We apologize for any inconvenience.
That's funny, it seems like you've already added the extra time for me.
Thanks MBTA!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
MBTA Engrish
Green Line service is suspended between Government Center and Kenmore stations at this time, due to fire department activity at Boylston Station. Substitute bus service is being provided at this time. Please add extra time to your commute.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
That's funny, it seems like you've already added the extra time for me.
Thanks MBTA!
We apologize for any inconvenience.
That's funny, it seems like you've already added the extra time for me.
Thanks MBTA!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
No Donut For You Lady.
Got to the orange line platform at Malden Center to find that it was more crowded than usual so, for the sake of my sanity, I decided to let one train go and wait for the next one. I took a spot just in back of the yellow line and waited. Then some more people gathered around the platform. Then I heard a loud "Scuse ME" and this woman pushed her way past people already waiting to get to the front next to me.
I don't know how they roll in Malden, but if someone tried this in Salem waiting for the 7:29, they would probably get thrown onto the tracks. We Salemites are nice enough people, but we don't take no shit. If someone got there ahead of you and stands a slightly better chance of securing a berth on the next train, then you should have gotten up earlier.
So the pushy lady starts digging around in her enormous tote bag for her sunglasses, finds them and then shoves this 2 foot wide bag over her shoulder, knocking into the book of the woman she just shoved aside. I didn't hear anything, but apparently she had said something because then this woman turns to her and says "Do YOU have a problem or something? Tough Shit." Turned back and stood there. And nobody said boo. The train came rolling in and no one shoved her in front of it. And the woman who she had just 1) shoved aside to cut in front of 2) had her book knocked almost out of her hands by a gigantic tote/feed bag because of and 3) dissed in front of about 25 other people; Just. Stood. There.
I know from long years of experience the city-bred virtue of minding your own business, but I couldn't help myself. I waited until the train had come to a complete stop and opened it's doors so she could hear me and then turned to the cow and said; "No donut for you." And continued on my merry way.
And I KNOW she heard me. And, for once, she kept her damn cakehole shut.
And just on a different note, this whole coupon thing is a nice thought and sometimes it is the thought that counts, like when your Great Aunt Hortense knitted you some underpants for your birthday, but c'mon. Giving me a coupon so I can go stand in yet ANOTHER line in a crowded place with a bunch of rude employees yelling at me to move along is not a good idea. Take that money you've spent on the deal with DD, and buy some new trains so you can put more cars in service, so you won't have to stand around, giving out coupons for acting like a decent human being. It can be my Christmas present.
I don't know how they roll in Malden, but if someone tried this in Salem waiting for the 7:29, they would probably get thrown onto the tracks. We Salemites are nice enough people, but we don't take no shit. If someone got there ahead of you and stands a slightly better chance of securing a berth on the next train, then you should have gotten up earlier.
So the pushy lady starts digging around in her enormous tote bag for her sunglasses, finds them and then shoves this 2 foot wide bag over her shoulder, knocking into the book of the woman she just shoved aside. I didn't hear anything, but apparently she had said something because then this woman turns to her and says "Do YOU have a problem or something? Tough Shit." Turned back and stood there. And nobody said boo. The train came rolling in and no one shoved her in front of it. And the woman who she had just 1) shoved aside to cut in front of 2) had her book knocked almost out of her hands by a gigantic tote/feed bag because of and 3) dissed in front of about 25 other people; Just. Stood. There.
I know from long years of experience the city-bred virtue of minding your own business, but I couldn't help myself. I waited until the train had come to a complete stop and opened it's doors so she could hear me and then turned to the cow and said; "No donut for you." And continued on my merry way.
And I KNOW she heard me. And, for once, she kept her damn cakehole shut.
And just on a different note, this whole coupon thing is a nice thought and sometimes it is the thought that counts, like when your Great Aunt Hortense knitted you some underpants for your birthday, but c'mon. Giving me a coupon so I can go stand in yet ANOTHER line in a crowded place with a bunch of rude employees yelling at me to move along is not a good idea. Take that money you've spent on the deal with DD, and buy some new trains so you can put more cars in service, so you won't have to stand around, giving out coupons for acting like a decent human being. It can be my Christmas present.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Design So Bad, It's Brilliant
Marvel at the cheesy repeating logo wallpaper, be hypnotized by the floating, blinking yin-yang symbol! You will become mesmerized by the flashing! Blinded by the colors! Click if you dare!
