Coffee Contradiction
From ikeepitrealer and official sister Debbi. I'm a big fan of signs with sayings in quotation marks, so this one is doubly great:
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From ikeepitrealer and official sister Debbi. I'm a big fan of signs with sayings in quotation marks, so this one is doubly great:
With it being May sweeps and all, it is a little more acceptable to be a TV addict this time of year. In fact, this is probably the only time of the year it is ok to come out of one's proverbial shell and admit a few things about partaking in the "opiate of the masses" (well, maybe November and Feburary are ok too).
[End wordy intro]... I was flipping thru channels in bed last night and ran across syndicated episodes of "Sienfield", "That 70's Show" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" that I had already seen. With the triple whammy of Tivo, TV on DVD, and massive syndication (2+ reruns a night of some shows), it is very easy to watch every single episode of a show. So I started a mental list. With that, I present a list of the television shows I have seen every episode of:
Gilligan's Island
Sports Night
Sienfeld
Friends
That 70's Show
Survivor
24
Lost
Alias
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Ed
Saved by the Bell
The West Wing
I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed, but I challenge anyone to come up with a longer list.
When I pull up to a 4-way stop at the same time as someone else, I just slam on the brakes and stop the car wherever I am. Sometimes it's 10+ feet behind the stop sign. That way I am stopped and I get to go first. It works every time.
Those jokers who roll all the way up to the line...sheesh.
Every so often -- about quarterly, I'd say -- the frustrations I have with software boil to a head. Funny, because, I WORK CREATING SOFTWARE. I can't imagine how some of the less technical people I know are expected to use some of this stuff without becoming walking balls of pent-up software-hating frustration. So excue me while I rant:
Software Problem #1: The Credit Union is Too Smart for Their Own Good
Last weekend, my online bank upgraded its website. They were down for 4 days (scheduled). Fine. I like them. I like their UI. If they want to improve it, great. But here's the deal -- when you build something uber-creaky and dumb to replace something *ok*, that is not acceptable.
I logged into the website on Thursday to pay a couple of lingering bills. All my money and existing payees are there (phew). Wouldn't want to have to set that all up again. But it is virtually the same bill pay interface as before. Enter the dollar amount next to the payees you want to send to and click "Submit". There is only one new 'feature' I saw. They did away with the stupid check-boxes next to each of the payees to confirm. Cool. Only one problem -- when I hit submit, it said I couldn't schedule the payments because the date wasn't a business day. Fine -- I'll forgive the fact that your software probably could have auto-picked a day that was a business day, or even skipped the 2 day waiting period to schedule it on Friday. I'll change the date myself -- clunky but alright.
Only it's not alright. They have put a downward pointing triangle (or blade if you are a Di Vinci Code fan) next to the date. Only problem? TO ME AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, THIS SIGNIFIES A DROP-DOWN BOX. Not here. When you click on it, a new window JavaScript Calendar pops up (slowly). Lame, but again -- fine. I can deal. I am nothing if not flexible. So I pick Monday, May 8th. No go. I get an error, the date isn't changed. Looks like someone forgot to test on Firefox on OS X. Sheesh -- I knew they were using aspx, but that is ugly.
So... I exhale and inhale slowly, and count to ten. I'll just edit the date by hand. I hate calendar pickers anyway. I click in the date box and it's editable! Woo-hoo! Why didn't I just do this in the first place? Only not so much. When I submit with the changed date (changed in all of my payment rows), it still reads May 6th and gives me the same error. I am now locked out from paying bills online until 2 days before each business day. BAD.
Software Problem #2: Sony Gets Bit by the 'Easy' Software Way Out
I wake up this morning, and it's Sunday -- 2 days before a business day right? Sweet. I'll pay my bills and while I'm at it, check this week's mail for more. I got a few :( But also a letter from Sony. A quote from the letter:
Dear Valued Sony Customer:
Our records indicate that you recently purchased a ...(serial numbers)... We have recently learned that a limited number of these televisions manufactured through November 2005 temporarily may not, after a long period of time depending upon usage, turn either on or off due to a software issue. This condition is easily resolved with a simple software upgrade provided by Sony at no charge.
