jotsheet

I don’t watch the local nightly news. It’s a poor way to find out what’s going on: the stories are superficial, the program is interrupted by commercial breaks, and it’s a completely non-interactive medium.

But the worst part about the nightly news is the obligatory “man on the street” interview. This is a classic–and seemingly mandatory–component of any story with a local focus (and some with a national focus–that can make for even dumber commentary).

Consider the following story about luggage falling from a plane at Midway airport. The plane took off, the cargo doors weren’t secured, and two bags fell out. CBS2 Chicago saw fit to interview several passengers (maybe relevant) and area residents (not insightful) about the situation. Here’s Idiot #1, a passenger:

“That’s scary. It should be more secured, more secured than that. Shouldn’t nothing be flying off the plane. Shouldn’t be no doors open. Everything should be secure,” Delta passenger Phyllis Abram said.

“Shouldn’t nothing be flying off the plane?” Ya think?! This is commentary worthy of publication?! How about Idiot #1, an area resident:

“You’d be driving by and luggage hits you… that would be real crazy,” area resident Martin Vasquez said.

Thanks, Martin. Very insightful.

Simply put, the local news team needs to stop talking to the locals.

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I’m offended when people do stupid things for no reason. People can do stupid things for stupid reasons, and that’s bothersome. People can do good things for stupid reasons, and that’s fine. But I can’t stand the stupid things-no reason combination.

About 10 o’clock or so each weekday morn, I stroll over to the john to take care of the morning’s coffee. Without fail, each morning I find at least one, sometimes more than one piece of used chewing gum staring back at me from the urinal mat. Why, I ask myself each morning, am I looking at piece of chewing gum? Is the spitter of the chewing gum unaware that:

• a trash can stands a scant 10 feet away, directly adjacent to the sink he’s (hopefully) about to use to wash his hands, and
• some poor guy has to pick that gum out of urinal!

And I guess that’s the problem: there’s no reason to discard chewing gum in the urinal, but for a person to realize there’s no reason, he has to think to think. And that’s where the real problem is. I find it depressing.

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Oh dear friends, it’s been too long. And even when I did write, about six weeks ago, it was a crappy entry.

I have a good excuse. I got a new job. You’ve probably figured out that I don’t blog about my job, and that’s not going to change, but the new job is the primary reason I haven’t been blogging. I’ve just been busy.

Now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s get to the important thing: I kinda hate my iPod.

Your first reaction to this statement might be, “Hey Tom, you’re a dirty, worthless hypocrite. You said that Apple sucks. Why do you even have an iPod?”

To that I say: you’re right. I am a hypocrite and a sellout and lots of other bad names. But my iRiver IFP-899 broke, and I bought an 8GB iPod Nano because:

1. Everyone seems to think that the iPod software and interface is great. (I shouldn’t have listened to the unwashed masses.)
2. The Nano is a flash memory-based product, so I think it will outlive the 2.5 month lifespan of the average hard drive-based iPod. (This was probably a good assumption.)
3. The iPod works directly on my new Pioneer car stereo head unit. (This has turned out to be very disappointing.)

So why am I unhappy now, you ask? Well, dear friend, I’ll you.

1. iTunes blows.

   I’ve never seen such a RAM-hogging app. It makes Firefox look like Notepad. It’s slow to switch modes, slow to edit the ID3 info on multiple files, slow on everything.

   And worst of all, it blows at syncing. The automatic file management is terrible, so I switched to “sync checked files only.” But that seems not to work–perhaps because I’ve got it in “manual mode” as well–but isn’t the process of me checking 500 songs pretty “manual?” Whatever. I thought Steve was the master of intuitive software. It blows.

2. The iPod software is unreliable.

   The third time I connected it up to the Pioneer head unit, it crashed. And I mean crashed and burned, so hard that I couldn’t turn it off. It was just stuck, with the LCD screen backlit to make things worse. The only way I could fix it was to do a hard reset by holding some key combination. I found that via googling, not on apple.com. Fancy that I didn’t find the info in the “instruction manual” (wow, that’s generous) that came in the too-clever iPod packaging.

