OFF TOPIC blog

It seems that for the last decade or so the irreverent among us come up with new and clever ways of disrespecting traditions. Now that winter is upon us we hear the half witted wishing us happy holidays when we all know it is merry Christmas.

This season it has become popular for some advertisers to use Christmas carols as jingles to push their merchandise. I consider this the height of disrespect for tradition and such misconduct is telling of the true nature of the fools running these companies.

Can you say ‘boycott”?

If not, that is okay too. The products being advertised this way are not things that most people need. Especially not in a recession.

A well known department store is offering 20 percent off their inflated prices if you use their charge card to make the purchase. At least that is the way they present it and spin it as a good deal. Actually what they are telling me is that they are going to charge me 20 percent more if I pay cash. Not such a good deal now, is it!

I know, I know, it is a matter of is the cup half empty or half full. A am much more interested in what is in the cup than how much is in the cup.

When the department store cup has the same stuff in it as the WalMart cup, I have to go with the lowest priced ’stuff’. Besides, Walmart is not charging me extra for paying with cash.

For the last month or so we have been getting this morning news paper on Sunday mornings. I guess it is either complimentary or delivered by mistake because we do not subscribe.

Nor do we intend to subscribe.

The folk at the Dallas Morning News would do well to consider our position when it comes to news papers in general. As far as I am concerned, news papers are a waste of time, money, paper, ink, electricity and fuel. I don’t want them littering my lawn. I am not interested in reading the news paper. I get my news from radio, TV, and Internet. I don’t need or want a paper.

So, if you are listening folk at the Dallas Morning News, stop littering my lawn every Sunday morning. While you are at it stop sending me that ad rag too. There is no one here by the name of occupant!

I chuckle when I see current automobile ads where the seller gets all excited about the 30 mpg claimed for a new pint sized automobile.

I have been getting 32 mpg in my 1995 Camry LE for the last 12 years and it is a comfortable full sized car.

Low fuel economy along with outrageous purchase prices are an indication that automobile manufacturers do not understand the automotive market. New cars are averaging around 20K per vehicle. You can save about 25 percent of that by buying the car after it is a year old. You can save 75 percent or more by buying an older gas hog. You can buy a lot of gas for 15K dollars. Cost wise there is no real difference between spending the 15k on gas or spending it on a miniature new car that gets less gpm than it should.

The point is that ‘miles per gallon’ may not be a good measure of cost per mile. We need to consider all factors when considering the cost of owning and operating an automobile.

We are not trying to ‘cheap out’ here. Just trying to make sure we don’t get screwed by sales people who specialize in misleading consumers for profit.

As a consumer I have to ask, “What is in it for me”? Denser storage. About double what you can store on a normal DVD. Okay, next question is, “Why do I need that”? So you can view HD movies on your HD TV. I don’t have an HD TV. I don’t want to spend significant money on something I really don’t need. I suspect I don’t need blue ray for the same reason. Improving picture quality cannot be appreciated if it is applied to the same mediocre programming. Forcing consumers pay extra for something of questionable value is a very poor business plan. This is particularly true when cost conscious consumers are involved.

My humble opinion is that increased storage and/or higher definition is not justified by its current cost.

Lordy, lordy, seems that Ford has more than just financial problems.

Appears that they have used faulty valve stems on the tires of their new cars. So the tires don’t stay inflated for long. Wonder what other parts they have failed to test. You can’t build a car just from valve stems.

They got these defective valve stems from China. Guess they figured they could trust the Chinese. That makes me wonder if we can trust Ford. What with their history of screw ups, the valve stem problem is just ‘business as usual’.

Remember the pintos that were famous for transforming themselves into fireballs upon being rear ended? They grew up to become crown victorias with the same problem.

Then I recall the explorers turning turtle at times. Ford blamed that on the tire manufacturer. Never mind that the tire manufacturers tires performed properly on other vehicles.

Now Ford may very well be innocent in the cause of these unfortunate events. They may very well be victims, but the only sure way I know of not becoming a victim of an unfortunate Ford event is not to own, rent, or drive a Ford. And I don’t. My Toyota is not at all infested with the evil demons that seem to haunt Ford products.

You don’t suppose that I am the only automobile owner that avoids Ford? If other prospective customers are also turned off by Ford, maybe that is why they are having economic problems.

Sometimes it is not a case of not being able to find a job, it is more a case of not finding an employer dumb enough to hire you.

The same can be said for automobile customers.

Cost becomes more of a side issue when the automobile you are considering has the potential to kill you because of faulty equipment or parts.

Is it really?! If I can’t see that for myself, if the sales clown has to point it out, it is probably all bull shit, not all American.

Isn’t it funny how when some folk realize they are selling stuff no one wants to buy, they have to wrap it in Mom, country, and apple pie. You hear things like ‘its for the children’. Or it is what Americans want. Or it is what everyone is going to. All this when none of it is true.

It should not surprise us that people who peddle crap also lie and become politicians.

Sounds better than ‘Made in China’ but does not mean it was made in the United States by U.S. citizens. A common mistake we make is to consider the term America to mean the United States. The United States is just one of many countries located in America.

As long as it is not food, medicine, critical safety equipment or toys, I have no problems with stuff made in China. What I do have problems with is companies trying to hide country of origin by claiming their product was assembled in America.

Most everything that requires shipping needs to be disassembled, to some extent, for shipping. Hence, it has to be assembled upon arrival at its destination. This has absolutely nothing to do with its country of origin.

People who use the phrase ‘assembled in America’ just don’t want to tell you it was not made in the United States.

Not being made in the United States is not always a bad thing, but companies who try to deceive the public are bad news regardless of where they operate.

So, when you hear the term ‘assembled in America’, the sales folk may be trying to hide the fact that it was made by HIV positive pygmies in some third world hell hole from reconstitute cow poo.

Yes, you do need top and bottom slides on each drawer to keep the drawer from tilting up when opened. Fortunately only the top drawer needs extra slides on its top edge. The drawers below the top drawer can use the bottom slides of the drawer above them to act as top slides.

Bottom slides that have an L cross section take care of basic drawer support as well as providing side to side stability. If L rails cannot be used the area between the front and back slide supports needs to be made continuous (front to back) for a width of about an inch to keep the drawer from jamming as they twist from side to side.

Soap was rubbed onto the surfaces that have drawers riding on them. You don’t need lots of soap. A little does just fine and allows the drawers to slide well.

Didn’t use any drawer stops. Turns out our kitchen drawers don’t have stops either. Our kitchen drawers have been in use for 60 years without any having been pulled out of the cabinet.

As previously discussed, why buy them when you can make your own.

Turns out it is not all that simple. At first glance all you need to do is support the bottoms of the drawers evenly on both sides. After all, we just want to pull the drawer out and slide it back in. That is just one direction of motion. Out and in.

Trouble is the drawer also tilts up and down. It also moves side to side.

Up down tilt is controlled by adding rails to the tops of the drawer. You only need to add these as extra rails to the first drawer. Successive drawers can use the upper drawers bottom rails as their top rails. No need for super strength or slidability. These top rails don’t even need to contact the drawer other than to act as stops to keep the drawer from tilting.

Side to side motion is controlled by rails keeping the drawer from twisting and jamming. The easiest way to install top and bottom rails is to attach them to vertical supports at the center and sides of the cabinet. One support in front, the other in back. Side to side motion becomes a problem when the drawer jams in the area between the front and back supports. To avoid this fill in the space between the front and back supports with a narrow third rail to guide the drawer and prevent catching it on the discontinuous problem area.

This works but it is not as trivial as it may appear at first glance. If making and installing six or more rails per drawer seems like work, you may opt for buying ready made rails. Those only have four parts needing installation, two per side

About six months ago my neighbor remodeled his kitchen. Remodeling entails throwing out the old stuff and replacing it with new stuff. Sometimes the new stuff is not any better than the old stuff but it is new.

