WTF??!?!

Laugh with me! Laugh with me!

So this morning I get in my car to go to work, and put on 93.1, and.. Party 93.1 is GONE! What the hell? They're playing boring 90's rock music now!

Party 93.1 was an AWESOME South Florida radio station that played nothing but dance music. New dance, classic dance, you name it. They had these great classic freestyle mix shows at noon and filled a market that simply didn't exist anymore in this area.

They seemed to be doing well, too, with lots of promotions, and lots of people I know were listeners.

So why the hell did they abandon their market? They were the ONLY dance radio station in this market at the moment; there are already several rock stations. How can they possibly hope to compete? Not to mention they now have millions of angry listeners wondering where the hell Party 93.1 went. Power 96 is completely useless now, since they play nothing but hip-hop. So us dance music listeners have nowhere to go.

I called the old number, but couldn't get through. I bet thousands of former Party 93.1 listeners are complaining at the moment. I honestly hope they get mercilessly harassed into changing back to the dance format.

If not, I'm going to miss hearing all those freestyle tracks again. It was such a great path through memory lane...

UPDATE 3/25/2005: I'd like to thank everyone for their comments here. I never expected my little rant about this station dying would draw so many comments. It just further proves what a great station this was and what a crime it was for Cox to do a format flip. Hopefully dance will be back; Party 93.1 had good ratings, so I bet some other company is working on filling the hole... The market is out there!

Another UPDATE 4/19/2005: This has become a somewhat popular post, so any trolls or flames will be deleted. Thank you. }:)

UPDATE 4/29/2005: I found Salsa 98.3FM playing Freestyle today a bit after noon while scanning for radio stations across the dial. The fact that a Spanish station is playing Freestyle with english lyrics shows that there is indeed a market for it!

Oh, and it's only Monday. And 9:19AM:

User:

It doesn't work. What's going on? Please help me.
Thank you.

Staff:

Hello,
What are you having trouble with? Can be a little more specific so we can assist.

User:

Im trying to finish this report I have to turn into my class tonight, 
I am unsure how to mount the CPU? Can someone please come help me? 
I am told that John in 258 is the person to see about this.
Thank you.

What scares me the most is these are computer science students. Shouldn't people who major in computer science be fellow geeks? You'd think they'd be able to compose a well-written, descriptive E-mail which mentions an error message and what they were doing at the time. But noooo. "It doesn't work." Well, neither do our support services, with information like that. Please hang up and try your call again. }:)

Of course, later in the day, this came in:

Good afternoon,

Can someone please check the fountain printer? It seems to be 
giving us some sort of error message.

Okay, so at least this person told us that they're getting an error message. Is it really that hard to include the error message so we don't have to waste time answering "Uhh, could you please tell us what the error is?" Oh wait, of course it is!

I was gassing up my car today, and locked the handle as usual so I don't have to stand there with it the whole time. A bit later, I check and notice gasoline is spilling out of my car and onto the concrete!

The automatic shutoff on the pump, which is supposed to kill the flow when the gas reaches the tip of the nozzle, had failed. If I had gone in to get a snack and not noticed this in time, a LOT more gas would have spilled and it would have been an even MORE dangerous condition.

Luckily, it was only a little bit and I was able to wipe up the mess on the side of my car, but I've certainly learned my lesson:

Don't trust the automatic shutoff feature on gas pumps! Always stay with the nozzle when fueling!

And yes, I did report the problem and they decomissioned that pump by putting a plastic bag over it.

So I was at Best Buy today, and I picked up a copy of a Disney DVD starring Chip & Dale. (the ORIGINAL Chip & Dale from the 1940's... yes, Chip and Dale existed before the Rescue Rangers got together...) It was cheap, and I used to love those cartoons, so why not? Anyway, I noticed this gem in tiny print:

Wow, the DVD starts automatically when inserted. What an amazing technological achievement! I must meet these godly DVD developers at Disney and shake their hands!

Err, I have a couple of movies that were released on DVD in 1999, when DVDs weren't even popular yet, that start automatically just fine when you insert them. Apparently, Disney felt that so many films out there throw huge complex animated menus and effects at you upon insertion, that simply playing the film when you put the disc in is now a "special feature".

