Dear Website Owner:

Your musical taste sucks.

I don’t want to hear your crappy choice of songs when I visit your site.

If you’re going to force me to listen to your music, to the point where you won’t even offer a mute button, I’m not going to spend much time on your site.

That means I’m not going to buy your product or use your service.

Are you listening, EverBank? Your web tour, with its GarageBand-y pop-synth soundtrack, stopped me from seriously considering you as a replacement for my banking needs.

Do you hear me, Canto Do Brasil? I won’t be bringing 20 people to a celebratory dinner thanks to your 17 tracks of midi music.

If you want to give me the option of listening to your music, that’s fine, but put a god-damned mute button on your site!

Sincerely,

Jason.

E*Trade is starting to work my last nerve. Yesterday I got an email from them:

Fri Apr 20 06:30:35 2007 – Funds Transfer Failure

Dear Valued Customer

Your payment request (Reference Number:########) of $### to E*TRADE Bank XXXXX from your XXXXX could not be completed.

Their website was equally unhelpful.

I sent in a customer service inquiry:

Can you tell me why this transfer failed? There is certainly enough money in the account.

A few hours later, they responded:

Dear XXXXXX,

Thank you for your recent message in regards to a transfer from your XXXXX account to your XXXXX account. I would like to inform you that there was an error during the transit of the funds on 04/18 which caused the transfer to be cancelled. I apologize for any difficulties or frustrations this transaction may have caused. Please resubmit this transfer for further crediting to your XXXXX account. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns. Thank you for your valued and continued business.

I hope this information has been helpful. Please let us know if we’ve addressed your questions and concerns satisfactorily by taking a 30-second survey at the following web address:

At which point they helpfully provided a survey.

They didn’t score high.

After fuming for a few minutes over the non-answer response, I replied back:

Hello,

“There was an error” is understood by the error message I received. I would like to know why I received it, and why the $### to be credited to my ##### appears to have been deducted.

Did the transaction fail or not?

I show a $### deduction on 4/19 (“Etrade Bank Debit”).

My XXXXX shows a “Last Payment Received” on 4/18 of $###.

I’m extremely concered about the system’s behavior, and I’m extremely concered that my accounts are being incorrectly managed.

This is not the first time I’ve received error messages for problems that seemingly didn’t happen. I need an exact explanation of what happened, and why.

And it’s true: it’s not the first time E*Trade has told me a transaction didn’t complete, that I didn’t have enough money in my account, or some other error that turned out to be utterly false. The last time it happened, it was an overdraft notice (when I had significantly more in the account to cover outstanding debits), and I was told

Please note that this is not an isolated incident. We have been upgrading our systems in order to provide the best services for our customers. The technical team is working assiduously to correct these issues. We appreciate your patience. We value your business very much.

If you really valued my business, you wouldn’t be rolling out new systems that cause known problems.

If it weren’t for the fact that my company uses E*Trade to manage its Employee Stock Purchase Plan, I doubt I’d remain with E*Trade much longer. Do you know of a good online bank? It needs the following features:

• Free, unlimited and automatic ATM refunds. The other big reason I’m with E*Trade still. I can use any ATM in the world, and be refunded the access fee (even the $4.50 I was charged in Vegas!). Other places have a similar plan, but some limit the number of refunds in a month, while others require you fill out a form of some type.
• Great online banking. I don’t do physical banks anymore, except to deposit the occasional paper check, so an easy-to-use and comprehensive functionality is important. That means easy transfers between internal and external accounts; recurring payments; a smart calendar that tells me when a payment will be delivered; and various reports.

Any suggestions for a great online bank would be much appreciated.

I love hot dogs. Meat, bun, mustard. What’s not to love? And growing up in New York, it was easy to indulge: there’s a hot dog stand on every street corner in Manhattan. These “dirty water dogs”, as New Yorkers are wont to call ’em, aren’t great food, but they’re most certainly good. And they’re convenient: they’re nearly perfect walk-and-eat food. When you’re done, you have a tiny wrapper to toss. You’d be hard-pressed to find a New Yorker who hasn’t eaten a ton of these.

Much better than the dirty-water dogs are the various “Papaya” hot dog locations: Papaya King, the original; Gray’s Papaya, my favorite, and others like Papaya Dog. Many post-alcohol-binge late nights of my youth have been spent downing two or three of these, with or without various juice drinks the stores serve.

After I wrote yesterday about wanting to buy a hot dog broiling machine, Y suggested I open a hot dog stand, as a way of justifying such an extravagant and otherwise useless purchase. Since I’m always looking for some business I can run, I figured I’d look into it, if only to know what it would take.

Alas, Gray’s Papaya doesn’t even have a website (it’s “under construction”), so I’m sure they don’t have any franchise opportunities. Papaya King does have a website and franchise opportunities, so maybe I’ll dig into them a bit more just to see what it might cost.

While I was doing the various Google-based searches¹, I came across the requisite discussions on which hot dog is better, Gray’s Papaya, Papaya King, Nathan’s, etc. Many of the reviewers stated similar sentiments: the hot dog situation in New York is pitiful.

Why?

Because the hot dogs are long, thin, and don’t come bacon-wrapped, covered in avocado, or slathered with chili. It struck me: if you need that stuff on your hot dog, you’re really not there for the hot dog. Either you love the taste of a well-made hot dog, preferably grilled on one of those rotating ‘dog cookers, or the ‘dog is merely a conveyance for the various toppings you can stack on it.

I say: a really good ‘dog needs nothing but a thin stripe of spicy brown mustard. Anything else is uncivilized.

When Y and I were in New York for a few days last week, we stopped by a Papaya King late one night, since there wasn’t a Gray’s close to our hotel. While the ‘dog was good, it wasn’t great. I regret that Y’s first NY hot dog wasn’t the best example of what it could be.

Our next trip will have to include a jaunt to East 72nd Street and Broadway to visit Gray’s Papaya.

1. Forgive the double-speak; I’d hate for Google to sue me for verbing their noun. ↩

For some unfathomable reason, Y won’t let me buy this fantastic hot dog maker (and bun warmer). I don’t understand the problem. It will cook 48 hot dogs at once, and warm 36 buns at the same time. It can broil up to 150 hot dogs an hour. And it’s a mere $759.

Sometimes I don’t get her.

The fine folks at Kaspersky Lab have claimed they have created a “proof of concept” virus for the iPod. Here’s how you might get this virus:

1. Have an iPod
2. Install Linux on your iPod
3. Install the virus on your iPod
4. Run the virus

Oh, and the virus doesn’t spread between iPods.

Please.

First of all, who the heck’s putting Linux on their iPod? And anyone who’s doing that probably knows not to install viruses and run them. And if they install something and it installs this “virus” then it’s a trojan horse, not a virus. And if it doesn’t spread automatically, it’s not a virus, it’s a worm.

Suggesting this is an iPod virus is like suggesting you can blow up your car by replacing the engine with a stick of dynamite and lighting the fuse: well, yeah, it’s still a car in the strictest sense, but it’s a stick of dynamite: of course you might blow up your car. And who the heck’s replacing engines with dynamite anyway?

A transparent attempt at publicity?

I’m on a business trip for a couple of days, staying at a Hyatt. They offer wireless internet via a T-Mobile HotSpot ($10 for 24 hours). Alas, they block my ability to send email via my own server. As a security and spam-prevention measure, many of these hot spots (not just T-Mobile) will block you from connecting to any mail server other than their own. If you don’t have a web-based mail interface (say, .Mac or Yahoo), or a company-provided VPN solution, you’re screwed.

When will these companies learn that they’re not enhancing security or stopping SPAM. In fact, all they’re really doing is pissing off their customers. I know I will never join T-Mobile’s HotSpot network outside of any company-paid hotel connectivity requirements.

For the techies reading this, I ran a portscan against my personal server to confirm it was reachable and responding. I have all the important ports open, including port 25 for SMTP. When I telnet to port 25, I get redirected to T-Mobile’s own server at svcstatl07.hotspot.t-mobile.com. Oddly, I can seemingly hand-craft an outgoing email there, but the mail, despite being “accepted for delivery” appears to be dropped, as it never gets delivered.

Port Scan has started …

Port Scanning host: 71.143.110.185

Open TCP Port: 22
Open TCP Port: 25
Open TCP Port: 80
Open TCP Port: 106
Open TCP Port: 143
Open TCP Port: 311
Open TCP Port: 427
Open TCP Port: 548
Open TCP Port: 625
Open TCP Port: 687
Port Scan has completed …

I mentioned before that I love You Don’t Know Jack, and that I play just about every day. Tonight, I did something I aspire to.

Actually, I did two things:

First, I got all seven questions right. Not an impossibility, but my pop-trivia knowledge ain’t what it used to be.

More importantly, though, I’m number one on the scoreboard! Whoo hoo! Since this is likely to change in the not distant future (only 13 others have played as of this writing), here’s a screenshot:

Tonight’s game asked which characters were from Grease, The Muppets, or both. Who knew my near-obsession with Pink Ladies, T-Birds and furry creatures with hands up their asses would come in handy?

Wired.com just rolled out a new design, and in doing so, broke URLs that worked just a few hours earlier. Their Bruce Lee Lives On article which originally appeared at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,73022-0.html now returns a “Content Not Found”. The new URL is at http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2007/03/bruce_lee0323.