Turns out that the old cabinet drawers were still in fairly good shape. They were constructed of good lumber instead of compacted sawdust and looked as though they would hold together for another thirty years. So I took them. I was going to use them under some work benches in the garage to hold assorted hardware and tools.

Now, six months later, I decided it was high time to turn the clutter of cabinet drawers into something useful. Took a look at cabinet drawer slides. Found all kinds of cabinet hardware in various sizes and grades. The only thing the selections had in common were that they were expensive. At the high end was a pair of slides priced at $300. Of course they were rated to support 500lbs of drawer and contents even with the drawer extended. Shipping was $25 and screws were extra. Since I had acquired the drawers for free, super slides did not impress me as a good investment. I decided to see how my kitchen cabinets were constructed. After all, they had drawers that had slid reliably for over 40 years.

Turns out that my kitchen cabinet drawers slide on hardwood rails treated with talcum powder or soap. Works very well. Very possibly support up to 500 lbs and does not require me to pay for shipping and handling. I did not have any hardwood to make slides but I did have lots of pine board and some solid oak 2X2s. I cut a few thin slivers of oak off the 2X2s and used them to surface some soft pine board. Works really well as a slide and I don’t have to worry about ordering special purpose screws to mount the slides.

I doubt my installation will support 500lbs but neither will the drawers. Besides I can’t afford to own such heavy tools or hardware.

Many people confuse Health Insurance with health care. Some even believe that the more they pay for health insurance, the better will be the health care.

It does not work that way. Health insurance does not insure good health care. Or any care at all, for that matter. A condition that does not become evident until the insured is in need of care. When that occurs it is not at all unusual to find that companies that overcharge for insurance underprovide with care.

That is because the first thing they insure is that they make a profit. When you don’t produce anything but promises to pay for future services provided by others, the only way you can make a profit is to take in more money than you pay out. That is what insurance companies do the best. They are not all scrooges, but when scrooginess is your most important product, you get scroogy behavior.

I must have heard that radio ad several times a day for a month before realizing how stupid it was. If I pay someone to insure me against loss I would expect them to be on my side. Why would I pay an insurance company not to be on my side? Moreover what are they implying? Seems that they are suggesting some insurance companies may not be on the customers side. Now an insurance company stupid enough to suggest such idiocy may well be stupid enough to act on it.

The next time I heard the Nationwide ad, I listened to it to see if there were other anomilies or implications. Sure enough, at the end of the ad a squeeky, fast talking voice declared that the insurance might not be available in all states. Seems that Nationwide is not really nationwide. Makes you wonder if the insurance would insure you in states where it were not available. Makes you wonder what Nationwide did to get ejected from states where it is no longer available. Suppose maybe it had to do with which side they were on?

The old Camry has been in need of a pair of new front tires for a while now. We finally decided to take care of that this Saturday. I was not looking forward to this. The last time I bought tires at Sam’s they must have been seconds or perhaps thirds (if there is such a thing). The guy doing the balancing had to install so many weights he could not get the hub caps back on. Don’t remember exactly how that one was resolved. That was over 15 years ago. Yup, this was the first time in a decade and a half that I decided to give the Sam’s place a second try.

Left the house at about 12:30, just after noon. Got back to the house at 1:30 with new tires and a trunk load of groceries.

They didn’t have michelins. No big deal michelins wear out too. One of the bad tires on the front was a michelin. They offered me Dunlap 195/70/14’s at $52 each. I figured the Dunlap tires were just as perfectly round as the Michelins so we arranged to have two of them installed while we did some grocery shopping.

Twenty minutes later we were pushing our cart back into the parking lot where we expected to find our car. No problem. Found the car and it had new tires on the front wheels. Got the keys and paperwork from the service desk, loaded the groceries and were on our way home.

Pushed the envelope a little to test the new ride. Not a hint of shimmy. Car is all better now and ready for the next trip.

What impressed me was that the folk at Sam’s did not hassle us about rebates, road hazzard insurance, and other scams practiced by some of the tire sales monkeys out there. No B.S. just fair prices, good work, and fast service.

A stark contrast to our experience at Discount Tire Place the last place that balanced my tires. They wasted my time coming up with an estimate of $550 to replace all four tires when all I needed was a wheel balancing. That $550 was after a $30 trade-in allowance on the tires that did not need to be replaced, a $50 mail-in rebate that I was pretty sure would not materialize, and addition of a heafty additional insurance fee.

We won’t be going back to Discount any time soon. Not when we can get decent deals at Sam’s.

We tried Netflix some years ago. As I recall the deal was fifteen dollars a month and three movies at a time by mail. The movie selection was so-so and the price was a little high so we let our subscription lapse.

Since then we have been critical customers of all three cable and cable-like services in our area. We started with Direct-TV. Then tried Dish Network to get their ‘deal’ on multiple receivers. Even tried Comcast but unsuccessfully because the installer they sent out was a hopelessly incompetent boob. We sent him packing and told Comcast we could not do business with them. Against company policy.

Now we have ATT U-verse which is a combination broadband internet and cable service at a very reasonable price. Yes, U-verse is okay but it has the same programming content we got with Direct TV, Dish Network, and would have had with Comcast. Hundreds of channels but most of them not worth watching. Lots of infomercials and offers of pay per view. My feeling is that they should be paying me for bringing infomercials to my TV and I already pay to view. I don’t see why I should have to pay more to view.

We recently got an offer to upgrade to the next level of U-verse. Free for the first month and twenty dollars additional per month thereafter. The upgrade would add about 100 stations to our present selection. My wife took a look at those 100 additional stations and concluded that none of them were worth paying an additional twenty dollars per month. What we really need is the ability to be able to select the programming by station or channel. There is lots of trash I would like to get rid of an not be billed for and there are several channels I would like to receive that are not included in my standard, one size fits all, package.

About a week ago we took another look at Netflix. It is hard to ignore their commercials, ‘movies instantly on you pc’. Free trial offers. I finally had to investigate.

Turns out that the Netflix deal is better than anything else out there. They really do provide unlimited movies instantly on my pc. Well, it is not really instantly. It takes a couple of minutes to download the first part to start the movie but it is as fast as any pay-per-view rip off I have ever had the misfortune to be abused by.

The instant Netflix feature is just like cable pay-per-view except you only pay once monthly and can view as many movies as you have time for. For about eight dollars a month you get an unlimited viewing capability of thousands of movies. The price, content, selection, and convenience is far better than anything that cable has to offer.

I have alway wanted the ability to pick and choose the channels in my cable package. Netflix takes this one step further by allowing me to pick and choose an unlimited amount of programming content. It is like having real time access to the HBO movie archives. Well worth the eight dollar a month charge.

You need a fast broadband internet connection and at least a pentium III computer running XP and Microsoft software, but these requirements are not unreasonable.

If you get tired of sitting in front of the computer monitor to watch the movies, you can route the signal to a TV by using a video card that has a TV/out feature.

The Netflix instant movie feature is going to make movie rental stores obsolete. It is also going to take a huge bite out of those pay-per-view ripoffs cable services are famous for.

Consider this: Say you are retired with nothing better to do than watch movies eight hours a day. Each movie runs about two hours so we are talking about viewing at least four movies a day. Lets say we do this every day for a month before getting tired of this. That is four times thirty or 120 movies over the one month period. If we were to go the pay-per-view route it would cost us about three dollars per movie or a total of $360 to watch 120 movies over a one month period. You can do the same through Netflix for a single payment of eight dollars for the month.

So, instead of wasting twenty bucks a month on 100 extra channels devoid of content, we decided to spend eight dollars a month for instant, unlimited pay-per view and access to more movies than we could ever expect to get on HBO, STARZ, and CINEMAX combined.

We are ATT u-verse subscribers. Have been for the better part of six months now. Basic cable TV service and broadband internet.

About a month ago we got a large postcard from AT&T announcing a free weekend of HBO. It was being offered as a promotional effort presumably to show us what we were missing.

