Category: Observations Page 36 of 89

The Ruralist

On March 25, 2015

The older I get, the more I miss the small barely two stoplight town I grew up in. It’s only 60 miles west of me. It’s a place where my father still can’t get land-based broadband internet. It’s where I grew up without cable TV because the cables stopped at the end of my road. And there weren’t enough people to justify running them back to the few houses that sat on acres of land.

J.D. Bentley writes in The Ruralist

The most redeeming quality of big cities is that their people choose to congregate in small, dense areas, leaving the bulk of the earth to the rest of us.

As I’ve entered my third decade on this earth, that line resonates deeply with me. I grew up with cows and deer for neighbors. I grew up without a working knowledge of the Nickelodeon schedule. I grew up in a quiet place. Where I could sit outside and barely hear another sign of humanity. I’d walk in the woods and take long bike rides past apple orchards and corn fields. I relished the silence. The wind in my ears as I raced down hills and pedaled like a maniac up the next.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to move out of the little town. I could not wait to spread my wings in a bigger city. I escaped to Richmond, VA for college and lived there for a several years afterwards. Then I returned home to the outskirts of Washington, DC. First living in Northern Virginia across the river from it, and now in Maryland to its north.

I like the area where I am now. It’s quiet enough it could almost be mistaken for rural. There are deer and rabbits nearby. I pass geese, ducks and the occasional heron (I think?) on my walk to the Metro.

That’s where the illusion ends. When I cross the barrier from wildlife to concrete and board a train descending underneath DC and into the heart of the city.

By day, I am city dweller, though at least I am close enough to the National Mall and Capitol Reflecting Pool I can still enjoy the ducks, green spaces and people-watching.

But I miss the quiet nights. I miss falling asleep to the wind whipping through trees and across open fields. I miss the cows and occasional rooster.

I miss hearing a world not powered by motors and processors.

Be Personable

By Carl

On March 16, 2015

In Observations

When you work in tech support, you often don’t know who you are talking to. You don’t know if they’re high-powered or the new intern. You don’t know their level of technical ability or their patience.

But one thing you do know is they are human. So talk to them like it.

So many times, I get an email back from a tech and all it says is “This account has been deactivated.”

That’s nice, computer. I am happy you processed my request in an efficient and timely manner. But it would have been even nice if I knew you were a person too.

Now let’s compare that to:

Good Morning Monica,

I’ve deactivated the account for John Morris effective immediately.

Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Thank you,
Carl T. Holscher

I address Monica by her name.
She is a person. I am a person. There’s no reason I can’t address her by her name. It’s add a little humanity to our interaction.
I told her exactly what I had done.
That way, she knows immediately what this request is about. It doesn’t rely on her to remember what she had asked me for. She’s busy. She doesn’t have time to sit around and wait for me to get the work done. She is doing other things, so don’t make her guess.
It also verifies to me that I have made the correct change. It’s easy to make a mistake, especially when dealing with a large number of requests. Repeating back the action I took helps me to double-check myself.
I used my name.
I am not a team. I am not a group. I am an individual and I did this work for her.

Whenever I am about to send an email to someone, I ask myself if this is the email I would like to receive.

If it is, I hit send. If not, I take a moment to improve upon it. Spending those extra seconds can make a big difference in how you come across to your customers.

It’s hard to be as warm and friendly over text. But it is easy to impart some humanity in your words. Use them.

I can’t hear you Tweeting

By Carl

On March 9, 2015

In Observations

I have Twitter filters. I love my Twitter filters. It makes the service bearable to me. I thought about it this morning when I was reading TweetBot as I waited for the train this morning. TweetBot is where I have most of the filters setup because it’s easy to do.

It’s also where I interact with Twitter most. When I got to work, I booted up my computer and opened TweetDeck, and the noise went to 11. I’ve written about Mute for a happier Twitter before. But on the verge of the Apple Watch event, I’ve added some new filters.

With all the Apple Car (???) talk, someone posted this wonderful filter: (?i)(Apple.*Car)

I added that immediately and all the car talk stopped (for me.) From there, I added Apple Watch because I can’t care about the watch. I don’t want something on my wrist that does anything but tell the time. My watch is e-ink. It tells time. It does nothing else. It’s perfect.

Since I last wrote about this in December, I’ve added a few new filters that makes my life more sane.

LRT
I don’t care about your Last ReTweet (which is what LRT means. It’s ok, I had to ask too.) I turn off Retweets for most people so I don’t need to hear the commentary on the Retweet I didn’t see.
Game of Thrones
First, I muted it because I didn’t care about the show and was tired of hearing people talk about it. Then I watched the entire series in a couple of weeks. So I keep it muted because I still don’t want to hear people talking about it non-stop. I don’t even care about spoilers. I’m just not that interested.
Apple Watch
The same thing goes for the Apple Car. I don’t care about these things. I especially don’t care about them before they’re even released. It’s not a product I care about and the religious fervor around it isn’t interesting to me. So I mute it because I just don’t care.
Apple
Yes, in a fit of frustration and exhaustion I muted the word Apple. So I’m sorry if you’re raving about some delicious honey crisps, or your distaste for Granny Smith. I’m not going to see it. I’ve hit Peak Apple News. And I’m over it. I don’t care about Apple. I don’t care about the company. I don’t care about the products. I don’t care about the executives.

