One Bad Random

So Easy, Your Parents Can Use It

In order to consider something truly usable, it should be so easy to use that your parents can use it. I've heard this bit of bullshit numerous times. While I didn't participate directly in the following eBay use case study, I do know the players quite well. What follows is a summary of events that occurred in 2007 that I call simply "The eBay Fiasco."

My mother calls up my wife and says she needs some help with something.

Lisa: What's up?
Mom: Well, we bought something on the eBay and now we can't pay for it. It wants some electronic thing.
Lisa: Oh, it's probably PayPal. I can just pay for you and you can pay me back. What's your eBay account?
Mom: Oh my. I don't know that.
Lisa: Um, what account were you using when you bought it?
Mom: DOUG!?!? WHAT'S THE ACCOUNT WITH THE EBAY!? He doesn't know. We made it last night.
Lisa: I'll check your HotMail for the confirmation e-mail. Here we go. There are two. Which one did you use?
Mom: DOUG!?! WHICH ACCOUNT DID WE USE? … FOR THE EBAY! … ON THE COMPUTER! … He doesn't know.
Lisa: Okay. What's the password for the accounts?
Mom: DOUG!?! WHAT'S THE PASSWORD!? … FOR THE EBAY! … He doesn't know.
Lisa: Well, I don't want to reset both passwords. I'll just find the auction by searching for closed auctions listing the item you bought. What is it?
Mom: Oh, we bought some panties.
Lisa: Panties?
Mom: Panties.
Lisa: Oh. Okay. Well, there are a few closed auctions, oddly, for panties. I'll list off the account names.
Mom: That's it. The last one.
Lisa: I'll have it reset the password for that account. The security question is "What was the first street you lived on?"
Mom: Oh, we put a different answer for that. It's my mom's dad's mom's maiden name. Marion.
Lisa: That didn't work.
Mom: Well, Doug misspelled it. It's M-A-R-Y-A-N-N.
Lisa: Nope.
Mom: M-A-R-I-O-N.
Lisa: We tried that one.
Mom: M-A-R-Y-A-N-N-E.
Lisa: Nope.
Mom: M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E.
Lisa: Okay, that's it. I'm in. Well, it's not PayPal, it's BidPay. I don't have one of those. You can pay by money order.
Mom: That's fine.
Lisa: I sent the seller an e-mail. I also sent you an e-mail with all the details. Just print that out and send that address the money order. Put the printout in the letter. It has the details for the auction and your address information.
Mom: Thanks so much, dear.
Lisa: Oh, it's no problem.

Conclusion

I cannot design a site so simple that my parents can use it–I would go insane. I shudder at the security implications. I can't. I won't. Fuck you.

The internet is so pervasive that people like my parents are now buying their underwear online. I'm not sleeping so well lately, for a number of reasons. Did I mention they were edible? Okay, I made that part up.

Today I had installed FireFox in a VM just because I hate not having FF on any machine, virtual or otherwise, that I use. I decided to add my quickie Google and Google Image searches to the bookmarks (keyword "g" and "i" respectively). After adding the image bookmark I did my usual Ctrl+L to get to the address bar, typed "i" followed by some random garbage keystrokes–you know, as a test. The random string was "tekj". BAM! The first image is some hot Asian girl dressed as a "devil/succubus/Wyscan seducing/Robert juicing/I'd like to be caboosing" temptress.

I don't even need to actively search for this stuff! It's finding me now. The post containing the original picture has additional photos of Asian girls in various costumes at some sort of party. They're dressed as pirates, cats, witches, zombies, and school girls full of Nyquil or Tylenol PM (aka the future Mrs. Wyscan). It's like my sick fetishes burst out of my head and created their own web page. One where all the pics are of Asian women flashing peace / V signs while they try to appear as doll-like as possible. Oh, and while dressing as fairy tale creatures while consuming large amounts of judgment impairing substances. How can anyone not acknowledge the awesomeness of the internet. Grr!

As I mentioned before, I keep finding dead things on the sidewalk outside of the building where I work. Well, it has done it again. This time it's a bird that has mysteriously died in roughly the same location as several other small creatures. While not as spectacular as the impact spray from the possibly suicidal frog that appeared to have jumped off of the roof, it is still worth documenting here. You know, for science:

So, I'm driving home (actually to Fry's) at around 3:15pm on a Monday afternoon. There's a telephone company repair truck ahead of me and one ahead and to the left. Suddenly, (gasp!) I see some sort of brown paper bag blowing around. It goes from under the truck ahead of me, out the left side, up the right side of the other truck, and then finally below the truck in front of me.