The free HBO weekend was to occur starting March 20. It is now March 29 and still no free HBO weekend. We have come to the conclusion that we are not missing anything by not having HBO.

Today we get another very large postcard from AT&T announcing that we can upgrade to a better cable service with them. I-DID-NOT-KNOW-THAT!!!! Imagine that, if I were made of money and short on brains I could pay much more for some more bad programming content. No thanks.

Just to be fair I will have to admit that the card also offered the first months additional programing at no extra charge. The card was also painfully deficient in letting me know how much more I would be paying for the extra service in the second month and all months thereafter. Guess it is a secret.

Now why do you suppose AT&T would act as though they do not want their customers to know how much more an upgrade would cost? Could it be that the price increase is not worth the additional service? Could it be that the additional service is substandard, that program material selection is not really better than the basic service.

Perhaps. When you are offering your customers an additional service expecting to charge them more money, you don’t want to scare them off by telling them how much it will cost.

Sounds to me like the kind of misdirection politicians are famous for.

So what is the secret? Seems to me AT&T is being run by politicians. Either that or folk that have similar techniques and objectives. Objectives that seem to put AT&T profit ahead of customer satisfaction. Politicians can get away with that sort of nonsense. The private sector demands better treatment. Ask those who were involved with the old Comcast cable service.

I kept getting unwanted messages from some vendors that I have done business with. Some were familiar. Others were not familiar and gave cause to wonder why they thought I would be interested in hearing from them.

Turns out that some companies automatically subscribe you to their ‘newsletter’ when you place an order. If you do not want to be subscribed, you have to go out of your way to find the elusive subscription box and uncheck it. The bottom line here is that they can send you spam and cover their ugly behinds by claiming you subscribed to receive the crap they are sending.

I consider this the ugliest of ugly fraudulent tactics. If their marketing is this devious and evil the rest of the company has to be rotten as well.

Do you have to be stupid to do stupid things? I guess it depends on how often you do stupid things. Or maybe it is related to how stupid the deed has to be to declare someone as terminally stupid. Stupid is as stupid does? By their deeds you will know them.

Apparently you do not have to be stupid to do stupid things as long as you do not make a habit of doing stupid things. Apparently there is a danger of becoming stupid if you do enough stupid things or engage in things that are stupid beyond description. Guess maybe you could call it being Spitzerized. That is sort of like being sanforized except you still have the wrinkles you started with.

Recently I did a very stupid thing. Cruised a bunch of sites containing information on new Linux releases. Turns out there are no significant new Linux releases. Just Linux release want-to-bees offering lots of fluff and no substance. Wasting my time perusing such worthless tripe was stupid all in itself, but I did not leave it there. I replied to a pop-up proclaiming I had won a new laptop.

Yup, I entered my real name, my real address, and my real telephone number all the while picturing my bony ass sitting on the front porch waiting on a special delivery from the UPS man.

An hour later my inbox was flooded with 200 new spam emails.

No problem. Just set the filters and let google handle the spam. Heck, you can even get google to forward the spam to the FTC automatically.

Some might say that this new traffic really cannot be considered to be spam because I willingly submitted my contact information. Hmmm….maybe but there was still a high level of hopeful expectation of gain offered. The same sort of expectation that accompanies most political promises and virtually all fraud. It is similar to a devout believer describing a trip to hell as a religious experience.

The google spam filter is good and I am not sure why it is so good. Such excellence usually requires a degree of knowledge about spam that could only come for the spammers themselves. It takes one to know one. However I did not realize the accuracy of the filter before testing it to make sure no desireable mail was being trashed.

After a week of looking I found nothing desireable being trashed but I did find a lot of vendors listed that I would never have suspected resorted to spam as a means of ‘getting their message out’.

In case anyone is wondering what that message might be, here is the message that I get when I receive unwanted e-mail. ‘Hello, I am the royal pain in your ass, I am here to provide a nuisance factor to your otherwise pleasant existence, I offer you fraudulent offers that are sure to ruin your belief that people are generally good, these messages come straight from hell and are personally endorsed by the devil himself, they are designed to waste your time, waste your bandwidth, take over your computer, and generally cause as much damage as possible, thank you, call again, no never mind, we will call you again.’

Yes, that is somewhat of an over-reaction, but it places an accurate perspective on how I feel about spam. Having such a negative reaction to spam, could you guess what my reaction is to those who engage in the distribution of spam?

The trick is finding out who these miscreants are and educating them to how much they are reviled.

Turns out that is not entirely impossible. After all, when a person advertises, be the offers genuine or fraudulent, he has to identify himself, he even has to disclose where he lives.

My recent perusal of spam I receive in an effort to verify the accuracy of the google filters has revealed some very surprising names and companies. Names that I would never have thought would stoop low enough to engage in anti-social activities such as spamming.

I guess these folk do not realize that years of building positive images can be destroyed in seconds by sending even one spam e-mail. That is certainly what happens when that one spam e-mail arrives in my inbox uninvited.

I prefer to do business with vendors who value and respect their customers. Nothing good can come from dealing with the devil and his minions. Unfortunately those minions are not always readily identifiable. However, they are always identified in the spam they produce.

I guess companies can be stupid too!

What is needed is a list of companies engaged in producing spam. Perhaps under the heading of ‘Companies who believe that spam is their most important product’.

Over the last ten years we have used all the various cable and satellite services available. They all have one thing in common. They are overpriced and offer poor programming content. If you like movies, newly released movies, don’t waste your time and money on cable, use netflix. You will be amazed at how far five bucks a month will go.

Before cable we had about six channels and nothing worth watching. Now we have hundreds of channels and still nothing worth watching and we are paying for the abuse.

We recently dumped the cable and satellite services in favor of a new fiber optic service but the programming did not improve. The only consolation is that we are paying about half of what it cost us before and we get broadband internet access to boot.

After we closed our Dish Network account we got several calls from them wanting to know why we closed the account. Is there a diplomatic way of telling someone their service or product is substandard and their prices are too high, or both? And how come they did not already know that?

We use webmail for our email accounts. Webmail allows us to access our email from anywhere in the world using any computer that has internet access. We are no longer tied to the one computer that had our email account and messages and contact list. We are no longer tied to one flakey ISP who takes our email address with him as he goes belly up. Webmail also has an effective means of dealing with spam.

We usually nuke the spam folder on a regular basis but not always without taking a look at the trash it has collected. Who knows, some important message could have been automatically mistaken as spam.

Imagine our surprise when we noted several spam messages had come from Dish Network!

We make it a rule not to do business with telephone solicitors or spamers. These are the lowest of the low when it comes to vendors. We are firm believers in ‘trust but verify’ If you can’t verify someone, they can’t be trusted. Spammers and telemarketers cannot be verified or trusted. They have absolutely no regard for the privacy of prospective customers and usually have the poorest of services and products. We never thought that Dish Network would stoop so low as to join the spammers.

Way back in the seventies, the nineteen-seventies, my mother-in-law and her husband opened an account at a bank. I am not sure if it was The Bank of America then, but that is what they called themselves today.

One of the advantages of having such a well established and old account included a safe deposit box. There was no charge for the box. It was all part of a package deal.

Recently the account was closed. About a week ago we discovered that the safe deposit box part of the account was still open. No big deal. It was not costing us anything but we felt that it might be to the banks advantage to close that part of the account as well.

My wife tried to turn in the single key she had to that box and was informed that they could not close the account unless they had both keys. My wife then tried to reason with them. She offered to mail in the second key which was most likely in Grandmothers stored records. No, the bank would not accept a mailed-in key. Both keys had to be presented in person for the account to be closed. However, they could close the account by charging us 25 dollars for the second key. The 25 dollars would be refunded after we personally delivered the second key. That was not going to work for us because the bank is in Oklahoma City and we live near Dallas. Besides we had far better plans for our 25 dollars. At no time had we ever considered presenting a bank we would not do business with, a present of 25 dollars.

