if they can put a man on the moon . . .

why can't they make a decent spray bottle?

I have at least 4 or 5 spray bottles in my house for various cleaning fluids . . . kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, window cleaner, all purpose cleaner, and with every bottle, when I get down to the last inch of fluid, I can no longer use the bottle if it's tipped more than 10 degrees from upright-- which, btw, it almost always is. Surely it would not be that hard to make a bottle that would allow me to access the last little bit without coaxing it out . . . otherwise i have to just toss it . . .

today's aggravation vented.

more mass pike insanity

here in massachusetts, along with the big dig that rest of the country paid 14 billion for, we have a road called the mass turnpike. It was supposed to become free after the tolls paid for its construction, but once it was paid for they just kept charging tolls. lovely.

Anyway, all that aside, they instituted transponders for cars so we can pay our tolls automatically. You have to pay something like 20 bucks for the transponder tho, plus I don't care for the government knowing where I've been. so for that, and being a cheapskate, I have never bought a transponder.

Trouble is, the road was designed for everyone to stop at the toll booths, but now you have some people stopping at the booths and others just slowing down to 30 mph . . . and after the toll booths, you have to try and merge back into traffic. The fastlanes and the stop-and-pay-cash booths are mixed together willy-nilly. so when you pull out from the stop booth, you need to merge with someone in the next lane who may be cruising thru the booth next to you at 30+mph. Even if it looks like no one is coming, you can't really tell. 8 lanes converge to 4 within 50 yards, and all at different speeds . . . oh well, at least the toll booths aren't crashing down on my head.

more research is needed

every once in a while i will be watching the news and some new medical study will be announced that completely contradicts some other medical study. Then I am bombarded with a bunch of statistics that I told may not apply to me at all . . and at the end, without fail, I am told "researchers agree, 'more study is needed.'"

Just once I wish some researchers would say, "ok, that's it, we've studied this as much as it can be studied, we're done, no more research is needed. We're all going to get new jobs."

Ths might be possible. However, I agree that more research is needed.

a review of gmail

well i was told to try out gmail, google's e mail service, so i have.

okay, first the pros:

using gmail means your email data sits on a google server someplace. while i was first a little skeptical of this, having that extra storage in cyber space is a cool thing-- assuming they never crash. I occassionally use it as critical backup for smaller files. they offer a couple of gigabytes to start. after 3 months i have used up 4% of the space.

having all your e mail on a remote server, both sent and received, means you can access it all, including attached files, even if your computer drive dies or if you're on someone else's computer. and here's the real bonus-- you can google your own email to find any old messages, info, names, pictures, attachments, etc., that you have sent months ago. the ability to search all of your e mail messages with google search is the strongest element of the service. it's great for finding phonenyumbers in an e mail form 3 months ago.

it also has a spam filter that so far has has trapped all incoming spam quite magnificently while only grabbing one bulk mailing from a friend. another truly fabfeature. on those two alone it's worth getting.

okay, the cons:
The address book leaves a lot to be desired, it's very clunky compared to eudora, which is much more agile. eudora will take any name you click on and immeditely put it in the "to" field where in gmail, if you have multiple addressees, you have to check the box next to their names, then click compose . . . and hope they all migrate in there. there is a shortcut address feature, if you type a letter in the to field all the addresses that start with that letter appear under it to choose from, but you can only pick one at a time, again, clunky compared to eudora. also they do have a list of most recently mailed names on the left side which is helpful for small circles of friends, not much use to me.

one feature that is sometimes problematic: in big mailings that get you lots of respopnses form different people with the same subject line, sometimes some messages get slightly lost in that thread . . . you may not notice the second of 2 messages if they arrive the same time. you can explode views of threads tho, making it easier to look thru converations.

oh, other features include google chat, so you can chat with other gmail users.

all in all, i am getting used to the clunky address book, and the spam filter and the search capability make up for anything i could complain about.

press the yellow fuel key

well I stopped in at a mobil gas station today. I admit i ususally fill up at the discount stations but i figured, it's nearly christmas, i'll give the car a treat with some name brand commodity.

so i swiped my credit card in the self serve pump, i selected "credit" (see post below), i removed the nozzle, i selected the fuel octane/grade by pushing the big yellow box with the number "87" in it-- and no gas came out. I pulled the lever in the handle, no go. the pump kept beeping. I looked at the little screen (which is pretty much invisible if you are wearing sunglasses). it said "press the yellow fuel key." so i pressed the yellow box that said "87" again . . . and again . . . and again. still no go, still beeping. finally i happened to look at the key pad, and next to the various buttons, well i'll be darned, there was yet another yellow button that said "fuel key." so i pressed it. out came the gas.

i am confused. no other pump at other stations asks for this. But even more, why is the "fuel key" the same color as the "fuel grade" keys?? i try to be kind in these posts, but this was just an idiotic bit of design.

my earbuds are tangled

I just bought a new mp3 player, a samsung e250. It's nice. it has its problems, but it's nice. I also bought a $40 pair of earbuds at radio shack-- a bit of an impulse buy, but since I seem to do 80% of my music listening on earbuds i figured i would try them out. they actually sound very good. they also have an "earplug" effect, so they are a sort of noise cancellation device too.

my complaint, about this or any other earbud: the wires get tangled. no matter what I do, every time i want to put this thing on I have to go thru a process of untangling the wires. I have a firewire for my laptop that winds the wires around a spring loaded spool. for 40 bucks, why couldn't sony do that?

i know the books are free, but . . .

