Me: I’ll have the Lasagna

Waitress: Would you like mozzarella on that?

Me: Sure

Bill: Surprise! That cheese was an extra $1.29! Ha ha, sucker!

Thanks, Spaghetti Warehouse!

And no, I don’t blame the waitress. I assume they have pressured their waitstaff to suggest the silent up-charge, especially on their low-cost special.

The food was great, from the appetizers to the entree to the dessert.

But this left a bad taste in my mouth, and that’s no joke.

I never last more than a day.

Maybe I’m just unlucky, but Firefox seems to, well, fail.

One of the biggest things everyone always touts is the extensions. Oh sweet Jesus the extensions. Anything you don’t like about your life or the world or, perhaps, even the browser, can be fixed with extensions.

So today I decided to try the Fast Video Download extension to see if I would let me save some videos rather than me having to go rooting around in the cache folder.

It didn’t seem to work, so I hunted around until I found the preferences window for it:

Ah, well there’s a sense of simplicity that even Steve Jobs could love.

So, yet again, Firefox fails me.

Yeah I realize there are 10^1000 people out there who will immediately tell me that I did something wrong, or am an idiot, or whatever. Maybe there’s a simple fix that if I just go to about:config and tell it to switch some weird hidden preference from 0 to 1 then it will all work out.

2.0.0.7 (double license to kill?)

sigh

Stop it. Just stop it.

I’ve had enough of your stupid games with the start and end times to your shows.

I missed an episode of “Commander in Chief” last week. It was on from 9:00 - 10:01.

“Why would a show be on until 10:01?” you ask.

Simple: the Stupid Television Programmers think that if you are watching their network at 10:01 that means that you are not watching another network. Which means that if you are watching ABC from 9:00 p.m. until 10:01 p.m. they hope to get you to watch from 10:01 p.m. until 11 (by which point they will have run ads at the bottom of the screen for the news and hope to have you hooked in for that too).

TNT has done this for years, they started/ended at :05 past the hour. Maybe because they were hoping to catch people who were flipping through channels at the top of the hour.

But now several networks (ABC especially) are doing this thing where they will run shows for 59 minutes or 1hour and 1 minute.

Well they’ve now screwed themselves with all the TiVo owners in the world (and other PVR owners as well).

For those of you who aren’t familiar, the beauty of TiVo is that I don’t it to record based on channel and night. For example, last year “Alias” was on at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays after “Lost”.

I didn’t set the TiVo to record Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m., I said “Record new episodes of Alias” and the TiVo did the rest. So on weeks when Alias wasn’t on, it didn’t record. If Alias was on but was a repeat, it didn’t record. Now this season Alias has moved to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, and I didn’t have to do anything, and I didn’t even have to know when the new season was starting, the TiVo took care of it for me.

The only problem comes when two shows overlap (i.e. what if I want to record two shows and they are both on at the same time?). For that TiVo will warn you if it sees conflicts when you first setup a “Season Pass” (their name for when you tell the TiVo to record all the episodes of a given show), but if there aren’t any conflicts, it will just schedule it. If conflicts arise later, it will set priority based on which Season Pass is ranked higher. You can set the rank yourself, but if you don’t, newer shows are given a lower priority than older shows. This makes sense to me, if I have been watching a show for a long time and a new show comes along and conflicts, it’s a safe bet that I want to watch the old favorite over the new.

So here’s what happened:

“Commander in Chief” (CIC) was scheduled from 9:00 - 10:01 p.m. “Nip/Tuck” was scheduled from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Since CIC is a new show, it had a lower priority. It didn’t get recorded.

WOW! Talk about backfiring, eh? Here you were trying to lure people to stay on ABC from 10:01 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. and you ended up losing a bunch of TiVo and other PVR users.

Dear TiVo:

You rarely disappoint me, but tonight was a big let-down (and I’m not the only one who thinks so).

1) You ought to have told me that a show wasn’t going to be recorded due to a conflict. We see each other every day, you couldn’t put up a little message: “Hey, a conflict has been found and I think you’d rather watch Nip/Tuck than CIC, but I just wanted to let you know” — is that asking so much?

