Dear Microsoft (makers of Microsoft Word 2007), nobody ever wants their documents displayed like this:

The best part is that the pages are numbered consecutively in the following order: upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right.

Now, this difficult-to-read format is bad, but it wouldn’t be nearly half as bad if I could simply opt out of it.  Word 2007 displays a document in two columns if you change the zoom from a position where only one column could fit, to a position where two columns could fit, regardless of whether you recently set the display option for single or dual column.   The setting is ignored as soon as you start to zoom.

This is an infuriating quirk.  Here’s a quick video demonstrating the problem:

And JW below was right, this is whiny. In the video I even have an exacerbated sigh!

I signed up for Mint.com hoping that I could use it as a free, online replacement for Quicken. It turns out that Mint.com doesn’t allow you to enter cash transactions (for no clear reason) so my hopes were quickly thwarted. I still get emails from them sometimes, though, so I went to the unsubscribe page, linked from the emails, to try to opt out. Here’s the page:

Ignoring the fact that I can’t uncheck the final checkbox, take a look at the totally legible submit button (or is it a clear button?):

It gets no clearer when you mouse-over it:

Oh, and it’s not just Firefox, here’s the site in Internet Explorer:

Same legibility problem:

Same mouse-over problem:

It’s almost as if they don’t want you to be able to unsubscribe. Go figure. Boo Mint.com, I hate you.

Sorry Brian, totally my fault.  I’ll kick in a few bucks if you need help paying the rent.

I’m soon to be in the market for a new car and was interested in signing up for Consumer Reports in order to do a little research. When I attempted to sign up online I was unimpressed by their ironically un-consumer-friendly online subscription models — they’re all auto-renew:

Mandatory auto renew is a crock and certainly does not aid me as a consumer, it just gives me a chance to forget that I’ve signed up for a product that I definitely only want for one time period. I just find it ironic that Consumer Reports would take such an anti-consumer friendly position considering their general pro-consumer stance.  This is a slimy, pro-business anti-consumer move and they should be shamed for it.

I guess I’ll just get the car issue off the newsstand, ebay, or preferably from my local library.

I recently flew Virgin America between DC and Los Angeles and was very, very pleased with the service. In addition to all the well-touted and well-reviewed features, they paid a lot of attention to smaller details that can make a trip more enjoyable. The most impressive of these smaller details was the amount of care devoted to the safety placards and the safety video.

First the video. Tell me if you’ve ever watched a safety video as enjoyable (and non-condescending) as this one:

Now the safety placards. They, like the video, communicate the same safety information you’ve seen a thousand times, but Virgin America has gone through the trouble of updating the imagery so it doesn’t look like the hypothetical disaster is affecting passengers in some strange 1970s universe.

Here’s the entire Virgin America safety card:

Click to big-ify

Check out the attire on the passengers. And the facial hair. I’ve pinpointed a few examples of what I’m talking about:

Click to big-ify

Attention to minor details isn’t going to convert a bad customer interaction to a good one, but it indicates that someone, somewhere is actually thinking about the customer and trying to make every aspect of his/her experience a better one. That bodes well for everything else. Good job!

Click image to wide-ify.

This picture is from a Best Buy in Virginia near Charlottesville. The price of a new 3 foot component video cable was $7.99, the price of the “open item” version of the same 3 foot component video cable was $9.99.

What a bargain!

Dear Del Monte,

On Tuesday, October 16th I purchased a package of Del Monte Quality brand celery from my local Safeway that contained two celery hearts and one caterpillar. Obviously I only intended to purchase the celery hearts, so the caterpillar could be seen as something of a bonus. A very, very disgusting bonus.

Just today, when I opened the package, I was halfway through preparing a large, tasty salad for myself when I discovered the caterpillar. He seemed quite friendly, though disturbingly slimy and gross. While I might not mind having him as a friend, I certainly don’t want to find him crawling out of my lunch.

Here are some nice closeups of our friend the caterpillar:

And here the caterpillar is in its natural environment, surrounded by half eaten celery stalks and the Del Monte Quality celery packaging.

