Zman's Diary : ranting

What's the brown stuff running down your leg?

zman — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:39:00 GMT

With a title like that I know you are going to have to read the whole blog post eh?

Saturday was, as it almost always is on race day, an early start. The Seattle Rock and Roll marathon was in town and I had snagged a $45 entry a year ago when they announced the race so since its local it was really a no brainer. With all the marathons last year this race will be my 10th marathon (or longer) so I was hoping for a good race with a PR. I'd had 6 months rest since my last race, training had been pretty good with one really amazing long run and one where I crashed and burned at 3:00 due to heat. I was hoping for clouds and 50s but nature had another ideas and when we hit the cars at 5:30 it was already too warm for my liking.

25,000 people in a point to point marathon is always going to be interesting. The organizers put on buses but only from one location so we had friends and relatives carpool us down - that was very nice since they also had to get up at 4:30. The traffic was chaos down in Tukwila. Apparently the real late comers were getting out on the freeway and walking. We walked a half a mile up the road and I just got to my corral as they started the race. People everywhere.... bathroom lines crazy and I didn't get a chance to go which was going to come back to haunt me. The start was very fluid. Every 90s they slid us all forward and sent off another 700 or so people and I crossed the start line around 7:20

As always there are people in the wrong corral. Come on runners, sure you ran a 4:10 last year but now you are injured for whatever reason so move back. There's no reason I should be passing you before mile 1 while you pretend to power walk. Corrals are about keeping the race moving not about boosting your ego.

The 1st couple of bathrooms are no surprise crazy but I'm convincing myself I don't need to go and I can tough it out. By the 3rd I wasn't feeling so sure but the 20 person queue wasn't worth losing time for. My pace is pretty good. Just under 10:00 including the 1st water stop. The 4:15 bunny is right behind me and I think that's a pretty good sign. I noticed that when there is a band (every mile) there was a couple of porta potties hidden away so I decide to strike at the next one. Sadly others had also noticed so there was a slight line and for some reason the people in front of me all seemed to take far longer than one would expect and I take a glance as the 4:15 bunny runs by. This will turn out to be my last sighting of the rare creature.

Once that was over I felt much better. The course was very pleasant. Only one significant hill approaching Seward Park and followed by a great downhill. I'm still under 10:00 pace, a little over my 2:08 goal for half way but not too bad. Its getting warm though. I'm already tipping water down my back to stay cool which is never a good sign. The supporters are crazy and by mile 6 I've lost count of people calling my name and I've had to show my shirt to many other runners to explain how I appear to know everyone in Seattle (it has my name printed across the front). The water stops are fantastic - no shortages of fluid or volunteers. You can see that the Rock & Roll organisers know what they are doing.

Somewhere during these miles I eat some of my gel and I notice I have got Chocolate gel on my hand. Its one of those things - sometimes you squeeze the packet on your hand, sometimes you get it on your face and wipe it off. So I wipe my hand and think nothing of it.

Oh and while I think about it here's a little rant to the ladies (sorry but its ALWAYS ladies almost always in matching TShirts) who think that its OK to walk 3 or 4 abreast on your walk breaks. Many places on the course are not very wide and when you take up of half of the space then everyone else backs up behind you. There's 25,000 other people out here trying to go the same way as you are.

Oh and another rant too - yes I know you have a fancy Garmin watch that has all sorts of alarms on it that can go off if your heart rate or your pace is too high or too low but if those alarms are going of every 30s its really distracting to everyone else around who instinctively look at their watch to see what is going on. In the end I speeded up just to get away from you!

We hit the I90 bridge at mile 10ish and head out and back. Its very exposed and hot but I am feeling pretty good and clock a really good mile on the way out. Just after the turn around I notice a knot in my right calf muscle. I stop to stretch and it doesn't seem to help much. I walk a little and can't feel it so I put it down a something that will go away as I run like most little tweaks do and I slow down a little just to make sure. Mile 11 wasn't very fast and as we rejoin the half marathon crowds and pass half way at 2:14 I realise its still there. Not getting worse but not getting better. Also I now need to run a sub 2:00 half marathon to PR. Given the heat, the pain in the leg and the speed I will need the PR has pretty much gone at this point so I decide to stop and stretch and walk for a minute again. Walking is fine but as soon as I start running there is the knot.

