tomsepper.net

I had good news in my inbox from GoDaddy! They’ve come up with an ingenious “service”!

Dear Tom Sepper,

A new service is available that will impact how you manage your account. This service — a monthly account statement delivered straight to your inbox — will soon serve as your all-in-one account resource. Simply open your email each month and you’ll ensure:

• You don’t miss the renewal date for any expiring domain or Go Daddy® product you own
• You keep your credit card up-to-date and not at risk of expiration – don’t be a victim of a failed auto-renewal
• You take advantage of important security measures that keep your account safe
• You are not forgetting about a pending order – you won’t lose a domain due to incomplete registration
• You stay on top of unused credits that could be applied toward a future purchase

There is no cost associated with this service. It is simply a continuation of our commitment to your satisfaction. You
must, however, sign up to begin receiving your account statement. Questions? Call your customer service representative
24/7 at 480-505-8821.

I’m so glad they’re coming up with even more crap to advertise and upsell on their over-cluttered, unfriendly, hard-to-navigate website.

Old Navy, listen up. You need to rethink your return and exchange policies.

Scenario: Katie Lynn received a pair of Old Navy boots for her birthday. Unfortunately, they were too small, so we figured it’d be an easy enough switch at our local Old Navy store even though we didn’t have a receipt or gift receipt. Silly us.. why would it be easy?

Again, let me reiterate – we wanted an even exchange for the SAME EXACT item in the SAME EXACT color.. only a bigger size. But no, we weren’t allowed to do that. Instead, we have to wait 7-10 days for a check from Old Navy to be mailed to our house.

That is asinine. Now, if we had wanted a refund, I would be completely okay with having to wait for a check. I have absolutely no problem with that. But we simply needed a different size, and Old Navy would have been out absolutely nothing.

If Old Navy wishes to get my business again in the future, they better reevaluate their policies to be more consumer friendly or else risk getting placed in the same category as Target.

Okay, this may come as a shock to some of you (likely not), but I’m a huge grammar freak. Adults should be able to remember the basics from elementary school. With that in mind, Mr. Sepper’s class is now in session.

Apostrophes

For example: if referring to more than one book, you would write books not book’s. In hosting, when referring to more than one IP addresses, you would write IPs and not IP’s.

there / their / they’re

• “There” should be used when referring to a place either directly or indirectly.
• “Their” should be used when possession is involved.
• “They’re” should be used in place of “they are”.

For example: They’re all over there by the tables with their iPads.

your / you’re

• “Your” indicates possession.
• “You’re” is a contraction for “you are”.

Example: You’re holding your iPhone.
NOT: Your holding an iPhone.

too / to / two

• “Two” obviously is the number 2.
• “Too” means both “additionally” and “excessively”.
• “To” is used as an infinitive,  a preposition, or an anaphor.

Examples:
I like OS X too!
Where should I send this laptop to?

I could go on, but I think that’s enough for this rant.

There’s the bell.. class dismissed.

We went to Souper Salad last night for dinner; it’s a great buffet-style salad and soup restaurant. However, the restaurants seem to be operated very inefficiently in my opinion.

The way to explain my opinion is to walk you through the dining experience.

1. After entering the restaurant, you’re greeted by a cashier where you purchase your meal.
2. After paying, you proceed to the buffet line. The salad and “fixings” are first.
3. The next line contains the hot items: soups, potatoes, breads, etc.
4. The third and final line contains the dessert and fruit items.
5. Once you have your food, you proceed to to find a booth or table.
6. A “server” will eventually come to your table to check your receipt for what drinks were ordered. He/she will then bring you your drinks.
7. Throughout your meal, your server might come by to ask if refills are needed — if you’re lucky. They will come by and impolitely reach through the middle of your table to get dirty plates and trays.
8. At the end of your meal, you feel compelled to leave a tip since technically you had someone waiting on you.

The inefficiency lies with two facets: staffing and drinks.

