17 posts tagged “rant”

For when you are dealing with the recently unemployed ( my youngest daughter, who lives with me, lost her job last Wed):
1) When they ask you to read what they have written and ask you to give them your opinion - they really don't want your opinion, & if you allow them to trick you into giving them one you do so at your own risk.

2) Get use to hearing the screeching words- ''It's easy for you to say "be calm", YOU have a job!'' You are going to hear it often...do not try to calm them down, they will hate you for it.

3) ANYTHING that goes wrong for the unemployed person is automatically going to be your fault, even if you had nothing to do with it....even if you were across town at the time - You will be needing body armor and freaking nerves of steel.

If there is a hell on earth, I know the address, because it's at my house. In fact, I am seriously considering running away from home. I cannot take this for long...

I am apparently in a foul mood today, the world is pissing me off, perhaps because I have not slept.... I stopped at Miller paint in route home to grab a copy of the "approved paint colors" for this trailer park ( management prefers to call it a mobile home "estate") :o

As I pulled into the parking lot, a woman had her new minivan parked across 3 of their 5 parking places chatting on her cell phone, and since the first space was taken, I had to park in the last one, so I parked inches away from her front end. I got out and she yelled at me that she was not going to be able to get out with me parked there... so I assured her I was aware of that and I would be out in a few minutes to teach her obviously stupid ass how to park. I do not know how she got out before I returned, but she did. Not sure I could have gotten out of there, I thought I had her fenced in pretty well. Oddly enough I didn't hear screeching tires. I bet it is a long time before she parks like that again....

The new limited colors approved by the park are without a doubt hideous.
Approved body colors= white-ish green, white, white-ish yellow, putrid tan, off white, medium tan, baby poo green, white-ish orange. Approved trim colors navy blue, hunter green, rust, burgundy, medium blue, bright green, dark orange, several shades of tan, white, off white. They are NOT pretty colors, they are slum project colors.

I pay rent and utilities totaling $712 a month to live here plus electric.... I also pay the general maint. costs on my home, I trim trees they will not let me remove, trees I hate and that I did not plant, and I am trying to renovate their rocky soil on my dime so something will grow besides weeds. IMHO I should be able to choose my paint colors within reason. I AM an artist and I DO have good taste ( obviously the person who picked these colors does not). If they want my home painted using these obscene, nauseating colors they need to buy the paint and furnish the labor free of charge.... if forced to comply I am painting it the three most conflicting colors I can find in the bunch to show them just how bad their own choices under this new overly oppressive dictatorship can be.

I feel the need to run something over....

I don't care if you wear a flag on your lapel,( in fact I don't care if you have lapels at all). Nor do I care if your minister is a wack-job, if you are black, purple, or green, if you can play basketball or work a hoola hoop, or if you do what the morons at Fox refer to as "terrorist fist gabs" with your wife. I have to say I find it amusing Fox goes out of their way to say you are "trying" to seem viable.  ( silently implying that a semi-senile, hundred year old pal of GW's is more viable somehow). Har-har. Bottom line is I and a lot of full brain functioning voters do not care about any of the media crap. What I DO care about is the fact you voted yea on FISA, and your announcement about planning to increase federal (aka taxpayer support) of religious non-profits (apparently to prove you are indeed spiritual). See there is this little thing called separation of church and state.... so you handing my money to any non-profit simply because they are religiously connected...bothers me. No accountability for results, putting religious groups above those without religious affiliation apparently even if the non-religious groups do more good things with their money... REALLY bothers me. (For a good example, look up Stan Brock and his outreach called Rural Area Medical and see what can be done by a non-profit with no religious connection claims and only $250K a year that they raised $5 at a time, sound familiar?). I would hope you already know you cannot buy your way into heaven Senator Obama.  I admit that you might be able to buy your way into the Whitehouse, in fact lots of politicians before you have done so, problem is....  I suspect heaven has standards Washington has never heard of, and you might want to keep that in mind.

You promised me (and all of us) CHANGE and a new kind of politics. Since I changed myself from the Independent voter status I had held proudly since 1976 to a democrat to be able to vote for you in the primary,  I'd like to see some of that change right now, how about delivering that and only that. Stop chasing the silly rumors, I know it is tempting to try to gain the respect of all the voters, but you cannot do that by playing basketball, wearing a lapel pin, throwing money at religious groups or chugging alcohol with factory workers. Just tell us who you are, what you stand for... tell us what you will try to do and be honest about what you will not even attempt to change. IOW,  just can the media rhetoric and get real for even a minute. When it surfaces, just call bullshit what it is and move on... but move on being true to who you are, not to feed the media insanity. Even blue collar workers respect straight talk if there is NO doubt it is indeed straight talk, trust me.

