Unfortunately, he didn’t have any of my model phone, so they’re shipping me one via 2nd Day Air. Pretty sweet. All I have to do is ship the crappy one back when I get the new one, and we’ll be good to go. I should get the new phone on Wednesday.

Until then, no cell phone for me. If you need to get in touch with me, drop me an email.

Then the other day Ken Charles is all a flutter, interrupting Chris on his show over something new…

• A photo gallery?
• A studiocam?
• Moderated comments?
• RSS feeds?
• A decent picture of Chris?
• Permalinks for individual posts?
• Moderated forums for listener discussions when the show isn’t on?

Hell no. It’s “Instant messaging” he gasps and I look at it.

It’s just an email form. Not exactly “Instant messaging” by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it’s faster for me just to thumb in a message from Ziggy3 than jump through those hoops.

There’s so much that needs to be done, and this is a priority?

Take a look for yourself. His blog has some major problems with it. Some are aesthetic and some are functional, but they all scream “amateur.”

• Broken and incorrect links (several point to the site’s admin area)
• No blockquotes
• No permalinks
• No comments
• No feeds
• Inconsistent text formatting
• Sloppy layout

Basically, the site doesn’t work very well, and it’s uglier than a shit sandwich on a stick in the rain.
I’m not saying this to rip on Baker, but to prod KTRH and Ken Charles to action. The blog has so much potential. Stories could develop across Houston media — radio, TV, print, Internet. Listeners could become blog readers. Link love could proliferate, and the “50,000-Watt Think Tank” could be at the center of it all.

But that’s not going to happen as long as the site looks like someone tried to put out a forest fire with a screwdriver.

Chris, Ken, get on the stick and fix that blog!

But scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see that I’ve had more than 1,300 attempted spam attacks, all of them rebuffed without incident. This is because I use Spam Karma 2, an excellent anti-spam program.

The way it works is this: as comments come in, they’re automatically put through a series of filters, each of which can be configured for strictness. Each filter looks for a specific trait common to automatically-generated comments. One looks for comments generated too rapidly, one checks comments against an IP blacklist of known spammers, another checks for an unusually high number of links, while yet another checks for comments on older posts. There are 10 filters in total.

Each filter assigns the comment a karma value based on its performance. This value is cumulative as the comment makes its way through the chain. Suspicious comments tend to have more than one spam-like attribute, so the negative karma builds up. At a certain point, determined by a very high negative karma value, the comment is obviously spam and it’s automagically discarded. Buh-bye, scumbags.

Conversely, real, human-generated comments get good karma. They might have one or two suspicious attributes (originating from a browser that doesn’t support JavaScript, for instance), but they’ll pass the other filters and get posted without a hitch.

The software works almost perfectly. No spam gets through. I haven’t had a single spam comment since I’ve been using Spam Karma 2. That’s pretty impressive, considering I’m just using the default settings. Even better, it’s given no false positives to date. Every once in a while, the software isn’t quite sure whether a comment is spam, and it holds it in moderation for me to approve or deny manually, but that’s only happened maybe three times.

All in all, it’s a nearly perfect anti-spam measure. If you use WordPress, check it out.

Breakfasts will be served from 7:30–8:30 a.m., and lunches will be served from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Adults may also participate in the program by purchasing breakfast for $1.60 and lunch for $2.85.

HISD meals are nutritionally analyzed to ensure that children receive the vitamins, minerals, and calories required to maintain a balanced diet.

All that for under three bucks? How could I resist? So I skipped on down to the nearest government indoctrination center, which happens to be Sinclair Elementary School, less than two miles from MattCo.

After making my way past a mean-looking secretary and a bunch of kids who spoke less English than my pet fish does, I found the nearly empty cafeteria, and went through the serving line. The entire waitstaff consisted of one friendly woman in disposable plastic gloves. Here’s what she dished up:

It’s a six-compartment polystyrene tray, loaded with everything a growing boy needs. Today’s main course was breaded chicken strips, accompanied by broccoli cuts, a white roll and mashed potatoes. Accessories included a spork, an absurdly thin paper napkin, and a thin straw. I’ll address each compartment in turn, beginning with the chicken strips and going clockwise.

The chicken strips were thickly breaded, with only a slightly greasy feel. The breading, liberally spiked with black pepper, surrounded a rubbery bit of engineered chicken material. Not bad, as far as chicken strips go. Cream gravy would have been a nice addition, but it was nowhere to be found. The portion was pretty big — five strips! — but I attribute that to the server’s appreciation of my rugged good looks. Sources tell me that the standard portion is three strips.