Well, that was just too bad. That was the best the bank could do. So, my wife left the account open. We now have a no cost perpetual safe deposit box at some user unfriendly bank in Oklahoma City. We will probably never ever use that box, but we also know that the bank will not be able to use it either. It turned into a lose/lose situation with the nasty banker getting his just deserts for being less than cooperative. Charge us 25 dollars for a second key indeed!

This banking institution is in desperate need of a lesson in public service. Sometimes those who serve get confused and expect to be served by the customers that pay good money for bad service.

One of these years this particular bank in OKC might wake up to the fact that there is no activity on that safe deposit box. They may even inquire as to why and decide to reclaim ownership to the box so they can rent it out to a paying customer and an active account.

No problem. It will cost them about 2000 dollars. That is 2000 dollars as valued in the year 2007. Since we have no idea how long this sleeping dog will remain sleeping I guess we also need to identify how this 2000 dollars is disbursed. The funds will be used to provide a limusine in Dallas for travel to the DFW airport. At the airport we will purchase a round tip ticket to Oklahoma City, first class of course including a generous flight insurance policy to cover the trip. Then we will need another limusine in Oklahoma City to take us to the bank and back to the airport, and transportation from DFW to our house. Finally, there is the matter of being compensated for our time. We figure 100 dollars an hour and an eight hour minimum is a very fair price. This is takehome pay. Any considerations regarding taxes will need to be paid by the bank. All of these services are payable in advance, of course.

Yes, we can mail in that second key if they like, but it will still cost them 2000 dollars shipping and handling.

Ever wonder how those TV marketing scams work? The ones where they double your order for the same money claiming to give you so much more for your money. Just pay shipping and handling. Ever wonder why the stuff you see hawked on the boob tube is not ever available in stores?

Well, first off, that knife sharpener, jar opener, super hearing aid amplifier does not cost them anywhere near the asking price of around twenty bucks. They buy the stuff cheap and in quantity paying a couple of bucks per item.

Then they claim it is worth ten times that price. To make sure that you are enticed to buy they offer to double your order. You get two for the price of one, but in the fine print they charge you shipping and handling for each one seperately even though both items are shipped in the same carton.

When you receive the item you realise why it is not available in stores. Had you seen it before purchasing you would not have bought it. Shoddy workmanship, poor design, does not live up to the claims made on TV.

The fact that you fell for the two for one scam only saddles you with two useless items to remind you how badly you were taken.

I go to purchase a half inch pipe cap at Lowes. I pay cash. The checker asks me for my phone number. I tell her I am from out of town. Thats okay, she still wants my phone number. She did not stop until I told her it was unlisted.

She claimed she needed my phone number in case I returned the merchandise. I smilled politely and got out of there without leaving my phone number.

I learned a long time ago not to become adversarial in the face of unreasonable requests. Just leave.

It occured to me that she might be confused. It was pretty obvious that I was not returning any merchandise.

Maybe she wanted to call me up for a date? Nothing wrong with her except she did not have a brain. Some might think that is the ideal date.

I suppose I am just paranoid but I refuse to give out personal information to strangers for no reason other than to satisfy someones desire to pry.

It had been a while since I bought supper at a fast food drive thru, but I had done it before and thought I knew how to do it.

You just drive up to the menu display, decide what you want, then drive up to the speaker to order.

The menu was very specific at this particular Jack in the box. It even had numbers beside the selections. I decided on a number 8. That is when the trouble began.

“I would like a number 8 meal.”

“Small, medium or large?”

“No, I want a number 8 meal, the one for $4.05″.

“Small, medium or large?”

The lady running the speaker had an oriental accent. Reminded me of that no brain bimbo on MadTV, Ms. Swan. The conversation was degenerating into one of those hillarious Ms. Swan skits but this time it was not funny.

“I want the number 8 meal, the one for $4.05, the one with the jumbo jack with cheese”.

“Ah, Jumbo jack with cheese, that will be $1.65.”

“I guess maybe you did not hear me, I want the number 8 meal, the combo that is on the menu priced at $4.05.”

“Small, medium, or large?”

“Never mind. I will eat somewere else.”

I thought it was a good idea to resurect the clown at jack in the box, but I had no idea they would give him an oriental accent, no brain, and put him in charge of the drive through.

The story does have a happy ending. I ended up having the best sausage sandwich I ever had at the BBQ joint around the corner. It cost less than $4.00 and they did not ask me ’small, medium, or large’.

Jack in the box is broken and I really don’t care if he ever gets repaired because I am not going back there.

‘Small, medium, or large’, INDEED!

Be careful not to confuse the two. Health care is very different from Health insurance.

Like all types of insurance, health insurance is merely a way of easing the financial burden of health care expense. At least that is what it was designed to do initially.

It does not insure that you will remain healthy. Remaining healthy is more of a personal responsibility. Health insurance is supposed to provide funds for when you get sick. How well it does that can become questionable at times. It should be called sick insurance for more than several reasons.

Here is how health insurance has worked for me over the last 30 or so years. While employed and healthy my employer provided health insurance without any contribution from me. It was part of my benefits of being employed.

It worked well. If we were ill we could go to the doctor. Since we were young, healthy and safe, the heaviest charges for medical care were for the birth of my three children. All was paid for as well it should have been because there was considerable monies going for ‘Health Insurance’ every month.

As time progressed, we were introduced to PPOs, higher premiums, less employer paid for insurance, higher medical costs, and co-pay.

PPOs were created as a way of health insurance companies providing less than adequate care at a much reduced cost to them.

Higher premiums became the norm because of an unhealthy growth of the insurance industry. The larger it gets, the more money it wants.

Higher medical costs were largely from the burdensome overhead of paperwork generated by insurance companies. There were other factors involved not the least of which was inflation. (Inflation - the ability of government to print money without backing.)

Co-pay was a means of charging the insured monies over and above the premiums being paid for insurance.

The trend has been more money for the insurance companies and less medical care for the insured.

As we developed medical problems with age, the insurance premiums had a significant increase. Up to 1500 dollars a month at the end. So now we had to make a choice between using that money to provide our own medical care or giving it to the insurance company.

We no longer have health insurance. We cannot afford to pay for health insurance and medical care at the same time.

The real tragedy is that we have turned over thousands of dollars for health insurance over the years and have not received the medical care that they promised to provide. All that money is lost to us and now we find that it would be useful to provide the medical care we may need yet we have no recourse to recovering any of the funds that were stolen.

Now we are told that EVERYONE should have health insurance and I have to question as to why. Other than providing for the birth of three children our health insurance as done very little FOR us. If anything it has cause an unhealthy financial situation.

We are told that 47 million US citizens do not have health insurance and that is a bad thing. Yet that means that 253 million US citizens do have health insurance and I am not so sure that is a good thing.

When health insurance companies control our access to medical care, our medical care becomes marginal.

Now the government wants to take over the health insurance business and provide health insurance for all. In fact it is to become a requirement like taxes.

That is sort of like requiring all citizens to have homeowners insurance regardless of if they own a home.

No good can come of such an action.

Our neighborhood has been suffering from power outages for several years now. It seems to occur whenever it rains hard which has been fairly frequently in the last few months.

Power is never off for long. The longest outage was about 24 hours.

Evidently there is something about rain that causes the circuits to short out. Power is again restored when someone comes to reset the breaker or replace fuses.

Turns out that the main problem is tree branches. Most of the trees in this area are over 30 years old. The last time they were trimmed out was more than 5 years ago.

Recently I received an email forwarded to me detailing some of the emails published by other neighbors. The bottom line on the emails was that tree trimming services were to be available sometime in the fall. We were also cautioned that to prevent disfiguring our mature trees we might want to consider doing the trimming ourselves.

That is what I was doing last Saturday. I was trying to trim some branches of an oak that had grown into the power lines. I figured that cutting the branches at the trunk would allow the rest of the limb to fall to the ground. That did not happen because the offending branch had grown around and entrapped the power line.

