- RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
- RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
- Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
- @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- Personal inbox zero! #
- Work email inbox zero! #
- StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
- I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #
Consumer Action Handbook
- Image by ivers via Flickr
The Consumer Action Handbook is a book published by the federal government for the express purpose of giving you “the most current information on all your consumer needs.” In short, the Consumer Action Handbook wants to help you with everything that takes your money.
The best part? It’s free.
The book covers topics ranging from banking to health care to cell phones to estate planning. It covers both covering your butt in a transaction and filing a complaint if things go poorly. It explains the options and pitfalls involved in buying, renting, leasing, or fixing a car. You can learn about financial aid for college and maneuvering through an employment agency. And more. So much more.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I spend quite a bit of time explaining scams and how to avoid them. This book has provided some of the source material for that theme.
It’s 170 pages on not getting screwed, either through fraud or ignorance. Every house should have one. Really, the list of consumer and regulatory agencies alone is worth the price of admission, which–if I wasn’t clear earlier–is $0.
To get yours, go to http://www.consumeraction.gov/caw_orderhandbook.shtml and fill out the form. You can order up to 10 at a time, so pick a few up for your friends and family. They won’t complain, I promise.
IQ Tests
I dislike stupidity. Particularly willful stupidity.
The problem is that you can be having a conversation with some one that you don’t realize is stupid, then they whip out the dumb-hammer and steal some of your IQ points by osmosis.
I hate that.
Since my lobbying efforts to have the willfully stupid get identifying facial tattoos seems to be failing, I’ve developed a system. My system helps me identify willfully stupid people and allows me to ignore anything they say, or–more likely–walk away as soon as I’ve identified them.
Here’s my system:
If someone expresses a specific opinion on a specific topic, I know they are an inefficient use of air and should be ignored, preferably from a different room.
What topics? I don’t pick topics that are necessarily controversial. For example, politics. I’m a died-in-the-wool Leavemethehellaloneitarian. Commies who want to take my money to fund stupid programs or stupid people aren’t a part of my IQ test. They’re just misguided. I’ll pat them on the head and change the topic, because I’m not interested in being either a history or an economics teacher.
The topics I go for are straightforward. It’s a matter of “If you believe this, you are beyond help.”
What topics?
- The moon landing was a hoax. Buzz Alrdin actually got the honor of punching one of these idiots. I won’t get into the science here because–as I said–I don’t want to be a teacher. Just 2 points from a human nature perspective: 1) The Russians were watching and good tell where the radio signals were coming from. If they could have embarrassed us, they would have. It was a Space Race. 2) Conspiracy 101. 13 people can keep a secret if 12 of them are dead.
- 9/11 Truthers. There’s too much stupid rolled up in anybody who think 9/11 was an inside job. Engineering, human nature, cinematography, and critical thinking are all topics they can never master. Just walk away. They probably won’t notice they are talking to a wall for a while, anyway. If they do get offended, it’s no big deal, because there’s no way they can remember your name longer than it takes to take a couple of breaths. Seriously, they became Truthers because it’s the only job they could get that didn’t mind retraining them after each coffee break.
- Holocaust Deniers. I almost skipped this one because it’s hard to describe them without resorting to language I try to avoid here. Ten million people died as a direct result of evil. Evil that ran a successful PR campaign on television. Evil that was witnessed by millions as it was happening, and by tens of thousands more as the concentration camps were liberated and mass graves were uncovered. If you deny this, you are not only beyond help, you are beneath contempt.
There are some other groups that get this to a lesser degree. Anti-vaccinators get a pat on the head. They are benefiting from the herd immunity provided be the people who get their kids vaccinated. If the rest of us went that route, we’d grow some fabulous epidemics again.
What about you? Do you have a shortcut system for recognizing people better left ignored?
Crack
I guess I’ve been feeling pretty domestic lately. This is the second food post in two weeks. I wonder what that means? It probably means I’m hungry.
If I’m bringing a dessert to a potluck, or I need a dessert for a party, I bring crack. I’m absolutely sure that wasn’t the name on the recipe when I found it, but it’s been renamed by everyone who has ever tried it. I’m sorry, Mr. Potato-Chip-Man, but I can eat just one of those. This stuff needs to be restricted by the government. It’s an addictive, sell-your-first-born-for-another-hit bit of salty-sweet yum. I’m gonna make you fat.
Ingredients
1 cup of salted butter – $2
1 cup of brown sugar – $1
2 packs of saltines (That’s half of a box) – $2
2 bags of chocolate chips – $4
2 handfuls of toffee chips (broken Heath bars) – $1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cover two cookie sheets in foil. Spread crackers over each sheet in a single layer.
Mix the butter and sugar in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it starts looking like caramel, then stir for another minute or two. You still want it kind of runny, so don’t let it get thick.
Spoon the caramel over the crackers. Get some on each cracker. Try to get it even, but don’t worry about it too much. Sloppy is good. Remember, half the caramel for each cookie sheet.
Put the cookie sheets full of crackers and caramel in the oven for 10-15 minutes. The caramel will spread out and flow through and around the crackers. You’ll know it’s done when the caramel starts bubbling evenly.
Pour one bag of chocolate chips over each pan. Try to spread it out evenly, but–again–don’t sweat it.
Go away for 10 minutes.
When you come back, the chocolate will be all melty-good. Spread it evenly with a rubber spatula.
Sprinkle some toffee chips over the chocolate, then put the pans in the freezer to cool and set. It will take at least a couple of hours.
When you pull the pans out, peel off the foil then break it up into snack-sized pieces. Don’t break it up first, or you’ll spend the evening moaning over the candy and crying over the foil hitting your fillings.