The broccoli cuts were incredibly hot and somewhat overdone. Despite the overcooking, however, the vegetable’s flavor was unharmed. No seasoning was evident.

The tennis-ball sized dollop of mashed potatoes appeared to have been prepared from dehydrated potato flakes. The texture was perfectly uniform throughout: no bits of skin, no bacon bits, no cheese, nada. Similarly consistent was the utter lack of flavor.

The roll was tasty and dense, but for some inexplicable reason it was sliced latitudinally like a hamburger bun. I suppose the slice could have been an HISD hint, telling me where to apply butter, but none was provided. Pity. The roll was fine by itself, but a little butter or jelly would have gone a long way.As I was going through the serving line, I wondered what the fifth compartment would hold. Dessert, perhaps? Cherry cobbler with little crumbles on top would have been nice. Alas, the server completed her duties without putting anything in the fifth compartment. Was it a metaphor for the emptiness of an overreliance on government assistance, or just some sneaky bastard hoarding all the cobbler?

The sixth compartment was intended to hold utensils. As you can see, it’s designed so that the utensils face up when the compartment is oriented to the right. When you turn it around, the utensils are upside-down and the entree is far away. I’m deeply offended by this not-so-subtle slap at left-handed people, and I hope the superintendent takes measures to rectify HISD’s de facto policy of right supremacy.

No beverage was provided. I thought for sure I’d get a shot of 2% milk, but no dice. I guess calcium is exempt from HISD’s nutritional scrutiny. Instead, I hit the water fountain on the way out.

Anyway, back to lunch. The decor was pretty boring and institutional. The room was large, with round laminate tables, high ceilings, and way too much linoleum, glazed brick and harsh fluorescent lighting.

While I was enjoying my meal, I was approached by a gentleman who asked what I was doing. Apparently, school administrators don’t get a lot of food reviewers, because at first he seemed unconvinced by my explanation. He told me I should have gotten a visitor badge when I came into the school. Okay, no problem. I checked into the office on the way out, and they scanned my driver’s license into some massive HISD database. Pretty intrusive for some chicken fingers, if you ask me.

All in all, it was a pretty good meal, as long as you don’t stop to consider the fact that its mere existence encourages irresponsible parenting and complete, pet-like reliance on government.

Pros: Extra chicken; low price; convenient location; opportunity to mess with befuddled school administrator.

Cons: No drink; getting hassled by The Man; failing our children with a massive educational bureaucracy and welfare state; no gravy.

Decor: (out of four)

Food Appearance:

Taste:

Nutritional Value:

Bang for the Buck:

Overall:

To start sending money from your phone, log into PayPal and associate your mobile phone number with your account. I know. I hate giving away my phone number too, but PayPal’s already got my bank information, so that makes the voice digits seem like less of an issue. Once you enter your cell phone number in your PayPal account and set up a mobile PIN (separate from your account password), PayPal’s voice robot calls your phone on the spot and asks you to verify the PIN. Once the PIN’s matched, your phone is PayPal-enabled.

Then, to send someone else’s phone $5.50 in cash, text message PAYPAL (729725) the message send 5.50 to 7185551212 where the recipient’s phone number is (718) 555-1212.

PayPal doesn’t exactly advertise this (it’s buried in their help pages), but you can PayPal someone’s email address from your mobile, too. Just make your text message send 5 to editor@lifehacker.com instead.

The cool factor is pretty good, but I could see myself using this on the run, for splitting checks and things like that. Check it out.

A few days ago, I skipped down to my local McDonald’s hamburgery and bought an Asian Salad from the drive-thru. The salad comes with a little packet of sliced almonds, which provide a nice contract in flavor and texture to the greens and sweet dressing.

At least, they’re supposed to. I don’t know what these almonds tasted like, because when I opened the packet, I found the nuts covered in blue-green mold. I don’t mean a few spores here and there. This was a fully-functioning mold city.

I didn’t have time to deal with it then, so I just threw out the almonds, checked the rest of my salad for rot, and munched away. Eventually I called McDonald’s corporate headquarters and talked to a very helpful young guy who took my complaint and promised to forward my concerns to the franchisee. Okay, whatever. At least I bitched to someone.
To my pleasant suprise, I got a call Friday morning from the restaurant’s owner, a woman whose name eludes me at the moment. She was very apologetic and seemed genuinely interested in my complaint. She was pretty embarrassed that there would be problems with such a high-profile, much-ballyhooed product, and she pledged to investigate the matter.

