Category Archives: Complaint Department

In which Catherine is even more conspicuous than usual

By Catherine Winters | Published: February 23, 2010
“Wow, Catherine! You’re wearing a sling and everything!” Yeah! I tore my rotator cuff1 doing extreme sports. “It’s a good thing you wore your loosest possible jeans to work then, isn’t it? Really tight ones would make going to the bathroom really, really difficult.” It sure would. Dammit. Yes, again. [↩]
Also posted in Catherine, Exercise, Talking to Catherine | Comments closed

Failed slogans: “Woodbridge: the wine that takes 2 hours to choke down”

By Catherine Winters | Published: October 7, 2009
So there I was, waiting to meet a friend for sushi, when she called to let me know she was running a little behind. What to do, what to do? Why hello, Liquor Store! This particular BC Liquor Store is located in Vancouver’s classiest shopping establishment, Kingsgate Mall. Home to the Worst Washroom in Canada,1 [...]
Also posted in Brands, Typography | Comments closed

Pride by any other name

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 30, 2009
As a quick aside, one argument I’ve heard about the Gay Pride Parade recently is that if its purpose as an activism tool has ended in North America, maybe it shouldn’t be called “Pride” anymore. Honestly though, we have virtually no holidays or traditions that make any sense when viewed from their original contexts. Seriously, [...]
Also posted in Events, LGBT, Vancouver | Comments closed

Blogathon 2009: Infographics, Part 1: Why the CBC sucks

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 25, 2009
Okay, this is something that has bugged me for a while. People who say “interactive” when they mean “hard to use” and “Flash scrollbars”. While otherwise a competent, irritatingly underfunded news organization, the CBC sucks at infographics. Most of their “interactive features” are just text that requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to read. [...]
Also posted in Blogathon 2009, Canada, Infographics, News, Usability, Vancouver | Tagged , | Comments closed

Won’t you be my neighbour?

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 20, 2009
For the past few years, I’ve lived in a Vancouver Special, chopped up into a few suites. My entire street, and in fact, most of my neighbourhood is like that, I suspect. It’s the sort of apartment realtors and landlords describe as “cozy”, but it’s decent. I know a few of my neighbours: There’s the [...]
Also posted in Catherine, Suggestion Box, Usability, Vancouver | Comments closed

Adventures in self-checkout UI

By Catherine Winters | Published: November 8, 2008
Part of being me is that basically every possible task I decide to undertake in my day-to-day life is completely unaccounted for by city planners, architects, designers, doctors, software engineers, and so on. Sometimes, this is simply due to the fact that I am tall[1], as in the case of the face-level wall sconce mounted [...]
Also posted in Usability, Vancouver | Comments closed

A friendly neighbourhood reminder

By Catherine Winters | Published: August 1, 2008
To whom it may concern: Firstly, I want to assure you I have nothing less than the utmost sympathy for what you are going through. I can certainly appreciate the sheer number of emotional and logistical challenges inherent in caring for a dog as large and as gravely ill as yours appears to be. On [...]
Also posted in Catherine, Vancouver | Comments closed

Attention Catherine’s Neighbours:

By Catherine Winters | Published: July 14, 2008
Please do not mow your lawn in Vancouver in July. It’s dead. You’re just spraying dust into my kitchen window.
Also posted in Catherine, Vancouver | Comments closed