33 posts tagged “kvetching”
I totally got nicked by Johnny Law on the way to work this morning, because we got this car from my in-laws over a year and a half ago and we still haven't quite gotten around to getting the plates and registration up to date. Especially odd is that while I have a court date, I don't have a set fine. Anyway, if I get the papers up to date by then, they cop said I'd probably be off the hook.
More importantly, however, is the fact that Boots nagged me about it this morning before she left. From one perspective, you could call it being right. From another, you could call it cursing me. Honestly, though, from the number of times that she's bugged me about it, and the amount of time that we've gone without getting around to registering the car, it's probably safe to call it coincidence.
As an aside, I accidentally let my sunglasses fall behind the driver's seat. In a stubborn refusal to be flustered by a run-in with the cops, when I couldn't find them, I got off at an exit and rummaged around while stopped at a light. Just to make sure I was flustered, though, there was no on-ramp to the 101 between where I got back onto the I-17 and where it intersected with the 101. I went one exit past the 101, turned around, and got back onto the I-17 going in the opposite direction... only to find that they wouldn't let me onto the 101 from that way, either. Eventually, I had to get off and take some surface streets in order to find my way back to the highway. By that point, I was, in fact, actually flustered and feeling pretty bad about myself and the fact that I will procrastinate anything until the point that it bites me in the ass. I'm way too fucking old to still be doing that.
This song came up in the shuffle, though, and that made me feel a tiny bit better. It is, as you might recall, the song tat will be playing when I suddenly gain unlimited magical powers.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this VOX kvetching we've been doing lately, it's this: A site's vitality is based on convincing people to use the site itself as their preferred means of interacting with the data it generates or collates. Once your users start relying on APIs or XML feeds, something inside them dies and they become increasingly less involved with the site.
This is probably why I'm still partying over on my Tumblr. The Dashboard/Bookmarklet combination makes it too fuckin' easy not to participate.
- I read about 2/3 of the first Dresden Files book over the weekend. Why does everything I pick up these days seem like a badly conceived fanfic? In comparison, I'm starting to feel like I was too harsh in my complaints about River of Gods and I can see why people raved about that so much. If this book sets the standard for "decent" sci-fi/fantasy, the publishers really are allowing anything to get to market these days. Sort of like the Eberron campaign setting... A really low ball in a field historically filled with low balls. I would like to think that there could be a happy marriage of film noir and the supernatural-- it seems an easy match. However, Dresden, in his Wild West duster and hat comes across as the Mary Sue to all the Wolf T-Shirt Boys.
- I am officially calling "FAIL" on my Nokia phone. Not so much that anything has gone wrong with it, but that I convinced myself that I could make do with a feature rich mp3 phone in place of a nagging desire for an iPhone/iPod Touch. I have basically stopped using any features on the phone other than calling (and rarely the camera). Perhaps I should be trying a little harder to make do, because there are plenty of things to help integrate this particular not-iPhone into an Apple-based life. Still, it's frustrating, because I bristle at the AT&T-Apple exclusivity. Then again, maybe the service isn't really too bad.
This article about an NBC-Weinstein scuffle reminded me that I'd been meaning to ask you, the reading public, what you've thought of Project Runway this season. Boots and I have jumped on the international circuit to find our Project Runway joy. (I hope to do cases in comparative Runway as an extended entry at some point. We've skipped the Fillipino one, since we figured we probably couldn't understand it.)
In any case, you might have figured out that we're not that into it. But we're watching anyway. I'll tell you right now, though, if Pushing Daisies is on opposite PR, there will be no hesitation.
What do you think is wrong with Project Runway this season? (I've added a Vizu poll here-- RSS/Tumblr readers may not see it, so please come on down to the actual page to vote and let me know if it works.)
- It's the timing: This Project Runway, hot on the heels of the last one, hasn't left us with enough time to really yearn for fashion, snark, and Michael Kors' outlandish similes.
