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September 19, 2005

What's the grossest thing you've ever touched?

What's the grossest thing you've ever touched? Leave a comment...

September 11, 2005

Wife in paper

The wife said "I don't want to toot my own horn," but that's not going to stop me: Her blog was featured in City Paper's Pittsburgh N'@ this week.

We found out from a friend last night, and this led us to run around Squirrel Hill at 1:30 am trying to find a copy. We didn't succeed, but having wound up at Mineo's 10 minutes before closing, we decided to grab a couple slices and call it a night.

September 08, 2005

Cisco and CMU, sitting in a tree

Two Cisco VPs from different divisions gave talks at CMU today. Cisco wuvs us!

September 05, 2005

Butler Street mural

mural on butler street On Butler Street near 52nd, there's a Sprout Fund mural by Kevinn Fung titled "Wheeling Heliocentric Orrery." The wife says:

The woman on the bicycle, not unreminiscent of "Daphne" on Scooby Doo, interacts with the lightpost in a reverse sort of "trompe l'oeil" effect. That is, the lightpost now seems as though it is part of the mural. The artist clearly has something about crustacean-shaped hair to say, but perhaps we should leave that for a later discussion.
Click on the pic for a larger version.

September 02, 2005

Why does Telerama want me to hate them?

cmu id I buy wireless Internet service from Telerama so I can surf the web from coffee shops. I get the student rate, and of course, they want to see my student ID to verify that I'm still enrolled. Here's where things get ugly. My ID expires every 6 months, and CMU gives me another little sticker to put on to renew it. Around the same time, Telerama sends me an email. It says, to paraphrase: "Your ID has expired, we've suspended your account, and you're a deadbeat. If you have a new ID, scan it in and email it to us, or show up at our offices in person with it." I don't have a scanner, so I usually take a picture of my ID and send it in. That's what I did yesterday evening. This morning, I received a reply saying "we couldn't find a scan of your ID attached to your last email."

Sigh. Is dealing with customers really such a subtle art? First, it would be helpful if the email that said "we couldn't find your ID" would explain why it couldn't be found. Did the attachment not get through? Or was the picture blurry? Or are digicam pictures not acceptable? Second, why can't Telerama send out a reminder email a week before the expiration date? Student IDs expire right before the new semester starts, just when life is most hectic. This is not the week to expect me to remember I need to renew my wireless.

Argh. Just received yet another email from Telerama support: They still can't find the attachment with my id in it. Perhaps I'll just send them to this page.