3. The clickwheel is grossly overrated.

   Yeah, it’s good for scrolling through long lists of items, but it sucks at moving just one up or one down. I’d rather have my iRiver’s control stick.

4. Most importantly, I hate the way Apple organizes songs.

   This is my biggest beef, by far. I listen to music in two ways. First, I have a set of favorite bands: Pinback, Cracker, Metallica, etc. Then, I have a set of favorite songs, many of which are from terrible, one-hit wonders. I would like to keep these two things separate; sometimes I like to listen to good bands, and sometimes I like to listen to shitty songs.

   With that in mind, this is how I want to see my music organized:

   Playlist > Shitty song by shitty artist
   Playlist –> A few good artists –> An album or two per per artist –> Good songs
   Good artist –> All of artist’s albums –> Songs in the album

   This lets me listen to a playlist of dumb songs, a playlist of good artists, or all of the music from good artists.

   Instead, this is what I’m left with:

   All artists, including shitty ones (ridiculously long list) –> Album (not necessary) –> Song(s)
   Playlist –> Songs (no way to drill down by artist or by artist –> album!)

   It’s totally inefficient and not at all the way I want to organize my music.

5. Finally, the iPod support on the Pioneer DEH-P6900UB kinda sucks.

   Although the unit allows you to directly browse the iPod via the head unit’s screen and using the clickwheel-ish rotary knob, it doesn’t allow you to step back in the iPod menu. What this means is that if I go to Artists --> Pinback --> Summer in Abaddon (album) --> Syracuse (song), I can only change tracks within “Summer in Abaddon.” I can’t step back to Pinback; I have to start over from the top-level menu of the iPod. And because the Pioneer rotary knob is not as fast as getting through long lists of artists as the iPod itself, it’s an excruciatingly slow process to listen to different artists or different albums by an artist.

   Admittedly, this is probably not Apple’s fault, although it may be a limitation in the USB 2.0 interface of the iPod. I hope so, because it gives me another reason to hate Apple. Also, the problem is exacerbated by the organizational problem above, where the list of artists is an untrimmably long list of crap that includes both my good artists and my one-hit wonders.

In conclusion, I am an asshole for buying an iPod. I admit that. Furthermore, the iPod sucks, and I would advise against the Pioneer head unit if you’re looking for quick control of the iPod. Instead, you might try the Harman-Kardon drive+play, which seems to have a much faster UI.

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I went to Jamba Juice today after work. Yes, I realize this does little to help my street cred. Anyway, while waiting for my “Mango-a-Go-Go” to be made–and I cannot describe to you what shame I felt in ordering this drink by its full and fully retarded name–I was introduced to the “wheatgrass shot.” A guy in front of me had ordered it.

Now let me give you a bit of background. I’m actually pretty open-minded about the whole “natural foods” bit. I’ll buy organic–if it isn’t 3x the price of the normal item (i.e. sold at Whole Foods). I tried soy milk for a couple of weeks. I can understand the vegetarian thing.

But wheatgrass? I don’t care what the health benefits are. I don’t care how good it makes you feel afterward. My friends, wheatgrass is grass. And a shot of wheatgrass, my friends, is a shot of grass. Yes, grass.

This is what I’d like you to do. Mow your lawn, or mow someone else’s lawn if you live in an apartment like me, and collect the fresh grass clippings after you’re done. Take them home and put the clippings in a blender. Add a bit of water. Blend. Pour the resulting brew through a strainer, and into a plastic shotglass normally used for hawking jello shots at McGee’s.

You have recreated the Jamba Juice wheatgrass shot.

I’m having a hard time conveying just how fucking ridiculous this is.