She even offered to send me some gift certificates so I can come back in for free (hopefully) non-fungus-riddled food. I haven’t gotten them yet, but I figure it’ll be five bucks. Fine by me.
I am now once again a satisfied customer, and I’ll gladly go back to that McDonald’s, because that business proved it wants my patronage.

That’s why I was happy to download Southwest’s “Ding” application. It’s a small app that sits in the system tray, displaying the familiar striped 737 tail. Whenever Southwest has a sale or other promotion, it plays a “Ding” sound effect, and I hurriedly click on the icon to see where I can go. Everytime, memories of Caesars flash through my mind.

Here’s what makes it even better. Southwest recently changed its Rapid Rewards program so that credits are good for two years instead of one. What’s more, the company retroactively applied the change, so I’m just two flights away from a freebie. I’m heading to South Bend in a few weeks for The Observer‘s 40th anniversary reunion/drinking binge. This summer, I’ll be heading to Medina, Ohio (rhymes with vagina) for Tommy’s wedding. After that, I’ll get a flight (and booze!) for free. Hell yeah.

I can’t stand those damn things.

I should qualify that. They’re actually pretty convenient when I’m in a hurry, and I just want a Coke or a dozen eggs or something. But when I’ve got a cart full of stuff, I don’t want to check out my own groceries. I don’t want to search for barcodes, I don’t want to weigh fruit, and I don’t want to feed currency into a slot one bill at a time.

One of the problems is usability. After you scan each item, you’re instructed by the maddening feminine voice to “please place the item into the bag.” The bags — flimsy plastic only — are on racks mounted on a big scale. Apparently the weight of each item is programmed into the system as a theft-prevention measure, so some scumbag doesn’t pay for a candy bar and walk off with two cases of Pabst. The problem is that when you have a whole lot of groceries, you run out of room. You try to take one of the full bags off to make more room, and the maddening voice tells you to “place the item back in the bag.”

But my main beef with the damn things is much broader: It’s not my freakin’ job. I already have a job. I get up in the morning and I work very hard at my job. When I go to spend the money I made at my job, I don’t want to do someone else’s job. There’s a reason the good Lord made pizza-faced 16-year-olds, and that reason is so that I don’t have to run a six-pack over a laser grid 17 times.

Some of you might find my anti-U-Scan position at odds with my nature as a free marketeer. After all, Kroger is just trying to make a buck, so what’s wrong with that? Not a thing. The company is certainly free to conduct its business however it wants. But so am I, and that’s why I usually shop at Randalls, where they have real live people to ring up my groceries. Imagine that!

I also have a problem with it on a larger level. Society-wide, the notion of customer service has been slipping because we, the consuming public, have allowed it to slip. Sixty years ago, I bet the notion of routinely pumping your own gas was pretty foreign. Nowadays, it’s pretty rare to even find a full-service pump. In fact, the assholes responsible for the U-Scan monstrosity admit their inspiration, in part, came from the decline in gas station service:

Based on their acceptance of ATMs and pay-at-the-pump fueling, “customers show they are willing to use self-service technology,” says Jim Mueller, director of information technology for Shnuck Markets. “The technology is now more secure and reliable and customers feel comfortable guiding themselves through the checkout process.”

Bullshit.

On one hand, you’ve got traditional organization of information. Think of a public library, with floors and floors of stacks and stacks. All the books are carefully organized by topic, author, you name it. The same mindset used to work for organizing email. You put stuff in folders of various types. Some of them group messages by sender, some by subject, etc.

That’s all out the window. Now you’ve got the benefits of organization — rapid recall of information by referring to meaningful associations — without the work. My inbox used to be an array of meticulously arranged folders, which required conscious effort to maintain. Now, it’s as though I tore every page out of every book and tossed them all in a swimming pool. But when I’m looking for something, I can dive in and grab the right page, every time.

In making traditional organization quaint — if not completely obsolete — I wonder how we’re fundamentally altering our thinking about organization. Does the benefit of organization come from having access to a set of well-sorted items? Or does it come from the act of sorting the items, making hundreds of subconscious connections as you go along?

I relate this to note-taking in college lectures. I always took pretty good notes, but I rarely went back and studied from them. I used the act of taking notes — the act of organizing — to straighten out my thoughts.

I would bet that if you rigged someone up with a machine to monitor brain activity, you’d see different areas light up when they’re searching on Google than you would when they’re looking for something in a library, and I bet the Google-stimulated areas would be related to social dealings and relationships.

Now if I can just get a grant…

“About two weeks.”

