Punderings

This is the third time in a row I haven’t gotten nuts or raisins with my “Perfect” oatmeal at the Cambridgeside Galleria Starbucks. Plus, today it arrived in a ‘tall’ cup, with no where near enough hot (or hot enough) water in it. If you’re a corporate giant labeling something “Perfect”, you’ve gotta do a better job of policing your stores to ensure they actually come close to your goal.

The cup thing was a surprise today, and makes it harder to eat – but from comments the staff was making, it seems to be a regular thing at this Starbucks location. I know it’s in a mall, but it’s still got a significant percentage of regulars from the numerous local offices – so it’s time to step up and do a better job.

I know, not much of a rant, but with a toothache making me consider only soft foods, it’s all I can do for the moment.

Well, not the oatmeal itself, which is not too bad. But please change the cups you serve it in so that they actually fit and stack atop your coffee cup lids.

It’s very difficult to carry a “cuppa and oatmeal”, since the bottom of the oatmeal cup is exactly not-the-right-size to fit over your coffee lid. It sits right on the top: not quite small enough (like the bottom of a coffee cup is) to fit inside the plastic lid; not quite large enough to comfortably wrap around the outside of the plastic lid.

Now I know you spent thousands of dollars carefully engineering your current oatmeal cups to have the perfect colors, cool touch to the hands, exactly-spaced steam vents on the top, and so on, but it’s been two years (as evidenced by the copyright date on the lids), so maybe it’s time for a practical change. Pretty is great, but practical and fitting in with your beverage sizes is even better.

I’d vote for the over-the-lid size, just slightly larger: this serves all customers, since you could securely stick an oatmeal cup atop a cup of coffee and walk out of the store carrying both in one hand. I know some people might suggest the just slightly smaller, so the bottom of the oatmeal is the same as the bottom of a coffee cup, but that doesn’t seem to be as pleasing a proportion for eating out of, even if it would fit into a pressboard 4-cup holder.

Heck, if you tried just a tiny bit of engineering, I’m sure you could put a little lip on a 4-cup holder so that the larger oatmeal cups would also fit in, just slightly higher than cups do.

Yes, Dear Starbucks, I will submit this as an idea for you to steal. Just be sure to keep your wifi throughput up for all of us regulars now that you’ve let the masses in to use it at all your stores.

Lucas, our beloved 17 year old Siamese, and the nicest cat you’ll probably ever meet, had a seizure last night, and now needs both more medications and a even more special diet – and now, no dry food anymore.

Since we have two other lady cats who do need to eat dry food, we need to switch them from self-feeding dry food to having scheduled feedings. We’ve always had good luck with self-feeding dry food (with scheduled wet food on occasion) in the past, so it’s been a while since we’ve taken all the food away and only brought it out on a schedule.

Any tips on switching the ladies to only scheduled dry food feedings? I think they’ll both adapt eventually, since they are very social cats and are used to following us around, but I’m concerned about how best to make the switch without upsetting everyone anymore than our recent vet trips have done.

In The Blues Brothers, isn’t the sound the rocket launcher that Carrie Fisher fires when they go back to Elwood’s apartment taken from Battlestar Galactica? The firing and explosion sound seem just like the blasters from the ships.

It would make sense – it’s the right kind of feel, and it’s just the right time, too.

Oh, and I must say – I’m very disappointed in you internet. Besides the fact that you don’t have the immediate answer to my question [1], I’m asounded – astonished! – amazed, in fact that no one retweeted my tip on the newest taste sensation out there, Inhalable Coffee.

I mean, come on – how many jokes are there about geeks and caffeine, and now someone has commercially available (mail order even) coffee you can breathe, and no-one cares? I realize it’s not in an IV or patch form, but still – this is such a breakthrough in caffeine delivery – and reportedly tasty too – and no-one else retweeted it or is even talking about it? Has caffeine gone out of style when I wasn’t watching or something? Or is it true, that since I’ve been blogging so infrequently that no-one is reading anymore?

Ah well. We’ll see if anyone reads my review of the freshest new coffee product out there next week.

[1] Isn’t it interesting how the internet has the answers to almost all your questions, but… no useful information about some of your questions. I think my brain only bothers to ask the questions that I think the internet will answer, and I just dismiss other questions. I know, I know: what I really need is a librarian instead of just the internet.

[2] P.S. I have no affiliation with – nor have I actually tried – Le Whif yet. But I will soon, especially since it’s available locally.

A grab bag of things this week.

• Douglas Hofstadter lectures and books. Sometimes overly intellectual, but often a real delight to read if you think about them. Sadly, I bet my GEB is lost at in my dad’s house (which means: lost forever). HT to someone on Planet Apache.
• OK GO’s This Too Shall Pass is teh awesum! Nice letter by an artist explaining their issues with labels – and one of the biggest Rube Goldberg machines ever set to music (seems even bigger than The Cog).
• Cat humor escaped – better than lol – and was obvious to me, at least, although I can understand that the majority of humans might not get it.
• Unfortunately Storrow Drive is still messed up. No, Virginia, the lane drop outbound at Fenway definitely feels more dangerous to me than it was before – even accounting for incoming Fenway traffic now having a free ride. Yuck.
• MW2 players only: You know you’ve been playing too much when you catch a glimpse of a low flying plane at a certain angle, and immediately think it’s an AC130.
• Engineering Paradise can be true – although it’s often not as kitchy as this most excellent video. Requires a wide mix of geekery to recognize all the jokes and equipment used.
• Note: If anyone has a discount they can pass on to FiOS service to me, that’d be great; we’re planning to switch (but only for phone and internet, not TV). #RCN #Fail too many times. LOL quoted from support: “It’s not unusual for a cable modem to need a reboot every couple of weeks.”
• The best stretch for a tie-in goes to Bret’s Food Writer’s Diary use of Sara Palin merely as a hook to get more readers. If you like that trick and do open source or technology, however, you should really #followfriday @joesuf, because we’re trying to get him more followers than @shanecurcuru this year.

