The title of this post has a double meaning.

We Are Hex, Indianapolis based chaos rock troupe, is back at it and writing what is quite possibly some of the most awesome stuff I have heard in quite some time. I was lucky enough to capture the audio of last Saturday night’s performance at Punk Rock Night, and have also, in turn, breathed new life into the RockitBomb podcast.

It was great show with Small Arms Fire opening, and Thin Fevers taking what was left of the stage after. Listen to this episode and enjoy the full live set after a brief interview with Jill and Brandon.

Keep an eye out for the band’s new demo and be sure to check them out on tour this fall.

A final note - this podcast is in m4a format. It has chapters, so download it in iTunes and rock it on your iPod or other compatible device. If you have troubles with it, please let me know in the comments, as this my first pass at chaptered podcasts.

Enjoy!

We Are Hex - Live Set and Interview - m4a format

iTunes Link

Podcast Feed Link

It involved a lot of scrambling up and down rock ledges and picking our way over ankle-busting rocks the size of bowling balls. But it also included some amazing views of the Catskills, perfect weather, the dwarf pine forest and badlands, and scads of blueberry bushes bursting with treats.

Rather than writing about the ice caves, the splendid vistas, the clean air, and the blueberries that were perfectly ripe, I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves.

Sometimes I manage to keep my trap shut long enough to take some pictures. So I’ll catch up on some recent events in photos.

Enjoy!

They’re turning the Brooklyn side of the East River waterfront into a park. Here’s the beginning of it, looking North at the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and one of the East River Waterfalls.

Haleigh was out for a couple of weeks to visit. One Sunday we went to Siggy’s for brunch. They have a guard cat who was obviously on high alert.

People will bring most anything on the subway.

Parking in our neighborhood can be dangerous.

There are always movies and commercials being filmed in our ‘hood. This was probably one of the new Jerry Seinfeld ads. Here’s a hint: Windows Vista still sucks.

One of our favorite dive bars/restaurants is the Trailer Park Lounge in Chelsea. They have $5 margaritas and $3 PBR.

Speaking of booze, Little Italy is a great place to enjoy sangria on a hot summer evening.

Alcohol consumption seems to be a theme here. But when you don’t have to drive, it’s easier to just enjoy a drink or several.

Anyway, Absinthe is now legal in some states. That’s my buddy Donny and me enacting some sort of homoerotic male bonding after splitting nearly half a bottle of the stuff. I think I was hallucinating.

On a more dignified note, here I am getting ready to go to Ben’s wedding.

Some friends were in town recently, and wanted to do tourist stuff like visit Times Square. Public restrooms are hard to find in New York City, but I was ingenious enough to suggest Toys ‘R’ Us. Score one for me and my bladder.

While there, we took a look around. My favorite was the 30-foot Lego Empire State Building, complete with King Kong.

The night we were there happened to be the night the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars toys went on sale. There were some really excited people waiting in line for the midnight sale. Believe it or not, these folks were customers.

New York is a city of dogs. Unfortunately, it’s not a city of everyone picking up after them. Some folks in Red Hook take serious exception to this phenomenon.

And finally, evening walks in our neighborhood absolutely rule. Here’s another one of the East River Waterfalls in the foreground of a beautiful summer sunset on the Upper New York Bay.

Lately when that happens I’ve taken to thinking about things that have nothing to do with the present. Sometimes I go over who played drums in each of Herbie Hancock’s bands, other times it’s thinking up plots for sequels to movies I hate so that they end up good.

The other night I got going on thinking of one to three significant things I remember from every grade in elementary school. And here they are:

First Grade

• Our teacher died about a month into the school year. She wore white orthopedic shoes that squeaked when she walked. One kid told me it was her diapers. I was gullible, but not that gullible.
• She was replaced by Mrs. Phillips, who probably smoked two packs of Reds a day. When she was doing the reading lesson and she said “Gum” it sounded like a car starting.
• I was in the advanced reading group with my friend Jared Steffenson. When the lower groups would read aloud from “Dick and Jane,” Jared and I would snicker at the word “Dick” and get in trouble.

