Daily Twaddle

Dang it!

The price changed from 41¢ to 42¢ - effective on May 12th.

I just bought a whole roll of 41¢ stamps last month! So, I had to buy a couple pages of 1¢ stamps to make up the difference, but I hate putting two stamps on an envelope.

It’s just so annoying. I always find out after I mail a letter that the price went up. Why not wait 5 years and increase the stamp price by 5 cents? Or, why not wait until January first? That’s when I expect prices to go up, or major national changes to happen.

I’m thinking seriously about purchasing the “Forever Stamp.” The Postmaster encourages us to by these stamps because they are good forever. Meaning I spend 42¢ now for a stamp, it will still cost just 42¢ when I send a letter five years from now.

My only problem with this forever stamp is that it comes in a booklet of 20. I like rolls of 100 better. I still don’t really understand why the post office created this stamp. I find it hard to believe that their motive is just to provide convenience for their customers - there must some some ulterior motive.

Why do so many companies use automated call systems? I find them so frustrating! I hate listening to super-long menu choices - especially when the reason for my call doesn’t fall neatly into one of the choices.

And when did it become acceptable to say “We’re experiencing a higher than normal call volume?” Does that really make it okay to force customers to wait longer than usual? Because, so far, every time I have called, you’ve been experiencing an unusually high number of calls. Hire more people!!!!

I called my (ex)web hosting company and waited on line for an hour. For an hour - seriously - then I just hung up. I didn’t even get to speak to a representative. Then I called their sales department and got right through. I told him that I’m incredibly frustrated with the service and all I want is the authorization code so I can move to a different company. He said “let me transfer you to billing… click.” And billing never picked up their phone. Startlogic is the company’s name in case you were wondering.

But… I called WalMart last week to inquire about some electronics. A real person answered the phone after one ring, she listened to my request and then told me she would transfer me to the department that can help. They picked up after two rings, checked on the item I inquired about and answered my question - all within 5 minutes.

I just wanted to vent a little.

That’s right folks… I left my iPod in my workout sweater and then I washed it. I realized I killed my iPod when I needed the headphones to plug into my computer to play games while Roch studied.

Dang it!

I was so sad. I cried for my little iPod. I pictured it buried under all the dirty clothes, with the water level rising… I didn’t even use warm water - I set the cycle for cold! Oh! I don’t deserve electronics!

So, there it is. Broken, but still beautiful. I think I will give it a proper farewell. Perhaps a viking funeral so I can set it aflame and send it to the ends of the earth in all its glory.

We’re going to the city tomorrow and I might stop by an Apple retailer to see if my AppleCare protection plan covers iPod neglect.

Sniff, sniff… snivel…

Update: It works… I willed it back to life.

I’ve been posting more posts than usual lately. I decided that frequent, short, (sometimes sloppy) posts are better than no posts.

I’m not sure how many of my readers use feeds, but I know that at least three of my friends actually go to my blog to see if I wrote anything new. I want to make sure there is something for them… even if it’s short or boring.

Since this website is personal, I don’t need quality (keyword filled) content for search engines. I also don’t use advertising, so the amount of visitors to my blog doesn’t matter to me.

I usually can’t keep up with other bloggers who write a new post every day or more than once a day. I don’t have time to read more than a couple a week. I also don’t have time to write that many myself. But… I do like knowing that my feed reader will show something new each time I go to it.

I made a list of some blog characteristics I find important when reading other blogs:

1. Fresh content at least once a week, but I prefer twice a week.
2. Useful information like tips or news with a humorous or casual tone.
3. Opinionated authors: “This is what I think and why.”
4. Blogs that keep me on their blog (not refer me to some other guy’s great posts all the time).
5. Pictures with each post - even if they’re generic. I like to get the gist before I read.
6. Replies to my (and other people’s) comments.

With the above criteria in mind, I try to run my blog the way I want others to run theirs. But… I don’t have a picture to go with this post. I’m just going to start with step one.

It’s a process… fortunately not a twelve-step process… although I have been drinking more since the semester started…

I heard a song on the radio thanks to Sirius’ Super-Shuffle. The shuffle randomly picks a song from all the music channels. It’s great! I rocked out to Boyz 2 Men’s Mowtownphilly and Micheal Jackson’s Thriller. I also have a new love of Def Leppard thanks to the movie Balls of Fury.

I heard a beautiful song from Gladys Knight called Midnight Train to Georgia. She says that he’s catching a train to Georgia because he wants to go to a simpler place and time. And she has to be on that midnight train because…. “I’d rather live in his world - than live without him in mine.” It’s so sweet! It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

But here is the real purpose of this post. I heard this song called “Signs” the other day on the radio. It’s just ridiculous. When I looked up the lyrics to create this post, I found someone else who already wrote a nice review of the song.

Retarded hippies! I just about had enough of their “let’s share (even though I have nothing to offer)” attitude. Historically… equality (communism) doesn’t work. People need incentive to work hard! And sharing everything they work so hard for with stinky, misinformed, lazy drug-addicts is not it.

Currently I have the Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and Playstation 2. I hoped that Nintendo would create another all-in-one game cartridge with the series of Super Mario Bros (1,2, and 3). They did that with the Super Nintendo (which I used to own, but I don’t know where it went). But, much to my dismay… no sign of my Mario Brothers for the 64.

I decided to go into the market for the original Nintendo (NES) so that I could finally play my beloved game. And duck hunt - boy, I loved that game too (I don’t shoot the dog when I play duck hunt, in case you were wondering).

Here’s where eBay came in. I ended up winning a package with the console, 20 games, the gun, and two controllers for $69 (including shipping). A pretty good deal I thought. Then… I realized my mom’s birthday is coming up. I bet she would love the original Atari!