Here’s a summary of how many employees are working at a given time during a mealtime “rush”: 1 cashier, 1-2 “prep” folks keeping the buffet line stocked, 4-5 servers, 1-2 dishwashers/cleaners (I would assume), 1 manager. Total of 11.

Caveat: I’ve not worked at Souper Salad, so the above counts are based solely on my patronage experience and observations.

With Souper Salad being a buffet-style restaurant, there’s absolutely no reason to have servers. Install the fountain drink dispenser on the buffet line and there’s immediate cost savings. Yes, I feel bad saying that given the current economy as that means folks would be without jobs. But from a pure business standpoint, it’s wasted money.

That would leave 6 staff members on a given shift and should be plenty to handle a shift.

</rant>

Received an email from diapers.com today:

Dear Thomas,

We miss you at Diapers.com!

We’re so convinced that you’ll enjoy shopping with us again that we’re giving you $5 off your next order! Just add something to your cart and it will automatically be applied! But act soon–it expires 2/5/10!

Sincerely,
The Team at Diapers.com

Not one but two grammatical mistakes!

Hey, diapers.com.. need a proofreader? I’m anal retentive when it comes to the English language and won’t charge you an arm and a leg.

I have been rather vocal about my opinions on Mike Leach (link 1, link 2, link 3), but I am always one to give credit where credit is due: the man is coming off of the greatest football season in Tech’s history. Unless you’re A) not a sports fan or B) living under a rock (and you’re a sports fan), you’ve undoubtedly heard all of the commotion regarding Texas Tech, Gerald Myers, Mike Leach, and the status of Leach’s contract. I’ve remained quiet on the subject..

Until now.

Gerald Myers – you’re a complete moron. How you ever made it as high as Athletic Director is beyond me. You screwed over James Dickey back in 2001 and now you’re trying to do the same to Mike Leach. Dickey deserved firing; no argument there. But the way you did it was pathetic, shallow, and cowardly.

Texas Tech Regents — If you let Mike Leach go, you will reap the whirlwind in terms of fan support, season ticket renewals, and ticket sales. You better think twice.

Here’s my suggestion to the Regents: keep Mike Leach and fire Gerald Myers. Promote Marsha Sharp to Athletic Director as she truly deserves it.

Disclaimer: I probably am a fanboy myself. Maybe not to the extremes I’m blogging about here, but I love Apple and the products it produces.

Apple fanboys annoy me. Greatly. There’s no pleasing this bunch.

Apple releases the iPhone. Within two days, there are a plethora of posts throughout the fanboy websites and blogs containing ways to make it better.

Apple releases the unibody MacBooks. Within hours those fanboy sites are complaining about their lack of firewire.

The day Apple gets behind on the fanboy-imposed product lifecycles, all hell breaks loose. Is the Mac mini being discontinued? Is AppleTV on its last breath?

My advice for the fanboys:

Get over yourself and enjoy and appreciate the Apple products you already own.

</rant>

Supposedly, over 100 million votes were placed last night for American Idol. That’s ridiculous.

Why?

That’s almost as many votes that were cast in the 2004 US presidential election. According to Wikipedia, 122,267,553 votes were cast for president.

On another note, it’s now obvious who the judges and producers want to win this year. Archuleta sang well last night for the most part. But so did Cook.

I feel the judges were very unfair in their assessments of David Cook. For example, all along the judges have stressed being original, making songs their own, and essentially “thinking outside the box”.  Apparently this doesn’t apply to the crappy winner’s song. His performance of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was amazing, but I would tend to agree that he should have chose a different song than The World I Know. He performed it well, but I would have rather seen something bigger and better. I loved his little dig against Archuleta though about performing something new.

David Archuleta did exactly what he has been doing all season — he sang slow, sappy ballads. He has shown absolutely no originality, improvement, or versatility. Is that not the point of having theme weeks?

David Archuleta, if crowned the winner, will falter just like all of the other male American Idol winners. David Cook will excel and follow in Chris Daughtry’s footsteps.

Maybe Idol producers will fix the show in time for season eight.