![\"img_1012\"](\"http:\/\/giuliettas.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/img_1012.jpg?w=300&resize=300%2C225\" "\\"img_1012\\"")
When I worked at Applied Materials there was a courtyard completely surrounded by the building and every year a Mallard duck would sneek in there and lay eggs in the bushes, hatch babies and provide a general sense of cuteness\u00a0to the semiconductor engineering world. This scrum is 5 of 12 from 2005.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n Gripe # 1: Intermediate pages.<\/strong> \u00a0You know, you click on ‘My Ebay’ and you get an explanation page as though you’re John McCain visiting eBay for the first time as a ‘guest’ and you have to click AGAIN to actually sign in. Most email providers do this too; you sign in then come to a page full of ad’s that tells you how many new emails you have, WTF just show them to me, don’t tell me about them, timeconsumingly you have to click ‘inbox’ to go to a list of emails. My computer is getting close to four years old and each computer year is 30 human years so it’s way passed the walker-with-tennis-balls stage, (inset John McCain age joke here). Did you know Walgreens sells tennis balls in cans of FOUR in the medial aisle? Awesome. I seem to remember they have some disclaimer to the extent that they are not actually meant for tennis like the ones that come in cans of three.<\/p>\n Gripe #2: Artificially Truncated news stories.<\/strong> \u00a0A lot of news websites use this tactic to generate\u00a0inflated page view counts.\u00a0 Not a whole lot different that the National Enquirer type stories that are always front row center on Yahoo’s home page. You read 300 words of an Op Ed page you linked to through the realclearpolitics page and have to click to another page, with another set of 28, RAM immobilizing, flash based Viagra or Hummer ads that have to load before the final 142 words of the story are available.<\/p>\n Gripe #3: Crap, and I mean CRAP on eBay especially when there are like 500 contiguous auctions for the same said crap.<\/strong> \u00a0Tonight I perused the rich pageant of Alfa Parts available via our monopolous friends eBay and I was irritated to find that there are what, 200 of the same dumb aftermarket K&N filter elements all listed in a concise row. I am thinking if EVERY person in the WORLD who wants one ‘Buys it now’ there will still be 114 auctions for the same dumb filter irritating me for another week.<\/p>\n Gripe #4: Big box search engine search results. \u00a0I go to one of our omniscient, omnipotent and I guess omnipresent (wow, I had no idea until I just wrote that) search engines and ingenuously query “Giulietta Sprint Speciale +for sale” to see what’s on the market in case I can find one to write a post about. The first 18 results are ALWAYS links to these useless websites that all have the same canned description, car show photos and 60 line generic ‘specification’ chart with maybe 7 SS specifications actually filled in. Come on, my blog and perhaps 3 or 4 other websites are genuinely actively relevant. Shouldn’t we be at the top?\u00a0 Of course, we didn’t pay for a preferable pole position on the results page so I guess we should be happy to be there at all.<\/p>\n Oh well, my top 5 list has 4 entries. Tomorrow I’ll expound upon the dating and weight-loss benefits an Alfa Giulietta is sure to visit on your world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gripes are in no particular order. I am forced to stretch here to provide content. My camera went on a trip across Europe for 2 weeks and I have been too busy at work to get to my shop after work, and there isn’t a glut of Giuliettas on eBay right now so I’m going … <\/p>\n![\"img_2494\"](\"http:\/\/giuliettas.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/img_2494.jpg?w=300&resize=300%2C225\" "\\"img_2494\\"")
Every year I have a ‘First Feast’ where I do my best to get good friends together, feed them a serious meal (I like to cook too) and have a good time. The 2007 edition of the first feast degenerated or climaxed depending on how you feel about these things in about 2 hours of dancing. That’s me in the white pants.
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