I've asked this before, but I'll ask it again; Why do so many martial arts websites really, really, suck?
I've asked this before, but I'll ask it again; Why do so many martial arts websites really, really, suck?
Top 10 Pot Studies the Govt. Wishes It Never Funded
Uh, I was gonna totally do this awesome post about like, hemp and W.R. Hearst and all this s*** but dude, the Teletubbies are on and I've got a wicked case of the munchies.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
At Least I Didn't Take It To This Level
How to create a timeline in Excel. Please shoot me if I ever do this for myself.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Please Help Me!
I swear to god that I saw someone riding a bike while wearing a bear costume through Boston Common at 8:23 this morning. Please let me know if you saw it too because I would hate to think that all the hallucinogens/cleaning solutions I have come into contact with over the years are coming back to haunt me now.
Don't Ever Build a Company Site Like This One!
I'm female, therefore attracted to bright shiny colorful things, therefore I shop from time to time for clothes. Unfortunately I have to work roughly 40 hours a week so that I can afford to buy them. Time is precious (see previous post: "What I did on my Summer Vacation"), so I thought I would take advantage of this whole Internet thing and look at the H&M site to see if it would be worth going to their Newbury St. location on my lunch hour.
I'm still going there, because honestly, as what's called a retail environment, they do an awesome job. I feel 10 years younger and 5 times more fabulous just walking into the place. The only problem is that I have to spend so much time looking that I never have time to try anything on. Mostly because the changing rooms need a LOT of work. Even if there's a room open, the attendant just keeps futzing around, completely ignoring a huge line of people because apparently, the rejected items urgently need to be organized on the rack Just So. And the line at the register is notoriously ridiculous. The clothes are probably priced as low as they are due to the fact that the company refuses to hire more than 3 cashiers per store. I've actually gone in, shopped at blinding speed and made a quick decision and approached the line, only to turn around and put everything down and leave because there were about 20 people ahead of me in line.
That said, it seems like H&M thinks it has such a captive audience that's it's OK for their website to really, really blow. I went to Google and typed in "Hennes & Mauritz Women's Clothing" and the store's official site was nowhere in the top rankings. The first site was the Wikipedia entry. Luckily, that had a large H&M ad in the right column, so I clicked on that only to feel like a complete loser when I was told that I couldn't go to the site because I didn't have Flash 8. Fortunately for us non-starbellied Sneetches, there was an HTML site so I valiantly surfed on. The next step was a brief form asking what country I wanted to look in and which gender clothing I was interested in. Fair enough, I'm an American Female. Next page, Which state did I live in? Normally a state of free floating anxiety, but I clicked on Massachusetts. NEXT PAGE, what city? Okay, now I'm on my 7th page and I haven't seen a single stitch of clothing yet. BOSTON! Finally, a page loads. It's a short, boring blurb about H&M's retail philosophy and a list of press releases and the nav contains links to contacting them, reading about them and working for them. Alright marketing geniuses, can you guess what the number one reason is that the average user would want to come to your clothing site? Here's a hint, it's not to read about your new store opening up in San Paulo. There was not a single link to check out what the store sells! I understand if the company wants save money by not hiring photographers, and models and all that but didn't they just get Madonna to do a huge ad campaign? Even Target has on-line retailing.
I'm still going there, because honestly, as what's called a retail environment, they do an awesome job. I feel 10 years younger and 5 times more fabulous just walking into the place. The only problem is that I have to spend so much time looking that I never have time to try anything on. Mostly because the changing rooms need a LOT of work. Even if there's a room open, the attendant just keeps futzing around, completely ignoring a huge line of people because apparently, the rejected items urgently need to be organized on the rack Just So. And the line at the register is notoriously ridiculous. The clothes are probably priced as low as they are due to the fact that the company refuses to hire more than 3 cashiers per store. I've actually gone in, shopped at blinding speed and made a quick decision and approached the line, only to turn around and put everything down and leave because there were about 20 people ahead of me in line.
