tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131560702024-03-07T10:50:10.809-05:00watched pots | newsMichael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.comBlogger367125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-68466809871241751962012-06-25T03:03:00.000-04:002012-06-25T03:06:27.730-04:00Dogs are cool.Just woke up from a dream in which I was trying to decide which book to buy next to read on my Kindle (I had been doing so in real life about 3 days ago). Was considering Dave Eggers' <i>You Shall Know Our Velocity!</i>, which, in my dream, was described as the story of a dog who is adopted towards the end of his life by a new owner. The dog wants "You Shall Know Our Velocity" to be inscribed on his tombstone, and needs to find a way to communicate this desire to his human companion. It is <i>very important</i>.<br />
<br />
You'd read that book, right? I would read that book. I'll probably read the book Eggers actually wrote, too, but can someone please begin writing the book with the dog immediately?Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-89939735408014098522012-02-10T15:09:00.001-05:002012-02-10T15:09:11.523-05:00Review: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream<br /> <a style='float: left; padding-right: 20px' href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85431'><img alt='Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream' border='0' src='http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266468877m/85431.jpg'/></a><br /> <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85431'>Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream</a> by <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/449547'>H.G. Bissinger</a><br/><br /> My rating: <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/275398228'>5 of 5 stars</a><br /> <br/><br/><br /> Having seen so much of the film output that this book inspired, I expected this book to feel stale, somehow. Not. At. All. I wish I'd read it years ago, but it's no less gripping now.<br /> <br/><br/><br /> <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/275398228'>View all my reviews</a><br /> Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-87531130152494789422012-02-08T14:40:00.001-05:002012-02-08T14:43:24.690-05:00a milestoneI <a href="http://blog.pwnthesat.com/2011/02/get-ready-sat-you-have-been-warned.html">started</a> pwnthesat.com exactly one year ago, tomorrow. Right now, the pace of traffic is such that on the page's one year anniversary, it'll pass the 100k all-time views mark. And that's just for the main blog. If you count all the traffic at <a href="http://qa.pwnthesat.com/">qa.pwnthesat.com</a> (which is harder to track because of how Tumblr works) that mark was passed a long time ago.<br /><br />I realize that's small potatoes for a lot of bloggers out there, but I've had a lot of blogs, (notably this one, and <a href="http://wealsoran.com/">the music blog</a> that I toiled away at for <i>years</i> but whose name turned out to be a self fulfilling prophecy) that <i>still</i> haven't reached that milestone. So for me, it's a big deal. I'm really proud of what the PWN the SAT has become, and I look forward to continuing to refine it.<br /><br />Also, I've missed writing here. I'll probably fail at this, but I hope to get back in the habit of posting here. I've really been enjoying <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/milano/environmental-policy-sustainability-management-ms/">my work at The New School</a>, for instance. Maybe I'll talk about that. <br /><br /><br /><br />Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-61765729451467533292011-09-07T11:01:00.001-04:002011-09-07T21:13:17.160-04:00<object data="https://clients4.google.com/voice/embed/embedPlayer" height="64" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"><param name="movie" value="https://clients4.google.com/voice/embed/embedPlayer" />
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<param name="FlashVars" value="u=17943664194025829551&k=AHwOX_AJTsLfc76gWAduRFZSWL_X8JoT-1ITP0VfINS8t5vwEMFH0RZbo5NYnnBWIlmf168jQFklVBE7fXGCFs53alDbet6HwDCLhYeFbayC5Cke6LD6efT6C5s192-F6ldKMNO7hJRAPc1egv9yPc9Xn4HTeZ0otD9yzteP-3bgyC-WwxBWkfw&baseurl=https://clients4.google.com/voice&autoPlay=false" />
</object><br />
<br />
Check out this epic voicemail I received this morning.<br />
<br />
What do you think? Should I call him back? He sounds pretty legit.<br />
<br />
UPDATE:<br />
<object data="https://clients4.google.com/voice/embed/embedPlayer" height="64" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"><param name="movie" value="https://clients4.google.com/voice/embed/embedPlayer" />
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<param name="FlashVars" value="u=17943664194025829551&k=AHwOX_AH8Pizsbt3FNFi2Tvv5xRtKCdN3FRPd0MIh79AtkqWeS1e5yZYyl7bJcjdERBY3OjJiw9_4I-G8q0-Ajf3Ah-QyIRnzxzptl9SBjDvjWAW95lSY8IhBe3dv7EmHDgmobAp8BBRo306w91cnvTKrKPeUAkz0gTZLAIUZEQarzOOlrIEEYw&baseurl=https://clients4.google.com/voice&autoPlay=false" />
</object><br />
I got another a few hours later. It's clearly a scam, and now I'm motivated to put more information up here in case others are experiencing the same.<br />
<br />
The calls are coming in from (817) 400-7605, but that's probably a spoofed number and I'm sure they're really coming from overseas. If these guys call you, just ignore them. If you happen to pick up, I dunno, maybe pretend you're a cop? I think that's what I'm going to do if they call me again.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-67089959378148328512011-05-27T15:04:00.001-04:002011-05-28T15:17:56.273-04:00I rule at laser tag.There's actually a lot going on in my life right now, despite the utter disregard I've displayed for updating this blog lately. Those of you who know me in real life probably already know that although I'm still doing some SAT teaching, I've stepped down from my director role to allow me to head <a href="http://newschool.edu/milano/environmental-policy-sustainability-management-ms/">back to school</a> this fall. I'm super pumped about that.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>You might have wondered, also, about the "new project" I referred to in my <a href="http://blog.watchedpots.com/2011/02/javascript-google-spreadsheets-and.html">last post</a> about all the javascript I threw together in an amateurish way. I've been trying to put together a web resource for kids who want to study for the SAT on their own, and it's now built out enough that I'm not embarrassed to share it with you. I don't imagine many of you are studying for the SAT yourselves, but if you know someone who is, send them <a href="http://blog.pwnthesat.com/">my way</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Neither of those are the reasons I sat down to type this update, though. I got motivated to say "hello" again because I just found evidence of one of the greatest feats I've ever accomplished, and I wanted to post it here before I lose it again:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNUMfZTjCun_h8v4_zh4ZIzL26XeHpj_9Y22aOKff_ueGndgd5tLzf_CThm5ApJJ9scjb1AmC6fqZuxwUr8vW6ubxmfsbLX2h75Vb_Hu9wtLTLvQSNjk56UazLKOX4WQAxqHkB/s1600/Scan1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNUMfZTjCun_h8v4_zh4ZIzL26XeHpj_9Y22aOKff_ueGndgd5tLzf_CThm5ApJJ9scjb1AmC6fqZuxwUr8vW6ubxmfsbLX2h75Vb_Hu9wtLTLvQSNjk56UazLKOX4WQAxqHkB/s320/Scan1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGbhqvedJ1DHsf9mAiqNUmmMeo3if2Fvq9FhPx50wpOISQ_iOofmHt0ogsxmCXYBTtMZZbur-7DEEYblhtlNzz4ZdyjRL7kkMUPQmVq-cHzXvqEMFJi-DsMlDd0ntUSevMbwh/s1600/Scan10001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGbhqvedJ1DHsf9mAiqNUmmMeo3if2Fvq9FhPx50wpOISQ_iOofmHt0ogsxmCXYBTtMZZbur-7DEEYblhtlNzz4ZdyjRL7kkMUPQmVq-cHzXvqEMFJi-DsMlDd0ntUSevMbwh/s320/Scan10001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU31k9FzZOaaUZLcnazw0S1jaPGSB_3R6fKFp30cY4OGQ8zcJxIPTiTP3Id7AyY1f1QlTjzmPvFXY0gM-OIVCGxWoG9u_8Wo3riFrt4VVgBK2j-18ozRm8YVhUcyASoBBNKS0c/s1600/Scan10002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU31k9FzZOaaUZLcnazw0S1jaPGSB_3R6fKFp30cY4OGQ8zcJxIPTiTP3Id7AyY1f1QlTjzmPvFXY0gM-OIVCGxWoG9u_8Wo3riFrt4VVgBK2j-18ozRm8YVhUcyASoBBNKS0c/s320/Scan10002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>One day in 2006, I went to <a href="http://www.laserquest.com/Locations/USALocations.aspx?cntr=Newington">Laser Quest</a> with my family and played three games. AND I CAME IN FIRST PLACE ALL THREE TIMES. I am a laser tag <i>master</i>. Read 'em and weep.</div>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-66024724094060458612011-02-21T13:49:00.008-05:002011-02-23T11:31:34.326-05:00JavaScript, Google Spreadsheets, and Ultimate Victory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJBp0f91ucKWwBFnEGk8U_cYj6ZAA1FfFC9XY7hlrS23PSLLUVDMChh20x59MW890b91tOEs1OEM1E1pZEPcmRaR2g6WEG0pSbwuTEH2LCi5l9mNtPaIatuzoGIf83BVnTtkZ/s400/Fuck-Yeah.jpg" width="400" /></div>I like a project now and then. So the other day, I decided I was going to try to save myself some time on this new blog I've been working on. Three days of Googling, reverse-engineering code, and muttering cusswords in my sleep later, I will now be able to save a few seconds every time I make a post there.<br />
<br />
<b>The problem:</b><br />
I wanted certain words to link directly to a dictionary every time they appear with a special link color, and I didn't want to take the time to go to the dictionary myself every time, copy a link, paste it into Blogger, and set the special link class myself.<br />
<br />
<b>The solution:</b><br />
This is so stupid, but since it's a Blogger-hosted blog with no hosting of its own, I couldn't do any backend work. So I decided instead that I wanted to make a list of the target words in Google Spreadsheets (easy to access, easy to maintain), and create a JavaScript that would access that list every time the page loads, find the target words, and replace them with links to searches for those words in <a href="http://www.google.com/dictionary">Google's own dictionary</a>. That is to say, I wanted the script to change "pusillanimous" to "<a href="http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|en&q=pusillanimous&hl=en&aq=f">pusillanimous</a>" when it found it on the page.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<b>The process:</b><br />
This turned out to be a huge pain in the ass, mostly because I had no idea at all what I was doing. Determination is a hell of a drug, though.<br />
<br />
<ol><li><i>Find some code that does a neat JavaScript find and replace</i>. A quick Google Search led me to Allen Liu's tutorial <a href="http://www.randomsnippets.com/2008/03/07/how-to-find-and-replace-text-dynamically-via-javascript/">here</a> which got me started. This code takes a search term, and either replaces that term or highlights it, depending on user input. Nice.</li>
<li><i>Find some code that reads from Google Spreadsheets</i>. This was much more difficult. Lots of people are messing with this for different reasons, most involving JSON, but I couldn't find a single person doing what I wanted to do (which is why I'm posting my shitty code here even though it's embarrassing -- I figure it might help someone out).<br />
<br />
Eventually I found Mike McKay's demo <a href="http://mikeymckay.github.com/google-spreadsheet-javascript/sample.html">here</a> which was incredibly helpful. An actual programmer might have been able to just look at his <a href="https://github.com/mikeymckay/google-spreadsheet-javascript/blob/master/google-spreadsheet.js">code</a> and figure out what the hell to do, but a demo made it possible for me to play with things in Chrome's debugger until I could kinda see what was going on.</li>
<li><i>Figure out how to iterate a whole list of variables through the replace code</i>. This took me forever, and was the source of my second strongest feeling of badassery during this project when I finally got it to work.</li>
<li><i>Figure out how to run the replace code on page load instead of on user action</i>. This would be totally rudimentary for anyone with a modicum of JavaScript experience, but it took me a while anyway.</li>
<li><i>Create an arrayed variable out of the data from my Google Spreadsheet</i>. This was brutal, and when I finally got it right I got so pumped that I would have kicked anyone right in the face without even thinking about it. Unfortunately I was alone in my apartment at 3 AM, so I had to settle for a quiet fistpump. Mike McKay's code just displays the data on the page, so first I had to figure out how to save it as a variable, then I had to figure out how to disregard all the metadata at the beginning of the string about the spreadsheet, then I had to convert it into an array. This took me <i>hours</i>. </li>
<li><i>Make the Google Spreadsheet idiot-proof</i>. I am, after all, going to be the one using it. Don't need to do anything fancy with ordering or making sure there are no blank cells, since the JavaScript seems to handle those situations just fine. However, it does not handle duplicates well; it replaces them twice. A quick search through the Google Spreadsheets script library revealed some simple code to eliminate duplicate entries, which I'm able to schedule to run on the sheet every 5 minutes (way more often than is necessary). So even if I boner it and enter the same word more than once, it won't create a problem on the live site for more than a few minutes.</li>
<li><i>Install it on the blog</i>. All the while I had been testing the code here (where you can still see it in action), but of course it wasn't going to play nicely right away on the blog. </li>
<ol><li>The find and replace code requires an element ID to know what to search and replace, so I had to figure out which of those to use. I settled on "Blog1".</li>
<li>In actual deployment, I realized the original Regular Expression search I was doing (lifted straight from the tutorial) was far too permissive, and it was creating havoc on the page. So I had to figure out how to search only for exact, whole-word matches. I also had to decide to only replace the first instance of a word, because posts were starting to look like link soup.</li>
<li>PAGE CRASHES EVERYWHERE. The list of words is quite long (more than 700 entries), as is the page. My code at the time had the replace command inside the for statement, so I was replacing the whole page about 700 times on every load. Awesome.</li>
<li>Annoyingly, there are "hl"'s in the spreadsheet URL's, and those don't play nicely with Blogger's XML backbone. Don't ask me why, dude. So I'm hosting the .js here for now, until I figure out something better.</li>
</ol></ol><div><b>Remaining issues</b>:<br />
If any real coders are reading this and feeling generous, I'd really love some help with the following <i>(Updated - seems to work fine in IE, and I've recoded it in <a href="http://watchedpots.com/js/definitionLinks2.js">another file</a> that has far fewer variables, but is also more difficult for a human to follow)</i>:</div><div><ol><li><s>I'm told this still doesn't work in some versions of IE, although I haven't verified that myself yet (works on my PC). Obviously that sucks if it's true. I have no idea how to fix that.</s></li>
<li>Capitalized words don't stay capitalized when replaced. </li>
<li>This only works with one-column spreadsheets that have been published; it's no good for sensitive data or anything that comes in more than one column.</li>
<li>Basic inelegance: I'm sure this could have been done more efficiently (<s>I know for sure I used more variables than I needed to, for example)</s>.</li>
</ol></div><b>The code:</b><br />
<a href="http://watchedpots.com/js/definitionLinks.js">Here it is</a>, heavily commented. If it's helpful to you, I'm glad. If it's not, I'm sorry, but I probably can't help you modify it much. See it working <a href="http://watchedpots.com/javaTestEnv/wordFindTest.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<iframe height="950px" src="http://watchedpots.com/js/definitionLinks.js" width="460px"></iframe>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-31255998485651817112011-02-08T17:57:00.000-05:002011-02-08T17:57:40.829-05:00StinklinesIn college, my friend Joe and I had a pretty good way of coping with annoying classmates (the ones who would waste the time of everyone else in class by talking out of turn and trying to get into pissing matches with the professor). We'd draw them (or, stick figure versions of them), and then draw wavy lines emanating from all the places stink could possibly come from on a person. Armpits, feet, butt, mouth, etc. It was good fun, and we still occasionally reference Stinklines #2 or Stinklines #4 when we get together. <br />
<br />
I've just started doing some post-bacc work at City College of New York to ease myself back into academia and to shore up some holes in my undergrad work as I'm applying to grad schools, and while I've only had three days of classes so far, I'm really enjoying it. Really and truly. I had no idea how much I've missed learning. It's funny because I've spent so much of the last few years teaching kids SAT strategies, so I'm in classrooms a lot, but I totally forgot how great it is to be in the seats, instead of at the front. I have not missed, however, being in a lecture of 300 people and discovering that 2 rows behind me, there is a Stinklines.<br />
<br />
My microeconomics professor tried to illustrate a point today about impure public goods by asking us to imagine a system by which, instead of countless umbrella vendors taking to the streets when it rains in NYC and countless hapless New Yorkers buying cheap umbrellas with a 10 minute lifespan, there were simply buckets of umbrellas at the door of every building in New York. Umbrellas would become essentially valueless. Nice job professor, point made.<br />
<br />
No. Wait. Someone behind me wants to argue that such a system wouldn't work! She says, in increasingly exasperated tones, as though she's impatiently explaining something to a child, that people are lazy, and would just keep the umbrellas instead of dropping them in the buckets. Duh! No amount of explaining from the professor that it's a simplified example to illustrate a point will do. She is steadfast; she will accept no further explanation. Such a system is deeply flawed. It's ridiculous. She <i>knows</i>. She is a Stinklines.<br />
<br />
A Stinklines will not back down once she's begun. She operates as if the only way she'll be satisfied is if she's able to extract an apology from the professor for ever saying something so silly in the first place. She knows only her own concrete reality, and will not suffer others who might see the world differently. She is smarter than the professor, and in reality should be teaching the class herself. <br />
<br />
Lest you think I'm intolerant, I feel I should clarify what a Stinklines is <i>not</i>. He is not just someone who speaks up a lot in class. Questions are wonderful and encouraged, and often I was wondering about the same thing myself. He's not even someone who argues with the professor occasionally.<br />
<br />
A Stinklines is a person who argues without thinking critically, so convinced is he of his righteousness, about minutae usually only tangentially related to the topic at hand. He sits in wait for the entire class period for the professor to say something he finds suspect, and pounces. He is almost always wrong. He is never convinced of this.<br />
<br />
