Those pop-up ads finally got to me

It really takes me a long time to make a decision on pretty much anything. The biggest fights Tracy and I have are over where to go for dinner, as neither of us seems to want to make the selection. True to form, after more than a year and a half waffling back and forth, I decided to finally sign up for Netflix. Yes, even the most mundane decisions take me unnecessarily long to resolve.

I always liked the concept of a massive library of movies that was available for rent. When I was working at Blockbuster, I lost track of how many people came into the store assuming we had every movie that was ever made hiding in some secret bunker. But I can relate- I went looking for some TV show DVDs recently and was disappointed that the selection was pretty sparse.

What pushed me over the edge was one of those annoying pop-up ads you see on nearly every site these days. Normally, I would have just angrily closed it like usual, if I hadn’t been listening to a radio show where they were discussing “Mad Men.” I feel like I missed the boat with that show, and I wanted to catch up. I guess this proves those ads work, as I clicked on it and signed up.

I have to say, I think I might like their website more than the service itself. I started off by answering a series of personal taste preferences that was reminiscent of filling out my eHarmony profile. Then I went through and ranked my preference on a series of movies to determine what movies it thinks I would like. The Movie Rater is really addicting, and I spent about half an hour tonight rating every movie in my collection. I haven’t been overly impressed with the recommendations so far, but that’s just an excuse to rate more movies.

So with my first DVD en route, expect more TV and movie reviews in the coming months. But more likely, expect more gushing about the website itself.

eLearning is eConfusing

Just wanted to post a follow up on how my first grad school class is going. We’re about halfway through the semester, and the transition to an online class has still been a challenge. I guess when I heard about a college class being online, I thought that meant embracing all aspects of Web 2.0: watching lectures videos, participating in a group chat, participating in a discussion forum and having personalized home pages. We have been using the latter two formats with our class blog that serves as the discussion thread and our wiki, where we post our assignments.

For me, it has been a struggle on a couple of different levels. The whole notion of going back to school has been a change in my routine of nothing having any major deadlines outside of work. That has been a big adjustment itself. Then I am struggling with the online format, which doesn’t seem to provide as much insight as in-person discussions, as well as feedback from the professor. But perhaps most of all, I have struggled with the material.

I thought this class would be pretty easy for me, as I write computer documentation for a living. All that I know I learned on the job, so I was interested to see what types of research in the industry was being taught to students. As it turns out, I pretty much have to unlearn everything I know from work for this class. Without boring you too much, I basically have the approach backwards, where the class recommends writing documents that help users understand how an application helps them do their job, rather than just teaching them how the application works and then they figure out how it fits into their job.

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by all this and with the next project being due next week, I think I’m going into my professor’s office hours next week to see if meeting in person will help wrap my head around these new topics. I’d hate to think I get a bad grade in the class that my job is based on!

Now with Virtual Nagging!

Facebook seems to be content changing its layout and functionality every six months or so. I’m always amused the amount of uproar that users have every time one of these updates takes place. People rush to join groups denouncing the new layout, creating petitions demanding the return of the old layout, and vowing to quit Facebook if their demands are not met. The irony is the version people want reverted was equally hated six months prior.

Anyway, one of the new features is an addition to the recommendations section on the welcome page. I assume it looks at your friends list and encourages you to reach out to people you haven’t interacted with in awhile. At first, I thought it was a cool feature, until this started appearing:


I guess this is the 21st century digital equivalent of “call your mother.”

You Made Me Do This

OK Internet, I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice. If you want someone to blame, I give you Sara Kiel.

I have posted a series of pictures I took in the Photo Gallery section of my website. Most of them are of me and my friends, but some of them are pictures of Ann Arbor and the Michigan campus. I posted both a thumbnail and a full-sized image, so people could view the detail and possibly save the file for themselves.

I was happy to do this, but one of the rules of the Internet is if you use someone else’s picture, you are supposed to ask. If you don’t ask, you should at least cite where the original picture is located. I have done this in the Assignment: America section of my site and haven’t received any complaints from those individuals so far.

Now this is where Sara comes in. I noticed the other day when searching for some Ann Arbor pictures that one of my pictures appeared on her site. It was the one I took of the “Welcome to Ann Arbor” sign a few years back. I immediately recognized it, and who else does that in town?

So I clicked on her page to see if I received any credit for the photo. Nope. In fact, she downloaded the file and uploaded it to her site, so it even appears that it is her picture. But she didn’t bother to resize the image on the page and it looks really amateurish sized down. So I sent her an e-mail asking her to credit me for the photo. No response.

I was really hoping she would reply back and claim it was her picture all along. I planned on asking where that specific sign was located and laugh when she guessed wrong (the answer is on Ann Arbor-Saline Road near the I-94 overpass). But Sara took the cowardly route and ignored my follow-up message as well. Since the Internet is pretty much the Wild West, that is as much as I could do without getting a lawyer, so I had to move on.