That said, it seems like H&M thinks it has such a captive audience that's it's OK for their website to really, really blow. I went to Google and typed in "Hennes & Mauritz Women's Clothing" and the store's official site was nowhere in the top rankings. The first site was the Wikipedia entry. Luckily, that had a large H&M ad in the right column, so I clicked on that only to feel like a complete loser when I was told that I couldn't go to the site because I didn't have Flash 8. Fortunately for us non-starbellied Sneetches, there was an HTML site so I valiantly surfed on. The next step was a brief form asking what country I wanted to look in and which gender clothing I was interested in. Fair enough, I'm an American Female. Next page, Which state did I live in? Normally a state of free floating anxiety, but I clicked on Massachusetts. NEXT PAGE, what city? Okay, now I'm on my 7th page and I haven't seen a single stitch of clothing yet. BOSTON! Finally, a page loads. It's a short, boring blurb about H&M's retail philosophy and a list of press releases and the nav contains links to contacting them, reading about them and working for them. Alright marketing geniuses, can you guess what the number one reason is that the average user would want to come to your clothing site? Here's a hint, it's not to read about your new store opening up in San Paulo. There was not a single link to check out what the store sells! I understand if the company wants save money by not hiring photographers, and models and all that but didn't they just get Madonna to do a huge ad campaign? Even Target has on-line retailing.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
For a while I couldn't tell if I had "Blogger's Inertia" or if the world just suddenly became boring. Not that nothing happens, but it's the same stuff that's been happening ever since Mankind crawled out of a cave to bash in the head of someone trying to steal their fire so it doesn't really feel like anything new is going on. My niece is at the age where everything is "boring" and my sister combats this by telling her that only boring people find everything boring.
Not that I've been sitting there staring at Nickolodeon. Labor Day weekend was crazy. I had Brigid Berlin's Syndrome in spades and got a lot of cleaning, organizing and filing done. For some reason, I obsesively collect and print out every little thing I find on del.icio.us related to organizing, CSS and dealing with clients. I wish I had time for the first thing, the left brain for the next thing, and more of the last thing.
I guess the only thing I can say in my defense is that at least I don't vacuum my shopping bags and scrub the inside of the Vaseline jar lid. That's taking things a little too far. But my office is really, really small and I know from bitter experience that if I can see big messy piles of paper out of the corners of my eyes when I'm trying to work, it distracts me.
So, everything was good, my "office" looked like a little Zen temple of creative function, and then Chloe started cutting her teeth. Suddenly my precious little bit of time at home was spent jiggling and rocking and administering tiny dabs of Oragel to her bright red little gums. Dishes and half full beer bottles piled up next to the keyboard, abandoned as the whimpering started up again. The only thing that seems to work is Infant Tylenol but I can't keep giving her that without feeling like Julianne Moore's character in "Freedomland". (Read the book, it's probably better than the movie)
After about a week and a half of this I came down with a raging case of "TDLA" or, To-Do List Anxiety. (Don't feel left out, it will probably be a top story on "Geraldo" by the end of the week) It was the nagging sensation that there were a million and one things that I had to get done, coupled with a vague certainty that I was forgetting about a million more. The only known cure for TDLA is to sit down and write out everything you have to do and then go through the list, item by item until it gets done. So I grabbed a notebook and got busy and then bogged down by the somewhat depressing realization that I was inexorably turning into my mother, minus the prescription for Ativan. She makes little lists for EVERYTHING. Last year I told her that we were getting married and wanted a simple outdoor ceremony in NH for friends and a small party for the family the next weekend and before you could say "Florist" she had color-coded lists and charts that would have put Patton to shame. But at least now I have some kind of idea how much I have to do.
