you are still thinking about upgrading a computer, you probably want to know your Windows Experience Index first, before you embarrass yourself. Here is all that you have to do:

1) Buy MS Vista
2) Install MS Vista on your computer
3) Get your Windows Experience Index (yes, you can only get your score AFTER you install Vista)
4) Act shocked when your score is -3.2
5) Uninstall Vista
6) Realize that you lost your WinXP CD, and now you are screwed.

Update: It turns out that Microsoft has a tool for XP that you can download called the "Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor". After installing this tool and letting it "analyze" for 10-20 minutes, it did... NOT reveal my Windows Experience Index. It DID tell me that I should replace my video card and upgrade my memory if I wanted to use Vista. I am half-tempted to plop down hundreds of dollars and many hours installing crap just so I can find out my WEI.

Slapping The Donald

When we had a dial-up connection, we waited forever for pages to load. We thought to ourselves, "When I get a cable modem, everything will be great. Even the most complex pages will load instantly. Surfing the web will be a true delight."

But what we didn't realize is that when designers realize that we all have cable modems, they will design more content into every page. Video, images, flash, etc will all become the norm. They will continue to do this until we are back to an intolerable load time.

Today's sign of the apocalypse - waiting for my browser to load a banner ad for "Slap the Donald - Get a Laptop".


That really burns my bandwidth.

You Send It

A few months ago, I signed up for some web services that let you send large attachments in an e-mail. All of them were horrible, so I ended up just putting the file on an ftp site instead. One of the sites I had tried was called You Send It. Last night, I got an e-mail from my friends at You Send It. I could not believe my good fortune. It said that I got a free upgrade of my account from YouSendIt Lite to YouSendIt Business Plus!


I could not turn down such an offer, so early this morning (11 hours after receiving the promotion e-mail) I clicked the link in the e-mail to upgrade my account. Here is the "Promotion code is expired" message I got on the site:


So to my friends at YouSendIt, I say: You Shove It!

AOL Instant Messenger 6.0

If you are one of the losers (like me) who are still using AOL Instant Messenger, please be warned that I do not recommend upgrading to version 6.0.

Here are some issues I had after upgrading and using it for 2-3 days:

1. After 4 or 5 messages in a conversation, the client would start mysteriously inserting blank lines into the beginning of my messages. First one blank line, then 2, 3, etc. This was also visible to the person with whom I was chatting. Although this is a complete dealbreaker, and I could stop here, I will proceed to mention a few other items I noticed anyway.

2. At times, it would not flash to indicate when I received a new message. This is critical. So a few times I would get messages back and then people would think I was ignoring them. Again, this is a dealbreaker. The program seemed to especially struggle when I had more than 1 conversation open. I like the tabbed feature where it only shows at most one AIM icon in the taskbar, but most of the time with tabbed chatting it would not flash when any new messages came in.

3. There was a problem with the timestamps. I would send something stamped 08:17 AM, then get a return message back stamped 08:14 AM. What the heck? This is not a dealbreaker, but very annoying.

4. This is not a bug, but it must be noted that they have a horrific new feature in AIM 6.0 which is hard to describe, but it is basically animated wallpaper in the background of your chats. When someone put a smiley in a message, the background would undergo a smiley explosion and there would be little shards of smiley shrapnel bouncing all over the place. (By the way, I am not making this up.)

5. I found out that this was a "Beta" release only AFTER going to the website to look for a Known Issues page. It seems like everyone releases products nowadays whenever they are 75% functional. They should tell you this before you install it. Of course, none of the above issues were listed as "Known Issues" on the website. The Known Issues on the site were things like "If you have the Smiley Central toolbar installed, you will not be able to send or receive IMs after the first one is sent or received." (Side note: I am paralyzed in fear of the existence of a "Smiley Central" toolbar. Please God, let me never come in contact with this toolbar.)

Let's hope they address some of the above issues before they force everyone on to 6.0. (Yep, only version 6.0 will be supported in Windows Vista. Enjoy!)

One bit of good news: I went back and installed version 5.9, and it seems to have effectively replaced this over the crappy 6.0 Beta version. Apparently, version 6.0 is so bad, they actually leave version 5.9 on your computer when you upgrade to 6.0 (I verified this on the AOL website).

Rave: Driving Ranges (counterpoint)

This post is a counterpoint to the rant about driving ranges (read MikeB's rant first).

I love going to the driving range! I believe that the increased interest in golf from beginners and social players is a positive thing. In fact, the increased popularity has spurred many new driving ranges to open making them much more accessible.

