A Dingo's got my Barbie!!!

Dear TypePad.

I can't help but think that much of the time and effort that should have been spent on adequately testing the new editor has been wasted on making sure that the new GUI looks different to the previous version. In doing so, you've joined the ranks of Microsoft by deciding that production is the ultimate test environment.

There are numerous reasons why a new version of a product is released:

1. More functions.
2. Better performance.
3. More reliable.
4. Easier to use.
5. To correct previous bugs.
6. To make use of new hardware.
7. To charge more.
8. Improved customer satisfaction.

In the case of the new Editor that was recently implemented, NONE of these have been achieved, so I'm baffled as to why you would treat your loyal costumers so poorly by implementing such an obviously poorly tested piece of software!

For a start it takes up to a minute just to load the damn thing, i.e. just to get the screen up ( and that's on highspeed broadband) but once it's loaded, the fun really begins. We have this nice new font facility that allows us to use different fonts, except that whenever you use it, any previous font changes are lost. But at least you can change the colour of individual text, oh wait...that was the old editor, this one changes the colour of the whole fucking paragraph, and the only way to correct it is through the HTML editor.

Ah yes, the HTML editor. Why the fuck would you decide to use a new set of HTML codes when the standard ones work just fine? And while we're at it, did it take much effort to present the text in the HTML editor is a single run-on jumble of text and your arcane codes that's almost impossible to decipher? That really is some slick product design you've got there.

And I just love the way that including images in a post has been made that much more challenging by ensuring that whatever I have entered as the Default settings for my blog are erased every time I change screens, thereby giving me something to do while I think about what I write next. Oh, and when the icon for 'No Wrap' shows the text starting underneath the image, it would be nice if that was actually where it was placed, rather than starting it to the right of the image.

Including links isn't much better either, while the new entry popup looks a bit better, it would be handy if placement of the popup was such that the "Remove" and "Ok" buttons were actually visible on the screen instead of me having to scroll down to get them out from underneath the taskbar!

I'm quite sure that I'm not the only one experiencing these frustrating and needless obstacles to writing a post, except of course for those lucky enough not to have had this piece of shit inflicted upon them by some half assed team of developers. You should be ashamed of yourselves for implementing such a poorly tested piece of software.

And so, after spending twice to three times as long on a post, wrestling with an extremely slow, non intuitive, poorly implemented 'improved' editor, the final joke the developers have on us is when we try to exit. No matter how many times that I hit 'Save' I get a message box warning me that my changes have not been saved, and do I really want to leave the page [OK]  [Cancel] ? So now I have to click a button on an erroneous error message just to get out.

In desperation I have tried to use Scribefire (which is an editor that actually does work), but again have been thwarted. While it still works with TP, and will still publish, it doesn't see the posts written by the new editor, (thanks a lot guys).

I've asked to be rolledback to the previous editor, but have been told that I am now on a different platform, and anything I've written since the rollout will be lost. Fine, it's been such a pain in the arse to actually write anything since the rollout, I won't lose that much data anyway because I haven't been able to write much.

And as if all this isn't galling enough, the responses I get from the helpdesk all tell me that they appreciate my patience during this period! WTF?!  Are they being funny?? I lost patience a week ago. I'll tell you what I'd appreciate, I'D APPRECIATE FOR YOU TO EITHER GET THIS PIECE OF SHIT WORKING PROPERLY, OR GET RID OF IT!!!!!

Your Loyal Friend
Willowtree.

ps. I just got this AFTER I saved THIS post...

Update** Rather than just sit and stew about this, I decide to be pro-active. You might find this interesting.

You guys kille me

What the hell is wrong with you people‽ I put together an (update - almost) interesting post with three different versions of the same song (including one by the guy who actually wrote it), and all half of you could do was accuse me of being desperate for content. Jeezuz! I thought I was showing you something (update - almost) interesting.

NO POST FOR YOU!

NoMoPoFoYo post #14

PS. If I was really desperate I'd do a post something like this one.

What a loser!

I guess by now you've all read or heard about that useless sack of shit, masquerading as a human, that got caught owning a dog fighting enterprise. Yes I know his name, but I won't be writing it for two reasons, 1) I'm not prepared to waste my time typing the letters simply to identify someone that shouldn't exist anyway, and 2) bizarrely, this 6'4" pile of excrement still has his supporters and I don't want them finding me through google. Who knows what those fuckwits are capable of.

I'm not going to go on about what happened, any sane person would know intuitively that it was completely wrong. But just in case you can't grasp the enormity of the situation, I managed to get my hands on some video footage of a particularly vicious fight. The barbarity becomes apparent immediately. If you have a weak stomach you best not watch it...