Leading letters go out to The One I Love.

Astute North American winter weather watchers know, as does anyone living on the Eastern Seaboard, that this winter’s weather in the US has been really weird. Not just slightly unusual, but waaaay off in terms of the snowfall expected at various points along the coast – and elsewhere.

The various early snowstorms were not really that unusual – sure, a few records may have been set the first time DC and Maryland were snowed over, but that’s to be expected now and then.

I began to be suspicious that something was up when we had several storms in a row – or rather, not-storms here in Massachusetts, but with real storms in the mid-Atlantic. Having that once is unusual, but it’s been a regularly recurring thing this year.

The thing that tipped me off something was truly out of balance was the complete non-storm earlier this month. A significant storm was forecast for Thursday the 11th. It was a picture-perfect forecast, coming the afternoon beforehand, and resulted in many local schools closing, and various snow emergencies being declared. And then… nothing happened. A few flurries. Very disappointing – well, perhaps not to some schoolchildren!

Now a total mix-up in New England weather forecasting isn’t that odd – happens every couple of days – what was truly out of balance was the parking ticket amnesty declared. Since there wasn’t any snow, but there were a lot of parking tickets given out due to the snow emergency, a lot of people were upset at having to pay unfair parking fines. And – gasp - the Mayor granted an amnesty and discounted the tickets! Unbelievable! A Boston politician giving up income that was legally theirs? Something was clearly unbalanced in the Force.

Once again this week, the Greater Boston area is looking forward to a not-storm for several days: plenty of rain and snow, but temps in the mid-thirties; hence, no real accumulation, and not much positive for the winter weather lovers (albeit the mountains may do better for the skiers if it stays cold enough up there). Instead, snow is forecast across all sorts of places in the south and midwest that rarely ever see snow.

I’ve finally figured out what’s causing it.

It’s us.

The people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

It’s our fault. You know why?

We sent a Republican to fill Kennedy’s seat [1].

This winter’s weather is karmic payback for the imbalance in our local politics. Think about it – Boston area weather is a mess, but isn’t getting great snow (the one pretty & skiable saving grace of bad winters). On the other hand, DC and the Mid-Atlantic are getting pounded repeatedly – regularly stopping work in our Capitol. The connection’s pretty clear, I think.

[1] For those not fortunate enough to live in this Great Commonwealth, this is referring to the long-held US Senate seat of Ted Kennedy, which was recently won by the Republican Scott Brown in a special election held due to Kennedy’s death last year. And while Massachusetts has a history of electing the occasional Republican to local political offices, it has widely been seen as a staunchly Democratic state when it comes to Federal offices.

I was following a @monkchips link to IgnoreTheCode about smartphone touch keyboard design, and thought about a bigger issue.

Why do we still use QWERTY?

Sure, it’s embedded in tons of hardware – both plastic/metal and muscle for many of us – but isn’t it a good time to switch? The immensely fast pace of learning for younger people, plus the soon-to-be outpouring of new keyboard and input styles seems like we could actually start the switch now.

Not only would touch-screen keyboards be simple to switch, but form factors and tactile feedback are changing for more and more of our data entry. This would be a good time for existing QWERTY folks to start switching their muscles to think AOEUI instead, since we’re already having to adjust to how glass-screen typing feels anyway.

Hmmm, that’d be a great geeky replacement for ROT13 too.

First off, apologies to various people I haven’t gotten back to recently, in particular M.G., M.M., and various ASF folks. I actually took vacation around the holidays, and spent several days not reading email at all (gasp!). First time in a long time, and then of course coming back to work is always hectic. Um, and of course setting up that that 360 with MW2 after the holiday hasn’t helped my free time any either. I hope to be more present this week.

• Check out the new Community Development project at Apache – great stuff, and don’t worry, the Mentoring Programme will accept Americans as well as English speakers.
• A shout out to the staff at Peet’s in Lexington, my favorite coffee shop.
• A shout out to the cashier and bagger at Whole Foods in Medford, who were wicked nice last Friday afternoon.
• Question: did I really miss anything important on Twitter over the past 3 weeks?
• What am I forgetting to put into my Monoprice order? I’m stocking up on cheap HDMI cables and wall ports for when we upgrade to a wall-mounted medium size flatscreen tv.
• Interesting read of a website: Letters of Note (via Writing Or Typing) Copies of just plain interesting letters from a variety of historical situations.
• Big thank-you to D.R. and others for getting Facebook to sponsor Apache!
• What Facebook-reading app do you use? I have just enough friends inside Facebook that I want to follow the witty conversations, but I’m really tired of the website. There must be better clients to watch the stream of interestingness go by.

What? You thought this was a year in review for last year? Sorry – just a cheap way to get all the little bits stuck in my head of this year so far cleared out so I can start the new year fresh.