We speak in simplified terms because that's how we massage ideas in our minds. That's how we learn. High school physics students learn the principles of Newtonian physics and how to apply them in frictionless vacuums, even though real life scenarios are anything but. Students of philosophy perform thought experiments in theoretical constructs that could never in a million years exist. In the same economics class, we operate under the fictional universe in which all economic actors make fully-informed decisions motivated by self-interest 100% of the time. But a Stinklines thinks it's really necessary to argue about the viability of a free umbrella exchange system in New York City.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-74497568797205230722011-02-07T13:35:00.003-05:002011-02-08T10:30:46.547-05:00What a pain it is to cancel an eFax subcription.I know I kinda ask for this kind of treatment by seeking out a free trial of a service that I plan to use once and then cancel, but I just tried to cancel my membership to eFax and I'm wishing I never got involved with them in the first place. <br />
<br />
You know you're into something shitty when there's no "Cancel My Account" option in the "My Account" section of the site:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMm-KzLYrPcbie-UkjaeBIXpoN0Yekq8pZl5aMZBGfT1wFoMSEnZ00JCPMPvyVKvRTdK4PeinjMm6XjXPw__tcRS_N1wS0Zl2QlqB0sGtkWpezqr4QtLCCkgo7x_QvE6N1n4H/s1600/efax1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMm-KzLYrPcbie-UkjaeBIXpoN0Yekq8pZl5aMZBGfT1wFoMSEnZ00JCPMPvyVKvRTdK4PeinjMm6XjXPw__tcRS_N1wS0Zl2QlqB0sGtkWpezqr4QtLCCkgo7x_QvE6N1n4H/s320/efax1.png" width="320" /></a></div>You know you're into something even shittier than you thought when you go to the FAQ section of the site, find that one of the most frequently asked questions is about how to cancel your account, and find that the answer is to chat live online with a customer service representative. And when you click the link to do so, you find this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cMck8_a2N8v-umFhee_A5mrY30sIm9zLjEeqPXVuP4j1hXl9hiwuyfFNApyU0MjMumXiI5UhTQtilHnfjXUqW4eur-DlC8n7wLvAn220UdtMPRKTBZVU1MSpVHCRCFCEo8kU/s1600/efax2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cMck8_a2N8v-umFhee_A5mrY30sIm9zLjEeqPXVuP4j1hXl9hiwuyfFNApyU0MjMumXiI5UhTQtilHnfjXUqW4eur-DlC8n7wLvAn220UdtMPRKTBZVU1MSpVHCRCFCEo8kU/s320/efax2.png" width="320" /></a></div>Not only is the image broken there, the link is too. Click it all damn day. It won't work.<br />
<br />
I suppose I could get on the phone (and I still might have to), but since I hate talking to people I decided to look around for a back door to the chat. I found one on the "Contact and Customer Service" page:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQKQJisN_s59LE_C-Fq8budeMz4etEAZlswwoKtGqF4fqcLwHFA_iJaBZz67c0jVoNjm8JCmCDbXMRzYF7aBPNxn-0mxbfFGsATtbd9-nhC3Xi35uQtmTVElXcg39_XglN1h4/s1600/efax3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQKQJisN_s59LE_C-Fq8budeMz4etEAZlswwoKtGqF4fqcLwHFA_iJaBZz67c0jVoNjm8JCmCDbXMRzYF7aBPNxn-0mxbfFGsATtbd9-nhC3Xi35uQtmTVElXcg39_XglN1h4/s320/efax3.png" width="320" /></a></div>And then I had the following conversation (Note: I did not actually buy a fax machine as I indicated in my reason for leaving; I just thought that would be the option least likely to prompt a save response offering me a discount -- I was wrong).<br />
<blockquote><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td class="chatContent" dir="ltr"><div id="chatContentDiv" style="font-family: arial, arial, helvetica, geneva; font-size: smaller;"><span style="color: red;"><b><span class="InfoType" style="color: red;"><img alt="Chat Information" height="10" src="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hcp/chatinfo/chatinfo.gif" width="5" /></span></b></span><span style="color: green;"><span class="InfoText" style="color: green;">Please wait for a site operator to respond. You are currently number 1 of 1 in the queue. Thank you for your patience.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span class="InfoType" style="color: red;"><img alt="Chat Information" height="10" src="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hcp/chatinfo/chatinfo.gif" width="5" /></span></b></span><span style="color: green;"><span class="InfoText" style="color: green;">You are now chatting with 'Matthew'</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Matthew: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Welcome to our sales chat. How may I help you?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">Hello, I'm trying to cancel my eFax membership</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Matthew: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">You have clicked on “Live Sales Chat” and have reached the sales department. We are only able to setup new accounts and have very limited access to existing accounts. If you need to cancel, we have a special support team to take care of that. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Matthew: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;"><a href="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hc/62672927/?cmd=file&file=chatTemplate&site=62672927&sessionkey=H3755595323674433641-4839237391481690667K2359152&template=chatText" id="L608246015214905468">www.efax.com/cancel</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">The link to access that chat is broken</span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span class="InfoType" style="color: red;"><img alt="Chat Information" height="10" src="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hcp/chatinfo/chatinfo.gif" width="5" /></span></b></span><span style="color: green;"><span class="InfoText" style="color: green;">Please wait while I transfer the chat to 'Beth C.'.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span class="InfoType" style="color: red;"><img alt="Chat Information" height="10" src="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hcp/chatinfo/chatinfo.gif" width="5" /></span></b></span><span style="color: green;"><span class="InfoText" style="color: green;">You are now chatting with 'Beth C.'</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Hello, Mike. Welcome to eFax online support. I am Beth, your online Live Support Representative. How are you doing today? </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">I'm trying to cancel my eFax account, and the link to do so directly is broken</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">I will be glad to assist you with the cancellation request via this chat session. Would you like to proceed?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">Yes, thank you.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Could you please provide me your fax number, registered email address and billing zip code for verification?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">1718*******, ************@gmail.com, *****</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Thank you for providing your information. Please give me a moment while I pull up your account. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">In the meantime, please type the number corresponding to your reason for cancellation:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">1) Moving to another provider</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">2) Bought a fax machine</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">3) Business or role changed</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">4) Short term project completed</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">5) Financial reasons</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">6) Problems with faxing or billing</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">7) Dissatisfied with quality of service</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">8) Too costly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">2</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Mike, as we'd like to keep your business, I can offer you a plan that will let you keep your eFax service for just 14 cents a day. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">You make one annual payment of just $50 and pay nothing more unless you exceed 30 pages per month. Extra pages are just 15 cents. This deal won't be available once your account is closed. Can I switch you to this savings plan which lets you keep your fax number for just 14 cents a day?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">no thank you, I just want to close the account.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">OK, I will go ahead and cancel your account.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Is there anything else, I may assist you with?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">no, that's all, thank you</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">is there a confirmation number?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Sure. An email confirmation will be sent at your registered email address.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="OperatorName" style="color: blue;">Beth C.: </span></b></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="OperatorText" style="color: black;">Thank you for contacting eFax online support. I hope you found our session helpful. Goodbye and take care. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><span class="VisitorName" style="color: blue;">Mike: </span></b></span><span style="color: red;"><span class="VisitorText" style="color: red;">thank you.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span class="InfoType" style="color: red;"><img alt="Chat Information" height="10" src="https://server.iad.liveperson.net/hcp/chatinfo/chatinfo.gif" width="5" /></span></b></span><span style="color: green;"><span class="InfoText" style="color: green;">Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.</span></span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></blockquote>Of course, I still haven't received my confirmation about an hour later, and I have been back to the site to make these screenshots (including accessing the "My Account" page) since that conversation. At this point I'm doubtful that eFax has any intention of allowing me to cancel my account without actually getting on the phone and talking to someone.<br />
<br />
