Phone suckage

My Treo 700p sucks. I will now clarify that. I have been using a Treo 700p since last June. As a phone, it does do some things well. The handset performance and volume is better than the Treo 650 I had before. Verizon's service is better than Cingular's (even though the CDMA multiple-call management interface is awful), and EVDO is a lifesaver for me on the occasions I need Internet access from my MacBook Pro (I hook up a USB sync cable, set up the modem application, and go to work). It has way more available RAM than the 650, so I can actually store documents on it.

But here's the fundamental problem. It's unstable. Bluetooth connections drop seemingly at random, with only a battery-out reset restoring some semblance of function. I do it every morning as a habit now. Resets also happen a lot during the course of a day, at the end of hotsyncs, and if I get a call just at the moment I try and place a call? Yep, another reset.

Today, Palm finally fessed up to the suckage. In a post on their new corporate blog, Palm's manager of Treo products promised a full firmware update sometime around the end of May. He discussed what it is expected to fix, and some of the reasons why it has taken so long. I still think it's a partial crock, but at least they said definitively that the fix is enroute. I will try and suck it up for another month with the phone (my third one - the first two died).

If I had a better alternative, I would have ditched this months ago, but despite how much the Treo 700p sucks I really can't find any tool that does all this better. And the iPhone would take me back to Cingular, which ain't happening.

CBS - the Confiscated Balls Service

Apparently CBS, Inc. has no balls. And I say that in the worst way. As mentioned earlier, of course Imus is an ass. He's been one for thirty-plus years, he says insensitive things about everyone, and that's just how shock jocks work. Since Imus literally invented the genre that the Sterns, Opie and Anthonys, and Bubba the Love Sponges of the world inhabit it's kinda obvious.

And Al Sharpton (the original chest-thumping pimp) has a radio show. After Twana Brawley, Crown Heights, and a host of their offenses. And Rush "Obama Osama" Limbaugh. And all the others.

Les Moonves, you're a wuss. Quit now, because it's now obvious just how much you suck.

First things first

Don Imus is definitely a schmuck. He's been one for the last thirty=plus years, though. He's also nearly 70, though, so he ain't changing. Soon enough, he'll say something that some humorless folks will take offense at, and it's not really easy to be an offensive shock jock with a national profile in the YouTube era.

But Al Sharpton taking him to task? Come on now, that's ridiculous! Al Sharpton does not have the moral standing to take anyone to task for a racial statement. And Imus, being a New Yorker, must have remembered that but not had the stones to do anything about it. Were I in Imus' position, and if I had Sharpton on my show to pry more mea culpas out, I would have simply said to him:"

"I said something wrong and stupid, and I apologized within a day once I realized how wrong I was. Funny that you're sitting here calling for my head Al, when you never even apologized for Tawana Brawley and twenty years have passed."

A national radio audience might have been left to go to Wikipedia, but everyone in New York over the age of 35 would know exactly what he meant. Sharpton has never had any credibility whatsoever with me because of that.

When should stores close?

Today is Easter Sunday - and most businesses are, as usual, closed for the day. But it's very inconsistent. Circuit City announced that they were closed in their flyer. Sports Authority announced they were open. Most other places said nothing I could discern - so when I went out an hour ago to go to Staples (for a chair) and to Trader Joe's I went 1 for 2. Staples was closed, with no indication on their website or phone that they were closed. Trader Joe's was open (and rather busy).

My take on this is entirely secular (as is my entire life). Right now, there are three days when pretty much all businesses close: Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Two of the three are entirely Christian holidays, so I really see no point in a business closing those days unless all their staff refuses to work (I don't, however, think anyone should be forced to work on a religious holiday). In my commerce world, only two days would have businesses closed: Independence Day and Thanksgiving. Those two are distinctly American holidays, and are (at least theoretically), common to all who reside here.

Obviously, we're in a majority-Christian society, and though I don't take offense at the reality that folks close for Easter I also don't really see the point. To me, and to millions of other people in this nation who are either Brights or of other religions, today is just another Sunday.

Unless, of course, we want to celebrate it as Masters Sunday. Which, as a golf nut, would be fine by me!

So I'm going to update my website soon...

I'm working (seriously) on some new pages for my company website, and one of the things I am really doing is a page about customers. I spent ten minutes writing it up this way just to vent three years' worth of bile, but the actual live text will be substantially different... (except for, maybe, the first paragraph or so - that might stay, kinda)

Can We Help You?

At JH Turiel, we're friendly, flexible, and we've got experience with darn near everything that matters. But we're not for everyone. And we're not always the best value out there, either. Before you call us, you should consider the following:

Is your PC just plain broken? Well, when a single PC breaks, that's what those big national chains with matching uniforms and funky looking cars are for. They're fast, and cheap. Of course, they'll just replace the part and/or reinstall Windows instead of curing the problem, but we might take longer than them and charge more to fix it the right way.

