christian ross

Dear Paste magazine,

Posted by Christian - 05/07/08 at 10:07:21 pm

I am writing this letter to inform you that our relationship is on the verge of coming to an end.

It’s not me, it’s you.

My courtship started late last year, November most likely. I found a link to your website and an offer from you to name my price for a subscription. I was excited for this new way into a subscription service. I felt like this could be an opportunity for other magazines to follow especially since most magazines make their money on ads rather than subscriptions.

2007 was a slow year for music. As I stumbled upon your offer and website, I felt that potentially you would be an open door for new music and other fine arts. Though small, there was a small excitement building in anticipation of your arrival in my mailbox soon. I hadn’t had a subscription to any magazines for a while and thought it would be a good change of pace, a little light reading for down times or restroom breaks. And best of all, I set my own price, $5. Yep, that’s right, a full year’s subscription for less than a Super-sized number three (plain Quarter Pounder, with cheese only) at McDonalds.

I know $5 dollars seems a little low. On one hand, I didn’t want you to feel cheap or cheated but on the other hand I wanted a deal. And since I had never had the opportunity to flip your pages, I really didn’t know how much you were worth. So I placed my $5 order and smiled when it was accepted.

Then I waited.

Christmas came and went and you chose not to arrive. I justified your absence to myself by thinking that I ordered late in the month and missed the December cycle since most magazines go out a month ahead of time.
Continue reading Dear Paste magazine,…

When political correctness backfires…

Posted by Christian - 03/07/08 at 10:07:03 pm

I don’t have any idea who the American Family Association is nor have I ever heard of their website OneNewsNow.com but by the looks of it, they are a very far right, Christian conservative group. In fact upon a current visit to their site, the lead story is a call from their founder about boycotting McDonald’s over their ‘refusal to be neutral in the cultural war over homosexuality.’ I am guessing this is a pretty common style of story for this site.

Side note for a moment: I appreciate good moral stances. But I also feel that there are some who take things a little too far. Keep following…

After a little reading today, I have learned that the OneNewsNow is a news aggregator of AP stories and other news sources. Great. Congrats. Another news site. Except for the fact that OneNewsNow has been caught on more than one occasion blocking stories and even modifying them in some instances.

One of the ways that they modify stories is to set up filters/rules to do search & replaces in the articles that come through. In some instances I can see where this could be a benefit; Editorial or op-ed pieces that might come through with inappropriate language or subject matter might be toned down for the OneNewsNow audience. I would be concerned on their part for some copyright issues but I don’t work for them nor read their material so it isn’t worth my time or effort to research it any more.

What is worth my time, was what came across my desk today.

In the AFA/OneNewsNow’s attempt to either keep it clean or politically correct, they got it wrong. Good thing is, wrong in this situation is funny-haha, not funny-gonna-end-up-in-court. Hopefully.

The Olympic trials are currently going on in several sports. Swimming, Bass Fishing, Bowling, Track & Field and many others. ONN (tired of typing here) seems to be covering the trials and the results pretty well. And of course filtering every story that comes through. Including replacing any location of the word GAY with the synonym HOMOSEXUAL.

I don’t guess there’s too much wrong with the aforementioned auto-replacement on articles… until Tim Gay, a United States Olympic hopeful, runs a 9.85 second time to win the 100 meter race. I think you get the idea…

 

In fact a quick search brought up several stories about Tim over the span of a couple days:

 

Even worse, this isn’t the first time it has happened to ONN. The NBA draft saw the Memphis Grizzlies picking early on a couple of weeks ago looking for a star player to play right along side their young stud, Rudy Gay.

 

At the time of this posting, ONN had resolved the issues above. Probably by hand. Maybe they should spend a little time looking into their methods or their algorithms, the current ones seem to have a few flaws. Either way, high comedy all around.

Never again

Posted by Christian - 01/07/08 at 05:07:05 pm

Brevity is not an excuse for poor spelling.

Posted by Christian - 19/06/08 at 11:06:34 pm

First off, I am attached to the electronic communication medium more than I probably would like to admit. I am one of those that carries a multi-use phone or PDA. Although I rarely use the calendaring functionality of it, I am shackled by the phone, text, and email capability of the device. I send plenty of emails from it and every email I receive from five of my all-too-many email accounts hit my phone daily.

While sending an email from a portable device is not terribly hard, it doesn’t compare to the speed of all ten of my fingers on a full keyboard. Most emails I send from my phone are limited in my response or question. ‘KIS’ principle.

I even have a post scriptum tag line in my accounts on my phone to let people know that it is from my phone and most likely will be brief. Something along the lines of ‘This email was sent from my Palm OS mobile device.’

I feel it is courteous to the recipient to let them know this information and it helps to inform clients that I may not be at my desk at the time but I have received their request/comment and will react to it as quickly as possible.

Now, why we’re here. Using my handheld in no way allows me to be unprofessional. Growing up in a printing family has forever saddled me with a few things that I will never be able to shake. A big one is my disdain for typos. Can’t stand them. I hate when I see them and even more I hate when I create one. Now I understand that mistakes happen, fat fingers on small buttons make for a greater possibility, but I attempt to scan each one a time or two before sending.

Saying all of this, I was taken aback today when I received an email from a client confirming an appointment for a conference call this week. Enough so that not only did I do a double-take on it, I also took a screen shot, edited it down to remove the contact information, and spent 15 minutes typing about it.

Seriously? Is that professional? Is this the message you are saying to your clients?

“Don’t get mad, I am sending an email from my mobile device and it’ll probably have typos.”

I don’t get it. Again, mistakes happen. But asking for forgiveness for the sin before committing it isn’t really going to get the job done.

/exiting soap box

I feel sick…

Posted by Christian - 17/06/08 at 09:06:17 pm

for butchering my kids hair tonight attempting a haircut. Utterly sick to my stomach. Now he hardly has any at all. Please grow back by morning.

Really?

Posted by Christian - 06/06/08 at 12:06:04 am

For a mere $40 a year You’ve Been Left Behind will store documents and send emails to loved 6 days after the rapture. Seriously. No, this site is real.

I love the stipulations almost as much as the concept. For one, there’s a 63 email limit. What happens if I have 64 friends? I also like the fact that it costs $40/year to sign up but if (and only if) they get enough signed up they’ll lower the cost for the second year. Way to lay it out there boys.

Here’s to the guy who signs up just for the possibility to send a note to all his friends if he makes it and rub their noses in it when they don’t. Speaking of possibility, what if you sign up and then get left behind? Can you get a refund?

I think I’m emailing the company…

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