As a result of Sara stealing my picture, I have decided to take measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I have added SchickHappens.net watermarks to all my full-sized images that do not have me in them (example). This will ensure no one can hijack my photo and put it on her site in the future and if someone is too dumb to notice, I can call her on it.

I am also relinquishing control of that particular photo to Ms. Kiel, as I don’t want people thinking I stole it from her. I plan to take a new picture soon, add the watermark, and upload it in the old version’s place. I wanted to do this before Sara came along, as that sign now has a second component for another Pioneer High championship that was added since I took that picture. I haven’t decided if it’s necessary to add them on the A:A pages yet. I have yet to see those photos linked anywhere else, so I’ll hold off for now.

I’m sorry to all those of you who enjoyed the pictures without my obnoxious branding on it; Sara Kiel ruined it for everyone. This is why we can’t have nice things!

Right Before Your Eyes

Tracy and I went to Benihana yesterday. I’m not exactly sure why we decided to go, but it sounded like a fun diversion from our usual destinations. Tracy had never experienced Benihana before and it had been at least 10 years since I had been, so it was essentially new for both of us.

Our cook did a fine job and did the requisite shrimp tail flip into his hat and created the volcano out of onions, but it got me thinking: what would dining out be like if all restaurants cooked your food in front of you? I think this would be a great idea.

First of all, the amount of food sent back to kitchens would go down significantly. It’s easy to be rude to a server, but I bet people would be less likely to say their food sucked to the person that just spent 10 minutes at your table cooking your meal. There is no chance some ingredient you wanted left out could ever find its way into the dish, unless you weren’t paying attention (and in that case, you shouldn’t be out to dinner in the first place). You also wouldn’t have to worry about kitchen pranksters spitting on your food, unless your chef did it between eye blinks.

It would also to be a lot harder justifying not tipping for those frugal losers out there. Not only is the chef cooking your meal, he is also trying to be entertaining at the same time. This would also eliminate tedious dinner conversations about the weather and such, as it would seem rude to have a side conversation as the guy is working. On the downside, people like me who hate small talk would probably have to talk about whatever the chef wanted to discuss. I’d be willing to tip extra to avoid all small talk with my chef.

But what about a dish where it had to bake for 30 minutes or so? Would the chef stay at the table while it baked to ensure it was cooked properly, or would he just set a timer and you pulled it out when it was ready? I would assume higher-end places would be the former and places like Olive Garden would be the latter, but maybe you pay more so the chef isn’t bugging you the entire time.

Maybe the compromise is to have robots cook for us. That way, you can still see your meal from beginning to end, yet avoid all the banter that would drive me crazy. I want the people who make the Roomba to start working on this next.

More disappointment ahead?

My beloved Sharks kick off the 2009-10 season in a couple of hours in Denver against the Avalanche, and it’s hard to get excited for the season opener. Don’t get me wrong- I’m glad hockey is back and look forward to watching San Jose on TV. But with the Sharks’ recent playoff embarrassments, I just want to skip right to the playoffs and see of this is the year they meet expectations.

The NHL regular season consists of 82 games across five and a half months. This is entirely too long. The Stanley Cup finals continue into June, when hockey should be long over. I think the regular season should be shortened to 60 games, as it would make the regular season less of a grind and finish in a reasonable timeframe. The NHL already insists that each team doesn’t play each other home and away with this ridiculous unbalanced scheduling, so what’s a little more schedule tweaking?

As for the team itself, I have mixed feelings about the offseason moves. I am excited to see how Dany Heatley fits into Todd McClellan’s system, as his skill set seems to be just what was lacking last year: a gritty forward with speed and sharpshooter potential and playoff experience. Paired with Joe Thornton, Heatley should see his numbers go up and hopefully ease his prima donna ego. Doug Wilson also picked up a couple of other grinders for the third and fourth lines, so hopefully these guys will be able to slow down opponent’s top talent.

On the flip side, I have to say I am extremely disappointed with the resigning of Rob Blake. I was surprised when he was brought in last year, as he is near the end of his career and Wilson believed he would add veteran playoff experience to the locker room. That’s all well and good, but he also has to log ice time as well. I thought he really showed his age (38) and took a lot of penalties he wouldn’t have if he were 10 years younger. It was only a one-year deal, so I was thinking it was a failed experiment, and Wilson would part ways with the old man and his absurdly high salary. Not only was he brought back, they named him captain of this year’s team. This really upset me, as he brought nothing to the table last year, and if anything, was part of the reason the Sharks had an early playoff departure. I thought the logical choice was Dan Boyle- the one guy who showed any sign of desire in last year’s playoffs. Sadly, he was only rewarded with an “A.”

So what is the outlook for this year’s team? It’s anyone’s guess. I’ve seen predictions from Stanley Cup champs to again losing in the first round. I’m going to assume the Sharks won’t try so hard in the regular season this time around, maybe not even wining the Pacific division and settling in around 4th or 5th in the playoffs. They will probably win a few rounds, but still lose before they should. My guess is losing to Chicago in the Western finals; a nice improvement, but still short of expectations.

