There’s a Home Depot on one of the streets I walk pretty frequently, and there are signs on the exit doors that amuse and puzzle me:

The signs are amusing because I find it hard to believe there are many jobs at Home Depot for which being stoned would be a huge impediment. How much of your faculties are really required to haul shit around, anyway?

Granted, I say that as someone who’s never been properly stoned, so let’s move on to the next point: why there? Why is it so important to have this message known that a huge, bold signs are placed on the exterior doors? Wouldn’t a message on the application itself be just as effective?

Also, is this just a Lincoln Park thing, or do they do this at every store? I could almost believe it was national more — seems more like a marketing message, then. (“Hey, shoppers — check out our zero tolerance!”)

In any event: curious.

1. City of Chicago shuts down a local independent theater, the 3 Penny. Chicagoist, a local group blog, posts a story on the closure, singling out amusement taxes as the cause:

2. I call bullshit (well, actually, I call “lazy”) on the story around 2:30:

This post is pretty light on facts and long on speculation. Yes, taxes are unfortunate, but they are a cost of doing business. A variable cost, at that, as the tax only goes up as revenue goes up. (It’s also passed on directly to the consumer, as my Sox tickets from last night clearly show on the front.)

Also, while the city amusement tax is 8% and the county’s 3% (=11%), you fail to note that event admission is not subject to sales tax (a fact I just confirmed by calling the IL Dept of Revenue: (217) 524-4772.)

Is something a few percentage points above sales tax so onerous it’s shutting down movie theaters? Perhaps. Why not call the Music Box [another independent theater] and ask what they think? Why not follow up on the 5 year old Meridian story and find out what’s come out since? Rather than “snooping” (i.e., Googling) why not do some “reporting”?

3. The author responds to me and others an hour later:

it is not typically my take to go full-force investigative reporting, especially since i have limited space to work with here…

however, i have a call into the dept of business and licensing, i have a call into the music box, and i am awaiting a response from the owner of ICE theaters, who was previously the owner of meridian entertainment.

i’ll let you know what i find out. i also got a chance to speak with a theater employee who gave me a pretty in-depth explanation of how box office sales are broken out, so i’ll give you that info, too.

(I don’t want to nitpick, but oh what the hell: forget “full-force”, forget “investigative”, there was no reporting. This woman was locked out of a theater, did some Internet searches, and called it a day. And: “limited space to work with”? I don’t think so. Newsprint may not have scrollbars, but the Web sure does.)

4. Some time later, the story has all tax-related paragraphs excised:

5. Simultaneously with (4), I assume, the story’s title changes from “We Are NOT Amused” to — and I totally don’t get this — “Oh The Shark Bites With Its Teeth, Dear.”

I have to say, I fully believe that in the not-too-distant future, small groups with Internet savvy will give the big newspapers a run for their money in local news. But today, comparing this ham-handed approach — free from fact-checking and correction notices — to the work of real journalists shows a pretty stark contrast.

I read a couple stories in the past few days that really left me wanting more…

From WaPo, a story on U.S. government efforts to staunch copyright infringement abroad included this nugget:

The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates […] entertainment and other copyright exports — worth about $626 billion annually, or 6 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product — are as important to today’s American economy as autos, steel and coal were to yesterday’s.

A quarter-trillion is an astonishing amount, yet the Post offers nothing to back it up other than “industry and law enforcement” (which is it?) estimates. We all know how trustworthy those can be; about this time last year I noted the MPAA’s propensity for fuzzy math. You’d think the people at the Post would be critical enough to say “that’s almost 40% of your business. How did you arrive at that figure?”

Similarly, I found the most interesting part about the NYT’s story on Google’s Oregon data centers to be not the nature of the construction (or their location), but this:

The fact that Google is behind the data center, referred to locally as Project 02, has been reported in the local press. But many officials in The Dalles, including the city attorney and the city manager, said they could not comment on the project because they signed confidentiality agreements with Google last year.

Doesn’t anyone find it odd that public employees, acting in their official capacities, could be party to confidentiality agreements? How can Google — how can anyone — get away with muzzling administrators via contract? Why doesn’t the Times have time to ask?

German law allows shops to be open only from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, nearly everything is closed except for some restaurants and snack kiosks. [from AP: Up Late? Why not shop]

Also I remember being told (when visiting restaurants near Checkpoint Charlie) that free soft drink refills were “against the law” in Germany. I think we later disproved that, but maybe it’s true. If so, wow, what an unholy nexus of suck.

…there’s something about Canadians.

Canadian: You know, Canadian Bacon was made by Canadians*, but Americans never get it.
I: Oh?
Canadian: Yeah, it was made by Canadians to mock American stereotypes of Canada. Then they put John Candy — who everyone thinks is American — in it, so America would just think it was mocking Canada, when really it was mocking Americans.
I: I see.
( later… )
I: Of course, just for the record, when you have a country that has 9 people for every 1 of yours and said country spends more money on weapons than every other nation in the world combined, and the only thing that separates you from them is the world’s largest undefended border, well, you have to realize that it would take about 45 minutes to annex you.
( pause )
Canadian: We burned down the White House, you know.
I: Two hundred years ago. Try it now, bitch.

* Not actually true, as far as I can tell.

Two years ago, when Bush made noise about banning gay marriage, the subject made me quite emotional. Today, the same actions are barely on my radar.

Fortunately, my friends have stepped into the breech, and I’ve been getting some good e-mail on the subject. I hope they don’t mind if I quote them here.

First is Pech, who makes the following observation:

So, on more than one occasion I’ve seen the equation shown in the pic [above]. And I have to say I just love it, it’s too perfect. It simultaneously points out the stupidity and ignorance of the religious right, but undermines their point as well.

In this society we hold to the idea that men and women are equal, applying rules of simple math, if man + woman = marriage, AND man = woman therefore man + man = marriage, and also woman + woman = marriage.

Joel then sent me this positively Swiftian forward:

Citizen –
Right now there is an issue that is ripping our country apart. It is an issue where one side derides the status quo as nothing more than institutionalized discrimination, while the other side considers it essential to their way of life. If action is not taken on this issue, it is clear that a court will eventually make a decision that will overturn the status quo. When such a decision is handed down it is possible that the rift caused by this issue will threaten the very fabric of our Union. For this reason, action – Constitutional action – is the only option.

In times like these, I turn to our most precious of documents and ask, “What would our Founding Fathers do?” I believe that the answer is clear. When faced with an issue this powerful, this disruptive, this important, they would craft a compromise. This is why, after carefully reading through the Constitution, I am proposing an Amendment that allows gays to 3/5ths marry.

The 3/5ths marriage would give gays 3/5ths of the rights of a straight couple. When a gay person dies, their partner will only be able to inherit 3/5ths of the estate (the extra 2/5ths can go to the government to make up some for some of the tax money lost due to the abolition of the estate tax). Gay couples will only be able to file taxes 60% jointly. If a gay person is in the hospital, their gay partner can be with them for 36 minutes of each hour. And so on.

Both sides will be able to accept this compromise. It will allow gays to marry, but it will clearly establish that the United States considers straight marriage to be superior. Since straight marriage will be 166% as beneficial as gay marriage, it may even cause some gay people to reconsider and opt for traditional straight marriage.

Please, forward this message to your friends and your local media and insist that they contact their Senators and Representatives and let them know that: “3/5ths unions will save our Union!”

Nicely done, guys.

From TWoP:

Everyone laughs, because it’s true, and nothing is funnier than watching somebody else’s stupidity pointed out. A Survivor reunion is much like a high-school reunion where you don’t have to be amazing or anything, you just don’t want to be the one with the really bad boob job about whom everyone else says, “What the hell happened there?”

I like that. Don’t worry about being the best, just don’t be the worst.

And no, I wasn’t reading 10-page posts about Survivor. Of course not. Me? What are you talking about?

Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, the odometer rolled ’round to a full decade since I graduated high school. It’s an anniversary that I would probably have managed to ignore, were it not for the slim green flyer that my parents thoughtfully forwarded on to me last week. “Remember when…” it reads in part, “‘the Macarena’ heated up dance floors”?

Of course I do, but is that really the best way to pitch a high school reunion? After all, like flannel shirts with denim collars (also mentioned), some things should just stay buried.

Yet this little green sheet keeps popping back to my thoughts. It makes me recall — vaguely — my time as a (nominal) Senior Class officer. At 18, you see, I was greatly in favor of the idea of a class reunion. “We’ve seen the start of the movie,” I liked to tell people when the subject came up, “then we’ll get a chance to see how it all turned out.”

In fact, I made other plans partly based on this worldview. When I also served that year as editor-in-chief of the school yearbook, I made the decision (along with the faculty adviser, who was in full agreement) to spike all the “best”/”most” voting.

True, this was mostly because I hated what those sorts of popularity polls did to those who didn’t make the cut. Why bother to enshrine “best smile”, “most likely to succeed”, “most athletic” and all that in print when everyone knew the pecking order, anyway?

But to a degree I was also thinking of those on whom the titles were bestowed. Would the “mostly likely to succeed” person be most likely to ditch the reunion if (s)he wasn’t doing something impressive? I would have expected so.

Anyway, fast forward to the present, and my plotting as a youngster seems all but irrelevant. I’m not even sure that I want to go this thing.

Well, maybe to see who else turned out a ‘mo…

Seems to me that any weekend spent mainly dividing one’s time between beaches and barbecues can’t be all bad. And if it’s possible to avoid a sunburn in the process, all the better.

Just over a month ago, I posted a few random things that didn’t merit a full post of their own. Let’s do it again, shall we?

Let me start with some stuff I’ve had for a couple of months. These are two screens from Adorama camera. First, the checkout screen includes this option:

Skip past the work of creating a password I’ll never remember? Kudos!

The same goes for the credit card form:

There’s a nice wide space, and it allows for spaces and dashes — just like all card input boxes should. Also, you don’t need to choose the card type; the system is smart enough to recognize it from the length/prefix. Not sure why they allowed “2005” in the expiration pulldown, but that’s a minor quibble.

Sadly, Adorama’s order processing doesn’t hold up to their order taking. Originally, I was so pleased with the smooth checkout experience that I took these shots with the intention of making a post entitled “I Adore Adorama.”

My adoration quickly faded when my camera order was held up with unclear status messages that were ultimately revealed to mean “We’re holding this order until a rep can call you and attempt to upsell filters, memory cards and other gear.” Very annoying. I’ll have to look to B&H in the future.

OK, next we have spell-checking by search engine. A few days ago I discovered a user from MSN.no visited my site because I’m listed as using the non-(English-)word “reelation”:

Sorry, Norwegians! It was just a typo. Fixed now.

On to network names. A few weeks ago, I had to fire up my laptop for some Windows-related work. Our wireless router’s been a little hinky lately, so I did a scan and got this back:

Obviously, somebody within a few hundred feet of me thought it would be a good idea to use his/her telephone number as a network ID. Clever! Then when someone cracks the encryption, s/he’ll know how to find the address as well.

I also enjoy the “Customer ID” option. I picture somebody following instructions to the letter: “In the SSID field, enter your customer ID.”

Still, neither of these compare to one I found at home awhile back:

Stay classy, Fat Dog!

Speaking of classy, let’s move on to the reason Adblock was invented, also known as an incredibly tacky ThinkSecret.com ad:

I went back and forth as to whether I would actually reward this advertiser by clicking it. Finally, I decided I should — so that I might report my findings, in true quasi-journo fashion.

Well, here’s the report: it makes no noise, but instead urges you to download a “jokes toolbar.” Ugh. Why do I use Safari again? Oh yeah, great PDF rendering.

…and also, how else would I get my weird-ass mortgage ad fix? This one comes from the Trib. She’s melting!

Well, actually she’s… pouring body wash on herself? Outside? I don’t know. All I know is this Flash ad would continually loop this woman squeezing goo over herself and silently laughing/screaming like she’s having a gay ol’ time. Of course. It makes so much sense…

I’ll tell you something that does make sense now, in hindsight. That would be the reason C-SPAN pulled Colbert from YouTube. Sure, they’re said it was because they wanted to put an authorized version on Google Video, but seems they wanted to put it somewhere else as well:

Can’t blame ’em, I guess. Name another time everyone was clamoring for C-SPAN content…

Sometimes, it’s the smallest details that please me. Take, for example, my recent experience with a Bank of America ATM. (I don’t bank with them, but circumstance led me to use their unit.) Upon card insertion, the machine prompted me with a list of languages it supported, as many do these days. The difference: when I selected English, I was given another screen asking me to confirm my choice.