Frankly, as it now stands, I just see a skinny guy from Chicago trying to be all things to all people and "acting" like what he "thinks" everyone wants him to be. In my book it makes you increasingly unbelievable and I have no idea who you really are. From where I sit you are starting to smell like just another guy willing to do or say whatever it takes to get elected, and that makes me more than a little sad. I reverted to an Independent voter status yesterday... now let's see you earn my vote. I have to say, the way things are going right now, I may just stay home in November because when I said I was tired of the same old, same old, I MEANT it.

I am very disappointed in Senator Obama, and I don't want to be. I wanted to believe him capable of being our great hope for change but he is acting more and more like a hundred years of lying politicians before him. Dammit all to hell.
He supports expanding federal funding of religiously based non profits ( what in the hell happened to separation of church and state???)
Obama now supports the FISA legislation that would grant immunity to telecommunications companies for Illegal wiretaps

Who knows what else he is gonna change his mind about?  He promised to be real and I'm not seeing it.

The experts (whoever they are) now claim he is doing this to prove he is a man of deep faith, that he is a man who loves this country even though he didn't wear a flag lapel pin or something equally insane. I want to hurl... it's like being served a political latte with religious cream added and being forced to drink it against my will. I like my coffee and my politics neat, nothing added. I want to taste them both for what they are. I am tired of all this say anything to get elected crap. Senator Obama pull on your big boy pants, tell me who you are and why you won't disappoint me or I am staying home on election day. If you can't pull it together, figure out what you really stand for, claim it and stick to it, I have to assume that what we are in for is just another year of picking between the same old crap and some dressed up crap... and me...well, I'm over 50 and it's safe to assume I've had enough crap.

Consider this a public service announcement.... and share the info in it with others at will please.

Pay attention people, Adsense is posting unrelated political ads bashing Barack Obama by implying he is a racist to pages focused on gardening and art... how they make that connection to politics and justify it as being related somehow is beyond me. I have only seen the Obama bashing ad, but there might be others focusing on other people running in state level elections.

My daughter uses Adsense ads on her blogs to generate money, or should I say she did until yesterday when she spotted one of these ads on her blog and got angry. She is not alone in her dismay: http://tinyurl.com/6nf69t

Just another reason to not vote for Hillary IMHO. She made have calmed down on the mud slinging but she has other people doing it for her apparently. Looks like her pals at Technet, or one of their board members, Goggle bigshot John Doerr, is apparently giving her a boost.... I suspect but have not proven yet that the Technet folks, or at least Mr. Doerr and his gazillions is somehow behind the Orphan Works Bill push, since the geeky big shots, their family members, and their employees are endorsing several politicians with some rather BIG lobbying bucks as long as they support another bill to basically remove the penalties on patent infringements. My personal assumption is since the bills are so similar in their intent to trash other people's rights to protection, then the perps almost have to be related. It's a simple system that works for me right now since I am too busy to do the needed digging to connect the dots ;)

Special Interest Lobbists claim they are not a part of the problem in DC... the hell they aren't. Personally I am sick of all the big money crap, people have been buying this country for years, and most people know it, (hell, even those with brain damage have seats on the clue bus on this one). PLEASE do NOT click on ANY Adsense ads you see on blogs and pass the word. Sorry to hurt the little guys trying to make money with these things, but a message needs to be sent that THIS is not okay.

And closer to 100 tomorrow, let the carnage begin..... I do not DO heat.

I am NOT going to be amused if we do. 90 outside means 110 or more inside when you live in a 1970's Mobile Home. I don;t even want to try to explain what happens when it hits 100 around here. There is not an A/C on the market that will not trip the circuit breaker and also keep it comfortable, trust me. I need to sell enough of the stuff in storage to be able to put a deck along full length of the front door side of the house so I can sleep outside this summer. After a full winter of $400 heating bills, I am NOT running the A/C until we hit critical mass!