It's not a really big deal, obviously. I've got the time to do it. But I can imagine there are plenty of people who don't, and who therefore let a few $16.95 monthly bills pile up for a service they don't use before they finally get around to navigating this system. <br />
<br />
Really makes me think I should have just found a local place and spent the $0.30 it probably would have cost me to send the one fax I've needed to send in years.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">I've done a little Googling since I wrote this all down, because I was feeling guilty about posting this only an hour after the fact, and thinking that maybe I should give the poor folks at eFax a break. Turns out, of course, I'm <a href="http://blog.tmcnet.com/design-vs-functionality/2009/07/cancelling_efax_sort_of.html">not</a> <a href="http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2004/04/05/cancelling-efax-service/">the</a> <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/1/24/201227/380">only</a> <a href="http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/how-to-cancel-an-efax-account/">one</a> who's had a problem. Conclusion: F these guys. Don't get involved with them.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span><br />
***UPDATE***<br />
In the end, I did get a confirmation email about 3.5 hours after I posted this. So, in fairness to Beth C., she was good for her word. The whole process still left me feeling resentful, though.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-76490396158348160782011-01-04T12:43:00.001-05:002011-01-04T12:44:14.574-05:00The first week of the new year brings...<center><object width="450" height="278"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FzrBurlJUNk?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FzrBurlJUNk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="278"></embed></object></center><br />
<ol><li>Coffee-related inspiration. I've been putting chocolate milk and cayenne pepper in my coffee for the past week or so, instead of milk and sugar. Pros: a lasting spicy tingle, less sugar. Cons: I've become a bit obsessed, so I'm back to two cups a day from zero cups a day a few weeks ago.</li>
<li>Some good documentary viewing. Amy and I watched Banksy's <i><a href="http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop/70132200?trkid=2429429#height1764">Exit Through the Gift Shop</a></i> via Netflix a couple days ago and I know it's been out for a while but it blew me away. Then yesterday we went to see <i>Inside Job</i>, which is about our current economic armaggeddon, and you must see it. Trailer at the top.</li>
<li>Free time. I stepped down from my job at the end of the year, so although I'll still be doing a ton of teaching in the new year, that's mostly at night and on the weekends, and my weekdays are free. I'm using my newfound downtime to apply to grad school, look for jobs, get back in shape, and remain stagnantly horrible at Halo: Reach.</li>
</ol>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-40886638089584850512010-12-20T13:11:00.001-05:002010-12-20T16:03:50.320-05:00Dyker Lights, 2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcwiV-KR2opQF9HOlU-MBtK6XNxwHef16XpeH6QnDeO5I2DACOScVN94rCNJWFrz0f4hHJwSbBoqKo5m54A9XqaWPrWtCGz5nbO2gXEyAbOEnqrwy0qc2lJc4FRVRQjuBCtjoU/s1600/DSCF0800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcwiV-KR2opQF9HOlU-MBtK6XNxwHef16XpeH6QnDeO5I2DACOScVN94rCNJWFrz0f4hHJwSbBoqKo5m54A9XqaWPrWtCGz5nbO2gXEyAbOEnqrwy0qc2lJc4FRVRQjuBCtjoU/s400/DSCF0800.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We made the annual trip down the road to Dyker Lights last night, which, if you don't know, is what they call it when a bunch of houses in Dyker Heights (in Brooklyn, between 83rd and 86th streets and 13th and 11th Avenues) pay decoration companies to make their houses look like Christmas in Disney Land. I'm being snarky, but it's truly awesome, and we go every year. I love this shit. </div><br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This year I decided to take some pictures, because although you see tons of people there with cameras, good pictures of the magic are hard to come by online. I regret to say they still will be, because I'm a terrible photographer. Still, here's what I've got:</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkyTF42fNy8pvUbci6X_y7Y_ZiQrc1oNRctmprSK1nmydL7aB_-BRHrPB88cYEYSTdSc4ooAI2Vj9gOuzQdaIOgVwFtWBFAzJWqb03okP7U4X_k7FbQr-Zu0ppszn6RM62o81/s1600/DSCF0799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkyTF42fNy8pvUbci6X_y7Y_ZiQrc1oNRctmprSK1nmydL7aB_-BRHrPB88cYEYSTdSc4ooAI2Vj9gOuzQdaIOgVwFtWBFAzJWqb03okP7U4X_k7FbQr-Zu0ppszn6RM62o81/s400/DSCF0799.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This house is actually on 14th Avenue and about 10 blocks north of the action, but I thought it was cool anyway.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy0kNRRE3FDSWkN71U41klARq00U1Nyin7OCRgtjguqxPxktYTvF3Qj05Eu1hLvJn4amGryGCuWBYJWDijlS4YqiZGK-Q0qsijwh-AOZoW5LviKBK1Q2X-fynjMA_LMDHt9v5/s1600/DSCF0807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy0kNRRE3FDSWkN71U41klARq00U1Nyin7OCRgtjguqxPxktYTvF3Qj05Eu1hLvJn4amGryGCuWBYJWDijlS4YqiZGK-Q0qsijwh-AOZoW5LviKBK1Q2X-fynjMA_LMDHt9v5/s400/DSCF0807.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm a terrible photographer because there's a huge Santa (more than 20 feet tall if he's an inch) and I failed to get him in the shot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrUiw9TfNW8ZyutoZvWAxo8leFwWZFI8EechpGggxBu_uz8y2pQf7v_hglTM9HZwYa5F2iWqNNTObv_UeqeqWazDQbKkYkR0zq4YC3nyFlREkBx872RE7250Pv0_KauPFmrMCq/s1600/DSCF0803.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrUiw9TfNW8ZyutoZvWAxo8leFwWZFI8EechpGggxBu_uz8y2pQf7v_hglTM9HZwYa5F2iWqNNTObv_UeqeqWazDQbKkYkR0zq4YC3nyFlREkBx872RE7250Pv0_KauPFmrMCq/s400/DSCF0803.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-8NXpp4W9aV_HYAHltuWkino7GkerGS3ntZhbLGAb_PBkvT5V0bk2D5JRaDlFXHV899ObwAPPms6UEELwv-9EAp_OcT8rfI6utjedrdmneSCXW8r1nS8hwXLQ-Xjtj0hlGVx/s1600/DSCF0802.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-8NXpp4W9aV_HYAHltuWkino7GkerGS3ntZhbLGAb_PBkvT5V0bk2D5JRaDlFXHV899ObwAPPms6UEELwv-9EAp_OcT8rfI6utjedrdmneSCXW8r1nS8hwXLQ-Xjtj0hlGVx/s400/DSCF0802.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh839ShQiVcJBwYtZQ-ejx87LV7yLhzqrAjWF3LsAlmb3_L1aZjZ9PwiUFDySVNk8RXtNBUPv81hw9vTjADQej5dcgcNcUpfCwOnJ4pvLha3BR8IG7K4CHdCUeAgWKDUkoPWdF2/s1600/DSCF0804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh839ShQiVcJBwYtZQ-ejx87LV7yLhzqrAjWF3LsAlmb3_L1aZjZ9PwiUFDySVNk8RXtNBUPv81hw9vTjADQej5dcgcNcUpfCwOnJ4pvLha3BR8IG7K4CHdCUeAgWKDUkoPWdF2/s400/DSCF0804.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPMIqFsgaJMNmW7nJu8mAn59LaLlAr1PPqJ4q3J2n4JEjKXCtXtbc0vS_5lAg1eLz6L6AC3b1L0EGGCv1iFDTMan5WTSgXSdHn4Zo9MlRLQC68crjfEbuaP3abFezOYvgJVUI/s1600/DSCF0805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPMIqFsgaJMNmW7nJu8mAn59LaLlAr1PPqJ4q3J2n4JEjKXCtXtbc0vS_5lAg1eLz6L6AC3b1L0EGGCv1iFDTMan5WTSgXSdHn4Zo9MlRLQC68crjfEbuaP3abFezOYvgJVUI/s400/DSCF0805.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXL7-LsXs7bmzvJrXpV_qj55p5qHgqUSCysVQfcMUcWsZDxgaVxEGvNlYInqJXeOIRFS42pnF02O-HG0d0kXeNIJeFGsqaiEkYjgC4wq6Pwa8dNraXL3ku4cP2rGbzPxyoMmK/s1600/DSCF0806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKXL7-LsXs7bmzvJrXpV_qj55p5qHgqUSCysVQfcMUcWsZDxgaVxEGvNlYInqJXeOIRFS42pnF02O-HG0d0kXeNIJeFGsqaiEkYjgC4wq6Pwa8dNraXL3ku4cP2rGbzPxyoMmK/s400/DSCF0806.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhqRMPg52EBC2o3iTU9f6c2wPtNFHgA0uVvIlgwEZkcSeQsOlAg3cqzhDxFctJTVPSFDBw4iywNQ-TZSyP6d6MPKWUwvgQr_xJTE7z8lfviyT_m6BtC9UW2bL3OItpVd5h8Pb/s1600/DSCF0808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhqRMPg52EBC2o3iTU9f6c2wPtNFHgA0uVvIlgwEZkcSeQsOlAg3cqzhDxFctJTVPSFDBw4iywNQ-TZSyP6d6MPKWUwvgQr_xJTE7z8lfviyT_m6BtC9UW2bL3OItpVd5h8Pb/s400/DSCF0808.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a topiary of a dancing bear; there are about five of them in this yard. I kept trying to get a good shot of them, and mostly failed.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BKQo592CcPXJ4ScIQdKOzsMwUgbPgM3-vifZENzawFMnts_SUUH9ucflgcF2iI2-fNfYG-mfkH1l1sbdj9VLHRXPtZVsQRNkOzcqDjDsByuSoegLk-cpJrEZ2L59Fpbzq9w1/s1600/DSCF0809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BKQo592CcPXJ4ScIQdKOzsMwUgbPgM3-vifZENzawFMnts_SUUH9ucflgcF2iI2-fNfYG-mfkH1l1sbdj9VLHRXPtZVsQRNkOzcqDjDsByuSoegLk-cpJrEZ2L59Fpbzq9w1/s400/DSCF0809.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrHKl65NYHw3Y4B2Jep0hvG93Bc6W7NTnJPJdFnjEb6fN60IT4EZ1ok9JZEDjwnPGOqFc__ulwUFwWO-zhWxpk1KZu6I30NhSsQEmn2P67PzUR9WQ3pt7aoiurmIdzZ1EN-3R/s1600/DSCF0810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrHKl65NYHw3Y4B2Jep0hvG93Bc6W7NTnJPJdFnjEb6fN60IT4EZ1ok9JZEDjwnPGOqFc__ulwUFwWO-zhWxpk1KZu6I30NhSsQEmn2P67PzUR9WQ3pt7aoiurmIdzZ1EN-3R/s400/DSCF0810.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The best shot of the dancing bears.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvKXmIE99cqrw2rI70GCVvqqBMUXsrqt1UqcnZ7KDtjv5gN_PN-NSa-8__i-65_Gi7hP34WbAHYu8IEjGEVhVQjZphCOCmjW81F_Z4nocXhvm7JYjVpGSltMQ79Duk4CcN8ZV/s1600/DSCF0813.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvKXmIE99cqrw2rI70GCVvqqBMUXsrqt1UqcnZ7KDtjv5gN_PN-NSa-8__i-65_Gi7hP34WbAHYu8IEjGEVhVQjZphCOCmjW81F_Z4nocXhvm7JYjVpGSltMQ79Duk4CcN8ZV/s400/DSCF0813.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSx8VkNhKashhLgmX10hmra793L9touuwBm_I1RbkSVZ0EdY6DD4vUbrXuqZ9g9nmuzjTO4tabhxKevym-v4FhGG_vZU5H2I5ZyFLDdtPVapAOa3SEbnO20jkVYovttKdSQEn/s1600/DSCF0815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSx8VkNhKashhLgmX10hmra793L9touuwBm_I1RbkSVZ0EdY6DD4vUbrXuqZ9g9nmuzjTO4tabhxKevym-v4FhGG_vZU5H2I5ZyFLDdtPVapAOa3SEbnO20jkVYovttKdSQEn/s400/DSCF0815.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This Santa was moving. I'm pretty sure he was supposed to be waving, but it sorta looked like he was spanking this kid.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2U6h7AMazxhkQXHtPZAuXU2M04c1ditP5MPyGSANvDBXOnlUCnHaZ_AkclGJrOz7wvkP744mS4bfvWAKoCFhQxpcew1rUfWK9QG3TzaDYTz51QKIlSGaLBhOMnHxp5QaFe7F/s1600/DSCF0816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2U6h7AMazxhkQXHtPZAuXU2M04c1ditP5MPyGSANvDBXOnlUCnHaZ_AkclGJrOz7wvkP744mS4bfvWAKoCFhQxpcew1rUfWK9QG3TzaDYTz51QKIlSGaLBhOMnHxp5QaFe7F/s400/DSCF0816.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2U6h7AMazxhkQXHtPZAuXU2M04c1ditP5MPyGSANvDBXOnlUCnHaZ_AkclGJrOz7wvkP744mS4bfvWAKoCFhQxpcew1rUfWK9QG3TzaDYTz51QKIlSGaLBhOMnHxp5QaFe7F/s1600/DSCF0816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijp2QHZ7owAvkt48RXesU-FgpW7gtYYvefI-PVJvKzO3tofWRt5uWGosZKrkvdZaEoOfqWius7uKXZUpu8cdWwDhnALoU2WcHue5I1g3BPXOv0q_lkp4SmUISTwKBhtd45F4cU/s1600/DSCF0814.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="dyker lights brooklyn" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijp2QHZ7owAvkt48RXesU-FgpW7gtYYvefI-PVJvKzO3tofWRt5uWGosZKrkvdZaEoOfqWius7uKXZUpu8cdWwDhnALoU2WcHue5I1g3BPXOv0q_lkp4SmUISTwKBhtd45F4cU/s400/DSCF0814.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This bear (whose skin was falling off in places) was my favorite part of the whole thing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-43846965782074024722010-12-16T22:49:00.001-05:002010-12-16T22:51:31.544-05:00Cr48(!)I got home last night and noticed a suspicious package on the front porch of the house whose second floor I rent. It was addressed to me, from someone I didn't know. I spent a few moments wondering whether I had simply forgotten that I ordered something, then remembered that I had to pee, so I went inside.<br />
<br />
I guess Google doesn't want to put its name in the return address because then a laptop-sized box might seem like a pretty good thing to steal. I opened the mysterious box to find <a href="http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html">one of these</a>. I had applied to Google's <a href="http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program.html">Chrome OS Pilot Program</a> a few days ago, and promptly forgotten about it since I figured there was no way I'd ever be selected. There was, it turns out, a way. Fist pump.<br />
<br />
I've been making a conscious effort for months now to move all of the things to I do into the cloud, but after playing with the Cr48 for a few hours, it's clear to me that I'm not quite there yet. I don't, for example, have an online music provider that I like better than my obsessively curated collection. Grooveshark is pretty good for finding individual songs, and I like last.fm and Pandora for radio functionality, but I really still like to listen to whole records. I did just get an invite to <a href="http://tubeify.com/">Tubeify</a>, which seems like it might be cool, but it still doesn't do exactly what I want. But I digress.<br />
<br />
I'm so pumped to be able to play with this thing. I even took pictures of the whole business as I was unwrapping it, like they do on tech blogs, but it turns out my unboxing pictures are too embarrassing to actually post any of them, for a few reasons. They're blurry, you can see my disgusting couch in the background, and I cut my finger on the box when I got really excited as I realized what was inside, so there's blood on the packaging and the inserts. Corrugated cardboard papercuts are the <i>worst</i>. <br />
<br />
Anyway, I'll let you know, after I've been using it for a while, if I have any success in moving myself further into the cloud.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-43935802789240984142010-12-01T11:24:00.001-05:002010-12-01T11:24:17.067-05:00Review: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius<br /> <a style='float: left; padding-right: 20px' href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius'><img src='http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288880727m/4953.jpg' border='0' alt='A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'/></a><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius'>A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius</a> by <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3371.Dave_Eggers'>Dave Eggers</a><br/><br />My rating: <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/129917941'>5 of 5 stars</a><br/><br/><br />I can't be the first person to say this since it's so deservedly well loved (and if I am the first then build a statue of me looking insightful), but I couldn't help thinking every time Eggers reminded me that he hadn't started masturbating until college that he was still making up for lost time throughout the writing of this book. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by a man named Dion Graham who was...marvelous. I loved the shit out of this.<br /><br/><br/><br /><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/167869-mike'>View all my reviews</a><br /> Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-68344604143873075232010-11-23T20:50:00.001-05:002010-11-24T00:17:39.697-05:00Quite necessarily scatalogical.I've become obsessed with my advancing age (apologies to any reader older than me) -- of milestones marking time's incessant march. I am constantly musing that things are different now than they were. Of course, there are all the physical reminders. The left side of my tongue feels weird most of the time...because I burned it? Flexing this muscle this certain way always hurts. My knees are completely intolerant of abuse. I have done these things to myself; I am mostly inactive, but occasionally and unpredictably I am active enough to hurt myself, to teach myself again the lesson that I should take it easy. But these physical twinges, now that I've overcome -- at least temporarily -- the obsessive worry that they mean I'm dying, aren't as interesting as the changes I notice on occasion about the way I interact with the world. Cognitively, I'm very much not the same as I was. Which is obvious when you come right out and say it, but which is precisely the sort of thing I can get really going on about after a drink, and which I'm compelled to give an example of here.<br />
<br />
I stepped in shit last night on the sidewalk. I saw my footprint in it this morning; I parked right next to it and stepped right out of my Yaris into shit. Old, rubbery shit. I tracked it into my apartment, oblivious, and proceeded to microwave a frozen dinner. When I began to smell it, I cursed the garbage in the kitchen, which probably contained some old chicken packaging or something. I lifted the lid, breath held, sealed the bag, and took it outside. Then I came back inside, ate my food, and sat down to play Halo: Reach. I <a href="http://www.bungie.net/stats/reach/gamestats.aspx?gameid=333183611&player=McLoseAgain">won more completely</a> than I ever have or probably ever will again. <br />
<br />
But all the while, I kept smelling poop. Between games I would sniff suspiciously, moving around the apartment to try to locate the source of the odor. Did something die in the wall? God, it smells awful everywhere. What the fuck? And eventually, I did find something on the floor of the living room: an offensive little ball that, when I picked it up barehanded (what the <i>fuck?</i>), did indeed smell like and was in fact shit.<br />
<br />
Here's how I know I'm older now: I still didn't put it together. I blamed my brother, or one of his friends, who had clearly tracked it in the day before, when I was staying at Amy's place. <i>Can you believe these people?</i> I wondered aloud. Still, even with the <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/8784/napoleon-dynamite-stop-ruining-my-life">decroded piece of crap</a> spirited away, my apartment was uninhabitable. It was like I could taste it (indeed, I spent much of today still feeling as though I could smell it, as though it had penetrated my very being the night before). And I continued to play, my performance suffering at the hands of extreme distraction. I lit candles. I opened a window. It never occurred to me to remove my shoes.<br />
<br />
I didn't actually figure it out until this morning, when I put on the same pants I had taken off the night before (so what?), and crossed my left leg to put a sock on. There was shit all over my jeans. Of course there was -- I sit cross-legged when I play, left leg on top of right shit-smeared foot. Only then, confronted by incontrovertible evidence and after at least 30 seconds of processing time, did I understand. <br />
<br />
I am older because it just didn't occur to me that I could have stepped in shit. I haven't stepped in shit in years. I don't remember what it feels like. My memory hadn't even been jogged by the unmistakeable smell. I spent all day in an office, probably taking no more than 30 steps out of doors all day long. When I was growing up, I stepped in shit just about every day. Barefoot, often. (We didn't name our childhood Wiffle Ball diamond "Dog Doo Field" because of a generous sponsorship by electronic typewriter magnate Wendell Dogdoo.) There was a time when I would have known instantly that I had stepped in shit. Those days are, for the most part, behind me. Because I'm old now, you see.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitPhi_zM75zjK-LV_Kn5o0gA3CD8jfRx9YiUskNlGGDR_RO1IEv-spsdsby1Y2vZoQABV8Nqdh9gBZ9eOptoZF1qKrNXawqMEVBUH3pwsM8LdI2p9ox2KkQIAVAajpITQmrAnX/s1600/buster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitPhi_zM75zjK-LV_Kn5o0gA3CD8jfRx9YiUskNlGGDR_RO1IEv-spsdsby1Y2vZoQABV8Nqdh9gBZ9eOptoZF1qKrNXawqMEVBUH3pwsM8LdI2p9ox2KkQIAVAajpITQmrAnX/s400/buster.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buster, our beloved groundskeeper, in front of home plate.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-7393505152385336712010-11-12T22:24:00.005-05:002010-11-13T11:41:52.802-05:00Tough GuyI gave someone the finger today in my car. I held it up proudly, wagged it back and forth a bit, slowly, like a wave. The gesticulatory (first I typed "gesticular" but apparently that's not a word) equivalent of a sing-song fuckyou. In fairness to me (for such displays are decidedly not my style -- I'm occasionally accused at work of being an "avoider"), my target fired first, and I was only imitating his own style with the slow wave. Let's back up a bit.