Myspace: I Hardly Knew Ye

Today, I officially closed my Myspace account. I’m sure you probably weren’t aware I even had a profile, as I was only friends with about 50 people there. I hadn’t logged in since February, and since everyone I was friends with on Myspace was already my friend on Facebook, I figured I wouldn’t be missing anything.

In the big social networking war, I was never drawn to Myspace. I started with Facebook back when it was only for college students, as it seemed a more natural fit. Myspace always seemed like a second-rate site, as it looked clunky and running on a single server in Tom’s basement. The only reason I joined was so my ex and I could be friends while we were still dating, and I kept it going because it was Tracy’s profile of choice until recently. Now Tracy is more into Facebook than me, and we both decided to close our Myspace accounts this weekend.

Now that Facebook is open to the world, I don’t see Myspace continuing to be a big player in the social networking arena much longer. I never liked the interface and found it hard to perform the most basic tasks. You always heard about passwords being stolen and profiles being hacked, and I had countless server timeouts and crashes that it’s a wonder people stuck with it for so long.

Battle of Washtenaw County

On Saturday, Michigan squared off in another nonconference game against a hapless MAC opponent. This time, it was against Eastern. Any other year, I would have been glad to see such an easy opponent on the field, as the Wolverines still need to work out some kinks before the Big Ten season. But this year, I was a little torn, as now I have some allegiance to Eastern. At the end of the day, the win meant more to Michigan than Eastern, so I was pleased with the result.

Outside of the game itself, it provided a look at the two schools and how greatly they differ from each other. Having been to a few Eastern football games, it’s obvious that the school doesn’t place the same emphasis on athletics that Michigan does. The atmosphere at games in Ypsilanti feels more like a high school game than a college one, yet that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

With so much being said about NCAA teams being run like a business, Eastern’s atmosphere feels more like what a college game should be. The small, intimate crowds put you up close to the action and you can almost hear the players sideline conversations. Tickets are also reasonably priced (less than $10) and students get in for free, while Michigan thinks they are doing students a favor by offering tickets for “only” $30 per game. Players at Eastern probably realize that this is the highest level of football they will achieve, so they are pursuing degrees that are meaningful outside of athletics, while Michigan players are seeking a worthless “sports management” degree while hoping to make it to the NFL.

Eastern has run into trouble with the NCAA because they struggle to maintain the average required attendance to remain in Division 1-A. The school has tried any number of incentives to increase attendance, but only 15,000 spectators file into the stadium. But seeing how the darker side of college athletics can have negative influences on student’s lives, this may not be a bad thing.

Back to eSchool

Although classes began on Wednesday, today was the first day I started working on my online class at Eastern. I wasn’t exactly sure how this class was going to go, as it is my first online class at any level. I’m a little afraid that not having a regularly-schedule class every week will make it harder to stay on top of all the assignments; hopefully I have the focus for it.

So far, it seems like there won’t be any regularly scheduled times to be online together (for lectures or chats), but just deadlines for when assignments need to be posted on the class wiki. I find wikis in general very clumsy to use, as I prefer to code in HTML, but hopefully that will be another skill I will have by the end of the semester.

I think the key for me will closely monitor the blog for the class, as that is the location where the professor posts announcements and project updates. I am subscribed to the RSS feed in about three different places to make sure I don’t miss anything. I think my interest in the class material (writing computer documentation) will keep me focused on the relevant tasks, but the first few weeks could be a tough adjustment. Not only is it my first class in almost five years, but it’s a completely different method of content delivery. Yikes!

Requiem for the Michigan State Fair

It’s no secret the state of Michigan is hurting in this recession. The auto industry that is the lifeblood of the Great Lakes State has seen devastating cutbacks, and therefore the state economy suffers as well. But not only do big programs like unemployment and schools have to cut back, the little ones do too. And it sounds like the Michigan State Fair is in its final year as Governor Granholm cut off state funding for the event.

Fairs a staple of Midwestern life, as it is a place that people from all walks of life can come together and have fun. It is also a place to enjoy some foods that can’t be found anywhere else, such as my personal favorite: elephant ears. Plus, you have an assortment of games you can’t win run by people who may or may not be convicted felons. If those don’t interest you, you can ride rides that were moved by flatbed truck from another city less than a week ago.

For me, I always like to check out the livestock. Growing up, I was lucky to visit the farm in Indiana almost every summer, and I loved to help out feeding the animals. As Nan and Pap got older, they had to get rid of the animals, but I always felt like if things were different, I could have raised a blue-ribbon animal.

I had never been to the Michigan State Fair before this year, but I have been to enough fairs to know what to expect. They seemed to have a pretty good crowd and several of the vendors kept saying, “Pray for us to be back next year.” Granholm said she wants to use the land for economic development. It may be true that the land could be used for more practical things than a state fair, but in an age where we are so isolated by technology and class, it’s nice to have a place where everyone can come together and have fun for a cheap price.