world champion

Atkins Is For Retards

If you are on Atkins, you are a retard. Or fat. Most likely both. Let's add lazy to the list too, because that is the real reason so many people go on Atkins; because constructing a healthy diet and exercising regularly is too much work. Anyone can lose weight if they develop some discipline and have some willpower and that's a fact. It is typical, fat American, style to cut corners and find some asshead diet of the day which allows us to pig out and artificially lose weight in grossly unhealthy amounts over the course of a few weeks. If we happen to develop heart disease as a result, well....so be it. At least we didn't have to strain ourselves working out.

I am not fat. I could be. But I'm not. I am not a work out freak or a diet nut. I don't pour over nutrition labels and freak out at the sight of a greasy meal. In fact, I am eating out of a big bag of chips right now. The difference between me an your fat ass, is that I won't eat the whole bag. I don't eat them every day, and I led up to the chips with some sushi and some soup, not two cheeseburgers and some fries. I subscribe to a diet philosophy that is based on moderation and light activity with a side of avoidance and smart decisions.

Let me elaborate.

Moderation: Have some chips, don't eat the whole bag. Have some ice cream, don't eat the whole pint. Sit around, just not every day. McDonalds is ok, just don't make it a routine.

Light Activity: You need to be active at least sometimes. I play soccer once a week, and it is 45 minutes of hard running and exercise. I know that sitting 9-6 every day and then going home every night to lay on the couch is bad. Pick an activity and do it at least once per week, it will make you feel good and goes such a long ways towards making you healthier.

Avoidance and Smart Decisions: Skip the fries, the donuts, the soda, etc. One thing I have done lately is to remove a small group of things from my diet that I know are bad for me. Here is a sample:

• No Donuts. Ever. Have a yogurt or fruit for breakfast.
  Avoid the soda. Get juice or something. Just as good and easy, way healthier.
  
• Skip the fries. "Want fries with that?" ---> "No"
  
• Tone down the coffee. Besides keeping you up and making you crap your pants each morning, coffee is awful for you. Have a tea or something lighter. And if you are just hooked on coffee like I am, slow up on the sugar and opt for the skim milk.
  

Again...I eat bad things, I don't workout like I should, but I am not getting fat either. Some simple diet changes and some smart choices can make a huge difference. Now go put your helmet back on and grab your Atkins book. The short bus is waiting outside.

Why Do You Hate PayPal?

And you do. On some level. You may use it, but my guess is you don't like it. I knew deep down that I didn't like it and I thought about why...

I am helping to organize a Madden Playstation tournament where the fee is five bucks. I am accepting payment online, using PayPal, and I have more complaints about PayPal than I have signups. This frustrated me a bit, as I didn't perceive paying via PayPal as being such a pain in the ass. I got mad at the people who didn't want to use PayPal. It's convenient, it' easy, anyone can do it....what the hell?

Once the anger settled, I thought about usability and the cornerstone of designing something that is usable. First you need to think of the lowest common denominator - the person going on the web for the very first time. Then you need to put your preconceived notions of what you think works aside, and listen to what the majority thinks, does, and says. If you curse out your users for being dumb when they can't figure out your site, and refuse to change because you think that your system is fine the way it is, you are dead in the water. Pack up and go home now, because it is over. I often have a hard time coming to this point - but this time around I did and I learned as a result. I think PayPal is fine. Others clearly do not. But why?

I dug some more, and I asked around. I went through the angry anti-PayPal emails from purchasers and I realized that it really has less to do with the actual product, but more to do with the perception of the product - the brand and how people identify it. Changing the whole brand identity is no small task, so I thought about how some small layout changes might help people get past what seem to be the typical roadblocks and abandonment points.