Second Grade

• Once I became ill in class. Mrs. Wilhelm put her cheek to my forehead to see if I had a fever. She smelled like lilacs.
• I wrote a story in the Creative Writing Corner called “Planet of the Lollipop People” that got me sent to the prinicipal’s office. There was nothing horrid in it, it was just–as Ms. Cronan (the prinicipal) put it–”very odd.”
• I coined the nickname for the aforementioned prinicipal “CROnan the Barbarian.” That stuck.

Third Grade

• I brought a toy motorcycle to school because I was bored. The motorcycle had a sidecar on it, and when Mrs. Cole took it away from me because it was more interesting than what she had to say, she kept calling it a tractor. She kept it until the end of the school year.
• Mrs. Cole mocked me in front of the class for putting too much glue on some construction paper. “Yeah, that’s really just a little bit of glue, Matt. Nice job.” She took my project and threw it in the trash, making me sit with my head down while the class went to recess.
• On the last day of school I got sent to the Vice Prinicipal’s office to get paddled for arguing. Mr. Carter was really cool, and he liked me, so he told me to turn around and put my hands on his desk. I did so, and he touched the paddle to my butt so lightly I almost missed it. He signed the form and told me to have a good summer.

Fourth Grade

• I was never good at listening exercises where the teacher gave you a sequence of events to do on a worksheet, then you had to do them a few minutes later. I’m pretty sure I got an F on every single one.
• For Indiana history, our class put on a play. Tony Meier and I played pioneers, and part of our role was to defend the fort. The toy gun he brought as a prop made a funny *bang WHEEEEEEE* noise, which made me break into uncontrollable laughter. As I tried to get it together, I could see the principal glaring at me from the front row.
• We went to Little Hoosier Historians camp that summer, and I won outstanding camper for our group. I think it was because I didn’t call our counselor “Bobby” like everyone else. I called him Mr. Waddle (as we were told to do) and managed not to laugh about it.

Fifth Grade

• This was the first year of a dedicated gifted class. Our teacher, Mr. McKenzie, lost a whole class’ worth of assignments and got angry with us, accusing the whole class of not turning in our work.
• We got to do actual research projects. My favorite was the blood spatter analysis, trying to determine the direction, height and whatnot of a would by the splatter pattern. This sparked my interest in forensics.
• For our unit on Medieval history, we did a historical reenactment. I was the jester, and my mom made me the whole outfit. My mistake was getting actual tights to make the costume realistic. Bad move. Kids can be cruel.

Sixth Grade

• I made the basketball team in sixth grade. I was really excited because our colors were red and white, just like Indiana University. On top of that, I was number 12 just like Steve Alford. I sucked, but my mom bought me a pair of Nike Air Jordans as a reward.
• This was the year I won the spelling bee. I wasn’t going to participate, but our principal made a personal visit to me in class to “strongly encourage” me to enter because I was a notoriously good speller. My picture was in the paper, and while everyone else was all dressed up I was wearing jeans and my Apache Basketball t-shirt.
• For some reason my friend Rob G. and I got asked to participate in a flag-bearing ceremony at the Pan Am games. I carried the flag of Arizona into Market Square Arena at the opening ceremony.

The neighborhood old-schoolers were up in arms about the potential for increased traffic, whether or not Ikea would hire locals, and all manner of other concerns.

Now, I’m not sure about their hiring practices, but as far as the traffic goes all of the concerns seem to be unfounded.

The main benefit for us has been that the MTA changed the bus route so that the B61–which formerly passed in front of our apartment every five to 10 minutes–now goes along a different street to take riders to the store.

This makes nice weather even better, as we can sit in the living room with the windows open without hearing a bus rumbling by all the time.