The rest of the things I’ve muted lately are short-term things. Usually it will be something from a TV Show, a conference or something else I either don’t understand or don’t want to see in my stream. I mute them for a week, figuring the conference will be over by then and the TV show meme will have run its course.

If I am going to use Twitter, I am going to use it on my terms. I used to feel guilty about muting people’s Retweets or unfollowing people I wasn’t interested in following anymore. But now no longer worry. I create the Twitter I want to use. And I’m not going to worry about it.

Free Movie Screenings

By Carl

On February 27, 2015

In Observations

Recently, I’ve been able to see a couple of free screenings. I have no connections nor insider knowledge. All I’ve done is created an account at gofobo. The tickets are distributed through their site. Then, I signed up for Advance Screenings. That site will alert me of any new screenings in the area.

Since I’m near DC, there are a number of theaters in the area showing a variety of films. Many times, the showings are already full because they were released to a radio station audience first, or some other outlet before I get notified. But I’ve been lucky recently with getting passes to a few. Here’s what I’ve seen in recent weeks.

The DUFF

The DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend. It’s a film that tries to be She’s All That or Mean Girls but falls short of those lofty goals. It was a fun teen popcorn movie. I enjoyed it, though I would not have paid to see it in the theater.

There were a ton of screenings for this movie. It seems like they were trying to get a lot of people in to see it before it was released. I don’t know if they were worried about its performance, but it was a fun film and the audience I was with enjoyed it.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service looked good because who doesn’t like a spy film. And it’s got Samuel L. Jackson which is always a good sign. I really enjoyed the movie and would have paid to see it in the theater.

I liked the knives-for-feet of Gazelle. I enjoyed the twist on swordplay without the swords. Samuel L. Jackson was a great villain. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I enjoyed that women were more than just eye candy in this movie, though that final scene felt unnecessary.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is Hot Tub Time Machine without John Cusack and with Adam Scott. There were some funny parts but it was a mediocre sequel to a mediocre movie. At least most of the original cast was back, though I can’t say that made it a better movie.

The movie reminded me of Idiocracy because of the kind-of stupid future world we’re transported to in the film. I enjoyed Gillian Jacobs and wish Chevy Chase would have had more than a brief cameo. All-in all, it was a throw-away sequel.

Run All Night

Run All Night was Lian Neeson running around all night shooting people. It wasn’t a Taken movie because he had a son to defend this time rather than trying to rescue his daughter.

It was a mindless action movie and I enjoyed it for what it was. I’m not sure if I’d pay for it in the theater. It was good. I enjoyed the performances but it’s also a story that’s been done over and over. Old friends, one doing well, one poorly. Family gets in the way and people die by the truckload.

The studio must have high hopes for this movie because not only were our bags searched, we were metal detected. This was the only movie of the bunch where this happened.

When I go to movies, I enjoy the escape. I want to sit in a dark room, eat salty and sweet snacks and go to another place.

I love going to the movies and I hate how expensive it has gotten. So even though the movies I’ve seen aren’t ones I would have paid for, I’ve really enjoyed going to the theatre so often.

So here’s to more screenings and seeing movies in the theatre.

No Couch Co-Op

By Carl

On February 9, 2015

In Observations

With the rise of internet-enabled gaming (specifically Xbox Live for me). There is a lack of “couch co-op”. That is, co-op gaming where both players are sharing a couch. I love to play Destiny because of its cooperative gameplay. While it’s too redundant for my wife to play, she’d love to play things too. But the only couch co-op things that do co-op well are shooters like Halo and Call of Duty. And again, without a storyline, they’re not going to hold her attention.

We looked over a number of Xbox One games this weekend and found some stellar-looking title such as Never Alone and Child of Light. But in reading reviews, the co-op is either a pain to deal with or relegates the second player to a minor role in the overall game.

That’s disappointing. We are two grown adults who want to play something together. And it’s getting harder and harder to find games that hold our attention. We enjoyed Fable III, even though it had its issues with the co-op system mostly around camera angles and the relegation of player 2 to a supporting role. Which I was fine with, but it was still disappointing.

There are so many games which don’t even offer the option for co-op at all. Online or local. But it’s even harder to find anything with a story line that has a good cooperative experience. There are a number of games which offer co-op modes. Such as a survival mode, or something tacked onto the game. Again, this is fine for a few playthroughs but eventually becomes tedious and repetitive.

One of the best co-op games to my mind was Chrono Trigger, which I played with my brother on the SNES growing up. We each had a character to play. We were both fully invested in the story. We both had characters we could upgrade, buy new weapons for and customize to our liking. Neither of us was sentenced to sitting and watch the other person play, only helping in minor ways.

It’s maddening when browsing Xbox online to try to find games because it doesn’t list whether a game is multi-player or not. The Xbox itself shows whether a game is single player only or provides co-op either through Xbox Live or locally. The web site doesn’t offer any of that information. As a result, I usually go to Cooptimus and get a list of their games since they’re focused on the co-op experiences.

I’ve found a couple of possibilities and will report back once we get a chance to play them. But it’s getting harder and harder to find something to play for two adults. Especially when we recently picked up a few tabletop games that we’ve had a blast with.