If you want to fail, be like HBO.

Winter is coming.  But your episode of Game of Thrones may not be if you're traveling and trying to use HBO Go to watch the latest episode.

The selling point of HBO Go was to be able to stream new episodes as they air - but as fans of ANY of the popular shows on the network can tell you, they've consistently failed to provide the proper support of their product to make this happen with any reliability.  For instance, it's currently 11 minutes after episode three was supposed to air, and I'm sitting here ranting rather than watching Margaery do her duck-lips smirk.

The real problem isn't any of the individual instances of failure - it's the fact that this has been going on for YEARS without any improvement. (In fact, things may have gotten worse - when Season 3 aired, it took us 56 minutes to get the episode to load; this season it took exactly an hour an a half.)  Seriously, how can a major business go for that long without fixing the problem?  It is, however, comforting to know that I could totally fail at my job but still get a position with HBO...so there's that.

First of all, stop putting out HBO Go updates on the same day as a season premiere or finale.  I'm sick of having to go through the hassle of randomly reauthorizing my devices when there is already a huge strain on the servers.  Secondly - Y U no have enuf servers?  Here's a concept: since you know exactly how many subscribers you have, how about *gasp* you have enough server & bandwidth capacity to service them all?  I mean, that IS what we're paying for, right?

Tonight's default HBO Go response is cute: "As always, tonight’s @GameOfThrones could take up to an hour to arrive depending upon your device/connection. Thanks for your patience."  Suddenly, after all this time, it's my device or connection, huh?  You know nothing, HBO Go.

Pinterest "Ettiquette"

...or, "Don't Act Like You Made that Art all by Yourself."

So if you're not familiar with Pinterest, it's a somewhat new social media site where you can 'pin' images from around the web to a virtual cork board.  It's a repository for recipes, DIY projects, and all forms of art.  I have a lot of fun with it myself, and have boards for things ranging to decor inspirations to DIY dog houses & beds.  But these past few weeks, I've had a few annoying things pop up that just made me want to...wait for it...slam my head into my keyboard.

Not only did I find that I had been blocked by one or two other pinners, but one of the boards I follow had this image pinned, along with the following notice:

"1) Please BE CONSIDERATE.....DO NOT pin more than 10 pins from any board at one time! 2) If you enjoy our selections enough to repin 10-20 images from our ENTIRE PROFILE, PLEASE have the courtesy to at least FOLLOW US! 3) BE ORIGINAL!!! It takes MANY hours to curate our boards, covers, titles, etc. It's very DISRESPECTFUL to simply COPY their original order and content! 4) Please be advised that abusers of the above rules will be BLOCKED! Thank you!"

Ok, let's back up for a second.  I'm all about respecting the work of other artists.  So I could understand if a pinner is the creator of the artwork, and gets pissed if other folks are repinning it, claiming it as their own.  But in each case, all of these other pinners are doing exactly what I am - browsing the site and pinning things they like.  Claiming that there's something special about 'curating' a Pinterest board is an artistic endeavor, a breach of which worthy of banning, is like a DJ claiming to be just as creative as the musicians who made his music.  You've seen the meme:

You didn't do anything special, you just used someone else's special thing to get attention.  Just like the people you're blocking.

Chili's, and their choice to fund pseudoscience.

Hey guys!  I know it's been almost two years, but I've decided to resurrect this blog.  Now that I'm back to working part time, I have plenty of time to rant in written form. (Believe me, there was plenty of ranting the past few years - but most of it over beers with my SO.)

In any case, today's rant of honor is for Chili's Bar & Grill!  A few days ago, it was brought to my attention that they're planning on hosting an Autism Awareness fundraiser on April 7th.  Now, I'm all about supporting good causes and research - however the 'charity' Chili's has chosen to fund is the National Autism Association - a group that still grasps onto the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines cause autism.

Chili's has defended their choice in charity on Facebook, claiming that "Our choice to partner with the National Autism Association was based on the percentage of donations that would go directly to providing financial assistance to families and supporting programs that aid the development and safety of children with autism."  In response, the We Love GMOs and Vaccines Facebook Page posted a link to NAA's tax returns (which are posted here on NAA's website), pointing out that only about 10% of NAA's expenditures are ACTUALLY spent on helping families or individuals with autism.  The majority of NAA's income is spent on overhead expenses (salaries, office expenses, etc.) with the remaining going to fundraising and advertising (which we can assume probably contains about as much anti-vaccine propaganda as their own website.)

Chili's followed-up with a response that they had been assured 100% of their fundraising monies would be allocated to NAA's Big Red Safety Box program, which is a kit to help families with Autistic children who are at high-risk of elopement (wondering off).

I've seen a lot of folks on Chili's social media sites who have benefited from this program.  That's well and good, but if you consider the numbers I posted above, then for every $10 kit that NAA sends out, there's another $90 that's either going into someone's pocket, or worse - towards propagating the "Ohmergerd, vaccines cause autism!!!111one" bullshit.  With the recent uprise in anti-vaccine crusades, there have been numerous outbreaks of preventible diseases that had a decade ago been close to eradication in the US.

So the real question is, if you choose to dine at Chili's on Monday - would you like a side of Polio with that?

F*ck 'Snakes on a Plane'; Kids on a Plane are Worse

Miss me? Sorry I've been MIA for over a year. It's not that I didn't have anything to rant about...I just didn't have time.

Anyways, been traveling a lot this past year, and while I have a variety of rants about plane travel (see future posts), my biggest gripe has to be unruly children on aircraft.

