Canuckflack

” … Less than a year ago this friend of mine was in line at a KFC on East 14th Street, and at the front was this skinny little guy who ordered three 20-piece buckets of Original Recipe. So the woman at the counter rings him up, and says, straight-faced, “Is that for here or to go?”

Now, this man was obviously there alone and would be taking all of it to some sort of party or whatever, and he said: “Are you fucking kidding me? How would I eat all of this here, now, by myself?” To which, the woman replied, sharply, “BITCH, I DON’T KNOW YOUR LIFE!”…”

- Chip Kidd, interviewed by Sean Adams in Step Inside Design Magazine

“… remodelers who specialize in eco-friendly projects say many homeowners still tend to focus on green stuff rather than green performance. It’s easier to imagine friends being impressed by the virtue of your recycled-glass bathroom tiles than by properly sealed air-conditioning ducts, even though more systemic projects have “orders of magnitude” more impact, says Paul Eldrenkamp, president of Byggmeister Inc., a builder in Newton, Mass. …”

- Rob Walker, in the NYT Magazine

Spotted on a late night walk. Chalked out on the driveway are the words “STOP STOP (FAIL)” and a chalk body is sketched out on the sidewalk.

EDIT: I seem to have missed a nuance there:the second word is actually spelt “SOTP” – which makes the (FAIL) grammatically appropriate. And is probably a sign that this person hangs out on Slashdot (or Twitter) way too much.

Either that house has a morbidly imaginative child with poor chalk skills, or her dad was forced emerge from his gaming room to spend “Quality Time” with her over the weekend.

That’s right. It’s a murse. A man purse I found fetching. It reminded me of a similar bag from Mountain Equipment Co-op – one that I used to carry until I began hauling around dockets and other oversized papers.

In this application, the new Bell Canada logo makes sense – both in application as a design element, and as a distinctive brand identity.

(Yes, I did have a thought or two when this new logo came out in August 2008)

Its rough canvas exterior reminded me of a Freitag custom messenger bag – which is cut from old tarpaulins taken from trans-European transport trucks.

” … intoned the Hillsdale professor, the kind of stiffly formal young man whose cheeks are simply waiting to become jowls … “

-Charles Homans writes in the Washington Monthly about Culture11, a now-shuttered online attempt to broaden the conservative voice in the U.S.

“The Option You Selected Is Not Available”

Yeah. That’s right. The option I would like to select, as soon as my call is thrown into your damnable IVR phone system, isn’t available. At least not until you make me listen to four other options – in English AND French!

Why? Because that organization – usually a utility, a bank or the phone company – values their cents more than my minutes.

I would like to blame a mindless 22 year-old business analyst, fixated only on identifying tweaks in the business process that will result in incremental efficiency boosts at the call centre. A 22 year-old  oblivious of the dozens, then hundreds and eventually thousands of seconds I waste listening to an irritatingly familiar list of menu options – none of which are relevant to my particular question.

But I know the rot goes much farther.  Somewhere, a manager decided receptionists were too expensive. Someone more senior decided that the call centre that replaced the receptionists needed to be pared down.  Someone even more senior spent an hour or so reviewing activity reports from the call centre, noticed that these folks seemed to be answering the same questions over and over, and wondered out loud whether there was a way to automate this process and save even more money.

But no-one deserve more scorn than the IVR salesman who, pointing to his statistical analysis of dropped calls, abandoned queries and resolved questions, observed that most customers were simply hitting the “0″ button as soon as they heard a robotic and disembodied voice.

Because HE IS THE DOUCHE that set the system up so “o” only became an option AFTER the system forced you to listen to the first four menu options.

“Oh yeah. I can do that.”

That bastard should have to go through a seven option decision tree just to get into his car  – or his fridge.

It is even more galling that many of these unwanted menu options simply lead you to branch hours and location. I don’t want to sound like an old man, but I used to have a good system for figuring out whether the business was open: I would call them, a human would/would not answer, and I would know. People younger than me KNOW just to f*cking Google it. Who’s left? The elderly. I’m apparently being forced to work my way through a phone tree because Mrs. McGillicudy can’t hold onto numbers anymore. And she’s the one with the most time to spare.

Integrated voice recognition systems and phone menus are cost-saving measures dressed up as features. They rob your interaction with the business of any sign of character or humanity. And they’re an organization’s passive-aggressive way of flipping you the bird.

Bastards.

This is the awning over the front entrance to the new Syrian Embassy in Ottawa. They took possession of a stately old home that, until recently, had been a spa and B&B.

While I could hope that this rough and ready flag treatment is an indication of an interior design scheme that emphasizes self-expression and rebellion against traditional forms, I suspect it’s just a quick fix to cover up the old B&B’s name.

Still, it would make a good entrance for a skate shop.

Oh sweetness. I WANT to dislike the latest CP&B ad produced for Burger King, but I can’t!

Here’s a full length video for the remake of “Baby Got Back,” this time featuring the Burger King and … Spongebob Squarepants.

“All I know is if my pupusas aren’t back this year, I’m going to have to cut a bitch.”

• By poshspice on 04/14/2009 at 2:56 pm

Comment on a New York Magazine blog post about the food vendors at the Brooklyn Flea Market.

You HAVE watch this until the end – the close is fantastic!

Despite the heroic example of Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators, a new history by Fabrice d’Almeida tells us that the German nobility generally supported the Nazi regime – in part due to a concerted effort by Nazi leaders to coddle them.

” … Hitler was constantly giving presents: vases, tea sets, sweets, lamps, books, cigars, his own watercolours. In 1935, Goebbels got a stereophonic record player (at that time the acme of German sound technology) and Göring received a painting by Adolf Ziegler, lampooned as the Reich Painter of Pubic Hair for his ghastly depictions of eugenic nudes.

Himmler, too, became an assiduous trafficker in gifts. His office kept a file on 80 senior members of the SS whose birthday and Christmas presents were all meticulously logged. On Christmas Day 1933, Obergruppenführer Prützmann received a portrait of Himmler: one can only imagine the expressions of pleasure on his family’s faces as the countenance of the Reichsführer-SS emerged from the wrapping paper …”

- Christopher Clark, in the London Review of Books

“The economic rhythm of this place is that I run fifteen meals a week,” he used to say before Shopsin’s offered Sunday brunch. “If I do any five of them big, I break even; if I do ten of them big, I’ll make money. I’ll make a lot of money. But if I do fifteen I have to close, because it’s too much work. …”

“…By that time, Kenny was doing a good business in takeout sandwiches like chicken salad and egg salad. “Zito would bring me over bread and I would just have a line out the door every lunchtime,” he recalled not long ago.

“Essentially, if anyone asked me what I did for a living, I said I sold mayonnaise—mayonnaise with chicken, mayonnaise with shrimp, mayonnaise with eggs, mayonnaise with potatoes. The key was that essentially you sold mayonnaise for eight dollars a pound and everything else you threw in for free.”

- Calvin Trillin’s 2002 description of Kenny Shopsin’s restaurant, in the New Yorker.

“They won’t deny themselves the top top,” Mr. Neff says. “I used to say, ‘I know you have eight blue blazers but look at this blue blazer. It’s an upgrade.’ And any upgrade, they’d buy. This year, they don’t want to seem foolish. Eight blue blazers is enough.”

- NYTimes

That’s right. Charlie Sheen shirts. My mind spun when I saw that.

Turns out the Bimini bikini store is selling guayabera shirts like the one Sheen wears on “Two and A Half Men.”

Speaking of which: am I the only one that thinks Sheen’s legs are unnaturally skinny?