2) Also, Nip/Tuck is on several times a week. CIC is not. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to record Nip/Tuck on another night? You know I’m like 4 weeks behind in watching it anyway, so it’s not like it was going to bother me if I had to wait a day or so.

3) At the very least, you should have recorded the first hour of CIC. Yeah I would have been upset if I missed something important in the last minute of the show, but probably it was just a “Next week on CIC…” which you know I never watch anyway.

Dear Stupid Television Programmers:

Why is CIC only on once a week? You may have heard about these new fangled VCR things that people have? Yeah, so maybe you’d consider replaying some of your top shows at like 5 a.m. on Thursday? I know, that would break out of the box you want us to be in where we sit and watch on your schedule, but our lives don’t work that way, and the sooner you realize it, the better we’ll get along. F/X has figured this out, why haven’t you? Could it be because you’re old and slow to change? Life is change. Embrace it.

Stop it. Just stop it.

I’ve had enough of your stupid games with the start and end times to your shows. I missed an episode of “Commander in Chief” last week. It was on from 9:00 - 10:01.

“Why would a show be on until 10:01?” you ask.

Simple: the Stupid Television Programmers think that if you are watching their network at 10:01 that means that you are not watching another network. Which means that if you are watching ABC from 9:00 p.m. until 10:01 p.m. they hope to get you to watch from 10:01 p.m. until 11 (by which point they will have run ads at the bottom of the screen for the news and hope to have you hooked in for that too).

TNT has done this for years, they started/ended at :05 past the hour. Maybe because they were hoping to catch people who were flipping through channels at the top of the hour.

But now several networks (ABC especially) are doing this thing where they will run shows for 59 minutes or 1hour and 1 minute.

Well they’ve now screwed themselves with all the TiVo owners in the world (and other PVR owners as well).

For those of you who aren’t familiar, the beauty of TiVo is that I don’t it to record based on channel and night. For example, last year “Alias” was on at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays after “Lost”.

I didn’t set the TiVo to record Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m., I said “Record new episodes of Alias” and the TiVo did the rest. So on weeks when Alias wasn’t on, it didn’t record. If Alias was on but was a repeat, it didn’t record. Now this season Alias has moved to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, and I didn’t have to do anything, and I didn’t even have to know when the new season was starting, the TiVo took care of it for me.

The only problem comes when two shows overlap (i.e. what if I want to record two shows and they are both on at the same time?). For that TiVo will warn you if it sees conflicts when you first setup a “Season Pass” (their name for when you tell the TiVo to record all the episodes of a given show), but if there aren’t any conflicts, it will just schedule it. If conflicts arise later, it will set priority based on which Season Pass is ranked higher. You can set the rank yourself, but if you don’t, newer shows are given a lower priority than older shows. This makes sense to me, if I have been watching a show for a long time and a new show comes along and conflicts, it’s a safe bet that I want to watch the old favorite over the new.

So here’s what happened:

“Commander in Chief” (CIC) was scheduled from 9:00 - 10:01 p.m. “Nip/Tuck” was scheduled from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Since CIC is a new show, it had a lower priority. It didn’t get recorded.

WOW! Talk about backfiring, eh? Here you were trying to lure people to stay on ABC from 10:01 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. and you ended up losing a bunch of TiVo and other PVR users.

Dear TiVo:

You rarely disappoint me, but tonight was a big let-down (and I’m not the only one who thinks so).

1) You ought to have told me that a show wasn’t going to be recorded due to a conflict. We see each other every day, you couldn’t put up a little message: “Hey, a conflict has been found and I think you’d rather watch Nip/Tuck than CIC, but I just wanted to let you know” — is that asking so much?

2) Also, Nip/Tuck is on several times a week. CIC is not. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to record Nip/Tuck on another night? You know I’m like 4 weeks behind in watching it anyway, so it’s not like it was going to bother me if I had to wait a day or so.

3) At the very least, you should have recorded the first hour of CIC. Yeah I would have been upset if I missed something important in the last minute of the show, but probably it was just a “Next week on CIC…” which you know I never watch anyway.