Plus, the area around the store has been turned into a really beautiful park area. Check it:

And in a city where transit is a high priority, another added benefit is the free New York Water Taxi that takes you from Ikea to Manhattan. You don’t even have to be a customer to ride the boat. Nice work.

The city has bent over backwards to make concessions for the Big Blue Swedish Box, but it seems that the added benefits for neighborhood residents are far outweighing the drawbacks.

So … thanks, Swedes!

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I also want to start using Vimeo because it looks amazing.

 
Robot Parade from Jared Foster on Vimeo.

this is an old link from last year, but it has write up (in Dutch) about a proposed iPhone Nano. now, i dont really want an iphone because theyre big and clunky and well, i dont really need one. but if these little dohickeys hit the market, be sure that i will at least think about getting one.

match these awesome pics with the knowledge that the 4 gig iphones were toasted in lieu of the G3s release this year with the thought that when Apple gets expensive products selling well they try to come out with another smaller, less expensive version to get some of the public to “switch.” switching really means nothing now that you can run whatever you want on Macs, but that doesnt mean that the design of an iphone nano isnt as engaging as any other mac product.

will it have internet? no.
will it have a touch screen? prolly.
will it be smaller and cuter than the current iphone? sure.
did i just say i would buy a ‘cute’ phone? yup.

http://www.bigdamnband.com

Their new album, The Whole Fam Damnily, will be released on Tuesday, August 5 on Side One Dummy Records. I knew their old website was just, well, old. So I offered my services.

Kaboom. Awesome new site.

The site is done entirely in Wordpress, with forums in BBpress.

This is the most fully-featured site I’ve ever done on my own. I really like Wordpress as a content management system. It allows the band to post events, blog posts, and all kinds of other stuff from the road with just a web browser.

And I really like BBpress, another free product from the same folks who created Wordpress. It’s a message board/forum platform that works with modules just like Wordpress. I’ve found that from an administrative and aesthetic standpoint I greatly prefer it to phpBB, another popular platform.

BBpress integrates nicely with the Wordpress database, pulling in user information, cookies, and all that jazz.

My main complaint is that it isn’t fully integrated from the template standpoint, making it necessary to create a duplicate CSS structure. Some Wordpress templates are available as BBpress templates, but not many. I’m sure as BBpress catches on, more developers will start to create templates that work for both.

I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t give big ups from Brooklyn to my man Andrew Powell, who helped out with the bulk of the work on the CSS for the forums and the dropdown menus, and provided invaluable assistance and advice all the way around. The guy is a machine, I tell you. Check out his site Trade Relic for further proof.

Check it out, sign up for the forum, post some comments, let me know what you think.

Blog

Forum

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Fun

Chores, Wordy, Gratuity, Fright - Keep a list, learn a new word, figure out the tip, and scare your friends.
http://www.tapeshow.com/ 

Brewing Buddy - a beer brewing application
http://trousermac.com/

iSaber - a light sabre for your iPhone.
http://themacbox.co.uk/iphone/saber/

Drawing App - Really Cool.
http://www.lintlabs.com/

BubbleWrap - I’ll let you figure that one out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpTapObntlU

Chef’s Little Helper - Recipe App
http://www.chefslittlehelper.com/

Enter Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), a cross-platform widget development framework. AIR allows developers to use existing HTML/Ajax, Flash and Flex to create OS-independent widgets. In plain English, the user can run small desktop applications that replicate and often enhance the experience of using a web browser.

I’m torn about having a slew of desktop apps running all the time, as I’m not a fan of clutter. But there are a few AIR apps I’ve found to be incredibly useful, even essential.

feedalizr
feedalizr (note the catchy Web 2.0 lack of capitalization and the elimination of a vowel, letting you know it’s the FUTURE) is a nifty little app that allows you to post to some of your most favorite w2.0 sites–Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr, Jaiku–from the comfort of one sexy little interface on your desktop.

The app uses the Friendfeed API as its back end, so sometimes there’s a bit of a delay between when you post to when it shows up in feedalizr–a factor I can overlook.