An hour after shorting out the line by pulling at the branch, an Oncore bucket truck arrived to take care of the power outage that the short had caused.

The lineman inspected the situation, cleared some additional tree branches from both the sycamore as well as the oak. He inspected the wires below some of the branches from the sycamore and found burn marks on the wires. Signs that the limbs had caused the wires to touch. The limbs were only in proximity of the wires, but they sag when wet and wind could easily whip them into the wires causing shorts.

The lineman also discovered that both of the transformers in our alley were connected in parallel off the same circuit. Not the best situation since two circuits were available. Each transformer should have been running off its own circuit. One of the transformers also appeared to be original equipment. Original to the day it was installed about 30 plus years ago. The lineman submitted an work order to have these situations remedied.

That was last Saturday. Imagine my surprise when a three man crew showed up shortly after nine this morning to replace the old transformer and correct the primary connection. They were done in under an hour.

I consider that proof positive that the power company is not as unresponsive as some of us have thought. They are as much interested in providing reliable power as their customers are in receiving reliable power.

Once the problem was demonstrated, they reacted quickly, positively and effectively.

Additional tree trimming has also been scheduled. This to be done by professional tree trimmers.

This morning I saw a large orange tree trimming truck pulling a chipper rolling down Laguna. I sure hope they don’t get lost.

Looks like people are becoming more and more desperate for news. Now one of the hot topics is the pros and cons regarding bottled water. Why not just drink tap water?

In our area the summer brings algea growth to the lake that supplies us with water. The plants give the water a bad taste. We used to buy bottled water and used two of those 50 gallon jugs a month. Then we discovered Britta pitchers.

The Britta filtration system works for us. It works very well. It conditions tap water to the point of where it is drinkable. So, we still use bottled water but it is bottled by us in our kitchen and consists of Britta filtered water poured into water bottles we have saved for this purpose.

VOIP stands for voice over Internet Protocol and the capability has been around as long as the internet. In its basic form VOIP allows you to ‘talk’ over the internet. All that is required is a sound card equipped with speaker and microphone. Free software such as Skype takes care of the interface in the computer and all a user needs is the IP address of the person he wishes to contact. Of course, both parties need to be similarly equipped and using Skype.

Skype is a very basic VOIP software and has very limited application to normal telephone communications or telephone numbers. However, with additional effort VOIP can replace normal telephone service.

DSL is a broadband application that normally requires a telephone line. The DSL broadband connection operates independent of normal telephone use. You may use the telephone normally while using DSL at the same time. DSL is fast enough to support VOIP but since you need basic telephone service in order the get DSL, there is no need to have basic telephone service in addition to VOIP.

VOIP is more attractive than normal telephone service in that it can be far more economical. Basic telephone service averages about $30 a month as compared to basic VOIP service at about $20 a month. VOIP is cheaper but it is also more capable. All those extra features that the phone company likes to sell as optional extras are included in the basic VOIP setup. Also included in basic VOIP is domestic long distance. No extra charges for long distance calls made to locations in the continental U.S. So, assuming you need lots of optional extras and are a heavy user of long distance calls, the VOIP compares very favorably against a normal monthly telephone fee as high as $50.

However the real savings is obtained by using VOIP and CABLE to replace normal telephone service and DSL. When you consider basic DSL at $30 a month, combine that with basic telephone at $30 a month, it compares on par with basic cable modem at $40 a month combined with VOIP at $20 a month. The costs are about the same unless you add in another $20 a month for VOIP over DSL in the first example.

Never mind that you get additional functionality with VOIP regardless of where it is used, would you rather pay $80 a month for DSL, Phone, and VOIP or $60 a month for CABLE and VOIP. Both solutions offer the same features but the DSL, VOIP solution is $20 a month more expensive.

Both solutions will save on long distance charges but why throw away an additional $20 a month?

Imagine my surprise when a well known ISP began to bundle DSL and VOIP services. Evidently they are betting that most consumers are not smart enough to avoid throwing away $20 a month.

Every few years I get a summons in the mail inviting me to go to a courthouse for jury duty. This has been going on for over 30 years and it is always the same drill. If you go, you will be sent a check for 6 dollars to offset your expenses. If you don’t go, you will be sent a fine of up to 500 dollars to fill the coffers of the greedy. Least I forget, you are also offered the opportunity to donate your meager pittance to some childrens charity that no one has ever heard of. Peachy, just peachy.

Lately the renumeration has increased to 40 dollars a day but only if you are assigned to a trial and then only on the second day of your tour of duty.

Six dollars is not much, but if you ride mass transit, it leaves you with enough money to have a 6 inch subway sandwich for lunch.

Trust me, mass transit is the only way to go. If you take your car, it will cost you at least one gallon of gas and probably two. That alone eats up your six dollar pittance. Then they have the audacity to offer you a discount parking fee of only 3 dollars, but you have to get your ticket validated before 4:30.

Never mind that the time you spend on jury duty is really donated under duress. If you are self employed or your employer does not pay for time spent off the job, you end up with a shorted check for the days you volunteer for jury duty.

Jurors are subject to gross mistreatment and I think it is because they are indentured servants. The government has no reason to ensure that a jurors time is not wasted. In many cases a jurors time is wasted to the point of absurdity. A juror receives no consideration and is subjected to conditions that support the convenience of the court.

All the while you are being abused there are some lawyers and judges that are heaping praise on you for allowing it. They go to great lengths to make lovely speeches about how much they appreciate your service. Unfortunately it is only lip service. They do not show any compassion or real appreciation of what they ask of a juror.

Lets look at a typical day of a juror.

The court is downtown and you are to be in the jury room by 8:30 in the morning. If you are late, they consider you the same as not even showing up. This means you have to get up at around six to be ready to leave around seven or seven thirty to get there at eight, in plenty of time to be counted present.

You are told to take a seat in a large jury room. There you sit and wait while all the jury duty slips that were turned in are sorted. This could be over 1000 slips. Once that is done we wait until there is a call for jurors from one of the courts. That normally does not happen until later because the courts don’t start business until 9:30 or later. You see, they are special. They are worth more than 6 dollars a day.

Generally this means that it can be 10:00am or later before any juror gets assigned to go to a courtroom. Meanwhile, every two hours or so you are allowed a half hour break. You can move to sit in the seat next to you, go to the bathroom to throw up, or buy a soft drink from a machine charging $1.50 a can.

Sometimes jurors get assigned to go to a courtroom that is not in the building to which they have been summoned. When that happens they are told they can drive to the new location. Those who did not bring their cars but rode mass transit may ride mass transit back home and get their cars! (see what I mean about abuse?). Or, you can come back in an hour and a half and transportation will be provided.

Having used mass transport to get there I waited for transportation to be provided. They brought up a van that was designed to transport prisoners. It was a hot crowded, caged, affair. A jail on wheels. A van normally designed to hold 9 passengers comfortably was stuffed to overflowing with 13 prospective jurors. A sedan was also provided because there were more than 13 jurors.

Arrival at the second location was around 1:30 and we were all (all 60 of us) standing in a crowded hall outside the courtroom waiting on the next humiliation. Finally, nearly 8 hours after we had risen on that unlucky morning, we were ushered into the courtroom. None of us were in a particularly good mood having been subject to an 8 hour waste of time that could have been avoided. Why not just have us report to the second location at 1PM instead of summoning us to a court that did not need us. Oh, but that would take planing and there is no sense in planning when it comes to the use of a jurors time. After all, they don’t have a choice and are only worth 6 bucks a day.

It took another three hours in the courtroom with defense and prosecution asking loads of questions and the judge admonishing us to judge according to what the law prescribed. I doubt very seriously that the jurors in my group had any idea of what the law was, much less what it prescribed.

