A cynical and cheesed-off morning.

I'm facing today with a feeling of extreme cynicism.

Squidoo want me to change my lens images to 250x250 squares. I've carefully sizes the rectangles to fit in most cases. Product Images can't change size, and the chances of me getting the rights to images in that format for some of my other topics are 0. I can find a couple of lenses I don't care about and resize it, I suppose, but I'm not sure it will be worth it.

Regarding the game, the wireframe is in place and mechanics all working and backed by ASCII files. I'd actually prefer to keep the ASCII over the database - not just for flexibility, but because of arguments with the database developer, who wants to abandon the spec he was given and build something more conventional. (Yes, I know you follow this blog - now follow the spec!). This would involve changing the entire course and focus of the game, so it isn't happening. The text files are structured for a reason - the structure can be replicated in a database table...

The debate: Items v. collections. Individual items have no data or meta data linked. They only exist while they are in a collection, and are attributes of the collection. The collections have metadata and additional data. I want things keyed to collections as items are created and destroyed frequently. He wants all data keyed to the items and the collection given as an additional metadata field. Sounds great until you realise that the item method requires a join of two tables or an awful lot of duplication, which runs a lot slower, because the system calls everything by collection. A single item is never called from the database.

The hatchery update seems to be working: there are a lot fewer adults showing up on the admin screen than there were.

And finally the ongoing contact with Braun. They haven't phoned me back in the suggested 5 days, which is wonderful customer service. My current opinion of their company? Make crap product and then fail to honour guarantee.

I could keep politely chasing them, but it is a sad comment on the state of the world that politely chasing them will get me nowhere but bad-mouthing them through a Twitter account with 10,000+ followers has a better chance of getting the problem fixed and take less of my time and effort.