WFTV in Florida Totally Biased? You Bet

If you don’t think there’s a media bias you need to look at the recent interviews done by Barbara West of WFTV in Orlando Florida.

First, look at the ridiculous questions she asks Joe Biden: (the last 2 are the best)

Then, look at the softball questions she lobs up to McCain:

Media Bias? You be the judge.

Add comment October 27th, 2008

Michigan is a Constitution Free Zone

The US constitution simply doesn’t apply in Michigan. According to the latest ACLU post, border patrol agents no longer need a warrant to search a person within 100 miles of the US border.

The problem? There’s no place in Michigan that’s more than 100 miles away from a border.

This doesn’t bode will.

Add comment October 24th, 2008

Michigan’s New Unemployment…. Fees

Michigan no longer sends out unemployment checks. The new system sends recipients a debit card. This debit card is a Chase Visa card, and actually shows up on your credit report. I’m not sure what impact it has on people’s credit rating, but I’m sure it’s not good for future credit checkers to see the unemployment card listed there.

Instead of getting a check in the mail, unemployment recipients will receive a debit card that will get updated with money. It sounds more convenient until you get into the specifics and the charges. That’s right, charges!

Firstly, you’ll get 1 card with a 3 year expiration date on it. You’ll be expected to keep this card for the entire 3 years - even if you find employment. If you re-file before your card expires, you can use the same card. If you lose your card though, it’ll cost you $7.50 for a new one.

If you leave money on the card after you’ve found employment, you’ll be charged $1.50 per month until your balance is 0.

In order to find out if you have money on your card and check your balance, you’ll have to go online to the Chase website. If you prefer to have a paper statement sent to you, you can select that option for a small fee of $0.95 per statement.

Getting cash is as simple as putting your card in an ATM machine - but you only get 2 withdrawals per month. Any extra withdrawal will cost you $1.50. Chase ATMs are free, but you’ll have to pay the surcharge anywhere else.

The same goes for bank teller withdrawals. You get 1 free bank teller transaction per month. After that, it will cost you $4.00 plus any bank fees.

If you’re out of the country, you’ll pay $3 plus 3% to withdraw.

Oh, and you can’t use it in a gas pump.

But hey, using it inside to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets doesn’t have a charge!

Forgive me for being old fashioned, but I’d prefer the old paper check in the mail any day. It looks like the only one benefiting from this new system is Chase.

1 comment October 23rd, 2008

I Came For Groceries, Not a Job

Is it just me, or are grocery stores like Kroger increasingly upping their efforts to get customers to do their work for them?

The Kroger by me recently bought out all of the Farmer Jack grocery stores in the area and promptly shut them down. This means that at any given time, you’ll always find huge lines and tons of people at the grocery store. It also means they’re almost always out of any type of diet soda or milk that doesn’t expire tomorrow.

On my last trip, I found myself stuck in line behind the usual 5 or 6 old ladies who insist on writing checks instead of upgrading to a check card. When it was finally my turn to start unloading my groceries on to the automated grocery smasher conveyor belt the cashier turned off her light and said “I’m going on break, you’ll have to get in another line.”

I told her that waiting in another line wasn’t acceptable, and asked her if she could please ring me up too. Ok, actually I said something along the lines of “no, either you ring me up now or I’m going to walk out with this cart full of Cheetos and Soda.

Begrudgingly, she decided to scan my items.

The other thing you’ll routinely won’t see at my Kroger store is baggers. Does anybody remember the days when there would be a person waiting at the end of the grocery smashing belt to put said smashed groceries into a bag for you? Yeah, they don’t do that anymore.

When the cashier was done bitching about having to work 5 hours straight without a lunch break (oh the tyranny!) she scowled at me: “are you going to bag those?”

“No Ma’am, I already have a job. I don’t want to work here too.” apparently isn’t the answer she was expecting, as I got nothing but dirty looks from her while she finished scanning my items and proceeded to bag them up.

