Bad holiday gifts of the future

Forget the crappy things you can buy folks THIS holiday season, check out the predictions for the future...

Crap of the future

Anywho... that article just gave me a good laugh.

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How about another way that businesses can invade your privacy...

Pancakes? Papers, please!

It just seemed somehow to relate to my Stop! Receipt! post from yesterday.

This entry wants to transmit its brain via BitTorrent!

Stop! Receipt!

One of the things I find annoying when I actually force myself to go out shopping is for the place I'm purchasing goods from to insult me by insinuating that I'm a thief. No, they don't ever come out and blatantly say it, but by asking to see my receipt and look in my bags that's how I'm being treated. I bought these items and they are now my property. I am not keen on having to wait in line to get out of a store after already having had waited in line to buy something just because the business assumes that all of their customers are thieves and wishes to insult them by treating them as such.

This type of behavior is a violation of my privacy. I'd no more show these people the contents of my wallet as much as most women would allow a stranger to search through their purses. Yet time and again, businesses try to do so. If I signed a contract to do business with the company, then I don't have a problem with it ... Costco comes to mind.

With the holiday shopping season in full swing, I'm hoping that others do the same as I do: simply say, "No thank you" and continue walking past these receipt/bag checkers on their way out. They have no business snooping through your belongings, so why should you let them?

The reason I bring this up is that I read an article today that does a good job of articulating my point of view on the subject. Heck, and in the process I came across two other people that blogged about this very subject.

This entry doesn't appreciate being treated as a
criminal simply for being a customer!

Kitchen Konversations

Today I spent my lunch in the office break room. Usually it's pretty quiet and I just read the paper. Today was a little more entertaining...

I was cleaning the inside of the microwave, as my food had splattered around the inside, when one of the ladies stopped in and gawked at me in amazement. She commented on how she'd like to get a pictures of a man cleaning out a microwave. She gave me a high-five on the way out.

As I sat eating my delicious re-heated lasagna leftovers (thanks Christine!) I picked up a conversation around the corner by the refrigerators. Three gals were standing around and staring into one of them, commenting in rather obvious awe of how clean they were. Then they opened the freezer to a chorus of "Ooooo...." and "Aaaah...". One came around the corner and noticed my grin and giggled, realizing how strange the conversation must have sounded like from where I was sitting.

Something tells me that some of the folks in the office could use a little time off.

This entry cleans up after his messes!

Becoming an "antitraffic" driver

This guy's site makes a lot of sense and some of it is the same stuff that I've thought about as well. My commute, if one could even call it that, is under 10 minutes from home to work. This information probably won't do me much good, but I found it fascinating.

This post wants more people to become "antitraffic" drivers!

Empty Inbox

My inbox is where I keep all pending work requests, unanswered emails, etc. For the first time in probably 6 months, I've managed to get it down to this...

This is a sight for sore eyes!

This entry likes to celebrate the simple things in life.

Immigration!? Egads!

If the information this guy goes over is correct, then some serious changes need to happen regarding immigration in the U.S. Heck, even if he's 1/2 correct, the numbers are staggering!

This entry has nothing against immigrants, but understands there
should be a limit to how many come into this country.

Scuttlebutt lives!

Yes, you heard me right! Scuttlebutt is still alive and well... sorta. Hey, he's still in his original configuration, just a bit dirty from smog and road grime. Anyhow, I've added a few more photos of the cute little fella to his photo set on my Flickr account.

This entry wishes it could perch upon a car antenna, too!

Road Runner - feh

Well after my previous venting about the forced switch to Time-Warner Road Runner service, I've made at least a little progress with things. I sent an email to their tech support, explaining to them my problems with email (via Outlook) and webmail. This was done from the office during my lunch break. Later that same day, I get home and magically Outlook is working again. Oh wonders of wonder! No response, no confirmation of receiving my email - but hey, at least one part now works!

The situation with their webmail logon and interface seems to have improved, but it still does the oddball thing about not accepting my username after the timeout period has passed - and only letting me in if I use my email address as my username... well, not all the time, but some of the time - and never when I think it's going to do it. Frustrating!

All right, that's enough venting for now.

This entry wishes he had gotten a pony for Easter.

Oh, come on!

From the DUH! department:

I find it ludicrous that NASA, the central hub for probably 95% of the smartest people in the world, didn't think to create a clock for the space shuttle that would understand the rollover of a year. We're almost 7 years beyond the Y2K scare; you'd think this would have been addressed back then - at the latest. How long has the shuttle been around, again? Uh, yeah, thought so...

This entry just felt a little smarter.

Take THAT Global Warming!

If this guy is right, then there's some hullabaloo going on in the ranks of folks supporting the global warming theory. This is some strong evidence that the math just doesn't add up - and my friends know all about how I'm always doing the math!

Anywho, I found the article very interesting and hopefully it's as accurate as I hope it is.

This entry still doesn't think that the sky is falling. Ouch!

Halloween Pics

As promised, I've posted some Halloween Pictures on my Flickr account. I'll post at least one more as soon as Christine sends me the one we took before I went trick or treating with Rece, Sam, & Anna.

This entry still craves sporkfuls of blood!

Not Entirely Pleased With Road Runner!

Well, it's been about 2 weeks since the change from Comcast to Road Runner (Time Warner) took place. The connection seems to be the same - no outages so far, even with the change to my IP address (which I had held on to for over 2 years) I didn't notice any hiccups. The main problem I'm having is with email and webmail.

Outlook is my email client of choice, as it incorporates more than just email (calendar, contacts, etc). This is a pretty standard piece of software used all over the world for email communications. The information provided for POP3 & SMTP (standard formats to receive and send email) by Road Runner don't seem to be what I need and/or they aren't accepting my username/email address properly. So when I attempt to check email, I get the username and password screen. What especially odd is when I use the same log-on information to get into webmail (their web-based email system) it works... well, sorta.

So I manage, if I'm lucky the first time, to get myself logged on to webmail. I tend to leave it up and check on it from time to time for new mail. Every so often I'll go beyond the automatic log-out time period (which is normal) and it'll require me to log back on. This is where it gets confusing. The username I provided to get in the first time (successfully) won't work 75% of the time after the time-out period has been passed. What I have to use instead is my email address with the same password. To add to it, about 50% of those times it'll send me to an error page that says something to the effect it wasn't able to load the page properly. If I then click my shortcut to webmail - I'll get to the webmail interface just fine. See why I'm frustrated?

There's a handy link in the top-right part of webmail to "Live Support OnLine" which does absolutely nothing unless I have the Road Runner tools installed. See these tools were something I was tricked into installing when the change happened, when I thought all I was doing was migrating from one email system to another. It did the annoying "Internet Explorer - brought to you by Road Runner" crap in the title bar and changed the throbber (the icon that shows that IE is working on loading your page up on the top-right of the browser) to the face of the Road Runner character. Lovely. All I wanted to do was to make sure I was able to use the new email address I'm being forced to change (for the 4th time, mind you - MediaOne to AT&T Broadband to Comcast... and now to Road Runner). After the crap installed without my realizing it, I uninstalled it. This means that I'm limited in my support options. As if I would allow any outside company to take over MY computer!?

Okay, okay... I'm rambling a bit, I know. Call it a venting of frustration with yet another buy-out of my cable Internet service. My alternative is to start using Gmail on a regular basis, but I don't like their email thread system of email management. Looks like I'll need to call their support center - I hate having to do that! What to do...

This entry just wants to keep his email address, his personal web sites, and his ISP the same!