No one’s ever sad thieves were the smartest bunch. This guy proves it, though you’ve gotta love his taste. While being pursued by the police, a Specialized mountain bike caught his eye.

Portland Cop Nabs Brazen Bike Thief

File this under, “Funny cause it’s true.” This is a collection of client horror stories from designers and developers and so many hit way too close to home. Thanks to Bret for sending me the link.

Clients From Hell

It’s stories like this (and the fact there have been four bicycle/car accidents in Raleigh-Durham area in the last couple weeks) that makes Amanda nervous every time I go for a bike ride.

Furious Driver Takes Out 50-Strong Cycle Pack

So this is sad. A guy’s house gets broken into and his Xbox 360, Powerbook. etc. gets stolen. The police are absolutely worthless, but the guy does some legwork on his own.

Wow, You’re a Moron!

Is there really anyone out there (besides Time Warner) who thinks this is a step in the right direction? As we get more and more streaming and large file download services from the likes of TiVo, Amazon, Netflix and Apple (iTunes – both rentals and purchases of standard and high def) among others, Time Warner’s paying for the bandwidth you use will only result in castration of these services and mass exodus away from Time Warner’s services. I really hope their idea dies a horrible and quick death.

Time Warner’s Pricing Paradox

Have a case of the Mondays? Is the work week already kicking your tail, and it’s just now starting? How about a laugh from our 43rd president of the United States.. God what an idiot.

Homeowner Associations are setup for neighborhoods and subdivisions to protect property values. It keeps morons without any taste from doing stupid things on their property, like never mowing their grass, or having a cell phone tower in their backyard.

You pay a fee (usually monthly or annually) to pay for the administration of the HOA by a third party. But man, is our current one ever fucking worthless!

A few months ago, we had our first meeting with the HOA rep. Dude was totally unprepared and unfamiliar with our community. He had been handed the community from someone else in their company. People asked some basic questions and he didn’t have answers and didn’t communicate that he’d get answers in any timely fashion (he never really did).

Fast forward a few months and our community has been handed off to another person in the company in another office. None of the questions residents brought up have ever been addressed, except a couple of superficial ones. Other than that, we’ve had no real interaction with the Homeowners association – until recently.

About a year ago, we put up our fence and have had constant problems with it, so after a lot of back and forth (and repairs), Lowe’s has agreed to foot the bill to remove the existing fence, and put up a better one from a better installer. With the demolition of the old fence, we have to have a dumpster in front of our house for a few days for all the old materials to go in. So we went through the process of contacting the homeowner’s association to get approval for that dumpster being there for two days, and then the approval of our standard fence. They’ve got an overly complicated application process and can have up to 45 days to approve (or deny) the standard request.

We’ve gone back and forth with them on the submission and explained the circumstances with the replacement of fence, etc. hoping they would fast track the fence application. They basically retorted they have up to 45 days. I would think they would want to help out in keeping the neighborhood looking presentable, putting in a better quality fence.

I’ve kind of skimmed over the details, but the whole feeling we’ve gotten since day one with this homeowner’s association is that they’re there for the money and could give two shits about the residents they’re managing communities for. There’s little room for community knowledge or civility, but you better pay your dues on time.

Oh man, this is funny, but so sad and true at the same time. I wish we had half the days off that they do. Plus, I wish America were paying my gas bill.