cupid as villain

My endless quest to discover bizarre things on local news websites has revealed another…bizarre, somewhat awkward thing: a sex-related questionnaire on the front page of Cincinnati.com

Check out cincinnati.com’s homepage as of the late evening on 1/17:

“You may have even had it”?  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cincinnati.com.

The questionaire itself is no less awkward.

You’ll be asked to answer such penetrating questions as:

- How do you define “hooking up” with someone (in 50 words or less)? (It’s the word limit that makes answering this one difficult.)
- What is the biggest turn-off for you in a potential mate? (Aside from not being Catholic?)
- Where is the best place in town to find a date? (There are single people of legal age in Cincinnati? Don’t most families here still arrange marriages?)
- What constitutes cheating to you (in 50 words or less)? (Is this one of those questions that’s supposed to evoke the “emotional betrayal” response? LAME.)
- Describe your worst sexual experience (in 50 words or less)? (Aside from the impotence that will no doubt arise from merely contemplating the horrifying, disjointed Cincinnati singles scene?)

And so on.

Over/under on how long it takes CCV to respond to this? “What kind of city are we living if my children can’t even get their local news without being corrupted by such vile, lewd discussion of ‘hooking up’ and whatnot?”

Why Consumerist Sucks

I have been a Consumerist reader for quite awhile.  A lot of the information posted on the site is very helpful.  They frequently post tips to help people save money or avoid scams that are going around.  However, there is a lot of bad content that overpowers the legitimate posts on the site.

Here are a few examples of Consumerist whining about businesses that violate their Merchant Agreements with credit card companies:

“How dare a store ask to see my ID when I use a credit card to buy something? Don’t they know that their Merchant Agreement prevents them from asking to see my ID?”

Seriously, is Consumerist complaining that the Apple Store is asking to see people’s ID when they make a purchase?  Yes, they are.  Apparently Consumerist doesn’t realize that Apple sells computers which often cost several thousand dollars.

“Some store has a minimum purchase in order to use a credit card! Ahhhh!”

Again, what Consumerist fails to recognize here is that the only businesses that generally require minimum purchases on credit cards are small mom-and-pop shops of some sort.  For example, one local coffee shop I visit requires a $5 minimum purchase in order to use a credit card.  Consumerist never mentions that small stores are often charged a flat fee plus a percentage of the transaction for accepting credit cards.  Therefore, these stores may actually lose money if they accept a credit card on a transaction less than a few dollars.  If you like these businesses and you shop there, why would you want them to go out of business?

I’m not saying that Consumerist is wrong, only that many of their posts come across as whiny and they rarely consider the counterargument.  For example, many Consumerist readers have commented that they do not sign the back of their credit cards and instead write “See ID” as a personal protection.  Little do they realize that this is a violation of their terms with the credit card companies.  If it isn’t signed, the card isn’t valid.  Period.

They also ignore the obvious solution: If you don’t like their policy, don’t shop there!  If you are emotionally scarred because you bought a $2000 laptop from Apple and they — gasp — asked to see your driver’s license, don’t shop there!  If you are all shaken up becuase the corner store wouldn’t let you charge a 99¢ bag of marshmallows to your Visa, don’t shop there!  You don’t have to take it to the Internet and try to organize a worldwide shakedown.

One again, let me say that Consumerist does actually have a decent amount of good content.  If they stopped complaining about trivialities such as the grocery shrink ray (and now, the TV shrink ray), they might have a good thing going.

death of a policeman

In an internet-related mishap that can only be described as “unbelievable” by this writer, a doctored photograph of the recently-deceased police chief of Owensville, OH, has surfaced on a local news station’s website.  This is not a hoax.  This is not of my doing.  It is there right now at 1:13 AM EST on December 25, 2008.  Click here to view the page which will likely be edited and corrected by the time you click on it anyhow.

But I’ve preserved the page for posterity here.

Update: If you go to this page on WLWT’s website and view the slideshow of images from the crash scene, a larger version of the picture is available with the accompanying caption, “Sturgill’s friends say he has a good sense of humor and particularly enjoyed this picture, which a friend of his doctored as a joke.”

While this explains the existence of the picture on Fox 19’s website, it does not, however, explain why of all the pictures posted on various local news websites of the deceased the Fox 19 chose to post the picture of the deceased holding edited-in doughnuts and coffee and chose to do this without any sort of explanation given as to why they posted a doctored photograph of a dead police chief.

Go vote.

Today is Election Day in the United States.  If you are registered to vote, there is no excuse not to go vote today.  Then, stop by Krispy Kreme for your free doughnut and Starbucks for your free tall coffee.

Casual Observation #419

Songs in my iTunes library starting with Black:

• Black – Pearl Jam
• Black Cadillacs – Modest Mouse
• Black Cat – Starlight Mints
• Black Country Woman – Led Zeppelin
• Black Dog – Led Zeppelin
• Black Door – The Black Keys
• Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden
• Black Like Me – Spoon
• Black Math – White Stripes
• Black Mirror – Arcade Fire
• Black Mountain Side – Led Zeppelin
• Black Paper – Buffalo Killers
• Black Star – Radiohead
• Black Swan – Thom Yorke
• Black Tambourine – Beck
• Black Train – The Lukewarm
• Black Umbrella – Clutch
• Black Wave / Bad Vibrations – Arcade Fire
• Blackbird – The Beatles

Useless statistics:

• Artist with most “Black” songs: Led Zeppelin (3).
• Runners up: Arcade Fire (2), Thom Yorke + Radiohead (2).
• Biggest juxtaposition: “Black Math” by White Stripes
• Most redundant: “Black Door” by The Black Keys
• Number of songs matching the search query black star: 2 (“Black Star” by Radiohead, “Black Cat” by Starlight Mints)