Guinness — the beer/ale/whatever company — has the single worst public relations department I’ve ever come across. It’s so bad it’s funny. It’s so funny it comes out the other side.

Here’s the story. I called Guinness to ask a media-relations person some questions for a story I’m doing. But the receptionist refused to put me through to anyone unless I had a name.

“I’m a reporter from a daily newspaper,” I said. “Are you telling me you don’t have anyone who will speak with me?”

Nope, she said. Not without a name. (Huh?)

So, following her suggestion, I contacted Guinness through its Web site, asking someone to get in touch with me.

I received the following reply: 

Dear   Andrew Kantor,

Thank you for taking time to contact Guinness. We appreciate hearing from our consumers, whether comments are complimentary or critical, because your feedback is important.

Please note that as a company policy we do not provide the name or the contact information to our Media Relations Department. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Once again, thank you for contacting Guinness.

Sincerely,

Emilio Vivanco
Guinness Consumer Representative

Cheers!

Drinking Responsibly is Brilliant!!

Check out www.thebar.com for fabulous drink recipes, party ideas and more

I responded with this: 

Um, doesn’t this strike you as a rather odd (if not downright foolish) policy?

How is a member of the media supposed to get the name of someone in the media relations department in the first place? Most companies don’t treat the names of their PR people as corporate secrets!

Honestly, you need to consider the “relations” part of “media relations.”

If you get certain words wrong, especially, say, when tagging photographs, you might find your pictures showing up in the wrong places.

Click to enlarge and see which of these images doesn’t belong:

AP story today about a proposed “forever stamp” from the Post Office — pay today’s First Class rate, but the stamps are good for First Class postage forever.

Of course, I liked the story more when I wrote about it more than a year ago. :)

 I was looking to see if there was some sort of organization representing Irish pubs (for a story I’m working on). So I Googled “irish pub association” and look what came up at the top:

Current movies, on demand and free, from Movinflicks.com. Countdown to lawsuit: 3… 2… 1…

My USA Today column this week is on Julie Amero, who I wrote about before. The column goes into more detail, though.

Which of these scenarios makes more sense to you?

Scenario A: In the middle of class, a substitute teacher decided to surf for thumbnail-size porn images (an analysis of the hard drive showed that’s all that ever appeared on the screen — tiny pictures).

Scenario B: A classroom computer running Windows 98 with outdated anti-virus software, no Internet filter, and no anti-spyware software began displaying popups after some kids visited the wrong site.

Assistant State’s Attorney David Smith believed Scenario A, despite the ease of verifying Scenario B by checking the computer for adware and Trojans.

And check out the even more detailed report at the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. (PDF)

FYI: Here’s Julie and her husband. Look at her — an obvious porn addict and felon if ever I saw one.

Yer Roanoke Times headline of the day:

Police shoot dead man wanted in 18 killings

My wife has been playing Scrabble on her computer a lot lately, and she convinced me to play as well. It’s got something like seven or eight levels of difficulty, from “Moron” to “Channeling Noah Webster” or whatever it’s called.

It was easy to beat the computer at the lower levels, but — seeing as I’m not the brightest light in the night sky — the middle levels actually provided a challenge.

Just for fun, I tried beating the machine at the “Genius” level. I was getting creamed (it was playing words like “xyzprq”) when my eyes drifted to the built-in dictionary. I could type in whatever I wanted to before playing the tiles.

No, no, I thought, that would be cheating. If I was gonna win, I was gonna win fair and square.

But then it hit me: The computer was cheating. By definition.

The computer has access to the entire Scrabble dictionary. It can never forget a word, and it can never play a word that doesn’t exist. Like most humans my vocabulary was limited, but the computer was under no such restraint.

I had to guess. Computers don’t guess. They know.

So I hit the dictionary with abandon, trying to at least even the playing field against an opponent with a photographic memory who had just finished reading the dictionary.

I lost, of course, but I know the PC can take no satisfaction. It cheated.

So warns the International Atomic Energy Agency.

(With thanks to Suzanne W. for parsing the message.)

Yeah, your Swiss Army brand Swiss army knife might have a zillion blades and screwdrivers and corkscrews and such, but it’s got nothing on the Gerber Multi-Plier 600 Pro Scout DET.

