25 February 2007 at 5.42 pm · Filed under Technology
I’ve been using the new Microsoft Office 2007. Some of you will recall that I got really into Linux for a while. Well, I still am, I guess… but there’s all this cool new stuff coming out, like Windows Vista, and new games for Windows (OK, just Spore), and so I got a new computer and am being a bad boy enjoying the Microsoft ecosystem for a while.
Anyway, Word 2007 is great, it’s the best new Word since Office 95 came out, and I have been enjoying the new “styles” feature. I think the way it’s set up, people will finally realize that styles make a whole lot more sense than formatting everything by hand, like some kind of animal. (It also includes two new fonts – move over, Comic Sans, because Calibri and Cambria are about to appear in B-grade camera ready art everywhere.)
Since I like the new styles, I thought I would check out the templates for writing a letter that Microsoft included (I need to write a letter to my bank). I was amused, then shocked, to find that not only have they included generic letter templates for you, as they’ve always done, they’ve actually written some letters for you. They’re oddly specific, like “Complaint to school board about teacher” or “Pet loss sympathy card.” And some of them are rather stroppy!
Here are some excerpts from the good people at Microsoft.
Floral delivery complaint: “The arrangement was delivered as promised, but the quality of the flowers was poor. They were wilted and browning, and both my niece and I were very disappointed. I trust that you will treat this matter as a high priority.”
Letter excusing child from field trip: “As much as we hate to prevent Kevin from enjoying the day with his friends, we strongly feel that such activities will not help him improve academically and that he currently needs to focus on his schoolwork.”
Complaint about poor hotel service: “[T]he bathroom plumbing was faulty.”
Complaint about repeated service errors: “I call your attention to paragraph 7c in the contract, Mr. Westbury, in which the provisions for revocation of the contract are described. I do not like to consider such a possibility, but I must, unless I have your written assurance that all provisions of the contract will be met.”
Condolence on death of business partner: “Rest assured that your loss is all of Santa Fe’s loss.”
Second request for medical records: “If I have not received the records by [date], I will have no choice but to retain an attorney to obtain my medical records for me. By law, you will then be liable for the attorney fees that I incur.”
Complaint about airline food service: “I accepted the fish entree. … The dessert consisted of a stale cookie. As a result, when we arrived in Atlanta, my partner and I headed straight for a restaurant to get a meal. … I’d also like you to reimburse me for the cost of the meal that we had to buy, since yours was inadequate.”
And I thought that little talking paper clip was scary!
24 February 2007 at 7.24 pm · Filed under Technology
I’ve decided to turn comment moderation off again. Akismet works so well, I have only had a couple spam comments get through — which I’m willing to handle manually. So, visitors, comment away!
21 February 2007 at 10.45 pm · Filed under Connextions Lofts, Culture, Political, Random, Work life
Here it is, the famous boldface names entry. Enjoy!
This was the first year in a long time I haven’t been able to issue my usual “Declaration of Spring” to my former counterpart Brian Foster at Nationwide in person. However, the digital version will have to do. Therefore, Brian, it is now Spring! (For the uninitiated, I always decide it’s spring ridiculously early, then complain to people that they’re still wearing their coats. This is to compensate for all the weeks where people tease me about what I’m wearing. Even when it gets back down to zero, I steadfastly maintain that spring has arrived. It’s part of my English stubbornness.)
Yesterday I re-watched The Fog of War, the Oscar-winning documentary about Robert McNamara. It’s surprising how much of that movie is applicable to today’s current Iraq conflict. Based on some of the statements, I doubt McNamara would want to be involved in our war. The most salient part, I thought, was when he told the story of meeting the North Vietnamese at a dinner in the 1990’s. McNamara explains that from the American perspective, the Vietnam War was a cold-war conflict we fought as a proxy. But the Vietnamese, he said, just saw us as the substitute for the French colonialists. The man he talked to said, “You have to think about the war from our perspective. We were never going to give up!” McNamara said that was a fundamental problem with US thinking about the war. I don’t need to spell it out for you — do today’s Iraqis think we’re colonizers rather than liberators?
Speaking of Oscars, I’m still trying to figure out what to wear to local celebrity Kevin Wood’s Oscar party this Sunday. We’ve been told to wear something from the movies, and since my mom threw out my tiara in 1996, I cannot go as The Queen. I hate these costume parties. I always was the person going to Halloween as a fifth-grader or “someone who does not celebrate Halloween.”
My whole life has changed (as previously detailed). I am no longer at Nationwide, so I have whole new adventures and stories to relate (all of which can never be told, sadly, since there’s a thing called confidentiality). I do something new and interesting every day, which I love. My days at the court are nice and contemplative; my days at the law firm are absolutely full. At both places I have baby cases that I can kind of call “mine,” although somebody with a law license actually reads, corrects, and signs everything I turn out. I’m becoming a better writer every week because I am getting constant review and feedback. My life has become so much richer and I feel very confident this was the right thing to do. It’s funny, I don’t even think about Nationwide any more. (I thought I’d be battle-scarred coming out of there, but some days it feels like it never happened.)
Finally, no entry would be complete without a shout out to Jim Fields, who gave us his old bread maker as a last resort in the carb wars. We now turn out oddly-shaped loaves of bread every week. Things are so good these days.
