MOZY on along to some other back up system

So my brother tells me about Mozy. it's unlimited space and it's only $5 a month and they back up your external drive, too.

Wow. Sounded too good to be true. So I charged my credit card and jumped right in. The Mac software for Mozy never worked. Then I started reading horror stories on the internet about Mozy being slow, not working, not being able to completely restore everything. So I asked for a refund. Mozy did refund me right away.

Then I went shopping for another service and found out that Mozy was the only one that did external drives. So I decided to use Mozy's free 2 gig service. If that software worked, I would give them a second chance. Well the free software worked great and backed up in a 4 days. Wow, that is friggin' slow. I have 3 gig upload speed and it took 4 days. OUCH.

So, once again I signed up for Mozy. This time it starts backing up all my stuff. About 6 days later I get a Backup Finished (ClientError 15). I know they don't mean me as the client and that it was my error. I did nothing. So I try again, and again, and again. I am not one to waste time. So I emailed support. No answer. I emailed again. No answer. It's now the weekend and I am researching people's concerns again with Mozy. The complaints date back to 2006. 4 years ago and they are still the same complaints.

I am not going to give this another moment. I can't trust my files with a company that can charges your credit card in seconds and yet takes weeks to back up 250 gig, if it even works at all. I have not had any success.

I read stories that people worked with the Mozy tech guys for months to fix these problems. What???? Are you friggin' crazy? I have to run 3 companies. I have no time to fix a fourth.

If you are looking into a back up service, just keep MOZYing on and find someone else.

UPDATE 1/9/10 2:12PM

finally I get this:


I am sorry to hear that you had trouble uploading data to Mozy. The "MozyClientError15" message occurred as the backup crashed and did not exit cleanly. I recommend that you perform the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: Try deselecting the particular (probably quite large) file or files from the backup and then run a backup. If the backup completes successfully, then reselect one of the files that were deselected and run another backup. Repeat as necessary. If that fails, try selecting a single file for backup and run a backup. Once it is done please re-include all the files and verify the status with Mozy.

Step 2: If you have scheduled your back ups at the top of the hour (e.g. 12:00 or 3:00), we may be experiencing excessive congestion which may cause the connection to timeout. To resolve this try scheduling your backups just off the top of the hour (e.g. 12:07 or 2:53).

Step 3: I recommend that you run the disk utilities, reboot the computer and perform another backup and verify. I have included a few steps that should help us run the disk utilities:

1. On the Apple menu bar, click on "Go".
2. Please choose "Utilities" and click on it.
3. In the "Utilities" window, click on "Disk Utility" icon.
4. In "Disk Utility" window, on the left hand side, please choose "Macintosh HD".
5. At the bottom, please choose and click on the button "Repair Disk Permissions" / "Repair Disk".
6. If prompted to authenticate please provide your system user ID and password.

If the issue persists, send us the updated Mozy log file. For Mac operating system: please click on Hard drive\Library\Logs\MozyHome.log

Looking forward to hear from you.

Thanks,

Jayanth
Mozy Support

I replied with this:

 shouldn't have to do any of this. Please just refund my money. I just signed up. thanks.
If I wanted to do all this configuring, I would have stayed with a PC.
Sincerely,

Jack Scalfani

UPDATE 1/11/10 1:18 PM

I get an email again from customer service person named Jayanth who was kind enough to give me the steps in canceling my membership and getting a refund.


UPDATE 1/11/10 5:08 PM





So I followed their instructions and then I get this email:

 Hi Jack,

I'll be transferring this ticket to our billing team who will check with your account to process your request and email you the status. In case you need clarification or further assistance, please email me and I'll be glad to assist you.

Thanks,

Geetha
Mozy Support

Now I am more frustrated, because they are so nice and yet their product fails. Why not have your customer service people write the software and your awful coders answer phones. Then maybe MOZY would work like it promises. They truly have been nothing but kind to me and I hope it stays that way all the way to my refund.  






UPDATE 1/12/10 11:10 AM


Okay. I got a full refund. that was great customer service. Mozy is great on refunds, just not backing up your software. Thanks Mozy for being professional about all this.

THIS IS WHY AMERICA IS HURTING!!!!

I haven't been more motivated by a video, than I have by the following video. Turn it up and be ready for your heart to beat out of your chest and your blood to run hot. It's very aggravating and true. Please post a comment after you read this.

WARNING: STAY AWAY FROM WRAP ONE IN ANAHEIM

I had my van done in a car wrap by WrapOne.com. It wasn't a bad job. It's supposed to be warrantied for 3 years.

I was very pleased. So I decided to get a 10ft banner done for my BBQ sauce at the Orange County Market Place. The weird thing was, they changed their location. Okay. No problem. I hire them for my banner. I never really asked why. If their work is good, I don't care what they are called.

So I paid about $180 . Not bad either. Then the white spots started to show. There are bare spots showing on my banner. So I called Alex Perez and left a message. No call back. Then I called the next week. No call back. One more week I left I message and no call back. I finally got a hold of him today and he basically isn't going to fix it and says his warranty doesn't cover that.

WHAT DOES A WARRANTY COVER???? I told him that if he didn't stand behind his product, then I would be forced to let everyone know. He hung up on me. NICE!!!

Do not use WRAP ONE for any work. Their info is:

Wrap One
Alex Perez
1185 N Red Gum St
Anaheim, CA 92806
(714) 630-9727

DIGG.com ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

If you know about Digg.com then you probably use the site often for your latest news. For those of you who don't know Digg.com, your not missing out on the next revolution, so don't worry.

Digg.com allows users to submit stories from all over the internet and post them on Digg. Then Digg users all vote the story up or down. If the story gets enough votes up, then it can go the the front page of Digg.

Most stories never see the light of day, but if you do get your story on the front page then it will be read by thousands of people an hour. Most people try to get their own blogs or company website on Digg so they can get all that traffic. Digg is pretty good at preventing self promotion.