Once again I find chocolate gel on my hand and check my supplies - one of them must be leaking. I can't find the leak but one seems a little empty so I finish it up and throw it away. There seems to be a small amount of gel in the pocket on my shorts which seems to be how I'm getting it on my hand. But thankfully the leak appears to have been stopped.

As we pass the turn off to the finish line the half marathon runners say goodbye and I head off on the extra 11 miles (we already did an extra 2 on the bridge). The final run is a long out and back on I-99. Its a long slow uphill followed by a long downhill. I stop to walk and rub my leg to see if that helps and it makes no difference. Its still not getting worse but its not so annoying its all I can think about. At least I can walk just fine but I really, really don't want to walk in my 10th marathon. Not that anyone would notice - I've been passing walkers since mile 13 - far more and far earlier than I've seen in a marathon before. There's obviously a lot of under trained marathon runners in this race - they can't ALL have been injured during the race. Many of them went out far too fast and are now paying the price. I've slowed down too though so people are passing me as well. I dare not speed up in case something pops in the leg and the heat is getting to me.

At the top of the hill I hear a friendly voice and C from my running group is there with the camera... always good to see someone you know. He thinks I'm looking pretty good and also notices all the walkers. I hit the turn around and check my pace and realise that not only is this way over PR its going to be over 4:30. So I tell C to pass on the pace information to the finish line supporters and start the downhill right into the sun.

My pace does pick up a little and half way down I realise I have chocolate on my hand so I stop to check where its coming from and realise that its not just a small patch there is a LOT of sticky gel. My entire right buttock is glued to my shorts and its running down the back of my leg to my knee. As I tipped water over my head its slowly washed the leaking chocolate down onto my leg where its dried on. You can imagine what it looks like. The guy behind asks if I am OK - he thinks it looks like blood until I explain. I try to wipe it off but its crusted on - its obviously been there a while. People have been reading the back of my shirt and commenting but nobody thought to point out that it looks like I pooped myself? I stop at the next water stop and the lady there thinks its blood too till I show her. I use some water and a spare shirt to clean myself up as best I can. It smells good but once again I wonder why nobody pointed out to me I appeared to be bleeding from my nether regions.

Still I got a bit of a rest - maybe it helped my calf muscle... nope. I'm getting tired now but nothing I shouldn't be able to run through. I'm so far off the PR now though that there's no point for any heroics. An injury would be self inflicted at that point so I just keep up my nice 10:45-11:00 pace and have a little stretch at each water stop until the end is in sight an I hear the cowbell crew.

Nice fun race and though my 4:40 isn't close to my best time I think its a fine time given the heat and running 16 miles of the race with some sort of a cramp. Thankfully it never got bad enough to have to walk it in. Oh and a free beer at the end - you can't complain about that even if it was Miller.

Goodbye Yahoo Messenger...

zman — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Today I got notified about an important update. Though it never really explained what had changed other than their terms and conditions but I started the install anyway and over on the right hand side I noticed a non standard button that said 'customise my install' hidden amongst some other crap.

No surprised for guessing what the defaults were

Install the F******** yahoo toolbar - yeah like everyone needs another toolbar
Make Yahoo my home page - because that's what I meant when I said install an instant messenger app
Make Yahoo my default search engine - because I like to pretend its 1998 again. Maybe I should install NetScape 1 as well

So that's it... Yahoo Messenger is on my shit list along with Adobe Acrobat and iTunes/Quicktime...

Alaska Airlines followup

zman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:48:00 GMT

So the other day I wanted to send general feedback to Alaska Air and they made it so difficult that I blogged about it. As generally happens these days companies search for their names and try to help when they find a complaint on a blog so as you can see I got told my someone from Alaska Air to just go ahead and use the "Post Flight Comments" form and just ignore the sections about which flight I was on.

