Quickie gripe. I have at least a half dozen devices that take three AAA batteries. THREE. What genius engineer thought that up? When's the last time you saw a 3-pack of triple A's for sale? I'm convinced these people are in bed with Duracell and Energizer. Think about it...what better way to get an instant 33% jump in sales than force unorganized folks like myself to by four batteries for a three battery device? Because I can guarantee you that "odd man out" 4th battery will be totally and completely MIA by the time I need new ones. And off I'll go to get another 4 pack. Bastages! :)

Geico has some really bad ads. But this radio spot of theirs I heard this morning was one of the worst ever. I don't know if I really could "save 15% or more by switching"...but ads like these make me REALLY not want to even bother trying.

It went something like this..."The Utah state bird is the Seagull. But Geico has such low rates, people in Utah want to change it to the Gecko...(insert more lameness here)".

What? Huh?

First of all, Geico is not Gecko. It's Geico. It's just some stupid-sounding word they came up with. If you want a gecko to be your mascot, maybe you should change your name to FREAKING GECKO! What's next? A pony playing a Sony Playstation? 'Cause that makes sense, right?

And what on earth does the state bird have to do with car insurance anyway? Dahh, this is so stupid I'm getting all worked up just writing about it. :) Let's assume for just a second that it isn't stupid that they use geckos in their commercials...why not say that the people of Utah want to change the state animal or state reptile or something to the gecko?

And finally, what an incredibly unclever and nonsensical stretch to assume that people would want to change the state anything because of car insurance, cheap or otherwise.

Then it dawned on me...perhaps Geico makes their ads lame for the same reason that "Totally Awesome Computers" and "PC Laptops" are in-your-face obnoxious and annoying. To get your attention, to get you talking about them, write blog entries, etc. I.e., generate buzz. Am I a mere pawn in your grand scheme, Geico?

But then I came to my senses. Your ads suck, Geico, and I'll never buy insurance from you precisely because of them. You lose. :)

I swear every time I go into the Maverik to pick up my 12-pack of diet Dew there is some new gimmicky "energy" drink. The market seems to have really taken off for all these Red Bull ripoffs. So it got the ol' hamster wheel spinning...I need to get in on this while the action is hot! You'll notice that there seems to be a game of one-upsmanship among the manufactures of these supposed energy drinks, each new brand has a more extreme sounding name, a more obnoxiously colorful label, more and more useless supplements, and a bigger and bigger can size (not to mention price).

So I've decided to take it to the extreme and TENups anything else out there...you know, take a few quantum leaps in the evolution of the energy drink rather than these pointlessly small increments and just blow away the competition. I give you...Turbo Death Acid!

That's right baby, Turbo Death Acid. Compared to a refreshing can of TDA, everything else will be like drinking your grandma's Metamucil shake. The can is gonna glow like that too. Not sure how yet, but I'll figure out details later. And it's gonna be big. Not some puny 12 or 16 oz'er, I'm talking like a liter and a half. And no flimsy-pants aluminum either...an eighth inch of solid stainless steel. Turbo Death Acid promises more caffeine that the blackest of coffee, but that's just the start.

Oh you want supplements? Get a load of this list...we got Acidophilus, we got Astragalus, we got Beta-Carotene, Alpha-Carotene, and Delta-Carotene. We got Gingko Bilboa, we got Rocky Balboa, we got Cat's Claw, Pig's Hoof, and Owl's Beak. But wait, there's more! It's not called Turbo Death ACID for nothing. We got Alpha-Liopic Acid, Biotin and Pantothenic Acid, and Amino Acids galore! Ginseng? We put in the Ginseng death threshold amount...and then ADDED a couple grams! And all that is just the beginning. How about some Wild Yam, Shark Cartlidge, St. John's Wort, Black Cohosh, and don't forget the Bee Products! What do all these supplements do? No one really knows, but who cares! It's all in there. Add just a smidge of Drain-O and a pinch of Napalm and you then have...Turbo Death Acid! Coming soon to a convenience store near you.