I hate hitting bags for fear of some plastic bag somehow causing a weird technical failure in my car and killing me semi-instantly, so I try to figure out how I'm going to avoid it. There, sitting right in front of my car is a barely post-kitten cat. That motherfucker is staring right at me. I tap the brakes a little thinking, "I can't swerve and I'm not stomping on these brakes, you little piece of shit." Suddenly it bolts off the only direction that I think it could and actually survive. It made it off the road before I drove past.

Now, I don't know that the cat wasn't all fucked up, but it made it off the road at least. Holy shit! I'm not a cat person, but I want that fucking cat! I'd buy it a leather collar with "Bad Motherfucker" on it. I like my dogs, but they can't do that. Um, the end.

Sometime over the past month or so someone where I work decided we'd look better/bigger if we had a receptionist. Of course, having a real receptionist would cost money and be a pretty big waste given the small number of visitors we get. So, they just put a desk up front with a name plate that has the title of "Receptionist" on it. Then they put a sign on the desk implying that the receptionist is away from their desk and that the visitor should just use the available phone to call the party they're there to see. The funnier thing is they've put a couple of legal pads (one with a doodle on it) and a picture frame (with a photo of someone's dog) on the desk. It's simply bizarre.

Update:

Here are the pictures.

I was amused that there isn't actually room enough for a person to get behind the desk (picture 2).

What's the Difference?

The wife and I just got back from vacation which was, as always, to Disney World. A quick lesson before anyone asks. Disneyland is in California. It was the original theme park opened by Walt Disney (and the only one he lived to see opened) and consists of two parks: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Disney World is in Florida and has four major theme parks. Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland, and Hong Kong Disneyland are separate parks and all came much later. Disney World is by far the largest and has been the only one the wife and I have visited to date.

Da Plane, Da Plane

We flew this time (we've driven twice) and had a layover in Houston. While waiting for our plane, the previous plane to Cleveland was delayed. Someone on the flight decided to take a smoke break and wound up missing his flight. They did not pull his luggage from the cargo area as I understood was the policy in a post-911 world. He seemed fine with missing his flight after he finally showed up (8 minutes late).

When our plane finally boarded it was pretty much packed. When we found our way to our seat some woman was sitting in the row, among three seats, with her shit spread out everywhere. She seemed inconvenienced when we told her she was in our seats. When she finally gathered all her shit up it turns out she wasn't even sitting on that row. She had just assumed that, on an otherwise crowded flight, an empty row (with around 15 minutes of boarding time left) was fair game.

The guy that sat in front of us was a rather portly gentleman from England. He asked the flight attendant for a seatbelt extender and got the brush off. He then asked another attendant a little while later and also got the brush off. Now, I've never worked as a flight attendant, but I would think they could prioritize that a little bit. I mean the poor guy is obviously 1 1/2 seats wide. Let him preserve a little of his dignity and not make him ask multiple times for the extender.

I spent the rest of the flight enjoying the SkyMall catalog. One item that struck me as funny was the Lord's Prayer on a Mobius strip. I found it funny because a Mobius strip only has "one side," much like some peoples' view on religion. When we finally got to Florida, I had a little trouble while de-boarding. I lost my balance and fell back onto the arm of the seat. I'm positive I fell on the arm of the seat. This'll be important later. When we finally got off the plane some older lady caught up with me in the boarding area. We then had the following lovely exchange:

Lady: For future reference, when you fall all over someone, you really should apologize.
Me: Oh, wow. I didn't realize. I'm terribly sorry about that.
Lady: Well, you fell right on top of me.
Me: I didn't realize. I thought I had only fallen on the arm of the chair. I'm terribly sorry.
Lady: No. You fell right on top of me. And you're a pretty big guy.
Me: Wow. I'm really sorry about that. I didn't realize it at the time.
Lady: You did step all over me. Do you have a grandmother?
Me: No, as a matter of fact I don't.
Lady: [confused]…
My Wife: Look, he already apologized several times. Why don't you stop badgering him?
Lady: …well, fuck you, too then! Have a nice visit!