So I did and here is my reply.. (bold are my comments)

Dear Mr. Dunn, [How nice it seems so personal surely they read my entire post]

I appreciated receiving your email regarding enforcement of the carryon limitation and the new baggage fee. [Yes it appears they did - well at least they read some of the words] By taking the time to contact us, you have not only given me the opportunity to assist you with your concerns, but also to consider what we can do in the future to prevent a similar situation from occurring again. I sincerely apologize for your experience with Horizon Air. [Oh wait, no it seems that they think I am complaining about an flight experience - and where they got Horizon Air from is beyond me since I have never flown Horizon and yes they know that because I gave them my frequent flyer number. In reality this is Cut & Paste customer support paragraph #27]

Horizon Air genuinely cares about providing you with a safe, efficient, and friendly travel experience. We pride ourselves on our longstanding reputation for providing extraordinary customer service to our guests. Based on the circumstances you have described, it is clear to me that we have fallen short of expectations, both yours and ours. [Standard Paragraph #12]

In an industry where customer service is vital, we have always made every effort to provide exceptional service to our customers. While we would ideally prefer to never increase our fares or increase and add fees, it is unfortunately unrealistic in this industry and in our economy today. Given the price of fuel and the fact that commercial airlines are spending more money than they are earning, it is regretfully necessary for us to begin charging for some of our services that were previously free. My sincere hope is that you will understand the position we have been placed in during this time, where airlines are going bankrupt and the future is uncertain. We will work diligently to maintain high customer service standards and, along with my sincere apology for any inconvenience you experienced, [Standard Paragraph Special edition for the luggage fee increase because I mentioned that buzzword. Another totally missed point, I specifically didn't complain about the fee I complained about them not enforcing their own hand luggage standards...] I have taken the liberty of forwarding your concerns to revenue management for their review. [This is the only bit of the reply that I needed to hear, though I don't care that its 'revenue management']

Mr. Dunn, [Mandatory second mention of my name so I feel important] it is my sincere hope [Hope? I dont need hope - i need you to stop letting people with more hand luggage than what I just checked on the damn plane. I 'hope' to win the lottery one day] that your future flights with us will reflect the high level of service you have rightfully come to expect when traveling with us. We value your patronage and look forward to welcoming you aboard another Alaska Airlines or Horizon Air flight soon. [More blah blah blah that is supposed to make me feel good]

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXXXXX
Customer Relations Specialist
Office of the President
[Wow what a fantastic title not only a SPECIALIST (at cutting and pasting corporate responses) but also works for the office of the president... I guess this means my email went right to his desk]

Do they seriously think that all that kissing up and obvious cut I paste helps me?

Here's all I needed:

Dear Mr Dunn,

Thanks for the feedback regarding the enforcement of the hand luggage sizes. Alaska Air is so worried about losing market share we would rather annoy the few passengers that follow the rules than risk offending the majority of people who think that a hippopotamus will fit in the overhead bins. Rest assured that the only way to avoid this is to make sure you are one of the first on the plane so turn up really early. However we can't promise that one of our staff won't be overly helpful and remove your small bag from the bins and ask you to put it in your foot space so that the lady with the blimp sized purse can avoid 10 minutes when she gets to the other end.

Yes I know - fantasy land...

I guess there's always Southwest - do they still let the Pilots make funny announcements?

Don't you hate companies that don't really want your opinion

zman — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:32:00 GMT

I see on the TV this morning that Alaska Airlines, who I mostly enjoy flying with, made a big loss and also announced that they will be charging $15 per checked bag going forward.

I'm sure 90% of people will start whining just like they did when other airlines added it but to be honest I don't care - as long as you know in advance you can just figure it into the overall price. Fact is that almost everyone shops for air travel on price no matter what they say they do so airlines don't dare actually put their prices up enough to make a profit (or at least avoid a loss - seriously how is it ever OK to lose $19 million) like a normal business would because unless ALL of them did it then they wouldn't seem competitive. So instead they charge you a loss making amount up front and make up the difference elsewhere. Stupid fees, security tariffs, fuel surcharges that never go away... but at the end of the day its not too hard to work out the total. Totally annoying but pretty much everyone is, or soon will be, doing the same thing.

