Friday, March 24, 2006

Let's Just Pile On, Shall We?

You know us. We don't like to kick someone when he's down.

Oh, wait a minute. Sorry, we were thinking of someone else. Actually, we don't mind kicking someone when he's down at all. And that's why we're targeting the Flash Pass system again. And it's not the name and overall concept this time, though that would be ample reason to rip this repulsive beeper that actually allows rich people to pay extra money to cut in line at many Six Flags properties.

Nope, it's the Flash Pass website itself, poorly constructed enough that it's our new Site O' the Weak.

Those of you who read our site regularly (in other words, pretty much no one) might have gleaned the knowledge that at least one of the editors uses and adores Firefox. So any of you rubes who still favor IE as your main browser won't be annoyed by the fact that the site looks like garbage in FF, and some links fail to work.

However, since lots of you still, for some unfathomable reason, actually do still use IE, we'll also mention sucky things about the website that apply no matter what is being used to view it. The main problem is the ease of transmission on information. Or, to put it better, the lack thereof. If you want to describe how your cut-in-line upcharge beeper thingie works, maybe it would be easier to discuss it all on one easy-to-read page. Instead, these people make you click buttons again and again and again, so each click brings you a sentence or two of information. Why? Of course, then we have things like the expected obfuscation of facts (read "Isn't using Fastlane like line-skipping?") in a bald attempt to euphemize the term "paying extra to cut in front of people," as well as occasional passages that appear not to be written by someone still in junior high (read "What is that beeper thing called?").

Flash Pass stinks as a concept, it stinks in practice, and it stinks as a website.

--JCK