Posts from — July 2007

This won’t be a pretty post. I was tempted to post this in “tech” but I think I’ll just do a free-form rant.

I try to keep up with my hometown news any way I can- chatting on IM with friends and family do so only so much, so in turn I check the San Antonio Express-News site a few times a week. But, and I hate to say it, their site sucks donkey balls.

I won’t get into the area of newspaper site design as the good folks at The Bivings Report can do a much better job. Although, I am tempted to show a screenshot of their crap site similar to that boingboing (or was it a dailykos) post showing how cnn.com wastes too much space and has very little actual content. I guess I’ll do it later when I have time and don’t want to do
a lazy Steve Petersen-style post.  : )

Granted, I shouldn’t talk about site design, I mean, what do I know, I’m not trying to drive revenue up with this do
main, so what do I know about wasting space with pop-ups and column inches for ads . . .

But what really irks me is when I finally dig through the layers of crap and get to a heavily promoted “blog” link on the front page. And then what do I find? I get more pablum from a totally clueless tard- Roy Bragg.

How did he get a job like that? How does someone at a semi-responsible paper get a job comparing Google Maps to a paper map (locally produced I assume). As Chuck pointed out to me on IM, that’s a typical apples-to-oranges comparison.

I want to start getting paid to pretending to know how hip cool technology works, but only stuff that I have no clue about. I won’t write about Google Maps because I have friends who work there and am capable of reading the Google product blogs, know how to look things up, and see the mapping cars driving around outside of my apartment on occasion (not “once” as Roy writes). But then again, maybe because SF is smaller than SA the vans/cars drive around here more. . . .

I think on my next vacation I’ll just tell Avis/Hertz/Enterprise, oh no thanks, I won’t need GPS maps in the car (or on my phone), Roy tells me they take years to make, so I brought a 10 pound map book of Boerne in my carry-on, kthnks.

Okay, maybe I should just calm down and not read his columnsblogs any more. But maybe his editors shouldn’t place his mug on the frontpage either.

Uggh, as I was getting ready to take a screen shot of the paper’s site, the javascript made everything slow so I’m officially giving up and running out of steam on this rant. . . I was going to quote Roy on how online maps take years to update then link to how people have used online maps to show recent changes in their neighborhoods and in more serious ways, document changes in the land/population due to things like in Darfur but as I said. . . I’m running out of rant. .
.

I feel a little bit better now. . . Do you?

QOTD: Is Roy SA’s very own blogging Ric Romero?

Burned Out?

I didn’t think I was, but I just scored pretty highly on this burnout test.

Wow, this vid combines two things I love- cooking and Walken!

You know when you’ve been reading fark for too long when you look at “real” news headlines and automatically think of a fark-esque headline (or is it farkian?).

So when I saw this story on my yahoo.com homepage: “Congressman requests meeting with Stern (AP)”, my first thought was War in Iraq Over, Cancer Cured, Congressman requests meeting with Stern.

Bobby Rush is our timewaster of the week (for last week I think). story here

I’ve been busy at work after the folks took off, so I don’t have a full blog update- just random thoughts. . .

Great seeing the parentals- I’m glad some of you got to meet them at the new apartment. My mom sent me some pics, I’ll try to upload them to this site or to flickr.com later this weekend.

The second my folks left, it got cold and rainydrizzly in SF. What’s up with that? I had to turn on the heater the other night and I’ve been wearing a jacket to work. I guess that’s the downside to living here.

I still don’t have pics from the 365Main debacle the other day, but they’re coming. . .

I ran home early yesterday – to work remotely. Seriously. There was a big power outage in SF that was in the news. A *big* colo/hosting facility in SF was affected, which is where we keep our servers and get our “tube” access (it’s all a bunch of pipes and tubes, right?). Anyway, for those of you not in SF, I thought you might like to see some of the links to other stories. As I told my team yesterday:

in case you’re interested various sites affected by the power at 365main:



Craigslist, Technorati, Yelp, AdBrite, all the SixApart sites, Typepad, Livejournal etc, and supposeldy Netflix

story links:



o’reilly radar

scobelizer

laugingsquid

valleywag

I’m about to head into work, I hear the door access card readers for a lot of buildings are broken, so I might have a breeze today with a propped-open door.

Oh, and before you ask, yes 365main is supposed to be able to handle catastrophic power outages.

Damn, I just wrote about Teka and today Jeff sends me this: (via Express News – Bonnie Walker)

Family-run Teka Molino closes after 70 years


At 11 a.m. on June 29, Arthur Chapa began telling Teka Molino customers who’d come in for lunch that he was closing down his restaurant. Not next month, not next week, but at the end of that day.



“Some of the customers came back three times before we closed,” Chapa said. “I had one lady come in and buy everything that was freezable — $200 worth,” he said. “A good customer.”

The closure of Teka Molino at 2403 N. St. Mary’s St. marks the end of a 70-year history in the restaurant business for the Chapa family.

My Dad went to school with Arthur Chapa at Jefferson I think. RIP Beancups!

The article does say that the San Pedro location (different owners) will continue on.

Although asked by the Express-News, Arthur Chapa declined to share any of Teka Molino’s recipes.

How is it that no one has ever just beat the crap out of Chris Daly? He seems like he’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’. more . . . not that I condone violence, I’m just wondering out loud

My folks arrived- family bonding to ensue.

Thought of the day- “Why didn’t the Geefles just drop the nectarines in their own mouths?”

2nd thought- what exactly is going on here?