But what REALLY annoys me is that the $15 fee will now make many people just pack even more into already oversized hand luggage and fill up the overhead space. The situation is bad enough now with people who puff up the front of their case and then bring on a purse the size of another suitcase - get a hint people personal item means a normal sized purse or a laptop bag - it doesn't mean one of each and your grocery shopping. And people when they say "wheels first" it applies to YOU not everyone else. If your bag doesn't fit wheels first then it means its too big....

Anyway, I digress..... I thought I would send Alaska an email saying 'Guys I want to keep flying with you, shame about the $15 fee but can you please enforce the hand baggage size and limits if you are going to do this.' I think its unlikely they will listen to me but I'm an optimist.

But you can't - there's no way to send general feedback to Alaska air online. Try it - go off to the http://www.alaskaair.com and find me an email address or a web form that is applicable. I found a form for reporting technical issues on the website, I found a form to complain about your flight that needs flight details... I even tried using my google skills to find an undocumented email address. Nothing. I have a mileage plan card which has several flights and the credit card and even in the members section there is nowhere to contact them.

Isn't it great that in 2009 I'm expected to pick up a phone, listen to music for 20 minutes and probably fight their phone system and people to try to find the right department. My guess is that so many people complain abut airlines in general that they simply remove the easy options to stop people contacting them.

It doesn't matter who... customer service sucks

zman — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:09:00 GMT

Yes AT&T and LetsTalk.com I am talking to you.

Lets start with the fact that if I walk into your store you expect me to pay for a phone and yet I can get the same phone for free, with a 2Mb SD Card and a car charger (and a free Xbox 360 deal which seems a little dodgy to me more on that next month!) at any of the big internet phone stores.

Then lets move onto LetsTalk.com who ask for SSN# to do the number ports but then won't let you type in a second number if you are adding a 2nd line. When you call the CS rep tells you that its impossible to merge 2 plans with 2 different SSN# into a single family plan. How odd when I call AT&T they tell me they can do it just fine. But no worries you got me off the phone in the required 2 minutes. I just put the order in anyway and Verizon and AT&T managed to work it out.

Back to AT&T now. J's number (which I had been told was impossible to port) has ported over just fine but 3 days later mine has not. So I pop into the AT&T store - ask the sales guy to copy the numbers from our old to new phones and get him the check into my port. He takes about 15 minutes to do the transfer which seems very odd and you can tell he's pissed because we are taking up his valuable commissioned sales time (note there were 16 sales staff in the store while we were there and about 4 customers!). Of course he doesn't believe me about the number transfer so he has to call himself to see which phone rings, then he turns my old phone off like that will magically make the new phone ring. Eventually he looks it up on the computer and tells me that its all fine - even though it obviously isn't and now he doesn't know what to do so he fetches another guy over. Now I am taking up 2 salesmens commission time and the 2nd one is smarter than the 1st. He plays with the computer for a few seconds and declares there is an error and I need to talk to the porting team and he is back prowling for suckers on the sales floor. Now you would think that the store has some hotline but no he dials the same number as I would, types in my number for me and then hands me the phone to confirm things. Of course the porting dept automated system thinks everything is OK so it kicks me to regular CS and a 20 minute wait. So I leave the shop thinking that neither of them had a clue and only cared about getting rid of me.

So Monday I call and go through the same process and after a short wait I get to talk to a lady who sounds like she is pretty bored with her job already that day. I explain my problem and she tells me I have to turn my old phone off. I tell her I have and so did the guy in the store. When she asks how long I tell her I don't know but maybe a few minutes and she tells me that wasn't long enough. When I point out that the battery died on Friday so the phone was off for 12 hours she tells me I need to remove the battery completely otherwise it won't work. I think she could sense the sarcasm and attitude in my voice at this point because she connected me directly to a lady in the porting department.

