My warranty has expired!

Who hasn't received countless notices in the mail that the warranty on their car has expired and they need to extend it immediately before it goes up in smoke like a "Mission Impossible" tape? Worse yet are the phone calls -- always at supper time or during an exciting episode of Jeopardy -- with a recorded message breathlessly telling me it's their final notice. I should be so lucky. My car is a 2003 model and has been out of warranty for some time now. Since the mailings mention the model and year they know that too. One harassed fellow citizen pretty much lost it over one of these scams.Though threatening to touch a match to the offender's place of business seems a might harsh, I can't say similar thoughts haven't occasionally crossed my mind. Now the poor soul is in the slammer on a terrorism charge. If there was ever a time for the court to show some mercy this is it.

It's difficult to imagine that enough people fall for this pitch too cover the marketing expenses. It's even harder to imagine any subscriber actually recovering even a small portion of covered repair costs. It might be interesting to request a sample contract and peruse the fine print.

I recall a news item a few years back exposing the fact that our DMV sold auto registration data lists to marketing firms. Who on Earth would think that was a good idea? Public servants my foot. Then they set up a state "Do not call list" to stem the barrage of telemarketing calls. Geez!

Many of these hucksters have given up on the car owners and moved on to helping people suffering from mortgage and credit card stress. They are implying that they have Federal stimulus money to pass around. At least we can't accuse these bottom feeders of lazing around sucking up unemployment money. But then maybe they are. Sitting at home dialing the phone while collecting unemployment compensation and food stamps, etc.

Sadly these lowlifes tend to target senior citizens that are often overly trusting and easily coerced. Even eager to avoid offending the caller. Think of that the next time the phone rings. Maybe even make a list of things to say AND NOT SAY during the call. The best thing to do is just hang up. Don't worry about the caller feeling rejected. They'll get over it.

Blogging with alacrity

Drudge briefly ran a piece on recent cyber attacks on treasury dept. and secret service web sites. The article quoted DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano as saying something like "agents are meeting the challenges of cyberwarfare defense with alacrity." Alacrity. ALACRITY! alacrity. In the context of the article it means, "looking to kick butt!" It's a nice word I like it. It feels good on the tongue. I think I'll find a way to use it in conversation at the coffee shop today. Watch it bouce from forehead to forehead causing wrinkles and expressions that say, "What the hell kind of a high brow word is that?"

I just went back to the Drudge Report to re read the article and get a better fix on this new (for me) word and it's gone!. The Napolitano quote I mean. They took away my word! It's like it was never there. Why would they do that? Was it a misquote? Did Janet call up and say, "I didn't say that. Hell I don't even know what alacrity means" (erronously pronouncing it with a soft cee). Or maybe she meant to say they were on hold with the Microsoft help desk to deal with the problem. Did Drudge decide it is too much of a liberal sounding word for its pages? Did cyber attackers hack the site and ice my word? Web content is constantly changing unlike a print issue of the New York Times where you can circle a word and slap it down on the table prove to those skeptical coffee swillers it's legit word. They'll think I stay up nights searching through the dictionary for arcane words to drop on them. They're tough crowd.

Ah ha! Plugged alacrity into news.google.com and came up with 195 hits. Topmost is the BBC article that Drudge first cited and later switched to Yahoo News. So it's a Brit word. Use it and I'll sound like a Limey. I'd better rethink this whole thing. Wait there it is again. The BBC used the exact same quote in a June 30, 2009 piece on a related but different subject. So they liked the word too. Couldn't wait to throw it out there again. I wonder if it will catch on and gain common usage? I remember back to the 2004 (I think) election campaign when the tv talking heads learned the word 'gravitas'. Mostly in referring to John Kerry they beat that poor little word to death. It tore through the media like a wild fire through dry brush. I haven't heard it since. Don't miss it either.

I hope they don't do that to alacrity. It's too cool a word.

Another pet peave

I've been online since about 1979. There wasn't an internet back then. We had bulletin board services (BBS) where local computer enthusiasts kept their computers turned on 24/7 and connected to a dial up modem. Dial their number and the machine would answer allowing you to upload or down load files and leave comments on a discussion board. Pretty rudimentary, but it was a new and exiting way to converse with others and exchange idea. Interesting or fun posts where copied and posted on other BBS thus working their way around the country.

Fast forward through the era of Compuserve and AOL to the internet explosion. With it came an email system allowing us to communicate with anyone with an online account. Cheaper than long distance telephone we could keep in touch with friends and family at almost no cost. Easier and faster than snail mail. Better yet you could send to same message to a number of your friends and relatives. What a deal! For the recipient running low on original thoughts to share it was just a matter of forwarding fun or informative stuff one to a new list of contacts. Spam was born. Some of the more popular ones would find its way back to you every so often.

Some individuals who I suspect lacked meaningful goals in their life developed a hobby of creating such spam in the form of chain letters for the sole purpose of seeing how long before it came back. News that the federal income tax is illegal and you don't need to pay it or forty pound New York rats that stole babies from their cribs. Some of these are just tongue-in-cheek fun while others are nothing more than slanderous gossip with harmful intentions. Remember Procter and Gamble having to publicly refute the notion that their logo is in fact a satanic symbol? I personally hate gossip, malicious or otherwise, and refuse to participate. I won't embarrass myself by forwarding this trash to ten of my friends as instructed.

For a long time I simply ignored such alerts as Mars will soon be closer to the Earth than any time in the past 30,000 years or so and appear bigger than the full moon. Lately it's become more of a personal campaign to fight email pollution. I respond to the Forward-button-pusher by gently (or not) pointing out the error of their ways including links to informational sites that logically refute these nonsensical chain letters. As I polish my reputation as a curmudgeon I have started to use the 'reply all' feature to publicly refute and hopefully embarrass the forwarder. Here's why.

The other day I received an informative email from a close friend telling me how I could survive a heart attack with no one around to help. It went on to describe how by coughing energetically during an infarction one can massage the heart enough to keep the blood flowing. The text cited medical establishments that discovered this method, etc. to give it street cred. Coughing CPR! Something everyone over forty should practice, right? I've already had one infarction and this could save my life some day. It was pretty well crafted and almost had me until the last sentence. "BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE". The tip off. A quick jump to a couple of my favorite web sites, snopes.com and hoax-slayer.com brought me back to reality. Just enough science fact to hook the non-skeptic, but otherwise total B.S. Stuff like this could be dangerous. Sooner or later there will be a spam letter circulating that will contribute to someone's injury or even death. How will the innocent forwarder feel then?

Fighting this junk email is a lonely battle. Would you like to join me? We could start a new grass roots movement.