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAmXdCfexmngOoE6rlXhtA0HIGdnIKsbyr1qBANLNfv2GOwhYrniJ-3dsXoU9nhZ9J9m-AVPSj4jqvhfnzdW7mfoJmFpMo595L_TIIIYbYGZV7kyuMrqlww2xlphoQ9KL2pha/s1600/big-gulp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAmXdCfexmngOoE6rlXhtA0HIGdnIKsbyr1qBANLNfv2GOwhYrniJ-3dsXoU9nhZ9J9m-AVPSj4jqvhfnzdW7mfoJmFpMo595L_TIIIYbYGZV7kyuMrqlww2xlphoQ9KL2pha/s200/big-gulp.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">If you must drink such a revolting</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">amount of soda, please at least find a </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">trash receptacle when you're done.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>On the way to work this morning, I pulled up behind a black Chrysler 300 with his gas cap hanging off and was considering the best way to signal the driver to alert him when I watched a large big gulp cup fly from the driver's side window, right into the middle of 15th Avenue. Littering sends me into unspeakable rage. It's all I can do to resist ramming a car when I see the driver drop a gum wrapper out the window; I get apoplectic when I see a pedestrian toss an ATM receipt onto the sidewalk. And this...this was much worse. If the crime were measured simply by the size and weight of the refuse, we're talking orders of magnitude worse than a gum wrapper. Not to mention the relative biodegradability. And this was like 2 blocks from my house. That's my neighborhood, man. Cups go in cup holders until you can dispose of them properly. I decided to let his gas cap dangle.<br />
<br />
I remained behind him on my way to the parkway, and a few minutes later I found myself sitting at a green light behind him, while he fiddled with his cell phone. So I honked. I let my Yaris's horn (not as intimidating as I'd have liked, but you go to war with the army you've got) express, shrilly, my displeasure for a good 3 seconds. I watched him look up at me in his rearview mirror, spite obvious on his face although I could only see a narrow slice of it in his mirror and much of that was obscured by dark glasses, and then came the wagging finger. Without thinking, and with a defiant grin, I returned it. He turned right, I went straight, and went about congratulating myself for such a macho display.<br />
<br />
I turned right at the next light and found him <i>sitting at the light waiting to go the same way I was</i>. Apparently he gets to the highway by turning right then left one block earlier than I do. The intersection we were at is more complicated than your average one, from a traffic light standpoint, so we had plenty of time, with neither of us able to go anywhere, to just stare at each other. And man, he was huge. And mean looking. Bald. If you've seen <i>The Wire</i>, he looked a bit like <a href="http://happyasamonkey.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/herc.jpg">Herc</a>. Only bigger.<br />
<br />
So then I spent about 60 seconds cursing myself for thinking I was a tough guy, trying not to look scared and surreptitiously locking my car door. And then the light turned green for him and he went, and then the line turned green for me and I did. And then I ended up right behind him in slow traffic on the Belt Parkway for a couple miles, vacillating between rage and fear. And then I came home 10 hours later and spent half an hour writing about it for no good reason.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-68059262077810625902010-11-09T20:54:00.000-05:002010-11-09T20:54:04.757-05:00Seventy-six centsAmie Street, wonderful site though it was, is no longer*. Seriously. Go to <a href="http://amiestreet.com/">amiestreet.com</a> and you're now redirected to the Amazon MP3 store. Amazon, you see, was an early investor in Amie Street, so I guess they got the rights to the domain name when the company folded. I'm getting away from the point, though. The point is that Amie Street had a great model for independent artists to try to get some traction: all your songs started off free, and gradually increased in price as more and more people downloaded them. Users could recommend tracks to other users (and in doing so, could gain credit for themselves if their recommended songs climbed in value). It was a very cool idea and I'm sad that it didn't work. <br />
<br />
Amie Street was also the only place I ever made any attempt to sell my own music. Turns out the full market value of sulky, overly melodramatic and indulgent amateur pop songs is $0.76. I know, because they sent it to me via PayPal the other day. I'm pissed because I think that might put me into a higher tax bracket.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* Full disclosure: for a little while in 2007, Amie Street was paying me to write reviews of things in their catalog. No, I never reviewed my own record.</span>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-10032603918523015082010-11-08T23:46:00.001-05:002010-11-08T23:46:06.758-05:00Review: Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception<br /> <a style='float: left; padding-right: 20px' href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7972148-proofiness'><img src='http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1280851195m/7972148.jpg' border='0' alt='Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception'/></a><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7972148-proofiness'>Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception</a> by <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12668.Charles_Seife'>Charles Seife</a><br/><br />My rating: <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/126806104'>3 of 5 stars</a><br/><br/><br />I liked this, but I was expecting to love it. I think, if I'm honest with myself, I wanted it to be more heavy-handed in its indictments of those whose faux-mathematical manipulations are the most egregiously misleading. It seemed to me that a few times Seife had his subjects by the balls, and let them get off with little more than a finger-wag.<br /><br/><br/><br /><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/167869-mike'>View all my reviews</a><br /> Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-82471647896234725522010-10-18T12:26:00.002-04:002010-10-18T12:48:42.080-04:00Review: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman<a style='float: left; padding-right: 20px' href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2936415.Where_Men_Win_Glory'><img src='http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255577960m/2936415.jpg' border='0' alt='Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman'/></a><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2936415.Where_Men_Win_Glory'>Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman</a> by <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1235.Jon_Krakauer'>Jon Krakauer</a><br />
<br />
My rating: <a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/122763528'>4 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Ultimately unsatisfying, because the truth is ultimately frustrating. Pat Tillman is a fascinating character, though. Read this to get to know him, not because you want to understand the circumstances of his death any better.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href='http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/167869-mike'>View all my reviews</a>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-24963894303984757442010-06-05T11:48:00.001-04:002010-06-05T11:49:54.923-04:00What's that smell?I was thinking the other day about how a lot of movies and tv shows have minor characters that exist basically to be curmudgeonly, and how often there'll be a very quick explanation of how or why said character got to be that way. Oh, don't mind Ed, he's been that way ever since his dog stole his wife, etc.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I think a good backstory for a particularly sour character would be that he suffered a head injury in such a way that his olfactory system was thrown out of whack, and so he smells poop, constantly. Like that's his new baseline. It just always smells like poop. That'd put a pretty good-sized chip on your shoulder eventually, I'd bet.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-60582850538140954132010-05-17T20:18:00.001-04:002010-05-17T20:18:38.113-04:00Voodoo BellIt seems silly to break a multi-month blog silence with something so trivial, but I'm pretty sure I just saw "Voodoo" Tatum (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0388038/">Aldis Hodge</a>) from Friday Night Lights in a Taco Bell commercial. <br />
<br />
I've been making my way back through Season 1 of the show with my girlfriend who hasn't seen it, so it's fresh, but it was funny that I had an instant reaction to a villain on screen, before I was able to figure out what villain I was reacting to.<br />
<br />
Anyway...hi again.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-24441001432446152492010-02-16T21:11:00.003-05:002010-02-16T21:13:20.516-05:00File under: Things I'm not proud of.<div style="text-align: center;"><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N_NBIPFbDq0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N_NBIPFbDq0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></div>Back in the day when I was working for the promotions department at WBRU Providence, I would on occasion be presented with the power to tell people to do ridiculous things in exchange for cash and prizes. I was digging through some old backed up files the other day, and came across this primitively shot video of one such time. Needless to say, I was drunk on power. It consumed me. <br />
<br />
