1TO10REVIEWS

My Review: 3

You know what sucks? Getting pee stains on the front of your underwear. You know what else sucks? Having poo stains on the rear.

Really, these events are great reasons for buying dark colored underwear.

Some friends used to call me doody-pants, because I once asserted (while drinking a lot of Saki) that everybody accidentally poops in the underwear once in a while. No one was willing to admit that they suffer from this problem, and I had to suffer the indignity of an unfortunate nickname for several years. But I don’t care what you call me, the fact is, I’m right. Everyone lets a little bit slip once in a while.

It might be pee, because you didn’t shake enough at the urinal and you put it back too quickly. But, as my brother always says, “if you shake it more than twice then you’re just playing with it.” Or, you might just be in a hurry.

Also, you could hav ejust laughed a little too hard and let a little pee spray out That sucks, but it does happen.

And everyone, seriously everyone, has a little poop staining on the back of their shorts once in a while. Maybe your ass-hair is too thick and poo gets caught in it making it too hard to wipe it all off. Maybe you were in a hurry and didn’t get to wipe as much as you’d like. Maybe some jerk left the Cottonelle wipes open and they all dried out. Any number of reasons could account for poo stains, up to and including the kung pao chicken that they made a little too spicy last night.

Poo and pee stians on your underwear are not fun. But they are not the end of the world, and rest assured that you are not alone. They rate a 3 out of 10 because they can be uncomfortable and a little embarrassing, but hey, life is a little uncomfortable and embarrassing.

My Review: 4

Meetings, in general, are difficult to like. They can be fun, with the right group, and if they are stay relevant and on track. But too often meetings end up lasting 6 times longer than necessary. Right now, I am sitting in a meeting that started at 10:00 AM. It is currently 2:40 PM. We broke for lunch (about 20 minutes) but basically its been straight through.

Jeremy (a friend who writes a blog called Live Digitally) once said that he thinks meetings should never need to last more than an hour. I buy into that philosophy, and here’s why:

• Once you go past 1 hour, you are probably beyond the attention span of most of the participants
• If you have more to talk about than you can fit in one hour, you are probably trying to do too much in one meeting
• Or, you have more people in the meeting than really need to participate

Now, a good meeting can actually be pretty enjoyable. You feel like you accomplished something, you reached consensus with a group of people you trust, and you have a clear plan of action to move forward. And you did all that in 51 minutes. That would get a 7 or 8 in my book, because there is a lot of satisfaction in work done well.

But too many meetings run over long, with too many people expressing dumb-ass opinions that don’t move the topic forward. So on the whole, I have to give “meetings” (in general) a score of 4 out of 10.

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Update 8/23/2007

It is now 4:13 PM, and I have been in the same meeting for more than 6 hours.  Sighhh.

My Review: 1

There may one day come a time when the subject of a review will receive a 0. For the moment though, as the title of this blog is “1 to 10 Reviews” I will restrict the lowest possible score to a 1. And cubicles receive that score. They suck.

Thus far in my professional career, I have avoided cubicilism, or the state of being ensconced in a cubicle for the 8 working hours of one’s daily life. I am opposed to the cubicle on moral as well as practical grounds - I believe they are wicked and immoral.

Ok, that’s kind of hyperbolic, but I still don’t like them.

It’s hard to explain why I dislike cubes so much. Office cubes I mean, the type like you see in the movie “Office Space.”

I think they simultaneously restrict and expose the self. You are shut up in a public space; that’s something of an oxymoron, but maybe that’s part of the reason I dislike them so much. There is a serious lack of privacy (if you need peace and quiet for making phone calls for instance), but there is also this weird type of territory that is created, carved up and doled out in the use of cubicles.

The office in which I work installed some cubicles recently. I politely requested to have space in one of the offices (with a window and a door) that were still available, and I was much relieved when my request was granted. I would probably have gone into crisis mode had I been asked to occupy a cube.

The point here is that the cubicle lifestyle is not for me. I think it makes a person feel exposed and confined at the same time, and neither of those are good feelings. I oppose the cubicle lifestyle, and I rate it a 1 out of 10.