Who was AMAZING... she looks up the record, tells me that everything is showing OK and it should have ported (thereby proving the guy in the store lied when he said there was an error on the computer). So she resends whatever the magic is to do the port and immediately I get a text message saying the port happened. Then she called me on a 2nd line and my new phone (which I was using to call her) beeped for a second call. Most amazingly she did it with my old Sprint phone turned on proving all the other AT&T employees wrong too. Yes in 30 seconds this lady fixed everything that her dumb colleagues lied their way around rather than admit they didn't know.

I just hope now everything is working that I never have to go near an AT&T store or call their helpline ever again.

Comcast - maybe not as bad as I implied

zman — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:22:00 GMT

Never let it be said that I'm not capable of admitting when I am wrong.

After my last blog post where I wasted several hours on fixing up email when Comcast pulled the plug on port 25 I got a blog comment directly from Comcast. Initially I was very impressed when companies seek out problems and try to react proactively. The same thing happened when I bitched about network solutions but when I replied to them they completely ignored me.

So Comcast - lets see what you have got:

They searched out my complaint and offered to help +1
They replied to my email - in under 2 hours.... very well done +1
They said they did try to notify me:
We normally send an email to the primary Comcast.net email address (if you do not use your Comcast.net email address, I do recommend forwarding it to an email that you do use).
Well yes apparently I do have a comcast.net email address - which I never use of course. Sane people stopped using email addresses that change with your ISP many years ago and they have no way to give them an alternate.
So I checked the account and sure enough there it was. Score one more for comcast and I take back my comment about not being told. +5
But wait a minute lets just read the email.....

ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email ("spam"), which is generally an indicator of a virus. For your own protection and that of other Comcast customers, we have taken steps to prevent further transmission of spam from your computer(s).
I find this VERY unlikely - I run plenty of security scans, I am behind hardware firewalls, I rebuild my machine regularly and I've very paranoid about running software.
Note also that nowhere in the email does it tell me WHAT they have done? There is no mention of port 25 anywhere.

If you use Outlook Express, the steps we have taken to protect the Comcast network will not allow you to send email until you apply a simple one click fix available at http://www.comcastsupport.com/alternateport.
Well I don't but even if I did are they seriously suggesting I follow a link and DOWNLOAD AN ACTIVEX control... heck this is how most of their customers probably got infected anyway. Of course this update can only possibly fix things if you are using the comcast mail servers because every mail provider seems to use a different alternate port.

If you are using a third-party client other than Outlook Express (Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc.), please click here for instructions.
Note that the link initially takes you to a page all about Outlook Express and finally we see our first mention of port 25. But it tells you to change it to port 587. This port doesn't work for any of my mail providers. The email never mentions what to do for 3rd party mail providers - so while the email would have speeded things up for me it wouldn't help anyone who just follows the instructions on GoDaddy or whatever

Overall -10 on the email guys.
My response to them explained how useless the email is to many customers and then they went quiet. I guess there is no canned reply for someone with good suggestions... more minus points. I also asked for proof I am sending Spam - I would like to try to tidy that up if its true... no surprise they sent nothing. You would think if they wanted to help they would be able to do something there. And Yes I've scanned with all known tools..

So I apologize for saying Comcast doesn't tell you - because they do. However I still maintain that they need to be able to have technical conversations with their customers instead of relying on canned responses.

I predict an identical comment being attached to this blog by the comcast RSS feed bot ;-)

Hey web pages designers quit moving the focus...

zman — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:59:00 GMT

I've noticed a recent trend of web pages that set the focus control to a sensible place but do it after the 3-4 seconds it takes their page to load. This means that if *I* have already moved focus you steal it back from me.

Live login is the prime offender. The page displays, I click in the password field because my email address is already there and half way through my typing the webpage finishes loading, fires the Loaded event and the stupid jscript moves the cursor to the username field and I type most of my password for the world to see. Bad enough at home but worse on my laptop somewhere.