It’s akin to having iChat, Adium or any other instant messaging window, except it gives you an integrated feed from the aforementioned services. See what your friends are up to, and to post just click the corresponding service’s button at the top of the interface and let ‘er rip with a drag-and-drop. Simplicity defined.

You can also open tabs within the app to monitor specific friend’s feeds, which is pretty smokin’.

I’m back-and-forth on the other feature of feedalizr, called “toasters.” Toasters are pop-ups that are displayed when a new item is added to your feed. Fortunately, you can disable this feature easily. Fun for a minute, but my easily-distracted eye couldn’t handle it. I can see how some might enjoy it.

Overall: thumbs way up.

kuler
Again with the w2.0 lack of caps. I’ve really got to let this go.

Anyway, Adobe’s kuler is a great tool for designers of all stripes, but especially for those who are designing for the web. Create your own color swatches and share them with the kuler community, or browse swatches created by others.

Find something you like? Grab it by either clicking to copy the hexadecimal values for that theme or, if you’re a registered user, download the theme as a package.

You can view themes by popularity, rating, freshness, or random. Themes are also searchable by keywords, for instance “cool summer refreshing.”

If you’re like me and have no formal art training, kuler is essential. Thumbs way way up.

Analytics Reporting Suite

Going old school with capital letters and all vowels intact (sorry, I just can’t get over it), Analytics Reporting Suite is an excellent desktop interface for Google Analytics.

Are you a webmaster/editor or marketing professional? If so, you’d better be spending your recommended one hour a day with analytics and optimization. ARS will help you by providing an attractive application that I actually prefer to the web interface.

Perhaps the best feature is its support for profiles. Webmasters for large sites usually have multiple, even dozens, of profiles for one site.

For example, in my straight job I have an overall department site and over a dozen division sites. I have to provide analytics reports for each division and for the department as a whole. Profiles allow me to do just that.

All the features and functionality of Google Analytics are present: map overlays, visitor trending, and so on. And somehow the process for creating, maintaning and browing profiles is more straightforward than in the web interface.

Absolutely essential.

Websnapshot
Another tool for developers/designers, Websnapshot is the easiest way I’ve seen to create snapshots of web pages.

Enter the URL of the site you wish to capture, select Thumbnail, Browser or Full Page, and then Snap. Just like that, you’ve got an instant grab of the selected site. Done and done.

And that’s all it does. Nothing you don’t need. There are other methods for accomplishing page grabs, but this is by far my favorite.

I can also see this app being helpful for those who create a lot of presentations that show snapshots of web pages. If there’s one thing that’s always welcome in the office, it’s the ability to speed up the process of creating presentations.

GMDesk
This is probably the least essential of the bunch, but still pretty nifty. GMDesk is simply a desktop app for all of your Google applications: Mail, Docs, Calendar, Maps, Reader, Reader, and Picasa.

As much as I appreciate the simplicity of the Google interface, sometimes I want a bit more. Specifically, rather than keeping browser tabs open for each of my Google applications, I want to the ability to switch between them quickly and easily.

I know there are links at the top for each service, but for some reason it tweaks my sensibilities to browse away from a window in a browser to do something else. Plus, if I can get away with keyboard shortcuts, I’m there. I’m guessing there are others like me out there.

GMDesk’s switching mechanism is fantastic: command + [number key] switches deftly between your Google apps. The links are still at the top, as it’s basically a direct port of Google into a desktop app. But again, keyboard shortcuts are hot nuts.

You can also select which Google app you start with in the Preferences dialog. Nice.

Overall
If you’re on a Mac and you make use of Spaces, these apps are the bee’s knees. I keep all my AIR apps in their own space to eliminate desktop clutter.

So one space has Dreamweaver and Photoshop, one for cross-browser testing, a third for Parallels Desktop for cross-platform views, and the fourth for my AIR apps.

