Decided to revisit the Cloisters again today, then walked across the park down to Dyckman Street and got a sandwich, (half of which is in a paper bag because it was so huge).
my letter to viirginmobileusa
I am not enjoying my new phone:
This phone has the worst user experience of any phone I have ever used over the past 18 years, and it is Virgin’s fault. (I actually quite like HTCs phone).
It is bloated with so much crapware that there is little space left to use the smartphone for its intended purpose (at 67 photos, there is no room left; I have only 87 mb of apps installed). I’ve had it about 5 days. Every time I arrange the home screen and wallpaper to my liking “apps we love” rides in (3 times so far in the last 3 days), reinstalls crapware I have previously painstakingly deleted or at least disabled, deletes my widgets and home screen arrangements and puts Virgin’s idea of what I should have on my home screen there instead. After you guys are through with it it looks like someone else’s phone. (The wallpaper looks like a cross between Christmas wrapping paper and someone’s fever dream of an 80s nightclub. Not pleasant.)
I wouldn’t tolerate this in a free app; why should I tolerate it in a phone I am spending money on?
Far from providing a good experience that makes me want to engage more with Virgin’s products (which is surely the intent of stuff like “apps we love” etc) this daily barrage of destructive interference has basically destroyed the functionality of my smartphone and has certainly made me want to steer well, well clear of Virgin’s cellphone business in future.
Perhaps the least satisfactory consumer experience of my life. It’s not the end of the world, obviously, but it is the sheer left-hand-not -knowing-what-the-right-is-doing-ness of it, reducing a decent enough phone into merely an annoyance that gets me.
I actually like the phone. But it cannot support what Virgin are intent upon making it into: a non-customisable ad platform that I am actually paying you to use. It’s laughable, really.
This is a pay as you go phone I am using for an extended stay in the United States. It’s unacceptable. I can and will move to another supplier unless steps are taken to remedy this. but really, why has it come to this? I just wanted a cheap phone to put photos on Facebook, keep in touch with pals, and read a couple of pages on the subway. Apparently that’s asking too much for $40 a month.
I’m not angry. And I certainly know that it’s not Virgin’s support teams who are at fault. (This being a strategic-size bit of screwuppery and all. If anything I am sorry they have landed you all in it again with such a poorly thought-out product.)
But I think it is shameful that what is obviously intended as a positive marketing strategy is overwhelming my whole experience of using your product. Teams of people your end have worked hard to try to make something nifty that will keep customers coming back. It’s astonishing that they should fail quite so hard. Right now what I am paying Virgin for is not a communication device, it’s a frustration device.
In short, they really need to get it together. I hope you can help.
[And get off my lawn while you’re about it you kids you. I probably ought to reserve my energies for going through the treadmill of customer frustration triage they’ll use to shed all but the most determined complaints ( that’s yer standard 21st century corporate operating procedure, of course), but it relieves my feelings a little to write it out.]
Some pictures from the Met
I took far too many, so here’s just a few…
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Once again the suggested donation of $25 successfully evaded with the more-appropriately liberal bestowing of a fiver instead. They’ll still get their pound of flesh, but over several visits. I also took the chance to join the library. I found the Greek stuff completely amazing and I want to research it a bit more. I’ll be posting a gallery of a it’d from my camera when I get home.
Right now I am taking shelter from the rain rain rain in the green cafe on 88th and Lexington avenue which is a sandwich place on the way back to the subway. I’m also letting the subway rush die down a bit as I was literally against the glass yesterday. Fun once, not twice. Especially since I’m a tourist and the heart are mostly working folks. If I can make it slightly less awful (for both them and me) by stopping for a coffee, then so be it. Disclaimer: I am also having a sandwich.
Henderson Stanley
Henderson Stanley emerged into the public spotlight only gradually, a result of careful managing of the process of introduction to human society engineered by his guardians. Although Stanley’s origin provided him with truly unique insight into the vegetable kingdom, such was the nature of his upbringing to the age of nine, that there were many barriers to social intercourse with and acceptance into the human world.
Indeed, many aspects of Stanley’s behaviour still strike the observer as odd, such as his predilection for keeping his feet interred in a basin of earth whenever possible, and his reluctance to perform the normal pedestrian function of those appendages. (This despite the fact that Stanley has on several occasions proved himself perfectly capable of walking around). He is also terrified of boiling water and seems able to detect its presence even through a thick wall and locked doors.
These somewhat odd traits go hand in hand with his special insights and abilities. The consequence of having been raised up in the wild by a patch of potatoes after becoming lost in the wilderness as a mere babe is apt to place its stamp on a man, and Stanley has not escaped this. But rather than expose him to criticism or dark mutterings, these very oddities of behaviour make Stanley one of the Seedsmen’s most valuable agents in the field. Stanley, transported about the bush in a litter, his feet comfortably ensconced in a basin of Hertfordshire topsoil, has few equals as a plant hunter.
Art Day in Chelsea
Andrew and I met up with a couple of his students today and went down to Chelsea to have a look at some galleries. We started in at Hauser & Wirth where there was a gigantic construction resembling a whale’s skeleton made up out of the steel components of a building’s frontage tortilla-d up and rolled into a cone. It was pretty amazing.
But I think my highlight was getting to have my picture taken with tiny Paul McCartney:
There was other stuff, too. Here’s a quick gallery with some. I also particularly enjoyed a show by Matthew Ritchie, and I want to get a couple of books by him entitled “The Temptation of the Diagram” which look great.
By the end of the day we’d walked 7 miles in the city, so my feet are a bit sore. I’m going to pick up some insoles/ arch supports or suchlike.
Stopped for a rest on the way back…
Some more stuff from the Cloisters
It was really fantastic visiting the Cloisters, and super handy from Andrew’s place. I’ll be back.
(Click on the thumbnail images to view the larger versions.)
Today we’re off to visit some art galleries around Chelsea.
At the Cloisters
Andrew Makes Some Bread
Andrew is making some bread…
Jane Hirschfield Poem
Here’s a Jane Hirschfield poem that caught my eye today:
STANDING DEER
As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.
And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.
As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like a great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.
Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.
Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.
Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken from us.
I have disappointed.
I am sorry. I knew no better.
A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.
(You can buy a collection including this poem here.)