Seriously - if airlines would offer 'adult-only' flights, I think they'd make a HUGE profit. I'd easily pay $50+ for a round-trip flight if I knew I wasn't going to have to listen to screaming children for four hours.

"Well, what about ear plugs?" you might ask. Well, here's my answer to that:

On my flight back from San Francisco a few months ago, I had a 10-year-old girl yelling and kicking the back of my chair. After about 45 minutes, I finally stood up and turned around and asked the mother to please get her kid to stop kicking my seat. She looked at me helplessly and shrugged - she obviously had no control over her children. A few minutes later, the kid's dad (sitting in another row) came over and threatened the kid to sit still and shut up - which worked...too well. The girl was so terrified that she failed to inform her mother that she really needed to use the restroom.

It's not like you can open a window on an airplane. So you can imagine the stench we had to endure the remaining three hours of that flight.

Screaming kids are bad enough...but think twice if you believe it can't get any worse than that.

Elevators - Mini Rant

Elevators. I spent the last month in a hotel, so I know quite a bit about them now. The main thing, however, is this: WAIT FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE ELEVATOR TO GET OFF BEFORE YOU GET ON. You think this would be a common courtesy. Hell, you think this would be plain physics: if there are already twelve people waiting to get out into the Lobby, chances are you attempting to push yourself on first isn't going to help matters any.

And my bank fails again...

Accidentally get double-charged while using your card? Better hope you're not traveling when it happens.

My job sent me on a month-long business trip this week at the last minute, so in preparation for my new temporary position, I headed out and bought some new clothes the day before I left. When being rung up, the first register had problems with the credit card machine, so they switched me to a second counter and I was on my way.

However, after arriving at my new job, I noticed that both transactions had posted to my account. I emailed customer support, and got a form letter back instructing me to call the customer support line instead.

Filled with dread, I took out 45 minutes of my work day to wait on hold. Finally, I was patched through to a sales associated. Unfortunately, in order to dispute a transaction, they have to send paper documents to my house - and apparently can't send them to a temporary address. So, all in all, I'm stuck with a rather large double bill for the next freakin' month until I get home.

At least I have enough money to carry it for now - good thing it wasn't my plane ticket or car rental - then I'd be in real trouble.

Money Mondays: The Extended Edition

I've been working a lot more hours at my 'real life jobs', which makes for a lack of updates, but as it's Monday and I have the day off, I figured it was time for another edition of Money Mondays. And there's lots of stuff since last time. Let's start with the online survey world:

Opinion Outpost - this website is constantly getting good reviews, but I have to admit I almost unsubscribed from this one. It took about two months for me to qualify for any surveys, but within the last few weeks, I’ve had much better luck and actually racked up $11.50 this month! Their minimum payout is $5, so like with Lightspeed a few weeks ago, this is well over usual expectations. The site only pays by check or by Amazon Gift Code, but I received my check in about two weeks.

SurveySpot - this is a tricky one. For years, this site received spectacular reviews, but opinions have drastically fallen since changing to a point system in late 2009. I joined since the change over, and did notice it taking forever for points to be credited, and an absurd amount of surveys only rewarding sweepstakes entries. My suggestion, if you have the time, is to spend your first month and try them all to build up a good history with the company, then just spend time on the ones that actually credit points after that. I managed to cash out instantly via PayPal for $12.00 this week, so it might be worth it to some people to slog through all those bogus invites for the paying ones.

Synovate - this is another unobtrusive site that emails relevant surveys on occasion to it’s members, and I was able to cash out for $5.00 a few weeks ago. Still waiting on the check for this one, though.

Lightspeed - cashed out again for another $5. This time, however, it’s took a bit longer for the PayPal payment to show up. It looks like they just switched to a new ordering system, so they may be working the kinks out.

Viewpoints - If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen my urge to join this review site a few weeks ago. While in general this site doesn’t reward writers directly all the time, if you subscribe via MyPoints you can earn up to 500 points in your account. In addition to that, Viewpoints was also directly offering a limited time promotion to contribute 10 new reviews and earn a $10 Amazon Gift Card. I completed the program, so again, I’ll confirm if I actually get the card. In any case, if you like to write, it’s an easy job.

Speaking of MyPoints, my first gift card arrived this week too, and I’m about two weeks away from cashing out my next.

And finally, I managed to write another winning review and score an extra $10 in the process last month.

So if you’ve been keeping track, since starting to do online surveys in my free time from the end of November 2009, I have cashed out $75.50. This does not include the other 10-15 panels I’ve subscribed to where I haven’t met the minimum payout threshold, yet, either. So far, I have to say my experience overall with just making a little extra spending money on the side in my spare time has been very positive - I’d definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a little extra cash.

In the meantime, the free stuff continues to flow in. I’ve received two free samples of Prilosec, three packets of Emergen-C (which is great timing, too, as I seem to be developing some sort of cold this week), some dried plumbs, some artificial sweeteners (gonna try that in my coffee at work this week) and some shampoo & conditioner. One thing I should note at this point, however, that while a lot of the advertisements for these products will show small or travel-sized packaging, in real life I would say about half of the things I’ve received have actually been much smaller - usually just a small package with ‘one serving’, as it were. For instance, the Gold Bond lotion was really just a small plastic/foil packet. Several of the colognes I received were just one-use pads attached to postcards. So don’t be surprised if you don’t get the exact product pictured - but hey...it’s still free.