My Review: 7

If you are not a cigar smoker, then the subject of this post is probably gibberish. For the unenlightened, allow me to explain:

• Rocky Patel is is a manufacturer of premium handrolled cigars.
• The Edge is the brand of a particular cigar, visible in the ring label on the cigar, as well as the box the cigars are shipped in.
• Torpedo refers to the shape of the cigar. A torpedo shape is more difficult to roll than a straight shape, and some smokers prefer this configuration.
• Maduro refers to the type of wrapper, the tobacco leaf on the outside of the cigar. Maduro is the darkest shade of wrapper, and usually imparts a spicier, stronger smoke. Maduro is dark brown, sometimes almost black.

I wasn’t able to find a picture of the maduro - pictured here is the same cigar with a “natural” or “Connecticut shade” wrapper. Generally this makes for a smoother, milder smoke.

This is a “Churchill” sized cigar by the same manufacturer, Rocky Patel.

The maduro Edge torpedo impressed me for several different reasons.

First, the maduro wrapper is extremely dark and quite oily. It has a beautiful sheen to it, and a good texture when you roll it between your fingers. The taste of the cigar, even unlit, was extremely strong and spicy. In the past I have indulged in a variety of different tobacco related vices, chewing tobacco being one of them. I generally prefer Skoal when I chew tobacco (with Skoal it’s usually called dip, or dipping) but I have used Red Man and other long cut chewing tobaccos. This cigar, unlit in my mouth, tasted strongly reminiscent of dark Red Man chewing tobacco. In smoking the cigar, I found it almost uncomfortably spicy at the very beginning. But after about 5 minutes, it mellowed out and became a really enjoyable, very strong smoke.

I also am partial to torpedo shaped cigars. I just like the look and style of them. I think they’re fun. You do need to generally cut them with a guillotine cutter, a style that snips off the end of the cigar (as opposed to a hole-punch style or wedge-cut style, but the guillotine is the most common type of cutter around, so it’s not usually a big deal. The only other drawback with torpedoes is the fact that you can’t (very effectively) bite off the end of the cigar. With straight shapes, this is actually a very easy and effective way to get going, but torpedoes are too rigid on the very end of the cigar.

This is an example of a good guillotine cutter, by Zino of Davidoff.

This particular cigar was 6 ” long, and has a 52 ring gauge . The ring gauge is the diameter of the cigar, and is measured in 64th’s of an inch. So a 52 ring gauge means that the diameter is 52/64th’s of an inch. On a torpedo, you always give the ring gauge as it exists on the front end of the cigar. This is important to note because unlike with straight shaped cigars, the diameter of a torpedo gets smaller further back from the front (hence the name “torpedo”).

One other thing I liked about the cigar was the label, sometimes called the ring. Rocky Patel put the label for these on the very front of the cigar, which looked kind of cool. It is a potentially dangerous move because sometimes the ring (which is attached using a little dab of gum based adhesive) can stick to the wrapper of the cigar; it’s possible to tear the cigar wrapper in trying to remove the label, and many people will leave the label on while they smoke so as to avoid tearing up their cigar. But I had no problem removing mine.

There are two reason that this cigar did not get a better rating (though 7 is still quite strong) and neither of them is the fault of the cigar itself. The first one was price; these suckers cost $7.00 a piece. That’s not really so bad for a store (brick and mortar retail shop) bought cigar. But generally I buy my cigars online (or “acquire” them form my Dad) which is much, much cheaper. Rarely am I spending more than $3 or $4 per stick, so it hurts a little to spend $7.00 on any cigar.

The second reason is that I only smoked one of them. As much as taste, appearance, fragrance and feel factor in to the rating of a smoke, there is one other factor that trumps them all. Consistency. A cigar needs to not only taste and look good once - it needs to do it again and again.

If I get a hold of some more of these and smoke a lot of them, I may update the rating here.

I found another review of this cigar from which I liberated one of my pictures. That review is visible here.

The Edge was a good, strong, dark and vicious (in a good way) smoke. A strong 7.

