Category: annoyances

  • Out of State Drivers (Californians in Arizona)

    Living in Arizona we are exposed to plenty of home grown insanity on the roads. I have come to expect that people will often do dumb, dangerous maneuvers at will. Speeding excessively, unsafe left turns (often to deliver their spawn to school), and even some running of red lights that are more than just blushing.

    But in the last few days, I have seen some of the worst driving by people with out of state plates. While the locals will whinge about the New Mexico transplants, the trophy goes to California drivers.

    There are plenty of examples but a few that I have seen are:

    • Going under the speed limit on the freeway. I suspect this is due to concern that they are targeted by the po-po for extra enforcement. Alas, this is Arizona, where the only state that people driver faster in is Texas. If you are not doing 5 – 10 MPH over the posted speed, even in the slow lane, you are likely to be run over by a big rig. Seriously, keep up with the flow of traffic.
    • Using the HOV lane as a single occupant. I know that in California, your Prius entitles you to a sticker that allows you to use the HOV lanes without being a carpool (2 or more occupants), but here that don’t mean shit. I see lots of driver only, California plate, hybrids risking the HOV lane, and jumping out when they see a cop. Just don’t risk it.
    • Slowing down to merge. One of the things that drove me nuts about living in California was the fact that people accelerate on the on-ramps, and then jam on their brakes before merging. Here is a clue: use the on ramp to match your speed with the traffic, then merge into the traffic smoothly. Yet, yesterday, coming back from the airport, I was behind a pickup with California plates that accelerated up the on-ramp, and then slowed to 20 mph below the traffic speed. Argh, asshole, just f*cking merge dammit.
    • Running red light for left turns. I know in California that intersections plan for there to be 2 – 3 cars to turn left after a left turn light goes red. But here, that just doesn’t work. Us redneck hillbillies like to jackrabbit start and we don’t have patience for idiots blocking the intersection trying to not have to wait a full cycle. Of course, the Californian believes they can just “make it through” and all will be OK. Yet I see lots of gnarly accidents on my way to work, often caused by this practice.

    The key to driving with out of state plates in a foreign state is to blend in, and not do dumb things. While most of the rules of the road are shared among the states, there are enough formal differences, as well as enough cultural differences to trip up even the most savvy driver.

    Learn to blend. If you are used to being aggressive, stop being aggressive. If you are used to some “slack” by the local authorities, don’t expect that courtesy.

    And most importantly, don’t be an asshole driver.

  • Travel Hell – Can’t Sleep edition

    There are a variety of reasons that I have trouble sleeping when I am on the road.

    Jetlag.

    Weird schedules

    Food that doesn’t agree with me

    But the one that really bugs me is:

    Neighbors who have hookers come to their room. For fuck’s sake, please, try to keep the screaming, grunting, bed slamming down. I am sure she is that great. I am sure she is worth whatever the FUCK you are paying her. I just DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT.

    Sigh.

    That is all.

  • Google Authentication Shenanigans

    Is it me, or has google been fucking with their gmail authentication today?

    I swear it has kicked me off my webmail 4 or 5 times today. Won’t remember which accounts are logged in.

    At one time it got me stuck in an authentication loop. Over and over, prompting for my password.

    Grrrrr. This has happened before. Hope this gets fixed soon.

  • Donut Shop Etiquette

    Since it is the last work day (and a half day at that) for the year, I stopped to get a couple dozen donuts for the gang. We have a great small chain of donut shops here in Phoenix, that I am happy to patronize.
    But there are some people that just don’t get it. Ordering is simple. You walk up to the counter, wait your turn, and order. Some friendly peddler of fat pills will be glad to put as many as you want in a bag or box, take your greenbacks and send you on your merry way.