That’s it, everything I need for work, neatly organized. The Hotness.

All of these apps and many more are available at the Adobe AIR Marketplace.

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Up to this point, I’d typically gone back to Indianapolis for the weekend, but this year I stayed put.

In addition to enjoying the pretty spectacular view of the fireworks from our roof, I’ve been doing some cleaning, some other work, watching movies and listening to records.

I’ve been doing a lot of computer/web crap as well, but I’ll get to that later.

With that, here’s my Independence Day Weekend 2008 Playlist.

I promise I’ll write more. In the meantime, here are some shots from the roof of our building in Brooklyn looking north toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

Fresh fresh fresh!

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Apple released new iPhones today - 3G, GPS - for $199 and $299 on July 11th. Plus they announced all sorts of cool software updates and the App Store, again… although I didn’t get a date on those.

Anyone want to buy an iPhone today?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/steve-jobs-keynote-live-from-wwdc-2008/

.. and yes I wish I was at WWDC.

So yes, that brings me up to, um, several Apple devices in the house. Macbook Pro, iPhone, 30GB iPod, two Apple wireless routers, and the Apple TV. Add in my lady’s Macbook and iPod Nano, and Apple is certainly well-represented under our roof.

That being said, I’m not such a drooling fanboy that I can’t offer critiques, complaints, or wish-lists for things I wish my Apple devices should do or should do better.

Currently tops on my gripe list is the way movies for rent or purchase are organized on the Apple TV.

The initial set of menus is fine; Top Movies, Genres, All HD, Search, Trailers and My Movies. Awesome. I’m down with that.

But drill down into Top Movies, Genres or All HD and everything just goes wrong.

Let’s say you’re in the mood for some laughs. Genres > Comedy. Easy enough.

The first thing you’re hit with is “Top Rentals”. Okay, whatever. I don’t really care, but that’s fine. Next up is “Top Sales”. Who cares? “Just Added” follows. All right, I’ll go for that. Then you get a specialty list from somebody’s list of top movies in the genre. Reasonable.

Finally, the meat-and-potatoes: the list of all available movies. The interface is pretty enough, but you only get to see the title floating below the cover shot when you navigate the on-screen pointer over that movie.

I get it, but here’s my problem: sometimes the type on the cover is small, and when you’re dealing with pixels on a screen that’s not enormous (we’ve got a 30″ Samsung HDTV, which is sufficient for a small New York apartment), I often don’t know what I’m looking at.

I would like to see the text as well as the box shot. That way I can more quickly and easily scan the list to see what’s what.

It’s a relatively minor gripe, but for a company like Apple that puts so much emphasis on elegance in their user interface, this should be addressed. I would think a simple “View Options” in the menu, similar to the one in the Mac OS, would address this issue quite easily. List View, View Icons, View Icons and Titles. Done.

But the bigger issue for me is the “Just Added” list in “Top Movies.” Don’t go here looking for new releases. This list merely represents movies that have been added to the iTunes catalog.

There is no way to view movies by release date, and there is no separate list for new releases. This is highly annoying. In this regard I greatly prefer browsing movies on Time Warner’s Movies On Demand channel.

As ugly as the interface is, the menu system is well-designed. The options: “Last Chance”, “All New”, “DVD Releases”, “Early Screening”, and so on.

Here’s where Apple could/should learn from the cable and satellite TV companies. “All New” is just that: new movies that have been released for rental. Not older catalog titles.

Why not separate out just-added catalog titles from just-added new releases? If I’m looking for something new to watch, I don’t want to see Short Circuit and Semi-Pro in the same list. If I want something older, I’ll browse that list.

This is actually so frustrating that often I will browse the new releases on cable, then switch over to Apple TV once I’ve picked out what I want.

Now, I know I could pull up the movies in iTunes, do an advanced search, and sort the results by release date. But why should I have to do that?

C’mon, Apple. Surely it can’t be that hard to tweak the menu options so that users can get more out of the Apple TV experience.

