New York Times wants your money

I was doing some research for a paper I was writing, a couple days ago, when I must have accidentally clicked something on a New York Times article page. I think it was some kind of "Save" button, or something. In any case, I found the resulting page humorous:

People I would like to make contact with

This is a short list of various people I'd like to make contact with for one reason or another. These include former co-workers, people I went to school with, etc. I haven't talked to any of these people in at least 4 years, and some it's been as long as ~23 years. This is just a wild stab in the dark, in case one of these people happens to Google their name some day, and stumbles across this blog post. Highly unlikely, but it would sure be cool if it happened.

If your name is on this list, please consider that I've always lived in Northern Virginia, so if you've never lived or worked in that area, it's not you that I'm looking for. If you think it might be you that I'm looking for, please email me!

Stephen O'Brien
Geoffrey Plumbley
Keith Landsdowne
Ba-Huy Duong
Lance Deffenbaugh
Eric Schmitt
Greg Highsmith
Jeremy Turner

IE javascript error: 'null' is null or not an object

I got this javascript error in IE 6, while trying to read about how to use the Microsoft Script Editor to debug javascript in IE:
MSDN : 'JScript debugger Statement'

Dunkin Donuts: The last remaining restaurant that requires cash

This morning, I didn't have enough bread to make my usual breakfast: a peanut peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with toast. Plus, I was extraordinarily sleepy.

So, I decided to stop at Caribou on the way to work, to get a mocha latte and a chocolate caramel muffin.

I decided to take a Vivarin instead, and wait until I was closer to work to get food; specifically, at the drive-thru Dunkin Donuts in Manassas Park. As I pulled into the drive-thru, I realized that I can't buy donuts that way. I wanted two donuts, but I needed to check what kinds they had, and what looked good to me today, which is something I could not do from the drive-thru.

So, I parked and went into the restaurant. After picking out a drink that looked and sounded interesting, and waiting in line for a few minutes, I ordered two donuts. With the drink, the total came to $3.something, so I handed the cashier my check card. She handed it back, and said that they do not accept credit cards.

This boggled my mind, since this is 2006, and even temporary Fireworks stands, off-brand gas stations, and parking garages accept credit cards. I used to always look for the VISA/MC symbols in a store's door/window, or ask before ordering something, if I wasn't sure. But the thought never even crossed my mind, since it's so rare to encounter a place that does not accept credit cards.

Well, I only had $1 in my wallet, and was not about to try to decide which ONE donut to buy. So I walked out, and continued down the road to the Giant Food grocery store. I thought that might actually turn out to be a good thing, since I could get Krispy Kreme donuts from the bakery section, there. I was bummed to find out that this particular Giant bakes their own donuts. I could have bought a pre-packaged box of Krispy Kreme donuts, but I really only wanted to get two donuts, not 6 or 12, so I went ahead and bought two Giant bakery donuts.

The donuts were too sweet, and not as tasty as Krispy Kreme would have been, so I feel like all of that time and effort was kind of wasted. I think Dunkin Donuts would have satisfied me as well, but unfortunately they are still living in the Stone Age or something.

A few minutes ago, I realized that this is not the first time I've been disappointed by Dunkin Donuts. A year or so ago, I stopped at the one in Herndon, and even had my kids all psyched up about getting some donnuts. No credit cards. I do not carry cash much, at all, because I prefer to use credit/check cards to keep track of where money goes. So I had to find a different place to get donuts that day as well.

So, I am hereby doing a "lazy boycott" of Dunkin Donuts. Lazy, because I very rarely go out with the intention of buying donuts, and rarely carry [much/any] cash, so I will avoid buying Dunkin Donuts without expending any actual effort. However, if the opportunity ever *does* present itself (cash + donut craving + near a Dunkin Donuts), I will go out of my way to buy some [pre-packaged if necessary] Krispy Kreme donuts somewhere else instead.

**edit**
Oh yeah, in a quick effort to see if this was a company-wide anti-cc policy, I ran across this funny story, in which (among lots of hiliarious stuff) I learned that some Dunkin Donuts stores do accept credit cards. Definitely worth a read!
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit_card

uhhh... this just CAN'T be what it looks like.

sleep deprivation...

