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Grimm and NBC's Epic Fail

Dear NBC,

I am a fan of scifi and horror as are many of my friends. Would you care to enlighten me as to why NBC has scheduled Grimm at the same time as Fringe and Supernatural? That is a huge error in programming.

NBC you are pretty much telling your audience before you've aired a single episode that you're going to cancel Grimm. You're not going to steal an audience from Supernatural or Fringe with a new show on a network known for canceling shows more often than Lindsey Lohan gets hammered.

Yes, Fringe is probably headed for its final season, and Supernatural might be heading that way too. But you're not giving Grimm a chance at all. I want to watch Grimm. I do. I think David Greenwalt's work is incredible, and I've been a fan of his since Profit.

I've got YEARS invested in Fringe and Supernatural. Do you know how hard it would be for me to share my attention and my DVR to record Grimm when I know you're going to kill it?

Guess I'll just buy the few episodes that end up being produced from Amazon Video or iTunes, since I doubt you'll go beyond the initial 13 eps on Grimm. It'll be added to my collection of shows that could have and should have been given a chance.

Thanks for nothing yet again.

Another Complaint to Get Glue

Hey Guys,

Site Performance:
As per your requests in the past, I’m emailing you about my concerns about the site. For the past week I am being forced to constantly refresh pages to get the entire page to load. This happens in Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. (Yes, I’m geeky enough to run four browsers at a time while building/testing websites and graphics for my clients.) I’m treated to partially loaded pages where the side bar is missing. Other times the CSS on the page seems to have fallen off entirely, and I have a long unparsed list of the items that appear on the page. It’s taking me several refreshes to be able to reply to people in conversations as well.

Now as you might have guessed from my earlier comments, I have already cleared my cache, cookies and browsing history. These issues are happening on my desktop that is running Windows 7 Professional as well as my laptop that runs standard Windows 7. It is also happening on my roommate’s computers here at home and at work. We are on the best internet available in San Diego too, so speed/lag should never be an issue like this.

Get Glue is the only site I’m having problems with.

Stickers:
Missing stickers for April and May, I have yet to receive a single set of stickers. I’ve just ordered my third set, so I’m in a wait and see situation there. But I also know that a lot of people didn’t get their stickers in April or May, so can you really blame that on the Post Office? My roommate ordered stickers within days of me, and has received every set ordered while I have none.

Wilfred:
I am the Wilfred Guru. I have not gotten the Wilfred fan sticker, and I have 22 check-ins for the show. I had 5 before it even aired.

Guru Dropping:
I have had the following Gurus slip away: Being Human, Wilfred, and the book Soulless. I’m sure there are others that I don’t even know about yet. They weren’t lost to someone with more votes. They simple fell off my list, and I had to find out by accident when I went to check-in.

Plagiarism:

TV Show: White Collar
User: Wilman ID

The review
http://oi53.tinypic.com/14junx3.jpg

I then copied his review and pasted it into Google. I got a ton of hits. Here are three of them.

Bing TV
http://tinypic.com/r/2ywtgrc/7

AOL TV
http://tinypic.com/r/1yfzk/7

DIJIT
http://tinypic.com/r/2psftvo/7

I think this is a prime example of plagiarism. Hope these caps help you out.

Sorry for all the bitching in one big email like this, but I had a few things saved up.

Good Luck,
Gabe

Sent a follow up to GG

It's been a few days, and I have to say that I'm not getting used to the changes. It is really hard to read through the stream and follow what any of my friends have done. With the pictures to the side, it's all turned into a big page of boring text. The old 3 column break with check-ins/likes broke up the blandness that we have now.

Now I'm clicking on individual users and going to their page to see what they've actually been doing, and that is a huge annoyance. I much preferred being able to see what Andy was doing on the Home Feed rather than being forced to go to his page to read what he's been doing.

And I miss being able to vote "Useful". I think Cool could have replaced Agree instead, since they mean pretty much the same thing. But Cool and Useful don't at all go together.

The message system still works better than the last update though.