Check out my site, Retired Time Bomb.

First, an awesome re-mix of Radiohead’s “Nude” using old electronics, via Gizmodo:

Next up, Rusty from The MudKids interviewing the Rolling Stones, via Musical Family Tree:

Then, Flight of the Conchords, “Bowies’ in Space”

And the best for last… Homeless James Bond.

Of course, I realize many of you have probably already seen these, if you feel like you need to let me know, please do not.

Apparently John Mellencamp wants to be my friend.

Right.

“But Coug, we have no friends in common.”

Boy, I’ll say.

“I had this brief dream last night that made me wake up laughing.

All it was, was a picture of a guy that had coke bottle glasses so thick you couldn’t see his eyes and he looked like teen-wolf’s dad. On his lap was a monkey that looked exactly like his owner.

 

At the bottom of the picture it said, “Gerald with a feather beard, and his monkey with exact beard”.

I know it’s not the most exciting topic, but if you sign up for the free three-day online preview you can listen to Howard Stern after I’m done.

My part is from 11 am -12 noon tomorrow, Wednesday, June 4.

Just visit this page and sign up for the free preview, and you can listen online.

http://www.sirius.com/doctorradio

And then flip over the Martha Stewart or Howard Stern or whatever.

Thunders, the band formerly knows as Sisters, featuring ex-members of America Owns The Moon, Those Young Lions, Mara’Akate (Disclosure: I too was in Mara’Akate), We Are Hex, and Ari Ari are releasing a new record, and you can get it at their release show Saturday, June 14th at Spin Nightclub.

I had a chance to preview the record and, it is definitely worth checking out. Part White Stripes, part Led Zeppelin, part French Kicks, and part Gang of Four, Thunders opens the EP with some buzzy bass and quick trums on “MagicSick” and follows with ”Gonna Heal Everyone” which brings to mind what the Strokes should be.

I’ll be honest, though, I am sucker for a hook, and the hooks aren’t as obvious in the rest of the EP, as some of the songs break into a slow bluesy jam on “83″ and “Take It Like A Thief”,  a bit psychadelic on “Somnambulist” and the record ends with the quiet, but vocally layered “Letter To The Priest.”

This is definitely a band to watch.

Show Details:

Saturday, June 14 2008 
Spin Nightclub (21+)
6308 N. College Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46220

Click here for a map. 

A Squared Industries, NUVO and Butler Scion Present: 
THUNDERS Debut CD Release Show 
Trophy Wives (Louisville, KY) 
Jorma  & The Movie Bare

Free show with purchase of the debut CD at the Door for $7. Advance coupons are $7 and are available at Indy CD & Vinyl in Broad Ripple or online at www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/35150
 

Anyway, this was worth a quick post because it is freaking awesome. This guy has built a jetpack and it works.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/wireStory?id=4859421

A perfect answer to this, posted on WarrenEllis.com:

Brooklyn, New York: home of the most sophisticated graffiti artists anywhere in the world. Here’s proof:

This example isn’t as sophisticated as some of the subway poster alteration art that goes on around the city, but the industrious tagger did spell “bourgeois” correctly. Gold star for them!

And in other news, as part of New York’s MillionTreesNYC project which promises to plant one million trees across the five boroughs in the next decade, we done got us a tree in front of our apartment.

As I was leaving for work the other morning, I opened the front door only to be greeted by a backhoe digging up part of the sidewalk. When I returned home, this cute Littleleaf Linden tree.

MillionTreesNYC has gotten some press lately due to the involvement of Sting and The Police, who donated $1 million to the program. Nice publicity for their final shows here, but a darn good thing to do regardless.

Back to my site, Retired Time Bomb

Today’s example:

WEBTEAM CONTACT REQUEST
First Name: Xxxxxxx
Last Name: Xxxxxxxx
Subject: urgent
Comment:
I really want to have a baby but I have had a hysterectomy is this possible.