I did, however, help her by lifting the big items (cat food, kitty litter, and case of beer) into my cart for her. I figured it was the least I could do.

Honestly though, why do grocery stores expect me to start doing their work for them? It’s bad enough that the cost of groceries is increasing at exponential rates far greater than gasoline, but now you want me to do your job too?

Am I the only one who thinks I should get a discount for using the U-Scan machines? Which, by the way, are really fun when you try to scan a 20lb bag of cat litter and it won’t let you proceed until it feels that 20lbs on the shelf that’s way too small to hold the cat litter. If you ever try that, you’ll need to wait for one of the cashiers to get back from break and enter in some secret code so the machine keeps working. Trying to use your foot to apply 20lbs of pressure will only get you weird looks from the people behind you who for some reason are only buying a case of beer and a can of tuna fish.

Let’s go back to the good old days of the 90s - when grocery stores actually had employees.

Add comment October 21st, 2008

The Michigan Job Market

I’ve been monitoring the job market here in Michigan lately, and things aren’t good. There’s a reason that Michigan college graduates are leaving the state at alarming rates: there aren’t any jobs here for them.

Searching on Indeed and Craigslist, most of the jobs available in Michigan are entry level non-degree positions, or factory jobs. What few other jobs remain are currently well aware of the competition and using it to exploit applicants.

I saw one for a marketing director that required a masters degree yet was paying $38,000. In some of my previous companies, the “director” title meant a 6-figure salary to go with it.

I’ve seen PHP programmer jobs being offered at hourly rates less than what I’ve paid companies in India to develop websites. There’s so many programmers out of work that some are willing to take $10/hour jobs writing code. I’ve always been pretty anti union, but those views might be soon changing.

I know part of it is the auto-related dominance of our economy here. Whereas “product manager” implies thoughts of having a team of programmers out west, it means overseeing production of tractor tires in Detroit.

Let’s get with it Michigan. We need to start attracting some higher tech companies here. I’ve been working with a lot of start-ups lately, and they’re all in the valley or Seattle. I’ve seen a few on the east coast, but nothing good is coming out of Michigan - except our college graduates.

Add comment October 20th, 2008

Advertising Digital TV Switch On Cable

Why are they showing the digital tv switchover ads on cable?

I was watching Comedy Central last night when I saw one of those ads every commercial break.

First of all, we’re not the target audience - our TVs will keep working.

Secondly, you gave a website to visit for people who need converter boxes. Something tells me that if you still get TV by antennae, you probably don’t have a computer to visit the website with.

It seems to me your target demographic would be better reached with a newspaper article or a story on the 6:00 news.

Add comment October 15th, 2008

Domain Names Tied To Email is Fail

Why do we still require an email address for domain names? Aside from that, why do we tie it to the registration and administration of the domain name?

I’ve been trying to transfer a .ca domain name to somebody else, but according to Tucows and Cira, it’s just not possible.

See, when I registered the domain name I did it with my old Comcast email account. Last football season though, I got pissed at not having the big10 network, so I switched cable and internet providers. In doing so, I no longer have my old comcast email account.

Can you see the problem?

Issuing an email change request sends an email confirmation to the old address. So does issuing a transfer. Guess what? So does changing name servers for some stupid reason.

So I called Tucows, even if I verify the credit card number, or call from the phone # listed on the account, they can’t help me.

I have to fill out the form at adminchange.com.

Sounds simple until you look at the form.

Not only does it need to be signed in front of a Notary, but I need a lawyer, doctor, judge, police officer, or certified accountant who is not related to me but has known me for 2 years to witness it. WHAT THE FUCK?

Then I have to fax it - talk about another pointless outdated technology.

Somehow, I have a feeling this domain transfer is going to take a while.

Could the process be any more retarded?

Here’s a new process:

“Hi I want to change this on this domain name?”
“sure, what’s the last 4 digits of the credit card on your account and your account password?”
“xxxx yyyyyy”
“ok great, we’ll change that for you right now.”

See how simple that was?

3 comments October 15th, 2008