The Ramblings of a Fosgnilbmareht

Ah the joys of ordering things online. I like ordering stuff online because I usually get a pretty good price on things and I love the feeling I get when I receive something good in the mail. It sucks getting bills in the mail (which is why I have changed most of my bills to paperless statements) but love getting useful and fun stuff. I got my Zune, my digital camera (first one I got not counting the camera on my phones, which is amazing considering how into tech I am), lots of cell phones, and well lot’s of other stuff. It sucks paying shipping charges but these are usually balanced out by the lower prices so its ok.

However, the one notable exception to all this is buying tickets to event’s like plays and sporting events. These places do NOT give you a discount for ordering online. In fact, they make you pay MORE for the tickets. They also make it race to buy them. First you go to the site to find the event. Then after you have found it (if you can), you have only a few minutes to buy the tickets before you lose them or have to start over. If you can manage to buy them in the precious few minutes you are given, you are charged fees up the ying yang. First there is a convenience fee of a few dollars - convenience for ordering online? They are saving money because they don’t have to have a ticket sales person manning the box office 24/7 and they charge us for their savings? Talk about a double profit. Then there is a processing fee, and a printing fee (for printing on your own printer no less).

Just to give an example, I bought tickets to an A’s game today at mlb.com but it looks like it’s using the same system as Ticketmaster. Here’s a breakdown of what I payed:

• Tickets: 2 x $13 (bleacher seats because that’s where my date wanted to sit and we are going to be late so didn’t want to pay for the really good seats for half a game)
• Convenience fee: 2 x $4.50 (1/3 the price of the ticket for the convenience of ordering at home)
• Order Processing fee: $4 (It’s a computer taking and process the order. I wonder how much that computer makes an hour)
• Delivery fee: $2.50 (This is so I can print the ticket on my printer, using my ink and paper and then handing it to myself. I love how they charge me to give myself my ticket)

So the grand total for this order was: $41.50. $41.50 for tickets that cost by themselves $26. A nice 60% markup (I think that’s what it is). Unbelievable.

Ever run a Google search for your name? I did and I found a former supervisor’s recommendation for me: http://markcelsor.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/eddie-monge-and-andy-christensen/ That was really cool and brightened up the already good day I have been having (with a small blemish or two though). A big thanks to Mark Celsor.

Eddie came to Clear Ink with a strong IT background and a strong desire to learn about Internet marketing technology, but he quickly blew us away with his ability to jump in and take on complex technical projects for large clients like Autodesk and Hewlett Packard. Eddie also has a strong ability to see the bigger picture and suggest tactics to make projects run smoothly and efficiently. He will be an asset to your organization.

I just finished watching Superman Returns for the, get this, second time! I know, I know, that’s a lot. Well it is for this movie. First time I saw it I was extremely disappointed, and a little angry. Ok maybe more than a little. The thing that angered me that wasn’t even Superman related was that Cyclops got destroyed like a 3rd rate superhero in Xmen 3 because James Marsden wanted to do this crappy excuse for a Superman movie instead of Xmen?!?!?! What a waste of Cyclops. He could have come handy in that mutant brawl.

Anyway, back to Superman Returns. What in the world is going on? Superman has a kid with Lois Lane and she doesn’t even know he is Clark Kent? That’s some great role model there. Yeah knock up some chick who doesn’t even know your real name and then leave for 5 years. Way to set an example there Man of Steel.

Instead of getting a Superman kicking some serious ass after being away for decades, we get a horrible love story, pyschological story about Messiahs, missing fathers and the inability to return things to the way they were when you run away. Boring. We got all this cool CGI stuff now and all it does it make Superman fly around looking fake. That’s awesome. The greatest thing ever. ::rolls eyes:: They threw in the bullet blocking scene just to say they did something. Maybe they should have used to the money they spent on making a stupid cornfield that was in the movie for about 2 seconds to make it better.

At leat the score was decent, and only then because its the same score from the last Superman franchise. They must have figured it worked for Star Wars so maybe it’ll work here. And it did. Too bad the rest of the movie didn’t.

I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. It has Kristen Bell, one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood so I figured why not, especially considering the backdrop is Hawaii so there would probably be some decent amount of time of her in a bikini. And there was. And it was awesome! However, she was not the actor/actress in this movie showing the most skin. That award would go to Jason Segal. I think I saw more of him (all of him), then I did of Kristen Bell. It’s like someone saw him naked and thought, that would be a great movie idea. Let’s do it. Sometimes people, it’s not always the best idea to just go with something.

I’m not sure how much of the movie I can review without giving it away so I’ll just keep it short. Overall though, I thought the movie was decent. Maybe 3 out of 5 stars. Not bad, but not the best movie out there. If you like Kristen Bell or Mila Kunis, then you should definitely see this movie. I will give one blurb about Jonah Hill in this, I think he is getting pretty big billing for the movie but he is such a minor character that he could have been left out and the movie would have functioned better. Not his greatest performance. I thought the singer dude was better and way funnier.

I’m probably going to get a lot of something for posting this but I feel I need to rant. Joomla is way over hyped. Yeah sure it can build skyscrapers, bring about world peace and end world wide hunger but it seems to struggle with it’s primary job, Content Management.

My major gripe with Joomla (if you have a solution for any of these that doesn’t require an advanced degree in biophysics, please let me know):

• User access levels - Yeah there are the default levels of Editor, publisher and so forth, but what about being able to customize per user or setting up custom groups. phpBB and Drupal have this. I want to be able to have the the option of creating custom templates for different user groups. I would also like to limit the content different users/groups can see. Joomla is a Content Management System and I see access levels as part of content management.
• Forms - I haven’t seen a default option for easily creating and managing forms. Yeah there are plugins but why not by default?
• Menus - Creating menu items is somewhat easy but the choices are daunting. I think maybe better documentation in terms of the tooltips. Some of the options need to be cleaned up and simplified also. Why are there multiple levels for wrapper when there is only one choice? And I hate how menus aren’t really the pages or the content but rather a sort of holder for the content. It’s confusing at times and frustrating at others.
• Why are there 5 million files for the install? I understand it makes things easier separating some stuff out but at some point you have to limit it. When it takes 3 hours to upload on some servers there is a problem.

Ok that’s all I got for now. Sorry, just needed to vent a bit on my recent Joomla excursions. That’s why I like being a web developer: I can make my own CMS that fits my needs exactly.