The Power of the Internet (updated w/video clip)

Ya gotta luv it! The internet is leveling the playing field between businesses and consumers.

I just read this article about how a woman posted a youtube rant against the Bank of America because they raised her interest rate from 12+% to 30%. (That's over 100% increase. Can you say loan shark?) It got over 250k hits and its growing.

The bank contacted her and now her interest rate has been returned to what it was... which is still too high in my opinion.

Power to the people. Money talks and it talks loudly. Only problem is consumers, on an individual basis, don't have enough money to talk. Their money barely knows how to say 'hello' using sign language. However... banned together via the internet our money can scream bloody murder and I do believe it can move mountains. If it can't move mountains, then maybe it can lower CEO's bonuses to a reasonable level.

If you see or hear about things like this on the internet, spread the word. Let others know about the 'rant' or complaint. Damn it, we customers may just bring back customer service after all!!

A New Pet

 
 
Darius has gotten himself a new pet. He named it Rocky. Rocky's been Darius' pet for about a week now. I didn't mention it before because I wanted to see if it was a permanent relationship or not. Apparently Rocky is here to stay. Stay Rocky, stay!

Do you remember the Pet Rock craze a few decades ago? How freaking clever was that marketing!! And cost-of-sales must have been minimal so the profit margin had to have been amazing.

(Someone at work gave me a pet rock. That was my introduction to it. I remember the little box it came in was sweet and the instructions were HILARIOUS!!!!)

Darius found Rocky in the lot next to us. He had to dig and dig to get him out of the dirt, the little hero. You can still see the hole. That first day I thought it was just a passing fancy and the rock would be forgotten, but no. The next day when Darius went outside to play the first thing he did was stub his toe on Rocky and they've been close ever since.

Now I don't know squat about rocks, other than they can hurt you if thrown hard, but they must reproduce like rabbits. The second day I noticed there were already little ones hanging around. Little baby rockettes. Awwwwww (The placement of the little rocks makes it look like a foot, huh.)

And they're very well mannered. I wish I could say the same for Darius. The other day I caught Darius just in the nick of time. He was getting ready to throw some rocks at passing cars. I may have saved his life, but he doesn't see it that way. To him I'm just a party pooper. That's just the way adulthood rolls.

Morning from Hell

Kill me. Just kill me now!

There's something to be said about creatures who eat their young. No more pee on the couch. No more snot on the pillows. No more food in the rug. Do I really need to go on? I didn't think so.

Motherhood sucks and then you get to do it all over again as a grandmother. Be still my heart.

Kill me. Just kill me now!

I'm a Life Saver... I guess

It was the middle of the night. It was around 3am and I couldn't get back to sleep so I stepped outside to have a cigarette. The clanking and clicking of bottles and cans got my attention first, then I saw a man on the sidewalk across the empty lot from me. I quietly stepped back inside because I didn't want to attract his attention.

He was clearly in the early steps of his current career... collecting refundable bottles and cans. We have a lot of folks doing that around here. They have huge trash bags full of cans tied to their grocery carts that are also filled with bottles. This young man looked like he only had paper bags. Drips from cans do not mix well with paper. I think one or more of his paper bags had ripped apart.

As I peeked out of the window I saw him trying to pack the bottles and cans into his clothing. I assumed pockets were used. I waited for him to finish and leave so I could then have my cigarette. Only he didn't leave.

The next time I stepped outside, the man and his collection were in front of the apartments. Wisely he had decided to move from under the street light to down the side street in the shadows more before trying something. He had his pants undone and was putting bottles down his pants leg. I don't know how he kept them from falling out at the bottom, but he apparently did.

I again stepped back inside... hopefully without him noticing me. It would be embarrassing to know someone saw your boxer shorts. (But that's an assumption.)

I waited. I continued to hear the bottles clank. He was having difficulty solving his problem... his problem of carrying gobs of bottles and cans without anything to hold them.

Sigh.

Then a thought popped into my head. Did Life move him closer to the apts. to kind of put him under my nose... so I couldn't ignore him? All he needed was a large garbage bag. Was I suppose to give him a bag? But its 3am, for gawd sake. A stranger, no less.

Sigh.

I checked in my drawer, the drawer of all bags, tin foil, and clear wrap. I had one garbage bag left... and it was from the dollar store so it was not very strong. I grabbed it and went outside.

I couldn't understand EVERYTHING the guy said, but he did step up and get the bag. That's when he said "I don't know what I would have done without you." Just call me Life Saver. (Oh, and he had his pants back up by then.)

As I lit up my cigarette he asked if I could spare one. I told him he could have the one I just lit up. As he stepped closer to me to reach it I could see his pants better. He looked like a dancer from the Arabian Nights or something... his pants were like pantaloons. Pantaloons that made their own music...clink, clank, clunk, with every movement. The legs were stuffed with bottles.

I then left him to his own devises and I assume things went okay, because he wasn't out there this morning... nor were any bottles and cans left.

I figure the young man is in the learning stages of this line of work and last night was a demonstration between the experienced and inexperienced. An experienced collector knows you've got to have the right equipment to do the job properly. The inexperienced just think you walk around collecting a few cans. I guess one could say this man was too successful for his own good. Perhaps tonight he will be armed with a few large trash bags. At least I hope he has access to trash bags. When you are broke, even the simplist of things can be out of your reach.

His First Hair Cut!

 
 
 
His first hair cut... his first self-inflicted hair cut.

When pinned to the wall and asked why he did it, his response was "I don't know."

I call him Speed Bump now.

I Almost Lost You!!!

oh boy... for a while I lost my pc settings. I had no address bar, no bookmarks, no toolbar for gawd sake. I ALMOST LOST YOU!!!

whew... I was so tense as I tried to figure out how to undo what had been done when my daughter created her own Windows account (at my suggestion. Banging head... hard!) We don't know what happened. She just followed the instructions as they came up.

But God Bless the restore option. Fortunately for me, whatever was done got undone with a restore back several days. Lordy, lordy, lordy. When will I learn to leave well enough alone. But... things are back to 'normal' and we will happily share the one sign-in account. Totally generic.

I'm thinking I dodged a bullet.

First Day of School

 
 
Darius was not looking forward to starting school, no matter how animated we were when trying to explain how much fun it will be. (That's right. We're not above great exaggeration.) The unknown does not excite Darius.

D did not like all the camera's going off in his face, either. (both 'mom' and I were taking pictures at the same time. Few of mine turned out view-able.)

'Mom' and Vyron stayed at a friend's home to wait for school to be over. When I talked to 'mom' she said once Darius got his breakfast at school he was hamming it up for the camera. "Hey...they're going to feed me!!!" How bad can school be if they are going to feed you, I ask.

D goes to school today only, then has to wait until next week to go full time. Don't know why. It seems like a strange twist to the schedule.

Family Life

We are now just one tight family unit.

 

Very tight. My daughter and grandsons are now firmly moved in...its a tight squeeze. This pile of boxes and clothes still remain. There's no place to put anything else. Hopefully my daughter will slowly pick things to take to storage, but most of the stuff here are CLOTHES. Oh my gosh, these people, at least the boys, have too many clothes!!

Girly Girl Shoes. "I want to be a shoe model when I grow up."

 

"Do these shoes make my feet look big?"

 

"Hey... my pants and shoes match. Almost."

 

Their Favorite Play Thing

 
 
Guess what the boys like to play with the most when they are here. Okay. You don't want to guess... I get it.

Its a back scratcher.

Gobs of toys around and all they care about is "Where's the back scratcher, gramma?"

How Fast Do Slugs Move?

 
 
Not very fast. My daughter and two grandsons are suppose to move in today. However, a large vehicle still needs to be procurred to move the mattresses and dressers here (and other stuff to storage.) So maybe it won't happen today.

Neither my daughter or I are high-energy people so things are moving slowly. My daughter had come over a couple of different times to "get the room ready" (it was junky and floors desparately need to be swept, etc.) She spent a couple of hours on the pc and probably dedicated 15 minutes to grabbing a few items and putting them in a box to be taken out to the garbage cans. The box still sits there, even though she's been over a few times.

My goal is to rearrange and declutter what I can. I get distracted so easily! But I've got an excuse to use. I'm old and my unstable knee is bothering me.

I don't feel obligated to do anything, but if I get some stuff done it will just make things flow better. So... what am I doing? I'm playing on the pc creating a blog entry. Got to do the important stuff first. Once the family is here, there will be competition for the pc.

All is Well (status update)

 
Things still look good as far as getting rid of the problem(s) with the pc. Two days in a row, now. I think the danger is over.

Is There a Dark Cloud Over My Head? Over my PC?

First of all.... forget the Spyware Doctor program that I mentioned in the post below. Its not really free. Oh sure, the scan is free, but what good is that. (Don't get me wrong. I understand its all about the buck, but don't say something is free when its not. Or at least just say the 'scan only' is free.) I went back to a free spyware program I have used in the past. SuperAntiSpyware dot com. A limited version, of course. And (tears and sniffles) I'm soooo appreciative that its available to peasants free of charge. (Donations gratefully accepted, however. Plus you can buy an expanded version if you want.)

I thought yesterday I had taken care of the bleep bleep problem but I hadn't. I'm kind of waiting to see if anything indicating a problem shows up now, after using the SuperAntiSpyware. So far, so good.

My browser was hijacked. I couldn't go/read/see anything. As soon as I would go to a web site, I would find myself at (link address)"blank:about".... and "buy this protection now!" would be on the screen. I would google for free spyware and as soon as I clicked and went to the site selected, the blasted fake alert message came up. I don't know how I managed to finally get to a site to download help, but I managed.

I don't know if I really had a trojan horse or not. One of the infections detected was called TrojanFakeAlert. ?? So was it just a fake alert?? I hope so, but that malware... that hijacking malware. ooooohhhhhh the air is blue with the after affects of my cussing.

I was getting to the place where I was just going to accept it... I have been listening to Eckhart Tolle about acceptance lately.... but I wanted to give it one last try. Whew. I think things might be working okay now. My fingers are crossed.

(In case you are wondering, Eckhart's last name is pronounced toe-lay. That's what he said during an interview once. Lots of people say toll.)

I Caught a Virus

 
I caught a virus. Sniff. A Trojan.Win32.Agent.azsy virus. Or rather my daughter got it. We think she got it from MySpace. From reading about it on a couple of forums, it sounds like along with the trojan virus you also get malware from someone trying to scare people into buying his software. May his prick fall off and slap him in his face. (just an old family curse.)

Here's what I've experienced, in case its helpful to anyone else who doesn't know squat about viri (? multiple virusessseses) and pc's:

The item that was noticable from my perspective was a malware trying to scare people. (And it is scary... the little bastard.) A yellow 'shield' icon showed up in the icon tray when I turned the pc on. "hummmmm...that's new. WTH is it?" Clue one that something was amiss was that when the cursor was moved over the icon, no description displayed. (you know how you move cursor over an icon and it shows 'intel graphics blah blah' or 'volume' or 'AVG', etc. Well, this one didn't do that. No company name or logo. Nothing.)

Then up popped a yellow box down in the corner of the screen that said I was infected with Trojan.Win32.Agent.azsy, a very critical and dangerous virus that would steal my passwords blah blah blah. It was a scary notice at first. I immediately started a AVG scan to see what it captured.

While that's scanning, up pops another warning box (gray/blue in color) saying more scary things. This time the box had two options. "Ignore" and "block". I clicked on "block". Sloooooowly another item displayed on the screen and its layout looked just like AVG's layout. This one had the yellow shield and again...no company name. The only identifying text said "Personal AntiVirus" and "Get Full Coverage Now".

Selling. That's when I clued into the malware and someone trying to scare people into buying crap.

I didn't click on scan or anything else. (I already had my own scanning going on.) After the first cycle (clicking on the warning boxes and having them go away and come back) I just ignored the two boxes when they showed up. Eventually the yellow box would disappear, the gray/blue one just sat there.

My scan came back clean, but that damn antivirus crap was still showing up... it was located in the startup file.

I went to google to see what was on the other side of the mountain and there are plenty of people bitten by the bugger. Its an old virus. Some people suggested anti spyware so I tried that. At first this #($&#($ malware kept me from downloading anything. I tried different methods, but I think it was when I keyed the address directly into the address box (rather than clicking on a link listed on google) I got thru and downloaded a free version.

Its at AntiSpywareBot.com.
(ADDED LATER: UNLESS YOU ARE PLANNING ON BUYING THE FULL VERSION, DON'T BOTHER WITH THIS SOFTWARE. CHECK OUT SuperAntiSpyware.com. That one works for sure. And has a free version.)

I'm not sure everything is taken care of now or not. It says it is. After the first scan from the newly downloaded spyware program, the fake anti virus crap still showed up. I went back into AntiSpyware and noticed an option to check on the start up menu. I clicked on it and saw all the programs that start up automatically. "PersonalAV" was also listed. It was the fake malware thingy whose only identification was personal Antivirus. I removed it so when I rebooted, the yellow shield does not come up. Yay!

However, I did notice a stripe across the screen saying 'this site is dangerous' on blogger. I don't think so.... so I guess there's still leftover crap to find and clean out.

A hunting I will go...
a hunting I will go....
Hi ho the dairy oh, a hunting I will go

I think the one thing I want this post to do is to help other people not panic when they see a message saying DANGER!! Its not necessarily so. Any antivirus software worth anything should automatically take care of things. Enough so that DANGER messages are not necessary...only notification messages like 'we took care of this for you.'

hahaha but then what do I know. All I know is that not all CRITICALLY DANGEROUS messages are critically dangerous. Always stop and take a deep breath and think things through first. Don't do anything if you are feeling panic of any kind.

Refrigerator Art

When I was watching grandson Vyron he did some portraits... mostly by imagination.

Below is gramma. It made me think of Picasso's method of combining frontal and profile view points at the same time. I also noticed I'm the only one that got any fingers. snicker.

 

Below is his self-portrait. It was very important, in the name of Realism, that he add the red stripes on his shirt.

 

'Mom' dances below. I think the artist captured a very real essense in this portrait. To me it looks like the artist used the number 8 for mom's eyes. 8 balls. And mom IS a bit harried and feeling a bit behind the 8 ball right now. Mom is also off balance, which could be reflecting her current and temporary changes taking place. How intuitive!

 

The artist has declined commissions saying "It just takes too much of my free-flowing creativity away."

(sorry about the quality of the pictures. I was rushed. The gallery did not allow photographs so I had to take these on the QT.)

A Tip of the Hat

 

 

 

It is the end of a dynasty and a loss for the people. A great champion for the underdog has passed and an era is finished. No matter what your political leanings may be, I think we can all agree that Senator Kennedy had great determination and was a champion for the little people. He will be sorely missed.

Rosy's Art Challenge Response

Check out Rosy's art challenge here. She gave us three photographes to chose from... I picked two.

 

The Sleepy Fairy is what Rosy called her picture. Please note, it was her idea to not have any eyebrows... my idea was the pointy ears. (although I think it looks intriguing.) To help the Sleepy Fairy perk up, I tinted the background using coffee. Starbucks.

I did a contour drawing of Rosy's mother.

 

My apologies to her mother. The only thing Rosy's mother and this drawing have in common is that the ladies are both wearing glasses. The similarities end there. This one was done on 5 x 7 watercolor paper.

It was a fun challenge and I was reminded of a rule of art... always use the right equipment for the job. I should have used watercolor paper for the Sleepy Fairy. Instead I used cardstock. Basic. Doh!

I'm Here to Rave a Bit!

I've been checking out artist Myrna Wacknov's sites. I LOVE HER WORK!! Check her out.

(ADDED LATER: I think I must have gotten Myrna's link from Sandy's sidebar. I just saw it there. Must give credit where due...sorry I didn't include this in original post.)

She has both a website and a blog. I'm currently in the process of reading her blog, Creativity Journal, from the beginning forward. She shares her experiences and methods. For example, I just got done reading/looking at her experiment with using a tennis ball as a tool. I'm pretty sure I would not have thought to try a tennis ball...but there ya go. Myrna shares how it was using a tennis ball with graphite, charcoal, etc. Who knew?! (00)

I love her art, too. Loose, expressive, energized. (On her web site there is a pull-down menu to select which gallery you want to see. It took me a minute to notice it, but I haven't had my first coffee yet.) If you would to ever wonder what my particular favorite 'style of art' is, this would be it. One of them for sure.

If....

 If I was an optomist, I would say my cup runnth over and surely goodness and light will follow me always. Ain't family fun! But since I am a realist, I sit in the corner whimpering and softly moaning with anticipation. It looks like my daughter Candace (aka 'mom') and her two boys, Darius and Vyron, will be moving back in with gramma. Again.

My once spacial environment (small apartment) will once again be filled with wall-to-wall clutter, loud and constant noise, and endless activity that could cause a monk to beg for mercy. There will be no quiet haven to run to for regrouping, unless you count my car. I guess I could go sit in my car and lock the doors when needed. Or... or drive away and never come back.

As of this writing I don't see an end in sight. I suppose there is one. Somewhere. Sometime. The move-in is scheduled to occur at the end of this month. Barring any miracles.

Don't get me wrong. I love my daughter and the boys. I want to help when I can. But this isn't how I expected my retirement years to be spent. Taking care of a grown-ass child and her off-spring. Does every family have one of these? A person who just doesn't seem to grasp the intention of adulthood? Of financial responsibility? A person who's fate causes them to be ever needy and unable to take care of themselves financially? My first four kids flew from the nest as soon as they were able to and they've never been back. It was hard getting this fifth child out of the nest at all and now she keeps coming back. Not by choice but by necessity. I know if she had any choices at all, she would not be moving back with me, if you know what I mean. "Whadda ya mean there's no room in the car... that means I have to move back in with my MOOOOOOTHER!! Oh Gawd NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

All I have to say is "What in the hell is she going to do when I'm dead?!?"

Waste Not, Want Not.... sort of

Toothpaste is not something I buy often. One tube lasts me a very long time, so 'get toothpaste' does not normally swing in the back of my mind. I would forget to pick up a tube when I went shopping. So often, that I ended up with this, below:

 

I had to take a box cutter and open the tube WAAAAY up to get anything hinting of toothpaste. I think I got it pretty cleaned out. About the only thing left now, is the fragrance.

One might think that getting toothpaste would be in the front of the list of things to do, but in no way did I remember on my own to get any when I was at the store yesterday. Thankfully, as I stood in the check-out line (feeling smug at getting the shopping done) I noticed a display case. It was full of toothpaste tubes. And, snicker, they were on sale. Not just a penny off, but it was almost half-priced!!

Only once did I wonder why they were being sold so cheaply. I brushed the thought away and picked up a tube. Who knows how long it might have taken, had I NOT grabbed a tube when the opportunity presented itself.

oh... and by the way, the cloth used in the photo is a ShamWow special....it accidently got in the dryer and now all its little micro fibers to catch liquid are melded together. Its now just a piece of felt.

Inner Peace

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we all could probably use more calmness in our lives!

Some doctor on TV this morning said that the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started. I looked around my house to see what things I'd started and hadn't finished. There were quite a few unfinished items.

I finished off a bottle of 101 Wild Turkey, a bottle of shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, abutle of vocka, a pockage of Pringlies, tha mainder of a botl Prozic and Valum sscriptins, the res of the Chesescke, an a box a chocolets. Yu haf no idr who frekin gud I fel.

Tank u.