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Normal person: Hey I saw your post about booking a vacation online.
Patrick: Oh yeah.
Normal person: I kind of like the new dialogues you’re doing, by the way. They’re a nice departure from your usual writing voice, which sometimes gets… um,
Patrick: Awesome?
Normal person: No.
Patrick: Supercool?
Normal person: No. Heavy and dogmatic. Reading your stuff feels sometimes, on some particular topics, like being beaten with a bag of oranges.
Patrick: A whole bag?
Normal person: Yeah.
Patrick: But a cool bag.
Normal person: Wha? A cool? Wha? No man. Just a bag. A boring, heavy, bag. Full of boring-ass, heavy oranges.
Patrick: {Nothing}
Normal person: But the dialogues are better. More versatile. Less lecture-like.
Patrick: Thanks. You were saying something about my piece on booking a vacation online.
Normal person: Apparently you’re having a bit of trouble.
Patrick: Well, more just the frustration of the standardized nature of the search system; not that the standardization is the problem. The problem is that the…
Normal person: Yeah, yeah, you’ve beaten that horse already: the specificity of the dates of travel are prompted for at too early a stage in the decision process.
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Patrick: Exactly. And…
Normal person: And the inflexibility of the search criteria from which you can index results. You’ve made your point. Many times. But why would you unnecessarily subject yourself to the online system which you have no patience for If you don’t have to?
Patrick: What do you mean?
Normal person: Well, have you ever heard of a travel agent? I mean, seriously, how hard would it be to just call one and get them do all the leg work and merely offer options to you?
Patrick: That’s not really the point.
Normal person: What is the point then?
Patrick: Well to clearly identify exactly why and how travel websites suck.
Normal person: Yeah, but to what end? Your observation is just coming off as empty complaining.
Patrick: Ha-ha, yes, but the first stage in any kind of improvement is the identification the problem.
Normal person: Identifying or harping?
Patrick: Decisively identifying.
Normal person: Complaining, you mean. And then wouldn’t this “decisive identification” of the problem with online travel booking presume or imply that you actually intend to improve it? Somehow?
Patrick: Well if someone asked me.
Normal person: Yeah, but who’s asking?
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