Who's The Dummy Now?

Do not be fooled by this ridiculous IQ Test.

It's just a scam to get you to subscribe for $9.99 a month (!!!). Shameful.

What He Said

I don't understand either.

Great Feature, Stupid Limitation

Like a good little Apple fangirl, I promptly updated my iPhone to 1.1.3, and happily and quickly customized my home screen(s), added webclip icons (including making a custom one for THIS blog, check it out you iPhoners!), and thrilled to the *reasonably* accurate location finder in Maps.

Software updates: yay!

But. As we speak I'm downloading a rental of The Simpsons Movie. I'll load it up on my iPhone so that I'll have something to watch on my bus ride this weekend if I get bored of listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me while the scenery rolls by. The catch is that once I start watching it, I have to finish watching it within 24 hours. So, for example, I can't watch half the movie on my way out of town and the other half on the way back.

THAT IS JUST STUPID. Let me repeat: the 24 hour window to watch a rental that is available for 30 days is STUPID. In case I failed to be quite clear: this restriction is DUMB, IDIOTIC, and downright BRAINDEAD.

I cannot see how this limitation solves any concern that either Apple or the movie studios might have about piracy. It's just pointless. And aggravating.

All aTwitter

Cripes. So somebody kewl like Kelly is using Twitter. Hence, I must learn about it and use it myself. So I go and set myself up a Twitter account (tovish). And then I try to get my phone to receive the tweets.

The first verification message showed up just fine. It asked me to send my name. Which name? My twitter name? My phone name? My real name? I try all of them. Nothing works.

I start the verification process over again. Now I can't even get the darn first verification message.

And may I add, the Twitter help system is RIDICULOUSLY BAD.

And, apparently, I am deeply uncool.

Merry Christmas, all!

[Update: Now it's working, apparently. Except I can't delete all the junk messages I sent by accident. It says it's deleting them, but noooo... Grr.]

How To Be A Grown Up

I can't remember where I first ran into this, but I love it. Embarassingly, I'm not sure that I'm entirely grown up myself, but I'm working on it.

Playtime's over, kiddies.

How to Build Consumer Goodwill: Assume I'm a Thief and a Drug Baron

Okay, so predictably with all the work and the stress, I have another major cold. This is the second in three months, which is something of a record for me.

So I go to my local drugstore to pick up some Sudafed. I want the the real Sudafed, you know, the stuff that actually works. I made the mistake of buying the new, non-pseudoephedrine stuff last time and it was utterly useless.

In order to purchase this CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE now, you have to pick up a card off a rack (which conveniently has no prices associated with the various products and sizes of products) and go to the pharmacy. You are then required to surrender a photo ID, your name and address, and provide a signature. FOR ONE STINKING BOX OF DECONGESTANT PILLS.

Let us count the ways that this is fucking idiotic.

1. Meth manufacturers are surely going to buy boxes of Sudafed one at a time. Yeah, right.


2. Meth manufacturers are going to use legitimate ID when they buy their single boxes of Sudafed. For sure.


3. Meth menufacturers are frequently middle-aged women with runny noses and stuffed up sinuses who go to the same drugstore year after year.

To add insult to injury, the razor blade cartridges I like are now behind the counter too. So I had to pay for my cold medicine at one end of the store, and then buy my pricier than gold razor blades at the other end. Maybe if the razor blades weren't SO PREPOSTEROUSLY EXPENSIVE they wouldn't get boosted so often. You think?

Modern life is degrading and depressing. Of course it beats the heck out of any other period in human history, but still.

The Oppression will Be Televised

The bad news is that police do stuff like this.

The good news is that, when it happens in public, technology gives eyewitnesses an opportunity to record what happens and try to get accountability.

I have no idea what happened before this video started: the tazed student did seem very disturbed already and his reaction was clearly politicized (one report says that he thought he was being profiled). Nonetheless, I can conceive of no excuse for the repeated tazering of a handcuffed person, or for the threat to taze bystanders who susbsequently asked for the cops' identification.

I think criminal prosecution of the campus police involved is possible and a civil suit is a 100% certainty.

