/dev/null/kevin

McDonald's will sell you a gift card, but they won't always allow you to redeem it, which really is the most important part of the gift card (with apologies to Seinfeld). 

We received a McDonald's Arch Card for Christmas and my daughter was eager to use it.  We went to the McDonald's in the Stanford Shopping Center (more on why that's important later).  We ordered our food and my daughter wanted to pay with the card -- but she was denied!  They wouldn't take the card because they didn't have the proper equipment to read the card!  Say what?  Surely they meant the equipment was broken or the network was down.  Nope, they just didn't have it.

"You can only use these cards at participating stores."

Participating stores?  Why isn't this store participating?  Answer: the owner just hasn't bothered.  IMHO, that is just inexcusable.

I mentioned that we were in the Stanford Shopping Center.  If you are not familiar with Silicon Valley geography, Stanford Shopping Center is located in Palo Alto, California, right next to Stanford University (as you might have guessed from the name).  According to their own web page, they are "San Francisco Bay Area's premier shopping and dining experience" and they are not exaggerating.  Stanford is full of top end stores and is the mall for Palo Alto, Atherton, Woodside, and Portola Valley.  It's in these towns where you'll find the mansions of most Silicon Valley CEOs, dot-com millionaires and top sports athletes.  Basically, they are the Beverly Hills, Malibu and Hamptons of the Bay Area.

Thus, at this mall for the uber-rich, the McDonald's that charges 20% more for food can't find the time or money to install a fraking gift card reader.  That is lame.  Oh, and this card reader also seems to be the same reader that allows people to pay with credit and debit cards, too.

Technology!  You should look into it!

So remember, if you want to pay for your food at the Luddite Stanford Shopping Center McDonald's, they accept cash, gold coins, glass beads and post-dated stock options.  But no gift cards.

Merry Christmas to all my readers (even the Zeppelin fans).  If you don't celebrate Christmas then Happy PersonalCelebrationEvent to you as well!  Sun goes on break starting next week, plus I'll be extending it a few days.  See you in 2008!

Here's a preview of some of my upcoming posts guaranteed to make more friends!¹

• Mother Theresa: In it for herself all along?
  
• Ghandi: The secret fight club
• The Beatles: Two down, two to go
• George Washington: The FRIST! president
• Jar Jar Binks: Why he should be inserted into Episode IV
• The DMCA: It's just not enough
  

¹ Friends: people who post comments wishing for my painful death.

It's that time of year again when everyone makes Top 10 lists for the year.  I've gone the extra step and distilled them all down to this: 

Top 10 Cliché Words Found in Cliché Year End Top 10 Lists

1. Best
2. Worst
3. Most
4. Least
5. Favorite
6. Disappointing
7. Stories
8. Reasons
   
9. Quotes
   
10. iPhone
    

Since I complain about a lot of things I figured I should give credit to some good customer support from the Warner Brothers movie studio. 

I bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD last week.  I noted that it included a free digital download of the movie.  Yes, it requires windows and WMP, but free is free (or at least I already paid for it).  I entered by key and watched the download start, but just a few minutes in the downloading software hung.

Experienced people can see where this story is going.  On my second attempt to download the software I was told that my access key had already been used.  D'oh!  Worst fears realized.

Checking the support site they said I could call them during regular business hours (I was doing this on a Sunday).  There was also an email submission form for problems.  I sent the email, expecting to hear nothing, but only a few minutes later I received what I thought was just an auto-responder message.  Turns out it was a real response and they had reset my key!

Take 3 of the download worked perfectly.  All of this on a Sunday afternoon!  So congratulations, Warner Brothers DVD people on an excellent job!

Since I am the source of all things Led Zeppelin, and because all Zeppelin fans love me, I feel it's my duty to inform you all that Led Zeppelin has finally taken the stage.

[photo from Getty Images]

The took the stage at 9pm London time at the O2 Arena.  Here is the song list as reported by the Billboard blog:

Ironically, this list isn't too different my my joke list.  They were supposed to perform in November but Jimmy Page broke his hip finger.

Christmas is coming (yes, you heard that here first).  So, I present¹ you with Kevin's Christmas Survival Pack For Parents.  It's not enough to have bought all the gifts, food and decorated the house, you need to be prepared for after the gifts are opened.

Here's a list of things that every parent needs on Christmas morning (not including alcohol):

• Quality Scissors - For cutting open those sealed plastic boxes.


• Band-Aids - For when you cut yourself on the opened sealed plastic boxes.


• Wire Cutters and Pliers - For those toys tied down with 75 feet of 20 gauge wire.


• Small Phillips screw diver - For those little battery compartments.  Apparently, the batteries try to escape.


• Magnet, Flashlight and Magnifying glass - For when you lose those little screws.


• Glue Gun, Zip Ties and Tape - To repair all those little accidents.  You can also keep toddlers in one place for a little while.


• Lots of Batteries - Y'know, cuz they're not included.


• Stud Finder - Lots of junk goes on the walls so make sure it doesn't fall.  My stud finder always points towards me.

¹ See what I did there?  Another Christmas pun, free of charge.  You're welcome!

What do I do when I'm not blogging?  Working on this:

xVM stands for The Intersection of Virtualization and Management, if you were wondering.  You'd think it would be written V ∩ M, but no.  It's xVM.  Don't argue!   You obviously don't have an advanced marketing degree with emphasis on set theory.  Also, "x" is still cool, and retro.  "x" is the new "i".

What doesn't a guy wandering alone in a canyon have to do with xVM?  Got me.  But before he's washed away by flash flood waters he can remotely manage his entire data center with just a few clicks!  It's also so easy to use that his replacement will have no trouble learning how to use it.

Anyway, I work on the management side of things, so you know whom to blame congratulate later.