Now let's talk about what Digg has become. Digg has become overrun by 19 year old males that are vulgar, frustrated, and angry at the world. How do I know this? Well, let's see. Everyday this week there has been stories on the front page of Digg about legalizing marijuana. That's just a start.

Let me just show you what the top stories are right now. These stories below are front page stories. Let's talk about them briefly. Wow....Look!!! Legalizing pot story #5. What a shock!

The top story on the above image only has 74 diggs. That story should never have reached the front page. Oh yeah, unless your one of the many 19 year olds that are "Gaming" the site.

"Gaming" a website is quickly getting all your network of friends to vote so that it gets the most movement to the front page. Or you can also set up dummy email accounts and act like different people then voting for yourself. The bottom line is that this site is manipulated just like any website the becomes popular on the web. It happened to Slashdot. Thankfully Digg came around to atract the rodents away from the true Geeks. The termites will find a good website and destroy it's usefullness. Watch out Twitter! Your next.

Look at the story about George Clooney's sweat flavored Tofu. I rest my case.

Digg.com has lost it's usefullness and has become so onesided in it's views due to the control that a certain demographic has been allowed to have.

Here is what Digg users believe: legalizing drugs is good, Obama is God, Bill Gates is the devil, Christians are all bad people and digg users wish they were dead, Walmart needs to be destroyed.

You may say I am being pretty generalized. I am not. I have read the above comments hundreds of times in a single week and I have been with Digg for about 2 years now. If you say anything against their beliefs they will Digg you down so fast your comment goes away.

It's pretty sad to see Kevin Rose's baby grow up to be so onesided. It used to be a great forum for all to discuss/debate topics. Now it's become an angry pit of kids who do nothing but vent their anger out on others. Not to mention, the headlines are giving "The Onion" a run for their money.

May Digg.com rest in peace.

CLASH OF THE TITANS

We are definitely in a period of battles when it comes to the technology world. One of the problems is that this country is still living off of old laws and as technology grows, so should the laws. But they don't!

Ironically the top three items sold on the internet are also the three battles going on in the technology world. Music, Movies, and Books.

CLASH #1: MUSIC
This is the most famous of the three. I run an artist management company and all my artists were doing well launching their careers. When Napster hit the scene at the turn of the century, my new artists couldn't even make a living off of CD sales. Music was being stolen by the billions. Since then, our company has chosen the path of Hollywood. Music definitely is not a good industry to be at this time.

Once the music reaches all time piracy levels, here comes the OLD gate keepers (RIAA) who are living by the OLD laws. They begin suing everyone. They strong armed ISPs for private information on users. They even sued innocent people who didn't even know how to turn on a computer. It was quite embarrassing.

If I buy a CD, am I allowed to have one copy as back up? Why can't I make many copies. I have not stolen anything. It's like a photograph. I can scan a photograph that I bough and send to all my friends with out any consequence. The moment I do that with music, forget it!

There is so much wrong with the music industry. WHY DO WE STILL PRODUCE ALBUMS. Now that everyone is on iTunes, why not just produce individual songs. I will tell you why. Because no one would by 9 out of 10 songs from an artist. Every CD I own has 3 good songs and 7 bad ones. The music industry is still run by 60 year old men who remember having lunch with Sinatra in the good old days. Technology will force that to change.

CLASH #2: MOVIES

The only reason movies haven't been pirated as much as music is because of bandwidth. Why do you think your ISPs are going all "Big Brother" on us. We will soon be capped on how much we can download on the internet. Time Warner and Verizon are already doing it. You only get about 40 Gig a month. That's about one movie's worth in download terms, depending on the quality of the movie. If you want HD, forget it.

The day a movie comes out in theaters my sister can walk her street and buy a dvd copy for only $10. Can you believe that???? I won't tell you that she lives in New York, because she might get in trouble. Sometimes she can get them before they hit theaters. That's pretty bad.

My family stopped going to theaters years ago. I won't spend $50 for the family to see a movie, when in 4 months I can own the movie for $19.99. This year we stopped buying DVDs altogether. There is no reason to buy the movie for $19.99 when we just watch it once or twice. We could rent it twice for about $10. We have over 1000 dvds in our movie room and half are still in the wrapper. Once again technology will change the OLD ways. I predict DVDs will be gone in less than 5 years.

CLASH #3: BOOKS

This fight just started today. Two days ago, Amazon's Kindle 2 came out with a feature that reads a book out loud for you. How cool is that. It was only cool for two days. Today the OLD gate keepers from the Authors Guild told Amazon that reading a book to people makes it an audio book and that is against copyright laws. I can't wait to see how this clash turns out.

Google was scanning all books for the worlds biggest online library. Oh no!!! Don't make books electronic. They can be copied as quickly as music, if not, even faster. It's just text.

All of these fights are about money, of course. OLD gate keepers who have been chosen to control the money for the big three industries are losing control. Their towers are crumbling by the hammer of technology. It's going to happen. Don't fight it, because Goliath will always lose in the public eye.

The next CLASH coming is patents. It's not here yet, but it's coming. Round #1: Apple vs. Google?

HOSPITAL BILL FROM HELL

Okay. To save time and space on this blog entry. I am going to tell you a readers digest version of what happened.

On 10/10/08 I woke up at 4:30am. Half my body had no feeling. The right side of my entire body had no feeling, whatsoever. It only lasted 20 minutes, but I went to the ER anyway just to be safe.

The ER spent 4 hours running tests and taking blood and they still didn't know why this happened to me. Great!! Now I am getting frustrated and want to go home.

They then try to give me two pills. One pill for my high blood pressure (I don't have high blood pressure. It was high because I was angry at the hospital's dragging feet on my diagnosis) and one pill for my stomach so it doesn't get upset over the blood pressure pill. As you can guess, I didn't take either.