On some level, I find the comments appended to the YouTube version of this video even more disturbing than the video itself. I am deeply distressed by the number of people who seem to find it a) funny (wtf?!?) because of the way the guy screams in pain or b) an example of just deserts because of failure to immediately and silently comply with authority.

And for those commenters who complain that the students didn't do more to intervene... when was the last time YOU jumped in between bullies and their victim (extra points for cases when the bullies were armed with disabling weapons and you were unarmed; extra super bonus points for occasions when the bullies were legal authorities). No? Okay then: stfu.

Make it stop! MAKE THE RINGING STOP!!!

Tomorrow is election day in DC.

Apparently every politician in the city wants to be my friend. I've received (no exageration) at least 15 phone calls in the last couple of days featuring chirpy politicians or politician's shills, urging me to vote for them.

A plague on all their houses: they are SPAMMING MY PHONE. Now I say hello, and when I hear that tell-tale blank silence, I just hang up immediately.

Several people have asked me for whom I'm voting for mayor. Gah. I'm not thrilled with any of my choices. Linda Cropp put the nail in her own coffin as far as I'm concerned with her heavily negative campaign ads, and utter ineffectuality on the school board. Fenty is handsome and energetic, but unexperienced: who knows if he has the managerial chops required. I kind of like what I hear about Marie Johns, but I don't think she's got a chance in hell.

I just wish to God they'd all quit calling me. And it would be nice to hear an unrecorded voice at the other end of the line.

Colossally Stupid Usability Report

Jakob Nielson strikes again. The man has made a career out of either pointing out the utterly obvious, or missing the point altogether.

This article probably does both. Gosh: the reader's eyes move in an F pattern! On a page with content laid out in an F pattern!

Or in a more solid block! On pages laid out in a solid block!

They don't go to the far right corner... where there's nothing to see! Holy Moses, stop the presses.

Seriously... people pay money for this??

GRRrrrrrrrr!!

Some inconsiderate asshole has parked in my rented parking spot. This is far from the first time that this has happened, and my patience has evaporated. I had to range far and wide to find street parking.

Ticket and tow the jerk. I am NOT feeling charitable tonight; the milk of human kindness has run dry.

Unfair to Dogs

To call these the Dog Days of Summer is patently unfair to dogs. (Yes, I know, they're named after Sirius, the Dog Star, prominently featured in the summer sky in the northern hemisphere. But still.)

To say this weather is a bitch is likewise unfair to bitches, some of whom are dogs.

I've lived in DC for nearly a dozen years now, and this is the most appallingly miserable summer I've seen yet. We've had hot, we've had humid, we've even had hot and humid, but I do think that this is by far the MOST HOT & HUMID I've suffered through yet. I mean: when the freakin' dewpoint is in the upper 70s for days on end, sumpin ain't right.

All this is encouraging me strongly to think about getting out of dodge the week of my birthday. Preferably somewhere cool. And cheap.

Any suggestions?

The Suckage of Crutches

I would just like to say that, despite any previous commentary to the contrary, it is not necessarily the case that it's worse to be on crutches in winter than in the summer.

Yes, ice and snow are evil hazards, and one's hands are likely to be chilly, and it's tough to manouevre with bulky clothing on.

BUT, consider the horrendous chafing of tender arm-flesh exposed to the cruel wood and rubber! The heinous burden of heat and heave as one swings the dead weight of one's lower body under the sweltering sun! The cruelty of thumping along like Igor while everyone else is sauntering or strolling or sprinting in fine weather.

Oh, what's the use: Crutches just suck year 'round.

Car Woes Redux

Got up bright and early yesterday to go run with the Galloway Group, only to find that my car was stone-cold dead. Click-click-click, no turnover. I went for the 12 mile run alone in my general neighborhood.

Later, Jocelyn ~ bless her competent and prepared soul ~ came by and gave me a jump so I could go over to Abbie's for dinner. I drove out of the way on the beltway to try and juice 'er up, which seems to have worked. I was able to go home and to church this morning.

Now I'm in the Clarendon Apple store waiting for the fine folks at NTB a block away to replace the battery and call me on my cell. They WERE going to charge me $99 for the thing, but I expressed such horror that they immediately knocked $50 off the price. (Imagine what their mark-up must be!)

[By the way, the Apple Store is packed. Buy stock now.]

