Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

There’s an ad in one of my magazines about talking to your kids about drugs. One of the little bullet points is something like, “But I did drugs when I was a kid. How can I talk about not doing them? OMG hypocrite!”

The response mentions that drugs are so much worse now than when you, the reader, were a kid. Because now they have things like Ecstasy, crack, and methamphetamines.

Guess they missed the part where you could buy Ex legally in Dallas nightclubs in the 80s. Or the crack epidemic in the same time frame. Or that doctors used to prescribe methamphetamines for weight loss in the 50s.

And are they ignoring heroin, LSD, and other drugs?

Sure, talk to your kids about drugs. But if you’re running an ad campaign, don’t come up with silly disinformation and hyperbole when the facts can work just as well. Go into the legal “designer” drugs that some basement chemist formulated by ripping off a molecule, where absolutely nothing is known about the effects but kids take them because they’re legal, or because they’ve been substituted for something else. And die from them. There’s plenty to be concerned about with drugs without pulling stuff out of your ass.

I finished my presentation for school yesterday, which I had been waiting on before upgrading to Leopard. Got out the disk earlier today, popped it in the ol’ Macbook Pro, and… *whir* *whir* *whir?* *whir.*

Damn thing won’t spin up.

Tried it in the 17″ Powerbook. Worked fine.

I was having problems with this drive the other day on a home-burned disk but thought it was because it was a home-burned disk. Apparently not. Now I gotta go to the maul and deal with the Genius Bar tomorrow. So much for my 4 days of nothing to do. Feh. At least I’ve got Applecare.

Go check out today’s Xkcd. Yeah, I do that too.

Obligatory “SecuROM sucks” here.

Greetings,

I purchased Knights of the Old Republic 2 to play on my MacBook Pro
using Parallels virtualization software. When I try to play it, the
disk spins for a long time, then I get a popup window saying
“Original disc could not be found or authenticated.” I have all four
original disks, plus the packaging, sitting next to me.

I tried to find the option to create an analysis file to send you,
but there is no such thing on my right-click menu. The game plays
under Boot Camp, but I need to be able to play it under Parallels.

Thanks in advance for your help.

——————–

Hello,

Thank you for your email. Please understand that a SecuROM protected
application will not run on a MAC running Parallel Tools. Please insert
the application into a Windows based PC and try to launch the application
again.

Best regards,

SecuROM Support Team
SecuROM on the web: http://www.securom.com
or via e-mail: support@securom.com

It’s copy protection, yes? Meant to keep me from making unauthorized copies of my legally-purchased software? But even though I’m using the original disks, it won’t work (I think Parallels emulates virtual drives).

Right. Makes perfect sense.

“Discrete” means separate.
“Discreet” means quietly.

If you do something discretely, you do it one at a time. Unconnectedly. Apart.
If you do something discreetly, you do it unobtrusively. Circumspectly. Silently.

I don’t think I have seen ANYONE use the proper spelling for “discreet” in the last 4 years. Did they stop teaching vocabulary and spelling in schools? I’ve even seen posters on a forum dedicated to college professors consistently spell it “discrete.” Oy.

Along those lines, go to http://www.freerice.com/ and see how high you can get. I got as high as 47, which probably means that I should quit reading the OED for fun.

Ozarka Water home delivery sucks.

I’d been a customer of theirs for a few years. I would go to PayMyWater.com to pay my balance when I got a new bill via email. Last October, the credit card that I was using to pay online expired. I received no notice from Ozarka. I got no error messages when I attempted to pay online. I thought everything was fine at first. Then I started getting bigger bills, so I tried to pay those online too. Looked fine. Thought it was cool.

Until I got a letter from a collection agency.

I contacted Ozarka and asked them what the hell, man? They said I had a $450 or so balance. Um. Apparently they thought I had defaulted because my payments weren’t going through and charged me for the cooler. I asked them about the credit card information I had on file with them and it was only then that I was informed that it was expired. That was in the spring. I paid my bill with Ozarka via a good credit card sometime around May, updated my information online, and thought all was right with the world.

Until I started getting calls from the collection agency.

Ozarka has apparently never bothered to tell them that 1) there was a foul-up on their end, or 2) the account is paid in full. I’ve been calling Ozarka repeatedly to ask them to clear this up, they keep saying they’ll handle it, and they never do. Now I’ve got this listed on my Experian credit report.

I just talked to Helena over at Ozarka today. Keep in mind that the last 3 times I spoke with Ozarka, they told me they would take care of the problem. Helena doesn’t like to let people talk. Helena has a yen to interrupt. Helena said that they may take care of it and that what I said was untrue. She claimed they sent out letters when credit cards expire, even though none of the other many reps I’ve spoken with there have said any such thing. Helena said that it’s okay for collection agencies to be rude, because they’re collection agencies. She said that if they can’t send me a letter, they will send me a letter. I am confused. Also, Helena claimed that since I cancelled my Ozarka account, they’re not required to deal with me anymore, and that her talking to me was a “courtesy.”

So I will return the courtesy and discuss this situation online.

Previous posts here, here, and here about my problems with Hearthsong.

Guess what arrived on my doorstep this evening! That’s right – a package from Hearthsong. I haven’t opened it, nor do I plan to (I don’t think). These items were delivered on January 3. I originally ordered them December 13, with two day shipping. I tried canceling the order via phone and web form, to no avail. Hearthsong is almost criminally incompetent.

I guess I can use that postage sticker to send back this package. Still no refund on any of my shipping costs, although they were kind enough to charge me yesterday for the items that they sent (and shipped overnight, not like Christmas was a week and a half ago or anything).

I fume.

Previous posts here and here about my problems with Hearthsong.

Turns out a friend of mine had the same problem with them this year – ordered toys for her child, they never came.

Yesterday a hand-addressed envelope came from Hearthsong. “This should be good,” sez hubby. Opening it revealed… (are you ready?)

A mailing label. Just so I could, you know, mail back my non-existent order to them. And a many-photocopied scrap of paper that said something like, “We’re sorry you have to return an item. Here’s your label. Etc.”

These people are too much, honestly. Still no refund, either.

– My items were not delivered still.
– My promised $6.99 refund for expedited shipping was never issued.
– Hearthsong claims they’ll be shipping items out overnight today and tomorrow.
– I told them to hell with that, I wanted to cancel the remainder of my order and I want a refund for the entire $30 or so of shipping that they charged me.
– I never once got an apology, although “Clarence” told me several times, “No problem.” Wrong choice of words, buddy. There’s a big problem.