Mike Leotta / Blog» wtf

The most annoying thing ever

Mike — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:42:43 +0000

This is probably the most annoying thing that I have to deal with at work:

Someone: URGENT! OMG we need [some project] built ASAP! There’s no time to spare! Puppies will die if we don’t act quickly! The apocalypse is imminent!!

Me: Okay. Here is [some project]. Please send me your feedback.

wait 3-5 days…

Someone: Can you change X, Y and Z? Also, we decided to completely change everything. Can you make these changes ASAP?? Puppies will die!!!!

Me:

If you’re reading this in Google Reader, you just earned 1 ReaderAdvantage point

Mike — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:17:17 +0000

The secret is out. The “Mike L.” featured on Google Reader’s ReaderAdvantage™ Program landing page is actually Mike Leotta. As in the MikeLeotta.com Mike Leotta. As in me.

Why is my testimonial featured on this page? And what am I doing squatting in shallow water with ducks? I’m afraid I can’t offer an explanation for the latter but I can for the former: because it was my idea. Well, I actually had proposed the idea for Gmail, but they ended up going in a different direction (which I also had to help out with). So the Reader folks snagged it and modified it slightly.

I’m also responsible for a large portion of the stupid “fine print” at the bottom, which I wrote up very very late at night when I obviously think about Sasquatch more than usual.

Props to the Google Reader team for turning my stupid idea into something fun!

Oh, and don’t forget about that disclaimer link that’s always on the bottom of this site.

Hey, you remind me of you

Mike — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:06:41 +0000

Have you ever seen someone and thought to yourself “that person reminds me of someone”, only to eventually realize that the person they remind you of is actually them?

I do this way too often.

Dealing with phone spammers

Mike — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:45:49 +0000

There’s been an epidemic, here in California at least, of phone spammers calling random numbers and playing a recording message claiming that “your car’s warranty has expired.” The recording then asks you to press 1 if you’d like to be connected to a representative, who will then try to sell you an outrageously priced extended car warranty.

A few months back I was receiving a spammy call every day on my cell phone. The calls finally stopped, but yesterday I received a call on my work phone line for the first time. This was the last straw for me. I decided to actually press 1 this time to speak with someone and have a little fun. Here’s how the conversation went.

Rep: Hello. This is [some fake name]. Would you … [some lame sales pitch].

Me: Uhh…I didn’t even realize that my warranty had expired.

Rep: Well if you could tell me your car model, year, and VIN number I can check for you.

Me: Umm…I’d have to go outside and check. My car is across the street. Can you wait a few minutes?

Rep: Sure, I can hold.

Me: Thanks, I’ll be right back.

At this point I set the phone down on my desk and did a quick search for some crappy hip hop music on YouTube. As expected, YouTube provided me with an endless supply of crappy hip hop results. I chose one and put one of my headphone speakers up to the phone and turned the volume up full blast. I let this go on for at least five minutes, assuming that the guy probably hung up after the first 30 seconds. At this point I was done amusing myself, so I picked the phone up off my desk to see if he was still there.

Me: Hello? Are you still there?

Rep: Yes, Sir. I’m still here.

Me: Okay good. I realized when I got outside that I actually don’t own a car. I have a bicycle though.

Rep: [click]

I really hope they call again today. I have a few other things I want to try.

Crotch bulge sold separately

Mike — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:03:22 +0000

Saw this ad on Facebook today.

Just one question Bonobos: is the crotch bulge included with the trousers? Or do I have to provide my own?

And to answer your question…yes, I am getting a little tired of jeans.

Just how hard do I rock out?

Mike — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:06:52 +0000

This hard…

During a rather energetic rock out session today on my electronic drum set, I managed to snap the metal on my crash cymbal stand. Granted, I’m sure it’s not made of the highest grade aluminum, but still, I impressed myself.

Here’s the other end of the stand sticking out of the cymbal.

Tommy Lee would be impressed…maybe.

My mom has a Wii…

Mike — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:51:52 +0000

My mom got a Nintendo Wii for her birthday. She also got a stereo with a dock for the iPod touch she’s getting in a few weeks.

This is the same mom that calls me several times a month with questions about “Foxfire”.

My dad explained to me how to play Wii Fit.

I don’t have a Wii. I’ve never even seen anyone play Wii Fit, let alone play it myself. I also don’t have an iPod touch or an iPhone.

What’s going on??? Am I losing touch???

If my parents starts Twittering then I know the universe is imploding.

Grizzly Adams did have a beard…

Mike — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:02:35 +0000

Perhaps I got a little carried away with the ruggedness of Colorado. Or perhaps I just simply forgot to shave for a week. But either way I have a poor excuse for a beard going, with no intention of stopping anytime soon.

*Creepy picture alert*

I’ll have a post on this year’s Colorado trip very soon. But to answer the obvious question, no I didn’t see the Wysz while I was there

Scary moment.

Mike — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:43:53 +0000

At approximately 10:15pm PDT I attempted to publish a blog post. At the same time, Bluehost decided to run some administrative work on my server (and attempt to login to my Bluehost account verified this). The overlapping of these two events yielded a short moment of minor panic.

As you would expect, the post wasn’t published. But that was the least of my concerns. Upon attempting to load my blog, I was greeted with this:

That’s never a good sign.

No blog posts. Not a single one. They didn’t even show up when I logged into my WordPress account management.

I stare at the screen for about three minutes or so. When was the last time I backed up my WordPress database? Have I ever backed up my WordPress database?? All of those extremely insightful mikeleotta.com blog posts could be gone forever. An internet tragedy!

Maybe I can still save my internet legacy. I log into phpMyAdmin to check out my database. This is what I see:

Nope, not a good sign either. phpMyAdmin thinks my wp_posts table is “in use.” It’s not in use. I wish it was in use. Something is corrupted. Luckily Bluehost MySQL DB management has a “repair database” option. Worth a shot…

Success! Now all five of you can continue to reference my previous blog posts. Scary, you almost lost that privilege. I think I’ll back up my database right now.

Right after I publish this blog post…what could possibly go wrong?

Don’t not uncheck this box if you don’t want to not receive nothing

Mike — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:11:10 +0000

Here’s a major online shopping wtf moment…

So I made an online purchase tonight at a health supplement store. Their online shopping is operated by Yahoo. I’ve ordered from them before and never had any strange issues. Plus, the shopping cart is run by Yahoo! They know what they’re doing, right?

Hrrmmm, tricky wording, but I’m smart enough to figure out the double negative trickery at play here. So I uncheck this box. Submit.

Ummmmmmmm…what was that now??? Just how does one “check Uncheck” a box? Is there a separate box I have to check that will uncheck the previous box? Maybe some tag-team checking. Is this some sort of brain teaser worked into my order form?

Turns out the only way I can submit my order is to keep the box checked. That means I’ll be receiving some exciting offers in my email very soon! Great. I can’t wait. If the intention was to trick people into receiving spam, congratulations, you succeeded.

I’m not sure who’s at fault here, but I think I’ll just blame Yahoo.

Update:

Sent them an email describing the idiocy. Apparently they fixed it now.

Thank you for informing us. This problem has now been fixed. We have
removed your email address from our bi-weekly email subscriber list.

Regards,
Customer Service