found_drama

Dear CostCo folks—

My shopping experience with you has been pretty satisfactory so far.

First off, I’m not in it for the aesthetics—the warehouse space is clean but can be a bit overwhelming and crowded and maybe even bewildering.  And that’s OK—it’s become something of a joke¹ which eases the tension enough for us to deal.

Second, we’ve figured out the pricing scheme well-enough to not get totally screwed.  We figured out which of the perishable items we can eat fast enough.  We’ve figured out where we’re saving 5-15%, where we’re saving that awesome 20+%, and where we’re paying basically the same².  So we’re on good footing there.

What’s bugging me though…  Why so lax on the quality of certain food items?  In particular, let’s focus on the foodstuffs targeted at and/or intended for kids.  Example: tonight we decided against purchasing a metric ton of apple sauce because it contained high fructose corn syrup.  Seriously, what adult is eating apple sauce out of a little three ounce container?  That there is for kids.  Ditch Mott’s and give us some organic Kirkland apple sauce³.  Example: we don’t buy our frozen orange juice there because it isn’t calcium fortified.  Granted this one cuts across both children and adults⁴, but all the more reason to calcium-fortify that OJ.  The war for healthy bones starts early!  Example: WHERE IS THE FREAKIN’ 100-COUNT RICE CAKES PACKAGE?? I would seriously stock up on rice cakes if you carried them.

That is all.  For now.

Thank you for listening,

—me

1. Ever see that Simpsons episode where Apu gets fired from the Kwik-E-Mart? when he and Marge go to the Monstromart? yeah that was frickin’ funny. [↩]
2. And for the rest, there’s Amazon Mobile. [↩]
3. Don’t tell me that there’s no such thing as “organic Kirkland”.  I’ve seen those tortilla chips. [↩]
4. And maybe more so for the adults, what with how we’re not really supposed to drink as much milk. [↩]

Dear Phishers:

Really? “fraud_application”? I mean, you think you’re going to fool anyone with that?

This showed up on Facebook re: Flickr hiring:

You might’ve seen it there, too.

Being the nosy SOB that I am, I clicked on the image.  First I was wondering:  is that really the Flickr dev pod?  And sure enough, it is.  Or was?  I noticed on the user’s profile that he used to work for Flickr.

Now, the photo is licensed as Attribution-Sharealike; which is great.  And I don’t believe that this is in any way a violation of the license.  It’s just…  Call me crazy but it seemed like a little bit of an odd choice, using a former employee’s photo.  But maybe only slightly?

A brief interlude while we continue to wait for our home Interweb connection…

A friend asked me today:  ”On IM, when you type ‘haha’, does that imply that you actually laughed?”

I answered immediately:  no.

The “haha” and “hehe” strings imply that you got the joke, that you’re reading and comprehending the humor, that you believe the preceding statement is funny — but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you laughed.

Leading to the follow-up:  ”What about ‘LOL’?”

Which, naturally, means that you did in fact laugh out loud.  ”LOL” is a step up from a “hehe” or a “haha”.  It ought to be a rare and coveted event.  If you can eek out an LOL from someone, you’ve done well.

This led to a couple of brief asides about the hierarchy of online laughter:

Observe:  First the “heh” is a modicum of laughter; the online equivalent of the wry smile or the eye-roll at some lame pun.  ”Heh” says:  I get it but you’ll need to do better. Then there are the siblings “haha” and “hehe”.  Both are a bit ambiguous since either could be a polite gesture (I like you and that was funny but not LOL-worthy) or an indication of genuine amusement.  Neither should be taken as offensive but neither should be interpreted as full-on actual laughter.  Next are the bastard cousins “muwahaha” and “bwahaha”.  ”Muwahaha” is the evil one — that’s reserved for when you’re laughing at someone’s expense.  ”Bwahaha” is a more uncontrollable laughter — the online equivalent of shooting milk out your nose.  But nothing can compare to the rate and coveted “LOL”:  laughing-out-loud is when you have arrived and caused someone to physically make an ass out of him or herself by laughing at your disembodied wit.

Everything else is just derivative.

Dear Comcast:

Since it seems we’re going to be starting up that provider/customer relationship again, it’s probably best that I tell you now (before I’ve even signed up) that we’re not off to a good start.  We’ll be moving soon (my family, that is) and the little bit of research I’ve done thus far indicates that you’re the only high-speed ISP in that area.  Despite my previous groanings and grumblings¹, I told myself to get over it and at least check out the available options.  That’s when I saw this:

Read the rest of this entry »

1. I’ll admit to a slight prejudice.  But it’s been based on the less-than-stellar service and pricing options. [↩]

Original on Flickr.

Original photo on Flickr.