We all took oaths to tell the truth. Lawyers also take oaths but I am not sure it is to tell the truth. The only person in the court that I have never seen take an oath to tell the truth or otherwise is the judge. I guess when you become a judge you can’t lie. Or you are allowed to do as you please without consequence.

I got the feeling that justice took second seat to following procedure, but I am not sure how that could be corrected without making justice the personal play toy of the lucky few.

As luck would have it my answers to the questions fell short of what was needed. Therefore I was not selected. Seems that they were more interested in selecting folk eager to follow instructions (the law) rather than allow for people to act on their own definition of what is moral and just. I can see that. That is understandable.

We sometimes hear the high and mighty proclaim that we are a nation governed by laws, not men. The next time you hear that consider this. Our laws are made by men. Furthermore, if you really believe that all men are created equal, then the lawmakers are not any smarter than those who are expected to follow the laws that are made. In addition, we all know how devisive some lawmakers can be. Just look back on the so called immigration bill of 2007.

Me and the others who were not selected waited for nearly 45 minutes in the parking lot for the van to appear to take us back to our original point of departure. Same van, same crowding.

By 5:45 we were back at the original courthouse. By 6:08 I had just missed catching the train back home. Waited another 15 mins for the next train and was back at the neighborhood station by 6:40.

Pretty much a 12 hour day of hurry up and wait. A complete waste of time while being abused by Big Brother at every turn. I would not be at all surprised to discover that was the way the pyramids were built. Aliens had nothing to do with them. It was all slave labor obtained through a jury summons.

One thing I noticed that surprised me was that at no time did anyone think to verify my identity. They merely took the stub of my summons that I had filled out a day earlier and assumed that I was a qualified juror because I did not claim any exemptions or disqualifications.

It would be worth 50 maybe even 100 bucks to hire a surrogate to serve in your place. Not sure what would happen if you were discovered but chances of that are slim enough to tempt one to try it.

Are the Chinese even capable of manufacturing products suitable for consumption by the west. Seems each week or so we find something that came from China that is tainted, poisoned, counterfeited, or otherwise unsuitable for use. It is not just by accident that quality seems missing in Chinese products. Fact is, the problems go far beyond any quality issues. Take a look at the list below.

Poisoned pet food ingredient.
Unsafe tires
Plush toys stuffed with hazardous waste
Cough syrup made from poisonous antifreeze
Tooth paste made form poisonous antifreeze
Counterfeited drugs
Seafood tainted with cancer causing chemicals
Lead paint on children’s toys

The items on that list did not become unsuitable by accident. They were produced to be unsuitable by design. The Chinese communists seem to be waging an undeclared war on us and are sending us tainted merchandise to poison us. They are attacking us using a low grade of chemical warfare. We just sit here and wonder why while they make all the motions of showing they care.

The latest news flash is that they guarantee that their products are safe. Take another look at the list above. Is there something lost in translation or are we being played for fools?

Any more when I find something interesting, at a decent price, I check to see where is was made. If it was made in China, I put it back because there is a better than average chance that if I purchase the item, it might kill me.

What about the importers? Are they Chinese too? Why is it this junk is well on its way to the consumer before we find out it is hazardous? Why doesn’t our government take some sort of action on our behalf. Are all our politicians sitting on their collective fat asses again stressing about earmarks and re-election? If they can’t find this stuff before distribution, what chance do they have of finding a suitcase nuke?

I can see it now. A Chinese suitcase nuke disguised as five kilos of mariuna smuggled across our southern border by one of those ‘guest’ workers and placed on the whitehouse lawn. Now there is another job Americans would not do.

Some not such a long time ago a certain bank ran some loud and boisterous radio commercials claiming immunity from ATM fees. Their bank customers could avoid being charged ATM fees if they submitted the receipts for credit, kept a 1000 dollar minimum balance in their accounts and met some other requirements that were lost in jibberish spouted by their fast talking lawyer at the end of the commercial.

I always view with suspicion those boisterous commercials proclaiming grand advantages for consumers. They almost always end up being some sort of scam.

Recently I began banking at Century bank. Century bank does not charge your account with ATM fees regardless of sex, gender, or account balance. You don’t need to submit receipts because they know when other banks try to stick you with an ATM fee. It shows up as an extra charge to your account when the ATM transaction clears.

Century merely takes care of that charge by NOT allowing it to be charged to your account. I am not sure how they square that with the bank that made the charges and I really don’t care. What is important is that I don’t have to pay any more ATM fees regardless of where the ATM is or who it belongs to. In addition, I do not need to do anything special to enjoy freedom from ATM fees. I just need to be a Century bank customer.

It sounds too good to be true, but it is the real deal.

About a month ago I got an offer from a local bank. If I opened a free checking account they would credit my account with fifty dollars. Not a bad offer but at the time I did not need another checking account.

The other day they sent me another voucher and free checking account offer. This time I took them up on it.

It is for real. It takes $100 to open the checking account, but they will credit the account with an additional $50 after it is opened. Better than a toaster and the account is completely free of all and any charges. No minimum balances required and the $150 you end up with in your account is yours to do with as you wish.

Free checks, free checking, free overdraft protection, free debit card, free ATM use anywhere in the world, free electronic banking, free electronic bill paying. Afterward I couldn’t help but wonder why I had not done this the first time it was offered.

So, here is a deal for you. Send me your name and address if you are in the Dallas area and I will send you a voucher for $50 when you open a free checking account. The bank will credit you with 50 dollars and credit me with a 25 dollar finders fee.

Several weeks ago, after a particularly heavy rain, I was out in the side yard pulling weeds. I have no idea what kind of plants they were. They were new to me. I had never seen them before this year. They had carrot like tops and long carrot-like roots. They are very hard to pull unless the ground is very soft and wet. They come out fairly easily in soft wet dirt and I was making progress on the new crop of carrot weeds.

As I was popping these nasty plants out of my yard, a man approached. He was walking his dog on the sidewalk. I have always thought it would be appropriate to accuse such folk as taking their dogs out for a shit. That is actually what they are doing. Which is okay as long as they pickup after their animals. I consider those who don’t to be a kind of animal themselves and would not hesitate to accuse them of taking their pets out for a shit at the expense of local property owners. However, this gentleman had a plastic bag with him. The bag looked as though he had already recovered at least one turd.

Anyway, he had noticed my chimney mounted Dish Network antenna and was curious as to how well I was satisfied with Dish Network. He further disclosed that he was using cable both for cable TV and internet access and was not all that pleased with the service. His main problem was with e-mail services with the ISP.

I was using the same ISP, a cable service, but I was not using them to provide cable TV. I did not have the problems he had with e-mail because I was using web based mail managed by the service that was providing me with web space and web service. If you are serious about doing anything constructive with a website or blog, you need to have better and less restrictive support than what an ordinary ISP will provide. Sometimes I wonder why ISPs even bother. Serious users are not going to be interested in restricted e-mail and web space provided by folks who seem incapable of providing necessary support. Especially in the area of ISPs providing cable service. We have gone from @Home to AT&T to Comcast to RoadRunner since we first obtained cable internet service. Each time one goes belly up, we get new e-mail addresses. We finally decided that it made more sense not to use such a fickle service for e-mail. All we need from them is a reliable internet connection. They can keep their restricted, unreliable, and inadequate e-mail and web site nuisances.

After that discussion I began to think about cable TV as it compared to Dish Network and Direct TV. I have used both satellite systems and my son had used cable TV. Overall the programming content from all three is the same. The channels may change in the numbers they are assigned but the content is the same.

Currently we have one cut above basic service with no premium channels.

Premium channels cost about ten bucks a month, every month, even though they show the same movies for up to six months at a time. It is sort of like renting the same movie from block buster every day for six months and paying 60 bucks for the priviledge of being a fool. Netflix at 5 bucks a month is a much better deal. Even block buster would be better but we don’t do business with block buster anymore. They busted their credibility with unfair late charges making them an undesirable vendor.

