bbendick

Our CBS affiliate has introduced a news crawl across their nightly news. I found it so annoying and pointless I bothered to offer feedback on their website. Of course, trying to find the feedback was frustrating too…

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/history_aficionado/374868590

 

- Pulled my first all nighter in quite a while.

- Coded a major new feature from scratch.

- Watched 8 episodes of Ugly Betty on abc.com.

 

I love Improv Everywhere, and their latest mission has to be the best ever.

 

Thank you, Apple, for completely breaking iTunes with your last two updates. At least the 2nd time I didn’t have to spend hours trying to figure out how to fix it.

And I don’t know when you introduced the “Diagnostics” option off the “Help” menu, but it crashes when I run it. Which is par for the course, but at least it gave me a chuckle.

 

A few searches indicate this isn’t totally new, I’m just getting it for the first time. But I’ve just received an invite to “ATM PAYMENT UPDATE”. And the description was one of the standard spam texts: “This is to officially inform you that we have verified your
contract/inheritance file and found out that why you have not received
your payment..” etc.

The efficacy of spam overall still boggles me. I don’t doubt it works, or it would have stopped by now. I would think someone using an online calendar would be a tiny bit more savvy. I’m probably wrong. :)

 

While I appreciated your ample signage throughout the valley, I ignored the warnings
“Ray Rd exit closed at I-10″ because I wasn’t getting off there. However, the reality was
“I-10 closed at Ray Rd”, which isn’t remotely the same thing. I could have easily picked a different route had I known. While the extra time let me listen to another episode of The Bugle (my new favorite podcast), I’d much rather have 45 minutes of my life back. In fact, there should be a way to file that request on your website. It would be a fantastically popular feature.

 

Arthur C Clarke, 90, passed away today. He was the first science fiction author I read. He’s also entirely responsible for my firm policy against reading books in progress, after an excruciatingly long gap between Rama novels. So I have him to indirectly thank for a really pleasant time reading Harry Potter all at once. :)

I’m going to start Childhoods End tonight, in his honor. One of my favorite novels of all time.

 

Coding Horror: A Question of Programming Ethics

 

I was at Ace Hardware yesterday getting some help replacing a washer on
my faucet. A man came in to have some keys made and requested a blank
with the UofA logo on it. While they tracked one down he offered up
this explanation: “These keys are for the Tucson house. Seems likes the
easiest way to keep the keys straight.” I tried to envison myself in a
reality where I had to pick different logoed keys to keep my houses
straight, and I failed miserably.

 

David Pogue has an excellent blog entry in the dangers kids face on the Internet. It’s a brief read worth checking out, as many of us will soon be (or are already) confronting some of the issues.

 

I’m flying to Cape Cod next week to help a friend move to Georgia. Moving *from* Cape Cod *to* Georgia might seem like a downgrade, but that’s not the point of this story.

My flight into Boston is a red-eye, so I’ll be getting it at 5:30a. I have no problem sleeping on planes so I should be relatively well rested. The weather looks relatively cooperative, so why not spend a day in the city checking things out?

But I’d rather not carry my luggage around, of course. So, where can I store my luggage? I searched high and low. My google-fu was weak. Eventually I broke down and called the Boston Visitor’s Bureau, who told me, instantly, “4th floor of south station”. He then told me, in about a minute, the route names of the buses or subway I’d need to get to there and from there. The same information it took me quite a bit longer to piece together on my own.

Of course, his intel contradicts the people at the bus station, but he seemed awfully confident compared to the bus lady who said “Well I’ve been down there a few times, and haven’t seen any lockers.”

And I hope the weather forecast holds!

 

For all of you that had the pleasure of being jumped on, shed on, farted on, sat on, or most often vigorously licked by our wonderful dog Lexus, I’m sad to report that she passed away earlier today.

Over the last few days we noticed she had stopped eating and vacating. She had labored breathing and was lethargic, but she was also drinking and peeing normally. The vet seemed relatively unconcerned and we all thought it was just constipation. Obviously something more was going on inside.

We got Lexus as a young dog from a friend who found her wandering on the street. She was obviously abused and neglected, but turned out to be a wonderful and patient dog. Poked, pulled, lied on, and rode, she was the best dog possible around kids. And adults too!

Lexus is survived by three hundred pounds of hair embedded in our
couch.

 

I love the random code I find when I’m doing house cleaning. Like a php script to display the current listeners from Duane’s radio station. Or “cylon.jpg” as part of production data. (I had to test the file upload, right?). Or this bit of highly useful code:

<%@language=”jscript”%>
<%
var ctrl = Application(”ctrl”);
if (ctrl == null) {   
    Response.Write(”Failed to retrieve setting”);
} else {
    Response.Write(ctrl.GetAppSetting(”squeegeeHead”));
}
%>

 

Last nights episode of Lost might be one of the best they have ever done. I thought MST3K had hijacked the national ABC feed or something. “Sawyer is a bit surly today…”

 

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 7281 songs
How many hours or days of music: 23.8 days

Most recently played: “Let’s Work” - Prince
Most recently played while I was still listening: “7 [After 6 long Version]” - Prince
Most played: “Kiss (from rave un2 the year 2000 dvd)” - Prince
Most recently added track: “Lyrics Undercover: Stay (I missed you)”
Most recently added song: “Such Great Heights” - Ben Folds Five

Sort by song title
First Song: “A” - Barenaked Ladies
Last Song: “Zviroto Zvangu” - Chunki / Mateo / Phillip / Thabani

Sort by time
Shortest Song: “Yo Vanilla” - Vanilla Ice
Longest Song: “Big Beatch Boutique - 13th July 2002 - Brighton Beach” - Fatboy Slim

Sort by album
First album: “Abbey Road” - The Beatles
Last album: “Zoot Suit Riot” - Cherry Poppin’ Daddies

First song that comes up on Shuffle: “Feeling So Real - Ray Keith Mix” - Moby

Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 6
Life - 81
Love - 458 (63 of those match Lyle Lovett though)
Hate – 20 (10 of which match on “whatever”)
You - 683
Sex – 30

 

Among the myriad ways I can save, export, and share my google docs files, none of them include simply emailing it. Integration among their own products continues to suck.

 

If you happen to come across the special edition “chocolate cherry diet dr. pepper” DO NOT DRINK IT. You might want to buy some just so someone else doesn’t buy it by mistake. Or maybe to compliment your collection of frankenfood. But certainly don’t buy it to drink it.

 

I voluntarily returned my randomly selected “mid-size” rental of a Ford Mustang. And I returned it for a station wagon. It’s a Dodge Magnum, which is a pretty damn nice station wagon, but still. :)

I left the airport in the mustang and headed straight for Walmart. (replacement sunglasses, check! Warmer gloves, check! Long johns, check!).  It had what I assume is a “sportier” feel, like not responding much when you touch the accelerator, then *really* responding when you touch it some more. But I was super close to the ground, and the cockpit felt cramped and cluttered. And the instrument cluster was pretty distracting. The gauges were at the bottom of these huge wells. Either way, it wasn’t my cup of tea. More importantly, I was traveling hundreds of miles further north (minneapolis being entirely too warm for my ancestors), and it just didn’t feel right doing that in a tiny little sports car.

So, I went back to the airport and switched cars. I *love* the Magnum, it’s much more my style. More space, more cupholders, and an aux port right on the radio.