In the past 96 hours:
I should have slept about 32 hours.
I normally would have slept about 24 hours.
I've only slept about 13 hours.
Ugh.

Name your own price on dental products

1. go to http://www.dentist.net


2. find the product you want


3. enter in address bar:
   javascript:void(document.onmousedown=ra)
   


4. firefox web developer toolbar:
   Forms | Display Form Details
   Forms | Make Form Fields Writable
   


5. edit text input named 'price'.
   click 'add to cart' button
   


6. laugh

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Of course, I would not really proceed through checkout with any cart created inappropriately, but it was fun to play with a little bit.

Ordinarily, I'd contact a company to let them know about a gaping security hole like this, but...

1. I'm still bitter about them crippling my browser
2. My blogs don't have very many readers
3. I'm confident that they would catch even the slightest modified order parameters, because, "We are Fraud Smart and pursue fraudulent orders to the full extent of the law." (from checkout page)

Pointless, intentional browser crippling - why??

I was browsing an online store earlier, trying to find a certain orthodontic product that I didn't know the name of, when I finally found it.

There were no useful details about it on that site, though, so I just wanted to copy and paste the official product name into a google search. My efforts to do this simple task were denied, though, which confused and annoyed me.

I thought my Firefox may have been choking on the fact that I had a lot of windows and tabs open, but decided to view the source anyway. As it turns out, there was some javascript code (shown below) to intentionally [attempt to] prevent printing or text selection. WTF?!?

---

//Disable Printing
document.onselectstart=new Function('return false');
function ds(e){return false;}
function ra(){return true;}
document.onmousedown=ds;document.onclick=ra;

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This was easy enough to defeat, though, by entering this in my location/address bar:
javascript:void(document.onmousedown=ra)

In IE, an additional step was required:
javascript:void(document.onselectstart=ra)

I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish. All I wanted to do was research the product before buying it from them, but intentionally made that difficult for me, so I will not be purchasing anything from their store.

Batmobile drove by this morning...

I was on my way to work this morning, sitting at a traffic light, when
a huge Batmobile drove by. I wish I could have been stopped next to it
at a light, instead, because I was only able to catch a glimpse.

But I saw that it had all of the Batmobile trim, from front to back,
and it was pretty long. I'm guessing it's a novelty limousine or
something, but I have no idea where to find out. A couple google
searches didn't turn up any useful explanation for me.

I'd love to post a picture, but I don't have a cameraphone at the
moment, and even if I did, it all happened too fast. Just had to say
something, though, because that's just not something you see every
day.

Compensating for broken appliances becomes habitual

Several years back, my refrigerator door was slightly broken. When closing the door, it would not make a complete seal until you kicked it. We let that go for months and months, if I remember correctly, because it was still fully functional; it just required a silly extra step. This became so habitual that I started to find myself kicking ALL fridges, not just our broken one. I kicked poor, innocent fridges at work, at friends' houses, etc.

Eventually, Lacey's parents were kind enough to get it fixed for us, and eventually I stopped kicking it. But I always thought it was funny how that habit carried over into inappropriate places.

Fast-forward a few years to 2006, and this same funny behavior showed itself again. Our kitchen faucet had a minor leak, and unless you turned it off just right, it would drip-drip-drip all day long. Everyone had their own way of turning it off, but my preferred method was to turn it almost all the way to the 'off' position, but not quite. This would effectively turn the water off, and would usually prevent the dripping.

Again, we let this go for way too long, and I had a good laugh when I found myself turning the kitchen sink at work off the same way (not quite all the way to the 'off' position). Eventually, I found the manual for my kitchen faucet, and my buddy Dallin fixed it for me. I'm not a handyman, at all, so it's nice to have friends that are good at fixing stuff.

Donut call cancelled...

I saw this sign posted at work for a couple days, this week. The actual call that it refers to is completely irrelevant to me, as I am not involved in it. Still, every time I saw the sign, I couldn't help but feel sad.

I got bored and did a google search for "donut call", and was mildly amused by some of the results.