Dear Stupid Television Programmers:

Why is CIC only on once a week? You may have heard about these new fangled VCR things that people have? Yeah, so maybe you’d consider replaying some of your top shows at like 5 a.m. on Thursday? I know, that would break out of the box you want us to be in where we sit and watch on your schedule, but our lives don’t work that way, and the sooner you realize it, the better we’ll get along. F/X has figured this out, why haven’t you? Could it be because you’re old and slow to change? Life is change. Embrace it.

Just had to share this with you, after all your posts on this and related subjects (feel free to share this, if you like, special guest post?).

I was expecting a package from UPS yesterday. I was already a little impatient for it. It was just $20 in comic books, but I’d ordered it last Wednesday before noontime (and the business I ordered from, Midtowncomics.com, told me that was a sure way to get it shipped later that afternoon). Well, according to UPS tracking, it shipped Friday afternoon. This was past the “we will ship every order within 48 hours” policy midtowncomics.com has, so I complained. Midtowncomics.com assured me it went out Friday morning, no matter what the UPS tracking said. So, I’m already a little steamed that I’ll have to wait until Monday, which is when UPS’s tracking says it will arrive.

No package was delivered Monday (yesterday). I checked the site this morning to see that there’s been trouble delivering the package because of an incorrect address. I notice there’s a voicemail message for me. It’s UPS. They left a message saying, “we could not deliver the package because it was addressed to 94 Charles Street, and there is no 94 Charles Street.(!) Charles Street, according to our driver, only goes up to 36 and a half. Please call 1-800-p-i-c-k-u-p-s.”

Great. Charles Street is divided in half by a park. One half only goes up to 36 and a half. We’re on the other side of the park, where the street runs from 75 through 100 or so. I’ve had packages delivered to the house by UPS for years without trouble, but all of a sudden their driver can’t find his way around town. So… I’m beginning to get annoyed.

Then I called 1-800-p-i-c-k-u-p-s… and really started to get pissed off. First off, I hate dialing letters, and my phone has a bunch of things besides just “abc” on each key, for some reason, so that was in itself a pain. When I got through, an automated voice answered and thanked me for picking ups. I was then offered the following options: say “more details” if you need info on shipping effected by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Or say “Track a package”, “send a package”, shipping information” or “order supplies”. Nothing about problems with shipping. [TjL writes: Of course not! They don’t want to imply there might be problems with their shipping!] So maybe track a package. The voice recognition software takes 2x to recognize my tracking number, then tells me there’s no information on it. Great. So I try shipping information, and it’s all about rates and times and such… another dead end.

Now I’m getting angry. I start saying “Help Me!” into the phone, over and over, as it at first doesn’t recognize my command, then finally gives up and transfers me to an actual, living person. [TjL writes: I usually start pressing * or 0.]

I complain about the voicemail system, tell him my problem, and he says please wait. SO… I’m on hold for about 3 minutes. Not too bad. Then I get some woman who asks for my tracking number. Again. This is the third time I’ve given it over the phone. I give it to her. She tells me, it’s a bad address, there is no 94 Charles Street, and I had to then explain to her all of the above. She tells me, “well, we can get it out to you tomorrow…”

I almost lost it. “That’s UNACCEPTABLE!” I nearly scream. This is a package that’s already been delayed due only to their driver’s incompetence, and you’re telling me I have to just keep waiting?

SO I get “Donald” her supervisor, and once again explain the entire situation. I went off on him for the incompetence of the driver, the impossible to navigate voicemail maze they have, and also take him to task for the inability to get directly in touch with the local UPS center , which probably would make this all much easier. He promises to get in touch with the local center and have them call me to “see what they can do”. I even give DIRECTIONS to the house, because they ask. At this point, I’m all ready late for work, so I give them my work number.

After about a half an hour, I’m at work and the local UPS center calls back. “I’m calling from UPS. You got a postcard from us for a bad address?” Oh, the complete lack of logic! Where would they have delivered this postcard to? “No, it’s not a bad address, your driver was incompetent!” I think I said. We clear that up. I think. “We can deliver it to you tomorrow,” she says. “This is UNACCEPTABLE! Blah blah blah…” I went off again, just barely keeping my voice from getting louder. “We’ll see what we can do,” she tells me, “I’ll call you back.”

