A Wandering Eyre

The Rochesters are headed back to Costa Rica for a week. I am looking forward to seeing family (augmented by the local liquor of course), drinking the excellent native coffee, and soaking up the amazing beaches. It will be the Wee Bairn’s first international trip.

I am prepared with three books to read. It should have been for but alas one did not arrive. I am taking:

World War Z by Max Brooks
Captain Wentworth’s Diary by Amanda Grange
The Demon Librarian by Lillith Saintcrow

The book that did not arrive:
The Highlander and His Lady

I guess if I run out of things to read I will have to actually pay attention to my family.

–Jane, it’s only the inlaws!

Last night, we sent out the survey for the topics to be presented at the ALA Unconference and this morning there was a flurry of email in my inbox from people who can no longer make the Unconference. As a result, we have a very small waiting list.

As of now, there is only one person on the waiting list.

So. If you were sad, sad and cried, cried because you could not see ever getting from the waiting list to the actual fun list and thus did not sign up. Do not despair. Go sign up now. Chances are good you may still get a slot.

I know it is late notice, but I figured someone may want to join the fun. And it will be fun. And exciting. And we will rock the ALA.

–Jane, if this is your first time at an unconference, you have to talk

There are so many hilarious things about Kayne West writing a book when he clearly detests reading, I am not sure where to start.

“Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed,” West said. “I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph.

The book supposedly contains gems of advice and even blank pages in the 52 page tome.

But what really, really makes me laugh the most… He had to have a co-author. Seriously.

A co-author to write tidbits this:

“I feel like to misuse, overuse or abuse someone is negative. To use is necessary and if you can’t be used, then you are useless.”

–Jane, who in the what now?

A cautionary tale of how a family full of geeks can carry a thing too far.

On Saturday, my family got together to see the new Star Trek movie, eat homemade pizza, an enjoy the good company. Well, we really just wanted to talk about how cute our babies are, but who can blame us?

Star Trek was great. One of the first scenes is, naturally, a bar fight and I was thinking, “Fisticuffs! No movie is complete without a good bout of fisticuffs!” It made me think that fisticuffs is a wonderful word and highly underutilized. The movie really is great and I loved all the inside jokes for the Trekkies. I appreciated that it explained the universe for the uninitiated. Catch it while you can in the theater or before you get sidetracked by one of the many other great things coming out this summer.

Over delicious pizza, I brought up a very serious topic: What the family plan should be in case of a zombie attack/outbreak*. As soon as I mentioned it, my brother said in jubilation with hands in the air, “Thank you! It is about time someone brought this up!!” He was obviously relieved someone else has been as concerned as he as been. What followed was a detailed discussion on the pros and cons of various plans.

We think the safest place for our family would be the Lake a la Rochester, which is about 3 hours away. If we made it there, we could live out on my parents’ pontoon boat. Obviously, zombies can’t swim, so out on the water would be the best place to hide. We could take excursions to shore to gather supplies as needed.

The problem is that Mr. R and I live on the south side of Houston. I am concerned about getting across the city. Mr. R thinks we can do it if we circumvent some of the major road ways. I observed that, as in hurricane season (which is now upon us! already!) I need to keep the gas tank full in the car. No more getting down to Empty. You never know when you may have to escape a zombie horde. Or a hurricane.

My brother pronounced this plan sound and proceeded to discuss the kinds of shotguns he thinks we would need to repel an attack. While the family Rochester does own several guns among us, (sadly none at my domicile) not one of us has a cricket paddle which served Shaun so well. My brother thinks a double barrel, sawed-off shotgun would be a fun zombie weapon, but my dad countered that gun would only be good at short range. My brother wanted to argue the coolness factor though if you are running for your life from zombies perhaps cool is not the most important fact when choosing a gun.

The conversation went on and by the end I am almost certain that my mother, sister, and father thought the rest of us were crazy. Perhaps. But we will be prepared.

–Jane, we could always resort to fisticuffs

*Mr. Rochester and I started talking about escaping zombies after watching 28 Weeks Later. Not because the movie was good. On the contrary, it was horrible for so many reasons it is hard to describe them all in a way which makes sense because the movie itself is ridiculous and requires the absence of all sane logic and reason. The first movie, 28 Days Later was great. This one, not so much with the good.

Ever wanted a USB stick that would be the envy of every person you know? Well, geeky readers, they have invented it for us!

A USB that is also a Transformer! Take that Autobots!

I know this has been all over the interwebs, but I had to post it.

–Jane, a child of the 80’s

Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange

This is not the first book I have read that is a spin-off of an Austen work. Though this type of novel is glorified fan fiction, many of them are good. Even the novels that are not great are entertaining at worst. The best of this genre strives to be true to both the dialog and characters while expanding the story in a credible fashion. I think Grange has managed to do both.

This book opens, not as I expected with Mr. Darcy meeting the fine eyes of Elizabeth Bennett, but the season before when George Wickham seeks to steal Georgiana and her fortune. In the original Pride and Prejudice, we see hints of the brotherly affection that Darcy has for his sister, but in this novel it is this strong emotion which keeps Darcy from simply being an egotistical snob. The reader knows he can not be as harsh as he appears when he also harbors such tender feelings for Georgiana.

For me, I enjoyed what Grange revealed of Darcy’s inner thoughts, but what I loved was seeing other characters in the novel through the lens of Mr. Darcy. All the characters you love, like Bingly and Elizabeth, plus all the characters that are hilarious, like Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Collins, and Mrs. Bennett. There were some exchanges that made me laugh aloud. Ms. Grange has managed to capture the essence of what Austen strove to reveal as the ridiculous and diverting.

