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People we can safely dislike #26

  • People who refuse to include punctuation in email or texts.
  • The guy (it’s always a guy) who passes you on the road and then promptly slows down.
  • That lady who refuses to admit she misdialed you… again.
  • Men who wear Crocs with business suits.
  • Young men who think wearing a vest with a porkpie hat makes them jazz musicians.
  • Older women who think wearing loud mumus with oversized glasses makes them artists.
  • People who rasp, wheeze, and smell like a nicotine factory and claim they “quit ten years ago.”
  • The cheap bastard who drinks 3/4 of his expensive cocktail before returning it, claiming they made the wrong drink. Then re-orders the same thing.
  • Anyone with a straw hat.
  • The person in the picture and whatever she’s doing to that poor baby [PHOTO COURTESY: NoWayGirl.com]
  • Anyone who owns more than three parrots.
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Literary Critiques of App Update Messaging

Literary Critiques of App Update Messaging

COMPANY: Adobe
UPDATE MESSAGE: Bug fixes
REVIEW: Brevity, thy name is Adobe. Such an economy of words that even punctuation was deemed unnecessary. One thrills at the prospect of knowing with certainty that bugs will be fixed, lives will be spared, and hope restored to mankind.

COMPANY: Mint
UPDATE MESSAGE: Bug fixes.
REVIEW: The glove has been dropped, Adobe. Mint has seen your message, called your bluff, and raised it one period. Will it be fisticuffs? Guns at dawn? Swords drawn? History alone will toast the winner.

COMPANY: The New Yorker
UPDATE MESSAGE: * bug fixes and performance improvement.
REVIEW: The New Yorker—the pinnacle of American publication style—has presented us with a puzzler. From the opening asterisk, to the oddly placed space before the first word, to the utter lack of punctuation, there is clearly something deeper going on here. The observant reader will quickly deduce the answer. The asterisk is in fact, the Dog Star, Sirius. The “bug fixes” and “performance improvement” are clearly a veiled reference to the impending alien invasion.
Well played, New Yorker. We are packing for the emergency shelters now.

COMPANY: Tile
UPDATE MESSAGE: In this release, we’ve further improved the app, making it even easier to find all of the things that matter to you.
REVIEW: “All of the things that matter to you.” Is that even possible? No, a bold claim, but one that falls woefully short in practice. We have endeavored to find a first edition of Don Quixote, however Tile was unable to complete this task. In fact, Tile was only able to locate our keys and iPhone, and it did so with alarming regularity.

COMPANY: YouTube
UPDATE MESSAGE: Fixed bugs, improved performance, took out the garbage, mowed the front lawn, and now we need a little nap.
REVIEW: YouTube, Mecca for soapy cat and testicular damage videos, is also the haven for those who over-share as evidenced by this witty update which reminds us that most developers still live with their protective mothers.

COMPANY: Procreate
UPDATE MESSAGE: If you’ve got one of the new iPad Pros, this update is for you. This fixes a cancelling issue with the canvas zoom and pan gesture on both new iPad Pro models.
REVIEW: In one fell swoop; the haves and have-nots are segregated. The wealthy have gifts bestowed upon them from the opening salvo, while the lower castes are left to contend with substandard zoom and pan gestures.

COMPANY: Vevo
UPDATE MESSAGE: We regularly update our app to fix bugs and improve your Vevo experience!
REVIEW: Your experience is paramount to the Vevo development team, as evidenced by their use of the exclamation point. Without it, this would be another dull and uninspired update message, but with the addition of this simple punctuation, something magical has transpired. Vevo, formerly a passive video experience, has been released from its chrysalis and metamorphosed like Gregor Samsa. The critical “!” has transformed an erstwhile unadorned Bon Jovi video into a Disney-esque extravaganza. We raise our glass to you, Vevo. Champion of the people!