Pizza Capers

Submitter’s comments: I’m a first-time reader of your web site, and I’m finding it very informative – and amusing.  There is one web site I’d like to submit for your consideration, due to a misplaced use of metaphors and a high dependence on Flash: Pizza Capers.

The hand cursor and the basil/chili plants that swing if you put the mouse over them, but otherwise do nothing, are just idle distractions, but try taking a look at the menu – you have to go through every page by grabbing the bottom right corner of the page, dragging it halfway across the screen, and let it go.  If I wanted to thumb through a menu, I’d go into the place and thumb through the menu.  This is why I end up using the PDF version.

And the ‘capertron’ part of their ‘order online’ section is still ‘coming soon’. But on the other hand, the pizzas are excellent – they’re the only place I’d order takeaway pizza from.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: As I said yesterday about Mellow Mushroom:

Pizza Parlors are Yet Another Industry That Sucks (YAITS). This one, is a little more high end than others of its ilk, uses Flash where it could just as easily use HTML.

Although the submitter is somewhat inaccurate — you can also click on the corner of the page to change it — the real question is, “Why in God’s name would you want to use a book metaphor?” You’re wasting time, people are going to forget where certain items they may want to order are located. What does this buy you?

What really ticked me off is that I couldn’t figure how to close the menu once I opened it. I couldn’t go anywhere else. Clicking at various spots on the home page didn’t work. Another bad feature of Flash that’s used at Pizza Capers is that when you mouse over certain icons, Flash sound files are activated.

Once again, it’s important to notice that a sucky web site does not translate into a sucky product; however, if a person’s only experience with your product is your web site, you’re in trouble. What we have here is a site that’s F.U.C.K.E.D — Flash Used to Corrupt Knowledge of Effective Decisionmaking.

Worst of all, not everything is viewable on my 1900- x 1170-pixel window, as this screen shot demonstrates. OMG! I was just playing around with the home page and discovered that the only way to see everything on the home page is to click and drag and hand cursor. This site is a black hole of f*****g death.

Pizza Capers

Mellow Mushroom

Submitter’s comments: I hate this site for the same reason I hate DVD’s with animated menus. There is just too much nonsense every time I try to get to real information.

Every time.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I think I’m back. Spent three lovely days in the hospital last week because it turns out I’m too damn old to be living the rock and roll/vampire life style. My daughter, who was my accomplice during these escapades, may give up hanging out with dad’s lifestyle since it took her a month to recuperate. I’m bummed ’cause I really want to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit on November 5. And then there’s North Twin…

Pizza Parlors are Yet Another Industry That Sucks (YAITS). This one, is a little more high end than others of its ilk, uses Flash where it could just as easily use HTML. I hate their “Select A State” scrollbar on their Locations page an all the unnecessary white graphics on their subpages. Also, under the category of “Stupid,” is their Promotions page. I found a lot of gibberish, but no promotions.

Mellow Mushroom

Boogie Bottoms

Submitter’s comments: Oh, dear.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I have pneumonia so I can’t provide additional commentary other than I looked at the site and agree.

Boogie Bottoms

Evil Dead

Submitter’s comments: The site is for “Evil Dead: The Musical.” I don’t care how great it is, that it might be an art or music site, or how amusing the designer thinks their “cute” text is. I am not waiting that long! I’ll look somewhere else, thank you.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I have pneumonia so I can’t provide additional commentary other than I looked at the site and agree.

Evil Dead

Dogs Deserve Better

Submitter’s comments: I write a newsletter for a local pet rescue and this was an informational site recommended to me from a group called Dogs Deserve Better.

When I opened it up I wanted to cry. This is a group with a crystal clear mission: don’t chain your dog. Although their message is simple, their web site is a mess. It takes some time to figure out what the heck this site is about! There is so much crap on it, their message is lost. Such a shame.

Dogs do deserve better, and so does this web site

Vincent Flanders’ comments: I have pneumonia so I can’t provide additional commentary other than I looked at the site and agree. However, I must ask the question, “Where’s the logo?” It’s supposed to be at the top, left corner of the page. I don’t find the organization’s name until about 1150 pixels down the page.

Dogs Deserve Better

Sometimes, people complain when I used graphics they consider over-compressed. Yes, many of them are over-compressed, but this graphic (which is not over-compressed) will explain why.

I’ve got pneumonia. ‘Nuff said.

True Life Church

Submitter’s comments: S/he only provided the URL.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: My biggest complaint is all the graphics that look like links, but they aren’t. Also, where’s the focus? What do you want me to look at and what do you want me to do? The big graphics at the top of the page aren’t links.

On some of the subpages, we have music that automatically plays and there’s no need to have music. Like so many sites, the events page hasn’t been kept up to date and they mention their annual church picnic which happened in July. The site eats up 1.5Mb of bandwidth. I think a little more text and a lot less graphics would be helpful. A lot of the site isn’t finished, but I am.

True Life Church

Surviving Niburu

Submitter’s comments: None. I “found” this one myself. Please don’t ask how I found it.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: This is obviously one of those over-the-top web sites. The definition of an “Over the Top” web site is just like the definition of pornography— you know it when you see it. Over the Top sites generally deal with philosophy, religion, politics, end times, etc., but they’re generally not mainstream.

The History Channel has been running a bunch of shows (which you can buy on DVD) about how the world’s going to end in 2012. Here’s one and here’s another. Basically, here’s the core of the story:

It is a doomsday that is foretold in The Mayan Calendar, the Chinese oracle of the I Ching… even an internet-based prophetic software program: December 21st, 2012. Is there any truth to the prophecy that the world will end on that specific date? And why do so many oracles throughout history seem to point to that same dreaded doomsday?

I’ve got a “Future Map of the United States 1998-2001″ which, believe it or not, hasn’t come true yet. I think people are still talking up the subject, but I’m willing to bet the dates have been changed to protect the erroneous. When I originally bought it I hung it up in my office and it was a wonderful conversation piece; otherwise, it was worthless.

Maybe the world will end in 2012. If it does, it will be because of all the sucky web sites about predicting the end of the world like today’s sucker.

Surviving Niburu