I really hate websites that only offer a part of their post in their feed. I know why they do this. They do this so you have to visit their site in order to read the rest of the story. The more visitors they get, the more money they make. Here’s the problem though. The reason I am subscribing to your site is that I don’t find it useful enough to actually take the time to visit it. Most of the articles are a waste of my time but there are a few shining nuggets in there that made me want to subscribe. Whenever I subscribe to a feed and realize that it’s a partial post feed, I immediately unsubscribe. Why? Because I know I’ll never click on the link to continue reading the post. I don’t want to visit your site, that was the point of subscribing in the first place and making me visit it isn’t helping your cause. So for all you people out there that insist on making people visit your site just so you can generate a few extra cents of ad revenue, is it worth it? You’ll lose people like me. Who knows, I might have become a regular viewer of your website if you hadn’t driven me away by not providing the full text of a post. That’s been known to happen with me before.
I’ve been happy with my two computer and one mp3 player (1st gen Dell Jukebox from a long time ago) purchases from Dell. I’ve never had a problem with any of their products. I’ve never had to contact their customer service, and I’ve recommended them to others. That has all changed this week. On Monday night I contacted their support via the live chat on their website. The problem I’m experiencing is an audible buzzing that my 22 inch wide screen monitor is making. Googling for a solution to this I found some people say turn the brightness down under 75. That made my buzzing worse, so I went the opposite direction. When I got up to about 91 the buzzing stopped, but wow, what a bright screen. Since the computer and monitor are less than a year old I decided to contact support. I don’t want to go a few months and have my monitor go out on me right after it’s out of warranty. So I chat with the technician. They have me do all the same things I told them I’ve already done. Move the speakers away, plug it into a new outlet. Check to see if the buzzing is there when the monitor is off. I answered all these questions before they ever told me to check it, but they told me anyway and I did. Well, the tech told me he’d follow up with me the next day with a phone call. Guess what. No call. So I respond to the ticket via email on Tuesday night after not hearing anything form the technician. No response to that email. I emailed support again this morning and I have yet to hear anything from them. I should call, but do I really want to spend 5 hours on the phone with someone in India, only to have them hang up on me several times and put me on hold forever as well? I guess if it means getting a product that’s not defective it’s worth it.
Yes, I’m talking to you. You are a bad parent. You don’t discipline your kids, you let them run around and annoy the crap out of everyone, you tell them not to do something only to allow them to do it. What gives?
I hate going to public places where there are kids (ages 2-10 at most places, ages 12+ at movie theaters). Kids these days receive no discipline from the parents. They run around like a bunch of crazy idiots and whine until they get what they want. And they will. They always do. Fifty years ago you wouldn’t see the kind of lack of discipline you see today in public places. We’ve not evolved to ignore discipline in order to survive over the past 50 years. We just have parents who won’t tell their kids no. You can read all the books you want, but I guarantee you need to say no once in a while. Heck, more than one in a while. Too many of you want to be your kid’s friend. Well, you know what, you’re the parent. If you wanted to be friends with a kid then you shouldn’t have had one and instead gone to hang out at the park, though some people might find that a little creepy. And don’t give in when they whine, because then you lose the upper-hand and these soul-less beasts will own you. When you’re out in public, keep your kids on a short leash. I don’t mean that literally. Seeing a kid on a leash makes me want to smack the parent. I mean it figuratively. Make them behave themselves and give them real consequences for not doing so. Empty threats do not work and they will soon realize that and you will have just made the next 15 years of your life a living hell as a carpet for your kid to walk on.
I was ranting about kids today with my friend Trix. We decided on one fundamental rule. No kids in public after 7:00PM. Well, she said restaurant, but I want this to apply to malls, stores, movie theaters, everything. What about on the weekends? Well, on the weekends kids must be kept under constant adult supervision. You hear that bad parents? You must watch your kids! Shocking, I know. If all you kid-having people would follow these rules, along with disciplining your kid, society would be a much better place.
After being watch-less for about a year I finally decided to get the battery replaced on my watch. I didn’t want to make the trip to the mall. I detest that place. It’s full of annoying cell-phone people trying to get me to change my service provider, annoying high school boys, even more annoying middle school girls, and slow old people. Well, I couldn’t think of any place that would replace a watch battery besides a place like Target. I run into Target only to be told that they will only install a new battery if it was purchased at Target. I don’t remember where I purchased my watch, but I know it’s not a Target watch. So, it looks like I’m heading to the mall after all.
So I make the trip up to the mall. It wasn’t as bad as usual there because it was the middle of the day during the week. Though many schools were still out on winter break, I tried to get up and go before the lazy high schoolers would be waking up. I get there and the guy tells me it will be $15.95 for the replacement. The battery costs what, $3 at the most? That means the other $13 went towards paying for his labor, all 2 minutes of it, literally. Wish I got $6.50 a minute in my job. That would be nice. Anyway, he hands me back my watch and I inspect it. He set the date, the day, month, and time in those two minutes. I confirmed the correct time with his giant clock and some other watches at the stand. This guy was good, he disassembled my watch, replaced the battery, and set all the proper time functions in two minutes. I paid and was on my way, with nothing but time on my hands… err, wrist. I get home, trying to get used to the weight on my wrist again, and notice something. The time is wrong! My watch was a good 5 minutes slow to every clock in my room. My alarm clock, the clock on my computer, DVR, and my phone. So my question is, how can a guy who’s sole purpose is keeping the correct time not have the correct time? It was his time, his clocks and watches that were wrong. They were five minutes off. I don’t have much faith in a time keeper who can’t keep time. What’s next, arsonist fire-fighters? Fat exercise instructors? Good pop singers? The world might as well end. At least I’ll know the proper time when it does.
I’ve had a MySpace page for a long time now. I’ve had it before MySpace became the huge thing it is now. I’m not quite sure why I have it. I never use it. The only people I really have friended on there are rappers (that have friended me via various websites like midwestinvasion.com and midwestmixtapes.com and other connections). I don’t message people. I don’t even go to an artist’s website if it is just a redirect to their MySpace. I detest MySpace. It’s ugly, it’s bloated and it doesn’t work half the time. It’s everything that’s wrong with the internet in one place. The worst thing lately is all the spam friend requests. I get at least two per day. Sure, I can probably prevent a few of these by setting my profile to private, but the point is, I shouldn’t have to. MySpace should be smart enough to prevent the spammers from sending out friend requests. Oh well. I’m deleting my MySpace page and I won’t look back. (and if you absolutely need to belong to social networking sites, try out Virb. It’s MySpace done right.)