no, really

I mean, they can’t be an inherited monopoly without some underhanded crap.

I’ve had FIOS at home for a couple years… pretty much as soon as it was available. I figured - if the choice were between Verizon and Cablevision, I’d pick the one that had the better service. Not exactly the lesser of two evils, but at least I get something out of the deal.

So now (long story I’ll elaborate later) I’m moving. While going through and canceling all the utilities, I get to Verizon and can’t figure out for the life of me how to do it. I look through every page of “My Account” online. Plenty of docs on how to switch to another service, complete with contact numbers and practically home telephone numbers of cancellation agents. But not a peep about how to cancel Verizon.

Then I go to their “email us a question” section. After filling in a few bits of information and getting thoroughly frustrated by how the form keeps reloading, I notice a message that this form will send me an automated response, and that I won’t ever hear from a human.

This blows. I’m terrified to know what’s going to happen when I call on the phone. The old AOL “we’re not going to let you cancel, even if you move to Nairobi” method?

What sucks is that I’m considering yelling at AT&T for the service crap I’ve had lately so they let me out of the contract, and who can I go with that’s any better? Verizon. Just pray I never have any troubles with them…

Okay, now that my childish rant is done…

I’m sure I’ve gone on more than a few tangents about how some of the really good, lightning-strike brain moments in my past have yielded excellent, viable ideas that, having been shared with industry gatekeepers, were rejected - only to show, a year or so later, to not only be great ideas, but industry changing!

Example:

I recall a scorching summer afternoon in 2006 at Pershing Sq. Cafe where I identified a problem and a solution. The idea was challenged. I responded. It was dismissed. Some valiant effort was made by a colleague to implement this idea, to no avail. At the time (as you may have read), I was suffering some crises of a professional nature that sapped a lot of energy out of me, and so I was unable to invest any effort into the idea.

As it turns out, everybody loves my idea. They can’t wait for it to be a reality! People predicted a lot of resistance on the part of big players like Facebook, MySpace, Google… why would they participate? Why would they let it happen and exist? I explained why it’s good for all of them, but nobody believed me. And now this. If things had gotten moving when I thought of this, I’d be poised in a great position to run the market on this. But alas, I’m just another one of the whining “I coulda done that” kids.

Bombshell: Google and Facebook Join DataPortability.org

In today’s Newsday there was a news brief:

Fuel frenzy

Drivers made a rush for cheap gas after an employee closing Trig’s Minocqua Shell in Minocqua, Wis., for the night entered the price as 32.9 cents a gallon instead of $3.299 Monday. He left about 10 p.m., but drivers could still use credit cards to buy gas. Forty-two people bought 586 gallons in an hour and 45 minutes before the store manager pushed the emergency stop.

What makes this remarkable isn’t the fuel prices.  But that I’ve been to that gas station.  Many times.  It’s in the tiny little town in northern Wisconsin where my grandparents lived for 20 years.  The place where I spent my summer vacations as a child.  It also happens to be the town where my 9th grade English teacher’s parents live - a fact we discovered on fateful morning at Pamida when her glasses had broken the same day as my mother’s.

Such a strange and lucky place!

Last night I attended nextNY’s November event… MatchupCamp.  I haven’t been to an all out event with them for a little while, so I was uncertain what to expect.  I spoke to Neil, and he was attending as part of a new capacity in some new venture (again), so at least I’d know someone there.

We arrived to a small crowd of about 45 people in a large photo studio loft with a few posters on the walls describing ventures and ideas seeking labor.  As the night progressed, that number allegedly reached over 130.  Neil made the observation that when nextNY started, it was about 15 people around a table in a bar, and now it’s grown to this.

In so many ways, it’s a great thing, and pretty much the purpose of nextNY.  What I’m starting to notice, though, is that the quantity vs. quality debate is coming up now.  What we had in the beginning were a select few… the hard core, tuned in, excited tech industrialists looking to make a difference in their industry and in the city.  Now, it’s hard to say what the description of the group is.

I met a lot of different people last night.  Some were splendidly hard working people who have been plugging away at their ideas and their work for years.  Some have all the background and a great idea, and are really looking to push it to the next step.  Some… seem to just be tagging along.  I spoke to a couple people that have “ideas” that can not only be summed up in a few words, but that are so inane, they’re all buzz words.

I do hate to be negative about these kinds of things, but I calls em as I sees em.  There is still a healthy, vibrant, exciting tech scene in New York.  But like the temples of the Inca… it’s going to take a machete to cut through all the weeds to find it.

At Money-Media, I remember the relentless repetition that we, the tech staff, kept pounding to editorial: “just because someone clicked a link on a snazzy headline doesn’t mean they liked the story. therefore, calculating “most popular” based on hits is invalid.” We referred them to the NYTimes site, where they calculate the top stories based on e-mail forwards and blog references. Clearly, those are better metrics of popular stories.

I actually read that list, too. When I click and read an article, I take a look at that list and see if there’s anything else good to read. Today was an interesting day in that list. It contained news from the last few days, mostly on a specific theme: economic turmoil.

