William Reardon’s Blog

After 44 years in America, now that she has her citizenship, my mom voted in her first presidential election yesterday!

I love finding little details that show someone else’s forethought. In the my early PC laptop days, when packing up at the end of the day, I hated that music would come blasting when I pulled my headphones out before stopping my mp3 player. I’d curse myself, attempt to wake my laptop out of its half-sleep state, usually plugging my headphones back in so that my music would stop bothering everyone in earshot.

One day I noticed that never happened with my mac. I wondered why, grabbed the cable for my headset, and yanked. The volume indicator dropped to zero. I plugged them back in & the volume jumped back. I unplugged again, set the volume to low, plugged in, watched it restore, yanked, and the volume dropped back to low.

So somebody at Apple realized the volume you want with headphones isn’t necessarily the same thing you’d want without headphones. So it detects if headphones are plugged in, and sets the volume to the respective level. It’s a small thing, but it just works. In a lot of ways, that represents what I love about Apple.

As I mentioned on twitter a few days ago and alluded to the other day, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave Ticketmaster. My last day will Halloween, Friday, Oct. 31st.

(Rumor has it a horrible surprise will await that day. I am roughly aware of the plan & the parties involved. To those foolish enough to contemplate such an endeavor, I only remind you of 1) my history with pranks is longer than all of yours combined, and 2) my willingness to always go one step further than the other guy. You have been warned.)

It was a tough decision to leave the ticket mines, but I was approached with an opportunity that was just too tempting to pass up. I’m actually really excited about it, but I’ll save that for another juncture. The hardest thing in the type of situation is saying goodbye with the people you’ve been working with day-in & day-out for the past few years. A hardship/challenge can split a group apart or pull it tightly together. I’m really proud of how the team — both mine & Ticketmaster as a whole — rallied together to overcome anything put in out way, even in some pretty difficult spots. Bitch all you want about Ticketmaster service fees, but you won’t be able to find anything bad to say about its people.

One thing that does make it easier to move on is knowing everything will be in good hands. It’s hard to not get emotionally invested in things over the course of two years, and handing things to over to competent caretakers certainly helps physiologically.

There is one other thing that helps too: Any transition brings some pain & turmoil and most of mine will be cast upon one Khayman Walker. Yes, it will be the delight I can take in his suffering. His pain is my joy. I like to think of being a Kahn to his Kirk. (Only in a parallel universe where Khan wins, of course.)

Unfortunately, Khayman is sorta smart, so he has some idea of what he’s in for, but I still like to think that several months from now, he’ll be sitting at his desk, all of it fully setting in. He will lean back and scream “Bill! BIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!” Man, I’m getting all tingly just thinking about it.

If it’s not evident by now, I pretty hate every domestic airline, with the sole exception of Southwest. American is charging you $50 to redeem miles (each way), and of course, there’s the nonsense about checking bags. I know they’re having financial problems, but what they don’t realize is they’re making those problems worse with all these terrible policies. They’re making travel more painful, when they need to make it painless.

They are driving customers like me away. Straight into the waiting arms of Southwest.

I just booked my Thanksgiving flight through Southwest.

In this case, I don’t even know if they were the cheapest. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. I didn’t even check the other airlines.

Why? Well, I’ll be starting a new job, so I’m only about 80% sure of travel dates. I might have to move things a day or so, but I wanted to buy my ticket before Thanksgiving gets any closer, and prices go up even more.

If I do that on Southwest, they’ll let me change my flight as many times as I want. If the new flight costs more, they’ll only charge me the difference. No additional fees. In fact, if the new flight is cheaper, Southwest will even give me a credit.

More or less, over the last 10 years, they’ve built a lot of trust with me. Trust they’ll be reasonable & do the right thing. Yes, they are a corporation & they exist to make a profit. But they realize a key element is to build a loyal customer base, make it clear what you’ll offer, and stick to the expectations you set.

On any other airline, a change in flight would be the difference in fare, plus an additional $50-$100 for the flight change, potentially for each leg.

Imagine for a moment someone who’s contributed exclusively to the Republicans (and some $5,250 at that). Someone who contributed to George W. Bush in 2004, Republican Senator campaigns in & out of state, and numerous other Republicans, such as congressional leaders and so on.

Now imagine this person is somewhat notable, and a major media outlet comes along to write a story about his political involvement. He’s presented at someone not really involved in politics, but somehow draw to the McCain campaign. In fact, he’s really not even a Republican. He’s a moderate. There’s just some things that McCain gets right that he likes. And Barak… well, he looks off as he attempts to gather his thoughts, just… doesn’t.

Immediately you’re thinking it’s bullshit. It clearly a republican shill, coupled with the deception of Fox News and so on.

Only it’s not.

It’s not Fox News.

And it’s not even a Republican.

It’s the Washington Post & Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

In a technology article, Kim Hart writes:

Newmark, the founder of craigslist, isn’t even a Democrat. He describes himself as a “Libertarian moderate.”

Which is fairly ridiculous. According to public data, Craig has made $5,250 in political donations to the Democrats. Donations to Barak Obama, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Al Franken, Dick Durbin, and Barbara Boxer.

And not a single penny elsewhere. Not a single penny to a single libertarian candidate. Not a nickel to Ron Paul. Nor a dime to Bob Barr.

Not a single donation to anyone but Democrats.

But he’s not a democrat. No, he’s moderate. You know, middle of the road. Just a middle of the road, undecided kinda guy, who just thought this Democratic nominee was unique. So special, that though he has “nothing to gain”, it was worth his open minded support.

Would you believe this for a second from someone who said they weren’t a Republican? Someone who said they weren’t a Republican, but had contribute over $5,000 to Republicans? To John McCain, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, and Pat Buchanan?

I don’t mind someone being a Democrats or a Republicans. I don’t mind people supporting either party or even choosing to donate if they have the means & the desire. Heck, that’s all part of the process.

But what I find deceptive is to the present yourself as something else. If you donate exclusively and in large amounts to the Democrats, just say “Yes, I’ve been a Democrat since XXXX. I’m really excited about Obama and here’s why…” If you donate exclusively and in large amounts to Republicans, jusy say “Yes, I’ve been a Republican since XXXX. I’m really excited about McCain and here’s why…”

There’s no need to lie, mislead & distort. I think we can all agree there’s enough of that in politics and it’s disappointing to see it come from Craig Newmark.

On Thursday, a small group of us headed down to Anaheim to see Gogol Bordello. They were playing at The Grove, meaning we would have to slug it out through rush hour traffic.

If you’ve never heard of Gogol, think “Gypsy Punk” and whatever image comes to your head is pretty much on the money. They are nuts. But nuts often makes for a great live show. And a great show it was.

I snagged a snippet of “Start Wearing Purple.”

(You see a slightly more coherent version here.)

Rick, being the man, was able to snag us backstage passes to boot.

That’s the lead singer in the middle, Eugene Hütz. To the far left is Yuri Lemeshev, the accordion player and a hardcore World of Warcraft player. So in a nutshell, a touring rockstar and a nerd.

I haven’t played WoW in a bit, but I asked him the standard questions about level/race/class and so on. He had a level 70 human warrior and mainly solos. They have WiFi on the tour bus, so he can play & party at the same time. Right now his main focus is grinding to get enough gold for an epic mount.

I think my ears were ringing for the next two days (perhaps proof I’m getting old?), but it was worth it.

An occasional peruser of the comics, I’ve long known that Lalo Alcaraz isn’t funny. What I didn’t know he was also an idiot:

Tip to Alcaraz, at least give a little effort to your slop. (Hint: it’s called Wikipedia.)