Cell Phones

First, I must apologize for not posting yesterday but I was busy as I’ll explain further. Also, I should note that I don’t bother to post on the weekends or holidays.

Now, I was trying to get some work done on Monday even if it was a holiday. I should also explain that even though I hate cell phones I have had any number of them over the years for business purposes. Back to Monday, I was working when the cell phone started ringing. Answering it I got no response but rather a text message popped up much to my surprise. The message was obviously to the wrong number as it was from a teenager to another teenager. I deleted it and went back to work. A few minutes later another text message came up. I kept getting these idiotic messages for the better part of an hour without answering any of them.

Now I don’t know about any of your cell phone plans, but in mine I pay for text messages and the airtime dealing with them. Thus I never use them and tell anyone who might call me that I don’t use them. After about 20 messages, I got feed up and lost my temper. The cell phone went crashing into a cinder block wall needless to say. So I spent the better part of the morning on Tuesday dealing with the cell phone company trying to get my number installed in another phone. I haven’t had such a frustrating time since I tried to get in contact with my ISP about their charges for service.

I should explain that I’m one of those people that rarely throw anything out so I have about four unused cell phones lying around. All I wanted was for the company to install the SMI chip from the broken phone into one of those. No, they couldn’t do that was the first answer. I’d need to get a new phone. Realizing that all they wanted to do was sell me another phone, I kept insisting that they could do that and they would do that otherwise I was going to sign with another company and get yet another phone I didn’t need or want. They finally relented and did like I asked. I also had them remove the text messaging from my plan so I wouldn’t be bothered like this again.

I should mention that to me a cell phone is for making calls and getting voice mail. Nothing else matters and I don’t want it or use it. There are a number of reasons for this. I get my email off the internet, I watch TV if I want to see something, I write letters if I want a hardcopy of my correspondence, and I have a phone book for looking up numbers. I don’t need a cell phone to do any of this for me!

A warning to those of you out there using cell phones for all of these functions, there are computer viruses starting to spread to cell phones that use some or all of these functions. I knew it would happen sooner or later and it has now. If your cell phone uses the Bluetooth wireless communications with other devices then you are vulnerable to this first wave of viruses. The most insidious one so far drains you phones batteries. I expect the next wave will use the actual phone networks to spread and do greater damage.

I personally have enough problems with the internet and viruses protection, popup protection, ad ware protection, and spam email that I don’t need to be bothered fighting these on my cell phone. What’s the old saying, something about forewarned is forearmed!

Journalism or Yellow Journalism?

I’ve been watching the local news lately, at least more than the weather, and noticed that they seem to be getting more involved in the left-wing political line. Specifically, on two occasions in the last three days this has been the case.

First, there was a report on someone who is dredging up that false report about the reinstatement of the draft. In case you’ve forgotten, during the election there was a big stink about President Bush starting up the draft again to support the war in Iraq. Big mouth Kerry was all over it of course until someone pointed out that the whole thing was started by a couple of dumbocrat congressmen. Then he shut his mouth awfully fast. Anyway, the local media was all over this woman because she’s started a campaign to force all congressmen and senators to sign on that they would not sponsor or vote for a bill to reinstate the draft. I say that is a bunch of bull as no one had even mentioned it except for her and the media.

The second report the following day was about how the US should have signed the Kyoto treaty on global warming. I noticed that they trotted out all the local envirowackos, as Rush calls them, to support that contention without a balancing statement from anyone who would disagree with that position. They also tended to gloss over the fact that both China and India have exemptions from any pollution they produce.

I keep wondering how these so called journalists can develop this mentality and then I remember that they went to Journalism School in college. Just what does Journalism School teach them except how to be good lefties? I always figured that anyone who could right a sentence grammatically and speak effectively could do those jobs. After all, if you listen to them read the news in the evenings whoever is doing their writing certainly can’t write grammatically! Just listen for the double negatives, misused words, and split infinitives are obvious.

I also get tired of hearing Nevada pronounced Nev-AH-dah when everyone knows it is pronounced Nev-a-DA. The same thing happened when I lived in Oregon. East coast news weenies always pronounced it Or-e-gaun when it’s pronounced Or-e-GUN. The thought always went through my head that it should be explained to them in term they might understand. Pronounce it Or-e-GUN or I’ll get a gun and blow your head off!

All of which brings me to another point. Just where do the UN and Europe get off telling us how to do things, that is until they need money then they seem to come calling fast enough. Even then they seem to feel that they can insult this country if they don’t get the amount they feel we should be handing them free and clear. Even the so called loans seem to lack any interest rate or repayment periods! A good example of this is the One Billion dollar loan the UN wants the US to provide so they can remodel the New York offices. Our taxpayer dollars go to them as a no interest, no repayment period loan that they will expect our government to provide the funds to repay whenever they feel like it. How much longer do they expect the taxpayers of this country to put up with that kind of treatment?

WAKE UP AMERICA! Tell your congressmen and senators to cut the UN funds altogether. Better yet get us out of the UN totally! Also, boycott local and national news broadcasts and inform the stations why you are doing this. I’m still boycotting CBS and its local affiliate since Dan Rather has not apologized properly for the obvious attempt to swing the election with that false report on President Bush’s National Guard service.

Baseball season is almost here.

How those words used to fill me with anticipation. In case you hadn’t guessed it, I’m a baseball fan or I should say I was a baseball fan. It’s been harder and harder to get any enjoyment out of a game where the players think that they can get away with anything. Who do they think they are rock or movie stars that can flout the law whenever they feel like it? I’ll have to remember to do a post on my feeling about the later two groups later.

Meanwhile, what brought all this on you may be asking yourselves? Well, it was the current tell all book about steroid use in baseball. A book I might add that was probably written by a poor underpaid ghost writer. The credited author and his agent will be splitting the profits you can be sure of that fact.

Lest you think I’m just down on baseball the same statement could be made about basketball, hockey, or football. And I’m not just limiting my denunciation to the professional players but have to include the major college sports of football and basketball in that statement. Why should we the fans support drug use, murder and mayhem, or rape with our dollars?

I’ve done my own little effort to bring a solution to these problems by not watching broadcast games and not buying season passes to the satellite feeds for playoffs or regular season games. Nor do I attend games in person. I should put in a qualifier that I still enjoy the high school sporting events and minor league baseball. The minor leaguers are the only ones upholding the traditions of a game deeply rooted in the American way of life.

What can be done to correct the situation? I find that a good start was made when Senator McCain threatened government regulations if the players union didn’t make concessions to resolve the recent steroid scandal in baseball. You’ll notice that they reached an agreement mighty fast after that threat. In my own opinion, the best thing for baseball and the other professional sports is to break the stranglehold that the players unions, sports agents, and owners have on the games.

As for the “pro” sports at college lever, I’ve noticed that any number of the great universities and colleges in don’t have intercollegiate sports teams. I’m thinking here of Northwestern and Oral Roberts, but I’m sure that there are others. I have heard all of the arguments against dropping sports, but most of them sound facetious to me at best. As an alumni myself, I don’t give money to my alma mater’s sports programs or to the general university fund. Instead, when I give money it is to a specific program like the library or a particular department. I can only encourage others to follow my example. Starving them out is the only way to end the abuses at a college level.

Just my two cents worth of advice, but something has to be done and waiting for the situation to correct itself over time is not a solution. Think about it and you’ll see I’m right.

Back to Politics!

Some of you may have been worried that I was getting soft by not discussing the political landscape during the last couple of posts. Never fear, I’ve been keeping my eye on things! The only problem is where to start since the Dumbocrats have preformed up to their usual expectations.

Let’s see, what the Dumbocrats have done lately. Buy the way, BTW for the chat room crowd, I love that word! It so accurately describes what’s left of the Democratic Party. Oh yeah, they elected Howard Dean as party chairman. Can you think of anyone least likely to attract middle of the road and conservative democrats back to the party. Let him get started with his histrionics. I wouldn’t be surprised if even more votes deserted the Dumbocrats when the ’06 elections come around.

Speaking of the ’06 elections, I know it’s at little early but I’ve come up with my own predictions of the outcome. How does a Republican increase of 3 seats in the senate and 12 to 15 seats in the house sound? I think it would be grand myself. Results like this would move the Republicans even closer to shutting down any filibusters in the senate. Who knows, it might even cause a few of the more conservative democrats in the senate to switch parties! I can just see it in my mind. There is Kennedy dying of apoplexy in the senate chamber when he realizes that he can’t stop any more Presidential appointments.

Two-faced Harry Reid has also opened his mouth again. Of course he’s going to get a lot of flak; he was the one that put himself in the position of Senate minority leader. I live in his state and you wouldn’t believe what he says for local consumption verses what he says in D.C. Oh well, he’s only got six years left even if he does decide to run for reelection in 2010. Next time he’ll be facing a popular republican and not a nobody like this last election.

Kennedy, Pelosi, and Clinton also can’t seem to keep their mouths shut. What else is new? I just can’t get over how these people get elected time after time! I mean really are most of the people in their states brain dead. I suppose I shouldn’t talk too loudly after all the majority of people here in Nevada elected Harry Reid again. All I can do is loudly proclaim that I wasn’t one of those who voted for him!

On another note, I was emailing a friend who is a tech writer and he mentioned how they have to write instruction manuals to a sixth grade level. Now when I was in the service I know that they wrote to an eight grade level. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out my tax forms for last year. I suppose that these were also written to a sixth grade level, but you couldn’t tell it by me. Maybe that’s most of the problem with the federal income tax. The thing is so complex that an accountant with a Bachelors of Science degree is required to fill them out. Try writing a textbook for a graduate level course in finances so a sixth grader can understand it! That is assuming that the sixth grader really learned enough to be in the sixth grade.

As an aside, I got curious enough to run my past postings through the Word grammar checker just to get the reading level. I generally write these to at least an eight grade level and most are ninth or tenth. I don’t think the American public is a dumb as the educational establishment and politicians would like to think we are.

Electronic books

E-books

One of the things I enjoy in life is reading. I discovered e-books several years ago and have become a firm believer since then. The number of different formats available for a wide ranging number of devices makes them useful for both travel and home. After all, where else can you build a library of several thousand volumes in the storage space required by a few CDs? For all of their advantages, they also have in my opinion some serious deficiencies. The most serious is a total lack of cataloging capability for the libraries. Another is the entire question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that some publishers insist on inflicting on readers. Having said that e-book readers have some problems, I still enjoy obtaining and reading a wide variety of e-books using several of these devices.

Two of my favorite sources of e-books are Blackmask Online and Baen Publishing. Blackmask is filled with thousands of public domain literature that ranges from the serious to the pulp fiction of the early 20^th Century. I have downloaded and read many titles from this site and barely scratched the surface. Baen Publishing provides a free library of sixty or so title in modern science fiction and fantasy that a reader of that genre can’t afford to miss. In addition, they have a service called Webscriptions that lets you purchase and download either individual titles or subscribe for a monthly fee to get their latest releases. I use the former method as I’m still trying to fill in some of the series from my favorite authors that they publish.

Baen has some of the best in their field and I’d be remiss in not mentioning some of the authors by name. David Weber, John Ringo, and David Drake are among my favorites when it comes to military SF. Eric Flint has created an alternate history series, 1632, that is unique in that he has opened it up to not just other established authors, but also to new and unpublished authors who want to try their hand at expressing themselves.

Lest we forget the ladies, Baen publishes works by some of the greatest. Lois McMaster Bujold has created a stellar series with the Miles Vorkosigan character. For the fantasy buff, Mercedes Lackey always can be counted upon for a good story. I would caution people to go lightly with the Serrated Edge series. Child abuse as a topic, even to point up the criminal nature, can be a little trying and I only finished one book before I couldn’t take it anymore.

For those who get really serious about e-books there are a number of site that provide a place to purchase and download many current e-books on many topics. My personal favorite is Fictionwise, but there are others that can be found easily with a simple web search.

I’d be very remiss in covering this topic if I didn’t mention the fine work by the people at Project Gutenberg to create a repository of public domain works in electronic format. They are always in need of volunteers and cash donations. Last time I looked they had over 13,000 works finished and were ahead of schedule in their ambitious plan of a million volume library. Please check out their site and support them in any way you can.

Awards Season is Upon Us!

The Grammy Awards were on television last night. Now normally this doesn’t bother me since I don’t watch anyway, but it got me thinking that this was just the first is a long line of awards shows on television that I’ll be ignoring the year. All to my betterment I’m sure of that fact. However, if you have ever noticed the only awards shows that get broadcast all have to do with the visual or music entertainment industries.

Grammy, Tony, Academy, Emmy, Kennedy, and whatever they call the MTV and daytime soap awards are all broadcast, usually in prime time and usually for three, four, or more hours of nothing useful including the occasional left wing political ranting. The networks, both over-the-air and satellite conveniently forget the print awards except for maybe a minor mention on local and occasionally national news. What happened to the Hugo, Pulitzer, Poe or any of the other print awards?

Let’s not forget all the other awards given out throughout the year. Little things like the Nobel prizes for science and peace or the Baldrige for industrial quality in America are also forgotten. Such is the mindset of the entertainment industry that if it doesn’t concern them then it doesn’t exist!

What did I do while the entertainers were playing congratulations to each other? I was watching a video of course, but it was something that never won an award even if it should have.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m a movie freak. Perhaps I should expand that as I also like to watch certain television shows on VHS or DVD that I like personally. The other day I was cruising around the internet looking for new movies to purchase. New is a relative term since I prefer movies from before 1980 mostly. Anyway, I ran across a large number of DVDs for television series. What amazed me was the number of them that were for shows that are running in syndication 20, 30 or even 40 times a week. I’m talking about things I’d never watch like Sex in the City, Friends, or Seinfeld. Then there are the ones I might consider buying if they weren’t also on an over abundance in syndication. Shows like MASH or Married with Children. Oddly enough, I didn’t see many that I would really think worth buying. Such shows as Newhart, Third Rock from the Sun, or one of my James Garner favorites Maverick seem to be missing from the list. Also missing from the list are the great mini-series from television, like Centennial. What is wrong with these studios?

I did notice that practically the entire Star Trek saga, all the movies and series, are available at what I consider a very over inflated price. Really, a hundred dollars for one season of Star Trek: Voyager, I can buy two season of a better science fiction series, Babylon 5 on DVD, for that price! Speaking of science fiction series, there aren’t many choices, but Babylon 5 and Stargate SG-1 are out there and are my recommendation for what that’s worth.

I noticed that I mentioned Third Rock from the Sun above and just realized that I had seen that available on DVD. The only problem is that it was released in the UK on PAL format for Region 2. Something which does those of us in North America not one damn bit of good. Enough, I’m getting depressed with the whole subject!

Automated phone systems. Why do they exist?

Telephone Support

I’ve just had the most frustrating time. I had to call SBC about my DSL bill for the first time in over two years I might add. They provide a great service. My frustration was with just getting to talk to a live person! Let me describe what I went through and think about what everyone goes through.

I first called the number and played the game of push this button, then push this button, and then enter my phone number. Something all of us do everyday it seem. I finally get to talk to a real person only to be told that my problem has to be handled at a different number. She rerouted the call and I spent almost twenty minutes listening to the worst music. Finally, I got feed up and hung up. I then called the number directly. Now it gets worse. The automated system was voice recognition, but it couldn’t recognize what I was saying. I was on a cell phone at the time. Finally, after pushing buttons and shouting into the phone I was placed on hold again with the same lousy music. After another twenty minutes on hold, I hung up and logged on to their web site. I finally found a chat help section, but wouldn’t you know, it was only for technical support and all she could suggest was calling the number I’d already called! I called again and of course, after the usual shouting into the phone to be recognized by the software and punching buttons I finally got through to … you guessed it that lousy music again. After another 15 minutes or so of that, a real person came on the line. He laughed when I told him about my opinion of the music, but when I explained my problem he solved it in only about five minutes.

Now all this has taken about an hour of cell phone airtime, shouting into a phone, punching buttons, and bad music all for talking to a real person to solve a minor problem that took 5 minutes. I have to ask is this progress!

This isn’t the only time I’ve become frustrated with those automated phone systems. I have only to think about calling the pharmacy to reorder a prescription or the doctor, government office, or large business. It makes you wonder just how much the consumer gets ripped off just because they can’t or won’t spend the time just getting through to a real person that can handle the problem they have.

-30-

Politics, Taxes, and Education

Legislatures, Taxes, and the People

I don’t know how it is in your state, but here in Nevada the legislative season is upon us. Every two years the usual group of know-it-alls is reelected and shows up for 120 days of confusion, backbiting, and deal making. This of course is all to the detriment of the people that sent them there in the first place! All of this is leading up to something, so bear with me.

Now, two years ago the legislature with the active support of the state Supreme Court, defied the will of the people by passing a massive tax increase without the constitutionally required two-thirds majority. Needless to say, a number of the Supreme Court Judges are no longer there! Although the same thing can’t be said for most of the politicians that also participated in this little fraud.

Now we jump ahead to this year, and surprise the state is running a surplus of about 12% of the projected state budget for the next two years. The Governor wants to refund some of this money back to the taxpayers, but every special interest group with its hands in the public till wants that money for itself. Anyone want to make a bet on who’ll get the money?

The college and university system and the schools are the first ones with their hands out of course. Now I have a few questions for them. Do the universities really need to provide each president with and excessive salary, housing allowance that could buy my house, and a car every year? Do tenured professors that don’t teach a class really need to be on the payroll at exorbitant salaries? Let’s not forget the schools. Where does all that money go every year? It certainly doesn’t go to educate our school children! Which brings us to another topic.

Education

I’m a member of the baby boom generation and I believe that I received a fairly good education. In high school, I remember that you were required to have so many math and science courses, English every year, a foreign language, history, civics, geography, and physical education. The school year was from just after Labor Day until Memorial Day and we didn’t get a day off for teacher conferences, etc. Class sizes were large at 30 to 40 each and the teachers seemed to be able to teach.

What do we have today? Schools that don’t require enough math and science, English is taught but only if they can’t find an excuse not to, geography is a joke, history is revised almost daily to fit the latest version of the revisionist and no physical education. Is it any wonder that I wouldn’t hire a high school graduate for anything beyond the janitor position?

As for class sizes, I wonder why it is that a teacher today can’t teach unless the class has 14 or fewer students and they have a teachers aid with them? On the other hand, maybe I can when you think about the education that these teachers have had getting their degrees! I don’t think I even need to mention this English as a second language garbage!

The solution to this is obvious of course. First, get rid of the teachers union. A number of dedicated teachers I know would jump for joy if this happened. Second, require real courses with real grades in schools. Third, get rid of English as a second language. Lastly, let qualified people without degrees in “education” become teachers without going back to school. I’m sure that with these actions taken the quality of the course content would rise along with grades, test scores, and the general knowledge of our children. They might even be able compete in today’s world.

-30-

Television

James Garner

The other day I noticed a small blurb on the news that the Screen Actors Guild is going to honor James Garner. It’s about time, this fine actor has had a career spanning 4 decades with switches between hit TV series and major motion pictures. I my opinion he is one of the few actors or actresses still alive that is worth watching.

My damn spell checker just informed me that actresses should be actors. All I can say is that I don’t go for the politically correct and will use what I want, gender bias be damned. All this is leading up to something, mainly television today.

Television

I don’t know about you, but I’m a movie freak. I haven’t watched very much regular television in the last six or eight years. After all, what’s on to watch? Do you really like the so-called reality TV? How about sports? Awards shows? Insipid and often offensive sitcoms? How much of this garbage can you watch? I say don’t watch any of it! I don’t! Considering the options with first VHS videos and now DVDs why should the American public put up with it? Actually, the American public isn’t putting up with it as shown by the ratings. A hit TV show used to bring in a rating of 20 or so and now days the same requirement for a hit is on the order of 5 to 8. I’m not counting the so-called non-broadcast media, i.e. satellite and cable only networks, after all they still make up a smaller part of the rating figures. A few of these networks even have some good shows. I’m thinking here specifically of the SciFi channel, but Discovery and the History channels also do pretty good. Unfortunately, some of these networks are following in the footsteps of the over-the-air fiascos. I can only say to them, straighten up and fly right or you’ll follow ABC, NBC, and CBS down in flames!

Television News

All of which brings us to TV news. Now I don’t watch CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News very much. Actually, I don’t watch any of them except Fox News at all. I have given up on the conventional network news organizations. I told CBS that I was boycotting them after they pulled that stunt on 60 Minutes Jr. during the elections and I haven’t watched the network since. I can’t stand the holier than thou attitude of ABC, but I have given NBC and the new anchor some time lately. They have irritated me the least, but how long that will last is anyone’s guess. My suggestion is to stick with Fox News or the internet for the real, unslanted, read liberal, truth.

-30-

This 'n That

Weather or Whether

Lately I’ve visited a number of web site and chat rooms that confuse these two terms. Why should it be so hard to differentiate between them? After all weather is the current climatologically occurring events in an area and whether is a term implying an action with or without your permission.

Politics Again

If you listened to the State of the Union address last night then you also got a load of the democratic response. What a bunch of garbage! When are the democrats going to learn that they aren’t going to convince the American public with old ideological viewpoints and partisan bickering anymore? Enough said since I don’t want to raise my blood pressure.

Earnings

One of the things that I do to make money is selling on the internet. My storefront is on Half, but I do sell on other sites. Just a plug here, check out my store at Quail Books, for your used and new books, movies, or music needs. I thought that you might be interested in my impressions of various sites that carry these products.

Amazon: I started out selling here, but technical difficulties in the recent past have forced me to move most of my inventory to other sites. They seem to ignore the needs of the third party seller.

Alibris: If you look for something unusual or out of print this is one of two sites that I can recommend. I also sell items on this site.

Abebooks: The other site you might check for rare or out of print books. I don’t sell here, but I have shopped here.

Half.com: As a part of eBay this site has good deals on your more modern books, movies and CDs. My main shop is here and I can highly recommend it to anyone buying or selling.

Overstock: This one is new and I haven’t tried it for either buying or selling, but it does seem to get good comments from sellers in various chat rooms.

Feel free to try out any or all of these sites for your entertainment needs. If you are interested in finding a specific book then I highly recommend you visit Bookfinder.

In the News

Well, here we are again. I've been neglecting this site for a week now so it's about time to add a new post. I'm going to comment on some news items from the past week.

Michael Jackson

The Michael Jackson trial is getting underway. As usual, the media is doing their usual job of over-coverage! I think that I speak for a major segment of the American population when I say "Who Cares!" Get off it and onto something important. We all know what's going to happen. He'll get off or at worst a minor fine and possibly mandatory counseling.

Iraq Elections

I’m happy with the results of the Iraq elections as are most of the people of the United States. Having said that, I can predict what will happen, with what I feel is a fair amount of accuracy. The government will survive until the coalition wipes out the terrorists and leaves. Then some general, Imam, or whatever will lead a revolt and another dictatorship takes over. Big Surprise!

Media Bias

Has anyone else noticed that the media doesn’t call a spade a spade anymore. Iraq is a prime example of this. They aren’t terrorists but rather part of a insurrection. That’s the liberal media again and a prime example of why you and I shouldn’t pay any attention to what they say.

Media Bias, Part 2

Do you ever get that feeling of Déjà vu? Here we are barley a week after President Bush was sworn in and the media is already taking the side of the liberals. I’ve never seen so much coverage of the liberal democrats and their rants and raves about nothing. Those so-called senators from Massachusetts have only to open their mouths and they put their foot in it. Kerry has no sense of anything let alone politics. If he thinks, he’ll get another chance for a run at the Presidency he’s only fooling himself. As for that drunken murderer Kennedy, I just hope he ends up like his brothers with a bullet in the head.

Tsunami

I’ve heard enough and more than enough about this event. It happened and can happen anywhere. Do we need to be inundated with the coverage so something no one can control. I’m also tired of people and organizations that ask for money. Let’s face it, in that part of the world a large portion of the money is going to be skimmed off into the pockets of corrupt officials. I’m not excluding the UN from this group by the way. Is there any more corrupt and two-faced an organization in the world? I happen to agree with a columnist from my local paper. Read his comments for yourself at this link.

Nevada Appeal - Opinion