If you must know, one of my greatest pet peeves is a crappy website. I'm not talking about just content and aesthetics, but functionality in general.

For example, take the Washingtonian's website. The magazine itself is great, but in all honesty, the website sucks. To give them credit, they're in the midst of rebuilding it and will launch the new design on October 30th.

However, the Washingtonian didn't exactly make it easy for readers to find existing content. In order to get to the old site, you have to click on either the cover of the current issue on the left (no way of knowing this will take you to the home page of the old site) or one of the articles listed on the landing page. Otherwise, there's no real way of knowing that you can still access old material. In addition, there's a completely broken link on the bottom of the landing page - in this case, the guide to "Great Hair" (e.g., hair salons). Click on it, and you get a cold 404 instead of being redirected to the subscriber login.

I try to circumvent this by clicking on a random article link on the front page to get back to the old site, and then click on "Shopping" in hopes that it will come up with the link to the "Great Hair" feature. Nope - another cold 404. Same thing for the "Education" section. Apparently they've both gone AWOL.

Seriously, if you're going to reinvent a site, either a) provide a link to a completely functioning existing version, b) at least remove links to sections that seemingly have been misplaced, or c) all of the above. Broken links are frustrating and downright useless, and rank right up there on my list of daily annoyances. (#1 would have to be stupid drivers - in particular, those that cause slowdowns because they're unfamiliar with the process of merging into traffic properly.)

(Can you tell I'm peeved about my lack of a hair salon guide? The Hair Cuttery just doesn't cut it anymore. (no pun intended) The ladies don't seem to understand what I’m saying ("Just half an inch!") and I end up with 3 inches hacked off.

I never wanted to blog about this, but a certain incident has now occurred two times and is now worth posting. Every day, I bring the following items for snack/lunch/snack at work (or a slight variation thereof): applesauce, yogurt, carrot sticks, pretzels, Diet Coke/Pepsi (whatever's on sale), and two gala apples. Sometimes the yogurt is replaced by leftovers or a sandwich or what have you. But the one item that I never fail to bring is my cherished mid-day caffeine boost (aka diet cola).

I should mention that EchoDitto is currently renting office space downtown, so we share this huge floor with whole bunch of other companies/individuals/loud people.

A few weeks ago, on an ordinary Thursday afternoon, I went to the "Village Green" (gag) fridge to get my lunch. I grabbed my yogurt and carrots, but left the soda behind. About 20 minutes later, I returned to find my Diet Pepsi missing. Okayyy… I just saw it 20 minutes ago when I got my lunch. Did it grow legs and walk off? No. Did someone move it from the spacious door shelf to another part of the fridge? No. My can of cola had been pilfered.

I was livid. It would have been one thing if there were 20 other cans of cola sitting in the fridge and I wouldn't have noticed if someone had accidentally taken my Pepsi and left their Coke, but no, there was only one other lonely can of regular Coca-cola. What the hell? We share this office space with what feels like hundreds of other people, and someone had to decide to be cheap and take my Pepsi rather than put $0.75 in the soda machine 2 feet away.

Always being one to make a statement, I scribbled the following message on a post-it note and stuck it to the fridge door: "To the person who took my can of Diet Pepsi: GET YOUR OWN!" It stayed up for a few hours before one of the Regus Nazis (office space leasers) took it down.

Anyway, a few weeks passed and there was no further soda larceny. Until today. I went to the fridge and found that the can of Diet Pepsi I had placed there a few hours before had gone missing. Again. Fortunately, I had an extra can from Monday that I forgot to drink and imbibed that instead. Still, this makes me think: Why the hell would someone want to take my soda, other than the fact they forgot to bring change for the machine? Are people that desperate for caffeine? Or are they just idiots that don't realize that the can of Pepsi they took from the fridge really belonged to someone else? That, or they're just delusional and thought it was up for grabs.

From now on, I fear I'm going to have to write my name on every can I put in that fridge. Either that, I'll have to suck it up and drink it at room temperature.

You know, I used to have a lot of faith in the Metro. Coming from Hartford, a city that has no real public transportation other than a mediocre bus system, the extensiveness of the Metro has been enlightening. For the most part, the Metrorail runs on time, it's clean, easy to use, you always know when the next train will arrive, etc. Granted, it's not the cheapest mode of transportation around, but it gets the job done.

I've been commuting to work using the Metrorail since EchoDitto's office is now in Farragut West. My fare from Rosslyn to FW (2 stops) is $1.35 each way, even during rush hour. (Usually rush hour fares are about $0.35-$0.85 more than reduced fares.)

Anyway, I left Rosslyn this morning with a $9.00 balance on my SmarTrip card. When I exited the Farragut West station, something strange happened. The displays on the exit faregates show two things - the fare that was charged, and your SmarTrip balance. After I touched my card to the panel on the faregate, the display blinked twice - first showing a $7.65 balance, then a $6.30 balance. Whaaaat?

To make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I checked my SmarTrip on the farecard machine. Sure enough, my balance was $6.30… which makes absolutely NO sense because the fare was $1.35. What the hell? The faregates can't (well, aren't supposed to) take more than one trip off your card… so technically you could press it on the panel 100 times and it wouldn't take off more than the single fare. Apparently there was a glitch, because this one definitely took of two fares - $1.35 x 2 = $2.70.

Being officially pissed that I got ripped off by the Metro system, I ask the station manager what the $#*% is going on. He checks my card on the computer, and shows me that the last fare charged was $1.35. Yes, that's right, but it charged my fare twice! (Unfortunately, it only shows the last fare charged, not the last 2+ times.) Station manager guy says that's not possible, but honest to god, I saw it happen with my own eyes.

I honestly wanted to start yelling about the WMATA being facist, like the crazy drunk guy I posted about earlier. Seriously! Just when I started to have some faith in pubilc transportation, I get screwed over. SCOUNDRELS, I tell ya!

I just have to say that Trinity's Daily Jolt now sucks big time. This year's Daily Jolt Big Scary Halloween Contest did not have ANY entries from Trinity because, well, no one sent any in! No promotion… nada. So once again, we are given -142 points for participation and -23,850 points for overall Jolt coolness. (Fortunately, I am no longer tied to the Jolt, so my website administration karma remains unchanged.)

I swore I wouldn't write another rant for at least a week, but this time I couldn't help it.

Latest Metro irk: People with those retarded "rolling backpacks" or "rolling briefcases." Basically, they're teeny tiny suitcases with a retractable handle, and look pretty ridiculous, especially if you've got the gall to wheel them on to Metro during rush hour.

I see third graders pulling their pink and yellow Barbie-adorned ones to the bus stop. Grown women pull them while wearing shoulder padded buisness suits with white high tops. (Gag - please, at least buy a pair of sneakers that sort of blend in well, not the ones you'd see adorning a geriatric ward nurse's feet.) Anyway, for all I know, people could be hauling around 50 lbs of papers, books, laptops (well, not for the 3rd grader, I hope), and for that I can understand at least somewhat.

But seriously, those handy little suitcases on wheels take up as much space as a 5 year old toddler, and how many work people do you see hauling around a kid with them to work? Not many. In fact, if most people did, they'd have to start putting together 8-car long Metro trains, because there simply wouldn't be room.

So, mini-suitcase people… pick it up, carry it with you on the escalator and don't let it sit on the stair behind you. If you can't muster up the strength to do that, take the elevator. And on the train, please at least put it between your feet or something, because there's nothing worse than nailing my shin on one of those suckers.

/end rant.