They tell me that they are going to run 3 more tests today and they are going to admit me into the hospital. They also said that they will be moving me to a holding area until they can find me a bed. I might be there for a few hours until a bed opens up.

So they finally get me into a room around 4pm. I don't want to spend the night. That would mean being woken up every 3 hours to give blood, which by the way was not going to happen even if I did spend the night.

So I asked my doctors to review the tests before they went home for the day. I was hoping that I could possibly be released before the left the hospital. This way I could sleep in my own bed.

Thankfully everything checked out good and they released me that night around 6:30pm.

So here is the part that BUGS me. I get an ER bill for $100 from Los Alamitos Medical Center. My insurance states that if I go to ER I have to pay $100 dollars. But my insurance also says that if they admit me into the hospital that I don't have to pay anything.

So I tell them to remove the charge. They tell me three things to avoid admitting that they admitted me.
1. We didn't admit you.
2. We admitted you only for observation
3. You weren't there more than 24 hours

The beauty of this is that the more I fight this bill the more the reason for the charge changes. I don't care if it was less that 24 hours, only for observation or if the moon was blue that night. My insurance states if I am admitted then I don't pay.

As for good old Pacificare, they are useless in this situation. They are not even standing up for me. All they said was, "We paid our $20,000 already for your visit. Our part is done."

And Los Alamitos is still sticking to the three poor excuses above. So I must take matters into my own hands.

Two days ago I called Rene in the Administration office 714.826.6400 and basically told her to stop running this scam on people. I told her to fix the bill. I told her that if I was a millionaire and I was on my death bed, I still would not pay this bill of $100. She acted like she understood my frustration and said she knew what to do and would get back to me.

WELL SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND ME. INSTEAD SHE HAD SOMEONE CALL ME TO CONTINUE TO FEED ME A LINE OF BAD EXPLANATIONS ON WHY I HAVE TO PAY. BY THE WAY, DID I MENTION THAT I STILL AM NOT PAYING THE BILL.

UPDATE 1/27/09

So I called Rene back and told her my problem hasn't gone away. She said that she would talk to someone and get back to me in a little while. As you can guess she never called back.

UPDATE 1/28/09

Hi, Rene. How come you NEVER called me back. She fed me this line of, "Oh, I was waiting for a return called from the CFO who I left a note for." Yeah, right!

UPDATE 1/29/09

Today I am beginning my life long relationship with Rene. I will call her every day for the rest of my life until she writes off the $100. I may even feel the love to call her twice or three times a day. When springtime gets here, my love may increase to every hour of the day. I sure hope she wants a new friend, because she just got one.

I will give you more updates on this hospital bill from hell as is develops.

UPDATE 1/29/09 part 2

I just called Rene. We are now old friends. I made her aware that I am blogging on this. She kind of laughed and asked me not to blog on this. I told her that about 1000 people are following this on my blog and can't wait to see how this turns out.

Rene said that the person I need to speak with is CFO David Vickers. He has yet to answer Rene on my situation so I left him a voice mail just now. Let's see how long it takes for David to call me back.

If you'd like to help me out, please call David Vickers at 714.826.6400 / hit 0 for the operator and ask for David Vickers office. If he's not there please leave a message asking him to fix my $100 bill and that I should not be paying for it. Thank you.

UPDATE: 1/30/09

I finally got a hold of David Vickers. He still states that it's not an admittance to the hospital and there is nothing he can do. He said he has the explanation from Pacificare that shows that if it's just for observation then the $100 is my responsibility.

I have seen the paperwork and there is no part that I have seen that says that. So I asked David to provide a copy of what he saw. Well, here replied to me that they were unable to obtain this because they are not the insured.

WOW. I am back to square one.

The doctor wrote out patient ER visit on the paperwork.
Los Alamitos says that they are not associated with the doctors and so they can't so anything about what the dr. wrote.
Pacificare won't pay the $100 because they say the paperwork says "outpatient ER visit".

So my next step is the Dr. I can't believe this. I AM NOT PAYING THIS BILL!!!!

UPDATE 2/7/09

Since Pacificare isn't going to do anything because the hospital lied and put down outpatient, and since The hospital isn't going to change their wording, I filed a formal complaint with my insurance and I filed for an appeal. I explained that the hospital is lying and I want an investigation. This will take 30 days. I will update you all once I have an answer. If that doesn't work and I still have to pay it, I am going to ...... NOT PAY!!!

UPDATE 3/15/09

Okay. My own friggen insurance wouldn't help me fight this. I am so glad I will be leaving Pacificare soon. They should change their name to Wedon'tcare. I consulted with my lawyer and he just laughed. He said, "Jack. I am glad you have that much fight in you and I appreciate you standing up for what is right. Now pay the damn bill!" So I did.

When your lawyer won't even charge you, you know it's a lost cause. I live to fight another fight!

AUTOMAKER BAILOUT WON'T HELP

let me get this straight:

1. The Democrats wanted the bailout
2. The Republicans stopped the bailout
3. The Republican President Bush gives the automakers a bailout
4. The Democrats accuse Bush of using this scenario to better himself.

Now I am not exactly sure when Bush stopped being a Republican and stopped being President. I am not even sure which happened first. I am sure that this was the worst mistake ever.

This shows you just how powerful organized crime ....... ERRRRRR... unions really are. They strong armed the gov't into given them money. The thought that they were big enough to affect the economy if they went under so why not use that to get some money.

I don't see how $13 billion will save them. It's still the same over paid under educated union workers running the show. All this will do is prolong the pain.

Now think about this. What smart American will buy an American car. We know they aren't doing well. So why risk buying a car from a company that might go under. Too big of a risk.

The automakers are still destined for the grave. No one is going to buy from them. It's like buying from Kmart. You know they are a dying company. So you stay away. Same thing will happen here.