Day of Rage

I woke up furious.
I was royally pissed off while eating breakfast.
I was infuriated all day at work.
I had road rage all the way home.
And now I'm sitting at home watching TV and seething.

I have no idea what this about.
But it makes me angry as hell.

Two steps forward, three back

Oy.

Now I'm on dial-up.
Because this freakin' switch-over is taking forever: Covad (Earthlink) won't let go of my telephone line.

So I'm enjoying the phone line tie-up of dial-up and generally tapping my toes impatiently until this is resolved. Grrrrrr.

Completely Insane Person

Okay, I just had to mention this. I just saw a guy ~ ultra marathoner Dean Karnazes ~ tonight on Letterman who ran 262 continuous miles (awake 3 consecutive nights). That's ten marathons in a row, if you're counting. Now he's training up to run 300 (miles, not marathons).

He's got that lean runner look; he must eat constantly to fuel the machine. He actually told a story about calling on his cell phone to have pizza delivered to him as he's running down the road.

What I want to know is: how can his joints possibly tolerate that level of abuse?

Me? Well, since I started again, I've gone about 55 miles. And I'm damned proud of it too.

The Ballad of Ikea Dismay, Part II: The Stinky Bed

Oy.

After my bedframe saga, I thought it was all over. I sank with gratitude into the comfort of my top-of-the-Ikea-line Sultan Forestad all-foam mattress. And it sure did feel good.

Unfortunately, it didn't smell good. It had a weird "musty-moldy overlaid with plasticky chemical disinfectant" odor. I thought to myself: must be what comes of being shrinkwrapped for a long period of time. I will air it out extensively, and it will be fine.

Which I've been doing now for five days (and we're talking windows wide open to the January chill all day, every day). The smell has diminished a little bit, but not by much. Not enough to keep my throat from becoming scratchy in allergic reaction and my eyes from becoming gummy. Normally, I don't consider myself particularly chemically sensitive, but this thing is making me miserable.

Today, I threw in the towel, called Ikea again and said: come take it away. Bring me another one, and if it doesn't stink, I'll happily keep it. If it does, I want my money back.

Oh, are those folks at College Park gonna love me. NOT.

Any recommendations for a good quality foam mattress that doesn't cost an arm and leg?

And doesn't stink?

No more Ikea

On Saturday, I went to Ikea and bought some furniture. Specifically, I got a oak butcher-block-topped sideboard item with drawers and a trestle shelf for my kitchen ~ and a bed. A very inexpensive Ikea bed, a minimalist platform.

The items were delivered around noon today. I spent nearly 4 hours putting the sideboard together. Many of the predrilled holes were not big enough. My shoulder started aching, my palm bloomed with stigmata. But I got it together, and it's fine, except for a small ding on the rear left-hand corner (which I can't say was incurred before or after I received the package).

Despite my aching everything, I decided to proceed with the bed. I got the frame's four sides screwed together, and then commenced to attach the plates on the bottom corners into which the bed legs screw. Immediately, I notice a challenge. No holes. So, I figure, holes are under the verneer. I position the plates and commence to drive the screws. Except it's extremely hard going. I wonder whether it's just this corner. I position the other three plates and commence to drive those screws. Same problem.

After an hour of major physical effort, I finally give up in frustration. I call Ikea. I will spare you the details of my conversations with these people. You may be grateful now. I go up and up the supervisory chain.

Long story short: they are sending someone here tomorrow afternoon to assess the situation and either a) use powertools to finish the assembly or b) remove the detritus and ensure I get my money back. In the meantime, my bedroom is filled with half-constructed bedframe, and this evening I'll be sleeping on a mattress on the floor crammed into the remaining floorspace by the door. Until I upped the supervisory ante twice, they expected me to put up with that situation for at least TWO MORE NIGHTS.

NOT a happy camper.

In future, the only 'requires assembly' items I will ever purchase from Ikea are bookshelves. I'm waaay to old for this shit. Given the amount of time I've wasted on this already, it would have been well worth my while to buy regular furniture at twice the price and call it a day.

[Update: Two nice young men showed up the next day with powertools and finished putting the bed together in about ten minutes. Both agreed vehemently with me that the design was appallingly bad, that normal humans without mechanical assistance would not be able to complete the task, and that the instruction booklet for this particular bed was especially inscrutable in a couple of places.