I'm pretty much positive that I didn't step on her (I would have felt something under foot) and I know I didn't land on her. I heard no exclamation of pain from having squashed her delicate osteoporotic bones. My wife was behind me in our aisle and later confirmed that I did not fall on the woman from her point of view. My guess is that maybe the seat back bumped into her in a non-painful manner. She then got some wild hair up her ass and ramped up her courage to confront the hulking old-lady-squashing-behemoth that is me. After spending so much energy preparing for the confrontation she was ill-prepared for the easy apology. I can only assume she was holding out for some sort of cash settlement.

Although my statement that I do not have a grandmother is technically true (I only remember one grandparent that was evidently a step-grandparent) I was really just getting tired of the lecture. My only complaint about the whole incident is that the wife jumped in prematurely. I was kind of interested in where the whole thing was going. However, you can't really be dissatisfied with any incident with a 60+ year old woman uttering the words, "Well, fuck you, too." If the trip ended there I would have still considered it a success. Luckily Lisa later saw the woman in the bathroom talking about how she had talked to someone's kid the whole flight. I'm surprised that she was over the whole bone crushing incident so quickly…

Boma? Not so Much

The first night of the trip we ate at the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort's restaurant Boma. It's an African themed buffet. On the whole I would say that the food was terribly overrated. Of course, a lot of the food was very Indian themed, since apparently there are a number of large population pockets of Indians in Africa. I confess I don't like Indian food, so I didn't like many of the dishes. The meat entrees and desserts were the highlights. Ultimately, I don't think it was worth the $25 per person, but your mileage may vary.

We ate there to meet a number of VMK players that my wife knows from online. Yeah, a dinner with online game players is pretty much all you would expect. They talked about the game constantly and were rather dull and socially retarded otherwise.

The Biggest Fans are your Biggest Enemies

Since the wife and I have been to Disney World so many times it should come as no surprise that there were very few new things for us to experience. Still, there was a small number of new things to see. The first new thing we saw was the new roller coaster in Animal Kingdom–Everest. I definitely recommend it. It (alongside Rockin' Roller Coaster) is the most thrilling ride available at Disney (discounting the fact that Mission Space kills people). After that we turned our attention to the modified attractions (Disney calls them attractions rather than "rides").

Next was the modified "Living Seas" which has been updated to the "Seas with Nemo and Friends." Since the acquisition of Pixar, Disney has been updating older attractions and creating all new attractions around the Pixar intellectual property. The "Living Seas" in Epcot now includes a pre-attraction ride in clamshell-shaped ride vehicles that show several animated movies that star the cast of Finding Nemo. In all, I'd say that, along with the currently down "Turtle Talk," it is a great update. Turtle Talk is an interactive show with Crush the turtle from the movie. The computer animated turtle can talk to and respond to people in the show area. Kids seem to love it. Without the update it is basically a very large aquarium.

In Animal Kingdom they have a new puppet show called "Finding Nemo the Musical." It attempts to add catchy songs onto the movie. It does an adequate job of providing Pixar related content that, once again, the kids seem to like. All of this despite the fact that the songs in the show aren't all that catchy. I wonder if Disney will put pressure on Pixar to make more of their features into musicals like the Lion King, Aladdin, or the Little Mermaid. Surely there's a greater merchandising opportunity for movies with catchier songs.

The last update is to the Pirates of the Caribbean. They added a total of three audio-animatronic figures of Jack Sparrow. As always, whenever Disney updates content, people are outraged that they've changed a nostalgic attraction. I don't think these people realize that many of the new visitors to the park don't give a shit that these attractions were either 1) around when Walt was alive or 2) were part of their park experience growing up. Catering to the nostalgic creates an artificial hard cap on the number of people to which you appeal. Kids that have never been to the park that are riding the Pirates of the Caribbean want to see something related to the movie. Updating the attraction is a no-brainer. Besides that, I think they did a very good job on the new animatronics. The Jack Sparrow figure is smoother than all of the old figures and integrates well into the story. The lack of nostalgia is probably the only area in which Disney envies other theme parks like Universal Studios…

And the Rest…

Besides the new attractions, we just basically hung out at Disney World, mostly with another friend of the wife's from VMK. It's such a pleasant place to vacation. I, as always, highly recommend it for a vacation destination. There is more to see there than you could possibly view in a normal seven day vacation. All of the cast members (a.k.a. Disney employees) are very pleasant and helpful and, despite the reputation, there is plenty to do for people who hate children (like me).

