For years and years, I’ve driven all of my vehicles without having car insurance. Getting coverage was just too expensive, and I hadn’t ever had an accident. I couldn’t justify paying so much money for something that I just didn’t need. I know that the laws “require” all vehicles on the road to have insurance coverage, but I have never been pulled over for speeding, or anything, which would have required me to show proof of insurance.
Things all changed, the other day, when I was involved in a multi-car accident. There was a major amount of damage, but all of the people involved were alright.
Now, since there’s a law that requires insurance companies to accept people with per-existing conditions, all is good! All I have to do is shop around for the best rate on insurance that I can get, sign the contract, and all of the repairs to my vehicle will be covered! It sure is great that the government is forcing these nasty insurance companies to pay my $2,000 repair bill, and all I have to do is pay about $400 for the six month contract.
Once the repairs are made, of course, there won’t be any reason for me to keep the insurance, so I won’t even have to renew the contract.
What? You ask, “Won’t the insurance companies lose a lot of money and possibly go out of business if a lot of people do this?” Well, of course they will. But why should I care? Once all of the insurance companies go out of business because they can’t afford to keep going, the government will take over. You know… the government… the ones that use the taxes that we pay them to pay their bills.
Of course, once the government “takes over” insurance, they’ll also have to cover those pre-existing conditions. The same thing will keep happening. Will the government be able to afford to keep running losses? Of course not. The national debt is already higher than ever before. They will have to try, though. Where will they try to get more money from? They’ll get it from the same place they always have… from the taxpayers. Of course, now that everybody from the insurance industry is unemployed, they’ll have to raise them to an even higher percentage than ever before.
Of course, everything that I wrote, above is not true, but hopefully you can see where I’m going. When the government forces a private industry into a business practice that will undoubtedly cause that industry to lose money, something is very wrong. Forcing insurance companies into covering people that they would not normally think about giving coverage to is very dangerous. Just look back and see what happened when lenders were forced to give loans to people that they would not normally take that kind of chance on. How many banks have failed since the start of 2009? Here’s a list.
A few days ago, I bought an Acer AspireOne. It’s one of those new Netbooks with the Intel Atom N450, running at 1.66GHz. It came with Windows 7 Started edition, 1Gb of RAM and a 140Gb HD. I only bought it for one specific reason and because of that, I’m sure that I’ll leave the OS alone. Although Windows 7 Starter seems pretty limited, it will do exactly what I need it to do.
The project that I bought it for will have the computer running, unattended, for months (and hopefully years) at a time. I’ve had it running since I pulled it out of the box (minus a few restarts because of software installs/uninstalls) and it definitely looks like it will do what I need it to do. There is very little heat generated, and I should be able to put it somewhere that will have very little airflow.
Even though I already use a full-size laptop, I found myself wanting to “move around” a little more with this little thing. It’s about half the size of my main computer (literally) and probably weighs one-third as much. The screen resolution leaves a bit to be desired (1024×600), but I realize that it’s not meant to be everything that a full-size computer is. For what I’m using it for, the resolution will work just fine, though. Actually, I’m turning the resolution down to 800×600 for this project.
When I get things where they need to be with this project, and leave the computer where it ends up, I will probably think about getting another one for personal use. Since I’m already mobile, and my main laptop goes everywhere with me, there might not be a reason for it, but we’ll see. If the project that I’m using it for takes off and works like I think it should, I’m sure I’ll be buying quite a few more or them.
I’ve been a customer of Electronic Arts (EA Video Games) for many years, now. My wife and I have purchased all of the Sims games and expansions and we (at least “she” does) continue to play them, often.
I recently purchased a new game from them called Mass Effect 2. I had read all of the reviews, blogs, and anything else I could find, before making the decision to pay $59.95 for the “Digital Deluxe Edition”. That version allowed me to download the complete game and also came with a “Collector Gear and Sniper Rifle” and “Cerberus Network Activation”.
