News & Opinions

It’s been so slow, being back on dial up internet access. It gets frustrating when you have to have to wait for 5 minutes for a page to load.

I’ve spent as much time (or more) online this past week, since being back on dial up, but I’ve accomplished 1/3 of what I was before.

I called yesterday morning and placed an order for Satellite Internet through Hughes Net. A nice gentleman came out first thing this morning and installed it. (Talk about fast, Wild Blue took over a week)

And, after installing it, it did not look like a rats nest. (Another improvement over Wild Blue)

I will be spending the next few days getting caught up on everything.

Telemarketers can be so annoying. It was to the point that when my caller id showed unknown or an 800 number, I would just let it ring until my answering machine picked up. Sometimes they would leave messages, sometimes they would not.

Last year, I added my number on the Do Not Call list. However, it seems to have had little effect.

A few months ago, I was in a happy and goofy mood, and answered the phone. I do not remember what they trying to sell, perhaps magazines. Anyway, I started making loud sounds like an Indian doing a rain dance. It totally freaked the people on the phone out, they thought I was crazy and did not stay on the phone long.

My children thought this was hilarious. They laughed so hard their faces were totally red. So now, every time ‘unknown’ or an 800 number calls, my boys fight over who is going to answer the phone.

For a year I had been searching for DSL or a Wireless Internet that would be available in my area. I live out in the boonies, and unfortunately, Verizon, A T & T and Comcast are not available in my area. (Along with a hundred other places that I have searched for.)

I debated a while on getting Satellite Internet. One of the things that helped me to choose the WildBlue Satellite Internet Service, was because I am a DishNetwork Subscriber, and it was available through DishNetwork.

To start off you have to wait a week before someone will come out to your home to install the Satellite Dish.

Two men who were supposed to install my satellite dish came out for the first time about a week after I had ordered the service, unprepared. They did not bring the items needed and therefore I did not the dish set up. They had to ‘re-schedule.’

Days later, on their second visit, it took them half a day to install it, and the equipment in the corner of my room looked like a rats nest. They were very unprofessional to say the least.

Now here’s the kicker, things they will not tell you. Being I had been on dial up for long, I was accustomed to downloading and uploading what I wanted, when I wanted, with no idea of how many kb, mb, etc. that I was using.

After being on WildBlue Satellite Internet Service for an estimated two months, my connection was funky. It would not load pages, it would time out and give me error messages.

I called the Support Number trying to get it straightened out. The lady rudely let me know that I had reached my ‘limit’ for the month. When I told her that I was unaware of a ‘limit’ she informed me the information was available on their website as how much I could download and upload per month.

For $50+ (with taxes) a month, I have a limit? Although dial up may be half the speed, it’s only $10 a month and you have NO LIMIT.

I was angry, and told her to cancel my account being I could not get online anyway due to their ‘rules.’ (I cannot afford $79+ a month for internet service, which would be their ‘upgrade’ to lift the low limit)

She informed me that I was under a contract and should I cancel, that I would still have to pay $25 a month for 18 months cancellation fee. Now is this not the most ridiculous cancellation fee you have ever heard of? I could understand a one time fee of $25, but for 18 months?

But I can understand why they do that. They are out for the money. They know their service sucks, and that people will not keep it long, so they want to bleed money out of people any way that they can.

I just want everyone to know all about WildBlue Satellite Internet Service before making a decision to use them.

I do believe it is now a law in every single state of the U.S.A. to wear seatbelts. Should this law be broken, you will have a large fine to pay. Not only is the money an issue, but more importantly, seatbelts save lives.

So why isn’t it mandatory for all school buses to have seatbelts? I have had a few people tell me that in some cities, the buses do have seatbelts. Well, my question is, why not all school buses everywhere? Shouldn’t they also be concerned with the lives of our children?

School buses are not exempt from wrecks. Many buses have wrecked and many children have been killed or seriously injured. Could their lives have been spared if they would have had seatbelts on?

Regardless of the cost to install seatbelts in the buses, this should be mandatory, or the school should receive a large fine.

Most people love to laugh, and every person has their own sense of humor. Sometimes humor can be found in the least expected places. When you search for jokes or humor online, you will get ten million results, but a lot of the sites have the same stuff. The same jokes, or the same pics, not much originality to them.

Today, while I was visiting sites on entrecard, I came across a site titled “The Worse Blog - Just another crappy blog” (http://theworseblog.com)

I was taking the url and title at its word, thinking it was going to be a crappy blog. Boy was I wrong! As I have stated in another post, you can’t judge a site by its title…. today once again proved it.

By the time I got to the bottom of the page, I was laughing so hard that I was hurting.

This site is not your average site, for certain. The author has a naturally comical way with explaining her every day situations in life as you will see in her articles, “I Hate Public Bathrooms,” “Anchors Away,” “Stuff I Hate,” “Butt Out,” and others.

In closing, I must say that “The Worse Blog” is by far one of The Best Blogs that I have come across, and I highly recommend it to all.

We now have an estimated one month until Halloween, two months until Thanksgiving, and three months until Christmas!

I am on the lookout for ‘Holiday’ blogs to add to my list of links (blogroll).

Readers love Halloween and Christmas stories, Shoppers love Sales and Coupons, and we can all use ideas and tips on decorating, safety, dealing with stress through out the holidays, etc.