The prize exchanged for the dreaded half-eyebrow-shave? A shovel and a chance to dig up prizes alongside <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lmgu78Kq08">a bunch of other maniacs</a> in the annual Beach Dig (we called it 30 Grand in the Sand back then).Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-52926316209829268772010-02-11T13:19:00.004-05:002010-02-17T11:08:23.337-05:00Blogger FTP Publishing Degradation Fallout, Part 1: .htsuccess!Caution: the following post contains extreme nerdery <i>and</i> ineptitude, and may not be appropriate for readers who are 1) not nerds, or 2) nerds who know WTF they're doing editing a .htaccess file.<br />
<br />
With Blogger's recent announcement that they're <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/01/important-note-to-ftp-users.html">no longer going to allow FTP publishing</a>* after March 26th, I've been busy making decisions about the many blogs I own and neglect. I am not a web guru, but everything I do blog-wise (including this blog) I do with Blogger's soon-to-be-defunct FTP publishing, so this is something I'm going to be dealing with for the next few weeks.<br />
<br />
<b>1.</b><br />
The first site I wanted to tackle is <a href="http://jamespaldworth.com/">JamesPAldworth.com</a>, which is just a tiny site I set up for my mom to help her sell my grandfather's paintings. It's rarely updated because he's not painting anymore, but it will be updated from time to time as we decide to put more of his <i>many</i> paintings online. It's also the site I manage that I did the least with design-wise, so it was a good candidate for some experimentation with Blogger's custom domain hosting (nuking my template and starting over wasn't too great a loss). I've always wanted to try out all the Blogger widgets FTP publishers haven't had use of anyway.<br />
<br />
Making the switch over was pretty easy. Google gave me <a href="http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58317">plenty of help</a> navigating GoDaddy's Byzantine menus to point to the Blogger servers, and since my link structure didn't change at all, the only thing left to do was re-upload a few images (only a minor nuisance since there are so few posts there). I understand that I could've avoided that by setting up a missing files server, but honestly after thinking about it I became excited not to have to pay for hosting anymore at all for that site. So, I re-uploaded the files. <br />
<br />
It took me about an hour, and I'm happy I did it. The labels widget makes the site better (or it will, if the site ever grows to a size where simply scrolling doesn't show you the whole thing), as does the ability to create <a href="http://www.jamespaldworth.com/p/about-artist.html">static</a> <a href="http://www.jamespaldworth.com/p/purchasing-information.html">pages</a> without date stamps. I've got more work to do to make the page look more appealing, but I always had that. Overall, a positive experience, and in the long run, a net gain.<br />
<br />
<b>2.</b><br />
The <a href="http://bbb.ttprep.com/">TestTakers Blue Book Blog</a> (which I manage for work) is a slightly more complicated story, and the reason I decided to write this post. It's still light on content as it's fairly new, and it's not updated (or viewed) very often yet, so it was really the perfect candidate for some experimentation. Thing is, it <i>used</i> to live at <a href="http://ttprep.com/bbb">ttprep.com/bbb</a>. If you're familiar with Blogger's custom domains, you know blogs that don't live in the root directory are a no-no, so if I was going to keep this a Blogger blog and use custom domains (and not lose the branding of our <a href="http://ttprep.com/">ttprep.com</a> url), I was going to have to set up a CNAME.<br />
<br />
So, <a href="http://bbb.ttprep.com/">bbb.ttprep.com</a> was born. The initial setup of that was no problem at all, after having gone through a similar process with the last blog, since I still have hosting for the 'www.ttprep.com' CNAME, (and old blog pages that will never be updated still live there), my work had only just begun. <br />
<br />
First, I wanted to make all the old pages redirect to their new homes on Blogger's hosting, but since none of my old images transferred over to that hosting, I <i>didn't</i> want any image references to be changed (all the images still reside in 'ttprep.com/bbb/uploaded_images/'). I did a bunch of Googling for help with .htaccess files to redirect .html files and leave everything else alone after being inspired by <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/05/ftp-vs-custom-domains.html">this Blogger Buzz post</a>, but I didn't find anything prepackaged that did exactly what I wanted, so I basically fudged and fudged until I got it working with some help from <a href="http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php">this guy's .htaccess tutorials</a>. The line that worked for me (...sorta) was:<br />
<blockquote><span style="text-align: left; text-transform: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/(.*)\.html http://bbb.ttprep.com/$1.html</span></span></blockquote>That took care of the old individual post pages, but I was still having 2 other problems:<br />
<br />
1) Annoyingly, 'ttprep.com/bbb' and 'ttprep.com/bbb/' were redirecting to 'bbb.ttprep.com/default.html', which is not the homepage of the blog, and so was throwing a 404. I got around that with these 2 lines (which might not both be necessary, but whothehellknows?):<br />
<blockquote><span style="text-align: left; text-transform: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/$ http://bbb.ttprep.com/<br />
RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb$ http://bbb.ttprep.com/</span></span></blockquote>2) Much to my chagrin, <b>links for label pages completely changed</b>. My old labels (which were the pages I found most when searching for my own blog, and thus, a source for much of the traffic the blog had been getting) were at 'ttprep.com/bbb/labels/algebra.html' (for example). Label pages on my new, Blogger-hosted blog ended up at 'bbb.ttprep.com/search/label/algebra' instead. So, the<b> directory changed, and the file extension went away</b>. That's a problem I hadn't seen coming, and a bit of a pain in the ass since I'm going to use labels pretty heavily as the site grows to keep things organized. One more line in the .htaccess file fixed that for me:<br />
<blockquote><span style="text-align: left; text-transform: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/labels/(.*)\.html http://bbb.ttprep.com/search/label/$1</span></span></blockquote>For the curious, here's what my whole .htaccess file looks like now:<br />
<blockquote><span style="text-align: left; text-transform: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> RewriteEngine On<br />
RewriteBase /<br />
RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/$ http://bbb.ttprep.com/<br />
RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb$ http://bbb.ttprep.com/<br />
RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/labels/(.*)\.html http://bbb.ttprep.com/search/label/$1<br />
RedirectMatch 301 ^/bbb/(.*)\.html http://bbb.ttprep.com/$1.html</span></span></blockquote>I'm well aware that it may not be elegant, since I basically threw it together at 2 AM and I've never messed around with Apache before, but it seems to be doing the trick although I'm sure it could have been done much more efficiently.<br />
<br />
Bottom line: I wish I'd waited for Blogger's soon-to-arrive migration tool for this one. Migrating by myself was just a little more complex than I thought it would be, and it took a few hours that I would have rather spent playing Mario Kart.<br />
<br />
I still have some big decisions to make about this blog, and my rarely-updated music blog at <a href="http://wealsoran.com/">wealsoran.com</a>. Both use some rudimentary PHP includes, and both took a <i>lot</i> of time and energy for me to build as a completely know-nothing web programmer. This one, obviously, is <a href="http://watchedpots.com/music.php">more</a> than just a blog. Staying with Blogger might not be an option on either site, but I don't love the idea of migrating to any other blogging software much better. WordPress is the obvious choice, except I'm a genius and bought Windows hosting for this site which I'm now finding won't even allow me to install it. I'm open to suggestions/help, if anyone's paying attention.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* Pete Hopkins from the Blogger team (and from WBRU, represent!) wrote a <a href="http://blog.grogmaster.com/2010/01/bloggers-ftp-migration-plan-tricky.html">great behind-the-scenes post</a> about why they're saying goodbye to FTP publishing, which I've read about 7 times in the past week or so. Check it out if you're curious.</span>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-10244375222932848272010-01-26T15:25:00.000-05:002010-01-26T15:25:17.612-05:00To blog, or not to blog?I started thinking about this a few days ago, when I was messing around with the CSS of this site to make my Google Reader shares display nicely. Well, I started thinking about it <i>again</i>, I guess. I've thought about this many times. Why don't I write on this site anymore? This used to be such an important thing in my life, and now I have to force myself to even think about it most of the time. <br />
<br />
One of the main reasons I don't write much anymore is that I'm afraid of what people who read it will think. Not the random strangers, obviously, but the people who know me and read this, only some of whom I know about. So it's become the most boring kind of blog...the kind that's updated infrequently with pictures from vacations, or sanitized updates about my personal life, scrubbed of names and salacious details. And the knowledge that it's become so banal only paralyzes me further. It's increasingly uninteresting because it's increasingly uninteresting. <br />
<br />