Did your antivirus subscription lapse two years ago? We get mad at you when you let that happen. And if you bring us in, we'll make darn well sure you don't get to do that again. Heck, we might even take away your credit card and use it to buy you a copy of AVG or something to protect yourself with!

Do you go off to your happy place when someone is trying to teach you something? We won't smack you to wake you up, but we may just walk away from you in disgust.

We don't nickel-and-dime our customers. We keep track of our time fairly, give away a lot of help that most folks charge for (we do most of our phone support for free, for instance), and don't sweat the small stuff as a matter of company policy. We've got a really good reputation for that. If you're the sort who calls up to whine about charges, or demands free visits because of your own mistakes, then do us a favor. Lose our number.

Also, if you think that your IT bills are something to pay "whenever", you probably shouldn't use us. We don't normally treat your problems as something to fix "whenever" (that darned professional ethics thing), so don't tempt us!

Like I said, the real page will be different. Way different. And any customers who have read this far - odds are you are more than savvy enough so that you know this doesn't apply to you. Feels good to type a few lines as Evil Josh, though.

Chuck Norris Facts (some of my favorites)

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.

Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill.

In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

Followup

I called the police department to follow up - they checked out warrant-free, so they were brought back to the department and then run out of town.

Interesting night

Tonight was "different". While on my way home from the BNUG board meeting, my wife and boy were menaced, if you will, by a drunk and stupid couple who were searching the neighborhood for an imagined friend's house. Jane called our next door neighbor, who had been visited by the yahoos, to find this out - she never opened the door or responded to their knocks and doorbell rings herself.

Meanwhile, David was frightened by this whole fuss, but announced to Jane that if they bugged her or came in the house he would take care of hitting them with a baseball bat. Good kid. Jane called the cops, but they'd wandered off.

So I arrived home to hear of this, and I was able to get David to go to sleep by reassuring them that, if they turned out to be bad and not just stupid, I would break them for him and save David the trouble. I'm a big guy. I'm OK at stuff like that. I also told David that, while his offer was very brave, the best thing in the house to hit bad people with was Daddy.

So, a couple of hours later, Jane has just gone upstairs for bed and I'm down in the living room getting ready to turn off the lights - when suddenly, the doorbell rings. I head over only to see the guy (a short fellow with curly hair, an unsteady gait, and a tell-tale odor about him) heading back down the walk. After a brief confrontation, I sent him away rather vociferously, but since they didn't vacate the neighborhood quickly enough the police arrived and took them away. It appeared semi-voluntary - probably destined to spend the night drying out.

The woman waved up at us as she was getting in the police car. Hopefully that's not an indicator of future stupid actions on their part. I would rather not have to defend my family.

Shocked, I say!

What? You say that a number of WWE wrestlers used steroids and HGH, even some who don't have massive physiques? I can only answer that accusation with one word:

Duh.

Seriously, is there any surprise here? Looking at a lot of these guys, the "look" they are pushed to deliver, and the grueling schedule they work (most of them wrestle 3-4 days per week, plus heavy gym time, with no off-weeks all year), it's no wonder. Not to excuse them, but one of the main reasons professional athletes take steroids is to speed recovery time and help them heal from injuries better. And most other athletes get an off-season to recover. Wrestlers don't.

I will say one thing in the defense of the WWE - pretty much all the steroid use documented in the current investigation happened in the time before they finally imposed drug testing. Since then, a lot of the guys (see, for instance, Masters, Chris F.) have vanished on testing-related hiatuses and returned with notably smaller bodies. Now, if only they could start taking some time off during the year for reasons other than injuries without fear of losing their spot, it might really improve.

In other news, I bricked my Treo again today. Had to go all the way to Burlington to replace it. Grumble.

Apple hints

I'm expecting some kind of new Mac in the next week or so - possibly as soon as tomorrow. Why? It's pretty simple, actually, so I'll lay out my reasoning:

- We know that the 10.4.9 revision (likely the final Tiger update) is pretty much done, with no new seeds issued in about two weeks. Normally, that would have hit the street by now. But holding it back probably means new CPU support is being spliced into it.

- Leopard is allegedly real close to going RTM. When Apple announces it, they won't want any Macs sharing that burst of publicity.

- There haven't been any new systems since October, when the Core 2 MacBook Pros shipped.

- Intel has been shipping quad-core Xeons for a couple of months now. No Mac Pro update yet, however...

- A new support chipset that enables true 64-bit goodness with Core 2 is shipping now, and it has improved graphics support.

My predictions:
Upgraded Mac Pros in the next week or so. Upgraded iMacs and MacBook Pros soon afterwards. At least one of them will come with and require 10.4.9. Minis will get Core 2 upgrades before Leopard ships.

And Leopard is announced in mid-April, with shipping scheduled for May.