Did you know that $10,000 from every car sold goes to the retirees of the auto union? Did you know that $2 billion a month goes to the retirees? Do you have any idea what a high school drop out's starting salary is working for the automakers? It's $28 an hour according to USA Today.

I go on record saying that I will never buy a Chrysler, Ford, or GM product again.

I TRIED. I REALLY TRIED!!!

I have been told that I am too negative. I have been told that this blog isn't the most positive blog and doesn't help me in any way. I even tried to stay away from this blog and stop complaining so much in my life.

Then it came in the mail. I have a notice that was delivered in the mail that basically says: "If at any time in the future a dog is seen unconfined in your neighborhood, your mail delivery service will be suspended." So if my mailman sees a stray dog, I stop getting mail.

Here come the capital letters now. ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME!!!!

It's bad enough that paying postage on your package doesn't ensure that your mail will ever be delivered. To ensure that your mail gets delivered, you have to insure it.

Now, I may not get mail delivered to my house because some stray dog is crossing the street. Somehow that's my fault. Somehow not bringing me mail will make stray dogs go away.

Soon I will have to go to the post office and sort out my mail from the rest of the neighborhood.

Don't the mailmen have mace? Bring a gun. Shoot the dog. I don't care as long as you bring my mail.

I swear, if my mail stops I will be shooting dogs left and right, unconfined, confined, hot dogs. I don't care. I will be blowing everything away.

Honestly, I don't think I could ever kill a dog, but I am angry and my mouth gets the best of me. I am so glad I didn't get rid of this blog.

BACK ON TRACK

I feel like I have been gone a long time.

Most of you know that I have four blogs:

All that bugs blog
Blog and Cookies
Cooking With Jack
Need Prayer Now

I have been so distracted by my other jobs that I haven't kept up on the blogs too much. I have just finished producing a movie, filming cooking videos, trying to set up my church to broadcast live on the internet, and been on Twitter like a crazy man.

BTW, my twitter id is jakatak4 if you want to follow me. I will in turn follow you, too.

I have also had time to re-evaluate my blogs and decide if they are all needed. I have decided to keep them all. YEAH!!!!

Okay now let me bring you up to date on what I plan to do with each one.

All that bugs blog: not a healthy blog since I am trying to stop complaining as much. I will still keep it up there so I can inform people about things that bug me. I will just be more selective, like for example, did you know if you have a mattress from Sit n' Sleep here in LA and you somehow (don't ask me how) get a stain on the mattress, your warranty is no longer good. These are the type of complaints I want to do. Not as often, but much healthier complaining.

Blog and Cookies: This blog is about info that you need to know about that is positive. Like Pownce getting taken over by Six Apart. I am not complaining, but it's a hot topic.

Cooking with Jack: This blog will have more cooking tips. I will be producing a cooking video each week and posting it up there. I will give great tip like: before refrigerating your package of bacon, be sure to roll it up and put a rubber band around it. This way when you unroll it to cook it, each slice will be separate from the rest. It helps separate the bacon so you don't tear each piece.

Need Prayer Now: This blog is going to stay up for anyone who needs a pray. I also will be giving some insight to my thoughts about my faith and things I learn during my spiritual growth. Things like: did you know that "knowledge" is what you know and "wisdom" is how you use how you use what you know.

All my blogs will be shorter and to the point. Sometimes I ramble on and on and on and ..... well, you get it.

I am glad to be back. It's hard keeping up with your family life, work life, Twitter, facebook, emails, texts, etc. Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter in the upper right corner of this page.

Take care and we will be taking soon.

THE END OF NEWSPAPERS AS WE KNOW IT

My local paper is the Orange County Register in Southern California. I am sure it's pretty comparable to any hometown fish wrap.

Every morning when the newspaper hits my doorstep it is full of news that everyone already knows about. In fact, the news in the OC Register is as much as 24 hours old. News information that we read the night before immediately on the internet or that was SMS'd to my iPhone the second it happened.

How the OC Register stays in business is anyone's guess. They print on paper which is wasteful, their news is outdated, and their articles are grossly exaggerated if not completely incorrect.

Let's take this last Sunday's paper (10/12/09) for example. On the front page of the "Local" section of the OC Register there was an article titled:

SWAP MEET CROWDS THIN

It's an article stating that the Orange County Market Place in Costa Mesa is hurting do to the bad economy. I admit that the economy has affected all areas of the world, but this article is grossly exaggerated. Everyone knows the best deals are at the swap meets and when times are tough people head out there to save their hard earned dollars.

So the OC Register prints a picture of a kid at a produce stand selling avocados. In this photo, they try to make it look like the produce stand has no customers.

First of all, if you knew anything about this produce stand, you would know that the kid in the picture only comes to the produce stand during the last hour of the day right before closing. He bargains the last few produce items before they close up for the day. To make their story look legit, the OC Register takes a picture at closing time. Nice job guys. That's top notch reporting.

Here are pictures near that same produce stand the next day when this particular article came out. Yeah. This place looks like a ghost town. NOT!



To really pour on the lies, the OC Register interviews one of the vendor at the Orange County Market Place. The vendor they strategically choose to interview sells beaded furniture covers. Yes! You heard me; beaded furniture covers. NO WONDER SALES ARE HORRIBLE. NO ONE USES BEADED FURNITURE COVERS. I can't even imagine buying beaded furniture covers as a gift. I don't think I hate anyone that much.

Wonder why they didn't interview Papa Dan's Beef jerky, or "The Best Barbeque Sauce You'll Ever Taste?" I will tell you why. Because they are still doing good sales and that would have ruined this horrific newspaper article.

Thank God for the internet. It gives real honest people a change to speak out on companies like the OC Register and prove them wrong. It let's us shine the light on the cock roaches of the world and watch them scatter.

I subscribe only to the OC Register Sunday edition. I do this so my wife can have the Sunday ads. The OC Register is hurting so bad, they called me recently to offer me the rest of the week for FREE!!!! Wow. That's embarrassing. I would have at least asked for a penny.

The writing is on the wall so let me give a tip to the OC Register. Stop writing lies. Stop wasting trees. Shut your doors with dignity while you can.

If you'd like to express your concerns for this article not being true to form please contact the writer of the article: 714.445.6604 or at epak@ocregister.com

BARACK OBAMA TIES TO ACORN GROUP

I just received the following message and link to a disturbing video. Please watch and let me know what you think:

Dear Supporter,

Our campaign just released a new web video detailing the ties between Senator Barack Obama and ACORN, the organization currently under investigation for massive voter fraud in a number of battleground states.

Please follow this link to watch "ACORN."

As a result of Senator Obama's blind ambition, he has a long history with the group. Barack Obama trained members of the Chicago ACORN staff, and his campaign has paid more than $800,000 for "voter registration" to an ACORN front group.

We're asking you to take a few minutes this evening to watch the ad and learn more about the relationship between Senator Barack Obama and ACORN.

After watching the video, please forward along to at least five others. It's up to us to hold Senator Obama accountable for his questionable judgment and blind ambition.

Thank you,
The McCain-Palin 2008 Team

I DO NOT LIKE THE COLOR GREEN.

Last year I did a cooking video called "How to peel an egg" and the number one comment on Youtube what about how much water I wasted rinsing the egg off for 10 seconds. Seriously! People complained that I wasted 10 seconds of running water to cool the egg off.

I can guarantee that the people who wrote those comment NEVER turn off their water when they soap up in the shower. I bet they ALWAYS water the grass when the sun is out and I am sure they NEVER call in a broken sprinkler on city property.

The only reason they are worried about wasting water is because it's all about going GREEN. It's a way of life for some people to complain about the environment and to just be bitter about the whole thing.

I like a lot of the ideas of recycling and going back to paper produces and repackaging products. I am totally for that. It saves money and helps the environment.

I don't like all the talk about how we are killing the earth, global warming, and everything else that has no proof. Sure the ice is melting away at the poles, but there is no proof that we are the cause.

I also can't stand two faced green people. Like the parents who drive their kids to school. Have you ever seen the line of cars just to drop kids off for school. When did we become chauffeurs. Some of these kids live blocks away. What a joke. Preach to me about clean air, but don't let Johhny walk a block to school. It's as bad as ordering a Diet Coke with a donut.

Here is a thought. Last year there were blizzards that had record low temperatures on the east cost of the USA. You didn't see people screaming global warming then. In fact, it's funny that you never hear talk about global warming in the winter.

Here is another thought. If we are causing the ice to melt away, then who was responsible for the ice melting after the first ice age? We weren't around to melt the earth that time. How do you explain that? ... Yeah. Thought so!

When it comes down to it, we can destroy the earth only if money is involved. If you don't believe me then as people why they didn't boycott the Beijing Olympics. A place that had to stop manufacturing pollution weeks before the Olympics so people who came to visit could breath. No one made a stand against that event.

That's because Americans like to pick and choose what's important to them. Americans only do the right thing when it's convenient.

So I propose we:
Stop with the color green on product in the store.
Stop with the word green on every magazine cover story.
Stop profiting from people's fears of what would happen if they don't go green.

As a matter of fact, I am changing the color right now. let's go Yellow.

Why?

Because it's my favorite color. :-)

8 MILLION DOLLARS TO CEO OF WAMU

I just heard from the AP news wire that Washington Mutual (WAMU) has a new CEO. They have told the new CEO that if he can keep WAMU alive to 2009, he will receive an $8,000,000 bonus.

I had to play back the AP Video three times to make sure I heard what I heard. Where do they have 8 million dollars to just give away. They are in dire straights and yet there still sees to be millions. How about applying that 8 million dollars to cover those bad loans.

It's amazing how all of the executives get theirs before companies go under. The only person who gets hurt by this is the average Joe taxpayer. We always foot the bill!

THANK YOU FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

I don't know much about buying and selling homes, or the stock market, or banking, but I do know this.

It seems that this whole economic mess came from banks giving out bad loans to people who should not have received them. It's like anyone could get a loan and these loans had fluctuating interest rates. Greed was running rampant. Then the economy started getting bad and the interest rates went up so fast that people's house payments almost doubled. So the people bailed on their homes and their loans.

The SEC sat back, watched this happen and didn't put the stop to it. That is why John McCain is asking for the firing of the SEC chairman.

I didn't buy a house because I knew I couldn't affor one. I didn't get a loan that had interest rates that could go fluctuate because I know that's the worst type of loan to get. I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was run my two companies, raise my two kids and pay my taxes.

So why did I run to my local Washington Mutual yesterday and empty out all 4 of my bank accounts? Because our government is not doing their job. Because once again greed has blown up and the innocent is being hit with shrapnel. Because when Monday morning comes I don't want to be standing in line looking for my money.

Let me keep this short and sweet.

First Indybank went under and then Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and WAMU is close behind.

Now President Bush announced that the federal government is going to (bail out) absorb the Billions, maybe even a trillion dollars of bad loans.

Now what these means is that the entire United States (who is already broke and still can't stop giving other countries our money) is going to foot the bill. There is even rumor that our Federal taxes could double by next year.

Wow! $5 a gallon for gas this past summer and now this. Canada is looking sweeter everyday. So much for the land of the free. Nothing is free and the innocent have to always pay.

You know, if they raise our taxes to pay this mistake, those taxes will never come back down again. Gas prices came down, but no one lowered prices on their products. So why should the government be any different.

I am sorry that these companies didn't know how to run a business, but why should the innocent people suffer for their mistakes.

Things are going to get tougher that they already are. The only way to survive in the coming months is to tighten your belts and cut costs in your life. When you have money in the bank and your not living paycheck to paycheck, you have security and your live much happier.

So here is my advice on cutting costs and making things in your life better.


1. RELOCATE - this means either leave the state your in (like California) and move to a state where you can afford to buy a decent home for you and your family. A decent home is between 200k and 300k. Look in places like Boise, ID or Nashville, TN. Great towns with affordable housing and still all the amenities of the big city.


2. REVIEW ALL EXPENSES - Do you need HBO? Do you need gardening service? Do you need a house keeper? Do you need the fastest internet tier? Do you need the newspaper? Do you need satellite radio? You would be surprised how much frivolous spending you are doing.


3. STOP DRIVING - save on gas. don't go anywhere unless it's a have to. Do your errands on the way home from work so your not making an extra trip out. Stop driving 10 hours away on vacation. Vacation locally. You can even stay home and vacation. You'd be surprised how much you will save on hotel, airfare, and gas. Then you can spend all the money you saved right here in your own hometown and have a blast.


4. BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR - The only true way to survive in this world is to work for yourself. Start your own company and work from home. I run two companies from my home. I save thousands of dollars on gas only. I also get to write of tons of household expenese since it's also my office. Read "Inc. and Grow Rich" and read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and read "The Success Principles". All of these books will tell you why you should be an entrepreneur.


5. STOP EATING OUT - you can cut your food bill in half if you just make a menu for the week and go shop for that menu. Stop paying $10 for a burger and fries at Red Robin. Stop adding a 20% tip on top of that. STOP PAYING $0.45 FOR AN EXTRA DRESSING. Not only will you save money, but you might loose a pound or two.

I hope the above suggestions help prepare you for the future.

THE FUNNIEST 6 SECONDS EVER

I hate cats. I still am laughing as I am typing this. Here is the funniest 6 seconds ever:

PIZZA HUT NASTY WINGS!

Last night I ordered Pizza Hut Garlic Parmesan wings. Here is what the ad looks like:



Pizza Hut was even kind enough to warn me about the intense flavor. That's nice. The above image is the boneless, but I chose to get the bone-in version. It's the cannibalism in me I guess.
Here is what they delivered to my door.



I never liked Pizza Hut, but for some insane reason my family keeps buying from them. Did you notice the shine on the chicken? That's from the puddle of grease that came with the chicken.


I will be taking these wings back today for a full refund. I will keep you posted

DO NOT GO ON A CARNIVAL CRUISE

My wife wanted to celebrate our 10th Wedding anniversary so she booked us on the 4 day Encenada, Mexico. This was just to see if we wanted to do a 7 day cruise next year.

We arrived at the Carnival Cruise parking lot in Long Beach, CA. There was two really big lines and we weren't sure which one to go in. There was not one person to direct the hundreds of people arriving.

We stood in one line for 30 minutes to find out we could either check our luggage in with the lady and we would have to wait about 2 hours for it to arrive in our rooms or we could just roll the luggage onto the ship. 30 minutes wasted in that line. We rolled our luggage.

Then we get in a line to board the ship. We have to pass through security. We have to put our keys, cell phones, and pocket knives into a basket, then remove our laptops from their carrying case, and making sure we still have our photo id and birth certificate in our hands. No electronics may be used in this line. So I followed directions. I just got my iphone so I watched that baby carefully get passed in a basket with my keys, pocket knife, etc. I almost dropped the laptop because I only had two arms to juggle all this security crap.

I am sure terrorists have their own entrance on the back side of the boat that doesn't require anything but a handshake and a promise to be good on the boat.

I finally get through security and the file us like cattle into another room where we have yet another line.Oh goody! look at this mess:



30 minutes again to get through this. Luckily we had two screaming kids in this line or I would have had nothing to complain about. Pure entertainment!

Now we are getting to our rooms and we see that they are dumping peoples luggage in the hallways by their doors even before the people were in their rooms. I saw a few Tumi bags I was tempted to borrow until death, but my Christian side told me to keep walking.

My wife, Tammy, puts our clothes away, while I check out this closet that they are asking us to live in for 4 days. Everything is small like you would see on an RV. We had 10 channels on the TV. 5 channels advertised nothing but Carnival Cruise Crap (CCC) and the other 5 were showing nothing but the Democratic National Convention round the clock......Did I happen to mention I am Christian?

The best part of the whole cruise is about to begin. The part where I get to eat. If you have seen me, you will know that is my favorite thing to do. Not as much now that I am diabetic, but still a lot of fun after an hour and a half in lines.

I find out they only have hamburgers and hot dogs available.



No salad bar. No vegetables. No fruit. Just hamburgers and hot dogs. Hmmmmm. I can't eat that. Oh well, I will cheat today and tomorrow I will eat healthy.

We get back to our room exhausted and full. I am just starting to relax my head and drift off to sleep when the captain now asks us to get out of our rooms, report to the night club with our life vests so that we can do the lifeboat drill. How exciting is this. My first minute of rest and I am running to a club with a flashing orange life jacket acting like the ship is sinking. We haven't even left the dock yet.

(scene change) I am now crunched in with about 100 people on deck in front of a lifeboat waiting for the rest of the boat to follow directions so we can go back to our cracker box rooms.

90 minutes later I am back in my room trying to finish the dream I had started. ( I was dreaming I was home pulling weeds)

I had no luck getting back to sleep. So we decide to sign up for some events. We go to the information desk and there are 30 people in line. Not cool. We decided to come back that night when it was a little calmer. So we came back that night and there were only 30 people in line. Much better.

Here is where the fun begins. We go to play bingo.