The reviews of this game made it hard for me to wait for the download, but as soon as it was on my computer, I installed it and fired it up. Starting Mass Effect 2 brought up a menu that allowed me to start the game, change the settings, etc. When I pressed “Play” my screen went black, as it was adjusting the resolution of my screen. Then… “Mass Effect 2 has stopped working”…
I tried many different things in order to try and get this game working, and nothing has worked. My computer is a Pentium CoreDuo2 2.2GHz proc with 4Gb of RAM, running 64-bit Windows7. After the first couple hours of trying to get it to work, I contacted EA Support. That was on 02/19/2010 @ 04:55 PM. Since then, I have contacted them four more times.
I have not heard from anybody at Electronic Arts, at all. I’ve been on the forums, searching in vein for a solution. At this point, it seems that I am out of luck.
I gave Electronic Arts $59.95, they allowed me to download a program to my computer that will not run. They seemingly refuse to answer any of my support requests. There is nothing at all that I can do about this, though. They “delivered” the software that I paid for (did they “deliver” or did I pick it up?… oh well, semantics.). Did they lay off all of their support staff, or what? The least they could do is email me back to tell me “Sorry… I guess it won’t work, and thanks for your money”, but I have not heard a thing.
Meanwhile, I’m out sixty bucks. I will say that because of this, it will be THE LAST time that I purchase anything from Electronic Arts.
While updating a few things on the hotel website, this morning, I realized something. There is a lot of information on the internet about different businesses. Hotels and the internet have become second nature for a lot of people, and we get a lot of our reservations via online bookings. Even though we have a pretty decent rate for online reservations, there’s a few things that I simply cannot do anything about.
When people make reservations for any hotel online, they spend a lot of time looking at reviews from other people that have stayed there. Some of the reviews are good, and some of them are bad. In my mind (maybe I’m wrong) people would be more likely to leave a review of their stay at a hotel if they had a “bad” experience, rather than a good one. This is probably true for other businesses and services that allow people to give “reviews”, also.
I’ve stayed at many hotels, used a lot of different services, and done business with a lot of people in my lifetime. The only times that I ever remember leaving a review or saying something online about a business is when I’ve had a bad experience. Maybe it’s a way of “getting back” at a business for not being what I thought they should be. Maybe when I’ve had “really good” experiences, I thought it was just to be expected, and that leaving good feedback or a review for something that I paid for would serve as sort of a “double payment”, or something.
What really got me thinking about this was the fact that since the reviews are out there, there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it. There is no way to prove that what the reviewer said is true. There is also no way to prove that the reviewer had actually ever even been a guest (or customer). There is also no way to get rid of reviews (good or bad) that are so out of date that they don’t even apply, anymore.
Do the negative comments for a hotel come from truly unhappy guests? Most likely, yes. Like I said, I would be more apt to leave a review if I had a bad experience, myself. Do the positive comments come from truly “happy” guests? That’s hard to say. It seems a lot less likely. There is a possibility of “shill” hotel reviews, I’m sure.
I will say that since I work at the front desk of a hotel, I hear from guests “all the time”. As in any business, there are complaints and compliments. Taking care of the problems is a big part of any job. Not all of the problems can be handled the way that the customers “thinks” they should be handled. Taking the compliments for something that I had little or no part in happens a lot, though, also. We do get thank you notes from people who have stayed at the hotel, but I may have never seen or talked to them, personally.
Have you ever left a “good” review of a business, just for the purpose of leaving a good review?
Watching this map makes me feel lucky that I’m in one of the few counties that is still “yellow”, and I still have a job, but to see that it’s coming this way is disheartening. The data on this map (at this time) has only been updated through December 2009, when the unemployment rate was 9.3%. We all know that it’s went up, since then.
To know that there seems to be no real economists involved in making any decisions about how to recover from this makes me doubt that we will recover… at least for quite a long time.
Does anybody involved in making decisions about the economy actually know their history? I guess that they decided to skip the 1920-1940 years, since we learned that throwing money at the problem just prolonged the suffering, back then. Not only are they throwing money at a problem that they shouldn’t… they’re throwing it in all the wrong places. Top-down is not the way to fix this and stimulate the economy. This needs a bottom-up fix… something I haven’t seen anybody mention. Comment or Talk
You would think that CNET would know the difference between Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs. I caught this screenshot, before they actually fixed the problem with the captions on this story.
I’m not judging, but it looks to me like Ina Fried has a lot of confusion in her/his life. It seems to be affecting him/her, or something. Focus!
Tomorrow, I’ll be a grandfather for the fifth time. My daughter is scheduled to have her daughter on Thursday. I will then have as many grandchildren as I have children.
It’s hard to believe that I only turned 40, about three months ago and I already have this many.
I’ll add more details, soon.
UPDATE: Maycee was born Thursday morning. She weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19″ long. Both mother and daughter are doing fine. You can see her here.
In order to move on with this site, I need to get some things off my chest. Not that I can’t continue without getting it out in the open, but it will make things so much easier for me once I do.
I had met a friend online about five years ago. Throughout those five years we had become great friends, and had spent a lot of time together, talking on Skype, playing games, sharing our thoughts and views, and more. He had also become friends with my wife, and she would spend a lot of time with us doing the same (except for the political arguing).
In late Summer or early Fall of 2009, we had asked that he come down to visit us for the holiday season. We had a hotel room reserved for him that would have been no cost to him. We had purchased special things that we knew that he liked, such as food and coffee, and even had gifts that he would find in his stocking on Christmas Day.
As far as we knew, everything was set. He had his bus ticket “sitting on the desk next to him” and we knew what time he would be arriving in town.
Over the months between the planning and the time that he was to come, my wife and I had some doubts as to whether he would actually come, or not. There was no real reason behind the doubts we had… it was just a feeling. On the morning before he was to leave, my wife had talked to him, and she told me that she had no doubt that he was coming, any more.
Then… During the time that he “should have been” sleeping, packing, getting ready to leave, or on the bus, we discovered something that we still can’t comprehend.
We were friends of his on Facebook. Two of our sons and a daughter-in-law were also listed as his Facebook friends. All of a sudden, he removed all of us from his friends, there. We had also played World of Warcraft, and he was in our guild. Suddenly, his level 70-ish character (his only toon) was deleted. He hadn’t even logged on to delete it.
He still had friends listed when I looked at his Facebook page, but since I was no longer a friend, that was all I could see. He could not claim that somebody “hacked” his accout or computer and got rid of everything, since it was obvious that it was very selective. We received no explaination from him… no phone call… no email.
I actually held out hope that he was playing some sort of “trick” on us, and that he would call us at the time that the bus was supposed to arrive. That never happened.
What did happen is I had sent him one email… not asking for a reason, but to tell him how bad he hurt us. After that, I deleted any contact information, listings, bookmarks, and anything else that I had from him. Even though I had deleted everything, it didn’t answer the big question… “Why”… that I have. Maybe there isn’t a reason… or what he feels may be a “good enough” reason why. All that he had to do was make something up and we would have been okay with it.
Instead, he decided to burn a bridge. That wide river that took five years to cross now has no way accross, except to swim. I’m on the other side of that river and won’t be crossing it, again.
Welcome to the latest incarnation of Webfeed Central. Because there have been many things that have changed in my life, I figured that it would also be a great time to get rid of the old, and start fresh. With the new decade upon us, I decided to bring the site back to life without any reminders from the past.
I still believe that those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it, but in the case of this website, I will remember the past and try not to make any of the same mistakes that were made. Even though any new visitors may not know this site’s history, I would now like to keep it that way.
So with that, I’ll say “Hello” to all of the new visitors to the site and “Welcome Back” to all of our faithful readers (if there’s any of you that are still around).