I now have a comfortable bed, raised off the floor (!) for the first time in a decade and a half, and only some very stiff muscles and a gouge on on my left index finger to show for my troubles.

Verdict: Ikea product, not so great. Ikea employees, rock. I feel a letter coming on.]

Worst. Cold. Ever.

I can't believe how bad this cold is.

I have been a phlegm faucet for over a week now. Tonight I didn't sleep a wink. I probably lost two pounds in mucus blowing my nose and hawking up gobbets from my throat.

This cold laughs in the face of medication. This cold mocks decongestants, it has decongestants for lunch. No amount of drinking fluids, or inhaling steam, or praying to God for sweet, sweet death to relieve me has the slightest effect.

Meanwhile, in my addled state, I'm up against a job application deadline today. If I manage to get this done it will be something of a miracle.

Of course I feel lame whining about my stupid cold, considering what tens of thousands of people have suffered over the last couple of days.

Still, it's a god-awful cold. If I've ever had a worse one, I've mercifully forgotten all about it.

Jury Duty

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: "It's the worst possible system. Except for all the others."

Honestly, I get a genuine lump in my throat and tear in my eye when I watch the informational video about Jury Service. Justice administered in open court. Jury of your peers. Citizens ensuring the rule of law and building the cornerstone of civilization. Yeah, baby! I'm so behind all that.

But I have to say: Why, in this day and age, can't they handle the bureaucracy of this a bit better?

Must we sit in big stuffy rooms being force-fed television (OK, it was PBS and Ken Burn's Jazz series, so it could have been worse) or be shuttered in a windowless closet with pathetic dial-up modems? Could they not possibly set up a damn WIFI internet connection or at the very least ethernet?

Must we be herded like sheep from one part of the building to the other, kept standing in crowded hallways or squozen down half-working elevators (my god, we nearly had a catastrophic domino-effect for a moment there), hollered at by barely audible minions, and summoned by identification numbers that turn out NOT TO BE UNIQUE?

Could we not be sorted in advance into people who can't possibly spend six to eight weeks in a jury and those who conceivably could ~ rather than having to wait while a seemingly endless queue of potential jurors go up, ONE BY ONE, to explain their status to the judge? Why send an unsorted mob to voir dire for what is known to be a lengthy trial? Surely it makes more sense to pre-qualify people into "can't serve now, could serve for 1-5 days, could serve for 2 weeks, could serve for more." Swear them in before a magistrate up front, if you have to, as people check in that morning.

Speaking of which: how can we truly have a jury of our peers if the only people who can afford to be on juries are those a) whose full-time employer will keep paying their salaries while they serve; b) who are retired; or c) who are on welfare. The self-employed, underemployed, and unemployed are completely unrepresented. Anyone who works for an hourly wage is unrepresented. The court raised the daily compensation from the previous laughable $14 (a day!) to the princely sum of $30. Excuse me, do you know anybody who can survive in a major metropolis on $30 a day? So, what, we're supposed to subsidize the justice system with our savings?

I found my first actual trial duty, several years ago, a fascinating and valuable civic experience. I'd love to do it again sometime. But I can't afford to pay for it out of my own pocket, and as a matter of principle, I shouldn't have to. At the very least, the government ought to pay jurors minimum wage. Need I add the payment ought to be tax exempt, too? And they have the balls to ask you if you want to donate your $4 worth of travel reimbursement to the court. Sheyah! I don't think so.

It's too bad that the whole process so closely represents a cattle call. It doesn't exactly inspire people to look forward to their citizenly responsibilities. One positive note, though: the court clerks and various personnel were uniformly polite and cheerful, if not always crackerjack examples of swiftness. They definitely get points for not becoming surly while dealing with a pretty darn cranky and recalcitrant segment of the public. On the whole though, it seems to me that this is a missed opportunity to build community and engage and impress the public.

I get called up for DC Superior Court every two years, like clockwork. I'm a non-felonious, registered voter, and that apparently makes me prime jury meat. I'll be interested to see what, if anything, has changed for the better next time. And heaven preserve me from Grand Jury service, which is even more preposterous (12 weeks! every day! as if!).