The biggest detractor on the purchaser side seems to be the misconception that you need a PayPal account in order to pay someone who is collecting via PayPal. I am not sure why people think that, as when you click through on a "pay by PayPal" link, you are given the option to login and pay from your existing PayPal account, or you can skip right by and just enter your credit card and billing information and be done. Although this seems painfully clear to me on the landing page, for some reason countless people seem to abandon at this point. Most likely because the ability to just pay using a credit card and no PayPal account is not made clear enough to the user. A simple change to the layout here may help this confusion. Perhaps PayPal should make the landing page be a single page with the billing and credit card information on one form. For those that may already have a PayPal account, a small link outside of the form prompting a login would suffice. If you are a PayPal user you more than likely know your way around by now and can deal with the smaller link for login. This change, in my opinion, would improve usability from the purchaser side dramatically. Users would hit that page and see instantly that they could enter CC and billing info into a single form on a single page and submit. Transaction over.

As it sits now, you enter personal information (shipping/billing info) on one page, and then credit card info on a following page. It isn't clear (or as clear as it could be) that this page is the same as any normal online credit card payment page and not part of the signup process for a PayPal account. It seems that for the most part, people do not want to get sidetracked and sign up for a payment system they have no interest in on the way to purchasing something. More than likely, they have already signed up somewhere else when shopping for the item they are about to purchase, and asking them to signup for something else just to pay for it doesn't sit well. Again, I understand that this is not what is happening, I am merely pointing out that at quick glance people seem to think that this is what is happening and abandon purchases at this point far more than they should.

To wrap...keep it simple, keep it clear, keep it on one page. And make it obvious that you don't need a PayPal account to pay someone who is collecting via PayPal. I don't want to give up on this product, but at the same time I also don't want to continue to lose sales because of it.

The World According To Girls

I learned something about girls and directions this past weekend. Well, I shouldn't say I learned anything...because that would imply that I gained some sort of knowledge or insight that I didn't already posses. Let me put it like this. I didn't learn that girls suck at directions, I was just amazed at the degree to which they suck at directions and more specifically the way their minds work when it comes to processing directions.

We had a wedding to go to in Connecticut this weekend (we live about 25 miles west of Boston). It was a friend of my girlfriends, so I assumed that she had taken care of the details, such as how to get there and where it was, and as a result of this information, when we needed to leave. Mistake number one.

I was told we needed to leave at 2, which I didn't question until about 1:45 when it dawned on me that we are dealing with girl logic here (pardon the oxymoron). So I causally asked the simple questions that would be expected before you get in the car for a relatively long drive and here is how the conversation went.

Me: So is this in Southeastern or Southwestern Connecticut?
Her: I don't know, why?
Me: You dont know? Didn't you look?
Her: No, I know we need to go down 95
Me: How long will it take us to get there?
Her: I dont know, an hour?
Me: Well, how far is it?
Her: I don't know.

At this point I am beginning to get frustrated, but then it starts to get real good. Hang on, this is a direct look into the directional lobe of the female brain. It continues:

Her: Well it usually takes us about an hour to get to [friend's name] house.
Me: Ok, well where is it in relation to [friend's name] house?
Her: I don't know. Why are you giving me such a hard time?
Me: I am just trying to figure out how you arrived at 2pm as a leaving time.
Her: It usually takes an hour or so to get to [friend's name] house, it can't be that far from there. They are both in Connecticut.
Me: Are you kidding?

It continued on from there back and forth. Mostly her getting defensive and me trying to explain that you can't determine a driving time from point A to point B if you have no idea where point B is. And bringing point C in as a reference has no bearing still if you have no god damned idea where point B is.

To my amazement, when two of her friends showed up. I asked the same line of questioning. Same answers, almost verbatim. Incredible.

Long story short, it was 150 miles from point A to point B and nowhere near point C. Probably slightly less if I knew where point B was and could have made adjustments to the directions she had. I will continue to do more research on this, but bear with me if there is a long time between posts. I am probably in the car somewhere. Going the long way.

He Doesn't Look Like Someone With Gator

You can't always tell someone has Gator simply by looking at them. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your own sister. It can happen to anyone. It happened to me. I feel dirty. To me, Gator is like the internet version of an STD. You surf safely, you use protection, but all it takes is one wild moment of indescretion and downloading and you are infected. And sometimes there is no cure. It is embarassing, it is frustrating, you become afraid to surf the internet for a while, and it makes you uncomfortable. You want to talk to others who have Gator to see how they handle it. Some look for a cure, some choose to live with it and just take things one day at a time. There are mini support groups where some are offering help and advice, and others are just looking for someone to share their story with. My name is Andrew, and I have Gator.

Evite Hates Animals and Creativity

Or at least photos of animals...and of children, cartoons, comics, celebrities, nudity, artwork, or images that may be copyrighted. I just received this notice from eVite after using the above monkey picture as my my profile photo for some time now.

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for uploading a photo to your My Info page.

Unfortunately, we had to take down your photo because the one you
posted contains animals, children, cartoons, comics, celebrities,
nudity, artwork, or copyrighted images.

The photograph you upload should be of you and should be current.
Your face should be clearly visible in the photo. We will accept
photographs which show yourself plus another adult person (spouse,
family member, etc) and/or your children, and a graphic containing a
logo provided that you are the copyright owner.

Please go back to My Info to post another photo of yourself:

http://www.evite.com/pages/gt/people/view.jsp

*Be sure to copy and paste the entire URL into your browser window.

For more information, read the Photo Submission Guidelines in our
Terms of Service:

http://www.evite.com/html/popups/terms.html

Cheers,
The Evite Team

This was a pretty lame move...I mean, who cares that I use a monkey for a profile image? I know for a FACT that other people liked it and that it actually ads to any viral-ness that my profile had...because people send around things that are funny and a monkey for a profile photo is funny.

Satan Votes Republican

Apparently Satan is a card carrying Republican thanks to GW. Check out SatanForBush.com and more specifically this fantastic movie clip thanks to Ad Rants

Nike Goes Viral With Bad Flash

Steve Hall at AdRants points out that average advertising is quickly biting the dust. He also points us to Ad-Rag which points us to these two brilliant animations. One about the end of the world, and one about a new product from Nike...

I Love Manny Ramirez

How can you not...is this not the greatest photo of Manny ever? Found on Boston.com

Madden 2005 Tournament

Madden 2005 Tournament
Irish Times Worcester
Pats/Ravens Tickets To The Winner
8 TVs/Stations
64 Players
Full Buffet
Full Bar
Enter Now --> Madden Tournament Entry

Thank God For Girls

Now this very quick post means no disrespect to my girlfriend (or previous girlfriends) as she take great care of me on many levels. In fact, this is props to her and other similar girls out there that take care of the things that guys like me will never do on their own.

As I look around my apartment, I notice very quickly that there are numerous things that make it a better place that I had nothing to do with picking out, purchasing, hanging up, thinking about, or doing. They are things like drapes, shower curtains, table cloths, fake plants, coasters, bathmats, nice towels, nice pillows, and other general knick knacks that I would never even think to buy -- but they make my life better.

When I first moved in to my apartment, I had an argument/discussion with the girl I was dating at the time over the need for a shower curtain. My opinion was that the shower curtain liner I found at Wal Mart for $3.99 was plenty barrier between the inside of my shower and the rest of the world. I didn't understand the need for a $25 second layer that seemed to do little more than make my bathroom slightly more attractive (to her). Long story short, after debating the point for a bit, I ended up with a floral print shower curtain (under protest) that she found and put up. In the end....it made things better.

The above incident was over 2 years ago, and last night I underwent my third shower curtain related upgrade and it is the best one yet. After the current girl bought me a new shower curtain this past Christmas, she went added a new clear liner to the mix recently, and what a difference. It is clear, it is clean, and wouldn't you know...it makes a huge difference in my shower experience. How do girls think of this stuff? Brilliant.