Tuesday I will be in Mountain View.  Tomorrow I will be in Frankfurt with good friends and many drunk loud Germans screaming at a big TV. Tonight beyond the witching hour I declined an adventure in Koeln, being the wise or stupid one.  Today I was rocking out with people from 10 to 79 and also teaching a tango dancer to waltz to a band playing surprisingly damn good cover songs.  Also today I unexpectedly toured Bonn for two hours with a beautiful new also-unexpected friend, played piano for an entire wedding in Sankt Augustin, and ate a breakfast of bread, sausage and cheese for the many-hundredth time.

I like paying for things with a credit card.  It’s typically pretty fast (especially with those merchants that don’t require a signature for <$25 purchases).  It's secure.  And I earn travel rewards for every dollar I spend.

So when it comes to the occasional purchase online that I can only buy via PayPal I cringe.  Why?  Because PayPal really really really doesn't want me to pay with a credit card, and they'll harrass me about this during every checkout, creating a user-hostile experience each and every time I use their dog-forsaken service.

A friend recently lamented that it took eight clicks for them to buy something on PayPal.  That sounds about right.  You see, PayPal defaults users to paying from their bank account… so we have to search for a tiny “more funding options” link and then select the credit card, then be subjected to a long whiny please “Are you absolutely positively sure that you don’t want to pay from your bank account?  It’s really a better option yadda yadda yadda...” followed by a charmingly shifting yes/no set of buttons.

Look, PayPal, I want to pay by credit card.  I’ve told you this more than a dozen times.  I’ve also read/skimmed/ignored your stupid please-don’t-pay-by-credit-card notice more than a dozen times.  And, by the way, I’m well aware that you already pass on extra associated charges to your merchants when buyers pay by credit card.

So SOD OFF!  Either let me set “pay by credit card” in my preferences somewhere, or leave me the frack alone.

In the meantime, I’m hoping you go out of business, to be replaced by a company that doesn’t repeatedly spit on its users.

ADDENDUM / DISCLAIMERS:
- I work for Google, which offers a somewhat-competing service called Google Checkout. I use and like that service, but am not part of the Checkout team.
- My anger towards PayPal may seem heavy given the seemingly light-transgression described above.  But it’s just the last straw.  PayPal has a history of thumbing its corporate nose at its users, and I’ve had the displeasure of using PayPal for many years as a buyer and seller on ebay.

Today’s entry is short and wonderful.  Behold, in the video below, Matt Harding… “dancing” around the world, one city at a time.  At the 54 second mark, watch the video really come alive when he delights countless locales who join in the dancing… and, i guarantee, charms all of you watching, too .

For more information, see www.wherethehellismatt.com.
Also, you really really must see his other videos (linked under his name).

Edited on June 23 to add: Thank you to Bee for pointing out my URL typo! Now fixed

Once again, I was off to Germany… home of good friends, heavy food, wacky long sentences, and Lufthansa, the airline whose plane I was unceremoniously squished into not like a sardine, but wurst.

I had the foot-munching-tray aisle to my right, and a stupendously larger-than-life and dumber-than-devil-fossils young fella to my left.  To his left sat an acquaintance of his, seemingly of equal gelatinousness and dimwittedness. For the purposes of this entry, we’ll call them Slad and Elad, respectively if not respectfully.

* * *

Slad had no sense.  No sense of etiquette, culture, space, or time.  No sense at all, really.  And he was happy to share this nonsense with me, loudly… cheerfully interrupting the safety instructions which were actually melodious and fascinating in comparison.

Slad: HEY!
Me: Hi.
Slad: THEY’RE TALKING GERMAN!
Me: Yeah.
Slad: WHY ARE THEY TALKING GERMAN?
Me: It’s Lufthansa, a German airline.
Slad: [A look even blanker than usual]
Me: ...And we’re going to Germany, so there are Germans on board.

Only the first part had sunk in.  And barely at that.

Slad: LUFTHANGLE?
Me: Lufthansa.
Slad: YEAH!?  BUT THEY’RE STILL TALKING GERMAN!
Me: [speechless]

About 30 minutes into the flight…