Unthinkability

Herpecin lip balm?  I just saw the TV ad.  Really?  Are you kidding?  It gave me some ideas for new products:

• How about Gonorrhea-Be-Gone?
• It’s Chlamidialicious!
• and also Vaginotasitc!

(By the way, the CDC has some flashcards of the various conditions!   Weeeee!  I haven’t looked at them, but I imagine that they will convince you to keep your privates private.)

I appreciate that Herpecin might be a great product that benefits many people, but HEY!  WAKE UP!  No one wants to advertise the underlying reason they are applying the otherwise nondescript lip gloss!

*sigh*  I wonder if people actually purchase Herpecin at Walgreens.  I wonder if it started out in the clinical world, and was received so well that the company decided to mass market it under the same name.  I wonder if we are seeing these national TV ads because the company is dumping money into marketing to fix a sales problem caused by THE NAME!!!  I wonder if this could be the worst marketing decision so far in the millennium.

Microsoft still has a heck of a time estimating when file copy operations will complete.  This particular copy job apparently won’t be finished until the year 2102.

They have struggled with this computation ever since Windows 95.  (Apple gets it wrong sometimes, too.)

I’m copying files from one USB drive to another, and it has encountered a few corrupted files along the way.  Still… 34,642 days?  Why would you even display that?  Why not just show “A long-ass time remaining” or at least “Re-estimating time remaining.“

I stumbled across this VERY cool color scheme generator tool today. 

You pick the main color (yellow) and the type of color relationship (mono, contrast, triad), and it makes the color scheme.  It even displays the hexadecimal color values for you to use in your style sheets.

I wish this was available when I was in college; it would have made my design classes a lot easier!

http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

With this color scheme tool, and the CSS ZenGarden, you (I mean “I”)  have no excuse for ugly web designs!

I was planning to go to Mix ‘08 in Vegas this year, but I changed my mind and have opted to attend PDC in October instead.  I could have justified both, but I don’t expect any earth-shattering announcements this time around (i.e. Silverlight), and the pure design stuff really isn’t my cup of tea.

Speaking of “pure” and “tea,” I had a wicked good time at Mix ‘07 with these blokes from the UK (pictured here at the Microsoft party at the PURE nightclub at Caesars Palace).  They were good enough to adopt me and let me run with them for the week.

Since I won’t be in Vegas this year to shepherd you through the slot machine jungle, let me tell you some secrets to Mix in Vegas:

1. Always bet on black.
2. Don’t drink with the Aussies; you won’t make it back to the hotel.
3. Don’t tell the doorman that you’re with Dave Bost.
4. Don’t wear all an black suit with black turtle neck to the fancy-schmancy parties; you’ll look like a security dude to everyone except for the security dudes.
5. Warning: Pictures of you with Playboy bunnies will always makes you look old and terribly unhip.
6. If you find a quiet place to sit with no poker machine in front of you… you are lost.  Go ahead and sit for a spell, and then go back the other way.

See you at PDC in L.A. in October 2008.

Do you have an old project that you haven’t seen or heard from in a long time?  When you last saw that old project, did you vow never to speak to it again?  Or maybe you and your project drifted apart as your priorities changed, and your project just faded away, or you just stopped calling each other anymore.  Regardless of how you broke up with that old project, have you healed your emotional scars to the point that you don’t think of it anymore?

Well, one of my old projects e-mailed me tonight.  It was a shock.  I didn’t quite know what to say.  The minute I read that e-mail, I was overwhelmed with emotions and memories; the thrill that I felt when I first met the project, the promises we made to each other, the hopes of growing old together, the long hours that we spent together. 

(more…)

“The Podcheck Weekly Review” podcast was a labor of love for me for over a year.  I started the show in July 2005, and unofficially discontinued the show in November 2006.  (podfaded)  I miss it.  I miss that Scott Fletcher, you know?

At it’s height of popularity in August 2005, 1600 people downloaded the show every week.  I haven’t published a show for over a year, and there are still over 200 people subscribed to the RSS feed.  Many of those people have simply forgotten about it and haven’t unsubscribed, but I suspect there are also a number of people who are waiting for one last show.  I wonder how long they will wait.  I wonder if I’ll produce that one last show…

Here’s the FeedBurner chart showing the gradual decline of subscribers as people drop off, reinstall or upgrade their computers, etc. (The chart only shows people subscribed through the FeedBurner feed, and does not reflect the large number of direct downloads that I had in the summer of 2005.)

I don’t often think about the show anymore.  Occasionally, I’ll come across an Outlook folder or a business card or something from my Podcheck days, and I’ll suddenly remember that… there are still people subscribed to the RSS feed!

Whenever I think about all of those people waiting for a new show and the fact that people are gradually unsubscribing, I feel something.  Depending upon the day and my current mood, my feelings will be similar to either:

• the panic of remembering that you left your baby in the car,
  –or–
• the sadistic sense of accomplishment of burning ants with a magnifying glass.

I really should produce one last show.  Maybe in 2008!  “Thanks for staying subscribed, everybody!”