You know those secret “Arbitron ratings” that you have to pay for to learn which radio station is actually more popular yet are vague enough that every station claims to be the best at something? You can thank Jacksonville.com for this dirt:

… in January, the release of Arbitron’s fall 2009 ratings vindicated the change. Planet Radio got back to nearly where it started 2009, rising from a 2.5 share to 4.1, but in the meantime, X102 rose from 5.6 in the summer to 5.8.

While it’s true that WPLA Planet Radio has certainly improved from the unchanging playlist you could set your clocks by, neither radio station can seem to go twenty minutes without playing a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. Note to program managers: WTF? Enough with the “Scar Tissue” and “Californication,” for pity’s sake!

I have a very good memory about things I’ve seen or experienced; I can replay events in my head vividly, which comes in handy reviewing films. I can distinctly recollect many events from when I lived in Cottageville, West Virginia before I was old enough for grade school: being carried in someone’s arms from the back room to the living room, when I first got up the courage to walk to the end of the road, riding a “big wheel” down the hill behind our house, and when the baby sitter ran out to me when I fell off the elementary school “slicky slide.”

What I cannot recollect was being taken out by my Gramma K to run whatever errands she had to do in spite of her repeated insistence that she provided my “education in manners” during my formative years. “You were such a well-behaved baby… once I got a hold of you,” she’d say. Perhaps the unsubstantiated rumors that one or more of my parents were slipping booze into my bottle as an infant (you know, as a sleeping aid) had something to do with that.

Continue reading “Goodbye, Gramma K” →

This Dilbert strip (remember him?) reminded me of a bothersome trend I’ve been seeing at my day job. Seriously, is there any excuse for intentionally wanting to use a fax machine to do anything these days?

The first occasion was for a restaurant looking to spur sales online by creating a website to receive orders. What a great idea… until the owner asked if we could have the state-of-the-art website direct the orders to a fax instead of to email. Apparently the computer is in a dungeon-like back office room and he didn’t want to have to go to the back to check for orders. My question was, why don’t you bring the computer up front to where your business is going on? Turn it on, load up Firefox, link your email to an extension with an alarm and POOF! Instant computerized order alerts.

This was followed soon after by a supply company that wanted to assess the costs of adding products for them. They needed the fax number so that they could send us sixty-three pages of catalog entries… wasting ink, paper, money (if it isn’t their fax machine) and who knows how much time when we tell them how many thousands of dollars it’s gonna cost. Why thousands? Because they will then want us to retype those catalog entries into the computer individually.

To put this in perspective, imagine someone insisting that you must fill a gasoline tanker truck by dipping individual cupfuls of fuel from a barrel with a shot glass and pouring it in rather than use a pump hose. The only consolation? Charging $100 an hour to do it for them.

I may be able to retire if I ever finish.