I got my first ever Top Time Of Day on Sunday. That means I was the fastest person there, out of 173 people.

The cobra was totally on fire! (metaphorically, not literally. Although you're right to ask--- it is an FFR, after all.) The owner of the car (James) made some changes recently that really favor my driving style, plus the course they designed Sunday was really punishing to cars with less than 400 horsepower.

Between those two things it was a red letter day. And may I add:

Woooo!

It annoys me that PayPal is constantly trying to trick me into using my bank account instead of a credit card to fund transactions.

Whenever I use it, it always defaults payment from my checking account, even though I never want that and have never used it. Funding with a credit card is much better insured, protected, reversable, etc. Even when I change the default, it always shows me this confirmation screen, where I'm supposed to "consider the benefits" of making an irreversible transaction directly to my bank. (Why am I not also asked to "consider the benefits" of my credit card?)

The fact is that paying with a credit card is unfair--- but it's unfair in my favor. Vendors have to pay a premium on every transaction (its 1.5%, I think?), and I can reverse the charges at any time and screw them out of payment. But it's so unacceptable to not offer a credit card payment option that almost every business does it anyway.

Lucky Me.

So I guess it annoys me that when a big corporation finds that the deck is stacked against it (for a change), it still tries to use misinformation to get the consumer to voluntarily relinquish his advantage. I would call that Evil... why don't you just sell me a used car? Good grief.

I'm usually the first to understand that sometimes there's functionality that's so juicy that you'll put up with some pain to get it. But the trouble with Flickr is that when you choose to use it, you're not just experiencing its awful horrors yourself, but you're inflicting horror on everyone who you hope to have as your photo audience.

There is so much that I despise about Flickr's user interface that it's difficult to even BEGIN to describe how it makes my blood boil. How could you people possibly tolerate using it?

I mean, just for one of like a hundred examples, look at the insane little photo nav widget they have. (One of 6 or so different ways to navigate photos, by the way. Do you need 6 ways? Do you?) The widget shows you 1) some photo that seems irrelevant, 2) some other photo that seems irrelevant, 3) the total number of photos in some kind of group that you appear to be lost in, and then 4) gives you the choice to see "more"? Or instead of "more" would you like "more"? And if you click on the photo, you seem to just be lost again.

Yes yes, I understand that it's paging through the photos. But why does it refuse to tell you where you are? And refuse to show you where the photo you're looking at is? Even though I know exactly how to use it, and I understand what it's doing, it still makes me angry every time I have to see it. Every time.

I realize that there's not a lot of choice of other services. Certainly Picasa Web Albums isn't really designed to store your original photos the way Flickr is, but I'm sure someone over there is working on that. And then you will stop using Flickr. You WILL. I COMMAND YOU!

While putting gas into my thirsty little creature at Shell, I encountered an apparition most foul:

There are now TVs showing the "Fuelcast Edition" of NBC, embedded in every pump. As soon as you swipe your card, the volume turns way up and then this thing shouts ads at you while you are pumping your gas. Not programming. Just ads.

Even though I have plenty to keep me occupied during the filling process ("is the Subaru merely low on oil? Or is it dangerously low?") and didn't at any point look at the TV, the loudly and poorly acted advertising copy was still quite rage-inducing.

I never liked Shell anyway, so I look forward to gleefully boycotting them forever. Banned for life!

(And lest you accuse, I did not make up the word "fuelcast", they say it themselves.)

My dad and step-mom came to visit me this weekend, and we had a nice time. But it amused me to note that I couldn't get them to stop messing with their cell phones whenever they had a free second.

Presumably they were texting their homies back in da Wash. These kids today.

(So engrossed were they that I had no trouble snapping this picture of them with my own cell phone.)