In order for me to have this shot o’ wheatgrass experience, the following conditions were met:

1. Someone wondered whether wheatgrass is good for you.
2. Someone did a study, maybe.
3. Someone decided that wheatgrass is good for you.
4. Someone decided that people would believe that wheatgrass is good for you.
5. Someone promoted wheatgrass and got people to believe that wheatgrass is good for you.
6. Someone figured out how wheatgrass could be affordably grown and harvested.
7. Jamba Juice decided that wheatgrass if good for you and/or decided that Jamba Juice’s customers do believe or would believe that wheatgrass is good for you.
8. Jamba Juice contacted the person who had figured out how wheatgrass could be affordably grown and harvested and bought wheatgrass from him.
9. Jamba Juice had the wheatgrass shipped to their store on N. Michigan Ave.
10. Some yuppie believed that wheatgrass is good for you.
11. Some yuppie was aware that Jamba Juice was offering shots o’ wheatgrass.
12. Some yuppie decided that he wanted to have a shot o’ wheatgrass and was willing to walk to Jamba Juice to get it and was willing to pay $2 for that shot ‘o wheatgrass.
13. Some yuppie did that.
14. Some yuppie got to the Jamba Juice a little bit before me, ordered, and received his shot o’ wheatgrass while I was waiting for my Mango-a-Go-Go to be made.

I swear to god it smells like a lawnmower. Modern American life has a new nadir. Have a good day.

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Write “23″ instead of “twenty-three.” Write “1000″ instead of “one thousand,” as in:

I can’t fucking believe Jakob Nielsen managed to crap out 1000 words on that subject.

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I’m back to bitch some more. Big surprise.

Chase Bank still blows. They sold my info to every other fucking bank on the planet, filling my mailbox with 4 or 5 credit card offers a week. Finally I wised up and opted out; you can do the same by using the 800 number or online opt-out.

But now Chase has found alternative ways to blow. I lost my credit card, canceled it, and got a new one in the mail. To activate it, I called the 800 number. I expected to be prompted for my card number, and by virtue of calling from the number associated with the account, the card would be immediately activated. Instead, the female computer voice on the other end of the line fed me a bunch of bullshit.

First, I got a “welcome” message. The welcome should have been, “You have reached the Chase Bank credit card activation line. Input your card number to activate the card.”

Instead, the computer bitch informed me that I could use my Chase Visa at thousands of locations, including gas stations and grocery stores, to earn Chase Rewards points. This sorry-ass pitch went on for at least 30 seconds, during which I began to yell obscenities into the phone. Do you think I don’t know how to use a fucking credit card? That’s why I’m getting a replacement, you fucks! Because I already use the card!

After that shit show, we finally got on the road with the card input. Again, I expected to input my card number and get an immediate activation. (I’ve lost my card before and that’s how it works.) So I put in the number and waited. Now here’s what needs to happen on the other end of the line:

1. System receives input (from me) of card number.
2. System verifies caller ID number against the phone number on my account.
3. System changes status of card from inactive to active.
4. System verifies and hangs up.

Instead, the bitch-ass system lied to me. The computer bitch told me, “We are still activating your card. In the meantime, we’d like to tell you about a service from Trilegiant that can help protect your credit rating.” And that shit went on and on, lasting at least 45 seconds.

Are you fucking kidding me? I gave you my account number, and you’re telling me that the fucking 486 you’ve got back there running the system is “still activating my card?” How long does that take? You’re gonna try to sell me some credit report bullshit in the meantime? Are you for fucking real? Why don’t you put Peter Francis Geraci on the line, you fucks?

Umbrella Bank is sounding better and better.

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ESPN.com pisses me off. I’ve noted this previously.

I’m in a fantasy baseball league on ESPN.com this year, and all I wanted to do was get to my league’s homepage. So I went to ESPN.com. Then I went to the fantasy area. Couldn’t find it. Then I figured out I hadn’t logged in (this was not particularly obvious). Then I couldn’t find my league. Went to the fantasy home again. Nothing. Went to fantasy baseball homepage. Nothing. Back. And forth.

Finally, I found it. Take a look at the screenshot below (click for larger version) and see if YOU can find my league.

Want the answer? Here you go.

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