Depending on how long you cooked the caramel, it will get soft when it approaches room temperature. I always store it in the refrigerator to avoid that.
When you bring this to a party, always pack it two containers. When the first one is empty, you can auction off the second. You should be able to turn the $10 you spent on ingredients into at least $50 of guilt-ridden goodness.
Check Your Bills
Today, I discovered our AOL billing information. Turns out we’ve been paying for dial-up via automatic bill paying that we thought we cancelled in 2000. $1,800 later, we called to cancel. Customer service congratulated us on being loyal members for over 13 years. FML -Jay
- Image by roberthuffstutter via Flickr
I am a huge fan of automating my finances. My paycheck is direct-deposited. My savings are automatically transferred from my checking account to my savings account. Almost every bill I receive regularly is set up as an automatic payment in my bank’s bill-pay system. I even have my debt snowball automated.
The only question left is whether it’s possible to automate too far. Can you automate past the point of benefit, straight into detriment? The primary benefit of automation is knowing that you can’t forget a payment. The other benefit is freeing up your attention. You don’t have to give any focus to paying your bills, freeing you to worry about other things.
The problem with the second benefit is the same as the benefit. If you don’t give your bills any attention, how do you know if there is a problem? If something changes–an extra fee or a mis-keyed payment–you won’t notice because you haven’t been giving the bills any focus.
Sometimes, this means you are paying an extra fee without noticing it. Sometimes, if your due date changes, it can mean late fees. Even if nothing goes wrong, you are missing the opportunity to review what you are paying to ensure your needs are being met as efficiently as possible.
What can you do about it? I put a reminder on my Life Calendar to check my bills each month. I pick one bill each month and try to find a way to save money on it. I review the services to make sure they are what I need and if that doesn’t help, I call and ask for a lower price. If it’s a credit card, I ask for a lower interest rate. For the cable company, I ask if they will match whatever deal they have for new customers.
Every company can do something to keep a loyal customer happy. All you have to do is ask.
Do you automate anything? How do you keep track of it all?
Jobs I’ve Had
I’ve always worked. From the time I was young, I knew that, if I wanted to feed my G.I. Joe addiction, I needed a way to make money.
So I got a job.
I was the only kid in first grade earning a steady paycheck.
In the years since, I’ve had a dozen or so jobs at 10 different companies. The question has been asked, so this post is my answer: these are all of the jobs I’ve ever held.
- Paper route. Starting at age 6, I split a paper route with my brother. Initially, I made about $6 per month, which was enough for 1 G.I. Joe.
- Farm hand. I spent a couple of summers in junior high and high school doing odd farm jobs outside of my home town.
- Dishwasher. Starting in 9th grade, I gave up a study hall to work in the school cafeteria, serving food and washing dishes. It paid minimum wage for 1 hour per school day.
- Construction. For a couple of summers, I worked for my dad’s construction company. He was easily the hardest boss I’ve ever had, which was great preparation for the rest of my working life. The drunk bar owner who didn’t allow his employees a lunch break and got upset if they sat down on a smoke break was nothing by comparison. Thanks, Dad. Every employer since has been astonished by my work ethic, even when I’m having an off day.
- Dishwasher, take 2. Sixteen years old, thumped by the wisdom of “If you want a car, get a job to pay for it.” So I did. It paid a bit over minimum wage and gave me my first “Who the heck is FICA and why is he robbing me?” moment. I eventually got promoted to cook, which came with better pay, worse hours, and more opportunities to flirt with waitresses. It was grand.
- Palletizer. This is a fancy way of saying I stood at the end of a conveyor belt, picked up the 50 pound bags of powder as they came down the line, and stacked them neatly on a pallet. Rinse and repeat. 1500 times per night. By the time I left this job, I had arms that would make Popeye cry.
- Cook, take 2. I held this job at the same time as the palletizer position. I’d work 8 hours stacking pallets, then head to job #2, 5 miles away. My car was broken at the time, so I rode my bike. In the winter. In Minnesota. I was working 14-16 hour days, lifting a total of 75,000 pounds, biking 10 miles per day. I was in great shape and tough. I wasn’t tough enough, though. I could only maintain this schedule for a couple of months.
- Machine operator. During my stint with this company, I’d put a little piece of metal into a great big machine, push a button, then spend 15-20 minutes listening to the great big machine carve the little piece of metal into something worth selling. This was about when I started shopping for books based primarily on thickness. One night, I read The Stand in my spare time. I’d also pass the night by burning scrap magnesium flakes in the parking lot. What can I say? Twelve hour graveyard shifts with 3 hours of actual work are boring. I left a few months after my son was born, because I was missing too much of my family time. I took a 30% pay-cut, before overtime, to be with my wife and kid.
- Debt collector. I worked my way through college by collecting on defaulted student loans. I firmly believe that we should all live up to our obligations and responsibilities, including paying your bills, so I didn’t have a moral dilemma with the work. There are some bad apples, but I don’t see collectors as pariahs.
- Systems Administrator. After I graduated college, I got promoted and spent the rest of my time there managing the collection and auto-dialer software and the hodge-podge of other applications we needed, some of which, I wrote.
- Software engineer. This is where I am now. I’ve written a medium-scale ecommerce application that handles the online sales for quite a few companies, mostly in the B2B arena. The job also includes a large chunk of training, management, and even sales. I don’t particularly enjoy sales, but a programmer geek who can manage other programmers, coordinate with sales & marketing, and talk to customers during a sales demo is a rare bird.
To recap: I’m 32 and I’ve had 1 month out of the last 26 years that didn’t come with a paycheck. I’ve worked for 10 different companies and I start the job before this one when I was 20.
How many jobs have you had? What was the most memorable, or the oddest?