     

     

    The rules:

    1. What is on display is what they have. If they have no boston cremes in the display, that is a pretty good indicator that they are out until more are made. No amount of telling the counter worker to “check again in the back” and exhortations of “are you really sure?” isn’t going to make it so.
    2. If you don’t hover around the counter, you won’t get served. It is assumed that they serve those browsing the glass cases in a first come first served fashion. If you walk directly up to the register, wishing to order from there, don’t be surprised when the staff doesn’t recognize your precedence. And don’t get uppity with the other people who are following the rules, and waiting their turn in front of the displays. (this is always an older, likely retired person)
    3. If you are ordering more than a few donuts, for the love of god, do not use the frigging drive through.
    4. Corollary to #3 above. If you are going to be rude enough to order two dozen donuts via the drive through, let the damn staff choose the ones to include. Don’t insist on picking them one by one.
    5. Don’t bitch about their coffee. Yep, it is standard, coffee service coffee, probably delivered by Sysco or Keystone. It isn’t some gourmet shit. You don’t go there for the coffee, you go there for the donuts.

    Seems simple, but I am astounded at how many ‘muricans fail to know the rules.

  • The plug has been pulled – Canceled my MT hosting

    A couple of months ago, I awakened to a horrifying announcement. My web host, Media Temple, had been acquired by the sleaze peddlers at GoDaddy. Ugh.

    I had been hosting with MT since 2009, and had been very satisfied. Great performance, flexible, and when I needed it, awesome service. They were not an inexpensive solution at $20 a month, but I felt confident in paying the premium at the time.

    Fast forward to early 2012. I got drafted into putting up a website for a local non-profit that I volunteered at. They had registered their domain with GoDaddy, so I just sucked it up and got the mid tier GoDaddy hosting package, and set up their site.

    As a webhost, GoDaddy wasn’t terrible. The support was better than I thought, but the one thing that annoyed the fuck out of me was their constant blasting me with offers.

    Buy more domains! Really CHEEP domains!

    UPGRADE your email!

    Blah blah blah. Being a marketing person, I understand the power of promotion, and generating interest. But FFS, web domains are not an impulse buy. The same with hosting upgrades.

    Of course MT swore that they wouldn’t change one bit by being bought by GoDaddy. That changed in mid November when I got email blasts from MT offering a service to “Tune up my website in advance of the holiday rush”.

    Last weekend, I moved the last of my web properties to my new VPS, backed up all the files on my MT site, and put it all in a safe place.

    This AM, I started the process of canceling my account. I will technically have access to it until December 29, but I am done. The plug has been pulled.

    As my domains come up for renewal, I will be moving them to a different registrar. By the end of 2014, I will be completely out of MT and the taint of GoDaddy.

    I do wish the staff and team at MT luck, but I have had enough experience with GoDaddy to know that I want to have nothing to do with them, AT ALL.

  • Apple lameness – Python edition

    I am an Apple person, fully vested, using their computers, their devices, and in general I am very satisfied. But I just had a bad experience, and I need to vent.

    I upgraded a few weeks ago to OS-X 10.9 (AKA “mavericks”, and it has gone reasonably well. However, 10.9 seriously broke python. First, Apple is always 2 or 3 releases behind. Usually not a big deal, as I am not on the bleeding edge, more of a hobbyist.

    But 10.9 broke it badly. Like it was throwing segmentation faults non stop, and pretty much unusable. Hell, I couldn’t even load the built in math module without it tossing a segmentation fault.

    I had set up my python the way I like it, I added the good packages (Apple does include numpy, but they miss a lot of other very useful modules) I use. Took me some time to get it all setup the way I like it, and they frigging broke it.

    Sigh, so I spent about 6 hours yesterday. Installing and compiling 2.7.6 which fixes what Apple broke. That required reinstalling the command line tools. Then I had to update and install numpy, scipy, matplotlib, and about 2 dozen prerequisites for these modules. Grrrr. That seriously interrupted my drinking time…

    I almost decided to go back to using EPD, but I know that pretty much sucks. Sigh.

    Apple does so much well, but when they mess up, they mess up mightily. I hope they fix this soon.