I get paid tomorrow and this means I get to start my anti-cholesterol medication. I can hardly wait to see what side effects it provokes. The last week or so has been hard on me, I am still loopy, hoping that gets much better once I get my B12 built up. I voted in the Oregon democratic primary the day after I got my vote by mail because I was afraid of misplacing my ballot.

I'm not convinced the vote counting in Oregon is authentic because you can never find anyone who voted for the winners, but what the heck, I'm a thrill seeker. Most interesting thing on the ballot is ballot measure 53... the arguments for it say it's for the cats and dogs who get confiscated in drug raids, to free them up to be adopted....  to fix an error made in 2000 that stopped the cops from selling a person's assets before they were convicted of a crime. The facts are that is one paragraph of a quietly involved measure that if passed will reopen the doors to allow the cops to confiscate everything belonging to an arrested suspect and let it to be sold BEFORE a conviction. What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty in Oregon? This is a prime example of the issues I have with Oregon politics... the voters info booklet chats up the poor doggies and kitties...and not one letter against in the booklet...all of them are FOR this piece of poop. Oregon has a large portion of uneducated, uninvolved voters, obviously someone is counting on that. I may start voting no on every damn thing they turn out here just to be spiteful.

I want to sell, and do the RV move but 11 homes have gone onto the market since they announced the space rent hikes, so I have to wait till some sell or get taken off the market to list, ( I figure it would be counter productive to add another home to the mass exodus) and I might as well be comfy while I wait....

BTW in my quest to season food with limited sodium I have discovered the joys that are called Wishbone Salad Spritzers! 15 sprays = 15-20 cal, and 10-80mg sodium. Veggies, meats, sandwiches and rice get quite tasty with 3-5 sprays...skip the margarine and salt. Most of us really do inhale too much added salt, I dare you to track your intake some time. It's scary even if you eat healthy, or think you do.

I have some spicy beans in the crockpot. I baked some Tilapia last night (if you do not like fishy fish, you would LOVE Tilapia), and I am making my world famous 3 bean Tabouli, well...okay so it's not world famous, but everyone who has tried it has loved it. For dessert I am making my no bake Chocolate mousse.

Chocolate Mousse

1 container Cool Whip
12 ounces quality semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup espresso or strong coffee
1 tablespoon Kaluha (optional)

In top of a double boiler, combine chocolate chips, coffee. Melt over barely simmering water, stirring constantly. Remove from heat while a couple of chunks are still visible. Cool, stirring occasionally to just above body temperature.

Fold the cool whip into the cooled chocolate.
Do not over work the mousse.

Spoon into bowls or martini glasses and chill for at least 1 hour. Garnish with fruit and serve.

(If mousses are to be refrigerated overnight, chill for one hour and then cover each with plastic wrap) WARNING: THIS STUFF IS RICH!

---------------------------------

3 Bean Tabouli

1 cup bulk Tabouli mix or 1/2 box of prepackaged
Mix with equal amount boiling water and let set til the water is absorbed

Open and drain 1 can each: Pinto or Piquinto beans, garbanzo beans, baby corn pieces, olives of choice. Mix into the tabouli once it is hydrated. Add diced onion to taste, 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, and toss. Add 1/4+ cup of your favorite Vinegar and oil dressing, toss to coat, chill at least an hour before serving.

The 2008 Orphaned Works Bills are creating a battle that wages on all over the internet, an excellent sample of this can be found here: http://mollykleinman.com/2008/04/16/wonks-and-librarians/

To amuse myself I've been researching the Orphaned Works legislation everyone is wetting their pants over, people are drafting letters and poised, ready to fight. I personally decided to take a different route, I went looking for where it might have come from, looking for who might have pushed for it, and who might be owed favors that might help get it over the hump before I write any letters. This is probably the most important thing I learned while battling politicians down in Coos Bay Oregon, "follow the money". It's a good lesson to learn. Anyway I ran into some interesting data while looking into contributions made to the politicians involved in the senate bill, don't you just love the internet?