I am not entirely sure how many channels we actually get. I am sure there are more than a hundred available, but I also know that only about ten are worth watching. Even those are prone to showing the same material over and over again, but it takes about a year before you begin to notice repeats and they don’t become an annoyance unless you have been a customer for two or more years.

I remember that my wife wanted ‘cable’ because there was nothing worth watching on the six or so local off-air channels we were receiving at the time. Now we have hundreds of channels and there is still not all that much worth watching and it is costing us considerably more.

When I pay for something I expect to get some value for what I am charged and I do, to some extent. What bothers me is the pay-per-view crap these folk try to pull. If I am paying for cable, I have already paid to view and I consider any further requests for money to be legalized extortion committed by some of the greediest folk in the world.

Some cable channels will show movies without commercial interruption. Most of them do not. I feel that any cable channel running commercials should be free of charge.

Some cable channels, known as shopping networks, are merely scamers preying on the public. There are more than a few of these channels. I think the cable provider needs to pay his customers to be able to send them these useless channels that specialize in selling junk to the unsuspecting.

Some cable channels are blacked out. I have never understood why that is. I have no desire to know that some channels are blocked out. Make them disappear and remove them from the list of channels offered in a package. A channel that has no content has no value.

Some channels are previews of premium channels. There are also two channels which are wasted announcing the existence of these preview channels. Previews occur very infrequently and do not respond with useful information when the info button is pressed.

Some channels are in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish. My friends don’t speak Spanish. I think that offering channels in other languages is a neat idea. I think that forcing them on everyone sucks. Folks interested in receiving those Spanish channels should be charged extra and ordinary people should not have to be subjected to such nonsense.

Overall, we still use Dish Network and probably will continue to do so. Unless, of course they increase their prices. Any increase at all at this point will be cause to discontinue the service because it is barely useful as it stands. Additional funds would be better spent with Netflix and other movie rental services.

Ever wonder about owning gold. No, I do not mean jewelry. I mean owning gold bullion or at least double eagle coins or krugerands.

Every now and then you will hear ads on the radio about what a really good investment gold can be. The perfect way to diversify your investment portfolio.

What they do not tell you is that gold is a commodity. Buying gold makes as much sense as buying sacks of coffee beans or cocoa beans. Same opportunity to make money. Same requirement for storage. Same security requirements so it does not get stolen.

You see, gold is not really an investment. Oh, gold does increase in value over time, but so does real estate, so does coffee, so does sugar, so does cocoa. Why? Because of inflation. Why do you think an automobile that cost 5 thousand dollars twenty years ago now costs 20 thousand dollars? The product did not improve that much over time. The problem is that the dollar lost its value over time.

Now that may not be all that is at work here regarding gold, but I suspect that more than half of the inflated cost of gold is due to the eroding value of the dollar.

Gold does not earn interest, pay dividends, or demonstrate significant growth. Stocks, bonds and even savings accounts do.

Gold merchants are fond of the story about the 20 dollar gold piece. Seems that a 20 dollar gold piece would buy a very nice suit back in the 1800’s. That very same gold piece will still buy a very nice suit today. True, but they don’t tell you the whole story. Had that 20 dollar gold piece been invested in a simple savings account two hundred years ago, it would have earned enough interest to buy the entire clothing store today.

Not convinced? Okay, here is how gold ownership works. You pay for the gold with taxable income. That is income you earn that is left you after you pay income taxes on it. You have to secure the gold somehow in a safe place. Most people use a safe deposit box at a bank. Safe deposit boxes are not terribly expensive but they are an expense that you do not incur with many other real investments.

So you hang onto the gold for ten years. During that time the price of the gold doubles. You decide to take your profit. You sell the gold and find that the proceeds are treated the same as income for tax purposes. In fact, you are required to give your social security number out to the gold exchange before they can pay you for your gold. So, you get taxed on the proceeds at your normal income rate. That could be a serious problem if you are in a high tax bracket or if you have enough gold to place you into a high tax bracket. Could be you may find that your ‘investment’ in gold did not double in final value to you because you had to share your gains with the IRS. At a 50 percent tax bracket that would mean you did not get ahead at all. You did not even break even because you had to pay for a safe deposit box at the bank for ten years.

I think everyone should own some gold. A very small sum. Perhaps one ounce for every member of their immediate family.

Still not convinced? How often do you hear ads on the radio trying to sell shares of Apple computer stock? Evidently Apple computer stock does not need to advertise. Probably because it has more than enough buyers. Now how often do hear ads on the radio trying to sell gold? I hear at least one every other day. Evidently gold is not as popular an item as Apple computer stock. I wonder why?

Certain grocery items can be purchased as store brands. For instance, in the case of a can of peas, the store brand may have Kroger on the label instead of Libby’s.

Store brands are generally less expensive offering five to ten percent savings. Unfortunately, when you open that can of peas, you may discover what was done to offer you the savings over the brand name.

If the item is to be used as an ingredient in a recipe and is just one of many with most of the many being herbs and spices which are mainly responsible for the ultimate flavor of the dish, you may never realize that a store brand was used.

If, however, the store brand item is it, meaning it is the dish itself, there may be greater potential for disappointment.

Some store brand items that have been disappointing have been mustard, pre-cooked sausage patties, some condensed soups, and canned vegetables.

The store brand mustard was thinner, more acidic, and had a funny taste when compared to French’s.

The store brand sausage patties had more fat content and a decidedly gamey taste when compared to Jimmy Dean patties.

The store brand condensed mushroom soup did not seem to be as condensed as the Campbell brand.

Lastly, the store brand canned peas were decidedly inferior to LeSueur brand peas. That may be an unfair comparison. LeSueur peas are the caviar of canned vegetables.

On a recent trip to OKC we stayed at a Hampton Inn. Nothing special. Fair service, clean, convenient. They provided WIFI internet service which was appreciated but I am pretty sure the cost was included in the basic price for the room. Nothing is free anymore and probably never was.

Within walking distance of the Hampton was an IHOP. I have seen IHOPs before and have written them off as a place where I would like to dine. They look like a Denny’s specializing in pancakes. I don’t consider pancakes as food qualifying as a meal and don’t need them as a snack either.

Since it was within walking distance of the hotel, we went to the IHOP. I was impressed. Very much like a Denny’s with a pancake fetish. However, if you were not interested in pancakes, there were lots of other choices available.

The menu seemed to sport some reasonable prices as well. Turns out the prices were more than reasonable. Large servings and plenty of food for under seven dollars on average.

I had the cheese steak sandwich. The menu cautioned that it was served with only french fries but I decided to risk possible disappointment.

Turns out the french fries were more like home fries and there were plenty of them. At least one whole potato worth. I was half expecting a kids order of greasy, stale, McDonnald’s shoe string potatoes. I was pleasently surprized.

The sandwich was also better than expected. A six inch sour dough bun with lots of meat. The meat was not super high quality steak but it was tasty, edible, and there was lots of it.

It was covered with melted cheese that was definately NOT velveeta like you get at Arby’s. Appeared to be swiss cheese. Very tasty and very good.

Well worth the seven dollar cost. We will be checking out other IHOPs to make sure this was not a single exception.

Just so I don’t leave you with the wrong impression, I have no quarrel with Arby’s. Decent prices and decent food. I just prefer melted swiss cheese to velveeta.

The dealership is where most people will buy their vehicle be it new or used. Once you decide on model and style, how do you decide where to buy it?

Now I may be entirely off base here. It could be that all dealerships are alike enough so that picking one over another has no advantage. In that case, you mlght pick one that is close to where you live. Or, after reading this story, you may decide not to do business with any dealership.

I once had a truck that had a gas gauge stuck on empty. It only got about 15 miles to the gallon so I became very good at gauging distance. One hundred and fifty miles max between fill ups. That allowed a generous allowance which should have assured that I would not be fool enough to run it out of gas.

This worked for two years before I finally did run it out of gas. It quit on me while I was about two miles from home. It quit on a freeway just south of an overpass. To the right of me was an access road and to the right of that was a large Chrysler dealership.

I walked up the hill to the dealership to use their telephone. They allowed me the use of their phone and I called for a cab to take me home. The cab never showed up but over the next 30 minutes I got quite an education.

One lady in particular, was at her wits end to get satisfaction. Seems she had bought a brand new Chrysler van. It developed some sort of brake problem and this was the third time she was bringing it back to have it repaired. It was not just the brake problem than had her dissatisfied, it was the lack of service too. She had paid extra for super fast service and did not consider having to leave the van at the dealership overnight super or fast. The dealership folk were unsympathetic and almost rude, indicating that if she did not want to leave the van , she could get it repaired elsewhere.

As I sat in the waiting room, listening to dissatisfied customers, I noticed a regular stream of tow trucks. They would pull into the back lot towing a vehicle and exit on the other side without the vehicle. Either they were moving cars or in the repo business, or servicing other dissatisfied customers.

As one of the tow truck drivers stopped, I went outside to talk to him. He agreed to give me and my truck a ride home for 30 dollars.

That was nearly ten years ago. I have never been back there since and I have never run out of gas again either. Amazing what you can learn about a place just by being a fly on the wall.

So, if you have selected the car of your dreams and located a dealership that has it in stock, give them a visit as a motorist in need and see what sort of samaritans they really are. You may be surprised.

You might well wonder why I had it towed if it only ran out of gas.  Who, me, run out of gas?  Impossible!  It sat  unused for two weeks until I was finally goaded into pouring some gas into the tank.  Started right up.

Blems are tires that are blemished but otherwise servicable. They are usually offered at reduced prices and available through most discount stores dealing in auto parts.

Several years ago I maintained a membership at a local and famous wholesale store selling everything from tires to grocery items. A membership cost $30 a year but I could justify it by my purchase of tires at a much reduced rate. These were belms and the saving was significant.

One year I decided to replace all four tires on my truck and took off half a day from work to get the job done. Half way through the mounting of the tires I was informed by the technician that he could not get the tires to balance without adding a great deal of additional weight. So much so that he was unable to install the hubcaps.

Suddenly I came to the realization that I had stumbled into a store selling rejects instead of belms.

I had them remove the offending tires, reinstall the old ones, and made it clear that I would not expect to be charged for their foolishness and due a full refund.

I have not been been back there since and have shared my experience with all my friends.

Less than half a mile from my house is a shopping center. In that shopping center is an Ace Hardware store that has been there as long as we have been here, which is more than 30 years.

That hardware store used to be a super nice place to shop. It had more than one helpful hardware man. Not only were they helpful but they were very experienced and knowledgeable.

This store had a very good reputation in the neighborhood. It specialized in stocking parts for nearly any plumbing item ever used in this area over the last 40 years or so. If you had a problem of a plumbing nature, you could take in the offending item and have a replacement part a few seconds after finding their plumbing expert. I mean a repair part, not an entire faucet or fixture. Unlike a home improvement center, this Ace Hardware store believed a ten cent faucet washer failure did not demand replacing an entire faucet.

Their prices were not especially low. They might charge $2.50 for a 50 cent faucet seat but that was better than spending $50 at the home improvement center for an entire faucet.

About a year ago they started a remodeling project and reduced their knowledgeable staff to one person. They ripped out the small appliance repair shed and installed additional racks of merchandise. The existing racks of merchandise were moved closer together and were stacked higher. All of this activity occurred in the span of a month. The final touch was installation of a new floor so that you could not tell the racks had ever been moved.

Soon after that, the one helpful hardware man disappeared and prices began to increase. The increase was only a few percent at first but eventually grew to much more than that. For instance, a good well designed electrical plug went from $1.20 to $4.00. This made absolutely no sense because you could go to the home improvement center and buy a six foot extension cord with molded in plug for about $2.00. Just cut off the unneeded receptical end and replace the entire cord on the lamp needing the plug.

I also notice that their radio ads changed. Their jingle about the helpful hardware man was modified to present the helpful hardware folk. I did not think much of that or about that. I figured the helpful hardware man was just another martyr cut down by political correctness. As long as I could get help with hardware, I did not care about gender. I also did not care that much about price. If I was going to buy in quantity for a major project, I would go to a building supply place. Ace with the helpful hardware people was a low volume place where higher prices were justified by convenience and the quality of the help.

So the next time I had a plumbing problem I went to the Ace store. This time it was faucet washers for the bathroom shower. To make sure I got the right stuff, I removed the faucet stems and took them into the store with me. I was met by two eager young men. I held up the the faucet stems and told them I needed washers. The younger of the two asked ‘what size’ and ran off into the nuts and bolts section. The other had a better understanding of my needs.

We found two nice washers that looked like they would last for a long time. He put them in a little bag and wrote $2.00 on the bag. I thought that seemed a little high, but what the heck. At the checkout the lady rang up $4.00. After some consultation it became apparent that they were asking $2.00 each for the washers. I won’t be going back there anytime soon even if have to cut the washers out of sheet stock myself.

Change is not always good for everyone. In this case it will probably not be good for anyone including the new owners of the Ace Hardware store. Most of their customers were old timers like me. Now, with the unrealistic increase in prices and elimination of experienced help, it has become more than worth the trip to fill my hardware requirements at the home improvement center.

When I go to the home improvement center I tell people I am going to Handy Homer’s. Sometimes they ask me ‘what?’. Sometimes they just ignore the comment.

To call these places ‘home improvement centers’ might be a conflict in terms. Sure, they have lots of products used in the home, around the house, even building supplies, but improvement depends on how they are used not in what they are.

Over the years the area I live in has had several large home improvement type stores. All of them being places where you can buy hardware and building materials at a discount. At one time we used to have a chain of Handy Dan stores. Then came Homers. Now Home Depot and Lowes.

Handy Homer’s is a combination of Handy Dan and Homers. It is also a play on words referring to Homer Simpson of the cartoon character Homer Simpson. If you have ever watched even one episode of the ‘The Simpson’s’ you will appreciate the irony. Homer Simpson is anything but handy. Homer Simpson has far too many human traits that are self destructive. Home improvement centers have far too much material that could be dangerous when used by people with too many self destructive human traits. Hence the term Handy Homers.

Old timers, like me, appreciate the irony. Now, knowing the history, maybe the young wippersnappers can appreciate it too. Wippersnappers, you know, anyone under the age of 50.

Ever wonder who writes the printed literature that sometimes comes with hardware and software explaining the use of the product?

It would make sense to me that the folk with the most knowledge of the product would be the guys producing it. The engineers who designed the hardware and the programmers who wrote the software. Unfortunately, these guys don’t always write good english. Heck, sometimes they don’t even read or speak good english. Besides, even at low outsourced wages, their time is too valuable to waste on documentation. They are kept busy writing software and desiging hardware.

I know of at least two companies who hire people with degrees in English to write manuals. You end up with something that is gramatically correct with precise wording and spelling, but maybe not so accurate in describing the products use. That is okay, though, because both of these companies have tech support. Granted, it is outsource to some hut in India and staffed with people who can barely speak english but they don’t charge you for the long distance phone call.

Most buyers don’t discover these quaint details about the product they have bought until it is too late. The main reason they bought the product and paid a premium for it was that they wanted to buy American. Buy from an American company with a well known American brand name that calimed to have product made-in-America.

Oh, the company has its main office based in the USofA. It also packages the product here so it can claim ‘made in America’. Never mind that the bulk of its infrastructure is foreign based and foreign owned.

You see ‘buy American’ is a platitude only. It is to be observed by the buyer, not the manufacturers.

So if you really want to buy stuff that is made in America, you might need to check out the manufacturer first. I think you will find that an unusually high number of Amercan brand names are not made in America. You may also find that many foreign brand names actually are made in America using American labor and resources.