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| Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless can go straight to hell. I realize that there are certain areas where they are the only viable option when it comes to reception. And you can be damn sure that they know it too because they milk it for every last possible penny. It would be bad enough if they only allowed you to use horrible phones with their service. But no - they take GOOD phones, and then take their horribly generic, feature-crippling, haphazardly written crap ass UI and stick it on them so that you only use half of the features that the phone is capable of. And you have to use their garbage interface to use even those.
I used a Motorola Razr with the Verizon interface on it for about a year and a half and I can't fucking take it anymore. They sell Motorolas, Nokias, Samsungs, and LGs and at some point decided that their homemade interface was so good, that they ought to cram it onto every single phone that they carry. Some of these phone manufacturers actually make really good products and even they aren't arrogant enough to toss one standardized UI on every one of their phones. But you can be damn sure Verizon won't let that stop them. What's the result? A bunch of poorly designed menus that you can't customize, on a restrained phone that lags like a 286 running Counterstrike.
I don't know which phone manufacturer came up with predictive text input first but it's a great idea because you only have to hit each key once when you're writing a text message on a number pad. Sure, there are times when some combination of keys may be two different possible words ("leo" and "ken" for instance...or "awake" and "cycle"), but the majority of them it gets right the first time. That is unless you're using my generation of razr with verizon's cheap ass interface forced onto it. Lets say you hit the number 4 and hit space...that's an easy one to figure out. You're typing a one-letter word that could either be "G", "H", or "I". Which is most likely? If you think the answer is "I", then you're too stupid to work for Verizon wireless, because the whiz kids over at team-V decided it should be "G" instead. Even the Nokia 8290 that I had 7 years ago could get that right.
So yeah, if you've ever gotten a text message from me that said something like "G'll be there in a few minutes," you have Verizon to thank for that - the lousy rat bastards.
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| I've got to work on starting the day off better. I think that it makes a big difference in how you feel and perform throughout the rest of the day. Not for complete lack of effort...but today was a bad example.
I finally got to sleep around 3:00 last night...but still planned on getting up at 7:00 so that I could get things moving early. I actually woke up a minute before 7:00 on my own, energized and excited about getting an early start. I made it out of bed and as far as my closet when something occurred to me...this was the first day in over a week I didn't wake up feeling like I had been sitting in a sauna for the past hour. Some background info here - it has just been stupid hot in OC for the last couple of weeks. The A/C in my room doesn't work on account of God hating me and my window faces east. If I leave it closed at night, there's no way I can get to sleep. And SO, typically an hour or so before I wake up in the morning, the beautiful sun comes up and starts pouring ruthless sweltering misery in through the open window. This morning was different - and as a result, I really had no choice but to enjoy the breeze and go back to sleep.
I made it out of bed around 9:00 or so, got dressed, accepted that the box of cereal that I bought to start having for breakfast a week and a half ago would have remain unopened for one more day, and proceeded on my merry way to work. I was pretty sure that Jason was going to be back for work today, but he wasn't in his room and his car wasn't outside so I figured he hadn't come back yet. He emailed me a video yesterday of this enormous hurricane that was about to crash on top of them in Cabo and I haven't heard from him since. Seriously dude, I hope you're ok. Anyways, along the drive to work I started thinking about the day ahead. You know...some days you can just soar through 'drug free and proud' so to speak, and some days you've got to resort to overpaying for that legal liquid stimulant that makes Rockstar the wonderful drink it is. Today was one of the latter.
I stopped at a gas station on Barranca and Jamboree and grabbed a Rockstar only to notice that the girl behind me in line had come in for the exact same thing. It reminded me of the movie "Can't Hardly Wait' where that dude goes to school and notices that JLH is eating the same exact pop-tart that he is. We were chatting about how wonderful this drink is because the guy in front of us in line was taking forever to pull change out of his pocket. Anyways, my turn to pay and I'm using an ATM card because I need cash back. I wait...and wait...and wait...and the lady working there tells me that the card is DECLINED. Let me tell you something...when you use a CC in a situation like that and the cashier announces that it has been declined, there is really NOTHING you can do to play the situation off in any other way than 'Hey everybody...look at me - I'm an idiot and just got my credit card declined.' I had no idea why my ATM card wouldn't work...but I needed the caffeine so I used a credit card instead. It meant giving up the chance to get cashback and buy munchies from the vending machine once I got to work...but at least I'd have my Rockstar. Swiped...and deeeeeeeeclined.
The cashier THEN told me that if the satellite was broken, as it had been recently, that the CCs wouldn't go through. Having no cash - I was out of luck. I drove away...not really thinking about why the credit cards might have been declined, or about the fact that I probably would have lived happily ever after with the Rockstar girl if I hadn't been indirectly called a broke scrub by the attendant. All I was really thinking about is how I was going to get the damn Rockstar before I got to work.
There's this smoke shop on Barranca and Von Karman that I used to go to a lot because it was the closest place to my office that you could buy cigarettes from. For all the times I went there, I hate that fucking store. It gives me the creeps. Everything from the smell, to the creepy ass two guys who run it, to the weirdos they have lurking around there makes me want to stay as far the hell away from it as possible. It reminds me of that pawn shop in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames get kidnapped. Anyways, I know they have a little fridge there so I thought I might get a Rockstar from there - as I was already running late to work. Turns out they do have a fridge, but no rockstar. No biggie - I'll just get a water and get cashback so I can get one from the vending machine once I get to work. Nope. They don't DO cashback. Whatever, screw that place.
I really couldn't afford to drag my feet any longer getting to work...so I figured I'd just check my little change box when I got in. It's not uncommon for me to have a few dollars in change sitting in there and I hadn't used it in a while so I figured I'd check. Right now it has 47 pennies. I don't even know where the pennies come from because the vending machines don't dispense them. In any case, I would need 178 more of them, and for the machines to start accepting pennies, for any good to come from it.
So that's that. Tomorrow will be different though. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up early and start the day out better 
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| I think I'm getting sick 
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| XM Channel 27 - Cinemagic.
They play all sorts of movie soundtracks from Forrest Gump to
Schindlers List. On the way home from work today, they were playing The
Rock Soundtrack, by Hans Zimmer & Harry Gregson Williams
Got to appreciate the little things in life...
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| We have another vending machine here. It's a combination of a snack/drink dispenser. It's like a giant sunglasses rack - the whole inner section spins in a circle and you stop it when you see something that you want. Then you pay your money, and slide open the little window to grab your Maruchan Instant Lunch...or whatever.
Another great idea that got all messed up somewhere along the way. They made it super easy to use with only two buttons to press: rotate left, and rotate right. Even a 5-year old could operate this one, right? Noooooope. They've made the buttons so insanely hard to press, that you have to leverage your entire body weight against the machine in order to get it to register. If you weigh less than 100 lbs, I wouldn't even bother. And if you're wearing shoes without rubber soles, just accept that you're going to go hungry and move on - the coefficient of static friction between you and the ground won't be anywhere near what it needs to be to create the necessary amount of force...unless you can find some double-sided tape to put on the soles.
Anyways, I finally got mine - but my thumbs are sore now. How lame is that. If your product can make a WoW players fingers sore, you suck at making vending machines.
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