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”.

----------

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...

Security?

I went to the Citibank credit card site today to check my balance. It said that they are upgrading my security, so I just need to answer a few questions. Great! Sounds like fun. (By the way, "if you do not answer the security questions now, you will need to do so in the next week to continue using this website".)

They listed three sets of questions and I had to select one question from each list to answer. The section was labeled "a short walk down memory lane". Sounds wonderful!

Here are the choices they gave me for the first security question:


And the second:

Are you kidding me? What happened to "Mother's Maiden Name"? Are there really criminals out there with a database of mother's maiden names? I don't remember the name of my KINDERGARTEN TEACHER. Nor do I have a FAVORITE FLOWER.

I couldn't even bear to look at the choices for the third question.

I give up, the terrorists have won.

Winkflash is Unreliable

For the first time ever, we decided to skip our usual elaborate creation and order holiday photos from Winkflash. We ordered them in November, and they never arrived, so please tell anyone you know not to ever order anything from Winkflash.

Anyhow, below is our 2006 holiday card. We figured at least someone should get to see it.

Update: They did finally arrive on December 21, and we are supposedly going to get a refund (but hasn't gone through yet). Hopefully our friends and family will enjoy their New Year's cards. At least we said "Season's Greetings" on it, since we had heard that there were some reliability issues with Winkflash.

Rave: Sweet Sounds of Irony

Update #2:
Sony BMG has settled the lawsuits in 39 states for $4.25 Million plus additional damages to consumers who had problems after the BMG rootkit was secretly installed on their computer. I hope this serves as a strong warning to companies about this kind of shenanigans. (Read More...)

Update (May 25, 2006):
Sony BMG has agreed to a settlement of the lawsuit regarding their hidden copy-protection software. The settlement entitles consumers to a replacement of the infected CD's, $7.50, and one album download. They weren't punished strongly enough for their nefarious actions.

Original post (Nov 18, 2005)
Sony BMG has recently come under fire for putting hidden copy-protection software on their music CD's that embeds itself deep inside your computer without your knowledge and prevents you from copying music CD's. Things turned even more sour for Sony BMG when it was discovered that this embedded program is vulnerable to security threats and could allow viruses to attack your computer.

Here comes the ironic part...It has been noticed that this copy-protection software was developed using open source code in a way that violates the open source license.

Too much techno-babble for you? Let me summarize... In order to protect their musical copyrights, Sony BMG violated software copyrights.

I love it.

That really crashes my hard drive!

Parking Idiots

It's about time that somebody provided a fantastic way for you to vent your frustration at moronic parkers. The URL say it all:


http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/

Rave: 'Tis the Season to Make Excuses

This website makes life easier for you when you need to get out of that holiday party...

http://holiday.enlighten.com/

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Every year on the day before Thanksgiving, I see a commercial for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which features the following:

- Exciting balloons
- Marching bands
- Clowns
- Jugglers
- Rockettes
- Santa Claus

Then the next day I watch the parade, at which time I realize the 3 hour telecast breaks down as follows:

- 87 minutes: Commericals for Zales, in which an average-looking guy gives a diamond ring to a supermodel and then they walk into the bedroom

- 39 minutes: Lip-synching to recorded songs from Broadway shows that I have never heard of with homosexual themes

- 16 minutes: Interviews of D-list celebrities with movies or shows coming out for Christmas

- 13 minutes: Commentary about the weather

- 11 minutes: Balloons from cartoons that were popular 5-25 years ago

- 9 minutes: Marching bands

- 4 minutes: clowns/jugglers/Rockettes

- 1 minute: Santa Claus

That realls bursts my balloon.

Gift Cards

Gift cards are pure evil. I was reminded of this when I read this new bulletin on the reliable Snopes website about the latest scam where theives are jotting down the numbers from gift cards, calling to see if they have been activated, and then using the numbers to make online purchases.

But despite this latest example of gift card fraud (and there are many others, as well), gift cards were evil even before they were used to fraudulently steal money from the everyday consumer.

1. It is estimated that 15-20% of gift cards are never fully redeemed, and 5% are never used at all. Any one who has ever had a gift card will not be surprised by this, except maybe because they expected the figures to be even higher. This is the beauty of the gift card from the store's perspective - it is free money for the company any time it is not fully redeemed.

