Dear Ticketmaster…

Please find my (IMHO quite constructive) complaint about your website below. I tried to submit this complaint via the TicketMaster page, but after a punishing process of finding the feedback form and entering this feedback, your submission button sent me with an automated response that, after listing a lot of possible solutions to my problem (none of which helped), finally left me with the somewhat hidden information that

*** YOUR INCIDENT HAS NOT YET BEEN SUBMITTED, PLEASE CLICK “FINISH SUBMITTING QUESTION” AFTER READING THE INFORMATION BELOW ***

Guess what? There was no link to submit the incident! Just a bunch of links to additional FAQ entries that didn’t help, either.

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Impressed by Powerpoint? Not really.

Program compatability – you gotta love it. For years I’ve made my presentations in OpenOffice Impress, because it does everything I’d be doing in Powerpoint and…well, it’s free! You can’t beat that. In the end I’d convert my presentation to the Powerpoint format for downloads, so that everybody could open it. I never had problems with that workflow, and it still worked a few days ago. But all of the sudden, as of yesterday, Powerpoint refuses to open any .ppt file that I save out from Impress. Any, even the simplest onesheet. “Powerpoint can’t open the type of file represented by !GDC2007.ppt.” What the hell? You didn’t complain three days ago? And I haven’t upgraded Impress or Powerpoint, how could this be broken all of the sudden?

The solution is so simple yet annoying that it took me two days to figure it out. Oh, Powerpoint can open the file type represented by !GDC2007.ppt – but only when that file isn’t already opened in Impress. Because then, some super special “You can’t have it! I’m using it! Neener neener neener!” stuff must be going on behind the scenes, unheard by my weak human ears. That’s some weak sauce – and I don’t even know which application to blame for it…

David Reutimann

David Reutimann testing at Infineon Raceway (with help from Chris Cook). Nice guy on a crazy schedule. I hope he learned something for the race in June.

Superstars

The differences between American Idol and the German counterpart? Less Ryan Seacrest, more visual effects – and the audition spaces are much more stylish than those boring American sport arenas! And of all the wannabe Simon Cowells, Dieter Bolen can certainly hold his own – not because he’s trying hard to imitate Cowell, it’s just the way he is. Quote from the video above: “If Heather Mills rolled her wooden leg down a bowling alley, the pins would fall with more rythm than your singing.”

Das Befriedigt Meine Triebe…

You know the BPjS, the infamous German department that “censors” violent video games? Well, they’re actually overseeing all media, not just computer games. Including music. And Die Ärzte, a German Punk band that’s been active since the 80s, used to be regular customers of the BPjS. Honestly, I can’t think of a single Ärzte song that was actually harmful to us kids (broadening our horizon was more like it), but charming stories about a girl named Claudia and her dog/stallion, a teenage brother/sister duo having sex when their parents weren’t home, and a monster under the bed that ate a boy during the night didn’t sit well with the authorities back in the days. Go figure.
Much more importantly, though, the band’s music kicked ass (and their live concerts are legendary). Very catchy punk/rock songs that all of Germany’s generations X and Y can recite in their sleep. Now in their 40s, “The Doctors” (the German translation of the band’s name) are still going at it, and if their latest single/video is any indication, they haven’t lost their touch one bit. This is the uncensored version of the video, but it’s nothing you couldn’t see in an R-rated Zombie movie. Don’t be scared to click the play icon above! (Thanks to Wolfi for the tip!)

Daytona

And thus endeth the 50th running of the Daytona 500. I had to watch the race by myself because Vicky is in SoCal visiting her sister and friends right now. Which sucked, but I still had a great time. More importantly, a couple of things were reconfirmed to me today:

• Screw the nay-sayers, screw the snobs. Screw anybody who is trying to make fun of people who watch NASCAR races. This is great entertainment, just as good as any Superbowl or Oscars telecast. 43 cars going 190mph, 2-3 wide, often with less space between them than a deck of cards. Yeah, they’re going around in circles. Yes, it takes a long time and there’s quite a few commercials – but you don’t have to give the race your undivided attention for the entire time. And most importantly, there’s always something going on: cars bumping. Cars spinning out. Big crashes. Big crashes in which the cars slide across the finish line. On their roof.

  On fire.

  I don’t have a problem with the low-tech approach of it all. The cars might not be aerodynamic technological marvels, but compared to your average Formula 1 race, this is pure entertainment – uninterrupted racing action that stays unpredictable until the very end instead of two lead changes during the entire race (which usually happen during pit stops, no less). Who cares if it’s very “All-American” and somewhat Rednecky. It’s FUN.

• I’ve grown way too accustomed to our DVR. Record the race, watch it with time delay, skip through the commercials. Yeah, that’s a great comfort feature, skipping through all those commercials, theoretically gaining some time – but it turns yu into a babysitter for the TV. Way too much attention required, you never feel like you can just walk away from the broadcast for a while. “Oh no, it went to commercials! Quick, gotta skip forward!”
  Well, today I just watched the live broadcast while working on a 3D model on the comptrer. There were a lot of commercials I couldn’t skip. I just didn’t worry about it It’s kinda sad, but figuring out this stupid little fact was liberating.

Looking forward to the rest of the season, and especially the Sears Point race in June. Not only will it be in our backyard, the cars will even turn right from time to time. Take that, nay-sayers!