Access to Driving Ranges - Where I live, there are several driving ranges within a short drive (unintentional pun). Most of these ranges have lights so you can practice at night. Some are even heated for the winter. MikeB complains about walking up a flight of stairs to the second level, but having a second level means more people can enjoy driving. And, my drives go a few extra yards from the upper deck.

Feedback/Putting Green - There have been great advances in feedback. Check out Woody's Golf Range, one of my favorite places to go. They have flags that light up when your ball lands on the green. They also have pitching, chipping and sand trap areas. How cool is that? I don't think Woody's is unique, though. There are many driving ranges around the country with these features.

OK, I will agree that prices have gone up and you sometimes have to deal with crowds. But this only goes to show that there is a high level in interest in driving. I also bet it costs a lot more to run a driving range with lighted/heated tees and electronic greens.

One last note, using Bowling as a counter-example to driving ranges is ridiculous. If bowling has seen remarkable advances, then why do I still need to wear those stupid ugly shoes?

Christian Faith Financial

I was a bit disturbed by this piece of spam I received for a website called Christain Faith Financial offering "CASH ADVANCE LOANS", "NO CREDIT CHECKS", and "GET MONEY NOW".

First of all, perhaps this is just some sleazy company trying to take advantage of people's Christian faith. Maybe they offer borderline legal and quasi-ethical loans with very high interest rates. That would be bad enough.

But even supposing that this is a legitimate financial enterprise, I find it dubious for them to use Christianity as their selling point. I don't remember anything in the bible about offering sketchy financial services to your fellow man.

Even without knowing much about this company, I think is is safe to say that Jesus would be ashamed.

Captcha Security Favorites

A while ago, we ranted about a horrible CAPTCHA* screen that couldn't be interpreted by a machine OR a human (see original post). Since then, we have run into a few more classical examples of bad CAPTCHA's...

The first one is courtesy of our host, Blogspot.

Maybe this CAPTCHA was reasonable considering that the blog was about mind reading.

Google was trying to send a subtle message with this one. And, the next CAPTCHA that came up was the word "dumbass"! Go figure.

(Thanks to Chris Balbontin and The Daily WTF for this pic.)

*In case you didn't know, the term CAPTCHA is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. That is far less interesting than if CAPTCHA was just a cute way of saying CAPTURE.

Personal Information Management

It seems that every day there is a new website, device, or piece of software to help us manage our contacts. The item shown above, for a product called Notables, sums up the problems I have with this.

1. In this golden age of information, there is still no clear standard for moving your information from one application to another. So I guess these people are expecting us to spend 2-3 days loading all of our addresses, phone numbers, appointments, etc. into their product with the hopes that maybe it works and we will like it.

2. These products keep adding more and more features. Whatever happened to choosing a specialty, and focusing on that? Now, in addition to all of our contact information, we are supposed to also transfer our music playlists, photos, shortcuts, reminders, etc. And then pray that we can somehow get all of this stuff back out when we realize how buggy the Beta interface is and decide to switch to the new application that comes out next week.

3. If we don't upgrade to one of these "Information Management Systems", we suffer the guilt that maybe we are not managing our information as well as we could be.

4. Is it just me, or do people in general seem far less organized than they were 20 years ago? Back then, everyone had their trusty wall calendar and address book. They showed up on time for meetings without our having to remind them, and they sent birthday cards. The reality of the situation is that maybe it is not a better tool that people need, but just a desire to be organized.

Yahoo Email

Yahoo released their spiffy new e-mail service a few months ago. It is very impressive - much better than the clunky interface they used to have. In many ways it behaves more like the feature-rich thick-client e-mail applications we have all grown accustomed to using off-line. This is a good step for an on-line e-mail application.

There is only one problem - it is rather slow. It usually takes 5-10 seconds to open my inbox, and then 1-2 seconds to open each e-mail when I click on it. Doesn't sounds like a lot, but it adds up.

So what did Yahoo decide to do about this problem? Did they get more servers? Did they optimize the code? No, they hired some graphics people to come up with cute animations for us to look at while our mailbox is loading. I must admit, they are cute. Here is the mail guy getting chased by an ostrich:


So, the final tally is:

Speed of e-mail application: D+
Cuteness of animations: A

The Crane Game

There are certain individuals who leave a legacy of inflicting great agony upon the world, and among them is whomever invented the crane game. This is the game where a young girl puts a coin into a machine, drops a flimsy grabbing device in the hopes of winning a teddy bear, and then has her hopes dashed by the "crane" failing to latch on to the coveted object. For every child who successfully achieves a moment of joy from this machine, another 20 walk away crying. (Not to mention the 1 or 2 kids per year who get trapped inside the machine.)