Before I threw away the celery, and shoved my friend the caterpillar into the garbage disposal, I took one last picture demonstrating my current opinion of Del Monte “Quality” products:

While I acknowledge there may be a limit to how much caterpillar prevention you as a corporation can undertake, if this represents your best I would ask that you hire a series of scientists to invent some sort of an x-ray caterpillar scanner because this sort of thing really, really puts me off eating produce… especially yours.

Thank you.

PS. To see larger versions of these images, click on them and then, once that page loads, click on them again.  

During my recent trip to London I attempted to visit the Tate Modern but was rebuffed by a confusing security guard who wouldn’t let us go up the elevator and wouldn’t explain why not.

At the time they were constructing a new centerpiece installation which turns out to have been Shibboleth (or, Doris’s Crack, after its creator Doris Salcedo).

The 550 foot long, 10 inch wide crack runs most of the length of the ground floor of the museum and symbolizes… you know… immigration or something. Anyway, people have been toppling into the thing, including at least one woman who believed it was painted on. Whoops! She must have been thinking of these.

After my annoyingly fruitless efforts to actually buy Buzz Cola and Krusty O’s from the Kwik-E-Marts (nee 7-11s) this summer, I’ve decided that I will not be denied my Simpsons-branded treats. Today I ordered a baker’s 6-pack of Buzz Cola and a box of Krusty O’s from Ebay. This may have been a questionable use of $25.

Why?

A few days ago I was lamenting the inability to search Amazon.com for products sold by Amazon rather than by third party vendors who charge more for shipping and have a decidedly fly-by-night feeling to them. Thankfully, Lori points out that it is sort of possible:

Many of the Amazon.com store categories let you refine your search in the left column. As you refine, you’ll get an option to limit results “By Seller”. Choose Amazon.com to limit your results to the items sold by Amazon.

You have to search for something, say routers, then choose to limit your search to a category, say Electronics, and then you’re given the option to limit your search by vendor to Amazon.

I wish this were a little bit more transparent and that you didn’t have to first narrow your search to a category before you can filter by vendor (why doesn’t Amazon have some sort of Advanced Search option?) but its definitely better than nothing.

Is there any way to search Amazon.com so that the site only displays items actually being sold by Amazon? I don’t trust the other shyster companies that sell things through Amazon, offer poor customer service, and charge their own, irrational shipping rates, but there’s no immediately apparent way to filter out these bad guys from Amazon.

Anyone have any idea?

By the way, when I said the other day “[d]amn you Linksys, you’ve screwed me again!” the reason it was “again” was because of this well known, well documented issue that they haven’t bothered to fix on routers that they continue to sell. When using the wireless features of the Linksys WCG200 combination cable modem/router, the unit stops working under heavy load and requires a manual reset. This will happen extremely frequently if you’re a heavy Internet user.

The fact that they continue to sell the modem is baffling. Don’t buy products from Linksys, they don’t support them and their offshore tech support is extraordinarily difficult to deal with.

“On September 18th, Comcast will be adding The Pentagon Channel (TPC) on Basic service, channel 185.” I can only imagine this will be very, very boring.

If you want a preview, you can check it out online.

Dear GameStop,

Two days ago on September 12, 2007, at around 5:30pm, I visited GameStop store number 4101 in the Fashion Center Mall in Pentagon City located at 1100 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202. I was there to buy a new Wii console along with some games and accessories. It was an unpleasant and disturbing experience marked by poor customer service and a surprisingly high level of homophobia.

When I first arrived, I was pleased to find six or seven employees inside the store. “Great,” I thought, “they’ll help me quickly.” That wasn’t in the cards. The employees were deeply enmeshed in conversation and had arranged themselves on either side of the counter so that I was unable to get anyone’s attention. I waited for a lengthy period of time. Here’s a quick visual representation of the situation:

As I waited for the employees to realize that they had blocked customers from actually buying any products, I was privy to their conversation. In reality, even if I had been standing on the walkway outside of the store I would have been privy to their conversation–it wasn’t quiet.