The TDLA is compounded by the number one problem most parents face. NETS, or, Not Enough Time Syndrome. You think you have hours and hours to get a lot of stuff done, you buckle down and try to tackle your list, and hours later, realize that you might be able to get half of one item done, if you're lucky. So, by bitter experience, you've come to the glum conclusion that you will never have enough time so why bother in the first place? I decided to get rid of the NETS by writing down exactly how much "open time" I have every day of the week before dropping Chloe off at a grandmother's and then after bringing her home at night. Assuming I can function with 6 hours of sleep per night, I came up with 45.5 hours in a 7 day stretch. At least it's more than I expected. Last night I went home and worked for an hour on a re-design project for the design site. Then I went to bed at 11pm and set my alarm for 5. I got up and worked for an hour and a half on a Flash project before heading out with Chloe. I think that, psychologically, knowing the specific amount of actual free time available, plus having a specific item to work on instead of a lot of vague "stuff" helps me to buckle down. But I still feel like Andy in 40 Year Old Virgin when you see that little schedule he has taped to his fridge in the opening sequence. "7am : up and shower, 7:15: start coffee, 7:20: make breakfast..."
Not that I've been sitting there staring at Nickolodeon. Labor Day weekend was crazy. I had Brigid Berlin's Syndrome in spades and got a lot of cleaning, organizing and filing done. For some reason, I obsesively collect and print out every little thing I find on del.icio.us related to organizing, CSS and dealing with clients. I wish I had time for the first thing, the left brain for the next thing, and more of the last thing.
I guess the only thing I can say in my defense is that at least I don't vacuum my shopping bags and scrub the inside of the Vaseline jar lid. That's taking things a little too far. But my office is really, really small and I know from bitter experience that if I can see big messy piles of paper out of the corners of my eyes when I'm trying to work, it distracts me.
So, everything was good, my "office" looked like a little Zen temple of creative function, and then Chloe started cutting her teeth. Suddenly my precious little bit of time at home was spent jiggling and rocking and administering tiny dabs of Oragel to her bright red little gums. Dishes and half full beer bottles piled up next to the keyboard, abandoned as the whimpering started up again. The only thing that seems to work is Infant Tylenol but I can't keep giving her that without feeling like Julianne Moore's character in "Freedomland". (Read the book, it's probably better than the movie)
After about a week and a half of this I came down with a raging case of "TDLA" or, To-Do List Anxiety. (Don't feel left out, it will probably be a top story on "Geraldo" by the end of the week) It was the nagging sensation that there were a million and one things that I had to get done, coupled with a vague certainty that I was forgetting about a million more. The only known cure for TDLA is to sit down and write out everything you have to do and then go through the list, item by item until it gets done. So I grabbed a notebook and got busy and then bogged down by the somewhat depressing realization that I was inexorably turning into my mother, minus the prescription for Ativan. She makes little lists for EVERYTHING. Last year I told her that we were getting married and wanted a simple outdoor ceremony in NH for friends and a small party for the family the next weekend and before you could say "Florist" she had color-coded lists and charts that would have put Patton to shame. But at least now I have some kind of idea how much I have to do.
The TDLA is compounded by the number one problem most parents face. NETS, or, Not Enough Time Syndrome. You think you have hours and hours to get a lot of stuff done, you buckle down and try to tackle your list, and hours later, realize that you might be able to get half of one item done, if you're lucky. So, by bitter experience, you've come to the glum conclusion that you will never have enough time so why bother in the first place? I decided to get rid of the NETS by writing down exactly how much "open time" I have every day of the week before dropping Chloe off at a grandmother's and then after bringing her home at night. Assuming I can function with 6 hours of sleep per night, I came up with 45.5 hours in a 7 day stretch. At least it's more than I expected. Last night I went home and worked for an hour on a re-design project for the design site. Then I went to bed at 11pm and set my alarm for 5. I got up and worked for an hour and a half on a Flash project before heading out with Chloe. I think that, psychologically, knowing the specific amount of actual free time available, plus having a specific item to work on instead of a lot of vague "stuff" helps me to buckle down. But I still feel like Andy in 40 Year Old Virgin when you see that little schedule he has taped to his fridge in the opening sequence. "7am : up and shower, 7:15: start coffee, 7:20: make breakfast..."
Thursday, September 07, 2006
State Police Lose Explosives During Drill
Somehow, halfway through reading it, the headline became the punchline.
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