Office Copiers

There is nothing I hate more in my office than our copier. This big clunky monstrosity never fails to leave me pulling my hair out, yelling obscenities or on my knees praying to the copier gods that I can print out my stack of interesting documents for the big meeting.

When did copiers get so fucking complicated? It seems like it should be soo easy. You put the paper you want to copy on the glass, push how many copies you want, and push start. But its not. Our office has one of these wonderful new age copiers that scans, copies, emails, makes coffee, plays mp3s, heats up last night's leftover meatloaf, recites poetry to you and does your fucking laundry. I can't figure the son of a bitch out to save my life. Am I the only person who has this problem? I am good with computers. If something isn't working right I can usually fix it, but when you get to copiers its a completely different story. You can't go into the source code or reinstall the software, you have to push 5 million buttons in different combinations that don't seem to make any logical sense. And when something is really screwed up you find yourself having to call up the sales rep who usually knows less about copiers than you do and that some higher up in the company decided to buy it from because of her cute smile and noticeably large chest.

So I usually resort to talking to the copier. People will walk into the mail room and find me carrying on a heated conversation with it. I sometimes feel that if I spill my emotions out to the copier and tell it how I really feel that it will print my documents. Unfortunately it never really seems to be listening to me. So soon after I usually end up kicking it multiple times. This also never seems to work, but I have to admit it makes me feel much better. I wish they'd start making copiers that just copy again. No bells and whistles, no bullshit, just basic document duplication. Is that too much to ask?

Bloglines and RSS Feeds

The Internet is quickly changing. Everyday someone is talking about the next great big thing and most of the time it's a bunch of bullshit, but I thought I'd point out this service to people who have not yet learned about the amazing capabilities of RSS or (Really Simple Syndication).

I don't like surfing the Internet anymore. I barely have time. Theres 5 million sites I want to read and there isn't enough time in the day to check every site and see if anything new or interesting has been posted. That is where Bloglines comes in. Bloglines is a news aggregator. If you don't know what that means, that is okay I suppose but get your fucking act together alright?

Anyways the majority of good sites on the web have an RSS feed that you can subcribe to in a news aggregator that monitors hundreds of sites from one web page. As a matter of fact Positively 18th Street is fully equipped with one of these RSS feeds I speak of. Instead of going to every internet site you typically visit every day, all you do is go to your bloglines account and all of the information from your designated sites that have been recently updated is displayed on your account page.

If you see an icon on a website that means the site has an RSS Feed, but even more pages have feeds but don't have that icon, because frankly the majority of site owners have no fucking clue what RSS is. When you click on these icons you will get a bunch of crazy programming code. Ignore that. You want to take the URL from the address bar and copy it so that it can later be pasted into your bloglines account and you can subcribe to that feed. For instance the address for Positively 18th Street's RSS feed is http://www.positively18th.com/atom.xml

If you aren't familiar with RSS and haven't given it a try, I really recommend giving it a go. Just from a business standpoint alone you can read far more information when it is gathered in an RSS reader like Bloglines than if you are bullshitting around trying to go to 30 different sites everyday. Oh yeah and it's free.

Also if you are using the super nerdy, ultra hip Mozilla Firefox Browser there are a bunch of different ways to set up your Bloglines account for one click RSS feed subscriptions. But I'd suggest starting out with training wheels before you get on to the big scary bike. or at least wear a helmet.

To subscribe to Positively 18th Street's RSS Feed in Bloglines click here

To find which of your favorite sites also have RSS Feeds click here

Shooting for the Stars

Last week I decided to stop by the newly constructed "Hinsdale Oasis" up top the I -294 expressway (just south of Chicago) to get some breakfast. I'm sure most states have these, you know the restaurant/gas station combos that are typically built over the top of expressways and major interstates? Anyways this one is new. It has shiny floors, over priced fast food and clean bathrooms. It's great. seriously.

So I went to the Mc Donalds there and ordered a breakfast combo meal. I was pretty excited about it actually. I waited for a short period of time and then the old woman behind the counter brought food up and said, "Who ordered a McSausage biscuit meal with orange juice?" I said, "Is it possible that could be the McSausage biscuit meal with coffee I just ordered." And the old woman looked at me intensely and said, "anything is possible here." And as she poured out the orange juice and gave me my small coffee I thought to myself, "man that is really uplifting that this woman is so optimistic and excited about the many possibilities available to her and her customers at this small Mc Donalds franchise lofted above a major expressway. I mean it was like, the sky was the limit for her. She was shooting for the stars and I appreciated that.