The Quagmire

Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons) wrote an amusing piece in his blog today. As you may have seen, Microsoft was planning to sponsor an entire episode of Family Guy. It was to be 30 minutes and sans commercials. The payoff for them was having all sorts of Windows7 references built into the show. Microsoft, aka The Borg, has pulled out. Fox claims they've got a new sponsor — it would be ironic if it were Apple.

I continue to not "get" Twitter. In my last blog post I wrote "I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute." My friend, Daniel Haun, left a snarky comment about that on Facebook. He said, "The point to Twitter is ego masturbation." I liked the comment so much I Twittered (Tweeted?) it. I think that's a bit ironic.

Another friend, Liz, commented "If you really still think that about Twitter, you're definitely not following the right people I don't know who else you're following, but you're following me. Don't I post interesting stuff?" Yeah, a lot of your stuff is interesting. But that's not the point. It's the insane minutiae that people post on a daily basis. I figure at least half the posts most users make, shouldn't be made. I don't care, nor does anyone, that you've been waiting in line for dinner for 5, 10, 15, 20, etc minutes. Yet people insist on posting stuff like that. I don't "get" it.

In regards to commentary (again on my previous blog post), I am going to start correcting my posts when there are errors. Broken links, I'll just fix when people point them out via email. If they're pointed out by comment, I will still fix them but post a comment that it's been corrected. Simple typos will be fixed. But if anything needs to be corrected correcting and it's significant, I will use the time honoured strikeout feature. As always, any new commentary to an old post (a rarity) is clearly marked with the date added. To be clear, I always appreciate corrections to the blog, through prefer e-mail. Comments are for comments and discussions.

In news almost nobody will care about, I've added a classifieds section on the PHMB but it's in the members only area. Because I was feeling contentious, I called it "YormarksList" (as in CraigsList) because everything in the topic is for sale — and that's Yormark, everything is for sale. These are all advertisements of a sort and what better name than his? If you're a hockey fan, please take a moment and join the board. I really do think you'll enjoy it. When the official board changed to the new format about a month ago, our traffic spiked. Bad for them and good for me: they forgot the one thing that was most important. They forget "know your customer and what (s)he wants" and their activity has plummeted from what was in the off-season. Yeah, the season started and traffic went down instead of up. Censorship and a bad user interface is a guaranteed fail.

I have been thinking of taking up a collection to get a Panther jersey with the name "Yormark" on the back and "666" as the number. With everything it'll be around US$160. Everyone who contributes will be allowed to wear it to games. As John mentioned if we all take turns wearing it, at some point he'll wonder how many of them are out there, even though it'll be only one. The point will be at every game, someone will have it, wear it to the game and take at least one lap of the lower bowl before the game, and at each intermission. I will keep the jersey in the off season and be responsible for care and cleaning — if you want to clean it during your possession, that's up to you. I'll have to get XL so everyone can wear it. I might be able to squeeze in a L if nobody needs the XL. In the corner where the "C" for captain goes, we'll have the official logo of Yormark (for which I will pick up the cost.) If there are leftover funds, they will be donated to Habitat For Humanity — in Mr Yormark's name — and everyone who donates will be given a full accounting of every last penny. If I do not collect enough, your money will be returned.

Dave sent me this link about the New Facebook (which is replacing the old New Facebook.) Users are totally up in arms. I really hate it, but just don't have the energy to do anything about it. You know, the bottom line is if they want to fuck up their service, let them. I don't like it because Facebook now unilaterally decides which posts you see from which friends. You can block someone, but if someone's not blocked, you don't see everything they write. If you go to their page, you'll see you've missed stuff. Of course you can use the live feed which picks up more, but even if you select it, it eventually returns back to the new news feed. Which is what everyone hates.

In regards to my Saturday post about AvMed. I got my prescription today. It's amazing what a very firm, demanding, and polite but threatening letter will do. I demanded a written apology, told them I am their worst nightmare and will dog them relentlessly as long as their 'staff' feels they know more than my doctor. I told them every time they fail to comply with my doctor's orders, I will file a formal written complaint with the state (and you all know I will, too). They, as I said, figured out that they should go bother someone else. Again, I am not asking them to do anything that I asked: I am asking them to do what my licensed medical doctor asked. I do not feel anyone that has not personally examined me and my case has the right to override what my doctor says. And this was stupid. The new pill costs half of what the old one cost. Seriously. How stupid can you get? Oh, and the lady never called me back as predicted. As a side bonus, the pharmaceutical company that makes the new drug picked up the tab on this first order (well, all but $5 of it).

I wasn't going to post Nucor news, but there is news and it's on the company Facebook page. I have no comment on an individual level. I only say, we're working on a filing if we can meet all the technical requirements. I've never seen anything so complex and confusing. No wonder those lawyers charge $2k or more per hour. Our corporate WiFi is working well (still) and from a technical standpoint the Vista and Windows7 laptops (our employees property, not ours) work with the least problems, though I am loathe to admit it. The Windows XP systems running XP Home are the worst.

I had mentioned visitors by country to the Interstate Screw Corp web page. Here's a summary from 1-1-09 through 26-10-09. There's an Excel version which is cooler because each country has the flag in front of it, but there was no practical way to post that here. I can e-mail it if anyone is terminally curious.