Indiscriminate Transgressions

So today the Vatican decided there are some new sins. Or God told them about these or something, since in theory that’s how these things get passed down to us, right?

link to reuter’s article about “new” sins

It’s good to see God as a trailing indicator on these sorts of trends. It also would appear that the Vatican has some offsets to sell, so like Al Gore, they are convincing people they should feel the guilt and buy their way out of it. Oh and they just so happen to have some of the stuff you want to buy.

link to article about vatican offset scheme

Don’t forget your power bill next time you go to the confessional!

I’m trying to pay a ticket online. Yes, I was driving while on my cellphone, which is now a first offense in NJ. But it’s still a payable offense, so the ticket says I can pay my ticket online. I was issued the ticket on 1/16, and since today’s the 19th I figured I’d give it a try.

Here’s the site:

www.njmcdirect.com

the first thing I notice is that I have to pay an extra fee online, even though I guarantee that this is a cheaper process than me paying in person:

The Convenience Fee is assessed to fund the interconnection between NJMCdirect.com and the Automated Traffic System. The Convenience Fee is based on the penalty and the amount of the traffic ticket, (fee schedule shown below). Consistent with the N.J.S 2B:12-30, the money is deposited in the Administrative Office of the Courts Automated Traffic System Fund.

Penalty Amount : Convenience Fee Applied
$1.00 - $40.00 : $1.00
$41.00 - $87.00 : $2.00
$88.00 - $200.00 : $3.00
>$200.00 : $4.00

By the way, the site doesn’t do anything in Firefox for me. It just hangs and never comes up with the page. In Internet Explorer it’s slow as molasses. But, here’s the best part, the site has _hours_ where they accept payment. Here’s the relevant bit:

Online Payment Hours
Payments can be made on this website during the following hours:

Mon - Thurs
7:30AM - 11:45PM (EST)
Fri
7:30AM - 10:45PM (EST)
Sat
7:30AM - 3:45PM (EST)
Sun
1:00PM - 11:45PM (EST)

Huh? What is there a human on the other end answering to the HTTP requests? Why are Sunday’s hours so short? Potential maintenance issues?

Anyhow, I enter the ticket number as indicate, and for the license plate number, I type in exactly what the ticket says, including the hyphen. I get a generic error, “Invalid license plate number.” Even though it says nothing about the format of a plate “number” (mine has letters, why is this called a number anymore?) I decide to leave out the hyphen. I then get the following error message:

NJMCdirect is unable to locate the ticket information. Please contact the court to resolve this matter, or refer to the back of the traffic ticket for alternate payment options.

I triple checked the information, and it’s all correct. Wheeeeeeeee!

Combine the general crappiness of mobile phone games with the general crappiness of forensic TV and what do you get?

This is from “CellPlay: The 411 for gaming on your cell phone” insert in some damned gaming magazine. I like how they spell this version of the CSI show: