Huh

Stopped at an Albertsons grocery on my home from work today. When I walked into the store I was startled to see a little table set up by someone who was offering subscriptions to the local newspaper; the startling thing was that the inducement for subscribing was being displayed as a chance for a $250 shopping spree at Ralphs grocery (a competitor of Albertsons).

I was really surprised this guy hadn't been tossed out because of that!

Making Flash VERY annoying. And how to fix it.

So I read a recommendation for a web comic called Alpha Shade, and decided to check it out. And very quickly began thinking about not looking at any more because of what I found to be an incredible amount of continuous changing of Flash ads. I was just finding them to be insanely distracting.

But, since I am using the Firefox browser, I recalled reading previously about an extension for Firefox that blocks Flash objects with an icon that can be clicked to view the objects.

And since I was finding the art and story of Alpha Shade to be quite interesting, I decided to install that extension and see if it helped. It did; YAAY!

I hear you

Earlier today at work two people in one of the aisles next to mine were talking about something, and at one point the conversation shifted to whispering to each other about whatever the topic was.

Please, people. Do you really think people aren't going to notice you are whispering? I personally usually have no trouble tuning out conversations in normal tones, but when others start whispering to each other, I can't help but notice.

If you've got something to talk about that prompts to you to whisper: Go. Somewhere. Else. That. Is. Private!

Mike Nelson's Death Rat!: A Review

Just finished re-reading an outstanding summer novel: Mike Nelson's Death Rat!, by Michael J. Nelson, the former head writer/host of the great comedy TV series, "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

This novel is centered around a sixtyish writer of obscure history books who has the highly improbable name Pontius Feeb. (Otherwise known as "Ponty.")

Circumstances having made him desperate for money, Ponty decides to write a trashy novel that features a six-foot long killer rat. Due to circumstances beyond his control that I will not get into here, his novel ends up being sold to a publisher and printed as a true story, and becomes a major bestseller. And that is where Nelson's wonderful sense of silliness really kicks in, as Ponty frantically attempts to create a cover story to explain why the tale of the death rat is a true story (so as to allow the money from sales to keep coming in.)

Nelson has many great touches in his writing, including wonderfully developed parodies of his fellow Minnesotans Garrison Keillor and Prince.

And it is simply flat out funny. So go forth and read it!

Self checkout - nays and yays

The concept of self checkout at stores has been rolling into San Diego for some time. First time I saw such a set up was at a Home Depot. The implementation they are using worked fine for me the once or twice I have used it. But I really don't go to Home Depot enough to have a proper opinion of their set-up.

On the other hand - I do my regular grocery shopping at Albertsons. Last year they began installing their self checkout set-up at stores that have enough space to allow whatever number of standard checkouts that have to be removed for installation of the self checkout units, and still have whatever their minimum number of standard checkouts is.

I have gotten into the habit of using the Albertsons self checkout system. It certainly has quirks. For instance, the space for bagging of items is really not large enough to hold everything in a regular weekly (or whatever) purchase, but the system is definitely happiest if the customer does keep everything that is being purchased in the bagging space until payment is completed.

I find I always have to put at least one, and usually two bags in the cart before I am able to finish scanning and bagging everything. And when I do that, the system starts whining about an item being removed and telling me to put it back. When the whining starts, the system does display an option for the customer to press that basically tells the system: yes I did mean to remove that bag so shut up. I've gotten pretty good about being fast to press that option and thus cut off the system's audible complaining before it really gets going.

But these complaints are really pretty minor. Overall I like using the self checkout because I appreciate having more control over the process, and I normally am out the door and walking to my car at least as fast, if not more so, than if I had gone to a standard checkout.

(I can't comment on other self checkout systems because I just haven't seen any others to date.)

Testing

Testing