Get Glue Changes June 20, 2011

This is a copy of the email I sent to Get Glue Support -

We were told to state what we like and what we don’t like. The Changes for June 20, 2011.

The Message System: It’s nice to see the first line of what the person is commenting on, on the message. I still do not like that I have to open multiple tabs to see the entries, but at least I can tell if a bunch of people are replying to the same thing now. I still wish I could do a drop down there to reply like I can on the revised Homepage. But I’m going to say the changes are an improvement.

The Homepage: What is with the tiny gray font? The presentation has turned a bright and exciting page that I enjoyed going to into a dull list of tiny subjects that I can barely see. As a Guru of almost 800 subjects, I’ve tried to find pictures that fit the topic and make them interesting enough that someone will click through. The new tiny pics all look alike.

You guys need to remember that we’re not all kids with 20/20 vision. The stickers are too small in the right hand side too. You’re not going to impress your advertisers if people can’t tell what that sticker is that they’re looking at.

Also if you have to click on what someone liked to ferret out a sticker, and scroll through their personal page, because that check-in is no longer visible on the Homepage, I won’t bother to go for the sticker. I design websites, and one of the things I tell my clients is that if you have to click twice to get anywhere, you will lose your customer. Well, you guys are losing customers.

I do like the functionality of being able to vote and see reply threads on the Homepage, but I think that function would be better served if it was part of the Message page.

The Stickers: I have ordered two sets of stickers – one in April and one in May – I have received neither set. My roommate also ordered stickers in April and May and they got theirs. I haven’t even bothered to order my third set because I figure they won’t come either. I am not a sticker hunter, so it’s not that important to me. I consider them virtual stickers, and they’re fine on the site.

Guru and Editing: Thank you for fixing the bug that took away the Edit button on Reviews. But why doesn’t my new/revised review show up in the right hand column for the subject? I’ve got some bad typos and placeholder type notes there that used to clear away when I revised a review. That doesn’t happen anymore, and it needs to. It makes the site look crappy that people have to hit “Top Rated” to see the real review.

And don’t get me wrong, I love writing reviews. I have been the Top Guru a few times since I started, and I love writing reviews that excite people about my subjects. So it’s important to me that they see the right one.

Following: This function seriously needs to be fixed. I would like to be able to vote on a friend’s check-ins on a popular topic, but I can’t because they are buried in the time stream. And on some pages – Metallica artist – for example, none of my check-ins show up on the “Top Rated” at all, and my followers cannot use the Follow tab to see my entries. Please, please fix this.

Private Profiles and Gurus: THANK YOU FOR FIXING THAT LOOPHOLE.

Communications: I understand that you guys are not marketing masters. You’re tech geeks who are building a website and trying to make phone apps work. But your marketing department needs to remember your members as well as your clients pay your bills. We need to know what’s going on.

You send out a weekly update that is basically a waste of time. It would be much better served if you sent out an update explaining the new changes and how they are better for us and the site. You don’t even post that information to your Blog, and you really should. But that’s probably my years in Public Relations and advertising talking. You have to tell your members what’s going on if you want to keep them happy. If they’re happy, they are checking in. If they check-in, your paying advertisers will be happy.

All in all I really like this site, but the current changes will keep me from contributing. I’ve made some awesome friends here on Get Glue, but the social aspects of GG are challenging with the current state of the site. Many of us go off site to communicate, and that’s kind of sad.

Thanks for reading this,
The Watchmaker

A Petrelli in Brooklyn

The plastic covering was sticking to my sweat covered palms as I clutched the flowers to my chest. I could see the petals of the daisies vibrating while we waited for the light to turn green. I pretended it was from the cab’s engine. I didn’t want to admit that it was because my hands were shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was the smell of the flowers, the cab or my nerves that was making my stomach knot up.

“Gabriel, you need to breathe,” Peter smiled over at me, and then put his hand on my knee. “This will be OK. It’ll be nice. It’s about time I met your mother.”

