2005 September

Just how stupid is Bank of America? Quite, according to Ponzi (who, at one point in her life, worked at a bank herself). Most of the CSR's responses seemed can, including the final statements: “Thank you for your time this evening, I thank you for letting me know how you feel, and I will mention our chat to my manager. It was a pleasure assisting you today. To close this chat session, please click the X in the upper right corner of this chat window. Thanks for choosing Bank of America, have a great day!” The problem is: we didn't choose Bank of America. And the solution is: we'll never choose Bank of America again. We can spend and invest our money elsewhere, I'd like to believe. Read her chat transcript – tell me if she's alone. According to a quick search, she's not:

Read more on Bank of America (BoA) Sucks…

It's headed right for us! “Northern Voice is a community-based blogging and personal publishing conference that started in February, 2005. This year's conference will take place on Friday, February 10 and Saturday, February 11, 2006 at UBC's downtown campus. We hope to bring together up to bloggers and blogging neophytes to: Learn more about social, cultural and technological aspects of blogging; Exchange ideas about improving our weblogs; Meet each other in meatspace; Network, make new friends and influence people; Have an excuse for a party.” I'm putting it on my calendar now. You?

Read more on Use Your Northern Voice…

I'm a big Nightmare Before Christmas fan, as well as someone who admires Tim Burton's eye (which isn't to say I enjoy every one of Burton's creations). Ponzi reminded me that tonight, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride was playing all across town. “Oh yeah!” I had been looking forward to seeing another full-length stop animation feature film, though I never saw Nightmare Before Christmas on the big screen. I'm not going to spoil Corpse Bride if you haven't seen it yet. Don't walk into the theater expecting it to be another Nightmare; the characters weren't all that deep, and the story was not a Burton original. IMHO, Elfman did better Before, too. Still, the animotion was spectacular – and they've certainly come a long way since Halloweentown. I've never been in a tighter space with more goths in my life – that was certainly a first.

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Yes, traffic can be that bad at peak times. I see bumper to bumper traffic out my home office window, and I'm thankful I don't have to commute anywhere on the average work day. Carpooling? Out of the question. The HOV staircase is for everybody in my home. Truth be told, the traffic isn't horrendous. Even in rush hour, there's still vehicle movement (unless there's an accident). Go ahead and click on this graphic I whipped up to get a larger view – as if you couldn't tell what I was trying to convey from the thumbnail?

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I met Brad a couple of years ago. He sucked as much then as he sucks now. That said, he has completed his first album (”now available in professional manufactured CD form including artwork and lyric sheet. Manufacturing was funded by the awesome people who paid for my music even though it was available for free.”). You can download the album right away – I grabbed it via BitTorrent without a hiccup a few minutes ago and am listening to “I Don't Know What I'm Doing” right now. It sucks – it really sucks – in a very good Brad Sucks way.
When you're bad, you're bad. When you're sick, you're sick. When you suck, you suck. And nobody sucks more than Brad and this album (and the remixes). Download the MP3s and see how much he sucks if you don't believe me! He sucks so much, he's made his sources available for remixing. You can make his stuff suck even more.
The suckiest song on this album is “Borderline” (no doubt, my favorite sucky song). It sucks so much, I'm going to listen to it again. He didn't get the rash from me, either.

Read more on Brad Sucks. Really….

Get 'em answered tonight on our show (1.888.PIRILLO or chris.pirillo@gmail.com). We've got Major Nelson coming in… who is (in real life) Larry Hryb. He's officially the “Xbox Live Director of Programming” in the Xbox Live product group, but he's more passionate about the Xbox than anybody else on the planet. I'm updating this entry after we had him on, largely because I want to let listeners know that we'll have the live show up in the archive very soon. It was back-to-back callers for almost an hour and a half this time. We hit a hot button with the Xbox 360! I pre-ordered mine this week, although I think I forgot to place an order for the A/B/G wireless extender. I'll have to pick up a wireless A router specifically for the Xbox 360 (to stream HD content over the air). I only pre-ordered a couple of games, though. I'll wait until the reviews come out before I get any others. I'm guessing that Burnout will be one of my favorite Xbox 360 games. We'll see… and we'll definitely have Major Nelson back on!

