Tuesday, January 30, 2007

License Plate Watch 22

Seen today on a Volvo: "LV4PAR".

Golf, anyone?

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Sorry, but

Spotted this flyer under windshield wipers of a few cars while out walking and used my camera phone to get this photo of it on one of those cars.



I was very amused at seeing that it actually apologizes about itself, then launches into an incredibly florid "Once in a lifetime" sales pitch. Complete with invocation of Donald Trump!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Apparent misspelling of the day, or...

...who is this Hugh and why are you selling him?

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Upon further consideration

I have previously written about use of self checkout, and my finding it a generally acceptable alternative in the implementation being used by the supermarket Albertsons.

No more do I find it acceptable. I ran out of patience with the Albertsons system when it developed a very easily triggered tendency to go into an error loop that can only be stopped by manual intervention by the clerk who minds the self checkout stations.

How does this error loop occur? For example:
  • I remove an item from the bagging area (because that area is getting too crowded) when it is supposed to be OK to remove items from that area.
  • The station's audio prompts start complaining about "Item unexpectedly removed from bagging area. Return item to bagging area." (Or something similar.) I return the item.
  • The audio prompt then starts complaining about "Unexpected item in bagging area." I remove the item.
  • The audio prompt returns to complaining about "Item unexpected removed from bagging area...."
  • And so on and so forth ad nauseum until the clerk intervenes.
Bah. I don't have the time to waste. I've quit using the Albertsons self checkout system until and if they bring in something else entirely.

I still don't have experience with other self checkout systems to comment on them.