don't get me wrong, i love public libraries in general. (altho i can never figure out why record companies sued people for sharing files electronically but not the libraries who share everything) . . . however,

my local library system, the minuteman library, changed their website a few years ago and i genuinely hate what they did. Basically, they only use the middle third of the screen for the advanced search fields. see here:

http://library.minlib.net/search/X

i suppose this is supposed to be nice artsy design style, blah blah blah, but this space-wasting formatting means no matter how large your monitor, and no matter how simple a search, you HAVE to put some data in, then mouse down then type some more data, then mouse down to find and hit the submit button.

i am sure this looks nice on some design sheet somewhere but having to put some data in, then mouse down then type some more data, then mouse down to find and hit the camoflaged submit button is just . . . dumb. I have complained about this and can't seem to get connected to the person(s) who do the web design. oh well . . . it IS free.

you can't get here from there

Being a self employed presenter/ author kind of guy, I often have to navigate to places I have never been to before. And most websites have the sense to put directions to this or that hotel, meeting center, etc. of course i always love it when they say, "once you get to (this or that exit), follow the directions as printed above . . ." which adds copy/paste steps if i want them in hand when i go to the new place.

But let me ask this: how many websites offer directions FROM? How often have i successfully navigated myself through various Boston big dig collapsed tunnels, or the back roads to a country club hidden in the woods, only to find, when i want to go back home, that I have no clue how to get back to the highway i drove in on?

I admit, I am guilty of not mapquesting this information myself beforehand, as i generally don't think about it either. So as I am leaving a hotel lobby, I am always stuck asking someone, anyone, how to get to the mass turnpike. no one knows. webmasters, please take note.

a question about the post office

well let me say that as a small publisher i use the us postal service a lot, and while speed of counter service varies from office to office, for the most part i am awfully satisfied with the service they provide.

so here is my question: why is it that in a world dominated by automobiles, virtually every street postal drop-in mailbox is designed entirely for pedestrian use? If i want to mail a letter and i'm in my car, i always have to park my car, get out, and drop it in the box. I don't mean to sound overaly lazy (altho i am) but this more a question of practicality; it's often not easy or legal to park near a post box. it's also a waste of time to have to go thru so much to get to it.

If boxes had drop slots facing the streets, maybe this would be unsafe with some idiot drivers veering left, but certainly some boxes could be placed on one-way streets and in post office parking lots without being an issue. besides, having people park illegally, or double park and jump out their cars and maybe slip on ice in the wintertime is a safety factor too.

just a suggestion.

i wonder who has the federal contract to build those boxes? . . . a great marketing opportunity!

container store has it right

i don't want to sound like all i do is complain about retail experiences, so . . .

i went into The Container Store the other day. i love that store. I think i would go there even if they charged admission. There are so many nifty interesting things on their shelves. But there's something more special there. whenever I ask a staffer about a problem, they make it their mission to solve it. It's not just corporate obedience/policy at work, either. they have a genuine passion about their work and helping me find whatever it is i need. they all carry tape measures too, to check if the item will fit on the shelf etc where i need it. circuit city, take a lesson.

a nightmare at circuit city

I suppose I shoudn't complain about circuit city too much, after all, they do offer good prices on a lot of stuff. of course they do outsource their phone help to asia minor-- always a major strike against any company for me . . . but i had a most annoying experience at their Burlington, MA store last night that is worth blogging.

i needed to buy an mp3 player and a video camera. i knew exactly which models I wanted, i just wanted to pick them up and go on my merry way and get to the post office before it closed. you would think this would not be that hard to do, after all, selling such items is what they do all day everyday.

So after being ignored for a while, i asked one of the red-shirted staff about buying the camera. He was pleasant enough in a distracted high school kid sort of way. But all the cameras were locked up under the display counter and he had no key. (one would think salespeople would have keys at the ready for eager buyers, but . . . no.) finally we tracked down someone who had a key. even so, i was not allowed to touch the box-- the sales kid escorted me tot he service counter with it. I told him i wanted to shop for some other items-- he said fine, we'll just leave it at the counter for you. So for the mp3 player, I went through an identical process of having to hunt up yet another engaged-in-conversation-with-coworker youth who could had to find someone else who had a key, and again the product was carried by them to the front service counter.

So at this point i started to browse around for some dvd disks and other things. I finally had enough browsing and went up to pay for my new camera and mp3 player. no one there could locate it. much confusion. long story short, apparently i had not bought them fast enough -- and so within 10 minutes of being brought up, they had all been returned to their glass cages. so i had to go through the whole process all over again. it took almost 15 minutes to re-find all the people with keys. this system was vexing enough the first time, time is ticking away, it's almost five, no hope now of avoiding rush hour, and i have a carload of boxes that need to be mailed before the post office closes.

all in all this was one of the most aggravating shopping experiences I have had in quite a while. I don't blame the youngsters working in the store, i am sure they are doing what they are told, but whoever is training them and creating the systems for moving desired products from the floor to the check out counter leaves much to be desired. This store was not at all crowded, and yet I had to actively seek out attention from floor staff.

i forgot to mention, one counter person asked for one of my receipts (i ended up having to buy things separately) they forgot to give it back to me. when i went to pick up my items from another counter, they asked for the receipt, which of course i now did not have. the previous desk person left it out on their counter, apparently it was up to me to come fetch it when i discovered i no longer had it. if someone else had picked it up they would have been able to walk out with my camera.

i am having second thoughts about this camera-- i think i can find something better and cheaper on ebay. my experience with the store makes me feel guiltless-- even happy-- to return it.

well HP came through at last

Well it took 4 send-ins, but i finaly got my HP laptop back from repair-- this time it was packed properly and all fixed-- new top and back, new battery (wow-- not expected) so while we had our ups and downs, congrats to HP for sticking with it and making it right. they also called me to check and see if i'm happy now :-) haven't called them back yet. will post any noteworthy information. but unit is working great.