There's a trend in websites that has been bugging me lately. Have you ever noticed how companies will just randomly insert pictures of people, usually stock photography of business people, on the front page of their website? Usually of people that don't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the business? Why do they do this? I guess it's an attempt to add some legitimacy or sophistication to their business, regardless of what that business may be. Maybe in some instances it works, but other times I think it's just stupid. For example:

Bob's Raw Sewage.
"We process crap so you don't have to."

I don't know. I'm sure they've done all sorts of marketing studies that show that this kind of thing ultimately is effective, but I will continue to think it's lame. :)

I am a big fan of pay-at-the-pump at gas stations. It just makes sense...slip in the card, pump your gas, and go. Easy. There is one thing, however, that bugs me immensely about pay-at-the-pump, and that is how each and every one of them has a slightly different process. Do I insert the card now, or do I hit "Pay Outside"? Do I flip up the handle, or press a button? Wait, where IS the button? How do I select which grade of gas? Debit or Credit? Do I want a carwash? Do I want a receipt? Stop beeping at me!!! Did I know there is a special on Cool Ranch Doritos inside? Dahh!!!

Take note o ye designers of future pay-at-the-pumps. This is how it should go. Pull up, slip in card, open tank, put nozzle in, pump, put nozzle back, done. How can it be this simple, you ask? Defaults. DEFAULTS! Maybe it is the computer science in me, but I learned very early on in my programming career that defaults are your friend. Just before you slip in the card there should a button next to the card reader that simply says: "Press here if you would like to be bothered." If you press it then you get all the stupid options that are currently forced down our throats. Otherwise you get the cheapest grade of gas, you get no receipt, you get no carwash, and it runs as credit. Done.

I go to Walmart today during my lunch break, pick up a 12-pack of Diet Mtn. Dew, and head towards check out. You are now faced with 3 choices once you arrive: regular check out, express check out (20 items or less), and the new self check-out. Regular check out is always a poor option as you will find yourself behind several stay-at-home-mom's who have the next 9 months of groceries densely crammed into one cart. The express lane is usually not any better as people scoff at the supposed item-limit (and I swear the max. number of items gets higher and higher each year - how about a 1 item lane?). Which leaves the relatively recently deployed 3rd option, the self check-out.

I actually like the idea of eliminating the checker and doing it yourself. I've used them several times and they seem to have worked most of the kinks out of the initial models. There is, however, a major problem with the notion of self check-out. Walmart and other stores have GROSSLY overestimated the average person's ability to go through this process in a timely manner. I have never been in line to use one where the person (or persons) in front of me didn't resemble a senior citizen trying to set the clock on their VCR. I mean let's face it...these things are WAY WAY WAY too complex for your average Walmart shopper. There's a touch screen with a myriad of options and buttons. There's a credit card machine with all its buttons and gadgetry. There's a bill slot, a coin slot, a change return, a receipt printer, a laser bar code scanner, a scale, bags, etc., etc. It's simply too much. And the end result is that self check-out lanes are a viable option ONLY when there's no one in front of you. And the odds of that happening at your average Walmart, unless it's 4am Sunday morning, is basically zero.

Ideally they would have some sort of IQ scanning machine you have to step through in order to get to the self check-out machines. Like the machines they have at airport security. "ZZZ. I'm sorry ma'am...but you're too stupid to use the self check-out...express lane is that way." Or maybe they could have a VCR set up in front with a blinking 12:00, and if you can correctly set the time in less than 20 seconds, you are allowed to enter. Just some ideas. Maybe someday...

I recently took a quickie work trip up to Toronto, Canada, and while sitting on the plane observing the stewardesses, err, flight attendants, I couldn't help but notice how incredibly anal they are about seat belts. They are so concerned with it, it has its own special light-up indicator above every seat and its own special little ding.

"Please keep your seat belt fastened during take-off until the indicator is turned off." "Please keep your seat belt fastened until the plane is through taxiing and at a complete stop." "Ooh, turbulence...everyone back in their seats immediately and fasten seat belt, NOW!"

I'm convinced there is some ulterior motive for the seat belt nazism. Because I mean let's face it...whilst on a flight one of two things is going to happen. A) The flight will go normally with the possibility of a little turbulence, none of which warrants actually wearing a seat belt. Or B) the plane crashes in a fiery blaze and everyone dies, seat belt or no. That's it. That's all that ever happens. So why the absolutely colossal waste of time with all the lights and dings and announcements? It just doesn't add up...