So web designers - The ZMan says enough:

Make your pages fast enough that they load and fire the event quickly. Heck if google can do it I'm sure the rest of you can make things a little more minimalist. I know this means you arguing with those people who don't understand technology and think that a web page is "the same as a magazine" but your job is to make my life easier.
Check to see where focus is. If its NOT where you expect then do nothing - it means the user already did it
Just stop it - we lived for years without this, it won't kill us to press tab.

Network Solutions - why do I hate thee?

zman — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:09:00 GMT

Its not just because they think there is something special about domain registration that they can charge more than anybody else. its because every time I have had to deal with them they treat you like they are used car salesmen.

I'm helping a friend transfer a website and domain and I suggested that he use godaddy for the registration and the hosting since its a nice tidy way to do things at a great price. However this meant dealing with Network Solutions. To make sure all the emails went to us I logged into the NS account and changed the contact details to my friend. Immediately NS locked the account because this is 'suspicious'. Even though we had all the right credentials they lock it down for a MONTH.

So now when we try to transfer to GoDaddy even with the right transfer code NS refuse to do the transfer. We can either wait 30 days or, no surprise, we can call them. Of course calling means sitting on hold for a long time and then when you get through you end up talking to salesmen who want to do anything rather than let you go. No surprise suddenly the registration price is a lot cheaper and they will kiss your ass until you give in. This doesn't help since we have already paid GoDaddy to do the transfer. Even worse they can't take the lock off until they 'escalate' which can 'take up to 3 days'.

The REALLY stupid thing is that requiring the phone call doesn't provide any extra security - I've already used the credentials to log into the site and update everything so there is nothing they can ask that wouldn't be available to someone who was trying to steal the domain. SO its pretty obvious why they do this.... retention of customers... sadly its having the opposite effect because it just further convinces me never to use their services and to tell people I know of their craziness.

Twitter is NOT........

zman — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:00:00 GMT

A way for you to chat 1 on 1 with a buddy...... there are already plenty of applications for you do that.
A way to notify us of your blog post.... this is a well solved problem
A discussion area.... there are much better places to do this
A place for you to let us know every time you belch, fart, perspire or breathe... I wish there was a limit to # posts per hour for those people who love the sound of their own twitters

DRM vendors thanks for shutting down...

zman — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:14:00 GMT

[Wow 2 posts in one day and neither about running!]

There are a lot of people out there who hate DRM with a passion. I'm not one of them. I understand that its a necessary evil in a world where most people will get something for nothing if they possibly can. Though I disagree with some of the high profits and salaries that some entertainers and entertainment companies get there is a reason we all lock our doors at night - to stop people taking what is not theirs. The entertainment industry is no different other than its far easier to steal content than it is to take my TV.

However this doesn't mean there are not some parts of DRM that annoy me and I just had to spend my valuable time working around some of this. You see I supported MSN Music when they first went live and I purchased my 99c tracks from them. I was a bit annoyed when one day I tried to go to the site and was told they were shutting down. They sent me over to Urge which was mildly annoying. They promised that the DRM validation that happens would continue to work... but for how long? Since Urge is owned by MTV I figured they were a pretty safe bet for the future. Of course I was wrong and at some point Urge was shut down and we were all sent over to Rhapsody. At least my login from Urge works there but wait a moment whats this? I need to download the Rhapsody player? I cant use them in Media Player where all my other music is. No I don't care if there are workarounds.... you just lost my business.

In the last month I got a Zune - mainly to try out the XNA Game Studio development platform but since I've never had an Ipod it was an opportunity for me to join the cool kids. Zune software has to be installed to sync which is pretty annoying again but at least it picks up my media library.... well almost. Ripped CDs are there but nothing from MSN Music or from Urge. Woo hoo for DRM. So I can't sync my DRM songs to the Zune from Media player because the Zune team and the Media Player team have some sort of ongoing feud to ensure there are multiple ways to do everything in Windows. AND I can't sync my songs from the Zune software because it doesn't understand any DRM other than the Zune store stuff.

