Rants and Revelations

The Apple web site says that my replacement iPod was shipped today and the case closed. Before you start jumping up and down with joy at the thought that my cubicle neighbours may live another day, remember that the last time Apple said my replacement iPod was shipped and closed the case, they promptly lost the replacement order somewhere on its way from service to fullfillment, and I didn’t get it until a month and a half later when Maddy and several other Best Mates called Apple to complain bitterly. Sadly, it seems that Apple wrote their own tracking software, and it sucks.

At least that time I got a Marware case and an iRock by way of apology.

I hope they remembered to engrave this one the same as the original.

After all the worrying I did about the meeting that I posted about in Ominous…, it turns out that the meeting was called to address some whinging about the company bonus.
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Thanks to my experience at GeoVision, I get more than a little bit scared when a secretary comes around to personally hand out meeting notices to a “Group Discussion”, and checks your name off on a list when she gives you your invitation. Especially when you work for a shrinking company in a lousy economy.
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Darn it. Up until this morning, the last 9 Diet Pepsis I’d bought had free iTunes in them. Today I got a “PLEASE PLAY AGAIN” cap. This one came from a vending machine, so I couldn’t try the bottle tilting trick. Not that I can get that trick to work anyway - it’s too hard to see the difference between “AGAIN” and “SONG” through the swirly plastic and condensation fog inside the bottle.

Not a great day, but a good day.
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I’m going slowly mad from the constant thumping. I have no idea where it’s coming from, but it shakes the floor under me. Sometimes I don’t notice it for hours, and then I’ll feel dozens of them over the course of 5-10 minutes. I have no idea the times when I don’t notice is because it isn’t there, or just because I’ve managed to block it out.

I suppose if one has to go mad, slowly is the way to go. You wouldn’t want to rush going mad, you might miss some of the good bits.
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I’m really torn about the controversy about the Bush campaign ad using an image from the World Trade Center.
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Diet Coke is better than Diet Pepsi. But Diet Pepsi plus a free iTunes music download is better than Diet Coke. So every day I’m gambling with my pleasure - will I get a less satisfying Diet Pepsi alone, or a more satisfying Diet Pepsi + music?

Too bad there isn’t more of the stuff I like to listen to on iTunes Music Store. Hey, Apple, how about getting some Rawlins Cross, Rare Air or Bulgarian Women’s Choir? Or some more Great Big Sea and Ashley MacIsaac? Hey, I wonder if I save up 9 or 10 of these things I can buy something that’s only available as a whole album?

I was walking through a shopping mall with my new Great Big Sea CD in my
hand and an old Great Big Sea CD playing on my iPod. As it changed from
one song to another, the song didn’t start. I pulled it out of my pocket
and looked, and the display seemed frozen - it wouldn’t react to any of
the buttons. So I did a full reset, and got the icon showing a folder
with an exclamation point. So I did another full reset - and this time I
got an icon showing a disk and a magnifying glass, and then a while later
I got the “sad ipod” icon.

While messing around to see if I could fix it, I noticed some strange
noises while it was booting. And afterwards I was trying to take it take
it out of the Marware case it lives in and something is rattling around
inside it.

This is so strange - you’d expect rattly noises if I’d dropped it and it
immediately stopped working, but I’d been listening to it.

Oh, and just to make sure this day is perfect, the Apple web site where you order a repair tells me that I’m giving an invalid serial number, so I can’t even have the privilege of paying $260 to fix it.

Once again the guy three cubes down is using his speaker phone to carry on a long conversation even though he’s the only one listening to this end of the conversation. And rather than giving in to the temptation to stab him 400 or 500 times with a mechanical pencil, I’m just shoving the ear buds of my iPod deeper into my ears and turning up the volume.

Ah, tranquility.

Now if only the cubicle shaking thumps that happen about 10-20 times an hour would stop.

Last night I finished my checkout in the club’s Lance. And if this browser would stop crashing at random times, I’ll tell you about it.
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If there’s one thing I hate about the first of the month, it’s the flood of people on my mailing lists who get their monthly mailing list reminder, and rather than reading the damn thing and following the directions, send me email saying “please change my email address” or “please unsubscribe me”. 99% of the time, they don’t even tell me which mailing list, not that I care because I’m not going to do it manually. Today is running true to form - I’ve got 3 of these so far, and will probably get another 5 or so before the day is out, and a bunch more trickling in through the week.

Is it so god-damned hard to read and understand a few simple directions?

And of course, let’s never forget the people with those idiotic vacation messages. You know, back in 1987 I used “vacation” that came with BSD Unix, and *it* knew enough not to send vacation replies back to mailing lists. So why don’t the current crop of GUI-ridden crapware mail programs understand that simple concept?