That's not what I wanted this to be when I made it. Well, I guess originally I just made this site so that I'd have a place to pretend I had a band and put the music that resulted from that fantasy. But it evolved pretty immediately into a place that I regularly recorded actual <i>thoughts</i>. It inspired me to learn some basic web programming. Hell, it inspired me to create <i>another</i> <a href="http://wealsoran.com/">site</a> at which I could post more thematically specific things (I all-but-ignore that one too, now, but that's because I don't listen to enough cool music anymore). This site used to bring me joy because it was a public (but still relatively private because honestly, who spends the time to read this stuff?) place to vent*. <br />
<br />
When I go back and read some of that venting though, I'm embarrassed. That's another thing that keeps me from posting more often. An accumulated shame. The fear that the next post might be one more than I'll read later and think was stupid. And the knowledge that, as dumb as it is and as unlikely as it may be that anyone would stumble upon it years from now in a Google cache, I'm crafting an indelible persona for myself on the web that feels incrementally unlike my current self, despite sharing my name. It's petrifying. It's not like I don't have thoughts I'd like to post somewhere all the freaking time. I just don't know that I want to post them here anymore. I feel <i>exposed</i>.<br />
<br />
This is unorganized rambling and it's a testament to my haziness today that I'm going to post it all, especially since there's no A-Ha! moment at the end where I decide to screw everyone and post every day about impolite things like love and politics. I'm probably still not going to post any more often. I've just been thinking a lot about it, is all. <br />
<br />
Anyone else who does this sort of thing ever become similarly preoccupied? <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*This post, by the way, is only meta-venting.</span>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-83948288994992410052010-01-25T15:42:00.001-05:002013-03-17T10:52:37.539-04:00Nerdgasm.I realize that the Cognoscenti of the web will scoff at my years-late acclaim, but I don't care. I've been using it forever, but recently <a href="http://reader.google.com/">Google Reader</a> has become, without question, the most important webthing to me besides email. It's completely made redundant my Digg and del.icio.us accounts, become far more important than Facebook, and solidified my resistance to Twitter (which I <i>still</i> think is dumb). As the sharing features have become more and more robust, it has become a complete maelstrom of things I like but wouldn't have known about if not for my friends. It's a machine that gives me food pellets every time I press the button, and at the same time an echo chamber for all the things I find that I like, from <a href="http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-restaurant-name-fail.jpg">awesome things</a> to <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31956.html">reasons-to-hate-the-GOP</a>. And now, with a little javascript, I've added a constantly updated stream of my most recent shares to the sidebar of <i>this very webpage</i>, to make it easy to ignore not only the things that I take the time to type up myself, but also the things that I just plain agree with or think are funny. This is very exciting.<br />
<br />
If you're super cool, you're already reading this blog with your Google Reader, in which case, I'm always <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/shared/mmcclenathan">looking for more sharebros</a>. If you're not already using it, get on board son. This train is bound for glory.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-54701010876177417402009-12-17T23:36:00.001-05:002009-12-17T23:40:59.768-05:00trainshow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2LAywdJBikgyWOpwra0YdKDZzCwahTRNqvYNjLA3FRMf9wgYhhj_VEoqJqkfSRiMs340lTsNkz-PEx90ez3-pzxTb1eJR0kKrZaAVL4eUDILAsDi-bBZQGxgyj1JEYgxm4eD/s1600/DSCF0479.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2LAywdJBikgyWOpwra0YdKDZzCwahTRNqvYNjLA3FRMf9wgYhhj_VEoqJqkfSRiMs340lTsNkz-PEx90ez3-pzxTb1eJR0kKrZaAVL4eUDILAsDi-bBZQGxgyj1JEYgxm4eD/s320/DSCF0479.JPG" /></a><br />
</div>Not a super-ton to say here...but I figured it's best to push any entry down the page a bit that declares how "remarkably shitty" I've been. God, it's so embarrassing to read the things I write on here when I'm in a bad mood. I don't know what prevents me from just deleting all that stuff, other than a misguided desire to preserve...something. Anyway, I'm much better now. Promise. As proof, check out all these <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/mmcclenathan/TrainShow?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGG58bswIriKw#">pictures</a> I took at the <a href="http://www.nybg.org/hts09/">Holiday Train Show</a> at the NYBG. <br />
<br />
Wonderful to remember once in a while that local tourism and awesomeness are not mutually exclusive.Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13156070.post-36574980437356501782009-11-14T11:51:00.001-05:002009-11-14T11:57:01.363-05:00false startsHow've you been? I've been remarkably shitty lately. I've sat down to write a lot lately on here, but I've always chickened out before posting and cleared everything I had written. I'll have a lot to say on what I'll look back on as my Scumbag Period eventually, and I'll post it here when the time is right because that's what I do, but for now I just don't have it in me. Suffice to say for now that I've been less than the man I aspire to be, and I'm paying for it.<br />
<br />
Apropos of nothing, I've been poring over some other false starts (dating back just a bit more than 2 <i>years</i>) and while I can't really remember why I abandoned some of these (others are more obvious) I'm compelled today to put these out there and delete them from draft, just for the heck of it. Also, someone told me I could make breaks now in Blogger, so I figured this was a fun way to try that. A bunch of stuff you won't care about, below the break! [EDIT: that shit isn't going to work for me unless I really retool this template, which is ghastly old. I'm not doing that today, or anytime soon.]<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
11/7/07<br />
<br />
I joke a lot with the kids I teach about the "smell of fear" in the SAT test room. I ask them how many of them have pets, and how many of them have ever been to the vet's office with their pet. And how many of them know that very distinct smell in the vet's waiting room. "That's fear," I tell them, "and if you concentrate very hard in the SAT room you'll faintly smell the same smell."<br />
<br />
It's a joke, but there's truth to it. I know that now, because I put on a hoodie and rolled incognito into New Utrecht High School here in Brooklyn this past Saturday. I took the test with a bunch of high school kids. I got the same itchy scalp that I've always gotten when it's hot and dry and I'm nervous, I struggled to grip my #2 pencil through the palm sweat, and I sniffed the air curiously, trying to distinguish that old familiar smell.<br />
<br />
As I waited for the test to begin, the girls in front of me bragged loudly to each other, acutely aware of the fact that people were listening, about how drunk they had been on Halloween, and the weekend before Halloween, and like omg, every weekend this whole school year.<br />
<br />
…<br />
<br />
7/14/08<br />
<br />
is it too much to<br />
ask for a<br />
up in this biatch?<br />
<br />
<i>[I have to assume this was a great idea for a haiku that I never even saw through to completion]</i><br />
<br />
…<br />
<br />
8/23/08<br />
<br />
I had a few drinks last night during a surprisingly competitive <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Blox">Boom Blox</a> session.<br />
<br />
Conversation during and after brunch this morning slowly but surely made its way past the events and odors of the night before and into the the nature of the work Rob does in physics. Dark matter, dark energy, the accelerating expansion of the universe, etc. Real make-you-feel-small kinda shit.<br />
<br />
…<br />
10/23/08<br />
<br />
I was in a half-empty subway car the other day doing my best to stare as straightly ahead as I usually do without the aid of earbuds to smother startling sounds, trying to keep my eyes to myself as an agitated man on my left cursed not softly to himself, as a young mother across from me decided to wait until she could get off the train to quiet her shrieking progeny.<br />
<br />
A man with a mean looking limp boarded the train and hobbled over to the seat next to me and sat down a little too hard, favoring his sore right leg over a graceful landing. Because he bumped me, I broke my staring contest with the floor to smile and nod acceptance to the hurried apology I felt coming. He was wearing jeans and a flannel work shirt, and I noticed what looked like a hospital bracelet poking out from under his sleeve.<br />
<br />
…<br />
<br />
1/12/09<br />
<br />
I put on the 3rd disc in the Springsteen Live 1975-85 collection on tonight. When I was a kid, I had that one (and only that one) on cassette. I found it in the attic of the church rectory, which I had helped to clean out one day for some reason I can't remember when I was in my first or second year of high school. I had a CD player then, of course, but my Walkman was still more convenient when I was asked to vacuum the house or weed the back patio, or when I wanted to be antisocial. I listened to that tape <i>a lot</i>.<br />
<br />
The tracklisting was slightly different than it is on the CD version. On the tape, The River was the 3rd song. It's the first on the CD, which I think is better. On the<br />
<br />
I've had to bite my tongue a couple times in the past few weeks when someone<br />
<br />
<i>[and then it just stops, but I have to assume this was about how rankled I get when someone trashtalks The Boss.]</i>Michael McClenathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06628601293985540599noreply@blogger.com1