As much as I hated this game before, I was even more troubled to recently learn that the game is rigged to not even work properly, except for a certain small percentage of the time. This goes beyond pure evil, and moves into the realm of fraud and deceit. I hope that anyone who sells these machines, or allows them in their place of business, is not able to sleep at night.

CD's or ITunes?

Ranting about the disadvantages of digital downloads and Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been on my to-do-list for a while. (And I've already ranted about hidden CD piracy software).

Rick Broida, over at Lifehacker, does an excellent job of summarizing the differences between CD's and downloadable music. Click here to read his article.

Driving Ranges

Golf Driving Ranges are one of the few aspects of modern life that have hardly improved at all during our lifetime. In fact, the price has gone up faster than inflation and the product offered has gone down.

Let’s take a look at some aspects of the range, and see how they have changed over time:

Tees: This is perhaps the biggest disappointment I have on a regular basis at the range. Who would ever want to hit a golf ball off of a tee that is 3-4 inches above the ground? This is not practice. It is like clown golf. This benefits no aspect of your swing. Perhaps they are assuming that everyone has the latest Big Bertha driver, with the largest possible head size? I remember back in the day, you would find tees of various sizes lying around the mats that you could use. You would look around, find one at the desired height, and then place it under your mat.

Balls: They definitely don’t seem any better than they used to be. Where is all that new technology – surely there are some used Titleist Pro V1 balls out there somewhere that they can scrounge up. No, it seems that we are stuck with the same red stripe specials they were feeding to us years ago.

Feedback: This critical area has not improved at all in 30 years. We are still stuck with a few signs posted at 100, 150, and 200 yards, pointed at an angle most likely different from where you are. You hit a shot and hope to squint and see how far it went. If you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of your ball, you then need to triangulate the distance based on your angle from the posted yardage markers. It’s about time they tracked the balls and told you how straight and far they each go. And then they should keep some statistics to let you know your average distance, trajectory, and alignment.

Mats: Here is an area where things have clearly taken a turn for the worse. Back in the day, most ranges had a little grassy area down at the end of the tee boxes. This let you practice hitting some actual golf shots, as opposed to trying to hit some fake shots from the Astroturf mats. It seems that you can hardly find these areas at all anymore, except for the upscale ranges at nicer golf courses.

Tokens: It used to be that you could get a large bucket of balls for $5. Now you get tokens for $6 each. But what they don’t tell you is that it takes 2 or 3 tokens to fill up the large bucket. Yet this is still better than the courses that give you a little bag of about 20 balls for $5. Side note: I bought a bunch of tokens one time when they had a 10 for $20 special. The next year I found out that they changed the machines, so my old tokens from the previous year would no longer work.

Crowds: Thanks to Tiger Woods, everyone and their mother are now learning to golf. So don’t bother finding a tee box on the “main level”. Just head up a flight of stairs (with balls spilling out of your bucket) to the upper level tees. Assuming you’re not getting drenched by rain, your additional challenge is to do some calculus to figure out how much further your ball is traveling due to the height advantage.

Putting Green: The new trend is to have target flags without holes. The best you can hope for is to bounce your ball off of the flag. This is not at all rewarding. Is it that hard to dig the little hole in the ground? And of course the inevitable sign that says “No Chipping”. What the heck? Do these people realize that I am coming to this facility to practice golf? Hint: it’s not that hard to grow new grass – I do it in my yard all the time, and it takes a few months. They should just rotate the chipping area from time to time. I hope next time I go to the ice rink, they don’t have a sign that says “No Figure 8’s”.

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Counter-example: Bowling, for example, is a sport that has done a better job improving over time. Most places now have bumpers so that kids can bowl, and they keep your score automatically (even though it doesn't work sometimes). They also have disco bowling nights, and other new concepts. I consider these to be good-faith improvements, and so I don't mind as much that the prices have gone up.

(Read counterpoint rave by BrianM)

Targeted Ads not so Targeted

I really hate when you do a search on the internet and some of top results are web sites that aggregate links to other sites. I feel the same about those sponsored ads that appear to be targeted but really aren't. You know, the ads that appear on the sidebar of the search and say things like "Find great deals on <insert search string here>, compare prices and stores!" You get your hopes up that they may actually have real live vendors waiting to sell you the rare item you were searching for, but they don't.

I did the following search to illustrate how obviously untargeted these ads can be...



and the results...