TWO WEEKS?! Are you freaking kidding me? Keep in mind that I can think of at least a half-dozen places where I could get glasses in AN HOUR. Let’s say Memorial Eye Center is open 50 hours a week. That means that this East Berlin of an eyeglass store takes 100 times longer than its competitors to make the exact same product.

Here’s an analogy. Let’s say you like Taco Bell. You drive through Taco Bell once a week and buy a burrito. Average time for the transaction is, say, three minutes. Would you go to a competing taco joint and wait FIVE HOURS (3 min x 100) for the exact same burrito?

Yeah, me neither. Memorial Eye Center, you suck.

Black guys tend to get razor bumps from shaving, so companies offer special lotions and shaving creams to combat that problem. Black folks tend to have coarse, kinky hair, which requires different care than the straight or curly hair generally found on people of other races.

That’s all fine with me. We’re all different, and we have different needs in beauty products. Look at soap: some people have oily skin, some have very dry skin, some are allergic to fragrances, some break out very easily. These are biological differences, and different products are available to address them.

My problem is with the use of the word “ethnic.” Words mean things, and the grocery chain is stripping this word of its proper meaning. Everyone is ethnic. Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines the word:

of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background

And that’s the second definition, which I think is more commonly used. The first definition is actually pretty insulting:

HEATHEN

So, instead of using “Black Hair Care” or “African-American Beauty Products,” the company opted instead to say something that could be interpreted as “Heathen Beauty Products” or “Uncivilized Hair Care.” Yikes.

Of course, the company wasn’t trying to say that. It just refused to say “Black” or “African-American,” probably to avoid appearing divisive or segregationist. Instead, it’s stuck saying something which is meaningless at best, and horribly racist at worst.

And yet, the company is inconsistent in its practice. The same store has a section, stocked with foods from Mexico. It’s got Goya products, hot peppers, and even candles with Catholic saints on them. This section is labeled “Hispanic.”

I find it interesting that one ethnic minority can be marketed to explicitly and openly, while another ethnic minority is marketed to only by use of a code word.

An extensive re-branding initiative will occur over several months, with changes planned for the following:

• Nearly 50,000 company vehicles.
• More than 6,000 company buildings
• Roughly 40,000 uniforms and hardhats worn by company service representatives.
• More than 30 million monthly customer bills.
• Millions of business cards, customer information pamphlets, and phone and online directories.
• Company Web sites.

We’re talking a long-term change, costing millions upon millions of dollars. You can’t just roll into Earl Scheib and get 50,000 trucks painted overnight. So it’s a big deal.

Time for some critical analysis. Here’s the design that used to grace Ma Bell’s shingle:

The old logo — which was jealously protected — consists of a blue circle made of latitudinal lines, on the upper left portion of which is projected a round, glowing spot. Both a solid (shown above) and a gradient version were produced. The gradient version is pretty much the same, only it has various shades of blue, which offer a more spherical feel. Below this symbol is “AT&T.” Let’s take a look at the portions of the old logo and what they represent:

• Blue circle: The Earth. It may be American Telephone and Telegraph, but it reaches across the globe.
• Latitudinal lines: Connote the global and communicative nature of the company, while visually turning a circle into a sphere.
• Glowing spot: Located in the northern and western hemispheres of this logo, the glowing spot represents the enlightened modernity (thanks to Ma Bell) distinctive of the American telecommunications system. It’s the A in AT&T.
• “AT&T”: Printed in a bold, don’t-fuck-with-us, monopolistic typeface.

I always liked this logo. It was simple, with only two colors (three, if you count the white). It was instantly recognizable even without the text, like the Chevrolet bow tie, the Nike swoosh, or the Apple apple. And it kinda looked like a baby blue Death Star.

Now, the new design, created by Interbrand:
Here’s my take on the new logo, bit by bit

• Blue and white circle: Still the earth, though the weather appears to be significantly cloudier than it was in the ’80s, and the planet is much more translucent. Possibly meant to evoke ideas of the transparency and openness that global communications can bring. Or maybe not.
• Latitudinal lines, with see-through effect: Same idea as the old logo, but intended for a more pronounced 3-D effect. It comes off looking like a beach ball.
• Glowing spot: Much less pronounced, and reversed in color. Here, the latitudinal blue lines swell. The placement is still in the northern and western hemisphere, though that’s more subtle now, since the top of the globe has been rotated towards the viewer and to the left a few degrees. Again, it’s an effort to emphasize the three-dimensional nature of the design. I’m not sure why; that whole round-earth thing was settled a while back. Or maybe not.
• Lowercase letters: The boldface is gone, and the letters are kinder and gentler. A sort of cutesy aw-shucks, we’re-still-here false modesty. Crap. An $80 billion corporation has no business acting like a teenaged girl named Staci who dots the I with a heart.