Heron of Alexandria

During my current documentary viewing phase I came across a very nice show on Heron of Alexandria. As the Wikipedia article states, "Hero was known for his mechanical ingenuity in the ancient world, to include his contributions in military technology and theater. He also created devices used in temples to instill faith by deceiving believers with 'magical acts of the gods.'"

Among his literally awe inspiring inventions used in the temples of the time were temple doors that automatically opened when a fire was lit on an altar, a priest controlled device to make a mechanical bird chirp as an answer to a yes/no question, and a coin operated holy water dispenser (perhaps history's first coin operated vending machine). All of these were seen as acts of the gods and instilled faith in the uninitiated.

Effects on Faith

This whole thing of duping people to strengthen their faith has always brought up some interesting questions for me. First, how could the duper remain a believer in any way? They've seen the way people make up reasons for the unexplained–things that trickster could easily explain. This leads to the issue of how could you even base your faith on the eye witness accounts of others? I read a great book on memory a few years ago called White Gloves that, if memory serves (har har), does an excellent job of explaining how the human memory is way too malleable to be trusted completely.

Smoking Quarters Can Be Hazardous

I saw another firsthand example of this many years ago. A friend of one of my brother's was an amateur magician. He had a trick where he would ask for a quarter and a cigarette. He'd then push the cigarette through the quarter and light it up. He then took a few puffs, removed the cigarette, and gave the quarter back.

The trick was done using a prop quarter that had a hole drilled through it. The hole was filled by the underside of a tiny hinged door to look like the back of a normal quarter. He'd palm the quarter he was given and then use his own to complete the trick. If you saw the heads side of the quarter you'd see the little door. Of course the tails side is the only side exposed because it's the side that doesn't vary, unless it's a bicentennial quarter. When asked about the trick people would swear that they saw both sides of the quarter because he turned it enough that you could see that the cigarette was penetrating the quarter. Their minds filled in the rest and convinced them that they had indeed seen both sides.

Required Learning

So given the unreliability of memory, eye witness accounts, and word of mouth, are all good magicians atheists (or at least agnostic)? Once you've seen enough people react to "magic" how could you ever believe in the accounts of 2000+ year old miracles? Regardless, the kind of critical thinking you begin to acquire after seeing how enough tricks are done leads me to think that stage magic should be required learning in high school or college.

So, I'm watching some shit fluff show on E! and Jamie Foxx was talking about something being "off the chain." I remember back when things were merely "off the hook." Never one to sit back and watch the kids sling the slang, I decided I need to come up with my own phrase. You know, to show how fucking white I am. What's my new phrase? Drumroll: Off the menu. That's right. It's so influential and so rich, that shit ain't even on the menu. It's not an option for you fucking lemming bitches. Feel free to use it in a sentence. My new slang is off the menu, baby.

Update: Suck it.

The wife and I recently headed down to my parents' place for a visit. We were supposed to visit over Thanksgiving, but that got derailed. My parents have a pretty big driveway, but I soon saw we would be unable to park next to the house. Some piece of shit van was in one of the two parking spots under the car port.

Given that my parents live in what I would call a pretty shitty neighborhood (you know, people with non-running cars parked in their driveways for years at a time), I much prefer parking away from the street. After asking some questions it turns out that the van belongs to a cousin from my dad's "Mormon" side of the family, though the van owner is her Samoan husband. They had asked to park there for "a little while" and then left the state. Apparently that was four or five months ago. The frustrating thing is they had finally gotten rid of my oldest brother's non-running car that had been parked there a couple of years.

We gave them their late Christmas presents, I upgraded their anti-virus software, looked at some of my mom's paintings (which are our birthday / anniversary / Christmas / whatever presents), and headed to Jim's for a later dinner (I was inexplicably craving cream gravy).

During the dinner we talked about my dad's very very minor mini-stroke he had a few months ago. The night of his stroke he was having trouble speaking. My mom tried to get him to the hospital but he chose to try and sleep it off first. Yes, my stubbornness may be genetic. He finally went to the hospital the next day and got some blood thinners and tests and found out that it was most likely a result of has carotid artery being 95% clogged. A few weeks later he got that cleaned out and seems to have mostly recovered (he still has to search for the occasional word).

