Blog Abandonment

Well, not really. I went on vacation for a week, and then with the holidays and everything, I just didn't have much time to think about things I don't get. But I'm back now, and commercials during the bowl games have provided more than enough fodder for blog postings.

One thing is a Jeep commercial I've seen which advertises Zero Payments until Summer 2008! So, there are actually people out there who are on the fence about buying a new car, or what kind of new car, but the idea of not paying anything for 6 months is enough to push them into that new Wrangler. I do not get this. They will be driving a car around for 6 months, depreciated a few thousand bucks the minute they drive it off the lot, and they don't in any sense own the car. Then, in July, they get the privilege of beginning to pay the price the car was worth when they drove it off the lot. Brilliant.

Another thing: Weight Watchers calling itself not a diet (because diets don't work; they are a lifestyle change). Kate Harding has covered this pretty well, but it's a dumb thing to say. Of course diets don't work, of course people have trouble losing weight in the long term. I don't get people who believe Weight Watchers is substantially different. My friend Nicole swears by it, and she says without them she never would have lost about 40 pounds, but I don't know that she's going to have any success keeping that weight off forever anyway. I guess we'll see, but still, people, it's a diet. Geez.

Gingerbread Lattes

First of all, they don't even taste like gingerbread. For holiday flavors, I like pumpkin spice much better, and the peppermint white mocha Starbucks is featuring this year sounds nice, though I haven't tried it. For the sugar free lattes, I like the vanilla just fine, but I don't like the gingerbread, either regular or sugar free. I like to watch what other people are picking up from the bar, and this time of year there are a lot of all the regular things, plus eggnog lattes and peppermint hot chocolates, but I don't see a lot of other people getting the gingerbread either, so maybe it's not just me.

People who want it fixed NOW

Something came to my attention today at work. Back in September I worked on a project where the way some things were accessed was changed. Apparently, in the process, a few things were overlooked, so now those aren't available at all. As it turns out, a couple of weeks ago some people noticed that this stuff wasn't there anymore, and ZOMG they want it fixed right away. At first I assumed that due to some weird but not totally unlikely systems in place, the stuff was continuing to work until a couple of weeks ago, but actually, it wasn't. Everything broke for good on September 13. I'm not opposed to getting a fix in place, and as soon as we can come up with the content that was lost (it probably exists somewhere), I can do something for them, but if they'd let me know sooner (like in September) it would have been somewhat easier to make a workaround.

Sigh. I don't know if this is just another example of people who feel a little too much entitled, or what, but it's annoying, and I don't get it.