Well, kudos to Disney for figuring out that people just want to watch the damn film, but jeez, a special feature!!? Not only that, but they even paid someone to come up with a funky-looking logo for this "special feature", and trademarked it!

This isn't the first time Disney misuses the term "special feature", of course. Let's take a look at a little box on the back of the "Lady and the Tramp" DVD... This was when they just started making DVDs, and they have since redeemed themselves in the features department, but... "Full character artwork on disc" a special feature? Next thing you know the hole in the middle will be a special feature! "Allows you to carry the disc more conveniently!"

One more thing, I noticed the words "Disney's FastPlay Patent Pending" at the very bottom of the back of this disc. I guess Disney felt left out of the club abusing the patent system. At least there's plenty of prior art if they DO try to sue someone over it.

So, a couple days ago I received an E-mail from an address I've never seen before, with no subject. Upon opening it, pretty much expecting spam (you can never be sure), I was perplexed by this:

When Is Bambi On DVD & Video Can You E-Mail Me Back At xxxxxxx@hotmail.com

Of course, the lack of punctuation (except for the '&' and in the E-mail address), along with the fact that I had no idea who this was, AND the fact that he was asking me a question that is easily answered by searching for "Bambi" on amazon.com, led me to ignore the e-mail and get on with my life.

A few hours later, I get another E-mail from this special friend:

I Told You When Is Bambi Coming ON DVD & Video Please Send Me Back

Oh, so now he's DEMANDING to know when it comes out. From someone he doesn't even know! Or at least, I think that's what he's doing. From the way he wrote it, it's hard to tell. He should also talk to a third grade English teacher so she can tell him how not to Capitalize Every Word In A Sentence.

Anyway, I ignored this example of Shakespearian-level English and went on with my life.

Of course, the clincher arrived today:

What Does Lion's Live. Can You E-Mail Me Back Please

I can't make any sense of this, can you? After applying various munging techniques, I came up with this grammar-deficient person's likely question: "Where do lions live?"

So I replied on a single line:

In Kenya. (Not Norway!)

Hey, my answer is technically correct, right? }:) I'm really looking forward to his response. Whether I'll be able to decipher it, that's another story. I'm no WWII allied codebreaker, ya know!

So I went to the mall for lunch today, and wandered into an FYE. While browsing the aisles of overpriced music, video games, DVD's, and so on, I saw a package that looked somehow out of place...

"Disney's Pocahontas Screen Scenes"

WTF? So I picked it up, turned it over...

System Requirements:
386 SX/16
Windows 3.1 or greater
4MB of RAM
...etc.

This was software from 1995! What the heck was it doing in an FYE that opened in 2001? It also came on 3.5" floppy disks, and had a very ancient looking, worn out price tag telling us it sells for $16.97.

I felt like buying it for the nostalgia value, not to mention the "WTF!" value, but it would lose the "WTF!" value once extracted from the store that was built in 2001.

I actually bought Lion King Screen Scenes back in 1994, which was almost identical, only with TLK pictures, so it was a strange blast from the past. Of course, with TLK screen scenes, I quickly tired of the crappy software, extracted all the JPGs, and used them in my own software. }:)

http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/basics/anatomy.html

(mirrored here)

This is among the more disturbing uses I've seen for a Disney character, especially Simba! I wonder how long before the cease-and-desist letter arrives from Disney Corp? In fact, that's why I mirrored it. }:)

Okay, pardon my French, but, what in the FUCK has happened to the Discovery Channel?

Every time I turn it on, all I see are shows about rebuilding cars, motorcycles, turning semis into trebuchets, and so on. It seems that Discovery Channel has turned into the Gearhead Channel. Most of the good programming I remember seeing on it years ago, such as wildlife documentaries, science-related programming, shows about aircraft, war documentaries, and so on have either completely vanished, or moved to spinoff channels that I don't get.

Not that I have anything against gearheads, and sometimes I do find those shows interesting, but overall the channel's transformation is negative. Why not spin the gearhead stuff off to another channel, and keep the regular "Discovery Channel" a home for general science and technology programming?

Sad, really...

This video is a MUST for all forklift operators to view. It stresses that safety is the most important thing on the job.

Perhaps after watching this video, the world will be a safer place for forklift operators and warehouse employees across the world.

Forklift Safety Video (In German, but still gets the point across if you don't speak it)