Ok, you got me, it's really just my guys. But they could have been contenders! Ok, this time it's the real thing...

Ha!  Gotcha again! Man I am such a scream!!

But don't get me wrong, I genuinely am pissed off about this whole disgusting affair and I really hope he gets what's coming to him.

A rant (kind of)

I was going to conclude my first attempt at flying story today but I have been sidetracked by a comment on Karmyn's blog. The comment was in reference to a post Karmyn wrote about her son getting his first gun. Just a second, I'll go get it for you... Ok, in part it said "Look at societies that have outlawed use or ownership of guns.  They have greater problems with guns than we do."

Now I stress that this almost rant is not about the gun debate, for the simple reason that it's your decision (not mention your right) as to whether you own a gun or not. I'm fine with that and I would never try to change anyone's mind either way. We in Australia have a completely different mindset to the people in America (not better or worse, just different), and what works for us probably wouldn't work for them. Bear in mind that we never had a war of independence or a civil war.

What I do have a problem with however, is the number of times I see the statement "Look at societies that have outlawed use or ownership of guns.  They have greater problems with guns than we do." used as a justification for allowing unfettered access to guns. Not only is it factually incorrect, but there are plenty of valid arguments that could be put forward, all of which are better than "they have gun control and they're worse than us". To make such a statement is not only ill informed, it is offensive to those of us who live in countries with strict gun controls, and are proud of our low gun death statistics.

So that you don't have to go googling to see what the statistics are, below is a cut and paste of the Centre for Disease Control (bizarrely, this is the Gov. agency vested with responsibility) report on the matter:

Gun Deaths - United States Tops The List

The United States leads the world's richest nations in gun deaths -- murders, suicides, and accidental deaths due to guns - according to a study published April 17, 1998 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

The U.S. was first at 14.24 gun deaths per 100,000 people. Two other countries in the Americas came next. Brazil was second with 12.95, followed by Mexico with 12.69.

Japan had the lowest rate, at 0.05 gun deaths per 100,000 (1 per 2 million people). The police in Japan actively raid homes of those suspected of having weapons.

The 36 countries in the study were the richest in the World Bank's 1994 World Development Report, having the highest GNP per capita income.

The United States accounted for 45 percent of the 88,649 gun deaths reported in the study, the first comprehensive international scrutiny of gun-related deaths.

The gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in 1994 by country were as follows:

• U.S.A. 14.24
• Brazil 12.95
• Mexico 12.69
• Estonia 12.26
• Argentina 8.93
• Northern Ireland 6.63
• Finland 6.46
• Switzerland 5.31
• France 5.15
• Canada 4.31
• Norway 3.82
• Austria 3.70
• Portugal 3.20
• Israel 2.91
• Belgium 2.90
• Australia 2.65
• Slovenia 2.60
• Italy 2.44
• New Zealand 2.38
• Denmark 2.09
• Sweden 1.92
• Kuwait 1.84
• Greece 1.29
• Germany 1.24
• Hungary 1.11
• Ireland 0.97
• Spain 0.78
• Netherlands 0.70
• Scotland 0.54
• England and Wales 0.41
• Taiwan 0.37
• Singapore 0.21
• Mauritius 0.19
• Hong Kong 0.14
• South Korea 0.12
• Japan 0.05

I'm not asking that anyone change their views on gun ownership, as I said it's your business, I'm just asking that you leave us out of the argument. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure all except the top 5 on that list have stricter gun controls than America, but I know the ones I've highlighted do.

Links:
The Full article from MedicineNet.com
An interesting and dispassionate article from the Harvard Magazine.

Once again I stress I'm not putting forward an opinion one way or the other, it's simply not my business. I also accept that there would be well written, valid articles out there that  would be contra to the ones I linked to, it's just that these links give insight into why I think the way I do. However I have no interest in trying to change the way you think.

Grey's a nut to me.

Rant alert!!...

Before I start I'd like to make two things clear. 1) I'm not a prude and 2) I don't watch Gr@y's An@t*my. Having cleared that up, I'd just like to make the point that the writer's of Gr@y's have totally lost touch with reality and are doing no-one any great service by putting out the crap that should be called High School Hospital. Why do I think this? Read on McDuff....

I don't have a problem with all the Interns being catwalk ready, I don't even have a problem with there being a seemingly disproportionate number of trainee women surgeons (I thought I might be imagining it, so I got the stats for you to see for yourself). Hell it's not even the fact that they all seem to spend more time getting drunk and screwing than caring for the patients.

No, it's none of the above (almost), its the fact that these moron writers insist on insulting my intelligence by staffing this particular hospital with possibly the last 50 knuckleheads in America who haven't heard of Safe Sex. I watched the first episode because it had such a huge build up and what did I see? Two people who don't even know each other's names waking up next to each other after a night of hide the sausage. And surprise! surprise! It's the chief neurosurgeon and the brilliant but flawed intern, Mer*d!th Gr@y. I just hope they scrubbed properly before their first operation.

As I said, I'm no prude, in fact I've needed a shot of penicillin a couple of times myself over the years, but that was well before AIDS. But what these fuckwitt writers are spewing forth is unbelievable! I don't even watch it and I know that the valedictorian Asian intern got pregnant, the gay in real life doctor got an STD from a nurse who got it from the not gay in real life doctor, all of the staff thought they might have it so they all got a shot, and now the title character is pregnant but doesn't know which of two guys she's had unprotected sex with in the past week is the father, it's either the one who is also having unprotected sex with his wife or the vet who in a future episode is probably going to have unprotected sex with one of his patients.

Give me a fucking break! This show would put forward a better health message if all the doctors smoked during surgery.

Update** I deleted any reference to Gr@y's An*t@my in the hopes of preventing any more morons from finding this blog through Google.

Fuck the Bloggies!

Ok, so I'm a sore loser, I'll admit it. But at least I've got someone to admit it to, not like the majority of the fucking half-arsed blogs who gained nominations for this year's bloggies. While my content may not be spectacular, it is at least all mine, unlike those blogs who use photos and/or text from various sources.

Except for Tabloid Whore (commenting on checkout magazine articles), Post Secret (a good idea but no actual authoring) and Go Fug Yourself (well written but such a narrow focus it gets tedious), the majority of nominated blogs I looked at averaged between 0 and 5 comments per post. What a crock of shit! If they looked like they had a respectable readership I wouldn't be having this rant.

I've only heard of around four of the nominated blogs, and, apart from Ree, those were nominated in multiple categories (Ree was nominated only for best kept secret, despite a very large and very loyal readership). The only Australian blog I recognised was Holtie's Place, g'day Peter and congratulations. The first one I saw in the best Aussie category is by a British girl, but get this, the same blog is also nominated for Best Asian Blog!! What the fuck you morons!

I got a bit suspicious yesterday, before the nominations were posted as I went back over the winners for the last 7 years, and guess what...the same blog won Best Australian blog for 6 of the 7 years, yeah sure! Oh and get this, the reason I was poking around in the first place was because the nominations were delayed a few days because the guy was sick. I was lead to believe that this was a serious affair, instead, it's just a fucking hillbilly wasting my time.

So what I'm saying is this, Nickolai, you're a fucking joke and so are your bullshit bloggies.  And no, I will not be voting. Thank you to all those who took the time and effort to nominate me, but don't bother next year. The whole thing is an embarrassment, and I want no part of it.

**Updated to explain my reasonings after reading some comments, and as a result of the love I'm feeling for your kind support....

What really got me was that when I checked out the nominations, there were quite a number of blogs that had multiple posts with zero comments, my point is this: if their readers aren't motivated enough to even comment, how could they be motivated enough to go to the trouble of filling out the stupid fucking forms to nominate the blog (and I assure you it wasn't an easy thing to do).

On the other hand, I did a 'Miramax/Gwenneth Paltrow' deal and shamelessly cajoled my readers into nominating me, and from the feedback I got (ie comments saying they nominated me), I'm pretty confident that I got more nominations than a lot of those that were selected.

Plus one of the Australian blogs only does reviews of restaurants in Melbourne, isn't that a food blog you fucking dipsticks. I'll say it again, the whole thing is full of shit, and I wouldn't be surprised to find it's some kind of a scam.

While I'm on a roll...here's something I found interesting: Despite Ree having a writing ability and a range of subject matter that would make any aspiring or even professional writer green with envy, and despite having some of the most spectacular photographs featuring all kinds of subjects, she only managed to get nominated for the 'best kept secret' blog (I wonder what the 200+ regulars who comment, not to mention the regulars who don't comment, would think of that). On the other hand, Heather Armstrong, who has put me to sleep many a time with her endless accounts and photographs of Leta, is nominated for best photography, best writing and best blog. What the Fuck?

So in case I have forgotten to mention it, Nickolai, you're full of shit and your bogus bloggies are a fucking joke.