2. Nothing says "I couldn't bother to get you a real gift that I thought you might like" quite like a gift card.

3. Many gift cards gradually lose their value over time until they have no value. You can probably look up the obscure rules for how they are draining your card on some website somewhere, but what does it matter when you can't find the gift card anyway? Imagine the convenience of a $20 bill, but it is sitting in a bucket of acid and can only be used in one store. This is the equivalent of a gift card.

4. Stores are complaining that expiration dates are necessary for gift cards because they can't properly account for debts that may or may not be redeemed in the future. This is absurd. Just take the gift card money that you received up front, invest it in a special account until the card is redeemed, and do whatever you like with the investment returns which are FREE MONEY for your company.

5. When you get a gift card to a restaurant, you must select which way you want to lose money:
(a) Order extra drinks you don't want so you don't end up with money left on the card.
(b) End up with money left on the card, so now you have to go back to the restaurant again.
(c) End up with a small amount on the card, then watch it expire, toss it in the trash, or find it 4 years later when you're cleaning out the drawers in the kitchen.

I am encouraged by sites like Plastic Jungle that allow you to buy and sell gift cards. Maybe this will give us a chance to get back at these corporations who have been tricking us into giving them free money for too long.

Update 1/8/07: I guess some famous people are reading this blog. Click here to see a New York Times Magazine article by the guys who wrote Freakonomics, validating most of what we discuss above.

Evil Acrobatic Tricks

Dear Adobe PDF toolbar
sitting atop my Outlook window,
I hate you.




Dear toolbar, I am going to delete you now.



Dear toolbar, You come back when I
reopen Outlook. How do you do that?
I really hate you.



That really makes me flip.

Pop Tarts and Connect.com

I couldn't decide whether to bother downloading the "Free Song" advertised on my box of cinnamon Pop Tarts. But they had the cute little pop tart guy wearing little headphones so I decided what the heck, I like free songs, and set off to download a cool new tune.

I started to realize something was wrong when I went to the website and realized that this is not a free i-tunes download as one might expect. Rather, I would have to give them all of my personal information and download a new player. But when I heard about some of the features of the player, I decided to expand my horizons and check it out. I've already gone this far, I might as well download the player to get my free song.

So I did the following:

1. Downloaded and installed the 27 MB player and associated programs (OpenMG Jukebox? Personal Audio Driver? SonicStage?)

2. Re-started my computer (Required)

3. Tried to download my free song (must configure the player first)

4. Configured the player. (Note, it takes 15 minutes to detect and categorize my music)

5. Provided all of my personal information to Register for music purchasing (and exciting e-mail offers)

6. Re-configured the player to not be default player for all mp3 and wma files

7. Tried to download my free song (must open the player first)

8. Opened the player

9. Searched for my song

10. Entered barely-legible 16-digit alphanumeric code from inside of Pop Tarts box

11. Got the following error message "DMF_ERROR_OCCURRED":


12. Tried to downlolad song again. It said I have already downloaded it.

13. Tried to locate song in my library. My library, as configured by the player, is a complete mess. It didn't use my nice folder structure. It looked in the metadata for each song and tried to intelligently categorize them. So I have about 130 playlists, most of which are a single song. I finally found a menu to sort the library by date. There is nothing in the library with today's date.

14. I finally found the song under a "Purchased Music" screen. But no play button. If I click on the song, it takes me back to the store to purchase the song again.

15. Closed and uninstalled the player.

-------------------
Update: See below, of course now they are sending me spam:
-------------------

That really pops my tart.

Merge of Doom

I am usually a good driver, but there is one situation I often find dangerous, the lane merge. I hate when you are driving along, and suddenly the line between lanes disappears and two lanes merge quickly into one. They never give enough notice (sometimes none) and you have to make quick action to avoid merging into another car.

I have a simple solution. Why don't they use a special lane marker paint pattern that indicates the lanes are about to merge. Like this:

Too Many Receipts

I went to the grocery store last week. I bought exactly 4 items - milk, orange juice, and two bags of chicken. I then received the following receipts (from three different machines):

I included the $20 bill in the picture to give you a sense of scale.