How does a major website do a redesign and break URLs? That’s so 1998. It’s not like they don’t know the URLs are about to change.

Shame on you, Wired.

Some ten or so years ago, I was playing You Don’t Know Jack on my Mac. It was great. Snarky, funny, just a bit naughty, it was a party game that made trivia fun and sitting around a computer a wee bit less geeky.

A few months ago, the folks who make YDKJ (Jellyvision) started releasing daily Dis or Dats, one of YDKJ’s best stand-alone games. Seven fast-paced, generally topical questions asking you to decide, for example, if Goldenrod and Beaver are Crayola colors or Porno movies. (I won’t spoil it: go play that game yourself.) I’ve been playing almost daily.

A couple weeks ago, the fine folks at Jellyvision did the coolest thing: they started producing full episodes of You Don’t Know Jack, filled with random trivia and innuendo. While not as thrilling as playing with friends around a crowded keyboard, it’s been fantastic to revisit the snark in its fullness. And best of all, each episode ends with the Jack Attack, one of the greatest which-two-things-go-together games.

I admit: I’d been jonesing a bit for YDKJ. I don’t remember why I thought about it all those months ago when I went looking for the game, but I was ecstatic that the website and games existed. Not so much that they don’t have Mac games anymore though.

After I found them and played a few of their games, I wrote them a brief email asking them to bring their games back to the Mac (they’re available for Windows XP only):

Please please please make Mac games

Please.
Please.

Please.

I’ll pay you.

Lots.

At least $40 a game.

Really.

And, uh, I’ll be your friend for life.

Jason.

They quickly wrote back.

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. We actually already have a version of YDKJ made for [insert name of system]! All we need now is for [insert name of company that makes (insert name of system)] to pay us a bunch of money, and we will give it to them. But only after a [insert amount of time it would take for us to make a game for {insert name of company}’s (insert name of system)] grace period. So, as soon as all that happens, we’ll let you know. Register for news updates on our site, or, even better, go to (insert name of company that makes the [insert name of system]).com and tell them what a great idea you just had. Just don’t tell them this automated message sent you.

How do you not love that?

Shortly after, I got another response:

Hi there Jason,

Make it $40,000 a game, and then maybe we’ll talk!

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, all of the games we sell in our store are compatible with Windows XP only. At the time that we re-made the old games, there wasn’t enough demand for the on Macs to warrant making them.

But, as I’m sure you noticed, the things on www.ydkj.com are Flash-based, so they do run on Macs. And a most of the web content that we put up in the future will be Flash-based as well. So the future of YDKJ is looking a little brighter for you Mac users.

In the meantime, if you really want to purchase something from our store, I promise that our t-shirts do not discriminate between operating systems. Go buy some!

You friend for life,
Jellyvision

Awesome. I mean, just absolutely awesome. No, I don’t get what I wanted, but they let me down in such a great way, I don’t even care.

The minute Jellyvision releases a new game for Mac, PS2 or Wii, I’m there.

In the mean time, I’m off to play Dis or Dat and buy a t-shirt.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Games, Jack Attack, Jellyvision, Dis or Dat, YDKJ, You Don’t Know Jack

You may have noticed my Netflix queue on the right-most column (under Netflix @ Home). As the name implies, it’s the movies I currently have sitting next to my eight-year-old standard-definition TV (or on their way here).

In that queue is The Brown Bunny. I have absolutely no interest in the movie qua movie, but rather to see the much-discussed scene where a supposedly mainstream actress (Chloe Sevigny) performs on-screen oral sex on a supposedly mainstream actor (Vincent Gallo).

(“Mainstream” in this case meaning “not a porn star”.)

I’d heard terrible things about this movie. Complaints included long stretches of Gallo driving his van, with no dialog and little music. I decided that I’d just fast-forward through the movie until I reached the infamous BJ scene.

Even in fast forward the movie stunk.

For minutes on end there’d be a shot of Gallo in his van, and even at 4X speed it took forever to get to a new scene. On the unfortunate occasions when my finger slipped from the FF button, I found the movie was even worse than I imagined.

It was interminable.

And then we got to the blowjob.

The most interesting parts of the scene were

1. figuring out why Sevigny would choose to give an on-screen blowjob; and

2. deciding if Sevigny actually swallowed Gallo’s wine (as it were).

I’m sure if I’d watched the movie at regular speed, this climactic (ahem) scene would have naturally completed the emotional journey of Gallo’s character, bringing appropriate closure to a perpetually pained psyche.

Nah, it would have just as dull.

When even a gratuitous and explicit sex scene can’t save your “movie”, you’re a bad, bad filmmaker.