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Here’s this week’s rant: who the hell still writes checks?

I own a Windows Smartphone – a Samsung i600 phone – and enjoy using it as a portable media player thanks to The Core Pocket Media Player. I have a 512MB SD card, and usually have several albums as well as a few podcasts on the card. The problem is, the phone doesn’t have a very powerful speaker (compared to a car stereo) and I usually have to listen through headphones. Wouldn’t it be more fun to listen via the AUX input of my car stereo or the cassette adapter of Lisa’s stereo?

And so – earlier this week I went to Radio Shack to buy an adapter that would allow me to connect a 3.5mm input to the standard 2.5mm output on my phone. It’s a simple piece of plastic and wires that I would normally buy online if I weren’t so hesitant to pay $6.99 in shipping for a $1.99 part.

And so – I walked into the empty store, and within five seconds I made a grievous mistake: the saleslady asked me if I needed any help, and like an idiot I told her I’d be fine on my own. Of course, I had no idea where the specific adapter was located, so whilst I was searching the store’s cramped racks, an elderly gentleman walked in. The poor guy was as old as the hills and has some sort of ailment that rendered his thick Southern accent almost unintelligible. If you wish, imagine Boomhauer from King of the Hill with a nasty case of emphysema.

Continue reading “RANT: Old People Writing Checks”

This week’s rant – or, more accurately, “this month’s rant” or even “this quarter’s rant” – is an old one to IT support folks. Part of it is Microsoft’s fault and part of it is your fault. But whatever the case may be, it’s worthy of a rant, even if it’s an old complaint.

Microsoft makes two programs for getting email. One is Microsoft Outlook. The other is Microsoft Outlook Express. Outlook was created by the Office team; Outlook Express was created by the Internet Explorer team. Outlook is part of Office and costs money; Outlook Express is included with Windows and doesn’t cost extra. Outlook has many features that businesses like, such as task lists, calendars and sticky notes; Outlook Express is mostly for home users that just need to get email. Outlook can connect to Microsoft Exchange servers; Outlook Express cannot.

Continue reading “RANT: People Who Call Outlook Express “Outlook””

OK, so this week’s rant is hardly new, but it still gets my craw anyway. Lately I’ve been completely disgusted with the state what passes for English grammar and usage in Internet communications. How often have you been on an Internet message board and seen sentences such as this: “The MPAA can take all there DVD’s and PC’s and cram ’em up you’re ass! I will hate them until my dying breathe!”

My God! If the Queen were dead, she’d be rolling over in her grave!

So let’s review some basic English grammar rules, OK?

Continue reading “RANT: Crappy Grammar on the Internet”

What the hell happened to t-shirts?

Now I know that back in high school I weighed about 70 pounds less than I do now, but still… back then an XL t-shirt fit me like a potato sack. And these days, an XL shirt will barely cover my gut comfortably. I am 5 feet 9.921 inches tall and weigh 190 pounds… Am a pudgy? Yep. Could I stand to lose a few pounds? Sure. Am I – by anyone’s definition – fat? Not hardly. And yet, so often these days I hesitate when buying a t-shirt because I’m afraid that it’ll be too tight across my belly – or will look fine the first time I wear it, then shrink something fierce after the first washing. In any event, I’m hardly a “big” guy – I know several men that are “bigger” than me – be they fat or simply broad-shouldered – and looking around I wonder who on earth is buying the “small” and “medium” shirts. It must not be too many people, as Old Navy always has a large number of small and medium shirts on their sale racks. And I also know that it’s not just me because “large” Old Navy proper shirts – turtle necks, Oxford shirts, etc – fit me just fine. It’s just t-shirts that I have to buy in what should be “Fat Albert size”.

Continue reading “RANT: Shrinking T-Shirt Sizes”

When it comes to this week’s rant I’m really pissed off. It seems that there is a rash of Charlotte nightclubs and bars padding people’s tabs. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that the missus and I don’t even start tabs and buy drinks “by the each” with cash if possible. Now, it might be one thing if Charlotte was a large as say, Atlanta or Chicago, but the simple fact is that there aren’t that many bars in this city. So “our people” are a sort of captive audience as it were, hustling back and forth between four or five places depending on how bad the padding is getting at one particular place. But it’s simply outrageous.

Continue reading “RANT: Charlotte Bars Padding People’s Tabs”

This week’s rant is in honor of my missus. Ya see, Lisa is trying out a new diet. Now this diet is not just to lose weight. Lisa is diabetic, so this diet is also about getting her blood work in good enough shape so that her physician will stop harassing her about seeing a nutritionist. So the good people at Blue Cross Blue Shield sent her a book with just that – a diet plan for diabetics that not only want to shed a few pounds, but also want (or need) to get their glycosides or glycerides or whatever into shape. So Lisa got into bed one night and started reading… and immediately started ranting.

Continue reading “RANT: Stupid Diets”

The worst utility company in the entire world is Duke Power. According to Microsoft’s “Streets and Trips 2005”, the missus and I live a mere 1.6 miles away from the Allen Steam Station here in Belmont, but our damn power goes off all the frickkin’ time. And it would be one thing if it was just a blink here and there, but it goes off for hours when it does this. If anyone from Duke Power is reading this, PLEASE FIX YOUR SYSTEMS! I mean, when’s the last time you picked up a phone and didn’t have dialtone? Was there any weather-related issue that caused our power to go off for several hours yesterday? No. Do you people have ANY idea of what a pain in the ass it is to have to reboot an Exchange server? Do you know how much fun it is to sit in the dark on Labor Day? Do you have any idea of how frustrating it is to buy a freezer FULL of food the day before the power goes out for several hours? Do you?? Do you??? As ol’ Ralph from Ben Hill would say… “Duke Power.. GET OUTTA TOWN!”

By the way, I was really sneaky today and managed to sneak in to the Allen Steam Plant and snap this picture of the generator in action!