Unthinkability

I am loving woot! at www.woot.com

Where else can you get a bag of random “crap” for only $1.  Sure, it will cost you $5 in shipping, but what do you expect?

It is not entirely an April Fool’s joke.  They suggest that “YOU WILL WASTE FREIGHT IF YOU ORDER FEWER THAN THREE.”  They warn you “not to complain about the crap you get.  Here is a list of commandments that they wrote about buying their bags of crap:

I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).

II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.

III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.

IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.

V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.

Don’t you wish you could write a set of commandments like that for your customers? 

As a software designer, I know that [our company]’s flagship products are golden; hand-crafted with the greatest of care and attention, and sprinkled with magic pixie dust and three coats of lacquer.  But some of our fringe software apps really are just crap, and we wish we could be that honest about it. 

You know what I’m talking about.  How about that single one-off utility application that you wrote in 25 minutes to import the suchAndSuch.xml data from the whatchamacallit.ascii file?  You know, the one that the VP’s wanted to start selling as part of the software implementation package?  We software engineers would feel less guilty if we sold it for a $1; That would give us license to say “What did you expect?  It only cost you a dollar!” 

As it is, however, we are left with dull pangs of guilt and mild feelings of resentment towards that stupid little one-off application that got too big for its britches, that small brown bag of random crap that got placed in a much larger, prettier gift bag.  (We can’t take the our crappy little app out of the little brown bag because the bag is what is holding it together!)

By the way, reasonably-priced bags of random crap are popular;  Woot sold out.  Click the screenshot to embiggen.

(Alternate title: “Paging your waiter for a glass of water makes you feel like an a**hole.”)If you were wondering, it is possible to insult restaurant patrons AND make the waitresses feel stupid by placing a single piece of technology on the table.

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I have a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in “Art” and a minor in “Sociology.”  I still wonder how I ended up in the software business as the Director of Technology and Software Engineering at a software company.   I like to think that I put a little art in everything I do. *der*

Still, I need to scratch that creative itch once in a while.  I’ve been using Photoshop since 1991 (on a color Mac in college), so when my e-friend Scott Johnson announced his latest Photoshop ‘put-this-guy’s-face-on-something-funny’ contest, I hopped to it.

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In the interest of keeping you hip and def and whatever else the kids think that we are not, I thought I would pass this along to you.  Apparently, a staple of my adolescence is now a form of pop culture hazing:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rick+rolled

…as in the following link to “Hilarious Muppet Bloopers”

…or this “video of my friend skydiving.”

It first popped up in May 2007.  Where was I when that happened?

When I first came to your planet and demanded your homes, property and very lives, I didn’t know you were already doing so, willingly, with your own government. I can win no tribute from a bankrupted nation populated by feeble flag-waving plebeians. In 2008 I shall restore your dignity and make you servants worthy of my rule.

For you hip-tards who don’t know who General Zod is, he is one of the main bad guys from Superman.  Click to see this most awesome web site.

Just flew in a CRJ50 jet from South Carolina to Ohio.  That jet was the sorriest looking, old, busted-ass piece of aviation technology I have seen in commercial use.  The interior was dated, and its paint was peeling or had been worn off around the aluminum screws holding it together.

I told myself that the paint’s condition was due to either an inspection process (you need to remove the paint to inspect the equipment?) or because they were preparing the aircraft for a new paint job.

I was next-to-last to get off the plane, so I asked an airline employee [not the flight crew] about it on the way into the terminal.  He said “Well, she might not look like much, but she’ll do the Kessell run in under 12 parsecs.”  Funny!  I did not press him for a real answer because I had to keep moving to my next flight. 

Still, either paint it or don’t.  I don’t feel comfortable riding around in Sanford & Sons Airlines.  If the airline company doesn’t care enough to maintain the paint job, how do I know that they care enough to maintain the oxygen generators, de-icing system, redundant hydraulics, etc. I cope by not thinking about it.

Netflix recently ‘upgraded’ their home page to suggest movies and TV shows that we might enjoy based on our previous viewing choices.  It recommends movies in several categories from which we frequently rent.  Good idea.  Let’s see how they’re doing…

Because my wife enjoys “The Sopranos” and “Dexter” in the TV Crime Drama category, the Netflix suggestion machine (Cinematch^SM) thinks that we might enjoy the hard-hitting 1970’s crime drama “CHiPs“  See the screenshot for proof.

Reading the synopsis from the Netflix website, who could argue that CHiPs was a possible match for us?

California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello (Erik Estrada) keep order on the freeways of Los Angeles in this popular television series that debuted in 1977.

Of course, anyone who has actually seen “CHiPs” knows that it has all of the sizzle of “TJ Hooker” mixed with the emotional impact of a Debbie Gibson ballad.

This is the one area of the Internet that might benefit from the “Mahalo” treatment of humans that filter and manage search results.  Netflix has a manageable number of movies and suggestions to monitor with under 100,000 movies in their system; that is a microscopic number compared to the number of web pages available on any given topic.  (Honestly, I think that the whole Mahalo Human Search Engine is a bit like an ant drinking a river.)

Think you can do a 10% better job by optimizing their suggestion system?  You could win their one-million dollar NetFlix Prize.  Better yet, you could start your own DVD rental business.

UPDATE: Funny.  Someone else must have noticed the mis-categorization of CHiPs, because it has been replaced by “Criminal Minds.”  You gotsta getz you some of that Mandy Patinkin.

Staplers.  You wince each time you have to use one and say to yourself:
“please work, please work, please work…” ka-krunk.

I had resigned myself to a sort of surrender each time I use the stapler… until last week.  I discovered what I call “The Dyson of Staplers.”  Dyson changed how I think about vacuums, and PaperPro has changed the way that I think about staplers.

This is not hyperbole.  This is not a sarcastic rant.  This is pure customer devotion.

Unfortunately, I can not tell you what the PaperPro stapler is.  You have to experience it for yourself.

At $11 each for the 15-sheet PaperPro model, you can buy two for the price of just one Swingline “25-sheet reduced effort stapler.” 

You owe it to yourself to buy a PaperPro stapler.  You will not be disappointed.

These high gas prices got me thinking about how we use our vehicles.  When I need a single $0.28 screw to attach a storm window, I often hop in my minivan and spend $4 in gas to go to Lowes.  Brilliant.

So, we are being more prudent and consolidating our trips when convenient.

We normally take two vehicles to church each week because it save me from an extra 90 minutes of un-needed church time.  This luxury comes at a cost:

• 17 miles round-trip to church
• 17 mpg @ $3.40/gallon
• $3.40 per vehicle per week
• 2 vehicles = $6.80 per week
• 52 weeks/year * $6.80/week = $353.00

So… my family can save $176 a year by driving only one vehicle to church.  That is equivalent to one client dinner at my company, three XBOX 360 games, an elaborate date night with my wife, or [nearly] a Nintendo Wii.

With gas prices expected to be $4.00/gallon this summer, I guess that settles it; we’re taking one vehicle, and I’ll be going to Sunday School.  How ’bout that.

UPDATE: 2008-07-25 – At $4.10/gallon, it saves us $213 a year.