    (Oh, and the newest version of matplotlib has the XKCD graph styles. Totally worth the upgrade…)

  • Back on Spotify

    A couple months ago, I took the plunge. I canceled my Spotify premium account, and was grooving on the Apple iRadio option on iTunes. While I missed the “on demand” library, I thought that the radio stations on iTunes radio were great, with a very good algorithm at grouping songs in genre’s and subgenre’s.

    But a couple weeks ago I reactivated my Spotify premium membership. It was an easy decision, as with the launch of iTunes 11.0.3, the version that brought the radio, it also brought a version that was a buggy piece of crap.

    It used to be that the Windows version if iTunes sucked, but the Mac version was pretty solid. But this changed that equation for the worse. Instead of fixing the windows version, now the Mac version is garbage. It crashes, it hangs (I have force quit that program more times than I can count), it uses huge amounts of processor time (often pegging one processor), and in general it just sucks.

    Yes, the radio stations on Spotify are less awesome, but at least their software doesn’t make my machine whimper and crash.

    I will continue to listen to iRadio, but Spotify will remain a monthly charge. And I get all their on demand music that I don’t get on iTunes.

  • Drive thru culture goes too far

    This is America, the place where the drive through was invented, and perfected. We expect to get our food instantly, coffee and donuts at any time without having to leave our cars.

    However, I have noticed some people who are slavish to the drive through culture.

    When cycling, on the weekend mornings, I ride by a Starbucks with a drive through. There are often 15 or 20 cars in line at the drive through. So, assuming 90 seconds per car, you are looking at 15 – 20 minutes minimum to get your coffee. Why on earth would you not just park and walk in? I don’t think I ever waited more than 5 minutes in line at even the busiest Starbuck’s I have been in.

    I occasionally will stop and grab a donut on the way into the office (Yeah, I know, they are bad for me). They have a drive through, and it usually takes about 30 seconds from ordering to driving away with my satchel of fat pills. Last Friday, I had a hankering, and got stuck behind a behemoth SUV who was ordering 3 dozen donuts, picking them out individually, and then they finally paid with a credit card. Really? Just park your damn SUV and walk in for that. Sheesh.

    But I often see people idling in queue, waiting on their takeout order.

  • F*cking Marketers

    Somewhere, I coughed up my email address. It could have been to access a report, or a datasheet, or something. I used to be naive and think that they wouldn’t spam the shit out of me.

    But I was wrong.

    I get a constant stream. People looking to sell me mailing lists for “decision makers in IT software”, “SAP users”, “Oracle Users”, etc. I get 2 to 3 a day, and I always look for the “opt out” or unsubscribe option.

    About 2/3 of the time, the “opt out” or “unsubscribe” messages bounce. Those people get reported as spammers immediately. Alas, whoever harvested my email address continues to resell that.

    I hope there is a special ring of hell for people who do that.

    As a marketer myself, I know the temptation to use harvested emails for all sorts of usage. But I have a simple test. Would I personally like to get this message? If the answer is no, then I don’t use it. Seems simple.

    Alas, the world is full of scumbags.

  • Apple- What Happened – iTunes

    For years people, knowing I am an Apple fan, have grumbled about iTunes and how much of a POS it is. And for years, I have responded back that “It’s way better on the Mac”, because the Windows version has been a veritable homeless abortion in all its incarnations. Yes, by the time it was in version 9, it was getting cumbersome to navigate, but at least it was solid and reliable on the Mac.

    Version 10 fixed a lot of the navigation, and capabilities, particularly for those of us with 17K songs or more in our collections.

    Version 11 was fine too. But then the iOS 7 launch happened, and iTunes was updated to support it. Now it is a crashy, bug ridden, processor hogging program, especially on my Mac’s. Sigh. Now I have to apologize to my Windows friends who I have been telling that iTunes works fine on a Mac to.

    Because it fucking sucks even on the mac now. I find myself force-quitting it 2 – 3 times a day it seems. Grrrrrrr.