A few weeks after that my parents were in a car wreck and totaled their car. My dad was driving and it was ruled that he was at fault. I don't think it had anything to do with the stroke as I know the area in which the wreck happened as well as how bad of a driver he was before the stroke. It's a nasty little side street that turns onto a major road with very bad visibility and a plethora of drivers with a penchant for speeding. Regardless, the car was totaled and they earned a trip to the hospital in an ambulance. They're fine except for being pretty sore even a month after the accident.

The next day we headed to a Chinese food buffet named "Chopsticks." On top of all of the other shit they've got going on, my dad recently found out he's "got the diabetes." It's relatively minor, requiring him to take one pill a day and to keep an eye on his blood sugar. My wife's uncle (with the dead wife and cerebral palsy son) and grandmother (who lives in the same house as the uncle) are both diabetic. Before the lady of the house died she was kept constantly busy making sure the two of them didn't sneak high sugar treats while she wasn't looking. Kindly enough, someone gave the grandmother a Whitman's sampler for Christmas. I digress. This led me to state that you need to "keep an eye on those diabetics. They're sneaky." My dad apparently took some level of offense at my remark against his new people and said, "Yeah, well I hope you get the diabetes! You know, your brother has it?" The wife and I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer awesomeness of this remark.

Lisa then started talking about how fortune cookies no longer seem to contain fortunes. They're just random sayings. I asked but, "Man with hole in pants feel cocky all day," apparently isn't one of these new sayings. I opened my fortune cookie and told her it actually had a bona fide fortune in it. It said, "You're going to get the diabetes." My dad didn't seem amused.

We finished lunch and headed back to the house. During the drive home it was raining and my dad was all over the road (as usual). After almost hitting someone he said, "There are some crazy drivers around these parts." I couldn't help but turn to the wife and say, "Yeah, and we're riding with one of them." After hanging out at the house and playing some PS2 with the parents we headed back out for dinner. We decided that some third-rate barbecue might hit the spot so we headed toward Bill Miller's. During the drive we headed down a road that has been shitty since I was a kid and continues to be shitty today. My mom then launched into a story.

Mom: Oh sure, just like that city official said, if we get annexed into the city everything will get better.
Me: Huh?
Mom: This little shit acted like we'd get better emergency services–
Dad: And roads. He said roads.
Mom: –and roads if we got annexed. How do you like our new road?
Me: I thought you were already part of the city.
Dad: We are. This was a little while back.
Me: Wait. We were part of the city when I was growing up.
Mom: Yes. No, this was a while back.
Me: Like, what, 20 years?
Dad: Oh, no…this was probably about 38 years ago.
Me: Ah. A little while ago. Gotcha…

We finally got to Bill Miller's and ordered our food. They're regulars there so the manager came by and greeted them. After he left my dad assured me that, "He's a good manager. He's Mexican, but he's a good manager." These remarks typically make me uncomfortable, but never more so than before I've gotten my food…

Finally, we headed back to Austin late Saturday night because of the impending ice storm. We made it home a few hours before everything started to freeze solid.

By the way, the painting of the dog is one of our Chihuahuas, done from this photo:

I work with a guy who is very anti-gambling and pretty "Christian." Today he had bet an imaginary $5 (because real money would be gambling) that nobody would know the answer to some question without looking it up[1]. At the end of his contest he "jokingly" offered me his five mythical dollars to shut up (I was being mildly annoying). This of course led to a behind his back conversation in which we joked about him considering the lottery the greatest of all sins[2], since he had previously gone off during a team lunch about its evils.

Oddly, I have to agree with him partially here. The lottery is a sin against one of the highest powers in the universe. Mathematics. Of course we differ in that I think anyone should be allowed to commit that sin. Which brings me to my next idea. States that are thinking about having a state run lottery (because if the state does it it isn't gambling, unlike poker) should invest a portion of the profit into education programs to teach people the math behind the lottery and how impossibly improbable it is for them to win. I feel better about this than the money the cigarette companies shell out on anti-smoking campaigns because it isn't a company, but rather the government. Any thoughts?

[1] Google has ruined reward based trivia contests, just ask the radio stations. They've now moved on to the dangerous world of drinking contests.

[2] In Christian-dom I think analytical thought is considered the greatest sin…