Oct 19

Beware of Yahoo!

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Warning, what you’re about to read is not pretty!

I had been using Yahoo! messenger for many years, and each time they forced an update I resisted, because it was always filled with Bloat and Garbage and slowed my computer more than the previous buggy version.

But earlier this week when my  3-year-old messenger installation finally crapped out I figured I’d bite-the-bullet and “upgrade.”

Yahoo! has fallen on rough times since Google now dominates the search market.  So they’re trying to make extra money by scanning people’s personal emails and texts sent through Yahoo! messenger and selling this private information to advertisers.  So if you mention your old car is giving you trouble in an email or a chat message to your sister, they will sell that information to Bubba’s Cars, and then you’ll start getting spam from them.

But since not enough people were using their crap email, the latest version of Yahoo! messenger now Fucking Requires that you have an active Yahoo! email in order to use all of the features.  They figure if you don’t want their email, they can force it down your throat this way.

In order to sign up for Yahoo! messenger about 10 years ago, I had to create an email that I hadn’t used for 9 years and 364 days.  While installing the new version of messenger, I was ordered to reactivate the dead email.  After the reactivation crashed half a dozen times, I found myself talking to someone in Bangladesh and then we spent the next hour deleting my cookies and clearing my cache.  Then Abdul advised me that my email address had been suspended for “TOS Violations.”  He had no further details, of course, and said that the decision can not be appealed.  WHAT THE FUCK???

This is the email I never used.  Not once.

So that’s it, my Yahoo! Messenger ID that I’ve been using for 10 years is Gone because Yahoo! are Greedy Fucks who wanted to steal my personal information and sell it to snake salesmen.

Screw you Yahoo!  Your search Sucks, Your email Sucks, and now you’ve locked me out of the one product I did use.  Your commercials are Stupid too.

I will not shed any tears when Microsoft or Google buys your dead carcass.

Oct 05

Why the Hell would anyone still use Ebay?

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If you were an Ebay seller, you’ve probably gotten Fucked over so many times that your Asshole is sore.  Ebay now charges about 30% in fees to sell.  Fraud is rampant and a crook can steal a seller’s shit and Ebay will happily let the Jerk keep the item, and then give the money back to the thief.  A seller can’t even leave a negative feedback after it’s all done!

If you’re a buyer, you’re likely as not to get Crap instead of the item that was ordered, and you’re sure to get a shitload of attitude from the pissed off nutcases that are still selling there.

And for all of this, the prices are now higher than anywhere else!

Just the other day I was looking at Water Piks (this Girl likes to keep her teeth sparkly and clean) and they were being “auctioned” on Ebay and going for about $30 each + $10 to $15 shipping.  ($15 Fucking dollars to ship a 2 pound item!)  Meanwhile Drugstore.com had them for $35 with free shipping.  Amazon.com too!  And from both those sources I knew I wouldn’t get some used crap passed off as new, like used to happen ALL-THE-FUCKING-TIME before I stopped ordering off Ebay.

(Why did I look at Ebay?  I did a Google search and the crap came up,)

Bottom line: Unless you plan to rip off a seller, I can’t see any use for Ebay.com anymore.  My Momma didn’t raise no shoplifter, so I have no use for that website anymore.

And it’s a Damned shame, because they used to be pretty cool.

Sep 28

Veterinarians are money grubbing pigs that Suck!

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Veterinarians can Go to Hell!  Please don’t misunderstand me, there are exceptions to every rule and I have known a few vets that cared about animals and were decent human beings.  (Just like there are a few Cops that aren’t control freaks, some Teachers that don’t like to boss around children, and a couple of people who work in Mental Health that aren’t more fucked up than their patients).

But as a General rule, Veterinarians are in it for the money and don’t give a Damn about you, your pets or morality.

Take this week’s incident where an owner brings a cat in for a flea bath and the vet euthanizes the cat “by accident” because an assistant mixed up the papers.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/cat-vet-flea-bath-euthanized-17300823

Yeah the owner was an idiot for not reading the papers before signing them.  But frankly, a lot of people don’t read the Crap they have to sign to get anything done these days.  And in fact it is always discouraged by the people who want you to sign things quickly.  Did you read the latest Terms of Service on Facebook or the contract on the last rental car you had?

But what professional would kill someone’s healthy pet, in fact ANY pet, without first looking the owner in the eyes and saying, “are you sure this is what you want?”  How about, “would you like to be there?”  “What will you be doing with the body?”  “Do you have any questions?”  “What is your reason for wanting to put your healthy cat down?”  Apparently none of this mattered to Muhammad Malik when he killed Colleen Conlon’s cat earlier this week.

What else doesn’t matter to vets?  Charging 3 times the price for medications as they cost online.  Or prescribing unnecessary, painful, scary and expensive tests for pets when the diagnosis is obvious, and the treatment is the same regardless of the result of the tests.

Everything is a business, I get that.  But there are some things like education, healthcare, the legal system and animal care that shouldn’t be 100% about maximizing profit at the expense of humanity.

When businesses are Bastards it tends to backfire too.  For heartworm medication I’m not going to spend $120 when I can go online and get the same medication for $50.  But you know what?  If my vet sold the medication for $75, I’d buy it from him.  It’d be more convenient for me, and if I didn’t think the vet was trying to Fuck me over as much as possible, I’d be happy to let them have some profit.  But instead of a $50 profit, he needs a $95 profit?  REALLY?  Did the Asshole say Vet-Blessings over the Shit to make it worth triple what he paid for it?  We’re not talking about a designer sweater or the latest sneakers, vets withhold vital medication so that they can shake down a desperate owner.

Once a year I bring my dog in for shots and some shit they squirt in his nose, and somehow they manage to charge at least $250 for about 4 minutes of work and $15 worth of vaccinations.  There are people who don’t bring their pets for yearly shots because they can’t afford them, while meanwhile the vets are purchasing summer homes and boats.

Lord help you if your pet does develop some serious illness or just a few things that come with age.  You can almost see the vets drool with anticipation as they calculate the money they can gouge out of the endless tests, procedures and visits that they tell you “are best for your pet.”

It’s Fucking Shameful.

Sep 14

They’re NOT Worth It!!!

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Should someone earn 10 times as much as someone else?  How about 50 times as much?  Absolutely, if they’re worth it.  You know that they’re worth it if their efforts bring significantly more value to a company, product or entertainment franchise.

But let’s begin by looking as Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO, who you can call the Norm these days.  Last year he ran Netflix into the ground, destroying the company and stock value.  Every decision he made was a bad one.  Yet he “earned” 9.3 MILLION dollars in salary and benefits.  That’s approximately 200 times the salary of a US teacher who made an average $44k .

Perhaps an extraordinary person is worth an insane amount of money.  But Reed Hastings was a failure.  He trashed Netflix which means the value he brought to them was worth less than Zero.  Yet he managed to snake them out of 200 times the salary of an average teacher?

I could make a list that goes on and on with people who were failures and destroyed the companies they worked for, yet most walked away with Millions and Some took Billions.  The companies are gone, the people who had jobs are unemployed and the rich CEOs are working someplace else now.

Meg Whitman drove Ebay into the ground and walked away with a couple Billion dollars.  AIG President Martin Sullivan destroyed the company to such an extent that it needed a Government bailout and his Golden Parachute was $47 million dollars (as he was Leaving, he got a BONUS of $47million).  He caused the biggest insurance failure in the history of the world, yet he walked away wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams.

I mentioned these real life examples of failures and crooks who were paid a fortune to make the indisputable point that there was nothing extraordinary about these people.  In fact, the opposite was true: Because they were there, these companies were much worse off than they would have been without them.

How much is too much???

But when I thought about writing this Blog, pointing out the huge failures wasn’t my main intention.  I’d like to concede that there are some people who are worth crazy amounts of money.   But the question is, how much is Crazy and how much is Beyond Crazy?

Capitalism depends on paying people Crazy amounts when they are worth it.  That’s a crucial component of America and it’s what grew this country to a world power.  But paying people Beyond Crazy amounts is destroying it.

The last couple of seasons of the TV show “Two and a Half Men” Charlie Sheen was earning $2 million an episode.  One WEEK of  work was getting him 45 times what a teacher would earn in an entire YEAR.  There were about 25 episodes a year so Sheen was making $50 million a year — or roughly 11,000 times what a teacher would make.

Let me make it clear, I think Charlie Sheen is a Bigoted Asshole, I don’t like him, and I hope when he dies he Rots in Hell.  But that aside, I know that he brought significant value to the show and it’s ability to sell advertising (until the end when his behavior became a liability).

I submit that he was “worth” 50 times what a teacher is compensated.  Perhaps 100 times.  Shit, you could go really crazy and say he should have been paid 1000 times what a teacher would make.  Maybe 1000 times isn’t Fair, but life ain’t fair and it’s all about relative worth and positive impact on the bottom line.

But 11,000 times?  Come on now.  How can anyone say that this man should earn more than a teacher will earn in their entire lifetime for one week of  Screwing around on a TV set?

Don’t even get me started on professional athletes and the obscene amount of money that they make for Playing Fucking Games.

I’m not a Communist, Socialist or Marxist.  I don’t think that everyone should make the same amount of money.  It’s common sense to state that a Garbage Man shouldn’t make the same money that a Neurologist pulls in.

But when people are taking thousands and thousands of times the money other people are getting, it destroys society.  The rich people buy all the land, the stock, the precious metals — they take everything from everyone else.  And this leaves many people without food or homes or jobs.  There is a limited amount of everything and the ultra-rich hurt society by hogging it all and manipulating all of the markets.

There needs to be a limit on excessive salaries and compensation.  Maybe not 10 times what’s average, or even 100 times what’s average.  But compensation that is Thousands of times the average must be stopped.

Sep 07

I Can Text Safely While Driving

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Screw You Oprah-Texting-Kills.  Fuck You parents of teenagers who are now on a Crusade because you didn’t teach your children to be responsible and your kids died while driving and texting.   And Go to Hell, you Busybodies who think you know what’s right for everyone.

Would I send a text while I’m driving 70 mph on the highway, or while I’m making a turn, or during a rainstorm?  No.  In fact, I only “text while driving” while I’m stopped at a light or stuck in traffic.  But if the Crazies get their way, both would become illegal because of a blanket ban.

Under the proposed bans, let’s say you did text at a light and then 2 minutes later you were in an accident.  You can bet the insurance company and the Cops will be pulling your cellphone record; the Cops looking to ticket you and your Insurance looking to get out of their contract with you to cover you in an accident.  Even when your text two minutes before, while you were stopped, had nothing to do with an accident.

For the record, I also don’t put on makeup, read the newspaper, or change clothes while driving, though I see that shit all the time.  And frankly, that’s even more distracting than texting.

When I have children, you can be Damned Sure they won’t be doing any of that shit Ever in the car.  Even at a stoplight.  Teenagers are a mess, they can barely drive as it is, and responsible parents set limits for their kids and enforce them, before their child dies.  They don’t go on crusades to ban things after their kids are dead.  Maybe it gives their life some purpose, or makes them feel less guilty for their Neglect, but they just need to get some Therapy and stay the Fuck out of my car!

Make no mistake, this intrusive activism will not stop at texting, they will be coming next to ban all conversations, even hands free.  If they can get away with that, they’ll ban talk radio because it’s more distracting than music.  And after that they’ll be taking the radios out of our cars.

It never stops, and when the extremists win one thing, they always go for the next.

Aug 31

Dinner for Four : $1693.44

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Pay your way into a Political fundraising dinner for $35,000 and feel like a Big Shot and “support your party.”  I get that.  I think it’s a self-indulgent waste of money, and if you have that much money to throw away on Crap like a Political dinner, you’re a crook.  But that’s another story.

But $1693.44 for dinner at a Sushi restaurant?  That’s what I’m talking about today.  And in this case, this was without Saki!

At Yelp.com, Jeff. P posted this picture of his tab from Urasawa, a Sushi place in Beverly Hills.

Excessive

 

Now if you want to read more about this place, you can check out Yelp.com (I’m not going to direct link to them, I think it’s shameful.)   And No, Yelp.com, it wasn’t lost on me that you were paid to delete every bad rating the place has, leaving only 4 or 5 star ratings.  Or are we supposed to believe that over 300 people posted reviews in the last year and absolutely none of them had less than a “4 Star” time?

Urasawa is just too sexy for a website — they don’t have one.  When you can charge $1693.44 for a dinner, you don’t need a website.

So the deal with this snobby-ass place is there is only one seating a night, the dinner takes about 4 hours, and each day they “sand down the table” to make it fresh for that night’s seating.  Apparently the rich are too good to have to eat on a table that might just be washed down, or to eat on a tablecloth.

Now I ran with $1693.44 because we have the receipt, but other Snobbish Assholes have Bragged in the reviews that they spent $600 or $700 Per Person for their dinners.  I suppose they were even more piggish than Jeff P. and also had some expensive drinks.

Now why do I find this SO FUCKING OFFENSIVE?  Because if people can waste $1693.44 on dinner, they have too much money.  I’m not saying people don’t deserve the money they’ve earned or inherited.  But if you have the money to burn like that, then you have too much money.  Period.  As long as there are people who don’t have money to eat ANYTHING, there shouldn’t be people spending 150 times what it costs to go to McDonald’s.

Who is it to say what is a Waste and what is a Luxury?  I am.  And I just did.