Now I could spend half a day finding out if I'm an idiot and there is a way to do this but the easiest way was to burn all the DRM music to multiple CDs and then rip them all back in. Now Zune is happy and all works again with my songs.

Of course the chance of me buying stuff from Zune Store is pretty low expecially since Amazon appears to be happy to sell me unprotected MP3s and I suggest you do the same. The Zune pass stuff is vaguly interesting but there are so many 'just another $9.99 a month' things out there for me to spend my money on and thats more then I generally spend on music anyway.

How to be annoying at a conference

zman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:26:00 GMT

Last week was the annual(ish) MVP Summit here in Seattle and as a regular observer of idiotic behaviour there was no shortage of things for me to watch out for.

When there is free food its there for you to stock up your hotel room with. To the MVP who was loading his bag and pockets with candy bars and potato chips. I know you are out of pocket because Microsoft only covered 4 nights in a nice hotel and fed you for 4 days and made you pay your own airfare but seriously how much candy will you have to steal to make up the difference.
See the silver thing sticking out of the wall in your hotel bathroom - its called a shower and some people (that means you!) need to use it every day. Conferences are places where lots of people are in very close contact and when we have to sit next to you on the bus or in a talk its pretty rough. (Thankfully this wasn't a problem with the DirectX guys I spent most of the time with)
Its pretty obvious they are filling all the buses every day. So sitting on the inside seat, putting your laptop bag on a seat, pretending to be asleep are just plain rude. Though I guess if you know you smell bad you were probably saving someone from a rough bus ride.
Stop asking stupid and long questions to the keynote speakers there is a limited amount of time and though you will disagree IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU even if you did get an MVP award.

If the previous 3 people have asked about sharepoint and groove then sit down - the rest of the room doesn't want another one
Nobody cares about where you are from, when you started developing or how much you want Steve Ballmer to kiss your ass
Get to the point.... when your question takes 5 minutes and the speaker answers in 20seconds you should get the hint that maybe you went on too long.
If you are smart enough to have written your question down in advance then read it and shut up - don't read it and then keep reiterating the same question 4 more times.

Its the MVP summit people - not a celebration of Canada day. Guys we love your enthusiasm but its getting a little much when you take over the keynote question time with your marketing stunts.
Conference organizers - try to get internet access sorted out. You know exactly how many people are coming and its a geek conference so assume 90% of them will be trying to get online.

Make sure you put the session evaluation questionnaire on the internet where nobody can access it because the connections are so slow.

Retarded dog owners

zman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:37:00 GMT

Just because your dog responds to 'sit' when you are sitting quietly at home with a treat in your hand does not mean your dog is trained well nor is it 'under voice control'. So when you take your dog to a park please follow the city law and keep her on a leash. Yelling "Sally" in ever increasing volume for 5 minutes while you stand totally still really doesn't work and makes you look stupid. Maybe running after your loose animal would help your over sized American butt too. I'm sure the responsible dog owners with their pets on a leash really appreciated the welcome your dog gave theirs, I'm sure the parents of all the kids on the swings really loved your dog going to visit them - I know your dog is friendly but not everyone likes dogs and lots of little kids are scared of them. But worst of all there is a major road less that 50 yards away from where your dog was aimlessly trotting around ignoring you. Some of us have no desire to see an accident or a dead dog - but I guess I guess your lack of a leash indicates how much you care for your animal - you can always get another one eh? I hope you get a ticket! Of course then you would write a self righteous letter to the local paper whining about your constitutional rights and the Geneva convention being ignored and how the police should have better things to do. I forgot... YOU are more important than everyone else!

Airline Logic

zman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:57:00 GMT

I just returned from a trip to GDC in San Francisco where United Airlines moved themselves very low down my list of airlines to choose if all other things are equal. I never actually say "I wont fly them again" because airlines are all much the same bunch of idiots and one year United may be bad and the next its someone else. Plus I am a total cheapskate and book on price and number of connections!

My favourite anecdote comes from the flashy information screens they have in SFO that tell you everything about the flight like who is on standby, what meals will be served (really yeah they have a screen for that - it says NONE) and in my case 'Reason for delay'.