“No, it won’t be nice. It’ll be insane. She’s not well, Peter.” I should rephrase that to I’ll be unwell, it won’t be nice, and she’s insane, but I don’t. I closed my eyes as the cab moved all of ten feet past the intersection and jerked to a stop again. At this rate I really was going to be sick. I needed fresh air. I needed to run as far away from Queens as I could get, and here I was on my way there.

What was I thinking, letting my mother convince me that I should bring that nice boy, Peter Petrelli, home to meet her? If there was more room, I’d be able to press my head between my legs to keep my head from spinning.

“You’ve met my mother. We can do this.” Peter reached past me only to discover the same thing I had that the window didn’t roll down on my side of the car. He sat back and then rubbed the back of my neck, trying to sooth me.

“Peter your mother is the Dragon Lady of Central Park West. My Mother is the Mary Todd Lincoln of Queens. Your mother is a well educated lady. My mother will scream that I’m going to Hell if she finds out you’re not just my roommate.”

“So, I shouldn’t kiss you or hold your hand?”

“Not unless you want a bloody nose, or for my mother to throw Holy Water on us.” I knew he was teasing, but it didn’t make a difference. “Why couldn’t you let me lie about you? I could have said you were busy at work. I could have said I was busy at work, except she’d know I was lying.”

“Moms always know when you’re lying. Of course you’re lucky; your mom doesn’t dream the future. I mean she’s normal, right?” He asked as he took the flowers out of my hands before they wilted from the heat I was generating. “No mind reading or anything like that.”

“Nope, she’s just crazy. If she could do something, she’d hide it, because she’d think it was evil.”

“She can’t be that bad. She loves you, right?” His fingers curled into the short hairs on the back of my head and gave me a little shake like I was a puppy. “She can’t be all bad if she loves you.”

“Didn’t we have this argument about your mother too, and we didn’t tell her about us either.” Not that we had to. I could tell that Angela Petrelli knew. She looked at me like I was a piece of dog crap stuck to the bottom of her shoe, and I heard the fight she and Peter had about me while I pretended that I didn’t later.

“It’ll be OK. Look we’re here.”

“We’re here? Shit, how did that happen?” He’d distracted me too much to realize we were almost to my mother’s block, and I hadn’t noticed that we were pulling over to double park while Peter paid the driver. “Be good, Peter. No touching. No bumping into me. Hell, pretend you don’t like me. That’d be better.”

“I think you’re adorable when you’re terrified, Gabe.” Peter opened the door for me still holding the flowers as we made our way up the stairs.

“Then I must be ready for the cover of GQ.” I jerked away from him as he let his hand brush against mile while I reached for the door to knock on it. But my knuckles never got to connect before mom pulled it open.

“Gabriel!” She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. She smelled like lavender and dish soap. The apartment smelled like roasting chicken and other things I loved. The edges of her sleeves were a little damp, and I knew she’d been cleaning up for us all day. “Come in! You must be, Peter. I’ve heard so much about you.”

I stepped in past my mom, so her back was to me while I took off my coat and mouthed to Peter. ‘No, she hasn’t. I told her nothing!’

“I’ve heard about you too, Mrs. Gray. It’s nice to meet you. These are for you. Thanks for inviting me to dinner.” He gave her the puppy dog eyes and the crooked smile. Then he winked at me when she buried her face in the daisies to smell them.

“He is such a nice boy, Gabe. Peter, have a seat; dinner will be ready soon. Then I want you to tell me all about yourself. Gabriel says you’re a medical student.”

“Mom, let me help you get a vase.” I followed her into the little kitchenette and grabbed the vase down from the high shelf where she kept it. I lowered my voice to tell her. “Don’t ask him questions about his family. Peter doesn’t spend much time with the Petrellis.”

“I know how to be polite to company, Gabe. Who do you think taught you your manners?” She patted me on the face and left me with the flowers, heading right back into the living room where Peter was looking at the snow globes. “So, Peter, your brother, the Senator, what was he like when you were growing up? Is it true about him all those loose women?”

I should have brought a bottle of wine or three instead of the flowers. Then again I could beat my head into the refrigerator until I lost consciousness. God help me.

Cult of RP - Predator and Prey

Predator and Prey