I made the mistake of signing up for an Amazon.com Visa when I was amking an order, as a way to save $30. Then they never sent me a bill, and the e-mails they sent me linked to a different account with a zero balance so I never knew what I owed. By the time I figured it out (after a lot of conversations with people from India named "Kevin"), they slapped a $29 late fee on it that they wouldn't take off. So I only saved a buck and got pretty aggravated in the process. so I closed the account after I paid the small balance off. Then the lady (American, this time) mentioned ominously that she'd notify the credit bureaus right away. Why, I asked, are you reporting this to make me look bad? No, she said, we just report it.
So here are my conclusions: Credit cards exist to screw you. They count on human error, being too busy to keep up 100% of the time, or just general human nature to guarantee them that you'll give them the opportunity to screw you royally. Chase is the worst. Shame on them. And shame on Amazon.com for setting me up. And shame on me for getting suckered.
Banks with their overdraft fees are almost as bad. Luckily, I managed to get a deal with Citibank 10 years ago that protects me. I have instant deposit up to $5000 so no waiting for my deposits to clear. And they'll turn any overdraft into a line of credit so instead of "domino overdrafts" at gatling-gun speed (you know, take your deposit, hold it for five days, pay the biggest check you wrote, bounce the 10 little ones, and mail you the $300 bad news three days later, and oh by the way here's another 40 bucks from TeleCheck for that one you wrote at the store), I get a bearable (though still usurious at 22.5%) little loan on the overdraft and can pay it back when I have time to sit down and take a look.
Yeah, I'm not a good cash flow manager anymore. I admit it. But you know what? No one is anymore. I'll bet the number of people who still balance their checkbooks every month is less than the number of people with dial-up Internet. Who can balance an account with five pre-authorized debits, a bunch of grocery store swipes, three online bill payment services, and four more pay at the merchant's site accounts (with maybe one paper check a month)?
Don't think the financial institutions haven't studied this. I'm just waiting for the day Citibank realizes I'm dodging their biggest profit center with this instant deposit credit and cut me off...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Ann Coulter should lose her Intenet privileges
Ann Coulter is pure hate speech.She should not be included in columnists featured on Yahoo! This is not about her political views but her downright nastiness. Yahoo! should not encourage the incivility prevalent in our society by featuring her. She's a walking Tourette's Syndrome. She not only is incapable of censoring her nasty thoughts, she revels in them; throwing them in our faces and smearing them on our living room walls, like a political encopretic...
Just an observation.
Just an observation.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Attack of the Vanilla Everything
What is it with vanilla lately? Or I should say, "vanilla" everything. I saw an article on a website (promoting vanilla products) that nowadays "vanilla is anything but plain," and is making a big impact because it's more "complex" now. Bull. If that smell that's nauseating me every day, everywhere I go, is really real vanilla that's gotten more "complex," then someone needs to start spraying Madagascar with paraquat, or something. Unless some clever scientist figures out how to reverse breed vanilla back to what it usd to be. 'Cause this smell is awful. It's in candles, it's in fabric softeners, it's in the latex gloves that my dentist wears when she drills my teeth, and it's emanating from people on the train that sit down next to me. It literally makes me gag
The worst, besides some of the perfumes (let's hear it for the ladies at Macy's with Russian accents), are the fabric softeners. Especially the Downy "Simple Pleasures" vanilla and lavender. I like lavender. But after my wife bought this stuff, I have to rewash my clothes if she uses it. I swear.
I've always been sensitive to smells, and now that my hearing is fading into a constant ringing (from age, or maybe from too much loud music in the 60's and 70's, I don't know), smell is about the only sense I've got that works well. I've always been nearsighted and now I'm on bifocals. So a smell that cloys is just torture for me. I suppose I could claim I've got "Multiple chemical sensitivities" like those people who wear silver underwear because they live near power lines, or insist that the formaldehyde "outgassing" from their houses is making them sick. But I won't dignify this by calling it a medical condition or claiming that I'm protected under the ADA. I just can't stand that smell.
I'm a person who used Dial soap since I was a kid, and when they changed the smell in the 80's (making it more "cheap-after-shavey"), I stockpiled all the old Dial I could find, until there was no more to be found. I used Zest for 15 years until I found they had more or less restored Dial to its old self.
Anyway, vanilla. It was bad enough when that sickly sweet artifical vanilla scent only showed up in a few things, like Carmex and cheap store brand sweets. My kids learned early to mock me mercilessly by imitating me saying, "Ugh! Someone's wearing Carmex!" But I could usually avoid that artifical sickly smell. I even loved vanilla ice cream, as long as it's real vanilla. Black cows had always been one of my favorite treats. That is, until the root beer makers started throwing in - you guessed it. I'd always hated butterscotch candy as a kid, but then as an adult I discovered that butterscotch is really supposed to be just butter and brown sugar. I developed quite a taste for that as a topping for my oatmeal. So now I figure that the old candy I hated as a kid was loaded with that "vanilla" flavor.
So I guess it's really vanillin, the artificial vanilla, that I can't stand. But whatever it is, it seems to be everywhere these days. So I'd just like to ask people to cool it. It really does make me sick, and people are using more and more of stronger and stronger fragrances with it.
That reminds me... something I need to mention to Greg Hall from Goose Island Brewing, next time I see him. Greg! What's with the vanilla in the root beer? AND the orange soda? Let me tell you about how I felt about Dreamsicles as a kid...
The worst, besides some of the perfumes (let's hear it for the ladies at Macy's with Russian accents), are the fabric softeners. Especially the Downy "Simple Pleasures" vanilla and lavender. I like lavender. But after my wife bought this stuff, I have to rewash my clothes if she uses it. I swear.
I've always been sensitive to smells, and now that my hearing is fading into a constant ringing (from age, or maybe from too much loud music in the 60's and 70's, I don't know), smell is about the only sense I've got that works well. I've always been nearsighted and now I'm on bifocals. So a smell that cloys is just torture for me. I suppose I could claim I've got "Multiple chemical sensitivities" like those people who wear silver underwear because they live near power lines, or insist that the formaldehyde "outgassing" from their houses is making them sick. But I won't dignify this by calling it a medical condition or claiming that I'm protected under the ADA. I just can't stand that smell.
I'm a person who used Dial soap since I was a kid, and when they changed the smell in the 80's (making it more "cheap-after-shavey"), I stockpiled all the old Dial I could find, until there was no more to be found. I used Zest for 15 years until I found they had more or less restored Dial to its old self.
Anyway, vanilla. It was bad enough when that sickly sweet artifical vanilla scent only showed up in a few things, like Carmex and cheap store brand sweets. My kids learned early to mock me mercilessly by imitating me saying, "Ugh! Someone's wearing Carmex!" But I could usually avoid that artifical sickly smell. I even loved vanilla ice cream, as long as it's real vanilla. Black cows had always been one of my favorite treats. That is, until the root beer makers started throwing in - you guessed it. I'd always hated butterscotch candy as a kid, but then as an adult I discovered that butterscotch is really supposed to be just butter and brown sugar. I developed quite a taste for that as a topping for my oatmeal. So now I figure that the old candy I hated as a kid was loaded with that "vanilla" flavor.
So I guess it's really vanillin, the artificial vanilla, that I can't stand. But whatever it is, it seems to be everywhere these days. So I'd just like to ask people to cool it. It really does make me sick, and people are using more and more of stronger and stronger fragrances with it.
That reminds me... something I need to mention to Greg Hall from Goose Island Brewing, next time I see him. Greg! What's with the vanilla in the root beer? AND the orange soda? Let me tell you about how I felt about Dreamsicles as a kid...
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