GlossyVeneer

I don’t feel like I live in a neighborhood that is particularly ghetto or trashy, but some of the people around my ‘hood are rather odd. They make the environment less-than-desirable, which frustrates me because the few people I’ve met are pretty friendly and normal, while everyone else just keeps to themselves. But these few standouts bring down the quality of life, just a couple of notches…

1. Shirtless, Cigar Man
It doesn’t matter when I go to the mailbox, he always seems to show up at the same time. This guy is in his 60′s or 70′s, never wears a shirt, is typically wearing too-short shorts and flip-flops and smoking a big fat cigar. I hate walking near him…. he stinks and he is fouling up my air with his cloud of smoke. And he usually stands at the mailbox, sorting through his mail, one piece at a time, forcing me to either hover 20 feet away in an obvious statement that I don’t want to be near him or walk into his haze and stoop around him to get at my box.

2. Show Some Respect Family
Sometimes I get really cold and need to go sit in my 100+ degree backyard to warm up. I’ll usually take a magazine or a book and sit on the lounge chairs on my patio. From time to time, some guy (who lives a couple streets over) will start screaming at his teenage son. LOUDLY. So loud I can hear everything he’s saying crystal clear. And it’s usually along the lines of how the son needs to “show some motherf***in’ respect” to those around him and not be such a “f***in’ little prick”. The thing that always appalls me is I have never once heard the son (maybe he yells, but not that loud) and the lecture lacks credibility because the father isn’t showing any respect for the people in the neighborhood when he screams like that outside.

3. Samson
There’s a little kid that lives near us and he’s a little demon. For being just 4-years-old or something, that kid has one of the foulest mouths. He flips random people off as they walk or drive by. He drinks his juice boxes and throws them flippantly in people’s yards, sometimes looking people in the eye as he does so. His parents are not much better, so he really didn’t have a chance to grow into a decent human. The reason we call him Samson is he has long flowing hair and we figure that if his locks were cut, his evil powers would cease.

There are more weirdos around, but these are some of the worst. It really freaks me out because I’ve never lived in a neighborhood where the neighbors take their arguments and dirty habits outside of the home so frequently and publicly. I wish they’d all been out when the Realtor had shown us the house, it might have persuaded me to think again about being so happy about this home.

CAPTCHA:

• Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
• A challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer

I can appreciate the logic behind CAPTCHA on forms. I’ve even seen the benefits. There have been times when bots have spammed the forms on my work site, resulting in thousands of e-mails in my inbox over the span of just 60 minutes. To be blunt, it sucked.

But these things are getting out of hand. Sometimes Blogger gives me such long phrases to type it is almost longer than the comment I’m leaving on someone’s site. There are the sites that have implemented an overlay of the CAPTCHA letters on top of a background, thus making it virtually impossible to read. After getting told I’ve typed in the wrong characters multiple times, I’m often tempted to just leave the site behind. As for the accessibility of this function, it’s not great. Blind users are often left out unless the site developer chooses to implement an audio recording of the CAPTCHA display.

I’m just saying… I’m getting frustrated with some of these things. There needs to be a better way.

Addendum 08/27/08: Just one day after I post this, I tried visiting a website to request an estimate from a home painting contractor. They had a CAPTCHA on their site that didn’t work. No matter what I typed in, the form wouldn’t submit. I think someone just lost my business due to this technology!