DH|Personal

I’m glad I’m learning to be more frequent in my updates.

So, today’s featured image is of something that happened nearly three seconds ago, and I have barely had enough time to even put the camera down to begin posting my work here. That’s how recent it is. It’s a picture of the road outside my house during a power outage, after a power transformer was struck due to a violent thunderstorm. I got home from work and found the neighborhood dark, and my walk from the car to the house allowed me to see this view. It’s a composite of a few long-exposure shots. The blurry red lines on the bottom of the picture are from a car that drove by while I was taking my pictures: I used that shot because not only did the headlights shine on the buildings to expose them better, but also offered the interesting effect of the red lights as it drove by.

You’ll note that there are lights on behind the houses: only a portion of the neighborhood was without power, and that didn’t include the shopping area nearby.

I do hope you sense the sarcasm in my claim that the picture was taken recently. If it wasn’t made clear, the picture is not three seconds old; rather, it was taken on August 23.

Nothing much has changed for me since the last update. I still have the same job, but I’m in the process of applying for a different job. I’m hopeful that I’ll be accepted in the field in which I’m applying, as I think I may have the talent to do the job. My current job has gotten somewhat better, as recent firings at another Ritz Camera has required some of the staff at my location to temporarily cover shifts at the other store. As such, I’m working full time now, and have done so for the past two weeks. It’s kept me busy, and I’m appreciating the extra money in my paycheck.

There have been some changes in the employees at my store, as well. One full time worker is becoming a manager of another store, one employee has quit, and two have been hired as sales associates. The two new employees are both having their share of troubles learning the requirements of their positions, especially in the use of the antiquated computer systems. The computer system running at the store is over a decade old, and is certainly showing its age. Some of the confusion surrounding job requirements stems from both the training given at the store as well as the policies handed down by the administration: either way, having to stop working in the lab to teach a new sales employee can get old from time to time. But that’s just job-related stuff, which isn’t all that entertaining for those outside of the store.

I’ve been told that recounting funny customer stories here is entertaining for the reader(s), so I will do so again. After making an offhand remark to my family about customers coming into the store without attempting any research of their own, I picked up the phone to talk to a customer that eventually came to epitomize the very problem to which I was referring. The phone call went like this:

Customer: I’d like to get one of the Nikon D80’s, and my friend got it from your store, so I thought I’d try out you guys myself. He mentioned that there were classes available for free upon purchase of the camera that I could take to get to know how to use the camera. Is this true?
Me: Yes, we have both general photography classes and ones made specifically for the Nikon D50 and D40, the Nikon D70 and D80, and the Canon Digital Rebel XT and XTi. To which classes were you referring?
Customer: Well, I think I was wanting to take the Nikon D80 class. That will teach me how to use the camera, right?
Me: Yes, that is true: however, I just noticed our Nikon D80-specific class is done for the year. Were you referring to the Nikon D80 class, or did you mean our general photography class when you mentioned participating in the classes?
Customer: Well, I wanted to take the Nikon D80-specific class, because I wanted to know how to use the camera. Will the general photography class teach me how to use the camera?
Me: Well, it will teach you about photography, but not how to use the dials of the camera itself.
Customer: Will the Canon Rebel class teach me how to use the Nikon D80?
Me: No, that’s for the Canon brand of cameras, and will only serve to confuse you.
Customer: So you mean to tell me that you don’t have a class to teach me how to use the Nikon D80?
Me: Well, you can always come into the store to talk about it, or take the general photography class to get a basic understanding of how to take pictures. Regardless, you always have the manual available, and it does a great job of describing all the various features of the camera, and the purposes of each button on it.
Customer: You’re telling me that I would end up missing Christmas pictures because you guys don’t offer a course on how to use my camera? How am I supposed to take pictures?
Me: Sir, we don’t offer courses over the winter season because we’re busy with Christmas. Again, you can always read the manual and ask questions of us when you get to a troublesome area.
Customer: Yeah right, like I’m going to read an 8,000 page book on how to use this thing.
Me: Sir, you’re talking to a person who delights in doing so, and does with every purchase.
Customer: Well, I’m going to buy the camera from a company that offers classes during the winter, because I’m certainly not going to spend all that time reading a manual that’s not going to tell me how to use my camera!

*click*

That’s what I meant when I said that I didn’t like it when customers decide to purchase a camera without doing any research of their own. Suddenly purchasing a camera isn’t enough: it now becomes our job to hold the hands of these people throughout the whole process, as if buying a camera is such a mind-bending task that doing something as simple as checking up on the manufacturer’s line before visiting the store is equivalent to sticking a hot iron into one’s ear, with equal brain-melting results. I’m not hoping that the customers come in knowing exactly which camera to buy, but having some concept of what a “megapixel” is would really help, especially in the “how do I use this thing I just purchased without doing any research” area.

I honestly can’t imagine buying a product on the spot and then handing it back to the salesman and saying “Tell me how to use this”. Why would I want to buy something I don’t know how to use? I don’t mean in the specific sense, but rather in the simple areas like the location of the shutter button, or its operation. If I were so lazy as to not even figure out for myself how to turn the product on, I think I’d return it and go back to what I know: rather, I’d likely never step into a new field of technology unless I knew what I was getting into before buying the first product. The seemingly purposeful stupidity of some of these customers confound me.

