First off, I’m not much of a visual designer.  I can barely draw, my handwriting is ferociously difficult to read, and I can’t identify typefaces on sight.  However, I’m aware of my shortcomings so as a web developer I make use of very simple design patterns and online color scheme widgets to choose my colors for me.  I can whip up a simple text-based logo that is more attractive than you’d see on most corporate intranet sites and I like to think that I can make large amounts of data readable.

(more…)

Absolute Plumbing in Kansas City sucks

Do NOT use this company for any plumbing needs.  They installed a new water heater at my house and two years later this is what it looks like.

The owner of this company insists that it’s a leak above the water heater and that it was NOT an improper installation.  I’ve checked the area and there is no moisture.  He won’t even send someone out just to check on it.  He claims that the work is only warranteed for 30 days, which is mostly useless because corrosion of this sort would not appear within that amount of time.  DO NOT USE ABSOLUTE PLUMBING.

Hmm, that was WAAAAY too easy.  My only complaint about my new provider is that they put my virtual server on ONE partition.  That’s silly.

My state is one of those few that does not require front license plates. This (lack of) policy allows its drivers to express themselves in this 12″x6″ space on the front of their vehicles. The 2:1 ratio is rather close to the international flag ratio of 5:3. This coincidence encourages the displaying of a national flag in this “expression zone.” To me, it seems that the most common flag displayed is that of Ireland. (Mexico comes close) The Irish flag is lovely. It’s a classic three-vertical-bar design with the instantly recognizable national colors of green and orange. So, please tell me why every one of these plates has a fucking shamrock in the middle of it? “So dey knows it’s Irish.” Now, I’ve been called a pessimist, but I doubt flyers of said aluminum flag can name the captain of Ireland’s national football team. “Ireland has a football team?” It’s not just the plates either. I’ve seen stickers on rear-window expression zones with the same addition. Do Yanks in Ireland have little US flags with an unregistered automatic weapon in the middle? Maybe they fly the Adbusters flag.

Half-way through this post I birthed another theory. It’s a bit more positive, hold on to your fair-trade cuppa. The guy in charge of this flag design was the proudest Irishman imaginable. He not only knows the team’s captain, he also celebrates his date of birth. This guy realized that the Ivory Coast uses the same flag design, but inverted. This fella wanted to insure that stupid Americans would properly display his country’s flag instead of the flag of the former French colony in Africa. Right, it sounds like a stretch, but I’ve witnessed this egregious error twice in my own city. I took sheer joy in revealing to one of the geosymbolic-challenged that he was flying the flag of a nice little African country.

(I totally invented “geosymbolic” but it’s pretty much awesome)

“Advertisement” should be abbreviated, “ad,” not “add.” WTF is that? There’s only one “d” in the original word. Not to mention that it’s rather annoying when an abbreviation looks like another valid word.

It’s spelled, “queue,” not “cue” or “que.” Why do you continue to spell it incorrectly after I’ve used it three times in our IM exchange? I fear the only action that will have an effect will be to take the misspellings literally and ask why you’re asking when to be signaled or why you’re speaking Spanish.

Whenever I see a piece of advertising that employs the pun, I always envision a group of white folks that think they’re sooooo creative sitting in a conference room at 2AM, Chinese food cartons strewn about, everyone frustrated and ready to go home when suddenly some blowhard named Tucker exclaims, “I know, we’ll use a pun!,” which is celebrated with 20 minutes of self-congratulations and applause. Tucker is promoted to VP of Advertising.

The “creative bullpen” scene in The Hudsucker Proxy nails it.

There are five stalls available, you don’ t need the extra room provided by the handicapped stall.  I understand that it’s certainly not reserved for me to change out of my bike clothes since I’m not handicapped either, but it’s a lot easier and more comfortable to put on my pants without having to worry about touching the toilet.  I need room to extend limbs, you just need a hole in which to shit.

Bring Your Child to Work Day is a complete farce. No one wants their kids to know about the soul-crushing, menial tasks they’re required to complete at their job. Thankfully, my co-workers have teamed up to provide board games (which are being played on the floor in the aisles) so they can leave early on a Friday and their kids don’t have to know that mommy or daddy is expendable.