daynemay

(a copy of a complaint I just lodged on the Yellow Cabs website. Yes, this makes me a grumpy old man, but I live in hope that a little well-placed grumpiness plus word of mouth can make a difference.)

On a recent visit home to Brisbane, I saw a Yellow Cab repeatedly swerving, tailgating and changing lanes without indicating. The cab had no passengers, so the behaviour cannot be explained by the request of a rushed passenger.

When I repeatedly rang the “Yellow Cabs values professional driving” number on the back of the cab (1300-131924), I received no answer, not even a recorded message.

The details of the incident were:
Cab #: 968
Date: 26 December 2008
Time of Day: Around 6:00pm
Location: Airport Drive, Brisbane

The poor driving bothered me. But the sticker was a blatant lie - Yellow Cabs do not even value professional driving enough to provide a messaging service at that number. This is why I will no longer be using Yellow Cabs when I am in Brisbane.

A couple of weeks back, I - an aspiring grumpy old man - wrote a stern letter to a local burger joint, complaining about the “declining quality of their burgers”. Soon after, I received an apologetic phone call from the owner, assuring me that the cause of said decline was known and fixed, and offering me some free burgers.

Last night, we decided to take advantage of the kind offer, and trooped out the front door, heading for the car. “I’m not taking my bag!” quoth Marcia, and as I pulled the front door shut, I asked, “Has anyone got keys?”

Of course not.

Any sensible person, at this point, calls a locksmith. So we spent half an hour or so casing the joint, forcing various found objects through gaps between doors, lifting each other up onto walls to see about getting in through that skylight, contemplating smashing windows and breaking locks, getting plastic cards out of our wallets to see if that thing from TV actually works, knocking on the neighbours’ doors to see if we could climb over from one balcony to the next. Eventually, we called a locksmith.

So in the final analysis, we have

$50.00 CR, free burgers and chips for 4 people.
$121.00 DR, locksmith.

The burgers were great, though. Mad props to Alex and Joe from Urban Burger North Melbourne for getting their act back together.

This weekend, I got stuck into another IMified bot, “Lister”. Lister is nothing to swoon over, just a little “list management tool”¹.

To give it a shot, you’ll need an XMPP instant messaging account - I use my Gmail address.

Add “lister@bot.im” as a buddy/friend/contact/homey/peep/whatever.

Once you’ve done that, I’ll let Lister’s online help speak for itself:

(3:16:34 PM) Lister: Type…

…”shop”, to make a new list called “shop”
…”shop”, to display an existing list called “shop”

…”shop milk bread”, to add “milk” and “bread” items to the “shop” list
…”shop -milk”, to remove “milk” item from the “shop” list
…”shop eggs -bread”, to add an “eggs” item and remove a “bread” item from the “shop” list

…”lists”, to show all of your lists (alternative: “ls”)
…”clear shop”, to empty the “shop” list (alternatives: “clr shop” or “cl shop”)
…”delete shop”, to delete the “shop” list (alternatives: “del shop”, “dl shop”, “rm shop”, “-shop”)

(to see that again, send Lister a message saying “help”)

To be perfectly honest, I’m not even 100% sure that I’ll use it right now - Use Case #1 is “accumulate a shopping list by adding items to my “shop” list when they occur to me, then retrieve it from a mobile IM client when I’m actually at the shop”. However, Hurdle #1 is “I have neither a mobile IM client, nor a device upon which to run one”.

The astute reader may therefore realise that yes, this project was more an exercise in justifying the purchase of a cool new phone than anything else. But if someone else can get some use out of it in the meantime, then you, Sir or Madam, may rock on.

I keep intending to put together instructive screencasts for these little projects of mine, and upload them to the ‘Tube. I still haven’t pulled my finger out though. If (the hypothetical) you would find this useful, let (the real) me know in the comments. No promises, but it might be a nudge in the right direction.

Thanks again to my buddies/friends/contacts/homeys/peeps at IMified for a sweet and simple platform.

¹ “List management tool” - Winner, 2008: Blandest description in the English language.

I may not do the kind of work that involves writing memos about fisting, but I’ll take my lowbrow laughs where I can get ‘em.

Case in point: this email that went around earlier today: