Cambridge Common Restaurant Website

[plumtreeblossom]

First, click and listen:

http://www.cambridgecommonrestaurant.com/main.html

Just e-mailed:

Dear Manager and Dear Webmaster,

I feel a need to tell you that the song that auto-plays on your website is hands-down the worst song I've ever heard in any musical genre in my entire life. I'm glad it's possible to mute it while trying to read your website, but I hesitate at the idea of actually going to your restaurant for fear that "music" similar to this is what plays in your dining room. Your website would be much more usable and inviting without this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar.

I hope this song isn't representative of your dining room's ambient music, as I'm sure I would otherwise like to try dining in your establishment. I just don't want to have to bring earplugs.

Thanks,
-Mare

Comments

[ron_newman]

When performed properly by someone who actually understands music, I think it's supposed to sound like this.

(If you get an e-mail reply back from the restaurant, I'd love to read it.)

[beowabbit]

Wow, that’s pretty awful! But it’s not the worst thing about that web site.

(1) Whole thing in Flash. That means, for instance, that I can’t link to the appetizers menu in a text message suggesting it to a friend I’m making plans with. Also means that the entire web site will not work at all for a large number of people — iPad and iPhone users, people on certain kinds of netbooks, people who have Flash turned off because it’s almost exclusively used for animated ads, etc.

(2) Whole thing in Flash. This means that the browser can’t adjust the font sizes. This means that if you have a super-high-resolution monitor, the web site is a tiny illegible postage stamp in the middle of your screen, but if you try to browse it on your phone (assuming your phone supports flash) you can only see a tiny fraction of the content and the site is basically unusable.

(3) Whole thing in Flash. As mentioned above, this means that people with low vision can’t increase the font size or adjust the contrast. It also means that people with no vision can’t use screen readers.

(4) Throbbing bitmaps with no antialiasing. When you hover over the logo on the front “page” (or what would be the front page if Flash supported linkable pages), the bitmap logo throbs. But it’s a bitmap, and each size is a bitmap. This produces really weird effects. I suspect that this problem is a side effect of the fact that you’re tempted to do dumb, pointless things with animation if, you know, the whole thing is in Flash.

(5) Whole thing in Flash. This means that after the Revolution, their web developers will all have been guillotined, and they won’t have anybody to maintain their site. Also, it means that after the Revolution, their web server and all their computers will have been seized and crushed, and they won’t have anything to run their web site on.

(6) Have I mentioned that the whole thing is in Flash?

Bwahahaha!

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar

That is GREAT!!

[spacechicken.livejournal.com]

That song may be one of the most butchered blues songs ever. John Lee Hooker's version is the only one that should exist. The version on that website is hands down the worst one I've heard yet though.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

You have stated the case so eloquently that I beg permission to plagiarize it and adapt it so that the language fits any organization that aggravates me to a fare-thee-well -- for example supermarket, CVS store, storefront that leaks loud tacky music onto sidewalk, etc.
We need lots more public input to these companies about the nasty loud and obnoxious "music" which we are required to hear whether we like it or not.
Just last week I walked out of a rather nice restaurant in the North End because the not-too-bad Italian pop music was WAY too loud -- and I told them so!

[ron_newman]

A little more research identifies the butcher of this song as Margaret Doll Rod, whoever she is, from Detroit.

[spatch]

Well, now.

That was... something, all right.

(I can assure you that Cambridge Common isn't all that bad a place, I've enjoyed beer and food there on many occasions and never remember the music being like that.)