So when I got home, I think my remaining activities for the evening were: put away groceries, have dinner, read some receipts, take a break, read the rest of my receipts, and then go to bed.

Each receipt has it's own endearing characteristics. As much as I disliked the one that had a bunch of Kraft recipes on it, by far the worst (see lower right) was the sheet that said precisely one thing, which was "Buy 6 cups of Starbucks, get the 7th cup free". (Incidentally, I need to make all 7 of these purchases in the next 2 months. Not likely, unless I reduce the contributions to my retirement plan.).

So my choices for all of these little slips of paper were (a) throw them in the trash and be racked with "I didn't recycle" guilt, or (b) have them flittering about my recycle bin for the rest of the week as a cruel reminder of my brief trip to Giant.

Here's an idea. Since they have all of my credit card numbers, and they obviously know all the things I like (from my profile), maybe they should just buy a bunch of Kraft stuff, cook it, ship it to my house, and then bill my credit card. This would eliminate the paper entrirely.

That really tickers my tape.

Most Annoying Pre-Recorded Phone Message Ever

Ever get this:

"We're sorry, it is not necessary to dial a 1 or zero when calling this number. Please hang up and try your call again."

WTF? The phone company is just rubbing it in that I didn't follow their rules? They know what number I wanted to call, they just want to make me dial it over again without a 1. Bastards!

That reals pushes my buttons.

Click To Enlarge

I wasn't sure if the bulb I was evaluating had the proper connection interface. Fortunately, the page offered a "Click to Enlarge" option so I could get a better look. Here is the original and enlarged picture:

That really enlarges my bulb.

--------------------------------

Update: I guess we're not the only people to notice this type of issue.

Thanks... for Nothing

I was chatting with a friend in MSN Messenger. He was trying to send me a file, and for some reason it was taking a rather long time to transfer.

But lo and behold, Microsoft was there to help! I saw a link at the top of the chat window that said "If you are experiencing a slow transfer rate, click here to find out why". The wonderful geniuses at Microsoft somehow detected just what I was thinking, and were there to offer a solution. I clicked the link to find out why.

A page loaded which said "A problem occurred. Please try again".

Thanks Microsoft... for nothing.


That really slows my transfer.

Killer Sale

A few weeks ago I received two coupons for $10 off your entire purchase from a local Safeway grocery store. It was for one specific location because they had recently remodelled and wanted to attract new business. The store was only slightly out of my way travelling from work to home, so I decided to stop in and use the coupons.

This past Saturday there was a shoot-out in front of the Safeway and three people were killed. It happened late in the evening (10:45PM), but Safeway was still open and this is the time I often grocery shop. There is some irony to being killed in front of a "Safe"-way.

I'll tell you what, it's gonna take at least $20 coupons to get me to ever go back to that supermarket.

That really expires my coupon.

Rave: Online Photo Sharing

Lately I've been spending a lot of time browsing photos on Flickr. I started with the idea that you can easily find photos of rare things by using simple search tags (try green flash, for example). But over time I have come to realize what an amazing thing it really is to be able to peruse other people's personal photo albums. It almost feels like you are sharing EVERYBODY's experiences.

For example...

Last weekend I went hiking at Whiteoak Canyon in Shenandoah National Park with Hallie and Theresa. The waterfalls were so beautiful.




Then, I had dinner with the girls at Jalelo's in downtown DC.



Then I just hung out and watched TV with the regular gang.



OK, I don't really know any of those people.

But I've even been able to find pictures that hit closer to home.
Search for pics from your high school, favorite diner, whatever. You may be surprised.

That really clicks with me.

Spilled Milk

The other day I discovered a gallon of milk in my refrigerator in a funky package, different than what we usually get from the grocery store. I was pleased to see that I was about to experience the latest in milk storage technology. It was Kirkland Farms milk from Costco. Given that they now have syrup bottles that somehow do not get covered in sticky syrup, I was giddy with anticipation to experience this new milk distribution unit.


Now, the one thing about choosing milk is that milk is milk. It all tastes pretty much the same. In a way, it's like when you choose where to get gasoline. As long as the gas doesn't spill all over the side of my car and my shoes, I am happy with the gas.