Houston… we have a problem. The more I looked at the old Atari games, the more I realized that I wanted the Atari for myself! I decided to call my mom to see if she really wanted an Atari. She did. Bummer, because now it won’t be a surprise. But, we decided it would be best to ship the system to my house so that I can test the games to make sure everything is working correctly. Great plan.

But back to my eBay experience. Here are my complaints and kudos for the exciting act of online auctioneering.

1. Shipping Costs. They charge too much! Shipping usually runs just under $30! Whoa! I barely want to spend that much on the item itself! So… I only bid on items with low shipping costs.
2. Buy it Now. LOVE IT! Before bidding begins, sellers often offer a “buy it now” link with the price they’re willing to take for the item. So, rather than wait four days for the auction to end, you can make your purchase right away. Of course if you bid on the item instead, you might get it cheaper… or you might pay more if the competition is stiff.
3. Paypal. Although Paypal isn’t exclusively used for eBay - I think it’s an awesome feature. Easy, safe, secure.
4. My Maximum Bid. This is fantastic. I choose an amount I’m willing to pay… let’s say $30. eBay will then bid on my behalf up to my max amount. So if the current bid is $10, eBay will bid $11 for me. If someone comes in with $15, eBay will bid $16 and so on until $30. Very cool. I usually get my item for half of what I’m willing to pay. Or I get outbid altogether (which is fine because I didn’t want to pay more than $30!)

While I find eBay exciting, I get stressed out waiting for the bid results. I generally don’t bid on an item unless it ends within a day or so. Auctions ending within a few hours are best because I check my status every five minutes.

I’m actually writing this post while waiting for the auction to end for my mom’s Atari system. Frogger included of course. I have three minutes left and I’m the high bidder ($5 under the amount I’m willing to pay). Cutting it close, but I think I’ll be okay.

Click the refresh button… here we go… did I win? Oh crap… seven seconds left. Jeeze. Refresh. Come on, come on! Yes! I won! Hurray! Now on to paying with Paypal. I like to get feedback with the phrase “rapid payment.”

I love the white-pages in the phone book because I can easily find a particular company by name. But I’ve noticed that random companies have been printed with a yellow background. I think they tried to make it look light a regular yellow highlighter marked the page.

But I have no need to contact a real estate company, or a drug store, or a plumber. And if I did, I would look for them in the yellow pages. I use my own highlighter to mark my friends - but I use an orange color to differentiate between irritating ads and my actual saved numbers.

A lot of people here will say “Give me a call, I’m in the book.” Isn’t that strange? Small town, USA. So, I look them up in the phone book and highlight their name for future use. One of these days I’ll take full advantage of my computer’s address book.

We’ve come a long way from scrolling text and the annoying <blink> tag. But why do we let our advertisers annoy the crap out of our visitors?

Some websites have so many advertisements that it’s hard to find real content. I surf the net without cookies, javascript, flash and image animations. This sucks for site owners who want good general statistics about how people navigate their site. It also sucks for me because I might be missing some good content in an effort to block the crap.

But I understand that people need to make a living. I just wish there was a better way. So, to make me feel better, I’m going to vent about all the website advertising that annoys me by writing a top-10 list.

1. Lying ads: “you’re a winner!”, “you have new messages.”
2. Ads that resize my browser window.
3. Ads that flash or blink.
4. Too many ads - page takes forever to load.
5. Ads between pages I navigate (skip this advertisement).
6. Floaters. Those stupid windows that obscure content.
7. Ads with noise. They usually scare the crap out of me.
8. Articles written on 10 pages (one paragraph on each page) in order to show me more damn ads.
9. Ads that look like links that belong to this site, but in fact, take me to some advertisement site.
10. Ads in the middle of the page - right smack in between one article’s paragraph and the next.

Of course, these are just the advertisement annoyances. I could go on and on about websites in general (coming soon, logo not a link to the homepage).

Let’s be smart and stop using intrusive advertising that pisses me off!

As a Web Designer, one of the biggest problems I run into is gathering content (text & pictures) from clients. Business owners may not have any idea of what they want their website to do (they just know they need one because everyone else has one). Or maybe they’re just too busy and can’t find the time to add yet another task to their to-do-list.

Many times I write the content myself. I’ve asked a couple of clients to let me record our meetings. You’d be surprised how much great content they have in their heads when you ask “what’s so great about your product?” So, you can imagine how thrilled I am when a client actually sends me some “meat” to add to their site.

I just received a large brochure from a client. I assumed it was a brochure because the file name said “brochure.” But the extension was .pub. What the heck is a dot pub? I did a quick Google search and found out that a .pub is a Microsoft Publisher file. Great, I don’t have that program on my computer.

What are my options? Well, I can buy this stupid program that I’ll never use. But that’s dumb. Or, I can tell the client that I can’t use this file and he needs to send it in some other form. But that’s totally embarrassing. And I’m thrilled to get content in any form, I just wish I could figure out how to convert the dang file.

I found a website called PDF Converter. You can upload your random, weirdo document and they will convert it to a PDF, then email it to you (you’ll have to unzip it though). They can convert 117 different kinds of documents into a PDF. It’s also a free service. Okay, what’s the catch? Do they add viruses to the file? Will I get all kinds of spam after I submit my email address? Will they steal the content from the file I upload?

Skeptical, I read the privacy policy which stated they will not do any of that bad stuff to me. As far as their profits, they offer a membership service that is similar to shareware donations. They also get some of their money from their Google ads. I read more and found that this program is just one of many from the main software company (Baltsoft).

Okay, after deciding the website was legit, I decided to use the service and upload my .pub file. There was an option to attach the file to