Todd's Old Blog

Tag: rant

  • Scotiabank Does Not Honour Do-Not-Call List?

    For the past month or two, several times per week, Scotiabank has been calling me from 1-888-882-3811 to tempt me with a “Special Offer”.  Despite declining  it and requesting that they not call back, the calls have continued.  For awhile I stopped answering, hoping that my request to be spared from their marketing machine would…

  • Goodbye Facebook

    So, it’s a month to the day since I posted my most recent tirade against Facebook, but this time I’m writing to report that I finally kicked Mark Zuckerberg’s travesty to the curb.  Granted, there wasn’t much left there to delete… And that was the aspect that made it more difficult, actually. I didn’t have much…

  • Facebook Is My F-word

    “Facebook has devolved from a social networking platform to an operating system for third-party applications.” I cringe at the mention of it. It’s more contemptible than “free”, with all that’s been done to make that word utterly meaningless—if not borderline fraudulent—mostly from the lips and keyboards of marketers. It’s more despicable than “f*ck”, which despite…

  • RTFM: The Next Generation

    Back in the day—and probably still, in certain dark corners of the Internet—curious n00bs spouting often-asked-and-answered “obvious questions” (at least to those being asked) were quickly booted in the posterior and sent reeling from Usenet newsgroups, IRC,  and (later) discussion forums with the phrase “RTFM!” left ringing in their ears for good measure. Nowadays it’s a much…

  • Product #FAIL: Koodo Phone Case

    Here’s a few questions it might be useful to ask before designing a mobile phone case, or alternately, before buying a warehouse full of some other manufacturer’s mobile phone cases: (1.)  Should we use rivets to attach the belt clip to the main body of the case? (2.) How many should we use? (3.) How large…

  • Why did you steal my recycling bin?

    You must have noticed that it wasn’t yours.  I mean, for one thing, mine was taller.  Much taller.  It probably had 30% more capacity than your typical bin. That, and it was obviously newer and much nicer than your UV-faded, weather-beaten, run-over-by-the-car experiment in plastic durability. I guess I’ve answered my own question. I suppose you…

  • Product #FAIL: Crest for Kids

    Can you see anything wrong with this product? Perhaps. But how about from inside a sealed box? No, and as luck would have it, that’s how these kid-friendly tubes happen to be sold. Having had some time to field test it (something I’m guessing Crest didn’t do), I can see at least two fun-enhancing benefits…

  • The Future of Health Care?

    Should health care be rationed? It’s really a moot question because health care is already being rationed in the United States. HMOs (health maintenance organizations), like any other (successful) insurance company, remain profitable by taking in as much money as possible, while paying out as little as possible. Instead of looking at your car, calculating…

  • Thank you, Vince McMahon

    “Led proudly by the Fox News channel, today’s media seems to have torn a page from the Vince McMahon handbook of television drama. ” One of the greatest things about living in America is the comfort of always knowing you’re right. If your military, for example, happens to bomb a country halfway around the world…