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A buddy of mine just sent me this article from, “The USAToday” based upon research from a Pew Survey. What I find entertaining is, why anyone would find this surprising at all. Let’s see, we’re born and bred to do as little as possible, complain as much as possible (or with great gusto as the southerners are notorious for) and when in doubt, sue… sue, sue, sue. Why? Because Americans have this wonderful ability to shirk responsibility unless utterly and absolutely necessary, say, with feet held in a fire.. and even then, it’s only half of a concession. Boy do we like to save our very large round face.
More Americans would rather live in a place with more McDonald’s than one with more Starbucks.
So, with this in mind, is it any wonder that when times get tough, we want to run off somewhere else, all-the-while saying “that place sucked” or what have you.  I concede Detroit..everywhere else, is well, according to this study and the Americans in it, sucks.
If you are anything like me, I hate, HATE bank fees, ATM fees and every other possible charge only a lawyer with an accounting degree could imagine. I do everything to avoid them. There are times where even mere mortals have made silly mistakes and were charged on our bank accounts for it. Most people, of course, will deny that they knew anything about being charged, or that a payment was late, or not going to be paid, or whatever (had a job in credit, believe me, i’ve heard a ton of stories.) Lucky for some, no excuse needed.
If you have or have had a Bank of America account, you may have a little “economic stimulus” of $78.00 (max) coming your way. It seems that BofA lawyers have made a settlement in a class-action lawsuit for administering fees improperly.
Looks like a visit to my local library ended up into a book buying fiasco. As many of you know, I love books. My interests are wide and varying, so when an opportunity presents itself, I purchase extremely reasonably priced (ie, cheap) books. This little book sale’s gem include the following;
Jane Brody’s Good Food Book – Jane Brody (1.50)
The Gluten-Free Gourmet, Living Well Without Wheat – Bette Hagman (1.75)
Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer (.50)
Tibet, A novel by Gil Ziff – Gil Ziff (.75)
Kitchen Companion – Williams-Sonoma (2.50)
I look forward to reading through these in the upcoming months. Even though I already had two copies of “Into the Wild” I decided to pick up this copy because it was a crazy, 50 cents and I know others that would love this story and now I can share without hurting my, or their, pocketbook. yay..
I love hearing stories of “happy little accidents” in the world of inventing and on April 13th ‘60 Minutes‘ did a story on John Kanzius telling of a potential life and world changing device. His invention, with it’s early beginnings developed from his wife’s pie pans, has the greatest potential to possibly cure, or eliminate some/all cancer. So far, animal testing has produced exciting results. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, it also can cause plain ol’ saltwater to burn at extremely high temperatures. Check it out!
it’s starts at a measly $118,000, gets a global warming good 15 miles per gallon (thank god it’s not diesel) with it’s all-wheel drive goodness. But at least it beat the pants off a damn Landrover Discovery I know (50% better, to be exact)
Yesterday Doug over at eDoug posted some images of himself from a web camera from his Apple computer. This ‘maverick’ thought he was impressing the blogworld with these silly, carnival fun-house like images.
Trying to keep up with all the interesting revelations occurring around the world with regards to Tibet, I found a blogger from Taiwan who elaborates on the difficulties of working in the media there, citing one specific example.
I’ve been discussing my recent angst about working as a tool to the Chinese propaganda machine, even from an independently owned media company. While I don’t feel the mainstream U.S. media is any less victimized by its alignment with government information sources, in our country we have the right to choose to hear our own perverted news the way we like it. It is the distinct lack of choice here, the standard of un-informing the masses in order to maintain control, that troubles me.  It’s fascinating, really, to consider both countries’ ability to manipulate news with a dichotomy between those who choose to be misinformed and those who are systematically uninformed.
His article is quick, but shows what lengths are gone through to paint the best possible picture for China without exactly lying. No wonder why we do so much business with China, no wonder why we have a huge trade deficit with them.
I love my Treo. LOVE IT. Unfortunately our days of companionship are numbered. For the past couple months my Treo has been slowly dying. Every few days I don’t hear from people, specifically via Text Messaging or MMS. I’ve learned that when I feel lonely, I restart my phone and voila, messages, lots of them. Much to the chagrin to my Treo 650, this is not a way to operate in these times…
A quick jaunt over at Verizon Wireless and I learn that Palm has not released a new Treo in years (WTF??) and most likely will not have a new one, if they don’t file for bankrupcy, until sometime next year. Next best tool…. the Google to Treo’s Yahoo!, Blackberry.
Having enjoyed a full qwerty keyboard on my 650, I couldn’t see myself using the Blackberry Pearl, small and slim, perhaps, but not going to work. So, I finally find a Blackberry that I would like, the Blackberry Curve. Imagine my surprise that you are a paying customer of the best mobile service provider and realize that they carry crappy antiquated cell phones. No Curve available. Sure, if you’re girl in the 8th grade, Verizon’s got you and you’re subservient, spineless parents covered.
At the CTIA Wireless 2008, Verizon on March 31st announced that sometime in May, the Blackberry Curve 8330 will be released to the public. Sad side of this, the Curve came out almost a year ago on their competitor’s networks (please wait until the end of May Verizon, that way it would be COMPLETELY embarrassing.)Â Way to take care of your business clients Verizon.