My Rating: 7

I have a lot of stuff. Firstly, I have several computers. I have a hell of a time figuring out what content is on which computer. This is especially true when it comes to music. I’ll have the inspiration to download an album on one machine and then forget if I synchronized it with another. Recently I was put in the situation where I wanted to to transfer a lot of content from one machine to the next. This was due to the recent purchase of a MacBook Pro. You can read David’s review of that here.

So, I thought about the fact that I have several computers and that I had to transfer some content onto this new machine. I recalled during CES last year, there was a slick, small product called the Seagate FreeAgent Go. It got some decent reviews and I thought that I should probably try it out. It was more expensive than some of their competitors, such as Western Digital. But, the industrial design turned me on and I was won over by cheap plastic and an orange glowing light. Observe…

It’s small like a little address book. It’s brown like a dark leather. It glows like the chocolate bar with the winning ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And it works pretty damn well. Of course, it does have it’s drawbacks. I purchased the 160Gb version. This is ample storage. And it works fairly quickly to copy up and save the 40 precious Gb of music that I dumped on it immediately.

The problem’s really started when I wanted it to play nicely with my Mac. I had to do some crazy formatting for it to be recognized by the Mac. You’ll need to go to your Disk Utility and perform some magic. I’m not going to describe the process here because I don’t want to be the cause of any potential damage to your drive. Please make sure, however, that you have nothing on your drive when you essentially format it (ask me how I know).

You’re probably a PC user and you’re thinking that this doesn’t matter to you because you don’t have to worry about all the crazy complications us Mac users encounter. I would ask you to think about the future. Eventually you’re going to switch. As long as you have a portable drive perfect for transferring data back and forth - make sure you know how to use it with your future mac. Have you seen the new iMac? Wow.

All joking aside, the FreeAgent Go comes with Ceedo. This is useful if you want to live off of your portable hard drive. It basically allows you to run programs off of the device, stores your bookmarks, etc. This absolutely does not work with a Mac. I also find it buggy and somewhat annoying. However, it is leaps and bounds better than SanDisk’s crappy-ass U3.

For the most part, this drive is small, light, attractive and glowing. It does the job. It lives in my bag and comes out on a pretty regular basis. I’m a fan of items with some design sensibility. In fact, I’ll pay more for something that has style. The FreeAgent Go gets a 7 for basic functionality and attractiveness.

My Rating: 4

The iPhone, depending on the day, is either a brick of gold or just a brick. As I start to integrate this device into my regular phone/ipod habits, I begin to pick up on some of the challenges inherent in the only device that has ever come close to convincing me that convergence is at hand (bad pun, sorry). There are obvious oversights like the lack of a horizontal keyboard when you’re emailing. To me, these seem like things that got overlooked due to release dates. I have faith they will be fixed - as will the entire email application (please do a deal with RIM).

But, one thing that has really bothered me is iPhone usage in the car. When I’m driving I’m doing one of two things (and sometimes both) - listening to music and talking on the phone. Excitingly, the iPhone can do both of these things very well. Why, then, does it all fall apart as soon as I’m in the car?

First of all, I’m appreciative that I can charge it using the same charger I have for my old iPod. But, where do I put the iPhone? An iPod can sit anywhere because it might not need to be used at a moments notice (i.e., phone calls). But with the iPhone, in order to have it handy I have to put it in the cup holder of my center console. This is a dangerous place for a $600 device. Of course if I put it any closer, like on the dash shelf designed for a mobile phone, my car stereo will sound like lightening just struck the antennae of my car. This horrible popping noise must be fixed. There are ways to solve this problem (but with a $600 mobile phone should we really have to do this?). This problem gets worse when you actually try to play music on your car stereo using the iPhone. I utilize a tape adapter. I guess the tape adapter makes it even worse.

Plus, if you use your same old tape adapter, you’re going to need to use this little device because normal headphone jacks don’t fit into the iPhone.

This sucks because you’d love to just plug your iPhone into things like desktop speakers. But, you can’t unless you remembered that strange, long-ass-dongle-thing. But, this doesn’t matter because the interference that’s going to accompany your iPhone usage will negate your desire to listen to music.

