Freaky Frugalite

What on earth ever happened to womanliness? I saw this photo at the blog Australian Women Online and was thoroughly repulsed.

It’s a photo of Demelza Reveley, and she was just voted as Australia’s Next Top Model. That girl is 16 years old! Her waist is as wide as her head! I don’t know what is more sickening– seeing an obese person or seeing someone so emaciated that her eyes looked stretched across her face. It’s so sad, and it’s so abnormal. Yet this kind of “beauty” is exalted. Whatever happened to womanly beauty?

I’ve moaned and groaned about my various problems with dropping Entrecards. A lot of time the cards don’t show up, and I have to reload and reload to get them to appear. But something mysterious has been occurring ever since I started Entrecards and I think I’ve finally pinpointed the problem. I’d appreciate it if anyone else who is experiencing this would leave a comment. Maybe something can be done.

I have Verizon DSL (ethernet and wireless). We have five computers connected to the network here. They are usually not all on at the same time… usually it’s just two or three online at a time. I am the only person in the household who drops Entrecards. Whenever i start dropping cards, our DSL connection drops- this usually happens after about 5 minutes. The disconnect lasts anywhere from one minute to four or five minutes. The DSL connection affects all the computers in the house. So when I drop cards and the DSL disconnects, my husband cannot surf news or watch videos and etc, and my daughter upstairs loses her IM chat and can’t surf the web. WEIRD. we all have to wait until the DSL goes back on, which is anywhere from one minute to five minutes. WEIRD. This has been going on for the longest time, too!

I think I am finally starting to put the pieces together. I saw this at the Entrecard forum. Apparently, someone else is having this problem, too. All the dudes at Entrecards are puzzled, but so far nothing has been done. The forum thread was initially posted 130 days ago!

My firmware for my DSL modem is updated. And I use the Internet very heavily a lot of times. But this seems to be an Entrecard filtering issue.

I’d like to know if anyone else has this happen? did you find a fix? This is affecting other things, too. When I use Firefox, the DSL disconnect screws with the browser, and Firefox crashes. I have been going crazy looking for a fix on that, too, to no avail.

Any geeks out there have any suggestions?

My web hosting service for my four other blogs was down AGAIN today. Thanks to you Entrecards droppers who sent me a message. I sure appreciate that.

I’m in desperate need of finding a new web host. I keep procrastinating about it. It is such a pain to transfer everything! I need all the help I can get! I’m grateful for the Web Hosting Geeks- they have the most comprehensive list and details of the best web hosting on the ‘Net. The Web Hosting Geeks have everything organized in lists (I love these guys): by rating, by awards, by reviews, and by resources. The reviews, many submitted by customers, are especially enlightening.

I’m going to go over every company on their list, one by one, and figure out which one I will choose. I was guaranteed 99.9% uptime by my current web host, but I think I am getting only like 85% uptime. That’s lousy. :-p

How about you? Are you happy with your web host? See how they rate at the Web Hosting Geeks! Think you’ll be surprised?

The Midwest has been having horrible, torrential weather. It’s weather and flooding very similar to what Upstate New York experienced two years ago. I was watching a news broadcast about the flooding in Indiana and Missouri. My heart just goes out to these people who have lost EVERYTHING. Where are all the calls for aid for these people? Why is it that everyone and their mother wants to help Myanmar and China and Sri Lanka, but ignore your countrymen who have nothing but the clothes on their backs?

The sad thing is that these people’s homes were insured, but their insurance won’t cover the damages. Why? Because the insurance companies are calling these floods “100-year” storms. These people didn’t have flood insurance– how could they, they didn’t live in flood plains!– and so the insurance companies won’t help them. This is absolutely criminal, in my book. It’s disgusting that insurance companies charge such outrageous fees and then they won’t lift a finger to help you. These people have lost EVERYTHING. They should at least get all their premiums returned that they’ve paid to the insurance companies! Crooks.

Just a little rant after a hot and humid day… we “homeschool” our four kids (I put homeschool in quotes because it is more like an umbrella school; the kids learn at home and are tested every week in a group setting with other kids in the organization). My husband works at a job along with a few teachers’ husbands– and boy, do they criticize! I don’t know what it is– for some reason these guys just feel the desperate need to point out stuff like a news story that a homeschooler shot somebody, or that a homeschooler is behind in studies, or that a homeschooler wants to return to public schooling. They NEVER mention it when a public school student shoots people, or a public school student flunks his grade again, or when a public school student is caught with drugs or DWI. We all know this happens more frequently with public school kids than homeschoolers, but for some reason, we homeschoolers always have to feel on the defensive.

The other day, it happened again. While at work, my husband was getting the barrage of questions of “when” my eldest daughter would “graduate.” She’s actually a year ahead in her studies (and these are college level studies, too), but to these idiots, she’s 18 and should be out of school now. “Looks like somebody dropped the ball!” they accuse. My husband is too gracious to shoot out a nasty remark, like I would. Grrr. He has to work with these jerks, so he’s nice; but I don’t. But the lousy thing is these jerks never say anything like this in front of me. The bigots. Don’t these people have enough to do trying to fix their own social problems without criticizing us that we aren’t raising our kids the way they think we ought to? Grrr.

And while I’m ranting, you want to know what really stings? We pay for THEIR kids’ education (through our property taxes) and then we also have to pay for our OWN kids’ education (through tuition). We get no tax breaks and are essentially funding their kids and their teachers, and then they turn around and criticize us every chance they get.

I love to write reviews. I have loads and loads of opinions (just ask my husband, lol) and I do like to write. I used to buy something, and then go back to the store website (Staples, C|Net, whatever) and write a review. But they all require that you register before posting a review. That’s understandable, but I had about three dozen registrations floating around the Internet! Too many. So now that I have a mommy blog, I can write my reviews right here! And who better to read them than you other moms who can directly benefit (I hope) from my reviews. I’m not a BIG shopper, so I don’t have tons and tons of reviews to make. But I buy things to last. And I love it when they do and hate it when they don’t. So, without further ado….

Why I Dislike the Dirt Devil Dynamite Vacuum

I got this little machine at WalMart about a year ago. I loved it because it was very lightweight. I have a back injury and could no longer haul the 50-pounder around and up the stairs. This Dirt Devil Dynamite (DDD) is only 9 pounds! It comes with a HEPA filter, which I like, too. The filter replacements are about $10 and the instructions tell you to change them every six months. It also has a 25-foot long cord, a real plus in my book! I have large rooms and I HATE having to unplug and replug every 10 feet or so. The cord length is great. So, sitting on the shelf at WalMart, it looked like everything I wanted. Unfortunately, you can’t test out vacuums at WalMart. I remember the good ol’ days when you could get good prices at Sears and try out the machines….

The DDD comes with no attachments. We didn’t have any little hand-held vacuum, either, so we used the Shop-Vac for the carpeted stairs, or swept them. Attachments add bulk and weight to the vacuum machine and I do not like them. But we do need something that will get small spaces! I will get one, someday, lol…

Well, besides having no attachments, the DDD worked pretty well. It likes bare floors and very low-shag carpets. We have two rooms that have more cushier carpeting (but they are not very heavy). The DDD wouldn’t pick anything up on those carpets. Great.

It’s horribly, horribly noisy. I suppose this is due to its light weight and construction. But, HOLY COW, I had to put small pieces of Kleenex in my ears, or risk damaging my hearing. What really irks me is, with all our modern technology in this world, WHY can we not make a quieter vacuum? Why are all vacuums so noisy? Sure, some are quieter than others, and I know about the powerful motors, blah blah. But holy cow, is there some universal law in the quantum mechanics/physics world that makes it impossible to invent a quieter vacuum?

The second beef was with the HEPA filter. It clogged up very easily and we had to replace it every few weeks, or the vacuum wouldn’t pick anything up. The cost of the filters was quickly offsetting the money I thought I’d saved by avoiding the expensive monster Hoover vacuum that took bags.

Also, emptying the DDD filter bin that had filled with dust was very messy. The dust flew everywhere, so it was best done outside. In the winter, we had to do it in our garage. It was inconvenient and messy. The filter also got stuck a few times. When we tried to twist it out to remove it, the top half of the filter tore off! My husband had to use pliers to pry out the bottom plastic base, stuck inside the narrow dust bin. This happened on three occasions.

Finally, the flimsy plastic wheel broke off the machine. It won’t vacuum with only one wheel. So it is sitting in my garage while I use my sister’s cheapo-but-very-reliable-and powerful Bissell model that she bought for $25 less than what I paid for the DDD! It uses bags, but it vacuums all the rugs!

So I have to give the Dirt Devil Dynamite a thumbs down. It was a fussy, finicky vacuum that wouldn’t do the average household jobs, and it made a lot of noise, to boot. It was my first time taking a chance, buying a Dirt Devil. I’m going back to Hoover.

[bump] This is a popular post, and I believe an important one. I bumped it to the top for today. You can see more new posts, below.

I saw this video and it blew me away. My husband got one of these cards recently– an American Express credit card with an RFID chip. All for your security, of course.

But the sneaky little deception is that it’s not for your security at all! Watch this little video of a “Hacker/Futurist” who swipes the credit card information with an $8 device he bought off eBay.

The thing that REALLY blew me away most was that the Hacker said that credit card companies are not at all interested in security for the consumer. They are interested in the appearance of security for the consumer. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHY THIS IS!

I don’t for one second believe that any bank or company are unable to make electronic transactions secure. The big question is WHY won’t they?

I read this amazing story at Tidbits of Tammy. The exact same thing happened to me, but I thought I had somehow forgotten how much my gas tank could hold. This now makes me very suspicious:

This is a true story, so read it carefully!

April 24, 2008, I stopped at a Kangaroo BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville,GA. My truck’s gas gauge was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade,which was priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 14 gallon’s to fill it up. When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me,since my truck has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got.

Holy cow! This is CRIMINAL! See, I have a minivan, and the manual says it holds 13-14 gallons of gas. However, there have been occasions where my van slurped up much more than that. At the time, I thought it strange, but I figured I must have misread the manual (we have had six minivans over our lifetime). Maybe I am still in the wrong, because I lost the manual and can’t check. However, I’m going to be paying attention more frequently to how many gallons go in the tank! Here’s more from Tammy:

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount: Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen,then the pumps are rigged. In my case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount for 10 gallons should have been $37.19.

I’m also going to refrain from those attendant-served gas stations. One time we were swindled by a teenager when he charged our card more than our gas cost. My husband decided not to press the issue (although I was ready to throw the kid in jail, because I just KNEW he was swindling other motorists).

Anyway, pay attention at the pump! Gas is expensive enough with the government tax crooks and the oil exec crooks stealing from us!