While at its root, this is a romance. However, this book will appeal to almost any Austen fan. Even seeing one of the theatrical versions of the story would be sufficient to enjoy this romp through Fitzwilliam Darcy’s mind.

Recommended – highly diverting

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Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre

The Rochesters were in Boston this past weekend and we had a great time doing all the history tourist things, plus a few fun things as well. We walked the Freedom Trail, went to Harpoon Brewery, and attended the Red Sox v. Orioles game.

One of the highlights for me was going to one of the oldest bookstores in the country, the Brattle Book Shop. I was in raptures.

They let me up on the third floor where they keep all the old tomes. I walked the aisles, running my finger along the faded spines. The air was heavy with history, dust, and places seen. I was in heaven.

Sadly, I did not see any of my favorite authors that I collect though there was a complete collection of the Brontes that gave me palpitations. Alas, it was far, far out of my price range.

The weather was great and the company wonderful. The Wee Bairn charmed all who saw him and issued nary a peep on the plane ride.

–Jane, loves books will travel

I thought cool prizes in cereal were a thing of the past, but yesterday I saw an ad for the new Kellog promotion. They are offering five badges from the new Star Trek movie. The badges are Kilngon, Romulan, Command, Engineering, and Sciences (Federation). Each badge lights up.

I feel like a kid again. A really nerdy kid.

–Jane, looking forward to the new movie

Mr. Rochester has been working a 9/80 work schedule for a few months now and I am amazed at how much I have loved having three day weekends every other week. We have taken calling the Thursday before the off Friday Penultimate Friday.

Thus, in celebration of Penultimate Friday, I give you the best, and quite possibly the only, penultimate sketch ever, courtesy of Monty Python.

The Rochester house is going to pop open our new home brew and enjoy the sunset.

–Jane, is “not like a last meal or a final snack”

For many reasons, not the least of which was extremely bad customer service, constantly rising prices, and what I now know is an inferior product, the Rochester household is… wait for it… canceling cable.

I will not go into great detail, because Mr. R did a mighty fine job over on the family blog (and with far fewer sputterings and angry diatribes than I would have managed, I might add). The fact that we canceled cable is not the only story. Secondary to our ousting of Comcast as our cable and DVR provider (we are still paying them for Internet, alas), is the fact that we now own a TiVo.

After four years of renting a DVR from Comcast (you are neither allowed to buy it outright or buy your own. if you did how could they fleece you for $15 a month?), I was not expecting TiVo to do anything other than record my shows in a reasonable way with reasonable reliability. After years of dubious service from Comcast, I was setting my expectations understandably low. How much different could one DVR be from another?

TiVo is to the Comcast DVR what a ripe bing cherry is to that imitation red stuff they call cherry flavoring. There is no comparison.

Why is TiVo so wonderful? Usability.

It is obvious the moment you open the box that TiVo expects real people to use their product. The set up is simple: connect it to your TV and turn it on. TiVo them walks you through the set up. There is no large instruction book. Just some simple instructions on the screen.

Once you have the initial set up complete, there is a set of tutorials pre-loaded onto your TiVo that teach you how to use some of the basic and more advanced functions of the TiVo. The menus are easy to read. The options are easy to understand. TiVo groups my programs by title and type (what a concept!). It is easy to find new programs. Adding new programs on the old DVR was excruciating when searching by name or channel. With TiVo, it is so easy, even a sleep deprived, barely functioning mom can handle it.

I have been won over with my TiVo. Couple that with the fact that the over the air HD channels look worlds better then the HD I was shelling out over $80 a month for and I am a happy, Comcast free lady.

This tale of two DVRs tell a larger picture. With my first DVR, it was clunky and, though it got the job done, it was obvious that Comcast neither designed or cared about my satisfaction with the product. And why should they? If I wanted to use a DVR with their service, I had to use theirs. While it is possible to use a TiVo with cable (lots of people do and now I know why), I would still have to pay for the TiVo service on top of my huge cable bill.  I was given one option with Comcast;  they had no incentive to offer me a better product.

The inferior product I was given by Comcast and allowed to “rent” reflects what they thought about their customers. I associate the terrible usability with the terrible customer service. Not only was the usability of the DVR bad, but their website left a bit to be desired as well. During Hurricane Ike, we were without Internet or cable for almost a month and there was no information on Comcast’s site about the outage. All the other utility companies were very forthcoming with information, but getting information from Comcast required a huge amount of effort and energy on the part of the consumer. Usability, they have little. Customer service, they have very little of that too.

I have never spoken to anyone at TiVo, but I have used their website and now their product. Everything I have seen from them is simple and well explained. There are multiple options that, not only fit my budget when purchasing, but that fit my recording needs. I can hook TiVo up to the Rochester house wireless network and watch YouTube videos or recordings I have downloaded in shared folders on the network. It is a beautiful thing.

The usability of the product and the customer service make me believe that TiVo cares about me, as a person and as a customer. It does not matter if they actually do care; it only matters that I think they care and thus I am willing to give them my money and shout their praises.

For any organization, that is what you want. You want customers who are not only loyal, but are willing to sing of you from the rooftops. Positive word of mouth is better than thousands of dollars in advertisements and it is definitely better than one person with a bad experience spreading word of your failure as an organization.

Next time you are considering the usability of your organization’s website, catalog (OPAC), product, or building, ask yourself what these things will say to your customers and users. What message are you sending them with the products you are giving them? Do they leave frustrated or happy? Do they feel like you care about them? Are you offering an inferior product for a need they can get filled elsewhere in a better, more comfortable, hassle-free fashion?

–Jane, likes being a customer with whom great care is taken