Gekitsuu's Geekery

Working the night shift changes your perspective on a lot of things and one that really screwed me over good tonight
was a 24-hour McDonald's. Now I have to admit before I do any of my complaining that this is the first night I ever
tried to patron this particular McDonald's at 2:45am. When I pulled up I was a bit concerned because there were 3 cars
sitting in line in front of me and at this time of night that can only mean that the people inside are slow or are
oblivious to the fact that people are outside waiting. The people currently stopped in front of the ordering device
lay on their horn. The question as to which case this is, had been answered. Finally they place their order and then
car in front of me gets to go. They ask for a #1 clear as day and are told that the #1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #7, and #8
aren't available. Which leaves gold ole #5. I didn't want any of the combo meals so I was hopeful that I could still
the vanilla milk shake I'd been thinking of since I left the gym. So I pull up and it's my turn. "I'll have a medium
vanilla milk shake please." "I'm sorry sir we don't run the milk shake machine at this time of night". Hmmmm, I
decide to parry with something else easy. "How about a Ceaser Salad." "Ok sir, please drive to the 2nd window." When I reach the window she sees my credit card in hand and she says, "I'm sorry sir we just closed the charge machine." The
question is obvious and I just have to ask it (keep in mind I've always claimed to be an asshole). "You're not really
24 hours are you? I mean you aren't serving 7 out of 8 of your combos, the milk shake machine is apparently off and
just turned off the easiest method of payment for your services." Blank stare. "Well I don't have any cash thanks for wasting 20 minutes." See I think the problem here is that they advertise 24-hours to give the people who come during
the day a warm fuzzy, they don't expect anyone to actually come. If they truly did then they would be sure to explain
the special diminished services schedule so that I wouldn't even bother hoping for a vanilla shake at 3am. I was
annoyed and with all rights. I work nights for many reasons and I hate how places say 24 hours a day yet when you get
to the grocery story they have nearly every isle blocked with palettes of Wheaties so you can't even squeeze a cart
down them anymore. I understand shelves need to be restocked. Just try to be considerate of the people who DO try to
use your advertised service.

I want to cover two things in this entry, siding and my code. I didn't come as
far as I would have liked with the web front-end for the blogging software I
use. I've also been toying with the idea of making my own blogging software
based on Perl which is most likely what I'll end up doing even if I get the
CGI front end working. I do have to say that I'll be a better coder because of
it if I do. I'll have to play with XML, CSS, HTML and CGI modules to get it to
work exactly how I want but I think it would make for a pretty secure blogging
tool once I was done. The other thing I wanted to address is siding. I live in
suburbia for sure and it seems that any more all the houses are covered in
siding. Even my folks who live pretty close by have most of their house covered
in siding and I'm not really sure I like the look of most of it. It seems that
all the houses start to look the same just because everyone is getting safe,
sensible siding. My townhouse is covered in wood siding which I personally
think is better than the plastic or metal types but I'd really like to see more
brick on houses. I just noticed it when I was out for my morning walk and
thought it might not be one of the best signs of progress.