I was listening to the radio the other morning and heard an add for something known as the International Star Registry. I decided to write about it because I would like to shake the hand of the guy who came up with this scam. Nice work, my man...pure genius. For only $54 you get a freaking star named after you! How great is that?

I'm devising a copycat endeavor as I write. For only $29.95, a steal compared to that expensive star stuff, you can get a grain of sand named after you, complete with certificate of authenicity and a photo of the beach where your grain resides. Or for $19.95, an H2O molecule in the ocean of your choice. This is gonna be HUGE!

As a sidenote...I wonder if you get a discount if your star goes supernova? :)

Whenever I watch a video about Iraq I inevitably hear a soldier or some other military type mispronounce the word "cache" as "cashay" instead of just plain ol' "cash". As in, "We found the insurgent's weapons cashay." I've looked it up at least a half dozen times to verify that cashay is not some obscure alternate pronunciation that I was unaware of. And you know what I found? It's not.

So how does this happen? What is the explanation for this spontaneous mass mispronunciation phenomenon? My theory is that dumb-guy-A listens to prone-to-mispronounce-guy-B and then questions his own way of pronouncing a given word. Rather than look it up, dumb-guy-A starts to say it the wrong way, and then dumb-guy-C hears. And it snowballs from there until easily-annoyed-guy-D (me) hears it on CNN and is bothered enough to write a blog entry about it. :) I would love to hear alternative theories...

One other thing has been bothering me. It's December now and the stores are bombarding us with "seasonal" candy. Seasonal is a nice way of saying "only sells because of perceived affiliation with Christmas". A perfect example of a seasonal candy - the Candy Cane.

It's not a coincidence that the cane of candy is nowhere to be found in July. It's not that the candy cane is an uninspiring shaft of sugar, however, that I've chosen to write about it. What irks me most is the way they've chosen to package it. Innovative, year-round candies are constantly giving us new and exciting ways to minimize the "inside package" to "inside mouth" time. Simply pull this nifty red tab and watch as the packaging unravels effortlessly to reveal the now readily accessible goodies inside. That's technology at work, ladies and gentlemen...that's progress!

Alas, the candy cane makers have opted to remain in the packaging stone-age. You'll find no convenient pull-tab on these beasts, no reclosable slot/tab combo, no high-tech zip lock action, but rather a simple shrink-wrapping so tight that a wrapped cane and an unwrapped cane are virtually indistinguishable. Once you start the unwrapping process you'll find that seasonal candy must be mandated to use cheap cellophane that has this bizarre impossibly strong, incredibly weak characteristic duality which is somehow able to manifest itself at precisely the most inopportune times.

For example, the stuff is kevlar-esque when you first get a mind to break into it...but rather than just slip off the cane with one pull, it quickly loses all prior strength and you end up peeling it rather like a banana...only with an invisible peel. It's only once you begin to eat the candy cane and discover the cellophane shrapnel in your mouth that you realize that your peeling job was not thorough.

The real irony to this, however, is that there really are no fruits resulting from your labors, so to speak. Candy canes just aren't good. But I will leave the infamous cane's taste leaving something to be desired for a different post. :)

I'm sure you've heard the quote "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." Listening to the radio this morning I heard a seat belt statistic that made me think of this quote and about how you really need to think about what a statistic means. Here's what they said:

"53% of car accident fatalities were not wearing their seat belt." Your first reaction might be, "oooh, 53%, that's a pretty big chunk, they should have been wearing their seat belt!" But think about it a little more. 53%, with a +/- 3% margin of error, which is pretty standard, is for all intents and purposes the same as 50%. So in other words, 50% of car accident fatalities WERE wearing their seat belt. So what does that tell us? If half of fatalities were wearing a seat belt and half were not, then what that tells me is that wearing a seat belt has a NEGLIGIBLE effect on your survivability in a serious traffic accident.

As it turns out I happen to be a fan of the seat belt as it probably saved me from injury about a year ago when I had a head-on collision, but I just thought this was an interesting example of a misleading statistic, whether they meant it to be or not.