We are strange, and that’s why the ladies love us!

Seriously though, the reason that I grow my hair and beard out when I want to push myself towards something is that it is a really good motivator.  I can tie a string to my finger, but those fall off and get lost.  I could write myself a note, but I lose my todo lists and I keep those in our Project Management software.  The main reason is that it is always there, it is right up front, “in my face” (haha).

Recently I grew my beard out until we “launched” something at work. It was a fun way for myself and friends to continually be reminded that I haven’t launched anything yet. My beard was awesome.  Some (like my wife) would say gross, but I am sticking with awesome. I actually grew all of my “above the neck” hair out longer than it has ever been during the part of my life where I was paying attention to such silliness.

I have grown my facial hair out for another reason in the past, Movember. This is an awesome organization that raises money for research to fight Prostate Cancer. I have done this in the past two years, and this is where I got my idea for growing hair/beard for our product launch.

The product that we launched was 1TrackFind, a site for keeping track of music and artists that you want to remember to listen to later.  We have been working on it for a couple months, deciding what feature to put in and what features to leave out for now.  All this work grew me a mighty beard, and today I got to shave it all off – well most of it.

I included pictures of my beard shedding, just for fun.

Rant Status                  = Extreme

Likelihood to Offend  = 93%

Basically, the whole story boils down to little kids getting the string wrapped around their necks and dieing. This in itself is horrible, I never want to hear about another accidental child death again.

The thing that bothers me about the fact that a recall was put into effect is that ALL of these deaths could have been avoided if the parents would have been paying attention.  Why are child services organizations around the country not going after these parents whose children died?

Parents are constantly buying the baby-proofing hardware for their houses.  Things like plug guards, cabinet locks, etc.  They constantly are on guard to make sure that the child’s food is cut up small enough so that they will not choke.  Parents are always looking out for their kids safety.  So, WHY IN THE HELL did these parents put a Roman style shade next to their baby’s crib or even within reach of their child?

This is not Target’s, IKEA’s, or Home Depot’s fault that you shoved a crib up against a window that had a 6 foot rope hanging from it.  This is purely the fault of the parents.  It is not Target’s job to go into your home and look at every single product YOU CHOOSE to buy and put in your home for the potential health risks that they pose to anyone who walks in the door.  This is ridiculous.  If this was the case then stores would stop selling marbles, knives, and anything made of a hard plastic over 15 ounces that could be used to break glass and commit suicide.

With the same logic, they could say it is your fault your baby died because you taught it the skills necessary to grab onto an object and play with it, resulting in them wrapping it around their own necks.  OR they could say that it is your parental responsibility to be aware and responsive to everything your baby does.  Oh wait, you ARE supposed to be aware and responsive to everything your baby does. My bad for expecting you to do your job as a parent. Obviously, it is the big box store’s job to raise your children…or was that Cartoon Network’s job? I can never remember.

Come on people.  Take responsibility for your own actions, your choices, and your children.  It is not the tree’s fault for growing in the same spot for over 100 years when you run your car into it.  You can’t sue God for inventing trees.

It is not the store’s fault if you walk in and stub your toe on the wall, it is your own damn fault for putting your foot too close to a wall.  It is 100% not McDonald’s fault for making coffee the way it is supposed to be made.  If is your fault for getting into a moving vehicle with a cup of the stuff between your legs and you spill it on yourself.  You knew when your ordered the coffee that it was going to be hot, that’s probably WHY you ordered it.  It is also not McDonald’s fault for your fat ass, you chose to go there and spend your money, you chose to eat three Big Macs a large fry and a liter of Coke. They did not sneak into your house and reverse lipo a whole hogs ass into your belly area, you put it in there one french fry at a time. Deal with it, take responsibility for it.

I am tired of people trying to get rich on their own stupidity.  There are too many people in this world who are working way too hard just to scrape by and who are getting screwed out of their job because someone wasn’t being responsible for their own self.  Pay attention to yourself, pay attention to your surroundings, use your god damned brain once in a while.

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I know that this is a rant, I even told you that at the top of this post.  I am freaking pissed at people who are too damn sue happy and refuse to get off their own ass and do something for themselves.  If you agree or disagree, please tell me in the comments as I would love to discuss what you think about this.

I was setting up Genius in Itunes tonight and I got to the form below, and didnt fill out the second input because it looked like they wanted AOL credentials.  Then, when the error came up, the red arrow and the blue triangle point to the same place, kind of confusing.

Now, I know that if I would have just paid more attention, I would have gotten this from the start.  Even so, I sometimes stop paying attention and hope that the interface will be intuitive enough that I can just use it without thinking. I know, lame right?  Not necessarily, I have found that this is a good way to test out user functionality.

If you have to stop and think about how to make the interface work, then there is something wrong.  The idea is that you want the users who pay full attention to find things that are especially for them, and for the other users you want them to be able skate by.

The AOL logo makes this form less than intuitive.