May 30, 2003

Hodge-podge of news items

Posted by Scott at 10:12 PM

Nashua Telegraph: "GM says ‘mea culpa’ in new ad campaign". It reminds me of the Ford motto when I bought my first (and only) Ford. "Have you driven a Ford lately?" Back then it was as if Ford was tacitly admitting their cars did stink recently, but "have you driven a Ford lately?". From the article:

General Motors Corp. will launch a nationwide ad campaign next week to admit something many consumers already knew: GM made some poor vehicles in the 1980s and 1990s. “Saying that ‘20 years ago we had some really bad products, but we’ve learned our lesson’ is a pretty unconventional thing to admit in an ad.”

Interestingly it goes on to also say:

GM has, however, continued to lag further behind the industry in J.D. Power’s long-term vehicle durability studies. “That’s a real advantage for Toyota and Honda, and you could argue is the most important thing when a person is deciding what to buy next,” said Joe Ivers, partner at J.D. Power. “How the product does in year three, four or five is a big deal to the car buyer, and GM has had a harder time there.”

There's not much to report on the domestic news front. Tonight Claire is at a sleepover at her best friend's house. Abby and Michelle played some more of Mario Party tonight since Claire was out. We plan on going to the YMCA tomorrow. Late tomorrow morning if the rain can hold off I'll try to cut the lawn. More rain is predicted for most of the weekend but of course it's predicted to be sunny and temperate once Monday rolls around. Of course!

Next week I do two days of training in Marlboro, MA on Synopsys' Physical Compiler. Claire has a field trip late next week.

Since I have to do some driving down to Marlboro, MA next week I used MapQuest to do some research on ways to get there now that I live in Milford. Two things impressed me over the last time I tried their mapping web service. One was how fast their screen to screen updates now were (or at least seemed to be). Second they finally updated their maps to realize how easy it is to get to my house from Route 101. They used to tell you to take some now defunct old bridge rather than the newer direct path that was built a handful of years ago to replace it. They also recognized the new exit off of Massachusetts Route 495 that feeds right into Synopsys. They finally seem to be getting their act together rather than just focusing on new ways to annoy you with web advertisements.

Comments

Hey Scott, are there any new pictures of Timothy? I'm always eager to see more pictures of him since I know he probably looks different every week!

Posted by: Suzy at May 31, 2003 11:39 AM

Hey Suzy, are there any pictures from your graduation? I'll trade you.

Just kidding around with you.

Yes, I do have some pictures but I've usually been too tired by the time the kids go to bed to work on them. It's been getting difficult now that we're having really long days. The kids don't want to go down to bed until about 8 o'clock. Between the YMCA workout this morning, cutting the grass, and playing with Abby and the twins, I was pretty bushed by the time they were all in bed.

I've also learned that the pictures don't turn out as well if I edit them on the laptop. The LCD laptop screen throws off my judgement for color, contrast, and saturation. So I usually like to edit them on the desktop. Perhaps tomorrow I can work on the pictures because it's supposed to rain pretty heavily tomorrow (again).

Posted by: Scott at May 31, 2003 09:10 PM