Now, encountering not one but two unecessary screens would really irritate me normally, but I had a hunch what was going on: the machine was saving my preference. Sure enough, when I re-inserted my card moments later, there was no language prompt.

Do they store that preference on the card? On the network? Or on the machine itself? (Egads, let’s hope not.) I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just like the fact that someone has put just a little bit of thought into streamlining the interaction and remembering there are humans on the other end.

Now if they’d just get rid of that ridiculous tendency to require you enter “00” in the cents field during the withdrawal stage, we’d really be getting somewhere…

I’ll write something later, after I get some sleep. But it will be probably be light, fluffy, and just this side of meaningless. It definitely won’t be as good as this:

I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties,” Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) remarked at yesterday’s Hayden confirmation hearings, “but you have no civil liberties if you are dead.” This comes via Dave Weigel and nicely encapsulates at least three different pieces of horribly misguided rightingery.

First off is the sheer cowardice of it. Sure, liberal democracy is nice, but not if someone might get hurt. One might think that strong supporters of civil liberties would be willing to countenance the idea that it might be worth bearing some level of risk in order to preserve them.

Second is just this dogmatic post-9/11 insistence on acting as if human history began suddenly in 1997 or something. The United States was able to face down such threats as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany without indefinite detentions, widespread use of torture as an interrogative technique, or all-pervasive surveillance. But a smallish group of terrorists who can’t even surface publicly abroad for fear they’ll be swiftly killed by the mightiest military on earth? Time to break out the document shredder and do away with that pesky constitution.

Last, there’s the unargued assumption that civil rights and the rule of law are some kind of near-intolerable impediment to national security. But if you look around the world over the past hundred years or so, I think you’ll see that the record of democracy is pretty strong. You don’t see authoritarian regimes using their superior ability to operate in secret and conduct surveillance to run roughshod over more fastidious countries. You see liberalism prospering — both in the sense that the core liberal countries have grown richer-and-richer and in the sense that liberal democracy has consistently spread out from its original homeland since people like it better. You see governments that can operate in total secrecy falling prey to crippling corruption. You see powers of surveillance used not to defend countries from external threats, but to defend rulers from domestic political opponents.

The U.S.S.R., after all, lost the Cold War, not because we beat them in a race to the bottom to improve national security by gutting the principles of our system, but because the principles underlying our system were actually better than the alternative. If you don’t have some faith the American way of life is capable of coping with actual challenges, then what’s the point in defending it?

Yep, sucking at the updates again. Go me! At least this time, I have a fairly good excuse: I’ve been just swamped with stuff for a new client. For example, I went to bed at 7a this morning, after rising at 10a (!) on Sunday, because I have been totally putting in the hours. Since this project is being billed by the hour, yay me.

Speaking of hourly work, I noticed something interesting on the walk to the bank today. There’s a take-out pizza joint a block from here, and they’ve put up three signs in the windows, each of which reads simply “Estamos empleando.” I asked, and this means: help wanted.

Now, for a bit of context, I would point out that I am not living in an especially Hispanic part of Chicago — not as far as I know, anyway. There certainly aren’t a bunch of billboards in Spanish as there in certain other parts of the city.

So why not put the sign in English, or perhaps both languages? I think two explanations are most likely. One, the owner/manager/hiring person has a personal preference/bias for Spanish-speakers, for whatever reason. That’s possible; I don’t know. Either that or, two, they don’t think English-speakers would even bother to apply.

I don’t know their motivation, but I do know I was in that place awhile ago and saw a worker leave with a pay stub. He had a girl waiting, and as he left the back he glanced at his stub and said to her: “Ouch. $70 for 12 hours.”

“Ouch” is right. That hurts no matter what language you speak.

Went to my first gay bar in aaaaaages last night, and was suitably impressed by all the revelry.

Based on the experience, I do have a little tip for some of the gay boys out there:

• If you feel confident enough to jump up on the stage and dance in front of the crowd, you go on with your bad self.
• However, if you feel the need to jump on stage, turn your back to the room, and use the mirror to watch yourself dance in front of the crowd, maybe it’s time to rein it in a bit.

And by “a bit”, I mean “a lot.”

Now I feel alert. If I only knew why…