Kurtopia

Back in January, I received a notice from the Philadelphia Parking Authority advising me that I had an unpaid parking ticket, along with a subsequent late fee attached.  The ticket was apparently issued at 10:17 am on Friday, December 14, 2007, for an expired meter on the 1500 block of West Cecil B Moore Ave, which is way the hell up in North Philly.  Looking back at my calendar, I was 99% certain that I was at work that day, and even if I wasn’t, there’s absolutely no reason why I would have been in that area of the city.  Thinking that there was some sort of clerical error, I ticked the checkbox to request a hearing to dispute the ticket, and letter received a letter indicating that my hearing was set for Friday, March 7, at 9:45 am.

I arrived and checked in for my hearing, then I waited nervously (because unfamiliar situations almost always make me nervous).  When it was finally my turn, I met with a hearing officer, who after a few basic questions asked me if I was there for a refund.  I hadn’t paid anything, so I told her that I was there to dispute the ticket.  I didn’t have any evidence, but explained to her that I believed the whole thing to be some kind of clerical error.  She explained that I couldn’t get a refund without any evidence.  Confused, I told her that I hadn’t paid anything, to which she replied, "Well, someone did, because it’s paid."  Huh.

I assume that whoever got the physical ticket that fateful December day eventually paid the fine, and did so online, else how would he or she have known that the late fee had been assessed?  Regardless, I had no idea that it was, in fact, paid in full, and that I was, in fact, completely wasting my time.

Oh, bureaucracy.

Geeks Are Sexy has this hilarious clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm about a guy yapping away in a restaurant using a Bluetooth headset.  Did I mention that it is hilarious?

While I’m certainly no expert on spelling or grammar, I am pretty good.  More than that, I have an acute attention to detail.  So when I see widespread misspelling of a word or incorrect structure of a phrase, I cringe!

Here are two of the biggest offenders, in my experience:

• There is no "a" in the word "definitely."  It is not "definately."  (And if you’re not using spell check on your email, you really should.)
• "I could care less" is not how the phrase goes, and in fact does not convey the proper sentiment.  Instead, it is "I couldn’t care less."  The idea is you care so little about something that it’s impossible for you to care any less.

Got it?

(Ironically, when I first published this post, I had typed "deal" instead of "detail" in the first paragraph.)

I’m a big fan of the Starbucks Frappuccino. I got hooked a few years ago when they had some kind of chocolate or chocolate chip brownie concoction. Sadly, this version is no longer available (at least not at any Starbucks I’ve been to recently), though there are plenty of other yummy alternatives.

However, a very strange thing happens to a Frappuccino. As it sits, it begins to separate into layers, and you end up with this strange foamy substance on top. You happily slurp up the good stuff at the bottom through a straw, until there’s no more good stuff, and the yumminess gives way to a taste and texture you really don’t want in your mouth.

So my question is this: what the heck is that frothy, disgusting byproduct? I feel the need to send it to a lab for analysis. It almost completely ruins the otherwise joyous Frappuccino experience. Of course, this isn’t going to stop me from consuming them on a semi-regular basis, undoubtedly ruining my periodic attempts at being coffee-free.

I just lost a whole lot of faith in ETS (Educational Testing Service).

I received my GRE scores in the mail today, and noticed that there is a free basic diagnostic service they offer that tells you what kinds of questions you got right and wrong, how hard they were, etc. Pretty cool, right? Well, it’s not if you can’t get into it. Though I followed the directions very closely, even trying several combinations of ways of entering my registration number, test date, and date of birth, I couldn’t get in. Lovely.

I clicked on the help link, and eventually found an email address to contact for assistance. I composed a quick message, sent it off, and what do I get?

Reporting-MTA: dns;rosnt106.etslan.org
Received-From-MTA: dns;mg2.ets.org
Arrival-Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 17:11:05 -0400

Final-Recipient: rfc822;grediagnostic@lan.ets.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

grediagnostic@lan.ets.org

WTF, ETS?

So I went to the main ETS site and found a general contact link, which took me to a web form. One of the fields asked for Social Security Number. I look up at the address bar of my browser… no https, just http. I go so far as to view the HTML source of the page, on the off-chance that perhaps the page which processes the form is secure. No such luck.

WTF, ETS?

I submitted the contact form, sans SSN. Moments later, I receive a “Thank you for contacting ETS” email message. Take a look at the third paragraph:

For up to date information on the GRE Program, please visit our web site at: http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.435c0b5cc7bd0ae7015d9510c3921509/?vgnextoid=b195e3b5f64f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD

WTF, ETS?

Not only does half of your crap not even work AND you’re asking people to send their SSNs over the internet in clear text, but you have the ugliest mother f&#$%@ing URLs I’ve ever seen. How about www.ets.org/gre? Would that be so hard?

Calgon, take me away.