While I waited to be noticed, I was surprised by their loud and frequent use of the words “fuck” and “shit” in casual conversation. Eventually one of the employees indicated that the male employee behind the counter was having dreams about another male employee and that he was, hence, a “homo” and a “fag.” They went back and forth for a few minutes, debating whether the counter employee was in fact a “homo.” The guy behind the counter argued that he was merely dreaming of “running over” the other male employee with a large motor vehicle and was, therefore, not a “homo.” Again, this was not a quiet conversation.

At this point, the non-”homo” behind the counter noticed that I was waiting and took my order.

Now, while I wasn’t all that happy about the “fuck”s and the “shit”s, it was GameStop so I was willing to accept a somewhat lower standard of decorum than I would from other retail establishments. I understand who your target demographic is. If that was all there was to it, I would have just written off the unpleasant attitude as simply a sign of a store with poor (or absent) local management. The slide from annoying swearing into casual and open homophobia and bigotry, however, was really surprising and disheartening. Is this how GameStop wants to portray itself to the game buying public? Is casual sexism the next thing I can expect from my local GameStop? Or racism? How far down this path is GameStop willing to travel?

Your customers are not, at present, all 13 year-old boys. If this attitude continues to be flaunted at your storefronts, however, it’s hard to imagine that anybody else is going to want to shop there.

Because of the store’s atmosphere I choose not to buy several games and accessories.

I would appreciate a response, both to the situation and to my letter. I have posted this letter online here and would be happy to post whatever response you feel is appropriate alongside the letter.

Thank you.

UPDATE: The responses:

I recently received some communication from my corporate office that you had an unacceptable shopping experience in one of my stores. I want to assure you that I take these kinds of situation extremely seriously. I was hoping you would be willing to give me a call at your convenience to discuss this matter. The easiest time to get a hold of me will be on Monday, but you can call me any time that is convenient to you. If you miss me just leave a message and I will call you back.

Thank you for your concern and I assure we will be looking into this situation with great energy.

—– ——-
District Manager
DC Southeast, D59
Cell: — — —-

and

I am writing in response to your email below regarding your recent visit and unfortunate experience at our Fashion Center Mall GameStop store.This must have been very disturbing and frustrating.

On behalf of GameStop let me start by offering my sincere apologies for the manner in which you were treated and for the poor quality of customer service we provided. Rest assured this is not the quality of interaction we strive for at GameStop. We work and train diligently to ensure every visit to one of our stores is a fun, informative and enjoyable experience. Our employees are expected to treat every customer with personalized service, in a professional and courteous manner.

We at GameStop wish to assure you we take customer service matters very seriously. We value your business and want you to feel comfortable shopping with us in the future. Rest assured we will take appropriate measures to ensure this will not happen again.

You will receive a follow-up email once our investigation is complete. If you prefer to be contacted directly by phone please provide your contact information and we will be happy to call you.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us and we would like to again offer our sincere apologies for this unfortunate incident.

Sincerely,
Steve Morgan
President

I bought a Wii.

Upside – games.

Downside – I occasionally get the following message when attempting to access the Everybody Votes Channel:

Data could not be received. Please confirm your Internet connection in Wii Settings and try again later. Error Code: 230500.

It turns out this means that my wireless router sucks:

The routers listed below are provided to customers by their Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Due to the way the Wii console interacts with these routers’ firewalls (sometimes called an SPI firewall), it may not be able to connect online, even when using the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector or the Wii LAN Adapter…

Linksys
WCG200 ver. 2
WCG200-CC
WCG200-CC ver. 2

Netgear
CG814W
CG814WG ver .2
CG814WG

RCA
DCW725

Damn you Linksys, you’ve screwed me again!

I went to Home Depot today to buy a few screws, a few brackets, and a small piece of 4×4 to fix a couch inadvertently destroyed by a subletter. I needed an employee to cut the wood for me, so I waited in line for the one employee who was able to cut wood. I know he was the only employee able to cut wood because he was then re-assigned to drive a forklift while everyone with wood-cutting needs was required to wait.

I’m baffled as to why they would have the one and only employee able to cut wood drive a forklift when there were other qualified forklift drivers (I saw them) and people waiting for wood (I saw and heard them).