It takes them 20 minutes to hand out bingo cards and they still haven't reached my wife and me. So we decide to just do scratchers and get the heck out of there. We can submit losing scratchers for a drawing and win a bottle of champagne. So we buy 30 scratchers. We go to the back of the room and scratch while they play one game of bingo. The game only lasted 5 minutes. Now I am running our losing tickets to the front of the room so I can get them into the bucket for the drawing. As I am dropping my tickets into the bucket, the MC reaches in and pulls a ticket. He pulled the ticket before my tickets had even entered to bucket. I was standing right in front of him. No last call tickets. No waiting for the fat Italian guy running to the bucket or the 5 people he knocked over getting to the bucket. Guess what. You guessed it. I didn't win champagne.

So I ask the MC about cashing in my winning tickets. He said to wait until the next round of bingo. I go back to Tammy and tell her that they will pay us on the next round of bingo. Tammy points to the MC leaving the room and now bingo is over. What!!!!!

Let's review. it took twenty minutes to hand out cards, one game of bingo that lasted 5 minutes, no last call for losing scratchers, no payout for winning tickets until the next round and I find out the next round is TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!

So let's jump to Tuesday night at 4:30pm.

I am ready for an early dinner. I go up to Lido deck to get food. OMG, you would not believe the spread they had that night. It was hamburgers and hot dogs AGAIN!!!
I now proceed to yell at the head guy on Lido deck at the top of my voice, "I can not believe I am being fed this crap. I could eat better at McDonald's across the street from my house. I DID NOT PAY $1000 FOR THIS PIECE OF CRAP SHIP RIDE. You guys are the worst cruise line ever. (not that I had been on another one, but who cares. I was mad)

At this point I am praying for the ship to sink.


The next night I waited in line for 25 minutes for food. My hands are shaking due to my sugar dropping like my stock in Sirius Satellite Radio. I finally get up to where the food is and they tell me they ran out of food. The said they were sorry, but this is now only the soup line. They said I would have to go to the other side Lido deck and wait in that line for food. YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE HOW LOUD I YELLED THAT NIGHT. I YELLED AT ANYONE WEARING A CARNIVAL CRUISE NAME BADGE EVEN THOUGH MOST OF THEM DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH!!!

I had to go up to my room and order room service just to get a salad. I was chowing on the chocolates on my pillow just to keep myself from cardiac arrest. Room service took 45 minutes to get me a salad and a pastrami sandwich. Here is what they brought me:



My wife order the chicken wrap. it was so small you couldn't even call it finger food. it was smaller than a finger. Look at this garbage:



This was just the first two days of the worst cruise anyone has ever taken.

I filed 3 complaints on the boat and 2 after I got off and no one has called me back. I told them I want my money back. We are still fighting for this. It ought to be a good one.

To be continued......

UPDATE 9/8/08

I called guest relations about my 3 filed complaints on the boat and my 1 filed complaint off the boat. The lady told me a supervisor would call me today. Well, they have not called.

Update 9/9/08

I called guest relations again. 4:30pm Pacific Time. They are closed. How convenient. This is going to be a long fight. I hope they come to their senses and just refund my money. I am guessing they will offer me a free trip. That's not happening!

Update 9/10/08

I get a wonderful letter from Carnival Cruise Lines. Wait until you read this. People said they would offer me a free trip (over my dead body). Some said to fight all the way to a full refund (over their dead body).

Here is the letter that they sent me. WHAT AN INSULT OF A LETTER.

Update 9/11/08

Not the best date to be doing anything, but I need to get a full refund. I just spoke to Guest Relations again and they apologize that $50 on my next cruise is the only thing they can offer me. I told them that they couldn't pay me enough money to step foot on your boat.

Now I am holding for a supervisor, again. I guarantee she will return stating that their busy and the supervisor will call me back. The same story they gave me last time I called...........waiting............waiting....... this call has been 8 minutes long already..........waiting.......waiting......still on hold.....this call is now 10 minutes long.....waiting.....she came back to tell me she is talking to her supervisor and she will transfer me in a moment.... They obviously are preparing their arguments ..... waiting...... now 14 minutes long and still on hold........17 minutes supervisor Shelly comes on the phone to tell me that they can't give me a refund but they can offer me 15% off my next cruise which I have no plans on taking.

So I get off the phone after speaking with Shelly for about 45 minutes and she truly was nice and understanding. I was quite surprised. She is going to speak with her supervisor, Carlos and then she will call me back Monday or Tuesday.

to be continued.....

UPDATE 9/17/08

Well, I know your laughing by now. I just recieived a phone call from a Carnival Cruise Line sales person trying to sell me another trip. It's Wednesday and no one has called me back from ALL my complaints and now this guy is trying to sell me another trip.

So I get on the phone and call Shelly. She says that Carnival understands my situation and is going to refund me a portion of my cruise. I am not going to post the amount, but I will say that it's enough for me to feel better about this trip. They did right by showing that they cared. They are sending me a refund check and I want to thank Shelly and Carlos for their hard work.

This will not be continued. This matter is closed.

NEVER USE TIME WARNER DIGITAL PHONE SERVICE

I have had Time Warner phone service for over a year. It is the worst company to be with. For the past three weeks it has not worked correctly. I am in touch with a person that is pretty high up in the company and have been complaining to her for quite some time and she can't even get the phones to work properly.

Here is the problem:

When people call me or I call them (either way) they can't hear me speak, but I can hear them speak. That's it. It's very annoying since I also work out of my home office.

So for the past three weeks Time Warner has destroyed my work life. All my clients can't get a hold of me. I am losing business because of this and Time Warner doesn't care. They keep telling me that it will be fixed and it never is.

Time Warner can not handle the load of information going back and forth for all it's customers so it causes my packets of info leaving my home back to the server to stop working. It's all insane. It's because they don't want to spend the money to upgrade servers and software.

So I am refusing to pay my cable, internet, and phone bill until they can provide me with the service I am supposed to be receiving.