First of all the senate version is also called "The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S. 2913)  It was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and lists Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) as a backer, I find this odd because Hatch appears to have drafted this originally. It's named after Shawn Bentley, who was an intellectual property counselor for Hatch for several years before he died from cancer.
Interestingly enough he also worked for years for AOL/Time Warner... who happens to be a major contributor to most of the people heavily involved in both versions.... $41,100 to Leahy alone, they might very well be interested in this passing, but they were not the biggest contributor.
 Other major contributors include a litigation attorney who defends naughty people who seem to infringe on patents and copyrights, Disney, and then there is "TechNet", an interesting little group of tech moguls, who do a lot of big money lobbying for "causes" that tend to make their members lots of money....  on the record, $81,491 went from Technet to Leahy alone last year, (John Doerr is at the top of the Technet heap), that's a lot of freaking gerbil food in my book. I find it interesting that Technet members are already profiting nicely from registries for health care, real estate and financial information, so IMHO they would be crazy to not be interested in making a bundle by creating a art registry. Technet is endorsing a move to lower patent violation penalties by Leahy and Hatch... info on that here . Now, if you read the OW legislation, both versions seek to lower and limit fines on copyright violations...in fact they read quit a bit like Technet's outline of the need to limit patent infringement lawsuits " for the good of humanity" of course. Ahem.... can I prove their donations to Leahy or Hatch are to encourage a push to get the Orphaned Works through and make money as a result? No, but it looks suspicious on a major scale to me.
I feel some deja-vue coming on.... and I suspect people are gonna need to do more than write letters to stop this, in fact I doubt it can be stopped. I haven't finished digging but there appears to be some major money going to the politician behind making these bills resurface, and some major players have to be involved, it could be Technet, or someone else who doesn't matter, not really. I doubt whoever it is, that they are use to investing large amounts of money and getting nothing in return. Maybe artists better start taking down their art and locking it up now.

I do have to say I haven't had this much fun since I tracked down the skinny on one particularly powerful Environmental Impact Study company in the mid-90's that was up to their elbows in obtaining way too much Federal grant money for performing environmental impact studies (prior to public works projects that seldom actually ever occurred) in financially depressed areas, especially along the west coast. I also found a link from them to suddenly appearing HIGH interest home loans in those areas that were defaulted on at a very high percentage rate, leaving them in control of large amounts of property, some of which they sold off at a loss to local small town politicians, some they kept... the value of all of it rose dramatically within a very short period of time after they got control of it. No one cared then and I doubt they do now, so I imagine that is still going on. I haven't seen anyone mention potential lobbyists for these bills yet so maybe no one but me cares about that either.

BTW, It's impossible to ignore the fact that Technet CEO John Doerr sits on the board of Amazon, Google, Intuit (quickbooks), and the investment company he is a partner in is the primary funding behind Zazzle, (sorta like cafepress). I also discovered that additional donations were also made separately from those by Technet to many of the politicians involved, in the name of John, his wife Ann, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ( the venture capital group where John is a partner)... and under the name of everyone I have tracked so far that sits in power at Technet. The contribution numbers coming from this general direction will soar much higher than it appears on the surface..... Leahy may never need to buy gerbil food again.

It is always about following the moola, either where it's going to wind up, or who it's being taken from who has friends in the highest places, or who wants to make more. I'm just a nobody, finding this took info me a little over an hour, if I had the time and the desire to create a spread sheet and to cross reference contributions, names and connections the picture would get much scarier and clearer...and it might even lead in further reaching directions, but it is definitely food for thought and something to keep an eye on.

I am sure my daughter Ramie would admire the fact that John and his wife have shoveled a ton of money into backing stem cell research and lobbying for it. That is going to make someone a lot of money some day too.

Anyway I need to get some stuff done here at home.... more on yesterday after I accomplish something productive on the home front.

Okay so, first off...
Obama can't bowl worth a crap... few people in Illinois can, trust me I know, I was born there... I nearly killed a superior court judge myself with a bowling ball once... on accident (grin) True story, in fact when someone from Illinois tells you they cannot bowl, do not bully them into being a fill-in on your damn bowling team unless you want someone killed....remember you heard it here first, write it down so you do not forget it, it's important!

Secondly we have....
Royal Crown drinking, "blue collar" Hillary who can't work a simple jiffy mart vending machine but she has assured us she is not an elitist and she can run this country.... (cough)

And now, without a doubt, we ALL know  for SURE that neither Hillary nor McCain knows a thing about economics....

