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You’ve seen “Coding Horror“? How about Typography Horror?

Nothing says “The future of Internet Recruiting” quite like that New Yorker “Upper West Side” typeface. Very 1920′s.

Really great 24 x 7 6.5 x 5 service from Verizon. I don’t go looking for this stuff. I was trying to resolve a problem I had with Verizon where they kept billing me for DSL for months after I switched to Speakeasy.

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They shut down their web sites for the weekend and fly to tropical resorts in their private jets.

The perplexing form fields keep coming thick and fast. Here’s a beauty.

How do I know myself? I think they need more choices:

Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man’s father is my father’s son

On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

I am my own grandpa

I happened to be listening to the Eagles game today on WYSP-FM, when the commentators announced one of those contests that you could only enter if you were listening to the broadcast (you had to enter the hint they gave out-it was the Herr’s Crunch Time play of the game). While I was on the contest page I decided to look at the other contests. I followed the link for the Hyundai Super Sunday Fiesta Football Frenzy contest. As one who designs web forms all day, I usually find all the flaws when I’m filling out web forms, such as form fields that don’t have a “tabindex” attribute, making it hard to tab from one field to the next (not to mention making the form inaccessible to people with disabilities). However, the registration form for Football Frenzy takes the cake. Here’s my favorite field:

Hey, I’m an open-minded person. I figure that there must be a reason for the N/A choice. Maybe their market research showed a high number of hermaphrodites in their target market? Earthworms might want to enter? If I win the trip to the Super Bowl, I’ll wear a dress.

I want to get an interview for one of these jobs that say they’re looking for a “Rock Star”.  Then I want to send Keith Richards to the interview. I want to videotape the job seeker’s reaction when Keith walks in and says, “Well, you said you were looking for a rock star, mate? Here I am.”

I received an email newsletter today from Relevante containing this memorable passage:

Relevante is pleased to invite you to attend our 2007 Internal Audit Symposium. We have a great lineup of cutting edge topics … which are important to the internal audit world in today’s environment.

Internal Audit. Cutting Edge. Whoa, my oxymoron advisory system spiked all the way up to Krakatoan lava orange. Someone who thinks internal audit is cutting edge probably watches C-SPAN on their video ipod. I don’t know how I got on this email list. It must have been a practical joke. Then again, I have had an email account since the second Reagan Administration, so my addresses are scattered throughout the telecosm like Caesar’s last breath. But an accounting symposium for me? You can say “Accounting” and I’ll be asleep before you get to the “ing”. Go ahead and give me a root canal. It’ll take one of those 911 recordings of O. J. Simpson screaming expletives to wake me up.

As oxymorons go, the “cutting edge internal audit conference” might be the best one I’ve heard since I saw a “clean coal” billboard while I was driving my Fry-O-Diesel-fueled 1984 Mercedes 300SD across the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Did you know that my car is really “PZEV”, a “partial zero-emission vehicle”? What the hell kind of Orwellian nonsense is that? Partial zero? You can’t divide by zero folks. Anyway, I consider my old tank to be PZEV—it does not emit anything when it is parked and turned off. I guess it’s kind of like clean coal.

Surface is so intelligent, it knows when to squeegee itself.

I worked for Yahoo! in 2006 as a contractor on the FIFA World Cup site. Our team consisted of about 50 people from 18 different nations, all located in Berlin. I noticed that whenever the topic of Yahoo! executives came up, some of the French Yahoos would mention someone named Theresa Mel. I couldn’t figure out who Theresa Mel was. I knew the names of many Yahoo! executives, but not this mysterious and powerful Theresa Mel woman. It would go like this:

Yahoo 1: “I hear that Jerry Yang and Dan Rosenzweig are going to be here for the World Cup Final.”

French Yahoo: “Yes. But I have also ‘eard that Theresa Mel is not coming.”

Finally, I figured out that Theresa Mel is the French pronunciation of Yahoo CEO non-executive chair Terry Semel.

This wouldn’t be on my mind at all if I hadn’t read in the New York Times yesterday (via Good Morning Silicon Valley), that Terry Semel made $107.5 million last year. Apparently, Yahoo! issued this statement, “Mr. Semel’s compensation for 2006 was almost entirely equity based and is, therefore, closely aligned with the interests of Yahoo’s shareholders.”

The Times article ended with that statement. Don’t you think a newspaper should ask a few more questions? Yahoo’s stock fell by 35% last year. How can Semel’s compensation be closely aligned with the interests of Yahoo shareholders? They lost 35% last year and he made $107.5 million. What kind of alignment is that?

Maybe Semel has a secret life as his French alter ego Theresa Mel. I’m sure Theresa Mel took a pay cut and declined the options rewards, as a sign of personal integrity and commitment to the company, until they successfully completed their reorganization and starting regaining some of the revenues and profits it has lost to Google and others.

(Disclosure: I do not own any Yahoo! stock)

Why would I use it on Windows?