I realize that just because people forward articles a lot doesn’t make their content true. However, it makes it clear that it’s on peoples’ minds, which is something that the fed and the media are denying. Just see for yourself:

It’s that time of year. November 8th. AKA “Christmastime at Starbucks”

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but occasionally I need a good cup.  Starbucks has its place, but sometimes you need *real* coffee.  The kind you get at a place like Tarllucci e Vino.

The area around Bryant Park is totally lacking in java goodness.  I’ve hunted and hunted.  Once we found a place… Crestanello Cafe on 5th ave, but now it’s closed.

Having some faith in technology, I decided to turn to my friend, the Internets.

First stop, Yelp.   Nothing useful.  It works nice, but the user generated content is sorely lacking.  Plus, it turned up results when something had the term “coffee table” which just isn’t useful.

Second stop, Citysearch.  Once upon a time, it was useful.  It was quick.  It was the new yellow pages, with some great additional features.  Then it got old and stale looking, so the owners decided to do a redesign.  This was probably one of the worst executions of a redesign *ever*.  It looks better, for sure.  But now, it’s totally useless.

Sidebar: New York has so many extra layers of geographical taxonomy, that in order to find that needle in a haystack, you need to be very discriminating when it comes to neighborhood.  The selection of neighborhood has to be better than the taxi map, which would have confused tourists believe that Manhattan is made up of six areas: up, down, left, right, Harlem and Wall Street.  Citysearch once did a passable job of letting you pick from the ever growing list of neighborhoods, including those absurd real estate gimmicks (e.g. “west chelsea” or “east williamsburg”).  Results were limited to those neighborhoods, and you could even see a map of the resulting locations.

I dare you.  Try to search for “coffee” in “Murray Hill”. Unless you do things in a very specific way, it is useless.  Next I tried something different:  Midtown.  Surely there is no place in the world other than the one Midtown I know of.  Nope. At what point was my search at “newyork.citysearch.com” confused with “northcarolina.citysearch.com” or “tennessee.citysearch.com”?

There are so many truly wonderful web products out there that work so cleanly and elegantly, producing the results you hope to see.  Why can’t a cash laden site like Citysearch get it right?

It’s probably run by a dinosaurl.

I know that it’s no coincidence I feel this way after a NY Tech Meetup, but I’m so far behind in getting things done.  There are so many things I’ve wanted to do in the past year that have ended up being done by someone else and done well.  I don’t feel bitter or jealous, I think it’s great!  I just wish it were me showing off the fruits of my brain labor.

The good effect that this has on me is it makes me focus more on my ideas… streamline what I’ve got, and make sure that the work I’m currently doing is as focused as it can be.

I need to find a quiet corner and apply all this focus now before it wears off

I think I have… once or twice.  I can’t remember the situations, partly because of my current lack of sleep.

Unfortunately, I am a little afraid for my life right now.

Across the street, one house is owned by a kid.  His father died a few years back and left it to him.  Until he’s 18, his former-drug-addict mother has to move back in with him to be guardian.  A year ago, a former boyfriend came to live with her (in her son’s house).  The boyfriend brought with him a massive RV, which he parks on the front lawn.

For a year, the neighbors have been nicely trying to get him to move it.  Attempting to find other places to store it, offering suggestions of how to park it so it isn’t obscene.  Oh yeah, it’s black with red flames around the entire bottom half.  So far, he hasn’t done anything.

Over the summer, he and the kid’s mother had a big fight in the front yard.  The cops eventually came and found not only a brick of pot… but a pot farm in the basement… and all kinds of weapons and munition memorabilia around the house.  That court date is pending.

Now the kid (who is a generally terrific kid) has had two parties in a row on the past two Saturday nights.  At the last one (that I missed while being away) kids were urinating on neighbors’ lawns and fornicating in driveways on other neighbors’ cars.  The cops were called.  The cops called the school.  The kid was suspended for a game.

Now it’s not clear who did call the cops.  But it’s clear who did not: neither myself nor the neighbors next door to me were home.  However, this lunatic seems to think that my neighbors called the police.  So now he’s retaliating.

Since Monday, he’s set off his car alarm in front of their house.  Continuously.  All night.  Last night, he set up lawn chairs on the front lawn with a spotlight and had a bonfire while mooning their house and giving them the finger.  And the car alarm.  All night.  And now there’s a sign on their lawn that reads “Freakshow: Fat man and bearded lady.”

I just got a phone call.  Just now, while I was attempting to sleep, an SUV with Maine plates parked in front of my house.  The man driving it removed a hunting rifle in a soft case from the back, under a camo tarp.  They went into the house.  Shortly thereafter, they came out - the psychotic neighbor making hand gestures and giving the finger to the house next door.  The man from Maine had the empty rifle case under his arm.

I’m afraid for my safety, but I don’t know what to do.  If he starts up again tonight, I’ll have to find somewhere else to sleep.  I just sent the roomie a warning so he can figure something out for tonight if he can.  This is insane.  And the cops can’t do anything until what… he murders someone?

Any ideas?

While we were on the way home, I took us on a little detour off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We stopped at the Flight 93 memorial, which was a very odd experience.

The location is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s really breathtaking. It’s very quiet, and you can feel the sorrow of the families who have visited. You can’t get very near the spot, but you can see it at a distance of about 100 yards. You can even see the mound of dirt at the actual spot.

I’m not exactly sure why I went. I’m kind of glad I did, but I still don’t understand why.