 Why, you ask? Because in addition to the standard pliers, wire cutter, can opener, and the like, the Pro Scout DET also includes a blasting cap crimper and C4 punch.

And who among us hasn’t said at least once, “Dammit, base! I can’t stop the explosion without a #@$%& C4 punch!”

I would like one, please. 

(Via Gizmodo)

Julie Amero was convicted in Connecticut of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child. She faces 40 years in prison.

Why? Because the school put the computer-illiterate substitute teacher in a classroom with a computer running Windows 98, with a non-working firewall, non-working anti-virus software, and no anti-adware filter.

The kids in the class visited what they thought was a hairstyle site, but was in fact a gateway to porn that installed a Trojan and a ton of adware. Popups started appearing, and the kids were — horror of horrors — exposed to naked people until a panicked Amero could get help.

Read the whole story here. It gets me too angry to go into details right now.

But I have to share this part:

One juror spoke to Steve Bass of PC World. Among other things he said

If a 40 year old school teacher does not have the sense to turn off or is not smart enough to figure it out, would you or any other person wanting her teaching your child or grandchild?”

For a fraction of a second, the juror — his name is Fred F., and he’s from Groton, Conn. — makes sense.

But only that long.

Because Fred and the other five jurors didn’t just vote to have Amero fired or censured. They voted to destroy her life. They convicted her of a felony, and now she faces 40 years in prison.

So, Fred F. of Groton, you’re telling us that you think the penalty for being a computer-illiterate substitute teacher – one given a pathetically unprotected computer by a school district that didn’t seem to care enough to bother getting free software for their classroom computer — is 40 years in prison?

That’s pathetic. It’s immoral. Fred should be ashamed for thinking that way, and the school district should be ashamed for not taking even the most basic precautions on its kids’ computers.

…but eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

So get this: I know someone who’s dating a guy who’s a member of the Phi Mu Alpha fraternity — “music geeks,” she calls them. The group’s Web site says…

The Object of this Fraternity shall be for the development of the best and truest fraternal spirit; the mutual welfare and brotherhood of musical students; the advancement of music in America and a loyalty to the Alma Mater.

My friend writes to tell me that her great-grandmother died. She’s in Pennsylvania; the funeral will be in New York. Her car is on the fritz. She asks her boyfriend to drive her.

He refuses. His excuse? “I have fraternity things to do. Not going is just letting down you. Going is letting down all of my brothers.”

Maybe it’s me, but these aren’t the kind of values I’d want my son getting out of any organization.

All right, perhaps “nightmare” is too strong a word. For the most part, Windows Vista has been working just fine for me. But the other day I ran into one of the oddest problems I’ve ever had with a modern operating system.

I’ve run into odd problems before, and gone hunting online for some obscure fix, but that was always after doing something odd — after tweaking the wrong thing, or otherwise messing around the way a typical user would not.

In this case, though, I did nothing of the sort. Instead, I ran into an odd “feature” of Vista’s that caused me quite a headache.

I was playing around with a few different pieces of backup software, including Karen’s Replicator and Microsoft’s own SyncBack.

I was trying to backup my Vista user’s directory (C:\users\AK) to a second hard drive. I kept getting an odd error about a path being too long.

When I examined the log, I found that both pieces of software (as well as some others I tried) were trying to back up a folder with a path: C:\users\AK\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\ … and so on, ad infinitum.

Huh?

I Googled the phrase “Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\” and found the answer. At first I thought it was a problem with either my antivirus software or my anti-spyware software. It was neither.

It was a problem with Vista.

Previous version of Windows used a folder to store various settings for applications: C:\Users\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data. But Vista uses C:\users\<user>\AppData.

To make sure old programs can find the new folder, Microsoft added “junctions” — these are hidden files that redirect programs that try to access the old “Application Data” path; the junction sends the program to “AppData.”

But somehow I had run into an infinite loop. The backup packages were trying to back up the Application Data folder, and where redirected to the AppData folder. But somehow, in the AppData folder, there was some reference to Application Data.

So the software looped and looped forever.

Good going there, Microsoft.

I searched for a solution and found that there were a handful of obscure (and thankfully, free) programs for dealing with junctions. I tried two; one didn’t work, but I was able to get the second one to fix the problem, although I was warned that only an expert should even look at that kind of software because I was screwing with things I shouldn’t screw with.

