February Fools

Tis the season to be bombarded with red, white, and pink hearts! Jewelry ads and flower services prepare to overcharge you. Single people get more and more bitter. Nonromantic people in relationships start to cringe at forced displays of affection. And the romantics are busy planning a perfect way to show how they really feel. Midway through the month children will bust out with construction paper and make huge envelops or decorate boxes to receive candy/cards from everyone. And on the 15th candy sales will be happening at a store near you. Work at starbucks is very strange because this season began a month ago, and only now has the rest of the world caught up with our insanity. The other interesting thing is while working, the store feels bipolar. Dreary depressing music and merchandise that looks like it was designed by a hyperactive teenage girl on too much caffeine. I think it’s trying to be balanced and not over do the happy joyous relationship thing, but it’s over correcting and ending up with music that makes one want to slit their wrists and fall into an infinite slumber. I’m just trying to keep my sanity while seeing red (literally) so I can survive midterms. But what about you? Any exciting plans for how to express you joy, affection, or misery this Valentine’s season?

Foreign Roots

We stand alone
Individual lies (and liars)
Building on foreign ties
Disconnected in our minds
Disregarded in the grinds
The dregs of a culture and the question why
Of why we’re together, alone and in disguise

Dear Blogger: I hate the new you.

Dear Blogger

I do not like or approve of you being acquired by Google. At first I was okay with it because my blogger experience remained the same. Your beta version was optional and I could ignore it. But that is no longer the case.

Now that I have been forced to merge my account, in order to log in I have to type 18 characters as my username (8 characters, an at sign, and then 9 characters more) and that’s inconvenient. I was with blogger long enough to have a 3 letter name the 15 extra characters now required to log in- piss me off. In addition the dashboard is cluttered,.the big blue links look child like and take too much room, the settings are such that less than 2/3 of the screen is being used and the remaining space is wasted on the color beige (Which is boring and useless.) . Your new features, I don’t need or want. If I wanted a private blog I’d go use my LiveJournal. I’m patient enough to wait for my publishing. Your dashboard sucks. And if I really wanted a more interesting template I’d write it myself.

The feature I really want? To have your service unaltered. To use the same basic program I have enjoyed the last 5 years. To have a 3 letter name which I could not get using google. And despite record profits, creating many millionaires and hiring hundreds of brilliant people- google does not include that in it’s agenda. So blogger- I’m sorry to say: You suck. You’ve sold out, you’re being repackaged in a way which is degrading, and you’re becoming worse at providing the basic services your company was meant to provide in order to add unnecessary features.

And Google? I don’t care if you’re a billion dollar company with technology from everything from GPS and former NASA programs to online shopping services. I have nothing against monopolies. But I do have issues with company’s eliminating portions of companies they acquire and in doing so degrading the service. It’s not that you’re a monopoly, it’s that you made a very useful and capable service dumbed down to a kindergarten level to the point where it’s degrading to the user, and annoying to look at. It’s like going from a classic wooden playground to useless pieces of shinny plastic: safe, stupid, obnoxious and in no way fun.

Sincerely disappointed in being forced to deal with you jokers

Urv. Oh wait. That username is dead. Because of you.
UNagrani@gmail.com
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