September 5, 2007
September 5, 2007
Gevalia has a practically irresistible deal. For just a few dollars, they’ll send you a quite nice electric coffee maker, and some coffee. They also enroll you in their automatic coffee delivery program, but you can opt out any time.
So, we didn’t resist. The coffeemaker is fine. The coffees that we’ve tried are mediocre and over-priced, imo. So, after three shipments, trying different flavors — I’m too old to do take the come-on and run, which, by the way, is how I got my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1971, and I still feel bad about it — I decided to cancel. The Gevalia Web site lets you manage your account. You can select coffees, change the delivery schedule, suspend service … but not cancel.
So, I wrote an email to the support address they list. I got a robo-reply saying they’d get back to me in 12 hours. They didn’t. Two more messages later, and they still never acknowledged my email. So, I gave in and used that thing with the buttons and the speaker that you hold up to your face. What do you call those things? I got through quickly and was told that my account had already been cancelled.
Two lessons for retailers on the Web: 1. Acknowledge your flipping emails, or else we’ll eat up your time, money, and good will sending the same email over and over again. 2. Always always always give us a button to allow us to do the worst thing you can imagine. The alternative is that we’ll end the relationship and then blog our complaints about you out loud, no matter how petty it makes us look.
Before the fall’s woodfired breath
rooms are refreshed
by recently shaved pencils and
the air between newly turned pages.
September 4, 2007
I’m going to Toronto in a couple of days and for a moment thought about going to Sai Woo’s for the sweet and sour vegetable balls. When I was a grad student, that was my favorite — and affordable! — out-of-the-house meal. I’ve had sweet and sour sauces like it, but not quite as good. As for the vegetable balls, well, I never could figure out either what vegetables were in it or what Sai Woo put them through to render them into that particular crunchy paste. Mmm.
But Sai Woo’s is no more. It went from the place the city took visiting dignitaries to an empty cavern with worn carpets to an ex-restaurant.
So, the dish is no more. Not just the instances of the dish, but — assuming the box of recipes is mouldering in a dump somewhere — the dish itself. It seems simultaneously platonic and, in its evanescence, non-platonic.
Aw, screw Plato. I sure could go for a dish of Sai Woo’s sweet and sour vegetable balls.
Footnote: The “No Name” at Grasshopper in Allston is pretty close.
September 3, 2007
The Bush White House has decided that the Office of Administration is no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Office of Administration covers Oval Office operations, appointments, and scheduling.
Which reminds me: NPR covered Bush’s announcement that the government is going to provide some help to people whose homes are being foreclosed on. In the interview, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused to estimate even roughly how many people the measures would help:
When asked how many people it’s expected will benefit from the new proposals, Paulson says he doesn’t want to “overpromise and underdeliver.”
“We can’t keep everyone in their home. We sure as heck can make a big effort to help those who have the capability to own a home refinance, and what we’re going to do is make a effort,” Paulson says. “And to me, success is helping as many people as possible.”
What? This is a public official. He works for us, and not just in the sense that we pay his salary. Why can’t he give us an estimate of how many people will be helped? He either has a ballpark idea or he’s completely incompetent. This isn’t a security issue. Yet Paulson feels he doesn’t have to give us even the slightest idea. This politically-based silence should not be acceptable to us citizens. Yeah, it’s a small thing. But it’s indicative… [Tags: politics mortgages treasury bush foia]
Google Earth, the coolest app ever — go to “Crisis in Darfur” if you have any doubts — now includes a hidden flight simulator, as discovered by Marco Gallotta, a South African student. Once you’ve started Google Earth, type Control+Alt+A in Widndws or Command+Option+A in OS X. You’ll then be given a choice of two planes to fly. The controls are documented here. [Tags: google google_earth games darfur ]
September 2, 2007
I’ve posted a new issue of my newsletter. You can read it here. You can subscribe for free here.
The Privacy Non-Principle: Privacy is too squirrely for principles. We need to keep it difficult. The Web as perpetual embarrassment: Suppose the norms never settle down? Are hierarchical organizations hierarchies? Or: Why don’t we salute our bosses? Do all organizations have hierarchies? Not by any reasonable definition of the term. Vowels or Consonants: Some of us are vowelers, some are consonantals. Wanna make something of it? Tip: Scanning is a pain. Snapping is easy. Cool Tool: Librarything.com |
September 1, 2007
Bill Koslosky blogs about the attempt to take Shakespeare’s “First kill all the lawyers” (approx) line as actually being pro-lawyer, drawing on a Seth Finkelstein post.
I agree with Bill and Seth that it is hard indeed to take that line as anything but anti-lawyer. I’d only make two points:
First, one line of argument by the Shakespeare-didn’t-write-Shakespeare folks says that the author of the Works must have been a lawyer because of all the legal language and metaphors, especially in the sonnets.
Second, clearly Shakespeare was thinking in the back of his mind, “But not the Berkman Center.”
When the doors open
the library’s early birds
use wifi indoors.
(Hmm…the tags don’t count as part of the haiku, do they?)
Like every other Republican senator who’s espoused “family values” and then been caught having adulterous affairs, Larry Craig is a hypocrite. If you’re a straight hypocrite, the Republican power structure winks and moves on. Craig is being denounced and driven out of office because his attempted liaison (and please insert the word “alleged” in various spots in this paragraph, if you prefer) was homosexual.
Why is this level of anti-gay hysteria acceptable even among Republicans?