This is me, slapping myself on the forehead.... I just got one daughter straightened out about Clinton related things... and now the other one has gone mad on me.... and become a Hillary supporter. I have no idea where I went wrong, I promise never to do it again, and it may come down to me killing her to keep her from voting to cancel my well thought out vote in the Oregon primary. I did not change my registration from a card carrying independent since 1979 to (cough) a democrat (cough) to have a person I gave birth to negate my vote..... as the saying goes, I brought her into this world and by gawd I'll take her out of it if she insists on being a brain-dead moron.

Okay so I won't kill her, but I may be investing in some duct tape and a gag....she'll forgive me eventually....and if she doesn't Keegan will at least be amused by seeing his mom tied up and gagged on our primary voting day.

I really do think the world has gone mad, and the worst part is usually rational thinking people are willing participants in the craziness. I am utterly stupefied by the number of card carrying democrats who do not yet realize Hillary is a republican in a democrat suit. I suspect she and McCain are MUCH closer than even Bill realizes...  I am also quite sure it's "strickly business" and she is not having sexual relations with that old man.... heh, ewwww, I just got a visual that almost made me go blind!

Okay, back on track....
So we will be seeing McCain in Nov even though he wants to line the pockets of the oil guys with more profits this summer, (because dropping taxes does not insure prices will drop, in fact demand will rise and so will prices , so when the tax comes back on we will be paying more than ever, so this plan is not helpful) Let's say Hillary somehow manages to get the Democratic nomination slot, we will have our first republican vs republican presidential race in history! Not only that but if she loses to McCain she'll slime her way into the VP slot somehow, and wait for John to drop dead or help him get there if she gets tired of waiting, and that will be the ball game.

 Buenos dias mi amigos, Como esta?   ....just practicing, in case.... I'm beginning to think my 4th grade teacher was right she assured me that my ability to sing 10 Little Indians in Spanish would come in handy someday, maybe she was psychic.

Anyway, my hat's off to Obama for showing he has both common sense and an "elitist" understanding of basic economics, I don't want to trust either McCain or Hillary to balance the US budget after today. I sure would love to talk to Obama about some easy steps I and my 31 years of health care experience think he should consider in order to truly fix health care for everyone, but I imagine he is pretty busy these days dodging bullets from the two republicans he is running against.... ( I'd outline them here but Hillary would probably steal them and claim them as her own).

I will say one thing :
Life was a whole lot easier when I was an Independent, because I hated everyone running for office that had even a shot at winning.

....if you have no IRS approved dependents anyway....  for those coming into this late, this all started because I support 2 people I cannot claim by IRS standards... ( even though I gave birth to one of them) so add me to the bitter American list, and my thanks to Obama for noticing.

Last night at work I did some calculations after someone left me a link to a how-to article on how to live on $12k a year saying she immediately thought of me when she found it. I think in light of how I have felt health wise the last few months ( after several years of doing 87+ hour work weeks), I am going to try to seriously restructure my life in order to work smarter and a whole lot less, because frankly, what I have been doing is killing me.

I know my friends think I am crazy for saying hard work does not pay, but I have proof, sorta.
Using the H and R Block tax calculator found here. I determined federal taxes on several income levels, maybe it will help explain my frustration:

Using federal taxes only because Oregon taxes and SSI payment deductions are a pain to figure, but I added in all available Oregon state benefits based on the web info on qualifiers that are based solely on what you earn with no allowances for your actual cost of living, taxes or other mandatory deductions ( not that I would apply for these benefits, but they are there if I need them):

Why hard work doesn't pay when you have no dependents:

45 hour week (based on my current hourly pay of $11/hr)
I know all the totals on this one because this has been my ugly reality up to now:
$24,750- single- $1896 owed on federal tax alone
( in 2007 I worked extra and this amount rose to $28,987 and my fed tax rose to $3124) I will NOT do that again!
(spendable income after SSI, state and federal taxes = less than $17k and I qualify for nothing)

32hr work week (approx)
$17,500- $921 owed (but I would qualify for $139/month or $1668/year in food stamps) = yearly spendable income rises to $19,168 and I qualify for single person energy assist of up to $928).

28 hr work week (approx)
$15,000- $625 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month or $1908/yr in food stamps+ single person energy assist of up to $1078/yr) = yearly spendable income rises to $17,986).

