When I started my blog, I made a promise not to post any long winded rants, and I don't intend to break that promise today. I just want to share a few stories. Okay I might break it a little.

Just over a year ago I started an Excel sheet called "why i hate tim hortons.xls" where I documented every single screw up that Tim Hortons made while ordering food from any of their locations. Unfortunately, with most things I start, I never really dedicated myself to it and I stopped keeping track of their mistakes. My original plan was to send a copy of it to every nearby Tim Hortons location and one to the corporate offices, letting them know the frequency of screw-ups that they make, and point out that these are just my documented incidents. The number of unreported mistakes would probably be tenfold. I was reminded of this again today when I ordered a toasted chicken club sandwich, and the bun wasn't so much toasted as it was black as coal. It smelled like it was in a fire. It bugs me that somebody there saw it and was like "Yes, this is acceptable as food". I made the effort to return it to their manager informing them that I did not care to eat their bun. I didn't expect anything in return, I just wanted them to have their bun back.

As much as I love living in the 21st century, one of the things that bugs me the most (besides kids these days) is how completely indifferent people are towards mediocrity. It's almost become accepted. I long to live in a time when an establishment would go out of business if they consistently produced shabby products or services. I suppose it still happens with locally owned businesses, but it saddens me that places can create a name for themselves as being below average, yet still thrive. People just accept it.

I pride myself in boycotting places that are consistently poor in service or quality of products. I know it probably doesn't make a huge difference to most places, but at least I know my money isn't going into their managers' pockets. I stopped going to a particular Subway because the staff consistently took 20-30 minutes to make a sandwich when I was the only person in the restaurant. I stopped going to a particular Starbucks because their wonderful barista told me I should speak clearer next time they screw up my order.

Today also marks the day that I begin my campaign of sending one email a day to Microsoft, requesting that they include support for disc number tags in their Zune software. A feature so basic that it should have been included in version 1.0 of their software, but still isn't included in version 3.0. Instead they add a clock and game support. I guess I could play Sudoku while my albums play out of order.

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I found this site called Art of the Title while reading my daily feeds. It is a blog that posts interesting and/or awesome title sequences from movies. You can view them in 480p or 720p, which I feel is pretty awesome.

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All the blogs on the internets are probably already abuzz about this, but Microsoft just launched the new dashboard for the Xbox 360 yesterday and I have to say it is pretty awesome. One of the biggest new features is the ability to create a custom avatar for yourself very similar to the Mii channel on the Nintendo Wii. Except it is a lot better. Here's me:

You can also rent movies in HD, which apparently has been a feature for the past six months or so, but it's news to me. They did, however, integrate Xbox Live with Netflix, which opens the selection of movies from a few hundred to probably thousands, but I am pretty sure it's only for US citizens.

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The only thing I've ever bought on iTunes was a Smashing Pumpkins compilation called Rarities and B-sides. It was a 114 song compilation of hard-to-find songs spanning their entire career from 1989 to 2000. Some songs weren't that rare, but there were a few that I otherwise would have no chance of hearing unless I paid over $300 for a used vinyl copy of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on eBay. Anyway, the compilation was only around $10-$20 at the time and was exclusively for sale on the iTunes store. So I bought it.

Skip ahead a couple years to present day, I find myself wanting to listen to those old songs again. The only problem is that in the past few years, I've reformatted my computer several times and I seem to have misplaced the files. No biggy, right? I'll just go back to the iTunes store and download them again. Wrong. Not only is the album now only available in the US, but the entire compilation now costs a whopping $119. Even if I lived in the States, I'd have to make a fairly serious financial decision if I wanted to listen to these songs again. Yeah, there are 114 songs, but even still, how do they honsetly justify this? It is just some digital files. I don't even get a fun booklet to flip through, here.

Curious if I could find the album anywhere else, I checked out Amazon. Turns out they do sell it, but the price isn't much better:

Price: $103.85
Album Savings: $8.91 compared to buying all songs

Thanks for the great deal, Amazon.

I am glad I only made this mistake once, and I seriously feel bad for people whose entire music collections are composed of digital downloads, especially if they contain DRM. I am reminded of an incredibly appropriate xkcd comic, and it's the same reason why I still buy CDs. Even without DRM, the whole system is incredibly flawed.

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It's been a while, but Jerktowne has finally been finished. Prop-a-lops to Billie for whipping that up today.

So send all the jerks you know to Jerktowne.

Jan 17, 2010 Update: This site has been down for a while :(

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