This blog is, for a variety of reasons, moving. The new address is ReidCarlberg.com. It's not quite polished up yet, but everything is imported, so I should have it complete by the end of the day. Ish.

Cheers!

Labels: Meta

Chicago is now (OK it has been for some time) the official US "Applicant City" for 2016 Summer Games. This is cool and I seriously hope that the Olympics make their way here.

But "applicant city"? How about "Supplicant city"? How about "Mendicant city"? Polly want a cracker? Fuck yeah -- but could I have mine Olympic flavored, please? Here's my application. In triplicate.

Wait, where was I?

Sure, "applicant" is accurate, but is there any way to make it sound less demeaning? It's not like we're begging for the Olympics -- we're offering to host them. As part of that we'll have to invest a couple of billion, throw our city into disarray for years in preparation. Don't get me wrong, we'll do it and it would be great, just like other events we've hosted. Think 1893 World Columbian Exposition or the 2004 Anesthesiologist's Midwestern Meet-Up. You get the idea: we're the host with the most.

"Applicant city"? C'mon.

Labels: chicago, chicago 2016

First, sorry for the earlier aborted note. I know they're frustrating. Was (slightly) drunk and my stop was next. Call it fat fingers. Whatever. I didn't mean to save and publish. But now that it's the most commented blog post I've ever had (next to my homage to MySpace Technical Support, of course), I can no longer simply delete it.

So, what I was dying to tell you last night was this: that if you wonder why you can't break even its because of the looligag conductors and that you're ticket monitoring is antiquated. That's what I wanted to say, but today's that's all changed.

Today I want to say how glad I am that the conductor (one of them), yelled out, "Can you please get your tickets out and have them ready so I can get this done before I have to retire. Please get them out before you start to play with your laptops or ipods or whatever." It very entertaining. And a little Southwest-ish, which I enjoy.

And, just a thought, maybe when he retires you can replace him with a machine. That would be awesome.

In general, I like the new Amazon design. I have to admit I liked the old flyout 40 department layer better than the new and more traditional top left drop menus. Why? It has to do with the way I use Amazon. In the image, the red line represents the way you should traverse the menu. The purple line is the way I typically traverse it. See the black circle where it's just off the menu? When I hover over that, the menu disappears. And I have to go all the way back to the top to get it again.

The fix on this isn't rocket science. Just make the layer that contains the drop down a bit bigger so that a user has to go, say, 25 pixels off of the main menu items in order to make the menu disappear. That way the design is more forgiving and doesn't require as much precision by a user.

Labels: business, web design

Creepy? Sweet? Creepy Sweet!

Labels: it

Oh -- he's not. It's just a major capitalization mistake that should have never made it through. This particular error may well cause 60% plus of people to simple discard your message, impeachment via the delete key, if you will.

That's the problem with times like these: things slip through. What with your Chicago flagship wanting to still be called by it's old name (hint: rhymes is Shashall Dields), falling sales and protesting workers.

Things slip through. Like a Major Capitalization Error on a poorly proofread email.

Oh, cheers to the Macy's employee who, during my tour on Saturday, followed up my commentary regarding another owner's rehab work -- "Target really did a nice job" -- with a "They certainly did!" I'm guessing that black smock might still be hiding a little green.

Labels: business, chicago greeter, pointless