She calls back in about 45 minutes. I’m beginning to think radio fame might have paid off here, for her message is, “we’re so sorry, Mike, we can deliver it to you there at the radio station today, if you’d like.” What could I say? Great! Send it on over! And so, I’m waiting for it here at work. We shall see… But if I hadn’t been the guy on the radio, would I have seen my package at all today? Makes me wonder.

Just had to share this with you, after all your tales of trials and tribulations with other shippers. [the end]

[TjL writes: So there you have it… we now have FedEx.com problems, and more problems with FedEx.com (and yup more problems with FedEx.com, and yes would you believe even more problems with FedEx.com but also problems with USPS.com and now problems with UPS too. See also: “WHen will it get there?” A guide to USPS postage terms]

Update: “Well, there is a happy ending. I received my package here at work at around noontime. But I’m still not sure UPS knows there IS a 94 Charles Street…

Current Status

You entered 9102 0012 0693 2242 1290 05

Your item was processed and left our CINCINNATI, OH facility on September 14, 2005. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

Certainly something has happened in the past two days. Cincinnati is 3 hours from here. Two days with no updates? Come on.

Ok, so now this morning there’s an update. But it’s just as useless as always.

Note the estimated delivery date line is gone. Why is that important? Well, because it also says “On vehicle for delivery” … but does that mean that they are going to try and deliver it today?

My guess is that the answer is no. Based on my previous experiences with FedEx.com, I know that what this really means is “Your package has been loaded onto the delivery vehicle, but it won’t go anywhere until Monday.”

How could this be improved? It’s so simple I don’t understand why I have to explain it.

1. Keep the “Estimated Delivery” line. If it said either ”Sep 10, 2005” or ”Sep 12, 2005” that would be helpful.
2. Give a more truthful status line. “on FedEx vehicle for delivery” is probably technically true but is misleading. As it is, they have provided (probably) accurate-but-unhelpful information.

FedEx.com needs a link under the “Status” line “What does this mean?” If someone clicked on that link it would explain all the various lines in the “Activity” column. The explanation for “On FedEx vehicle for delivery” would explain that does not necessarily mean that the package will be delivered today.

The page would also explain what other updates to expect, and the last status line before delivery should be clear and unambiguous: “Left FedEx facility for delivery.”

Update: As Bill noted below, I was wrong about my guess and I did receive it on Saturday. I’ve meant to post a followup, so I’m glad that he reminded me. I would have posted a comment instead of editing the post, but I wanted to include the screenshot of the delivery notice: And here’s something that FedEx did really well: you’ll notice that the time of delivery is 6:06 p.m. At approximately 6:10 p.m. I had received a text message that the package arrived. I had signed up for their package status subscription and it worked perfectly and in a very timely manner (the sign up information is right below the tracking information, so once you have tracked a package there are the fields you need to fill in to track, it asks for format (HTML, Text, or Wireless) and gives it to you all on the same page. (If you click on the image just above you will be taken to the tracking page and can see for yourself. Note: link will open in a new window.) So they did deliver on Saturday, which surprised me…. which underscores the problem with the site: “On vehicle for delivery” has, in the past, meant “but not today”… they need a status update of “Out for delivery” or some such to make it more clear. Here’s something a little strange… the contents of the package were damaged (I do not think it was FedEx, I think it was shipped that way) and the company gave me a return label… using UPS. So the story continues… I guess now I’ll have a chance to test their tracking from the other direction.

Sigh…. once again FedEx.com is useless.

Useless as in the wrong information and not updated in anything approaching a timely fashion.

(For those who can’t see the image, the estimated delivery is September 9th and the current date is September 10th, and the last update is 5:30 a.m. “Arrived at FedEx location”)

For those of you who are in the business of providing time-sensitive data: it is useless if it isn’t kept up to date. Don’t tell someone ”It will be there by “X” and let “X” pass without some sort of an update. At that point, no information would be better than wrong information… but my guess is that your job sorta depends on providing that information, so it had better be right. Otherwise… what is your job again?