After the half hour forklift excursion, I was informed that they couldn’t cut 4×4 pieces of wood at this Home Depot because all the 4×4 wood was “green wood.” I’ve never heard of “green wood” before, but apparently it’s pressure treated and has something in it that makes it dangerous for Home Depot employees to cut it. Either that, or they were just lazy. It wasn’t entirely clear. If it’s dangerous to cut “green wood” how would anybody ever build anything out of it? It’s not like everyone’s using only the full, uncut 8 foot long 4×4s.

I was not able to get the wood I needed to fully repair my couch. Boo DC Home Depot.

1,000,000.

The era of the Kwik-E-Mart is over. I dropped by the Los Angeles Kwik-E-Mart today and it was back to its sad former existence as an ordinary convenience store. No lines, no security guards, no fighting for parking, no nerdy gawkers with their cameras… boring. They took off the new facade; the store now looks old, broken and faded.

Click to big-ify

This means that I was never able to purchase Buzz Cola, or Frosted Krusty-O’s in the store, and for that I’m sad. As far as I know, they were never restocked in Los Angeles. I was, however, able to buy a pink donut today, which was good, but there was something missing when I had to buy it from a regular old 7-Eleven. It just wasn’t the same.

Farewell Kwik-E-Mart, you will be missed.

I was thwarted in my previous attempts to buy Simpsons merchandise at the local Kwik-E-Mart, but I figured that since it had been a few days, and since I’m an American, I would try again. I am fortunate enough to live in the only area with two themed Kwik-E-Marts, so I gave them both a shot.

Both had enormous lines, and both were sold out of all the good stuff (just like they were a few days ago). They apparently are totally unable to actually stock the merchandise:

If you’re curious what the line was like, here are the pictures I took at both locations, but since the line in Burbank actually snaked around the building, the best way to get a feel for it is through this short video:

I attempted to visit the Simpsons themed 7-Eleven in Los Angeles a few times yesterday, but there was always a line out the door. I went back early this morning only to find a sign apologizing that they were sold out of the following items:

• Chutnee Squishees
• Buzz Cola
• Frosty Krusty-O’s
• Tofu Dogs
• Some other things

Like I was going to stick around to buy a non-Simpsons themed item? As far as I could tell, the only thing they hadn’t sold out of were the pink donuts… but I’ve had pink donuts before! I wanted Buzz Cola and Krusty-O’s and I’m exceedingly disappointed that I couldn’t buy them. Here’s what they should have had.

Let’s hope they didn’t blow their entire marketing budget for the novelty items on July 4th… I want to find that jagged metal O.

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of the actual sign:

And the actual text:

Dear Customer,

I am very sorry but we are out of (our minds) and: Buzz Cola, Krusty O’s, Radioactive Man, Tofu Dogs, Chutney Squishee.

Please try again
APU

They claim that they’re going to be able to restock the sold out items, but it’s been a few days now and things aren’t looking any better.

Yesterday I stopped by a Taco Bell in Los Angeles in which the staff was entirely encased in bank style anti-theft glass. I will not be going back.

While that safety glass presumably protects the staff (and, I suppose, the customers since thieves are less likely to target this particular establishment), it also ghettoizes the store. The safety glass’s assumption that a criminal element will be patronizing this store is a self fulfilling prophesy: As a non-criminal customer, I don’t like to be in a store that (a) has an apparently high risk of being robbed, and (b) treats me like a criminal. I assume I’m not alone in this feeling. The only people who won’t mind being treated like criminals, are, unsurprisingly, criminals.

By treating your customers like criminals, your customers will be criminals.

On the East Coast, when I order a Cold Cut Trio at Subway, they cut the bread open and fold it back so the interior lays flat and is twice the width of the bread. They then place the meat flat along this surface, put the cheese, lettuce and whatnot on top of the meat and then fold it so the sandwich is, from top to bottom, bread, meat, stuff, meat, bread. (At least, that’s what I remember.)

On the West Coast, when they place the meat inside the sandwich, they don’t lay it flat but instead fold it once, so the meat is twice as thick, and then lay the other toppings on top of the meat. The sandwich, from top to bottom, is bread, stuff, meat, bread (with the meat being double-thick).

I think I prefer the East Coast subway style. The meat on the West Coast just seems too thick.

Did I just imagine that they make the sandwiches differently?

Nothing beats a good angry note: