Martha's Ramblings

Recently someone told me about having a hard time canceling their subscription for a virus scanner. The user had decided not to renew this program and use another scanner.

However the company had charged the user’s credit card using an automatic renewal that the user had no idea was in place. Possibly in the fine print of the EULA or somewhere in an obscure place there was a notice to the effect that the automatic renewal would happen, but that is doubtful.

While this may be of benefit for some users who might forget to renew the subscription, it seems to me it is an underhanded way to boost the revenue for the company. My answer for this problem is to buy a program from a local retailer or if that is not an option, use a credit card that offers a ‘one time use’. Then if the company tries to charge the credit card, the charge will not go through.

This is not the only place where ‘automatic renewals’ can happen. Some periodicals will do the same thing.

Prevention magazine tried to use the same tactic with me. Since I was bitterly disapponted with this magazine (more ads than content) I certainly did not intend to renew the subscription.  When I called to complain, I was told I had signed up for the automatic renewal.  I knew better!

I also received an alternative health newsletter that tried the same tactic. When I called to see why, I got the same response. “You signed up for automtic renewal”. I immediately canceled that newsletter and made the decision not to get any more snail mail newsletters.

Last year I decided to not renew any of my many magazine subscriptions.  When they all contain more ads than content I just decided I didn’t need them any more.  I also got rather peeved when they kept sending me renewal notices a year in advance! I recently read about an elderly gentleman in his 90′s that had a subscription paid up for 30 years! He just kept returning that renewal notice.

It seems that the scammers have gone main stream.  How sad is that.

Martha

Our new president promised us ‘hope and change’. Did he mean he would surround himself with folks who don’t pay their taxes?

I hope that’s not what he meant!

It’s just my opinion, but I think anyone, regardless of who they are should be disqualified from any position in government if they are guilty of not paying their taxes.

It’s NOT ok to say ‘I didn’t know’! If I had failed to pay taxes, the IRS, which is a government department, probably would have threatened me with jailtime and would have come after me big time as soon as they knew I owed taxes. And why didn’t they go after these guys?

It isn’t very comforting to me to know the Secretary of the Treasury is a tax cheat. He’s in charge of the Treasury! And the sad thing is, he isn’t the only tax cheat being offered a high profile position in the United States government.

The ‘change’ is looking more and more like change to the Clinton era.  All of the folks in charge seem to be from that time.

I hope that things will change and for the better, but so far it doesn’t seem likely!

Martha

As a general rule, I can think of a lot of stuff to write about, when I am away from the computer. But just let me decide I need to put a new post on my blog and the block looms large.

I think part of my problem right now is the fact that I am so sick and tired of all the political stuff coming at me from every direction. I have this urge to jump on folks and lambast them for such obvious one sided views that I am becoming unreasonable about the whole political thing.

All of the stuff I read is so one sided, regardless of which side. They bash everyone that doesn’t think the way they think. Free speech is something I treasure and since I do treasure it, I refrain from replying in snide remarks about their choice of candidates and their derision for others in this crazy political year.

I just wish things could be a bit more positive instead of so much negative remarks. So you don’t like Sarah Palin? Then say something positive about Biden. Don’t like Obama? Say something positive about McCain. Can’t think of anything nice to say about any of them? Keep quiet.

Don’t insult my intelligence either. Don’t start telling me how bad a candidate is based on what you have read. I don’t care if you think someone is not fit for the job. (In my personal opinion, none of them are ready for the awful job that lies ahead for the unfortunates who mange to win this election.)

The problem for me lies in the fact that all of this political stuff just started too soon. I think we should have primaries in every state at the same time. September would be a good time. No more conventions, just let the candidates with the most votes in the primaries get the nominations. (Think of the saved money!) No more ‘Super delegates’! Super delegates just totally goes against my idea of democracy. Why should anyone have more say in an election than the average citizen?

I could go on and on. Guess my writer’s block lifted on this subject!

Martha

I like making lists. This one is about the biggest lies we hear almost every day. Most of us don’t believe these lies, but a few really naive folks may believe at least some of them.

“Your call is really important to us”.  The truth is they just wish you would hang up.

“We take this issue very seriously”. The truth is one of the following; they got caught doing something unethical, there was a
product failure or someone made a big booboo (like putting a lizard in your salad) and they wish no one had found out.

“Get a $xx rebate!”  The truth is you will forget to mail it in the time frame allowed (some as few as 5 days), they will claim they didn’t receive it if you did mail it or they will lie and say you didn’t send in all the required documents. (Disclaimer,some companies will do the right thing, not all of them are crooks.)

“I promise” The biggest lie of all. Politians promise anything to get elected. Once they are elected, all of the promises turn out to be fairy dust. (Fairy dust doesn’t exist.)

“We care”. Any statement by politians, companies or large corporations starting with these words is a blatant lie. What they do care about is your vote, either by going to the polls or making a purchase.

“Ask your doctor” The drug manufacturers know you probably don’t need this outrageously expensive drug. They have bribed your doctor with food, merchandize and other goodies so when you “ask your doctor” he will prescribe this drug that may not
have been thoroughly tested and probably has some very unpleasant side effects up to and including death.

I know there are more of these big lies, if you know of some more, let me know!

Martha

Sometimes I wonder about stuff, like why does my pimento cheese spread have egg yolks as one of the ingredients? Cheese and pimentos yes, but egg yolks? But at least I understood ‘egg yolks’ even if I can’t figure out why they put them in my cheese spread. Some of those other ingredients are a complete mystery!

I know most people don’t read the list of ingredients that are in the products they buy. I understand why they don’t read those lists; most folks don’t have a degree in chemistry. I don’t have a degree in chemistry either, but I feel compelled to read the ingredient lists anyway.

I am slowly but surely removing products from my ‘buy’ list. The first list of things I removed have a nasty ingredient, ‘partially hydogenated oil’. This stuff is poison! Artery clogging poison! This made my ‘don’t buy’ list get a lot longer as a bunch of food processors seem to think they have to put this artery clogger in just about everything. Bakers put it in cookies, companies like Kraft put it in everything! And just because the ingredients say ’0′ transfat, don’t believe it! Check the ingredients. If partially hydogenated oil is listed, the product contains transfat. (Lies!)

Somewhere I read that if Grandma wouldn’t recognize an ingredient, you shouldn’t eat it. I don’t remember where I read that, but I have decided that’s a good thing to remember. The upside of changing my buy list is my grocery bill has gone down. (I don’t go down the cookie aisle any more.)The downside is I have to cook almost everything from ‘scratch’ and I really don’t like to cook!

You would think that not buying all that stuff would make me lose weight. Not true, even though I am not fond of cooking, I am fond of eating what I cook! Sigh!

Martha

Could have fooled me!

According to my latest issue of Consumer Reports, “spam, spyware and virus have declined ‘significantly in the past few years”. They got this information on their new ‘State of the Net survey’.

Consumer Reports has in the past been considered by me to be a reliable source of information about just about everything. But this little tad of information has me totally bewildered. What kind of folks were taking this survey? This statement makes me wonder about all of the other reports they publish.

On the contrary, Consumer Reports! Spam, spyware and virus have NOT declined significantly in the past few yeas, but are more and more prolific all the time! Since 2006 the total amount of spam in email has increased from 56% to 80%! Anyone who has used the same email address for any length of time can vouch for that. (Unless they have a really industrial strength spam filter. Even then spam gets through.)
Source: Spam Report

Spyware has changed it’s face so maybe some folks think it’s down. The ‘change’ has involved more rootkits, key loggers, Trojans and worms, all designed to steal your money and identity. New virus are being intoduced every day. I suspect the folks who took that survey probably are mostly behind corporate firewalls with an IT department working feverishly to prevent all of the bad suff from ever reaching the work stations of clueless users.

They should have sent the survey to those techs working behind the scenes!

All of the above reinforces the old saying ‘Don’t believe everything you hear or read’. (And now with PhotoShop you can’t believe everything you see either)

Martha

We have this little mimosa tree in our back yard.

I grew it from a seedling. Fate keeps trying to discourage it from surviving, but it just keeps chugging along. In April this year we had a hail storm. A bad hail storm. In fact, at the time of this writing, the roofers are on top of the house now removing the hail-damaged shingles and replacing them with new un-damaged shingles.

The hail really beat up this little tree. It had big gouges in the bark. Nature being the survivor that is, caused a new tiny bud to sprout in each of the gouges and before long the little tree was really showing new growth in a wonderful way.

Then we had another storm, this time it was wind. Wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour and this ferocious wind lasted all day! It blew and blew and blew the fence almost down. The wind didn’t hurt the tree, however the consequences of the wind certainly did!

We share fences with our neighbors in this area. The folks behind us have dogs. Well everybody in this neighborhood has dogs, but the folks behind us have big dogs. One is a curious husky. He managed to get through the half blown down fence and explored our yard.

“A tree! What’s this stuff on the tree? Yummy! “This curious pup pulled the bark off one whole side of the tree! I saw him do it from the kitchen window. My neighbors chose this time to be gone of course and the pup being a suspicious canine would not let us get close to him. So we spent the next three hours trying to coax him back to his yard and keeping him from eating the rest of the bark from the tree.

Eventually the neighbors returned home and so did the pup. A temporary fence fix kept him at home until more permanent repairs could be made.  In the meantime we watched our little tree wondering if it would make it. Many of the new branches slowly turned yellow and died. Slowly several brown spots showed on the stark white left after the bark was ‘liberated’. Is it a fungus? Or is it new bark? The yellowing leaves are not as many now and the tree even bloomed.

I have heard it is hard to kill a mimosa tree and I believe it. It looks like the tree will make it. Unless something else happens.

Martha

I did something today I haven’t done in years. I mowed some of the lawn and I used a push mower. Not a gas powered push mower either, an old fashioned push mower.

Yep, I now know for sure, I’m not as young as I used to be. That’s obvious every time I see myself in the mirror. But for some reason that didn’t really make me KNOW.

Notice I said I mowed some of the lawn. I decided I wasn’t ready to die, so I quit while I was still breathing, although I was still breathing hard!

But since I don’t want to be a quitter, I got a cold wet washrag, washed my face and back to mowing. I decided to take a break and went back in the house. My son decided to finish the job so I wouldn’t kick the bucket. (I was almost through, he needn’t have worried!) So now the lawn needed trimming and away I go trimming. This wasn’t bad at all and I am not as hot as I was mowing.

I finished up and came back in the cool house and looked for my wet washrag to mop my face.  I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. Then I remembered where it was. It was on the back of my neck, keeping me cooler.

I told you I am not as young as I used to be and neither is my memory!

Martha

I learned something new yesterday. You can buy pasteurized eggs!  When I saw a recipe for silk pie in the newspaper that called for pasteurized eggs, I thought it was a hoax or someone who just didn’t know better. Wouldn’t a pasteurized egg be boiled? After all I think the definition of ‘pasteurize’ is to heat something, usually milk, to a temperature high enough to kill bacteria.  Heating an egg to that temperature would surely boil it, right? Maybe not.

Apparently, so goes the theory, you can heat the egg long enough to kill the bacteria and it still won’t be cooked. Since a lot of recipes call for ‘raw’ eggs, this should be a great way to avoid the wicked salmonella that keeps popping up in everything these days.

You can even pasteurize your own eggs yourself! Recipezaar has the method on their site.

There are a lot of entries in Google about pasteurized eggs. Most of them are asking questions about them.  But I did find several interesting articles about milk and shell eggs with extended shelf lives.

This article, ULTRAPASTEURIZED & PASTEURIZED FOOD, on Chemical & Engineering News was really the most informative and makes more sense than most.

I buy ultrapasteurized milk. It is also organic and rather pricey, but since the regular milk goes bad long before I use it all and has to be thrown away, I think it is cost effective. But I have never seen pasteurized eggs for sale in any of my local markets. I think it is a good idea though, and maybe they will eventually sell those ‘safer’ eggs.

Have you ever bought pasteurized eggs?

Things that have fine print usually/may have stuff you need to know.  Most people don’t read the fine print because it’s too hard to read. Some manufacturers/programers hope you won’t read the fine print. I suspect that’s why it’s written in fine print. Sometimes the print is so small you can’t read it without a high powered magnifying glass.

Popular Drugs have a lot of fine print. Mostly about the side affects. On TV they tell you about the side affects, but apparently people don’t listen to the ‘fine print’ either.
The fine print with the things they have to tell you about.

A lot of software has fine print as well. Usually it’s a disclaimer telling you they are not repsonsible if their software trashes your computer. Makes you wonder if it has trashed someone’s computer.

One thing that really gets to me is all of the warnings that are printed in fine print on a lot of consumer products.
Some of those warnings.  Apparently the reason for some of these ‘fine prints’ are because some idiot did just what the warning says not to do. The manufacturers have to protect themselves from lawsuits by stupid people.

So be sure to read the fine print! I try but I don’t always have the magnifying glass handy.

Martha