As each Holiday ends, I will remove the links and add links to the next Holidays (Valentines Day, Easter, etc.)

If you know of any type of ’Holiday’ blogs, feel free to post a comment with the link and title. Coupons, Tips, Ideas, most any ’Holiday’ blog pertaining to the nearing Holidays.

I must share my experience that I had with Entrecard.

Just a few days ago, I joined them. I thought it was a pretty neat site, unlike anything I’ve really seen before. And being it was one of the only sites that I know of, that you use with Today, I knew I had to give it a try.

It is somewhat user-friendly, but does take a while to figure out. Reading the E-Book helps a lot with questions you may have.

I thoroughly enjoyed going to campaign area, visiting other peoples sites and dropping on them. You will come across a variety of sites that way. The titles can sometimes fool you, like the saying, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover,” well, you can’t judge a blog by it’s title.

Anyway, so for a couple of days, I visit sites, I drop, I do a little advertising on others sites, I participate in a couple of contests to get some ec, I accept requests for advertising…. Everything was going great.

This morning, I had 237+ ec.. Which for me, for a couple days time, I felt was good. I figured I would slowly make my way up to doing more and more.

At some of the sites that I would try to drop on, it would state ‘invalid.’ And this made me wonder what that meant. I used the feedback form on the bottom of the dashboard page, and sent them a message, stating that some sites I visited were doing that. I asked them what could be causing it, and how I could fix it?

A few hours later, when I got back online, I logged into my email, and went to EC to approve an advertising request. After approving, I looked to see how many ec it would be to advertise with the people who had just advertised with me. It was cheap, 16ec. So after I clicked on advertise, I was informed that I did not have enough EC. I was like, “What?” Because I knew that this morning I had over 230.

I returned to my dashboard, sure enough, I had 4 ec. I was in a state of panic. I decided to check ‘transactions,’ and there was a comment in there about a penalty. Unsure of what I could have done wrong, I went and read the ‘Help’ pages.

I emailed support, and also left them a message again on the feedback form on the dashboard.

I have decided to cancel my account with them and not even worry about it. I have enough daily stress in my life without having to be falsely accused of something I have not done. I did not break any rules, I did not do anything wrong.

So that was my experience with entrecard, and I just want to let others know. Anyone that is thinking of joining, but unsure, I wouldn’t advise it.

If I would have known they did these types of things to innocent people, I would never have joined.

I work my tail off online, just trying to make a few extra bucks here and there. I participate in many programs, and I spend a good bit of time on different sites. And whenever I do come across any sites that are unfair, like entrecard, I attempt to let my fellow networkers know…. So that hopefully, I can save some other people the same stress that I have incurred.

Edited To Add: It appears there was a glitch in the system, and some others experienced this also. The site owner has refunded ec (credits). This was very nice of him, and gives me the chance to further review the site.

It’s easy to ‘meet’ so many people online. Between all of the forums, groups, blogs, and social networks, you are going to find a variety of people and personalities.

Some of the people you will not like, and some you will like.

The ones that you like and form a friendship with, you will give them your email address. You will forward each other things, and discuss things you have in common.

The ones that you do not like, it is best to attempt to stay away from them at all costs. First of all, if you argue with this person online and things get out of hand, you could be banned from the website. If you have friends at the site, you will not want to be banned.

Also, the ones that seem a little crazy, might actually be. If you have any true personal information about you online, they can find your phone number and address. This is why some people always put false information.

There are internet bullies out there, that will stop at nothing. And you may wonder why the website owners do not ban the bullies. It could be that the owners are afraid themselves, or they are friends with the bullies, or they could be on the verge of being banned and no one knows it.

While some site owners have their own rules, and will terminate members with such attitudes immediately, other sites will let it go on for months or even years without taking action. The sites that do nothing, will find themselves losing members, the good people will eventually all fade away.

To most people, the internet is a hobby, an interest. When online, the person is looking for something fun, funny, interesting, etc. And no one wants to spend their leisure time being bashed by other individuals. Everyone has enough daily stress without this added to it.

In reality, the only way to steer clear of any potential internet crazed bullies, is to not post anything anywhere. And if you do, definitely ignore the bullies and report them to the Administration of the website as soon as possible.

God Bless America! And thank God for freedom of speech.

However, when does freedom of speech become a problem? Is it appropriate to put others down? Is it appropriate to put down an entire group of people, which consists of millions of people? Is it appropriate for the Media to be biased and sarcastic?

Isn’t it frustrating to see this type of behavior?

Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews have recently been removed from MSNBC Political Coverage. The sad thing is, these weren’t the only two Biased Reporters (or writers)

I commend MSNBC for taking this step, which had they not, their ratings would have continued to drop… But I also believe that many other News Channels and Newspapers should follow the same guidelines.

Ode to the older cartoons! When my children are watching cartoons, which is every day, thanks to the 10 cartoon only channels on Satellite…. I am so delighted to see them watching what I consider to be the Best cartoons (the cartoons that I use to watch when I was child… even though it was only on Saturday mornings). With the hundreds of new cartoons and even the adult cartoons on television now days, we have to really monitor what our children watch. Bugs Bunny is a favorite to many, with his ever popular question of “What’s up, Doc?” And innocent little Tweety with, “I tot I taw a puddy tat!” Ahh, the good ole cartoons.