Last night my son went into the ER. Then they admitted him to Critical Care Unit and the doctors are trying to call me so they can tell me what's going on. Guess what? That's right, I can't speak to the doctors because Time Warner service is so bad.

I told Timer Warner that if my phone isn't working by tomorrow, I will be calling the corporate office and bugging them every 5 minutes with me complaining about their service and demanding they fix it. I will call the office of the president and continue to bug Time Warner all day long every day.

IF I DON'T GET TO WORK THEN WHY SHOULD THEY!!!!

I will keep you updated.

UPDATE 9/8/08

After complaining, Time Warner has credited me for one month of internet and credited me one month of phone service. They also gave me full details on what was wrong and how it has been resolved. They have taken responsibility and have made me very happy with their kindness.

MOBILE ME, IS NOT MOBILE AT ALL

I could not get my iCal events from Apple's new Mobile Me to my iPhone. I went to the live chat customer support and here is how the conversation went. It's pretty bad:

• You are chatting with Jerry F, a MobileMe Support Representative

• Hi, my name is Jerry F. Welcome to Apple!

• Jack Scalfani: hi

• Jerry F: Thanks for contacting MobileMe support.

• Jack Scalfani: can you help me?

• Jerry F: Hello, I'm looking over the information you provided.

• Jack Scalfani: k

• Jerry F: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.

• Jerry F: Have you been able to get any information onto the iPhone from MobileMe?

• Jack Scalfani: yes. email and contacts

• Jerry F: OK. Let me take a look at a couple of things.

• Jerry F: Do you get any errors?

• Jack Scalfani: Last night I placed an appointment on Wed. Oct.29th on my ical on the mac. It made it to mobile me but never went to my phone. No errors.

• Jerry F: ok. Has it ever uploaded calendar events to the iPhone?

• Jack Scalfani: no.

• Jack Scalfani: my push is on.

• Jerry F: ok. One moment please.

• Jack Scalfani: where does it tell my mobile me what my phone number is or where to send the info? where are my phone settings that tell my phone where to get the info?

• Jack Scalfani: can you help me or not?

• Jerry F: I'm looking into the information you provided.

• Jerry F: From your Mac

• Jerry F: open System Preferences

• Jerry F: then MobileMe

• Jerry F: select the sync tab

• Jack Scalfani: why are we going there. My info is already going to mobile me from my mac.

• Jack Scalfani: that part is fine. it's got to be settings in the mobile me or iphone area.

• Jerry F: do you have calenders selected?

• Jack Scalfani: YES

• Jerry F: I'm sorry for the delay. I'll be right with you.

• Jerry F: I'll be right with you.

• Jack Scalfani: I have to leave soon. Could we please give me some support?

• Jerry F: I'll do everything possible to resolve this for you.

• Jack Scalfani: This conversation has been over 20 minutes long and has been absolutely useless. I will be canceling my mobile me free trial. This is the worst non support I have ever received.

DO NOT USE ADVANTA CREDIT CARD

Let me tell you about my experience with Advanta Credit Card Company.

I loved them for 4 years. Doubled paid my bill a week early. I had two cards with them. One was 7.9 fixed and the other 8.9 fixed. I was so happy and they always were there for me until....... They decided to raise my interest rate on the one card to 16.9% and the other card 21%.

They never sent me a letter which by law they are supposed to. I completely lost it. I was so fuming when I realized they double and almost tripled my interest for no reason whatsoever.

So I screamed at their customer service person on how I was a great customer, and that I was a credit card company's dream client.

At the END of the call the customer service lady said she would bring my first card down to 8.9% and the other one down to 9.9%. I then screamed at her and said, "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST BUMP IT UP TO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!" What are they trying to do, see how much money they can steal from you without you knowing????

Then to top it off, I come home and find out my wife ordered some stupid TV product called Awesome Auger. She didn't buy one, she bought TWO of them. I walked in the door and told her to cancel the order. I already got an Awesome Auger from someone as a gift and it ain't awesome at all. So she canceled the order..... so we thought.

Well, it seems they charged us $60 for this stupid device and sent it to us anyway. They also charged us $64 TO SHIP THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE!!!!! $64!!!! YES. I DID NOT TYPE THE SHIPPING WRONG. $64. $4 MORE THAN THE COST OF THE LOUSY PIECE OF JUNK.

So we went to our lovely Advanta Credit Card company and we put it in dispute. We went back and forth with dispute letters explaining how we canceled the day we bought it and we want our money back. Every penny! Advanta finally writes us and says:

"Under MasterCard regulations the merchant has provided sufficient documentation to support the transaction they billed to your account........ Your best recourse is to continue to pursue this issue directly with The Awesome Auger."

Are you kidding me? That's it? Oh, no that is not it!

Here is my next course of action. Starting monday morning I will be calling the corporate office at 215.657.4000 and I will be speaking with the following people:

Dennis Alter Chairman & CEO
William A. Rosoff Vice Chairman & President
Philip M. Browne sVP and CFO

I probably will only get to speak to their assistants, but that is okay. Because they are going to get to know me better than their own mothers. Everyday I am going to start my day with a cup of coffee and a phone call to all three of them. I am going to speak with them through the holidays. I will call their voicemail when they are not in the office and continue to leave messages asking for them to credit my account $131.50. That's right. It will be the hardest $131.50 I have ever earned and it will be worth it.

To be continued........

UPDATE 10/21/08

We have a lawyer in NY who is interested in doing a CLASS ACTION law suit. If this situation happened to you, please contact the following lawyer to be included in the class action law suit against Advanta.

alan l. finkel, esq
p.o. box 49
commack ny 11725
631 462 3100
nymediation.com
cloudcowboy@aol.com

I would write him an email immediately so not to take up too much of his time.

Please include:

1. your full name
2. your phone number
3. your address
4. your email address

We appreciate him even considering doing this. Ironically, Advanta did this to Mr. Finkel, too.