Anyway, I’ve recently purchased or installed a few of the old games I used to play on the PC, and have had fun replaying them again. I had been wanting to play Homeworld again for some time, and am glad to get the opportunity to do so once more. It’s a good thing I got some new games, too: the people I most often play against in Call of Duty have all left to Call of Duty 2, which I find inferior to the original; also, the playerbase of the Half-Life modification called “The Specialists” have pretty much deserted the game, leaving all but three or four servers occupied, but rarely full.

In continued old news (I really should comment on this stuff when it happens, but finding a new image to post each time isn’t an easy task), I tried out the demo of Bioshock. What is up with game review sites giving it a perfect score? Have they tried System Shock 2, a game to which Bioshock is so readily compared? If the answer is “yes”, the game reviewers need to have their Geek cards rescinded, because this game is in no way as good as System Shock 2. Prettier, yes, but not better. It’s not a bad game, but it is sure easy!

It perpetuates the fear I have that games are getting easier to feed the masses to which these games are continually advertised. I think the increasing popularity of games is likely due to the catering of these games to the non-gamers, which is something I as an actual gamer don’t want to continue to happen. Sure, I want gaming to continue to exist, but not at the sacrifice of gameplay. As much as the Bioshock fans want to praise the difficulty and hinting options in the game, the decision to make the game without a steeper learning curve makes the entire game easy for the actual gamers. It’s frustrating to have to go back to the older games (the ones I was previously mentioning I was reinstalling) to get the gameplay I want in the new games, but I’m willing to sacrifice the graphics to get the better gameplay. Oh dear, I sound like Nintendo - and I certainly don’t want one of those dreadful Wiis, even if the argument for the system is the same as what I just wrote (way to go Nintendo: neither deliver on graphics nor gameplay).

Another interesting change that occurred just the other day was finding out our neighbors were moving. One might assume this was due to them walking over to us and saying, in short, “We’re moving”, but that wouldn’t be the case with these current neighbors. These ones seem to hate us, and instead of telling us anything, we just found out by watching them pack up and move away. Couple that with the death of our neighbor on the other side of the building, and we’re now sandwiched between two empty houses.

So the new iPods came out, and just like the iMac release, I end up unimpressed. Granted, it wasn’t like I was ever going to buy an iMac (what a dreadful little computer), but I was certainly considering an iPod. I’m the guy with multiple iPods, for crying out loud. Anyway, I saw what was offered and was disappointed. One of the new staff members at Ritz, who is a die-hard Mac cult member [wikipedia.org], said that I was being far too negative for the sake of being negative, and that nothing Apple will ever do will make me happy. I find this funny, considering it’s the same argument parroted by all the Apple cultists who heard that some users (even those with more than one iPod) found the new releases yawn-inducing.

Not only was I troubled with the moniker “Classic” added to my favorite version of the iPod, but seeing no improvements - and worse, a step back in styling and interface quality - made me decide not to even consider purchasing it once the price dropped. What was Apple thinking when they made that new interface for the iPod? That thing’s hideous. Why not give the users something worthwhile like a line-in recording option, or a microphone, or an FM radio? An Apple cult member, between sips of grape juice, told me that I Steve Jobs said the end-users didn’t need all those things (despite offering them as add-ons), that the product would be too big (despite the Creative Zen Nano being smaller and offering those features), and that the price would be too high (despite the iPod being one of the more expensive units out there). I actually feel that, if my iPod were to ever fail, I would actually buy a used white one from eBay (why did they kill my favorite color?) instead of buying one of the new metal ones.

Enough complaining, though: today we went to the Detroit Zoo. It was the Beaumont day, where employees of the hospitals and their family were all given tickets to enter for free (parking wasn’t). It was as packed as ever. Still, we got to see a lot of the zoo, and were surprised to find many of the animals awake and out of their various dens, which is a rare sight at the Detroit Zoo. I snapped a few pictures, this time making sure people were in them to quell the various negative voices claiming I was a soulless, anti-social creature of the night, so you’ll be able to not only see animals, but the people pointing and looking at them, too.

One note of interest: I was planning on posting a picture of the exterior of a butterfly exhibit, but as I was framing my shot, I overheard a conversation between a woman and a man behind me that caused me to move away from the area before I got my camera properly calibrated for the lighting. The woman said to the man (as I was framing my shot) something like “Man does the zoo ever bring these kinds of people out. They’re not too much of a problem, until…” (here I stopped walking to position myself) “until they stop just like that. Boy, they’re annoying - almost as annoying as those cell phone users. Always stopping and blocking the way.” I left as soon as I could, because I wasn’t sure if the woman, if I turned to look back at her, would cause me to turn to stone from what I am sure was a hideous visage. If I remember correctly, I’m sure I heard snakes hissing, and I can only assume it was from what I originally assumed was her hair.

Anyway, here are the pictures I felt were worthy of posting.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Life, Technology News, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.