Observations of a Closet Lunatic

Ok, so… I got a little bored and figured I do some Google searching for fun. My idea of fun is rapidly declining, apparently. Anyway, I Googled my wife’s maiden name… and only one website came up. Only one… and it was a site that I made… in like 1998. Seriously. Wow.

For those of you who believe there is no God, here is proof positive. I got a seriously high paying contract position, my very first “real” job, based on this horrifying, yet hilarious website. Most of the links still work! I might have even used a Blink tag or two! I dunno. O_o… any link with a file for download is now broken, but wow… Check out that amazing animation. HA!!! Wow… just… wow. To think I actually grew into a legitimate web professional out of that! Unbelievable.

So, I’m on this site and I’m looking to do a search through their help forums… and after typing in the search item, I find myself face to face with one of those wacky CAPTCHA images… you know the ones, they basically won’t let you submit the form unless you decipher the digits in some wacky image and input it into the field correctly. These are mainly to keep out the evil army of spambots and are typically found on forms where you may be able to add some spam to a blog or a social bookmarking site.

So, first off, why exactly am I filling this into a search box? Is the site owner so paranoid that ROBOTS MAY BE SEARCHING THEIR HELP FORUMS? I mean, I’m all for being paranoid about robots… I mean, do you have robot insurance? Cause seriously, those robots will steal your old people medication… but I digress.

Secondly, what the flip am I supposed to make out of this image?

Anybody got an idea on what that is? I think I see a bear in a cloud… eating tuna fish from a can? And maybe that’s a letter W… or a sideways M? Oh look, the two last letters are hugging. They must be in love. OH! that must be a left carrot character and a 3! Love = <3.

I <3 stupid CAPTCHA.

The saddest part about this whole deal is that the site I was looking for help on… was a site focused on Usability… I’m filing this under dumb.

Ok… so here’s a blog. Woohoo, introduction over.

So… I’m at work today, and I’m calling the help desk (in India) to speak to the guy who “set up” my administrative privileges last week. This is call #3, because the first time it didn’t take, the second time it worked, and all of a sudden it stopped working. At any rate, he asks me for my user name. Simple enough, let’s just pretend my user name is jbrinkofski. I tell the heavily accented gentleman my username in this manner

“Ok, ready? My username is ‘Jay’ ‘Bee’ ‘Are’ ‘Eye’ ‘En’ ‘Kay’ ‘Oh’ ‘Eff’” “Ess” “Kay” “Eye”. For those of you who are slow, that’s “JBRINKOFSKI”. “Oh” “Kay”? Anyway, after I did that he asked me this question, no lie, and I have to admit I literally sat there for a second not knowing exactly how to respond…

“Ok, Yason” (His accent is thick), “Can you please spell that out for me, please?”

………………

I’m a nice guy. I just said it again, but I did it slower… you know, just in case I was asked to SPELL IT OUT again.