Musings, ventings, raids, etc

Just a bit of venting. Nothing serious.

1. It seems like ripoff artists are getting more and more brazen all the time. Between idiots who do not know how to make change (and assume that I do not count back my coin and match that count to the math when it is given back to me . . . I've had two of these con artists at various retail establishments in the last month), "scare-ware" scams, "Free" Credit Reports that are anything but, getting honest-to-Ghu checks in the mail with fine print like "cashing this check signs you up for our exclusive service where we charge you $15 / month for a 2% rebate (max $100 / year) on your credit card", "credit cards" that are little more than sweet looking poisoned hooks into one's income stream . . .

Fortunately, my father is an astute businessman who counseled me even as a wee child to read the fine print. I did, and do. As a wee childe, I was also a fan, back when being a consumer advocate was still cool, of TV consumer advocate David Horowitz' wonderful show "Fight Back!" Horowitz's segments on predatory business practices always included "the tip-off to the rip-off" -- the clue that you are headed for a fiscal reaming by buying into a too-good-to-be-true "deal."

The same tools can be applied to the various Internet scams, like the recent Facebook drive-by scare-ware antivirus / anti-porn download. The driveby download popped up a scary looking Windows Explorer window on my Mac (running 10.5.7, not Boot Camped or running winderz in a Virtualization engine) with a dire warning about virii and pictures of nekkid people and the immediate need to remove them by downloading this lovely little .exe file.

However: Windows virii do not run in OS X
Not only that, OS X does not have Windows Explorer windows.
I can see how an inexperienced user might be panicked into buying
Preying on folks who do not know better and in some cases cannot know better pisses me off.

2. "Your Skill In Cooking Has Increased By (a lot more than) 1" -- I got a confirmation this morning of one of the reasons I have eschewed cooking my own meals at my current digs. My roomie, an otherwise reasonably tolerant and calm soul, is a neat freak's neat freak who makes Felix Unger of Odd Couple fame look like Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip. I am not a total slob -- at least not anymore! -- but I tend to be not obsessive about my immediate surroundings. Common areas are another matter. Roomie informed me that my kitchen cleaning was not to spec, the stove top and counters needed to be wiped down. However, I did those things!!

So, rather than get pissed off and engage in my nominal default (avoidance) behavior and not cooking just to keep His Anality off my arse -- and to save money -- I need to do a better job than the everything but polish the fscking thing job I'm doing now. Part of me -- the lazy, tantrum-prone little boy inside me -- wants to say "Bite me!" and stop cooking. However, since Meece entered my life, I've begun to get a certain enjoyment from cooking my meals. It's more than saving money, it's about crafting something healthful that I will enjoy in the making, the eating and even when I talk to Meece about it. She inevitably suggests variations to my ideas -- some I'd already considered, some that I'd not even thought of.

I know, about bloody time I started cooking. The old excuse -- "Mom did not deign to teach me" -- does not cut it anymore, if it ever did. I've had some good teachers to overcome my lack of childhood instruction. Now I have the positive feedback that enjoying cooking gives to motivate me to try New Things™

3. Naxx-a-ramma, Part Deux. Tyr's been back to Naxx. Phat Lewts dropped from the Lewt Pinatas therein. Tyr even got some phat lewts from there. I'm very close to having a full set of main spec epic gear. My "gear score" -- a numeric measure of equipment quality -- is over 2k (which is OK for normal Ulduar!) now, and there is still room for improvement.

4. Major annoyance last night. One of the USB ports on my MacBook no longer accepts a USB A plug. Visual inspection of the lower case showed that the port appears physically misaligned. Looks like it's going to need service.