the daily dub » by the way http://blog.ryandubois.net your daily dose of dubulosity Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:33:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Customer Service http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/10/customer-service/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/10/customer-service/#comments Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:02:03 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=859 I recently tried to purchase mp3s from Amazon’s online store. Why you ask, given that I work at Apple, home of the wildly populare iTunes store?  Because Amazon doesn’t have DRM. End of story.

Anyway, I had a problem with my billing address (given that I’m moving, and it appears some of my accounts’ addresses have changed, and some haven’t).  I tried ordering about 3 times before it finally got through.

Today, I got this in my inbox:

Hello from Amazon.com.

We’re sorry for the delay you experienced earlier today when trying to purchase digital content. We have good news – you should now be able to complete your digital order. As an apology, we have added a $5.00 gift certificate to your Amazon.com account. This gift certificate will be automatically applied to your next purchase of any item sold by Amazon.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this delay.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
http://www.amazon.com

Now that’s customer service.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/10/customer-service/feed/ 0 Indy: Day 3 http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-3/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-3/#comments Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:31:23 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=814 Word’s in we wont have the trophy girls until 1. Good thing we rushed to get here by 10am, since we have nothing to shoot! Apparently, their shirts had a logo issue – some one nit picked the logo and had new shirts made.

That leaves me plenty of time to work on day-job stuff.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-3/feed/ 0 Indy: Day 2 (recap) http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2-recap/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2-recap/#comments Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:49:04 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=805 We shot 445 photos, got 437 successful barcodes scans. Of that 437, 436 matched with my software – that’s a 99.77% success rate, which I think is pretty damn good. Even if you factor in the images we didn’t scan (including the half that were test shots), that’s still 98.2% success rate.

Not bad for 3 hours’ work. Did I mention I also performed my duties at my day job at the same time? Yea, I rock like that.

Here’s the production shots from the day (not the podium shots):

Looking forward, tomorrow should be fun. The forecast calls for rain – all … fucking … day … And I didn’t bring a poncho or rain coat. All I have is a zip sweater thing from North Face – while it’ll keep me warm, it definitely wont keep me dry.

Tomorrow should be fun.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2-recap/feed/ 0 Indy: Day 2 http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:52:12 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=795 I’m up at what would be 4:30am California time, and groggy as hell. My eyes hurt, and I’m tired – there’s no denying that.

This morning will be spent debugging the print job, figuring out what’s up with the barcodes (yay font substitution and rasterization).

After that, it’s off to the races where I can finally sit down and get some real-world work done.

BTW: Westin Hotels are lame – when you buy wireless (yes, after you spend $200 a night on a room, they make you buy your fucking wireless), you buy it for one machine, not your whole room. So I had to jury rig my machine to share the wireless over ethernet to Derek’s machine (yea, we’re sharing a room – another awesome thing).

Overall, the experience this time has been less than impressive so far.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-day-2/feed/ 0 Indy: Day 1 http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-part-1/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-part-1/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:42:12 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=792 The landing here was not so feathery. We’ve spent every minute from 5:15pm to 10:30pm thinking about plan B (and C and D) for if tomorrow morning doesn’t go as we hope.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/indy-part-1/feed/ 0 New cancer research http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/new-cancer-research/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/new-cancer-research/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:50:06 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=778 They discovered the structure of the prime enzyme responsible for cell life and death (or irresponsible, in the case of cancerous cells), and they did it the same way they discovered the structure of DNA – Xray crystalography.  

Read More

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/new-cancer-research/feed/ 0 Burning Man http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/burning-man-2/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/burning-man-2/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:12:10 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=774 Well, I missed it this year.  But I just got this touching tribute from my friends:

Quote: “and burning man wasn’t the same without el terriblé. and you wasted a lot of our beer, asshole. with the first couple of PBRs that were cracked open we poured some out for you.”

i <3 my friends…

Rock on!

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/09/burning-man-2/feed/ 0 Mixdown http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/mixdown/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/mixdown/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:48:49 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=721 I’m finally, yes finally mixing down the June 28th show.

Yea, it has taken me a god damn long time to get to it.  Actually, it was basically mixed already, I just never got around to sound checking and mixing it down to mp3s.

A couple quick first impressions:

  • Noodling between songs is no bueno – we need to cut that shit out.
  • Also, our set needs to flow more (which leads to a shorter overall time)
  • Following that, we need more song, preferably more originals.
  • Given more originals, and a slightly more professional appearance (see point 1), I’d be 100% down to do a coffee shop tour of San Francisco, Sunnyvale, California, and/or across the states.
  • And also: we handled a broken string in the middle of a song, twice! and we handled it well.  Rock on.
  • A sparkly, clean mix (such as I got by using an 8 channel audio interface) necessitates a clean performance (which we didn’t exactly have) since you can way more easily hear all the mistakes… Next time, we’ll have a lot more rehearsals.

Anyway, expect mp3s of the show by tomorrow.

Cheers!

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/mixdown/feed/ 0 Back to the grind http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/back-to-the-grind/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/back-to-the-grind/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:22:28 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/?p=689 I’m back in town again, and back at work.  Only 7 work days off, and I have 1600 emails to go through – and three meetings on the day of my return.

Welcome Home?

All day wasted to meetings and email. Although not all the meetings were a waste.

]]> http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/back-to-the-grind/feed/ 0 Jet lag http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/jet-lag-2/ http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/jet-lag-2/#comments Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:10:27 +0000 rdub http://blog.ryandubois.net/2008/08/jet-lag-2/ The best way to deal with jetlag, I think, is to take two benedryll at 8pm local time, and force sleep til 11 am the next day.

I’m here in Arkansas, getting the royal treatment from Athena’s parents. We’ve spent all morning trying on costumes for their hippy party this coming Friday. What a way to start vacation. :-)

I think I’ll spend the day on the lake today.

Cheers!!
————————–
Sent via a series of disturbances in the force…

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