Spam Poetry

Usually, I just delete the spam that Askimet catches. But every so often the entry deserves special mention for its entertainment value. I was able made only read following message and laugh:

best regards to admins of http://www.worch.com – you have a splendid forum!
I was able made only one blog with the info about a medical preparations
I hope this it is suitable section for my message if there is no that simply remove it and forgive for trouble
My first blog – buy nizoral
exuse me for errors – here is a obscure and I have bad english

Beautiful use of language. And the subtext! Oh, the subtext!

Snapshot

Cyber-stalking help, August 2008:

Reading… Cyberfilms
Watching… Spaced – Season 2. The Olympics
Playing… Etrian Odyssey
Listening To… Star Trek – First Contact (iPod shuffle)
Expecting… IndyCar race. Parents visit
Lacking… Sleep

Listening to Critics

Scott Kurtz is the author of one of my favorite web comics. I read PvP every day, and have even used his strips to send messages to my wife. Scott has had a few controversial opinions, but I usually don’t pay much attention to them. Most of the time, Scott is just telling people the uncomfortable truth, and they don’t want to hear it. Beside: success speaks for itself, and you cannot argue with somebody who has had as much success as Scott has had. That won’t keep me from arguing right here and now, though.

In a recent post, “Why We Insulate”, Scott was trying to explain why the book “How To Make Webcomics” doesn’t have a chapter on dealing with critical response to somebody’s work. Early in the post, he states this:

Why we insulate ourselves from the notion that the external critic can EVER be right, is because their critique is moot in regards to the progression of our work.

[Read more]

More Ticketmaster Stupidity

You might remember my scathing (non-deliverable) letter to Ticketmaster from a few months back. Not much has changed. I still don’t want to use Ticketmaster. But I decided to check on the availability and prices of some tickets today. And the process just made me laugh out loud in disbelief. Gather around everybody! Let’s poke some fun at Ticketmaster’s ridiculous “Are you really a human?” check.

The first word is “suitcase”. But what’s the second? “sibly”? What’s a “sibly”? That’s not a word in my dictionary. I’ll be suprised that turns out to be correct, and I refuse to type a word that doesn’t make any sense. Off to a bad start.

Ah jetzt ja. Eine Insel. Well, at least I can decypher this: “Kölnische”. “Titus”. No problem…if there wasn’t a freakin Umlaut in the word! Like 99.9% of all Ticketmaster customers, I’m using an US keyboard. How am I going to type this word without going through some serious extra pain to find the letter? Strike 2.

[Read more]

John Edwards

Wow. I’m not here to comment on the morality of John Edward’s affair, America already has too many oh-so-holier-than-thou pundits (who often turn out to be hypocrits). I really don’t want to be one of them. But why the hell did he run for president with this as baggage?! It was certain to be uncovered and milked by mudslingers across the presidential spectrum. Why do you run for president when you know that that presidential campaign would have been doomed? That just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Heartless Care Bear

Maybe I’m the only person who finds this funny: this Care Bear doesn’t have the usual logo on his chest. That means that he is a heartless Care Bear. Something about that just makes me laugh.

Random Thought

You get a gold tooth at the dentist and the value of your body physically increases. Shouldn’t the life insurance premium go up as well?

Price Of Gas Around The World

Here is a great chart that shows the price of gas around the world. America, take note! Of all the western industrialized nations, the US even now pays the lowest price per gallon!

This is something I’ve been telling people over the past few months: gas is expensive, especially in Europe. It should be expensive, so that we appreciate it and don’t waste it. Growing up in Germany, I got used to paying $2 per liter (and the current price is over $9/gallon in Germany). So the current price adjustment in the US, regardless of how much hardship it might create for some people, is a good thing. It drives innovation. Those 30mpg cars that everybody is hawking now came from somewhere. They came from nations that have been paying $10/gallon for several decades, and who put a high premium on fuel economy. Nobody should argue the value of that – not in a time where the global warning scare is moving front and center.

Stupid CSS!

See that search box, the search icon and the RSS icon on the top right? They are the bane of my existance. Those elements display differently between Firefox 2, Firefox 3 and IE7. That’s three different ways of CSS interpretation, all with slightly different results! Funnily enough, the Internet Explorer interpretation is actually the closest to the “truth”. Aren’t web standards great?

Update: Hah! I got rid of the search image and now it is working everywhere

Why do you Twitter?

Here’s an honest question for everybody who has a Twitter feed on top of their regular blog: why do you do it? I feel like I’m missing something. If you have a phone that can update a Twitter feed, and you have a WordPress/Blogger/Livejournal blog, it’s relatively easy to just update the blog using the phone. The built-in webbrowser can do it. If you have an iPhone, there’s various (upcoming) apps that make it even easier. And the little bit of extra hassle to log in etc. sounds like a good filter to me to weed out everything that isn’t really post-worthy.

Which brings me back to the question: what am I missing? Is there some social component that I’m not aware of? Is Twitter turning out to be a fad and I just haven’t noticed it yet? Help me out!