Read more on Xbox 360 Questions?…

I should have spent most of my afternoon in the hospital. It all started when I went to the grocery store to pick up some low-carb bread (which is really tasty, although it doesn't have much of a shelf life). As I was walking down the soup aisle, a can of tomato soup flew off of the shelf and beaned me in the side of the face. As blood started trickling down my cheek and onto my lips, I was able to read the label on the container (which was rolling around on the floor): “Save money if you buy me today!” Fair enough. I kicked it to the side and continued on my journey. By the time I reached the fruit aisle, the bleeding had stopped. I started to search for some spaghetti squash (another low carb treat) when I found myself sailing backwards onto the cold, hard floor. A stupid cantaloupe had rolled 'neath my boot. It, too, had a sticker on its shell: “Buy me and get another one free!” I didn't ask for the cantaloupe, so I pushed it away and headed to the checkout counter. I'll never shop there again, I swear. Things really started to get interesting on my way home.
I was no less than a twenty feet away from the store when a huge freakin' billboard came crashing into my windshield. I wasn't sure what was going on until I was able to make out the large lettering: “Learn how to drive carefully by taking this course.” Ah, fair enough – it had my best interests in mind. I wish more signs would bother to be as invasive. The damage to my car was minimal, but I was still quite shaken (not stirred in the slightest). Trying to conserve energy, I rolled down the window and let the breeze pass through my vehicle. Someone was grilling out tonight – I could smell the charcoal. Steak started to sound good, so I found myself turning around and heading back to the store. That's when a t-bone flew in through the other window and landed on my lap. I was able to brush it off quickly, but now I have this horrible stain on my pants that I won't be able to get out – even if I send it through the washer a few times. In a blink, I was back in the same place that had abused me just ten minutes before. The store's name?
The Internet.
Web marketers and advertisers who think they're actually getting better results with their intrusive tactics are deluding themselves, destroying the vehicles which could potentially bring them an audience, and generally making life not worth living online. I used to be dead-set against any type of advertisement blocker, but I'm having to reconsider that position. I understand supporting yourself with sponsors is sometimes a necessity – that's how Lockergnome keeps rolling along. But the day you see a pop-up or pop-under on our site is the day I quit. Tutorials have been keeping our head above water during these tougher times, but we still won't crack and force you to fall victim to one of the most heinous business practices of our time. Unsolicited e-mail is just as bad, and if that doesn't stop soon, then opting in to anybody's Inbox will become the norm – not just for newsletters. What I can't understand is why it's still happening? I shouldn't have to carry a shield with me if I'm just walking down the street. This isn't supposed to be a battle. This isn't supposed to be annoying. I'm working on a dummy invoice which I'm going to mail to every Internet company who refuses to play by MY rules. They'll get charged $100 per incident; all checks are payable to ME. If more people did this, perhaps they'd get the picture?
[I wrote this in 2002! A good friend reminded me of it today.]

Read more on The New Face of Advertising…

We never really know what’s going to happen on the weekly live show and this week is no exception. We’ll be taking live calls, of course, so have your dialing finger ready to punch 888.PIRILLO. There’s a very strong chance the military might behind Xbox 360 will be paying a visit to the studio this evening, although the exact details of the marching papers remain top secret so we can’t confirm or deny anything just yet.

Read more on Thursday 22 September 2005…

Before diving into the meat of this particular show segment, where Chris gets berated by a series of callers for not finalizing his wedding plans, we take a series of tech calls. First up is a question about which PDA to purchase. A discussion of Windows security relative to various operating systems is discussed, followed by a heated discussion about which anti-virus product actually works. Jason of This Week in Games fame calls in to talk about the Nintendo Revolution controller and the fun begins. When will Chris and Ponzi get married? If the callers have their way, it’s happening in January 2006, which doesn’t put Chris in the clear for avoiding the Year of the Rooster.

Read more on Callers Marry Chris in 2006?…