Germs Are Icky Things...

Ladies and gentlemen, our good friend Wonko has a mighty good point.

Went to the credit union to put some money in and I was shocked to witness someone at the forms desk using the bottle of hand sanitizer provided to wash HIS hands after filling out his deposit slip. According to the teller, the hand sanitizer was requested by a handful of credit union members.

"Apparently, the pestilence of dirty money and paper checks will doom us all," she sighed and I just about lost it.

We both rolled our eyes and chuckled at the over zealous "OMG! GERMS!!!!" lobby scoring another victory over the good common sense of normal people. We then laughed over each other's reactions and I swear to the gods that we shared a moment.

Teller Amy, will you marry me?

Trap Door Sprang Open...

Random thought I had for the day was this:

If one was to scream in a vacuum, would there be cows in Antarctica?

Moving on to my next thought of the day, I finally heard of Jon & Kate Gosselin and immediately wanted to smack my face with a hammer. We really need to stop caring about people who become celebrities based purely on the fact that they are raising an orchard full of crotchfruit.

Naturally, the station that broadcasts their trainwreck, The Learning Channel, also airs a program centered around the goings on of the Duggar family, a large family living in Arkansas. I think that last I heard they had 18 kids and were hoping for number 19?

I'm all for people having kids. As long as they take care of them, love them, raise them with good character and are not a financial burden on the taxpayer, more power to you.

The issue I have is this glorification of it. Eighteen kids is quite a milestone, but not something that deserves constant media attention.

Indeed, I found myself taking umbrage with the network's name. "The Learning Channel" seems a bit disingenious to me. Checking on their schedule, it seemed like hour after hour of the Gosselins, the Duggars, pregnancy, being obese and pregnant, being impoverished/rich/middle class and pregnant, and the delivery of newborn children.

I believe that they should drop the facade and change their name to something else. For example:

"The Learning About The Various Stages of Pregnancy, Delivery and the Raising of Multiple Children Channel"

Or, to shorten that a bit, why not call it the "Crotchfruit Orchard Channel?" I can just imagine the Beavis and Butthead response to that one.

Huhhuhhuhhuh, that shortens to COC.
Hehheheheh, yeah! You said "coc."

Alright, if that last one sounds a bit crass, I offer to you the simple and more 'family friendly' moniker, "The Knocked Up Channel."

The other thing that gets me is the "WE" channel, or "Women's Entertainment" as it is formally addressed. I do not poke at the channel itself, per se, just that it boggles my mind that one really needs sixteen hours of wedding shows per scheduled day with the occasional 'Movie of the Week' thrown in to keep things real.

Seems like most of the girlfriends and gay friends that I've ever had were absolutely transfixed by this channel, which, if this is a fair scientific sample of the populace at large, explains the success of this channel. Not my personal cup of tea, but I've had to sit through several shows over the years thanks to said girlfriends past.

Getting to the heart of the matter, I would rather watch shows about cattle grazing than WE's fare. I'm not a violent man by nature, but I found myself wanting to punch each Bridezilla out - Buzz Aldrin style.

It's like reliving 75% of the weddings I ever shot, edited or attended. It's the "Bride's Special Day" so naturally she has to act like a complete selfish bulldog brat and make everyone within a five mile radius completely miserable.

Seriously, why give them a show? I can see the "laughing at their unruly behaviour" angle, but why encourage this type of behaviour by showcasing it?

Not for me, friends. Instead of "Platinum Spoiled Rich Weddings," I'm quite happy watching with "Ice Road Truckers" (even though I have no fucking clue what the hell THAT show is doing on the HISTORY channel).

One thing I'd like to see would be one of the Bridezillas, fully dressed in their gowns, hauling pipe to Deadhorse, Alaska in -40 degree ice storms. That would be bloody awesome.

The Avalanche Awaits...

Got my first bill from last month's fiasco. And it appears that the Big Bill from the hospital was the NINTH claim to hit the insurance. What does this mean, friends?

It means that I owe $5,000. I knew that already, I was prepared. What it means is that instead of owing $5,000 to ONE source, I owe $5,000 to EIGHT different sources.

Eight different mouths to feed and they sure as fuck don't want just $25 per month, because they've been bitching about it when I called them. That's $200, folks. I can't afford to pay out more than that per month, I assure you of this.

Plus, there's ol' Gerald to think of. He needs a engine repair and that costs money as well. Can't get to work if my car's fucked up.

If it sounds like I'm going total negative on things, fear not. I was pissed that the hospital didn't come to Insurance to collect first, but what is done is done.

I have a plan.

I'll pay the big ones $25 per month equally at first. They don't like it, they can kiss my ass. As long as you pay them *something*, they can't legally unleash the hounds.

I'll concentrate on trying to scrounge up a little more for the smallest bills. One for $32? No problem. One for $64? No problem, I think.

Heh.

I figure if I pay the little guys off first, I can then take the money I'm not spending on those and throw that towards the bigger fish. I pay off the $32 lab work one this month, I can budget $25 to start throwing at the anesthesiologist starting the next month, for example.

I'm just glad I had insurance. I could be forced to pay the (so far) amount of $32,630. Wouldn't that be fun?

The truly awesome news is that summer is approaching. Plenty of time to enjoy life outside again! Yaaaaaaay! :)

How The Internet Lies To You...

Snopes is a website dedicated to vetting out urban legends, including those passed along through E-mail. I ran a search for the recent e-mail being passed around not buying gift cards due to several recent or impending store closings and found this, which was posted a few days ago:

Store Closings

While the numbers aren't likely to look good this Christmas for many retail stores thanks to this lovely economic setback we're currently enjoying, the reports of the impending deaths of several companies have been greatly exaggerated or misreported. Other companies have indeed been facing closure or bankruptcy, but that kind of thing happens all the time and it is currently not on the grand scale that we are left to believe.

The major concern with these types of scares is that it puts people in the mindset that "oh well, this store is closing down so I should not shop there until their big going out of business liquidation sale starts," when there may not be any credible facts to support this. Especially this time of year, anything that will deter the consumer from filling the cash registers of these businesses ends up hurting the business.

Having said that, gift cards do indeed bear certain risks. Under current law, if a retailer or restaurant does indeed file bankruptcy, it is left up to the bankruptcy court judge to decide the fate of those who are holding gift cards. Usually these cards have been thrown out by these judges in favor of other creditors. This means that if a company does go under, you can lose all the money on your gift card.

A company, even one that's been around for decades, can go under, so it's best to not hold onto gift cards any longer than you have to. Doesn't mean that you have to spend them the very next day, just means that you shouldn't hold onto one for six months and never spend it.

There are several consumer groups out there currently petitioning the Federal Trade Commission to provide safeguards for gift card money, but nothing has been set in stone as of yet.

The big concern with the Visa gift cards is that the credit card companies often charge hidden fees for you to use them. One such fee is the usage surcharge, where they charge you either a certain percentage (1% to 3% of your purchase) or a flat rate fee ($2.50, for example) every time you use them.

Another lovely fee is the so called "storage" fee where the credit card company will deduct money from the value of the card for actually not using it in a certain amount of time. $2.50 every six months, for example.

Regular store gift cards can be awesome, but they are just as useless if they're not redeemed. Companies make a ton of moolah off of people who never use their gift card in their store. In cases like that, the company is basically printing money.

Best advice I have is to buy them from places you know and to make sure that the person who is receiving the gift card enjoys shopping there and will most likely use that card as soon as possible.