- It's the challenges: After four seasons, all the good challenge ideas are used up. Astrological sign? Really? Is that the best you can do?
- It's the outfits: The challenges are fine, but the results fail to deliver. The contestants have figured out the formula for playing it safe and getting as far as possible, so we are not treated to wonderfully high highs and terribly low lows.
- It's the contestants: Who am I supposed to be rooting for? Who is likeable? Who is even entertaining?
- It's Kenley: That woman sucks all the joy out of a room. Even hating her brings me no joy.
- It's Tim Gunn: After Guide to Style it's impossible to feel for him as benevolent father figure. All of Tim's amusing affectation, which were once novel and entertaining, are beginning to grate on my nerves.
I couldn't tell you why, but my mood today transcends grumpy. It surpasses mere homicidal rage. It could not be pacified by a simple mass murder spree. Today, for some reason, I want the whole of humanity to burn in hopes that when the crows gain sentience, or whatever, they'll have a better time of things. Fortunately, though, even this sort of mood can be classified by Tom Waits songs.
After losing its way for a few long months, 43 Folders' head honcho Merlin Mann posted a nice essay about refocusing and proceeded to set about refocusing the 43 Folders site. (So far, there hasn't been much activity, but what can you do?) This, in turn, inspired Ross to go through a cleansing of his own.
I've been pretty decent about not letting my inputs get too out of control, mostly by allowing for my own input triage. At its heart, it's just a willingness to have several streams of input which, if they're not viewed within a few hours, disappear into the ether. I don't need to see every funny image or read every new tech development. That process is starting to break down and needs to be described here in more detail so that I am forced to think about it make some decisions about it, but that's not what I'm trying to cover right at this exact minute.
Something is stopping me from trying to capture everything I want to do, and that's taking away from my ability to get it all done.
Sigh.
I started writing down one of my obstacles, and very quickly realized that a). I was just making excuses and b). if I wrote a long post, there was virtually no chance that anyone would comment on it and offer suggestions for "stuckness."
"Stuckness" is totally a Robert M. Pirsig word. I can't remember if he really had anything useful to say about it.
Ah well, better get to getting my shizzle together.
I think it would be swell if more companies had occasional "this is what we're working on" posts, to complement the "this is what we've done" posts. You know, mostly just to allay the (not entirely unfounded) fears of users that development has ground to a halt and no one cares about the site any more. Again, it might have something to do with how much a hang out on the bleeding edge of projects done by passionate geeks. I sympathize entirely-- plenty of things that I've started have just totally fizzled.
Or, in the case of VOX, six new themes does not constitute and exciting new idea in community-oriented blogging.
Gawd, I'm a catty bitch today.
That reminds me, though, you should totally be watching Project Runway Australia. Happily, though, I think PR USA has finally weeded out enough designers that we can actually start feeling some of the interpersonal drama. Also, in case it wasn't totally obvious NEVER, EVER mention your disabled grandmother if you're on a Bravo show. Or a debilitating accident. You will be going home.
My mother apparently did not do quite enough research into what the proper channels were to clear Bootsie and I for moving into her unoccupied condo. Yesterday I was confronted by an ancient man with a tiny Yorkie who accosted me with the words, "When were you going to tell us that you were moving in here?"
The following exchange made it abundantly clear that taking my mother at her word was an unacceptable infraction, and that any transgressions against the established Way of Doing Things was, in fact, a personal insult to this old man and his small, yappy dog.
God, I fucking hate Yorkies.
Or, as The Doctor calls it, "Chinese Whispers". (God bless the British for being able to unselfconsciously use "Chinese" to mean "ass backwards". God bless 'em.)
Anyway, I just wanted to point out a couple of bees in my bonnet: silly internet memes that were once clever but have now succumbed to the sort of mediocrity you'd come to expect when the crowd gets involved. The first is song charts which graph only a single data point. You remember making outlines in 7th grade, right? Having only one subsection bespeaks poor organization of your thoughts. Thus:
