{"id":495,"date":"2007-02-28T13:49:57","date_gmt":"2007-02-28T18:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=495"},"modified":"2007-02-28T13:50:59","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T18:50:59","slug":"sure-the-rats-are-gross-but-the-website-is-so-annoying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/28\/sure-the-rats-are-gross-but-the-website-is-so-annoying\/","title":{"rendered":"Sure, the rats are gross, but the website is <em>so annoying!<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sure that most people who are amused by such things are already aware of the crazy rat infestation at a NYC Taco Bell\/KFC.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=su0U37w2tws\">The video is on YouTube<\/a>; you can go watch it and be icked out by the large number of rodents of unusual size in an eatery.  The remarkable thing for me, though, is what a god-awful fright the Taco Bell web presence is.  I saw the video <a href=\"http:\/\/dogberrypatch.com\/archives\/rats-invade-new-york-taco-bell\/#comments\">embedded over at Dogberry Patch<\/a>, and there was this crazy comment by some PR flack for Taco Bell\/KFC making it clear that not <em>all<\/em> of their establishments sport this spiffy entertainment feature and starting the all-important processes of duck-and-cover and finger pointing:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSome construction in the building\u2019s basement last Thursday temporarily escalated the situation, and we are correcting that. Everyone at KFC and Taco Bell is working hard to take care of the issues at this restaurant.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>&#8220;escalated&#8221;<\/em>?!?  These puppies (that&#8217;s about the right size) were OK when they were in the basement, and it&#8217;s just a darn shame that they decided to come upstairs for a visit?  Man, people must be <em>scrambling<\/em> to figure out how to fire someone else over this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The crazy part, though, is the URL in the comment that points you at their press release on the matter.  Now my understanding of a press release is that it&#8217;s a form of <em>broadcast communication<\/em> aimed at reaching the largest audience possible (especially when you&#8217;re desparately trying to put out a forest fire like this).  So, that might suggest that you present it in a simple form that&#8217;s easily accessible by most everyone.  Not those geniuses at Taco Bell.  Their press release page is this crazy combination of ASP and spiffy Macromedia Flash fun that is slow to load, subjects you to some pointless advertising images before you get to see the press release, doesn&#8217;t scroll properly, won&#8217;t allow you to copy\/paste text out of their &#8220;message to the people&#8221;, and chews up massive amounts of CPU as long as you leave the window\/tab open.  And all this infrastructure to support three short, platitudinous and content free paragraphs (a total of four sentences).<\/p>\n<p>To think that someone got <em>paid<\/em> to make a mess like that in public&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\t<div class=\"st-post-tags \">\n\tTags: <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/video\/\" title=\"Video\">Video<\/a><br \/><\/div>\n\n\n\t<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n\t<ul class=\"st-related-posts\">\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/09\/11\/you-have-to-either-laugh-or-cry-and-ill-help-you-do-both\/\" title=\"You have to either laugh or cry (and I&#8217;ll help you do both) (11 Sep 08)\">You have to either laugh or cry (and I&#8217;ll help you do both)<\/a> (0)<\/li>\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/06\/you-folks-are-super-generous\/\" title=\"You folks are super generous! (6 Apr 07)\">You folks are super generous!<\/a> (2)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sure that most people who are amused by such things are already aware of the crazy rat infestation at a NYC Taco Bell\/KFC. The video is on YouTube; you can go watch it and be icked out by the large number of rodents of unusual size in an eatery. The remarkable thing for me, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/28\/sure-the-rats-are-gross-but-the-website-is-so-annoying\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sure, the rats are gross, but the website is <em>so annoying!<\/em>&#8220;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[876],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-7Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":414,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/12\/18\/taco-man-takes-3rd\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":0},"title":"Taco Man takes 3rd!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"18 Dec 06","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, this is ancient news, but I only just learned that there is both a video documentation and audio documentation of this crazy moment, and posting this is more fun than finalizing grades :-). Back at the end of October, Sub-Evil Boy and I took part in the annual ASA\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Family&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":507,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/03\/08\/mutant-variety-show\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":1},"title":"Mutant Variety Show!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"8 Mar 07","format":false,"excerpt":"It may be 460 miles from Morris to Wall Drug, but it's only 28 days from here to The Mutant Variety Show! Yup - Thursday, 5 April 2007 at 7pm, in the HFA Recital Hall right here on the UMM campus. This will be a crazy evening featuring all manner\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/81\/212107701_c9caf53219_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":526,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/06\/you-folks-are-super-generous\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":2},"title":"You folks are super generous!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, now I'm officially exhausted. The Mutant Variety Show is done, and all the wonderful folks that came were amazingly generous! I just finished counting out the donation jars, and we raised nearly $450 tonight which, along with the (currently) $253 donated on-line at our Lance Armstrong Foundation site, makes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/02\/18\/the-complete-works-of-wllm-shkspr-abridged-was-a-complete-hoot\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":3},"title":"The complete works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) was a complete hoot!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"18 Feb 05","format":false,"excerpt":"We just got back from seeing the student production of The complete works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), and it was a blast. The three cast members were enormously funny and did a great job with some very challenging material. We've gone to a lot of plays here over the years,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":810,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/02\/theyre-onlywhat20-years-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":4},"title":"They&#8217;re only&#8230;what&#8230;20 years late?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"2 Mar 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it just me, or is this a desparately classic case of old folks (i.e., people my age) just not realizing that the world has moved on a wee bit? The University of Minnesota Office of Information Technology is proud to announce that the University of Minnesota is soon to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":535,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/12\/preparing-to-fly\/","url_meta":{"origin":495,"position":5},"title":"Preparing to fly","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Preparing to fly, originally uploaded by Unhindered by Talent. I'm off to Owatanna today with a couple of students to attend a college fair hosted by Federated Insurance. We've never been to their event before, but it looks like it should be fun. I probably won't be posting for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}