But, I digress. Let’s review…

You have a mobile phone that you can’t put in a useful location due to the constant popping and buzzing interference. You can’t listen to music because your tape adapter is making things worse. You certainly can’t do both at the same time, which would be rad - this is a feature I like about using Skype. I can actually listen to music while talking to someone - they can’t hear the music. This makes some conversations a lot more bearable.

On the positive side, bluetooth integration is very good and extremely easy to use. The interface that allows you to switch between the iphone, hands-free and speaker-phone is an example of the kind of simplicity that you’d expect from Apple. I am hoping that car-related features are greatly improved in future software upgrades. Overall, as much I like the iPhone, the usability factor while driving in the car (for all of its many-slpendored features) goes way down. I can’t rate it above a four for usability while driving.

My Review: 2

I hesitate to even put this in a Web 2.0 category becasue it is patently not Web 2.0. However, it could certainly serve as an example of to avoid in making a modern website. And when creating a blogging tool, a way for people to record their great life events… avoid these mistakes at all cost.

Let me back up a bit. My friend Justin went on a trip to South America for one month. While there he wanted to keep an online journal, a web log (blog for short) to keep a record of his travels and share his adventures with friends and family. Sounds cool right? Well, Justin picked the wrong service (in my opinion.)

First of all, the UI (user interface) is terrible. The tabs are ugly, the font is ugly, the whole site is cluttered and hard to navigate. There are no page updates without a manual refresh of the entire web page (AJAX anyone?), the style is clunky, and nothing seems to flow well. Here is the site’s homepage.

Here is a shot of the screen for adding a new post. This is an excellent example of terrible user interface design and implementation.

But, their concept is still a good one. A blogging site, targeted at non-technical travelers who want to keep an online journal of their travels is a cool idea. Unfortunately, their execution is weak. The site, as mentioned, is clunky. But that’s not all. They cover all their users’ pages with large, high visibility advertisements. The ads are not generally contextual (meaning many are not related to the content displayed on the page, though they might be travel related.) And they are big and super obnoxious.

And lastly, let me explain my final criticism. Data loss and lack of security. As you notice in the screenshot from Justin’s blog, Travel Blog managed to lose the data they were holding for many of their users. What happened to backup? What happened to redundancy. A month’s worth of travel thoughts and written experience is lost. That is way, way not cool.

In my opinion, the triple whammy of poor user interface design, obnoxious advertising, and insecure data backup make this a loser of a site. Hence, a rating of two.

And I know that I said the last criticism was my final criticism, but what’s up with .org? Clearly this company is not a non-profit. Travel Blog.org is a weak, uninspiring offering.

Wordpress is way cooler.

by Neil Diamond.

My Review: 8

I grew up listening to Neil Diamond. My friend Mike Baranov is a rabid Neil Diamond fan, has seen him more than 20 times in concert, and celebrates his entire catalog. Neil Diamond is iconic.

I am still mixed on whether he really fit in well on the lineup of guest musicians in The Last Waltz, but that is another review in itself.

From left to right: Dr. John, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Rick Danko, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Robbie Robertson

Neil Young’s anthemic ballad, Coming To America, is a wonderful song. The buildup, the chorus, the crowd, the upwelling of emotion that the song can engender in the patriotic soul… they are spellbinding . Even the initial buildup, using strings, is a wonderful piece of musical production. It’s cheese, pure American cheese, but it is so wonderful.

Baranov (mentioned above) use to egg me on to play the song on my acoustic guitar when we were at summer camp together. There is no finer moment than leading 15 or more close friends in a rollicking chorus of “on the boats and on the planes, they’re coming to America…”

What a feeling.

But sentimentality and recollection are not the true basis for the rating. The songwriting is good. Not inspirational, but it is solid. The patriotic attitude and focus are those attributes which make the song great; the attributes which make it a haven for many immigrants and an inspiration for people all over the world, these attitudes are worth singing about. And the cheese. It’s artery clogging, but it is also excellent.

I think Coming To America is a great song. And America is a great country. I’m glad Neil Diamond wrote it, and I’ll continue to listen to this song till the day I die.