Usually, when you sign up on a website and have a generated password emailed to you, it's a very hard-to-guess sequence of random strings strung together. It's gibberish, but it's relatively secure.

I signed up with GOOD the other day and learned that you can add personality to every aspect of your site, even the generated passwords.

Upon receiving the initial email, I had to do a double take on:

"Your password: CuddlyFrog839"

Heh. Really? Cuddly Frog?

So I signed up again, this time getting:

"Your password: HugeGiraffe830"

Heh. Huge Giraffe.

Afterward, I continued to the site with a smile on my face.

While not as secure as randomly generated gibberish, the passwords still weren't easy to guess. But in return for that trade-off, they got a new user browsing their site in good cheer and associating that feeling with them. I'm sure they can live with that.

The other day, I opened VLC's Media Player and chuckled:

Their cone icon was wearing a Santa Claus hat!

It's nothing too crazy, but it was cool to see them letting their personality show during the holiday season. They have an awesome, open source player that can render damn near any type of media file you throw at them, but little touches like this still make it that much more of a pleasure to use.

When filling out forms, I often get trolled by the same thing: State/Country master-slave fields:

Here's the typical scenario:

1. Type a state name (e.g., Texas).

2. Select a country (e.g., United States).

3. Go back up and re-select a state from the select list because the previously typed state name gets overwritten.

I've seen a few smart ones that would recognize standard and abbreviated names (e.g., "TX" or "Texas") and then automatically match your input to it's corresponding option. Others recognize one of the names but not the other (e.g., "TX" but not "Texas" and vice versa). But unfortunately, many just over-write what you type.

It's a small inconvenience but I still have a minor rage every time I tab through to Country and then have to go back up to re-select my State. Here's to more form designers and builders doing it the smart way and automatically matching your input to the appropriate option.

This beauty of a sink resides in restrooms at the Tokyo National Museum. I'd never seen one like it and actually stared at it for a while to admire the unique and clever design of it. The look and feel! The functionality! The integration! It's beautiful!

Before leaving the museum, I used the restroom 3 additional times (hot day, drank tons of water) with more than just a little bit of excitement at the prospect of washing my hands.

But it has also made me hate every other sink I've used since! Why have separate faucet, soap and dryer components? Why not be automatic? Every other sink drew a criticism out of me. I couldn't believe how emotional I was getting over a sink!

This got me thinking of other products I've fallen-in-love with over the years: Gmail, Adidas Campus and Gazelle shoes, iPods, Old Spice Classic-scent deodorant, and many more. The one thing that they all have in common is that they've triggered the same response: I hate using their alternatives.

After years of using Hotmail and Yahoo, I received an invitation to Gmail, tried it, and never looked back.

After breaking in Campuses and Gazelles, I swore off Pumas, Pro-Keds, and every other shoe.

After giving in and buying an iPod, I finally understood the hype and now can't imagine using any of my old music players.

After trying different deodorants in high school, I stumbled upon Old Spice Classic and have now been using the same scent for over 12 years.

My loyalty to these first-class products lies not only in their own performance, but also because using the competition fails in comparison. And I believe that's the ultimate sign of a great product: something so amazing that it makes you hate using the alternative.