Okay, this is not a rant on junk food.  I think when people eat Cheez-wiz, they aren’t misguided enough to assume they’re eating healthful real cheese.  When people eat a double fudge brownie, I doubt they’re confusing this with an apple.  And when people eat Cap’n Crunch cereal, there’s no way they’d assume they’re consuming real fruit.  Oh, um, wait a minute, someone did?  Er, well, anyway, you get my point

But seriously… sometimes there’s an absolute nasty & unhealthy food paired with such obnoxiously, blatantly misleading marketing that I can’t help calling a spade a hyrogenated [sic] artificially flavored spade.

First, the marketing that, by all means, should condemn some marketer to eternal dietary hell:

“In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.  Their family business earned a place in history in 1932 when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.  The farm that started it all has also become a family amusement park that delights millions.

The Knott family is pleased to extend their tradition of quality to include premium shortbread cookies.  Richly flavorful, these classic favorites are prepared using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.”

Let’s dissect this, shall we?

> In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.
...and boy, would they be horrified to see how their heirs have sold them out!

> ...when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.

...which you’ll find all of likely one-tenth of a gram of in this plasticfood monstrosity.

> ... premium shortbread cookies
... where “premium” means “premium profits for us, utter crap for you.”

> ... Richly flavorful
... from lots of high fructose corn syrup

> ... these classic favorites
... if you call a frankenstein concoction of chemicals “classic.”  Maybe a classic case of deceit.

> ... using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.
... oh, wait, we meant popular dental fillings!

*  *  *

Do you know Pandora?  If you’re in the United States, where Pandora is legally available, you may have come to enjoy this awesome uber-customizable music radio over the past years.  If you’re not in the U.S., perhaps you’ve discovered the beauty of anonymous proxies :cough:, which I’m not going to mention here :p.

But perhaps you didn’t know that Pandora has become available on mobile phones!  More good news:  It’s available for free on phones that run the Windows Mobile operating system, free on Sprint phones, and free on (some versions of) BlackBerry phones.  Ironically, it’s also free on the iPhone, and I say ironically because AT&T apparently is charging—I swear I am not making this up—$8.95 per month to its other mobile customers for the privileges of using Pandora.  I mean, I love Pandora and all, but even if I were insane enough to be contributing to the income of the evilness that is AT&T, I sure as heck wouldn’t fork over that much dough for Pandora.  For an on-demand mobile music service?  Perhaps.  But for streaming radio?  You’ve got to be kidding.

One other note on the Pandora Mobile offerings:  Apparently, I’m not supposed to be able to access Pandora Mobile because T-Mobile phones are not supported.  Which is odd, because I’m enjoying streaming music via Pandora on my BlackBerry Curve (on T-Mobile) right now.  Go figure.  I also shouldn’t mention that I was also able to do this while in Ireland a couple of weeks ago (listening to, appropriately enough, The Corrs on St. Patricks day ).

*  *  *

Anyway, if you’re an iPhone user or a non-AT&T subscriber, give Pandora Mobile a go!  If you’re an AT&T subscriber, well, heaven help you, and for reasons way beyond this Pandora issue.

[Gee, Adam, tell us what you really think about AT&T :D]

The other day I got a (yet another) piece of inbox spam on the otherwise cool service last.fm.  And no good can come from spam, right?

Not sure what got into me, but I actually went to the site (which I’ll not name, so as to not potentially give them any customers).  And you know what?  They were doing something brilliant:  they were selling high-fi music tracks for 20 cents a piece.  No, that’s not in itself brilliant; Russian sites doing the same thing are and have been a dime a dozen.  What struck me as brilliant was their way of allowing music lovers to explore the *full length* of songs while still enticing them to buy the track.

I was carelessly logging into my Keypoint Credit Union account online today, and messed up three times.  BAM—with no prior notice at all, I was locked out of my account.

What would most normal banks do under this circumstance?

I recently traveled to Brazil and Mexico for work.  That’s damn cool, I admit.  I’m lucky to have that opportunity, grateful to meet so many wonderful people on my journeys and see so many awesome sights.

But, as with many things in life, there’s also a downside.  In this case, I am owed thousands of dollars in hotel, airfare, meal charges, etc., so—of course—I need to file an expense report.  And doing that in three different currencies is no fun, no fun at all.

Procrastinating this effort even further, I just wrote up a blog entry on my company’s internal blog system, but then I realized… heck, maybe others could benefit from my tips.  So without further ado, here they are

• Sweat the small stuff.  “Oh, it’s just a $4 coffee and energy bar!” er, it all adds up, trust me!  Keep track of this.  Along these lines, don’t forget to take into account (and expense) ATM surcharges, reasonable tips (which may not show up on your receipt), etc.
   
  Read the full entry...

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  - Blathered by Adam on Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 19:49 Permalink
  - Filed under Business and consumers • Grab bag • Tips
  - Commented on by 4 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Earlier this week I spent about 45 seconds and got $134 for my effort. 

It went something like this:

1. Phone rang.  Didn’t recognize number, and was going to let it go to voicemail, but for some reason I answered it.
2. “Hi, may I speak with Adam?” [oh no… not a telemarketer!  I braced myself.]
3. “This is Angela from [dental group], and I wanted to let you know it’s time for your teeth cleaning…”
4. I explained that I had moved and was getting my teeth cleaned by another dentist.
5. “Oh!  Well, there’s a $134 credit on your account.  Would you like me to send it to you?”
6. Three days later, I found a check for $134 in my mailbox.

Why am I sharing this story with you?  Well, you see, this got me to thinking.  Maybe there are other people who have changed dentists or banks or optometrists, that sort of thing.  And maybe they’re owed money, too.

Perhaps it’s worth checking for a check, eh?

- A public service message from your local BLADAM

My friend Greg and I just had a fascinating and extensive discussion about the concept of airlines charging their customers by the weight of their bodies + luggage. 

The way we envisioned it, all airlines tickets would be composed of exactly two fees: a seat fee (fixed) and a weight fee (variable).  This is hardly our original idea; I’ve seen similar suggestions pondered on the web before.  But nonetheless, I thought it’d be interesting to reflect upon some implementation ideas as well as pros and cons.

Have you heard about TipJoy and the still-very-small phenomena of tipping (real money) on the web?

It’s quite fascinating, in my opinion, and I certainly have very mixed feelings on this issue.

PLUSES:

• I admire how the founder gets “out there” to talk about his service... but not only about his service. 
• I think there’s a true need to reward outstanding authors/contributors on the web with real money, and I think tipping is better than huge ad clutter / massively off-topic ads.
• In particular, I love the idea of tipping in the context of supporting artists and art online.  Give me great MP3s, and then give me a culture in which MANY of us offer tips… even $2-7/album, which’d be WAY more than the artist would normally get via CDs or iTunes, etc.
• TipJoy is pretty easy to use.
• The fees seem reasonable.

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.

A while back, I tried Second Life and wrote about it.

Many months went by, and—after getting a new graphics card—I figured, hey, why not try Second Life again?

I actually remembered my old SL name though wasn’t sure of the password.  Guessed a couple of times, wasn’t able to log in, so I clicked on the Forgot Password link.  Ah ha… I knew the answer to that secret question, got a link to reset my password, and figured I was all good to go.

Except that I still couldn’t log in.  I waited a few hours and tried again, but still no-go.

This, indeed, was just the beginning of my ridiculous adventure.