10 thoughts for December 3, 2013

It's official: I'm a lazy bum who prefers to jot down these 10 daily thoughts than write long form.

1. Goodbye Groupon.  You're the only service that won't give my money back, no questions asked.  I'm sticking with Amazon Local and Google Offers.  It wasn't that you used copy-and-paste text to respond to my email...no wait, actually that was offensive.  And then to follow that email with a response with more copy-and-paste?  Uh.  You lost me, people.  That was some of the worst customer service, ever.
2. That's not to say that Google Offers is an ideal replacement, but with Amazon Local, I've got both bases covered.  Actually, Google refunded me for an offer I bought and used, out of the blue, a couple of years after the fact.  Google is in good graces; Groupon is on the poopy list, and I might drop them completely and shut down my account soon.
3. Speaking of Google, Andy Rubin, father of Android and formerly head of Android team, had left Android to work on special projects within Google, earlier this year.  At the time, people (Apple and Microsoft fanbois, I presume) were spreading rumors about why he left.  Well, it turns out he's interested in robots and Google has been on a buying binge to assemble the knowledge power and capabilities to bring about a revolution in robotics.
4. Ugh.  Don't watch Monday's Nightline.  Okay, go watch it.  It's a crazy story of a woman who tried to initially cover up her sister's actions, but be prepared to see a woman who once resembled Jabba the Hutt, but ended up losing 800 pounds -- yes, you read that right -- and is no longer morbidly obese (she's still quite a bit overweight, though).
5. Oh my...Seattle Seahawks completely demolished New Orleans Saints on MNF, became the first team to qualify for the playoffs and took back the Guinness World Record for loudest crowd noise with 137.6 decibels.  In power rankings, there's no doubt that they're #1.  Which of course makes their visit to SF a huge game this coming Sunday.  But here's the secret to Seattle's surge: A healthy offensive line with all of its starters back.
6. Seattle is so good, their backups are as good or better than some other teams' starters.  The team that everyone wants to play on?  Seattle.  The team whose waived players were picked up the most by other teams?  Seattle.  Damn, Pete Carroll is accomplishing at Seattle what he did at USC.
7. With Steve Sarkisian's hiring, an interesting thing happened: Former players were thrilled and singing the praise of Sark while current players were in mourning that they lost a father, Ed Orgeron.  I think that Pat Haden was trying to set up the USC football program for long-term success far beyond the next season or two.  Ed deserves a head coaching job to be sure, but I think Sark's a worthy successor.  Sometimes people forget that Sark was a very good quarterback at BYU, and an excellent quarterback coach at USC.  The quarterbacks at USC have got to be excited that Sark will be coaching them.
8. The Chinese initially contributed just $100K to humanitarian efforts in the Philippines, and a month later has created -- yet another -- unilateral declaration of its rights to air space over the South China Sea, a dispute with the Philippines.  That's rather odious.
9. A look at my Pinterest home screen and it looks like those folks got the message: They've removed pins from strangers, just because their pins appear to be related to content that I'm interested in.  That was a self-defeating move in the first place, to place the pins of strangers alongside those of people I followed.
10. I track prices of stuff I want, so Cyber Monday and Black Friday have no practical meaning; they are a distraction actually, because there is a lot of crap you have to wade through to find the handful of deals.  Looks like some other folks are only now just discovering what I've previously mentioned about these "sales".