First of all, there’s a big button that says “Find a Doctor” on every page (I work for a major medical center in New York). You might want to ask a physician rather than a web monkey about your health issue. A doctor is much less likely to tell you to look it up on Wikipedia.

Secondly, I’m not a physician but I can tell you based on your question that YOU HAVE NO GODDAMN UTERUS. That’s what a hysterectomy is, folks. Sorry to break it to you, lady, but unless you’re planning on adopting or you are a platypus and have the skill of laying your eggs and hatching babies, you’re S.O.L.

Thanks, and have a good day. Computer privileges revoked.

In my previous post I outlined my recent troubles with the Zipcar service.

Well, surprise surprise. In the space of less than 24 hours after my phone call and subsequent cancellation of my service, I received follow-up via both voice mail and email from the General Manager of Zipcar New York.

Dear Matthew,

I wanted to take this moment to apologize for the bad experiences you had as a Zipcar member.  As per your request I have returned your membership fees as well as credited you for the reservation which you had in March for a total of $120.

You should see this money on your credit card statement within 3-5 business days.

Should it ever interest you to become a member again, please contact me and I will arrange for your account to be reopened free of charge.

Regards,

XXXX XXXXXXX (General Manager, Zipcar NY)

Gosh, that was friendly. Never once did I even get remotely nasty with these folks, and they’re going out of their way to make me happy.

And you know what? That’s what it’s about. I just wanted my problem to be heard and, more importantly, listened to.

There is a lesson here for other companies: listen to your customers, give them what they pay for, and if you fail to do so then own up to it and make the situation right. Strange concept, I know.

I’m still undecided about whether or not I’m going to take them up on their offer of a free reactivation of my account. I’m a bit wary, but the fact is I could really use their service, and their extremely positive follow-up has done a lot to wipe the bitter taste out of my mouth.

So we’ll see. But regardless, I felt it appropriate after publicly slamming Zipcar to keep things fair by sharing their excellent attempt at correcting the situation.

I’m a sucker for a service with a great online experience. If it’s a service that ultimately saves me money, even better.

Enter Zipcar, a car rental service available in a few metropolitan areas of the country.

The premise is simple: pay a low annual fee, and you can reserve cars of varying sizes for anywhere between an hour and a whole day. Gas, insurance, and parking are included; all you pay is the hourly rental fee, which varies by the make of the car.

You get a card that you carry with you. At your appointed time, you go to the car, touch the card to the sensor on the windshield, and the doors unlock. They keys and a gas card are inside. Off you go. At the end of your time, return the car where you found it.

Awesome.

Except when it doesn’t work. In my case, the system failed two out of two times.

The first time we were to pick up the lady’s son at the airport when he was visiting New York over spring break. I get up at 6:00 a.m. and walk a mile to the lot and guess what: NO CAR.

I call the number, and they “don’t know where it is.” Awesome.

So they get me another reservation, a couple of miles away. I hop in a cab (for which I still have not been reimbursed as promised) to fetch the replacement car and get on my way.

Okay, so that was a hassle, but it ended up working out sort of okay. But now I’m wary.

Fast forward to the present. We’re supposed to pick up a friend at Newark Airport tomorrow morning so she can visit us for the weekend.

My phone rings at 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Guess what? The car you reserved has to go in for service, but they have a two-seater available for less time, or a bigger vehicle in Williamsburg. Great. Except there are no trains between us and Williamsburg this weekend.

I calmly explained the situation to the representative, and told her not only did I want to cancel my reservation but I wanted to go ahead and cancel my account altogether.

A short while later I received a confirmation email. I visited the website to check my account, and realized that I’ve now paid $120.01 for cars that I never got. A call to their billing department later, and I’m told they “may refund the annual fee, but that’s up to them.”

I was nice to the billing lady, but no, actually, it’s not up to them. It’s up to me.

