Rants

We have three lights in front of the house that we leave on all the time. One to light the house number and stairs, one bug light to light the door and one at the end of the driveway. It seems like these burn out way too often and all 3 will go about a day or so apart, so it seems like I am always complaining about burnt out light bulbs. My mother-in-law found some 2,000 hour bulbs in a catalog so she ordered me a six pack.

Last Friday I changed out the one at the end of the driveway with a long lasting bulb. I can see why they last that long, these suckers are dim. I guess it is expending 60 watts of power and giving off 30 watts of light and 30 watts of heat. I’ll let you know it lasts 76 more days.

I should have known better.

I downloaded my state income tax software (TaxCut) and when I was done and had printed the invoice I was asked if I’d like a free trial of a internet music service called RealRhapsody. Being a sucker for free and music I said yes. I was then taken to a download page so I could get the necessary software to play along. At that point I figured I maybe I would just forget about it if I needed some proprietary software to listen to the music, but I finish the download anyway. Up pops my gmail notifiyer: Welcome to the Rhapsody digital music service!

What? I’m in? Opened Gmail and sure enough, there are two emails from Rhapsody welcoming me to their service. The second one included these lines: You’ve successfully subscribed to the All Access subscription plan on the Rhapsody digital music service. You can now log in to Rhapsody and enjoy your free trial. Cancel any time before the trial term expires, and your credit card will not be billed.
signed
Rhapsody Customer Care
RealNetworks, Inc

Real Networks, those rat bastards. I have finished downloading the software, but now I know I want nothing to do with it. I go the http://listen.com and try to sign in so I can cancel this mess. Can’t sign in, not unless you do it using their software. Shit. I guess I am going to have to install it. After installation, which was relatively painless compared to what I was expecting, I clicked on the My Account tab. Under subscriptions, it informs me I am Active and subscribed to All Access @ $9.95/month. There at the bottom is this:
To unsubscribe, please call customer service at 866-834-5509.

Rat Bastards. I subscribe by clicking one little button, the folks at TaxCut supply them with my credit card number and billing information, and I’m all signed up. But to get out I’m going to have to call and jump through “Customer Service” hoops. Rat Bastards.

The only honorable thing to do is to stay subscribed for the next 13.5 days and then cancel. But while I’m signed up I’ll go grab a freeware program that rips anything coming through my sound card and do a little copying.

My mother-in-law gave me a Target gift card for Christmas. Tonight Donna and I stopped in to see about me spending it. While I shopped for DVDs and CDs she headed over to the 50% off Christmas Stuff Sale. I looked up and down and far and wide, but just couldn’t pull the trigger. I was really looking for HELP! and it wasn’t there. There were plenty of movies I kind of wanted to see, but they just didn’t fall into the buy category. I couldn’t find two CDs I really wanted (needed two to spend most of the value of the card.) I was tempted by a two-disc Norah Jones box, one of her second CD and another of a DVD with a few videos and an interview. In the end I decided to wait and see about maybe heading over to the bigger store in Augusta later this week.

Donna didn’t have any trouble filling her basket with 1/2 off merchandise. As we checked out the total of her stuff came to about 2 bucks less that the gift card value, so guess how we paid? Right, easy come, easy go….

Please accept — with no obligation, implied or implicit — my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable tradition of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference. In addition, please enjoy a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2005.