So here are my three requirements for milk:
1. It does not give me mad cow disease
2. I can quickly open the safety seal without special tools
3. I can pour it without it dripping all over the container and counter.

Here is my report card for Kirkland Farms gallon milk from Costco:
No Mad Cow: A
Safety Seal: D-
No Drips: F

The safety seal on this container has the approximate removal time of the plastic wrapper on a CD (yes, including that sticker on the edge). Note, this time can be reduced if you have handy an eyeglass repair kit and some whittling tools.

It is somehow impossible to dispense milk from this container without having milk go down the side and drip on the counter. The one exception might be if you were pouring the entire contents of the container into a very large pot. This might be a good idea anyhow - then just store the pot in the refrigerator and toss the milk container in the trash. When the milk in the pot goes sour, now you can go buy a gallon of milk from another store.

Note to milk distributors - please discontinue the use of this container immediately, or I will have to start sending people to this site.

This really bovines my spongiform encephalopathy!

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Update
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I received a nice e-mail (below) from Costco customer service.


I guess it is pretty cool that the cartons are stackable. If you don't mind drips, and want something you can stack, then I heartily endorse Kirkland Farms milk from Costco.

Easy Share My Ass

I recently decided to "upgrade" my Kodak "Easyshare" software from ver. 5.0 to ver. 6.1. It was anything BUT easy. Calling it "Easyshare" is like calling quantum physics "Easylearn". Here are a few of the worst things that happened:

1) The software failed to install, giving the extremely useful error response "Error 20x101x12029x." When I went to the Kodak support website, they had a list of troubleshooting instructions where you had to match up your error code. "Click here if you are experiencing 451x238x12951x error." There was no rhyme or reason to the error codes. I had to read the entire list, matching up those codes until I found a match. I did not find a match.

2) I finally found some generic instructions suggesting that I do the following before trying to install ver. 6.1.

• Remove ver. 5.0


• Reboot computer


• Download ClearV64N.exe from Kodak website and run


• Reboot computer


• Try installation again

I had to run a special application to remove their software? WTF? Upgrades should be able to install over older versions or coexist, not require manual remove of previous versions, special software, and 2 fracking reboots! Even after that, during additional phone support from Kodak, they had me search my hard drive and manually delete additional remnants of their weed-like software.

3) Now that I completely removed Kodak "Easyshare" from my computer, I could no longer access my CD-ROM drive (the removal corrupted my drivers). I also could no longer access my Kodak "Easyshare" camera, which requires the software to download pictures. Warning: Never buy a digital camera that requires special software to download the pictures! A lot of GOOD cameras give you immediate access to the photos the same way you get access to files from a flash drive when you plug it in.

4) The final solution was for me to turn off my firewall while installing the software. Listen here, Kodak, I don't want to turn my firewall off to install your crappy software. The whole point of a firewall it to protect myself from malicious, or in your case poorly designed, software. "Oh you can trust us, we are a big friendly company." Like Sony BMG?

If I didn't absolutely need this software for my camera, I would have never continued with the installation. I also don't plan to buy any more cameras from Kodak. Mea culpa.

That really makes me 45x607x2091x.

Preying on Human Nature

I am getting tired of people taking advantage of us. They study our human nature, and then they use it against us to get our money. Here are some examples:

1. Gas pumps that have the most expensive (high octane) gas on the left. You are thinking about something else, click on the left choice that you expect to be the cheapest, and you end up spending an extra $.20 per gallon.
2. Pop-ups in a web browser that start installing something if you click "OK" instead of the red X.
3. Telemarketers who record you saying "yes" to confirm your name, then it turns out you're actually saying yes to agree to sign up for something.
4. "Free" services that automatically start billing you if you do not take the initiative and figure out how to cancel them.
5. TV shows that tell you to stay tuned for scenes from next week's episode. Then they get you twice - first they show you a bunch of commercials and then they roll right into the next show to get you hooked.
6. Restaurants that include the gratuity in the bill and don't tell you. There is no incentive for the server to tell you that the gratuity is included because they can stay quiet and hope for a double tip. I can recall several times that we almost didn't notice this (and I'm sure there were times we never caught it at all).

We can all be absent-minded at times and not pay attention to details. So shame on us, but also shame on companies who take advantage of our weaknesses.