Now you would think that would contain something useful such as snowstorm (maybe you have to stay the night), wing fell off (maybe you find another airline), or crew showed up drunk again (join them in the bar). But not United.. oh no this is what it said:

Reason for delay: Plane delayed

If only I had realised years ago that this kind of logic was acceptable - I could have got through life with so much less time wasted:

Why is your home work not done? Because I didn't do my homework
Why are you in bed with that other women? Because I am in bed with her
What is the square root of 100? The square root of 100

In lesser airline stories some crazy power hungry united employees got mad at J for having 2 carry ons even though her backpack is half the size of the stupid 'I can fit 2 weeks of my life in hand luggage so I don't have to wait 10 minutes at the airport' wheely cases and her purse is smaller than a laptop bag. And people if you must take a wheely hand luggage the size of a small mountain then listen to the announcements that tell you to put it in wheels out. It just makes you look retarded when you put it in the other way and people like me will just move it anyway.

Tax refunds are for fools...

zman — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:08:00 GMT

Yes its that time of year when the TVs are full of people promising you big refunds and mates bragging about their $2500 checks and how they are going to live the American dream by spending the refund on something they don't need. When I tell them that I owe $100 and I'm happy about it they seem very shocked.

So let me put it this way for you....

If you are the sort of person who would like a check for $2400 next April just send me a check for $200 every month. Then next April I will give you a check for $2400.

Yes people a refund is nothing but an interest free loan you gave the government. In a perfect world I would pay no tax all year and save what I owe. But Uncle Sam doesn't let you do that. If you owe them too much they add in fines which is a bit hypocritical since they don't pay any interest but they charge it!

So unless you had some big life changes which means your w-4 wasn't correct, then you should fix your with-holdings to put the money back in your pocket.

Remember its YOUR MONEY!!!

How to be obnoxious on a plane

zman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:40:00 GMT

Continuing my ranting from my vacation:

Recline your seat while you are at the airport and then feign innocence when the air hostess comes to tell you about it
Recline your seat even though you are not going to sleep - the British guy behind you appreciates the lack of space
Bounce on your reclined seat at every opportunity ensuring the tray table of the guy behind you never stays still.
Make sure you ignore the seatbelt sign when there is turbulence so bad that the air hostesses are also sitting down. We all look forward to the plane dropping 100 feet and you flying out of your seat and landing on us.
Even worse - dont bother to strap your kids in during turbulence and landing - we really appreciate their cuteness and quietness on the flight but do you have any clue how far a 2 year old would fly if something happened?
If your ass is bigger than a coach seat then make sure you don't get a first class seat - the person sitting next you you loves choosing between the following options:

Spending 6 hours rubbing against your sweaty arms and thighs
Sitting at an angle to avoid the aforementioned body parts and getting a cramp
Snuggling up to their boyfriend the whole way back with the arm rest up to create more space (oh wait this one isn't too bad!)

If you get up to open the overhead bins then dont bother closing it - maybe something will fall on your head and you will get a settlement.
Make sure you take your 'barely legal' wheely hand luggage and puff out all the pockets so that it doesn't actually fit in the bins like it should. The rest of us will happily check our expensive computers so that you don't have to wait a few minutes for checked bags
The second 'personal item' is supposed to be for a purse or a laptop - NOT a backpack as big as your other hand luggage.
Even though you are obviously a seasoned traveller who has seen wheely luggage be arranged 50 times makes sure you put YOUR luggage into the bins sideways or with the wheels first so that it takes up as much space as possible.
Undoing your seatbelt as soon as the plane lands and before the light goes of will NOT save you a single second of time. I know you think you are rebelling against some communist airline rules but really people you dont get points for being the first to undo your belt.

Oh an a bonus Seaworld "that rule doesn't apply to me" from 'J'

Even though every single napkin at seaworld says 'do not feed the wild birds' you should go right ahead and feed them anyway. When a seagull comes and steals your husbands sandwich later the couple at the table next to you will have a damn good laugh.