Ok, that is just wrong. I understand putting software in the TV -- It has a built-in HDTV tuner and some other cool features that probably require it. BUT TO TURN THE SCREEN ON AND OFF? That is crazy. Everyone knows that software is way more buggy than hardware. It is easier to develop, so of course it is tempting to allow it to creep where it doesn't belong. But there is absolutely no excuse that a software problem should ever get in the way of turning the TV on and off. Yikes. Now I have to schedule a Sony technician to come install the upgrade. I'm assuming there is some proprietary port in the back somewhere so only they can drop the new bits in. Sigh.
Software Problem #3: The Bank is at it Again
Back to the bills. One of the bills in my pile of mail is a new payee -- we just got officially annexed by the city of Issaquah, so my water bill goes somewhere else. After I (finally) pay my other bills sucessfully I click on the payees to add a new one (not sure why I can't add one in the same UI as paying bills, but whatever. Just another thing they didn't bother to fix with their "system upgrade"). I add the payee, and back to the bill pay screen. Not there. Hmmm. I go back to the payees -- there it is! Back to bill pay? Not there. So now I wait -- is there any reason why there should be latency between when you enter a payee to when you can actually pay a bill with that payee? 99% of the time someone needs to add a new payee, they want to pay them a bill.
Software Problem #4: This One is Kind of a Cheap Shot
Google. I love 'em, but they sure are getting easier to hate (like any good alpha dog) lately. The whining about IE 7 is the latest crazyness. According to GOOG -- MS should give users a choice to pick a search engine on first browser load, not just as a property. Dear Google -- you guys should just be happy you even got a property to switch at all considering all the Google/MS tension going around.
But that's not my beef. We are all familiar with the fact that Google products are perpetually in Beta, so they get a bit of free pass (and that is why this is a cheap shot). But I start relying on these products the minute they are pushed out the door.
I have to say -- the new calendar is pretty amazing. Pretty sweet things they are doing with JavaScript. Becky and I got so excited, we shoved all our ICal and paper calendar stuff up there. Then this morning, when I need to put the appointment with (who else) Sony on my calendar, it stops working. And not in an obvious way -- I added an appointment, it shows up on the calendar, only (later) a message says "Failed to create event". That's the beauty of AJAX -- the client thinks it worked, but it didn't suceed on the server. Nice.
Obviously I could go into the standard speech now about how software companies should test more, spend more time in UI research. But it's never going to happen. The ROI isn't worth it. Consumers are too tolerant of this crap. I'd like to say I can fix these types of problems at Expedia, but there will always be pressure to get products out too fast and to cut testing and design resources. From a business standpoint, it just makes too much sense.
So prepare for another one of these here rants in 3 months.
I love rooting for the underdog. We've been over this before. I'm a Seattle sports fan. That's what we do. Well, and complain about officiating...
But this is just out of hand. Name me one pathetic franchise in professional sports. Go ahead. Give it a shot. For example, check out the results some of the usual suspects had last year:
Cincinnati Bengals: Won their division, made the playoffs for the first time in forever.
Seattle Seahawks: Ended a 20 year playoff win drought. WENT TO THE SUPER BOWL.
Houston Astros: Ended their franchise string of no playoff wins. Went to the world series.
Chicago White Sox: Won their first World Series since 1918.
And of course, the Clippers. THE LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS JUST WON A PLAYOFF SERIES. And they are about 5 days away from laying the smack down on their big brothers, the Lakers. King Kaufman has written this up better than I ever could, but when the Clippers all of the sudden aren't losers, what can we count on anymore?
Couple this with the wierd George Mason run thru the NCAAs and it has been a heck of a year for the underdog. Things are starting to turn around for the little guy. I even dunked on an 8' hoop last weekend (I know it doesn't sound like much, but come on folks, I'm a 5'5" white guy).
You'll have to excuse me, I'm going to go put some money on the Washington Generals next matchup with the Globetrotters.