As you can probably tell, I’m not a big fan of this one. I don’t think there’s any major strategic screw-up on AT&T’s part; I just don’t find the new logo aesthetically pleasing. That said, AT&T did a number of things right with this rebranding, and the company should be applauded.

First, the company stayed true to its roots by refusing to rename itself. It’s still AT&T, just like it’s been since the earth cooled. The company was formed by the union of two firms with refreshingly boring names: SBC Communications (formerly Southwestern Bell), and AT&T (formerly American Telephone and Telegraph Company). The brass could’ve made up a name by splicing real words, like American Express did when it spun off its brokerage as “Ameriprise.” Or, it could’ve come up with a stupid name that focus-grouped well, despite being completely devoid of meaning. Altria and Enron come to mind. And in the phone business, we’ve got Verizon. Select a prescription drug at random for another meaningless name. Kudos to the AT&T board, for dancing with the guy that brung ‘em.

Second, the changes in the logo are evolutionary, not revolutionary. The overall design is pretty much the same; it’s just been tweaked a little to bring it up to date. The change is similar to Apple shedding its rainbow in or NBC’s peacock refits, Small, incremental modifications connote stability, something consumers like to see in what is really a utility company, and those changes have been apparent during the history of Bell/SBC/AT&T, something the company points out.

Third, the logo’s three-dimensional design allows for a greater range of motion than the old, flatter mark. I saw a commercial where the ball spun 90 degrees or so, bringing the bolder blue portion across, and it looked nice. One geeky beef: in the commercial, the logo rotated clockwise (from a north pole vantage point). The real world spins counterclockwise. Was this a subtle message that AT&T is company that’s unafraid to go against the grain? Maybe. But probably some animator just nodded off in his astrophysics lectures.

Fourth, the new vans look really cool.

Here’s AT&T’s official corporate stuff about the merger in general, and about the logo’s unveiling. And of course, other bloggers have a lot to say.

The only thing I’d add is a broader selection of buttons. Give me things like strikethrough and table creation.

WP Express is a combination fast-food/sit-down experience, sort of like Cafe Express. The menu features salads, pizzas, sandwiches, pasta dishes, etc., in addition to beer and wine. This was a brand-new store, in the Town Center area of Sugar Land, and Saturday’s meal was a dry run, which gets the staff trained and broken in before paying customers arrive. It’s a win-win scenario: realistic training for the waiters and cooks, and free food for Matt.

I had the meatloaf, which was served atop a bed of deliciously creamy, garlicky mashed potatoes, with a side of grilled veggies. The meatloaf was delicious. I have to agree with Rorschach:

And I have to tell you, meatloaf is not normally one of my favorite foods, but this stuff you’d loose a finger if you tried to take it away from me.

Pretty much. Diane had a chicken pesto sandwich, which was really good.

Overall, a great place with very friendly service. And it was free. Hells yeah.

Turn the juice back on
You dumbass jerkoff shitheads
It’s cold and it’s dark

Centerpoint tells me
“It’s probably just a fuse”
You call that service?

]]> http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/11/30/113334658031712164/feed/ 2 http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/10/23/dammit/ http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/10/23/dammit/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:22:00 +0000 Matt Bramanti http://mattsapundit.com/?p=624

]]> http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/10/23/dammit/feed/ 0 http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/10/23/darker-than-a-black-steers-tookus/ http://www.mattsapundit.com/2005/10/23/darker-than-a-black-steers-tookus/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:07:00 +0000 Matt Bramanti http://mattsapundit.com/?p=623 Shitty CenterPoint just decided I and my neighbors don’t really need electricity. It’s cold and Game 2 is on. Awesome. I love the 19th century.

I actually paid eighty bucks for a toothbrush. I’m pretty sure that’s more than my lifetime manual-toothbrush budget to date.

Holy crap. This toothbrush freakin’ rules. (Yes, I realize how ridiculous that sentence sounds.) Turn it on, and little microscopic sonic dwarves vibrate the bristles a million times a second, or something. It runs for two minutes and beeps every 30 seconds to let you know it’s time to switch dental quadrants. Pretty clever.

And so I’m proud to award the coveted Matthew F. Bramanti Seal of Approval to the Sonicare sonic toothbrush. Use anything else, and you might as well be brushing your teeth with a dog turd on a stick.