I screwed, and everything worked.

Almost. I looked at my backup drive. The folder structure there was C:\Users\AK\Local Settings \Application Data \Application Data \Application Data \Application Data… and so on, many, many levels deep.

So deep, in fact, that I couldn’t get to the bottom! Instead, realizing that this was just a backup drive, I formatted it and re-ran the backup software. No problems.

I’m used to dealing with my computer like a car geek might deal with a ‘69 Camaro; I tinker and I suffer the consequences. But in this case I tinkered not, but I ran into the kind of problem that I doubt anyone who didn’t have a lot of experience could get out of.

In today’s Editor & Publisher there’s a story entitled, “Young Woman Meets Tragic End — No, It’s Not Anna Nicole.” Its point: The breathless media coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death means stories like the one below are shamefully overshadowed.

From the AP:

 A 2004 graduate of Fallston High School wh o followed her older brother to the Marines was killed during fighting in Iraq, the Department of Defense said Thursday.

Cpl. Jennifer Parcell, 20, of Bel Air, Md. (reading a citation in the photo below) died Wednesday “while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province,” a Department of Defense news release said.

“If you knew her, you loved her. She was a go-getter. She knew what she wanted in life and she was doing what she had to do to achieve that,” Parcell’s aunt Martha Benton of Aberdeen said.

Parcell joined the Marine Corps in January 2005. Benton said she’d wanted to enlist since attending her brother Joseph’s graduation at Parris Island. The 24-year-old enlisted in February 2003 and he is returning from his tour to be with family.

The brother and sister were stationed together in Iraq for about a month before their tours of duty separated them, Benton said.

Math was her forte at Fallston High School in 2004, Benton said. She said Parcell always enjoyed the water, including boating and scuba diving.

She also liked yoga and music and spending time with family and friends.
Parcell was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, Japan. She had earned six medals and Benton said Marine Corps officials told the family Parcell may be eligible for a Purple Heart.

“We’re just going to miss her very, very much,” Benton said. “She was always someone you could count on.”

The family was notified of her death Wednesday afternoon.

Also Thursday, the family of a 21-year-old Navy paramedic from the Eastern Shore said he was killed when a Marine helicopter crashed in Iraq Wednesday.

Manuel Ruiz, of Federalsburg, was two weeks into his second tour of duty when the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter he was riding in crashed, killing six other persons onboard.

-30-

There’s no point to my putting this up other than to help ensure that anyone searching for “Jennifer Parcell” has a better chance of finding her. RIP, corporal.

There is a little boy named Shane Bernier who has been diagnosed with cancer (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia). He was doing all right for a while, but had a relapse this past summer. So he is at CHEO (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario) and his big wish? To get as many birthday cards as possible for his birthday.

He will be turning 8 on May 30, and he really wants to try to make a record for as many cards as he can. Even if he doesn’t make the record, apparently he just gets absolutely thrilled with seeing his name on each card.

You can also send them to the local TV station, CJOH; Local radio station, KISS FM; or right to Shane’s house:

Shane Bernier
Box 484
Lancaster, Ontario K0C 1N0

The funny thing: It’s real.

(Does every city have a KISS FM?)

This is “BREAKING NEWS”?

It used to be that if you saw the “Breaking News” banner, it meant that something significant was happening — there was a wolf in the sheep’s pen, as it were.

CNN has been using phrases like “Breaking News” and “Developing Story” and other such things to amp up the excitement, I guess. But all it does is dilute the value.

What will happen when a major story breaks? Maybe “IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, READ THIS STORY.”

Here’s a current view of downtown Kansas City. An explosion in a chemical plant in The Bottoms has traffic stopped and police wearing gas masks. I Googled “kansas city webcams” and found this. Pretty scary.

This will be an episode of ”Seconds from Disaster“ soon enough, I suspect.

Here’s your craigslist ad of the day:

free advice

Reply to: sale-264939472@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-01-19, 12:43AM EST
i am a multitalented individual with a lot of compassion, and i like to help if i can
whether it’s a business issue, a personal problem, a legal concern, whatever…..i may be able to point you in the right direction, so feel free to contact me
i am not seeking compensation or any other form of consideration
sincerely
david

- Location: roanoke

- it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posting ID: 264939472

(Calvin and Hobbes fans may or may not get the title.)