23 hour work week (approx)
$12,000- $282 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month in food stamps, low cost housing worth $425/month/ $5100/yr plus energy assist of at least $1278/yr= $20,286 spendable income)

19 hr work week ( approx) *Working less than 1/2 time- this one is the mind bender*
$11,000- $105 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month in food stamps, low cost housing worth $425/month or $5100/yr, $1278 in energy assistance plus I qualify for free health care coverage/treatment) = yearly spendable income rises to $19,008 plus free health care)....meaning I would have more spendable money each year if I were making $11k a year and a burden to society than I do working 45 hours a week and making 24k a year. How can that be right????

I cannot explain why anyone who qualifies for food stamps or anything else funded by the state or federal government for the poor would ever owe taxes but it seems to be how it works, so they take from you and then give it back plus some. (This system of shuffling money around must employ a lot of someone's friends and relatives).

I have no idea why anyone with no dependents would feel like they benefit in any way from working full time... because you don't. You can buy more stuff, but you get beat up for it financially by the government, and it usually means you live life constantly in debt and without health care coverage so you almost have to ask yourself if being able to buy that flashy Iphone is worth it, ya know?
Personally, I'm gonna bare bones my work schedule, downsize my financial needs by moving into a travel trailer full time , since our gas is now at $3.59/gal I am gonna build myself one of these, and spend a big chunk of my summer close to home doing some sewing, or at the beach, or camping by the river.... I think I might feel better, I know my body is telling me it could use a time out. Then I'll decide if I am up to increasing my income again.... but you know, somehow I think I am gonna find it easy to get use to having a ton more time to do what I want to do.

Okay so the Vox Easter Moo egg hunt was sorta fun, I even won a book of Moo stickers...
I would love to show them to you, but they never came. ..it's been 28 days.
Frankly, I've given up any hope I ever had of seeing them.
March 20- I painfully picked through images and placed my order.
March 28th- I got an email saying they were in route...
I was getting excited.... so excited Ramie and Brian sent me a gift card for a free order of Moocards.
Then, at some point my stickers were shot down over the ocean....
I have to say I am a tad peeved the red cross never notified me they were MIA.
All I know is, getting a search party started has been one MAJOR task.

Finally on April 12th I tried the moo.com missing soldier report form, I usually don't do online forms because you have no proof of what you sent to them. I did get a prompt notify it had been received by a moo egg robot.  On the 14th a person emailed me that they could not find my order, did not have my order number (I don't know why they didn't, their form required me to enter it), and unfortunately I would have to order them again. Of course my coupon code for the win is  used up.... when I log in the order shows as dispatched.... I took this "gee, tuff luck, order them again" email as a kiss off attempt by the CSR.... and I am NOT amused by it.

I tried to send the complaint again using their form via my cell phone last night and kept getting a Opps! 404 error...whatever the hell that is, it made me even madder. Finally I called Ramie and asked her to do it for me, because I had been bouncing between jobs since 10am and would not be home until 1130 Wed., and if I tried it again and it failed I was likely to become one cell phone flinging woman.

The little robot egg sent me an email last night saying, yes he had my message and someone would be in touch this morning...  Ummm, NOPE. Not a peep. Not one cluck... zip, ziltch, nada.

I know they were free, I won them. People bitch about what they buy all the time, even when they like what they bought sometimes.... so I almost get being rude to paying customers on some level, BUT, prizes are solely to  build good will, a promotional  "look at our stuff and tell your friends about us" kind of thing.  So, here I am, more  than willing to share my experience, and it has not been a good one. Is this the kind of feedback Moo was hoping for when they ran the contest with Vox? I think not, in fact I am mad to the point I may just have Ramie demand a refund on the prepaid moocards she bought for me and say to hell with Moo all together.

It's not even about them not arriving, it's about the lack of concern over them not being here by Moo. We'll take care of it my arse....
It's been almost a month now.... no one else I know has had a problem getting theirs...so what the heck? I do not want to be the one glitch out of a million, but if I have to be the glitch, then show me some compassion... that's all I'm saying. Winning is only fun when the prize arrives..... and when it doesn't , someone should at least act worried about it,  at least a little, even if they aren't.

Edit: I just got an email April 17th, 2008--- asking me to wait a few more days and then to recontact them if they still are not here. This is not the delivery schedule they promised so I am sending them my own screw off email in reply. My Beliefnet Holistic Tip for the day: Listen to Your Intuition. I sorta figure who am I to question my email?  Ramie, I am telling them to refund your money on the moocard gift certificate, watch for it, we may have to fight them for it, let me know if they fail to refund it.