Category Archives: Rant

Product Packaging Fail

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Recently I have become a little irritated at the packaging of products I use. A good case in point was the shampoo and conditioner that I just finished. Here I am in the shower with no glasses and poor lighting and I am trying to figure out which is shampoo and which is the conditioner. Both are in same bottle shapes and look alike labels. I have put a tad on my hands and then try to suds it to determine if it is shampoo. UGH

Then there are those products that the manufacturers don’t want you using. You know, those packages that are just impossible to open without doing major surgery. They are wrapped in this plastic stuff that is molded to the shape of the product and it has a lip all around it. Even if you cut the plastic on one end, you still have to cut the plastic off around the other three ends. AND it takes a real sharp pair of scissors or knife.

What about those products that keep changing their packaging? At the grocery store the other day, an elderly lady was standing in the cereal aisle trying to get the right cereal. She would pick up one box and then say, “No that’s not it.” Then she would pick up another box and look at it and repeat herself. It finally got so bad that she just stood there and did not move for about 3 minutes. Her husband was driving the cart and was no help, he just stood there waiting. I really felt bad for her and I really needed around her but she was blocking the whole aisle.

Some products are truly awesome and are in large packaging and you know what you are getting, at least you think you know. Then you open the box and find there are only 10 cookies that you paid $8.00 for. Now, I am not saying that some cookies are worth that much, but I have yet to find any.

Posted in Rant

Kicked to the curb!

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Yep that is what I feel like. I have been trying to figure out a way to get my adobe software for several weeks now. On the Adobe site there was this special that reduced the upgrade price by $200. It still would have been lots and lots of bucks, but I could have barely afforded it. Well, I cannot find my disk for the original program that would be upgraded==Macromedia MX2004. They say they have no record of me registering it–of course they don’t they did not own Macromedia in those days and of course they don’t care. This one girl said, “why don’t you just get the full version?” Well, duh, the full version of the product is about a thousand bucks! and then to add in the photoshop and illustrator would be another $600.

So, I discover on their website that they have educational prices–way, way reduced prices . . . like $1000 cheaper! (Ya, this stuff is expensive big time) So, hey, I am a retired schoolteacher, I could use the discount as much as any other person in education. But, wrong! Oh no, you have to be currently working in the education field not retired. Who cares that Texas disabled and retired teachers don’t make squat! They got their use out of us and now we are kicked to the curb.

Sigh, vent over. I am going to start saving my pennies. Maybe I will have enough by the time the next version comes out.

Moving ON

Today’s photo, or should I say tonight’s photo pays tribute to my faithful companion, Clio. The little lady is such a comfort to me. She craves lap time. If she feels she has not got enough time in my lap, she comes to the computer room and starts tapping at my elbow to let me know it is time to go to the chair! She spends many an hour by my side here in the computer room, looking out the window or rolled up in a bed. Tonight she is in the bed by my chair waiting for me to call it quits. Doesn’t she look sweet?

Do you think I need to get her a larger bed? LOL

Moving on

Do you all find it easy to sleep in, or are you one of those that are up at the crack of dawn? My family will attest to the fact that I am a sleeper in from way back. Sleeping in until noon is my favorite thing to do and I love to stay up most the night for a good sleep in.

But no more. It doesn’t matter what time I get to bed anymore, I am up around dawn. Of course, dawn has been around 7:30 or 8:00 so that is not too bad. I miss the sleeping in, but am getting a lot done! But what happens when dawn is earlier and earlier towards the middle of summer? will I be able to at least stay in bed past 7:00?

I sure hope this is not one of those age things. You know how some elderly people tend to sleep less and less–am I going to be one of those? Please NOOOOOOO! I love my bed!

Oh and because I have to give equal billing, here is Dayton–he is watching me to be sure he gets in. He will be mean to Clio if he doesn’t get in. So, please bear with me.

Posted in Cats, Life, Rant

So what do you do?

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Warning this is a rant!
You pay big bucks for cells phones and service cause it is just necessary with a hubbie on the road, a wife living alone most of the time with long drives to get anywhere, and a daughter with no land line. You purchase insurance on each of those phones and with a sinking feeling in your gut, you sign that two year contract.

Then six months later, the daguther’s cell phone goes dead and leaves her without any means of communication. No problem, that is why you got that insurance. It took a lot of frustration and there was a lot of rudness, but eventually the phone is replaced. (With an hour drive each way for each trip to the service store.) BUT—six months later it happens again, with the same problems. I called Sprint (yes I will tell you their name cause I am thoroughly mad at them!) and we get told we HAVE to replace the phone with the same model and make of the phone that has gone out now twice. After many phone calls and much gnashing of teeth we bow to the inevitable. The contract had 11 months to go at that time.

Well, now the phone is gone again for third time!!

I’ve called Spint, I’ve called Sanyo and I’ve called Assurion – the insurance company that handles their insurance on the cell phones. Its all no joy. When the daughter went in to the service store this time she was told it was the battery and since they don’t make this battery anymore she will have to buy a new phone, but hey we will give you $$ towards buying the phone, and put $$ on the account and it will only extend your contract another two years! WOW –we do not want to extend the contract, that is for sure. If we want to replace this phone through the online service, we will have to pay $50 and will get the same model and make as the broke phone –the one that keeps breaking and the one that you cannot get a new battery for. ALSO if we purchase a new phone, when the contract is up in six months we will not be able to use it with any other company – that is what Sprint says. I asked because I considered just putting the bucks down for a new phone. But, those things are expensive to just be able to use for six months. My other daughter said they should be able to unlock the phone to be used with another company, but Sprint is saying NO.

OH and did I mention that they want $200 per phone if we break the contract?

Posted in Life, Rant

Why are hard drives no longer working?

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Its happening all around us. If you are like me you have at least three friends or aquaintances who are going through hard drive failure right now. Count me in as one of them. Why is this going on? External Hard Drives which used to be the backbone of a good back up system only seem to be able to last a year. Internal Hard Drives seem to get tired after about 2 years and lets not even talk about DVD’s and CD’s.

Then, there are the online back up services. That is a joke –almost. It takes anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months to get that first back up made and in that time, the average designer makes enough product to fill up another hard drive and that means another long back up time. I signed up for one of those and it keeps stopping and I have yet to see it get past 11%. AND I am not even backing up my internal drive there. I am just backing up my back ups from on the Externals.

For the past few days I had noticed that something was chugging away behind the scenes with the desktop. The programs started slowing down and I was finding it hard to work in Photoshop. My brush strokes were not showing up until three or four strokes later. The Task Manager showed nothing unusual going but a huge CP use happening. It finally got so bad, I got online in a chat room with a tech support person. He was actually able to take control of my computer and check it out – really cool, like a ghost was looking through my stuff. Bad news was that there were 92 processes going on –he said that was way too many and I needed to log in as administrator to turn some of them off.

That was when things got rough. I tried this way and that way, crossed my legs, sang to the comptuer and sweet talked it but it would not let me log in as administrator or would not recognize me as administrator to turn things off. In the process of trying the computer got hung up a few times and then, then, welll then it just quit starting up. It would not even start up in safe mode. Heart in throat, I called on the phone to tech support and was taken through several different tries but it would not get past a certain point. I was sadly told to take the baby into the doc so they could transplant the data from it to another hard drive before they wiped it clean and reinstalled the system.

So, I got out the laptop and started working on it to bring it up to speed – realizing that all my passwords and vital info is on the other computer. Meanwhile I was starting the desktop to see if it could just get past that sticky spot. I finally just left it stewing in its own juices. About and hour or so later, it must have finally got tired of not getting any attention and decided to go on and start up in safe mode. What a joy –there were all my files and all my precious things waiting for me. Of couse, I have not even tried to restart it since and I am saving everything I can to the Externals. Its been almost ten hours and I still have lots to go. Those Photoshop files are huge and take a while to save. I’ve been making a list of things I want to be sure not to forget – like the fonts and the application data folders, and lets see there are all the emails and back ups from outlook. sure hope it all comes together soon.

Meanwhile, I had to get online with tech support again over the laptop – like, how in the world do you turn off this touch pad thingie? I keep brushing it by accident and losing a bunch of stuff. Turns out it was so easy, there is a button right on the touch pad that turns it on and off, but it took tech support about 45 mintues to figure it out too, so I don’t feel so stupid!

At least when this is all over I will have a clean computer! It probably will be much faster too!

Posted in Life, Rant