Zipcar is zero for two on actually delivering the car I reserved. One time was a huge hassle and caused us to be late, so the lady’s son stood around La Guardia for a while waiting for us. The second time would’ve been more of the same.

Fool me once, shame on you. And just like The Who, I won’t get fooled again.

I’m awaiting a follow-up phone call sometime over the weekend. I’ve been exceedingly nice through all this, but that ends unless I hear what I want to hear.

Give me my money back, Zipcar. I’m sure I’ve just had bad luck and this isn’t typical of your service. Or maybe it is. Time for a trip to consumerist.com to find out, and maybe submit my happy story so others will think carefully about signing up.

Next time, we’re going to Avis. It’s no more expensive when you factor in the annual fee, and for all the more we use a car (which is maybe four times a year) I’d prefer to deal with a company that actually delivers what they promise.

Maybe Zipcar should take some of the resources they put into their awesome website and actually provide the service as advertised.

but it takes some time for me to love a nails album, here is why.

but first, i really think trent needs to take a break, but at the same time, love that he his cranking out really amazing work.
i thought the downward spiral and the remix albums that peppered the bins of record stores for two years after its release was good output, but he is unstoppable right now.
i was not a fan of The Fragile; i found it to be too transitional, not cohesive, and longwinded.
i waited a few months to really listen to With Teeth, but when i dove in, the waters go deep, quickly.
i rocked that album for a year and then Year Zero happened. a great record, but it lacked sonic depth. subject wise it was on point, but the songs seemed rushed.
the the remix album came out (for free) - it made me revisit Zero for the basic tracks and to really listen to his approach to self recording and post production.

ghosts is really a masterpiece of contemporary media meeting art somewhere on the internet. its textures and visuals are the best of any concept album from the last 20 years….

but the slip? its a real record. its got a beginning and an end. everything in between is the journey that pays off in the end. ridiculous sounds ive never heard presented in a way that makes it specifically nine inch nails, but the listening isnt a chore, its a pleasure. except for the end of ‘the joy’….its a speaker blower of a frequency…. the slip is the dance by yourself album to keep close and share with those you know will get it.

yea, its aggressive, sad, and dark. but so am i. many people that love music cannot deny the beauty in subjects that otherwise dont fill their day, but at times, an album like this fits. it fits the way they are feeling or thinking, or its just the right thing to crank and rock to.

Well, hot dog. It’s about damn time.

Included in the list of announced HD additions are some of the biggest on my wish list: History Channel, A&E, CNN, and NY1.

I didn’t see any commercials about this, nor anything in the news despite being a Google Reader addict.

The only announcement I saw was on their website, and I only saw that after I noticed all the new channels in the on-screen guide. It’s not like I spend a lot of time perusing the TWCNY website. That’s like expecting good customer service: pointless.

Not coincidentally, it was announced this week that Verizon Fios will be rolled out throughout the New York City area in the next few years (?!). Time Warner is likely scrambling to make their service more attractive to stem the tide of switchers once folks actually have a choice of providers.

Regardless of the cause, I’m digging the new HD channels. I finally feel like I’m getting something near my money’s worth on the cable bill.

Plus, I don’t have to look at Lou Dobbs all stretched out to fit my screen. Now my favorite populist independent is in the correct aspect ratio.

Increase your cachet of cool with Retired Time Bomb

Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV was released this week to staggering sales and the type of hubbub that usually accompanies Star Wars movies and Rolling Stones tours.

For those who live in polygamist religious cult commune without access to media, GTA IV is set in the fictional Liberty City, a supposedly spot-on recreation of New York complete with subways.

Well, most of it: they left off Staten Island in favor of New Jersey

The names of the boroughs are of course fictionalized. I won’t go into detail because you can read up on the game itself elsewhere if you’re so inclined.

What intrigues me is the response coming out of the official channels of Gotham.

Various higher-ups and muckity-mucks have come forth with vitriol about the Big Apple being represented as a nasty, scary, dangerous place.

“This is the safest big city in America,” they crow.

“