But I think this one beats them all. And it’s real. From MLB.com:

After the 2004 Red Sox championship season, the entire field was replaced and the infield was preserved. Under the watchful eye of MLB authenticators, portions of the field were removed, transported and transplanted on a turf farm in Rhode Island.

At this point I double checked to make sure I hadn’t stumbled onto the set of Saturday Night Live…

Exactly what college major do you take to become an Official Major League Baseball Sod Authenticator? Because my high-school guidance counselor didn’t even tell me that was an option!!! I’m going to write her a nastygram.

A limited amount of Fenway Championship Sod is now available to become a part of Red Sox fans’ lawns and gardens.

Oh you’re kidding me…. I mean, I can see where this is going… at least I think I can…. are they actually going to….

Your piece of Red Sox history: The sod will be cut into 18” x 9” rectangles and can be purchased for $150 (plus 5% sales tax).

…oh dear Lord they’re selling dirt and grass for $157.50… You must must must be kidding… please?

Fans will be invited to pick up their sod at 9 a.m. on September 24, 2005 at Fenway Park Gate C. Parking will be available in the Brookline Avenue parking lot across from the Red Sox ticket office.

And by “fans” we mean all of you people with a combination of two much: A) time and B) money.

Sorry, orders cannot be shipped.

Hell no! We want to meet you in person so The Marketing Department can tag you with a special tracking device!

’ (Buy Now)

If you’re ready to order, please remember that September 24th is almost my ½ birthday, but you’ll have to pick it up and drive it to Ohio for me… but you don’t mind, you’ve obviously got time and money to burn… on second thought, why don’t you have your jet fly you out to us? We don’t want the $157.50 sod drying out… who knows, the poor thing probably gets car-sick.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan… I ordered this the day it came out… but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere… and preferably before you start digging out the MasterCard while you wonder if the spouse will notice $157.50 on the next bill…

My favorite piece of this story has to be this image of several people standing behind home plate where the words “World Series 2004” have been painted into the grass. I wonder how many people will, at least subconsciously, be thinking to themselves, “Ooh, I wonder if I’ll get a piece with some of the lettering on it!!!” … you know, like how you used to hope that maybe you’d get the corner piece of birthday cake even if it wasn’t your birthday cake? You knew it was rude to ask, but you still wanted it. Maybe you even offered to hand out the cake so that when that piece came around you could pretend to walk off with it to give it to someone else when really you just snuck away and ate it yourself? No? Just me? I see… you’re probably one of those “Oh, the frosting is too sweet!” people…. For the love of G*d, of course it’s sweet, it’s whipped sugar!!! What were you expecting, low-fat vanilla yogurt bites?

Oh, and for the 3 of you who winced internally (or externally, for you full-blown grumps) when I wrote ”snuck” instead of “sneaked” — really, get over yourself. It’s a web site, not the New Yorker.

While iTunes is designed to propel the sales of iPods—more than $1 billion worth in the last quarter alone—the labels complain that Apple’s policies are insensitive to their goals and limit their ability to grow their digital business even faster….They want to sell older titles at a discount—like the $9.99 CDs available in most record stores—and charge more for popular songs to take advantage of market demand.

They want to make more money, and they resent the fact that Jobs was able to succeed where they had not only failed, but where they were unwilling to go.

Should Apple open up FairPlay? I don’t know. Why should they? They’re the ones who invested all the R&D to get it to work, they’re the ones who provided for the structure to make it happen, they are the ones who host it. Shouldn’t they be allowed the reap the reward of not only being able to see what the labels couldn’t (that the Internet isn’t the enemy) but also delivering a system that works?

Make no mistake, what the labels are upset about is the fact that you no longer have to spend $15 to buy a CD with 1 or 2 good songs on it. If it were up to them, the good songs would be $5 each. And you’d have to buy a copy for your home, one for your car, and one for your iPod. Preferably by monthly subscription.