I tried to take a survey today

in fact I have taken a lot of surveys and some are better than others and some are just plain bad.  Part of playing in Swagbucks land is the opportunity to see a lot of surveys and you quickly get a sense of why we get what we get from marketers and admen.  They just don't get it.  They are looking for what they want to hear from those they want to hear it from.  Anything outside of that is beyond their ability to care.  It is like politicians taking a poll to find out how many people agree with them on how wonderful they are, the rest don't matter.

Lately I have been in the uninviable position of becoming a member of the demographics that are not considered hip, trendy, or spend worthy.  I have been disqualified from more surveys than I get to complete.  Even when I do qualify, it seems the questions are irrelevant and there is seldom any places to give them real and honest feedback.  Therefore, I had enough of not being taken seriously and had reached a point of no longer being able to be serious.  Was this wrong?

I am afraid it was the best response I could come up with at the moment.  I think I got disqualified again.  No, not because of this answer but for something much more trivial I'm sure.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

I am ready to give up on Twitter

I know someone that was into Twitter.  He was excited about it and for a period of time was addicted to it.  He found some of the comments humorous and involving.  He enjoyed the commentary on politics from national to local and even used it for his own run for a local office as well as raising awareness for local causes.  This went on for awhile but after a few months his interest waned and I believe he only gets on Twitter infrequently to check out the latest current happenings but not with the same level of passion.

But he did have passion at one time and that passion aroused an interest in me to try it out.  The other factor was all the attention that Donald Trump was getting from his use of twitter.  For all the media reporting about what he had said or didn't say on Twitter it made me curious as to whether he actually did say or didn't say that on Twitter and was it real, fake, sound bites, taken out of context, incomplete or just spin.  I wanted to see for myself.

Twitter sounds straight forward enough and is probably the reason we have #hashtags everywhere.  In fact, that is one reason it took me so long to take an interest in Twitter, you have to learn to read code.  Tweets are limited to 140 characters which should make for some short, lively, thoughtful and concise exchanges between a community of tweeters.  The #hashtags are used to link the tweets by subjects and can be a way to explore topics by searching for your favorites.  You can choose to follow an individual or subject/topic and any new post will fill the news feed on your homepage.  So far so good.

Now for the reality.  Not all of your friends are on Twitter and if they are they were only there for a short time before losing interest and don't post regularly anymore nor are they likely to be monitoring what you have posted because they just don't check anymore.  They do Facebook.  Everybody does Facebook.  Facebook does not have 140 character limits.  Why bother with Twitter when it is all on Facebook.  Hard to argue that.

Twitter had a 'right now' feel about it. In other words, you could get on right now and make comments about, or read comments from others about what they were thinking about some event that was taking place right now and there was a good chance that someone somewhere was also out there witnessing that event right now just waiting to share opinions and comments right now.  If you are in the moment and have a need to share with anyone in the moment but are separated by distance and acquaintance then Twitter may work for you, if not you are probably on Facebook which for many can still be an in the moment tool.

It isn't for lack of trying on Twitters part.  From the moment of signup they have tried to connect me into their world by way of multiple e-mails asking about all my interest as well their willingness to link me with all my friends if I just give them access to my e-mail address books.  Sorry Twitter, my respect for my friends trumps your desire to access their e-mail addresses.  But I did take them up on initial suggestions for subjects/topics and Donald Trump.

Speaking of the Donald, least you get the wrong idea, I am not a fan and I am not a hater.  I think he is arrogant, egotistical, not nearly as bright as many would like him to be, and going all the way back to his first book, one that is more about the show than the substance.  Can he get things done?  Like all things political it depends on your definition.  And like all things political if it is something he favors he will take the credit and if it is something he does not favor it is the other guys fault.  So what is new here?  (Replace the name Donald with any politicians name and it will read the same.  Kind of like a horoscope.)

For good measure I also signed up for a couple of other politicians to get a lay of the land.  Most were deleted in short order, but I did leave a couple of the more active current noise makers to get a sense of the state of the union, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  What I have learned from these three could fill a thimble.  Okay, I might be exaggerating a little.  If I stuck it out long enough it might fill the thimble part way.

What I have learned is that if voters were willing to pay just a little bit more attention to what these people where saying there is no way, shape or form that they would have this kind of power and influence upon this great land and it's people.  Funny what we allow when we aren't paying attention.

So again I ask, what is Twitter?  The one thing that is left when you strip away the value of original intent: advertising.  Twitter advertises like most web sites and I am okay with that.  If however, you pretend that your advertisements are part of the real content then I lose some respect for you.  Also, most advertising is supposedly selected for you based on your interest, tailored if you will, but I have yet to see it work well in practice.  I imagine that after many months of participation they might get lucky and hit a few ads that are relevant but I also imagine that I still wont pay much attention to them.  As long as ads pay the bills and keep the service free to use, I can live with that.

So, since real people that spend time on Twitter are hard to find and phony popular celebrity people are a dime a dozen with mostly one way dialogues, the only other players on Twitter are the businesses that are trying to draw attention to themselves in any way they can.  That also means noise.  What is missing in content is made up for with volume.  I have seen some tweets done 4 or 5 different ways on the same story with a slight variation but with the intent of causing action on the part of the viewer, a ploy of marketing.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint with Twitter, namely that 140 characters is never enough for today's messages and so 98% of the tweets are little more than links to some other page in some other location in some other corner of the world wide web.  That's right, the goal of Twitter is to draw you in so that it can send you away.  As a launching pad or gateway it is no better or worse than what a lot of the internet has become other than you can make better choices for launching down a rabbit hole if you have more to go on than 140 characters and #hashtags.  And with that I have to state that for me Twitter is

No Value Added

and that is the only measuring stick that matters.  Time is too precious to squander on something that delivers so small a return on investment.  It would be interesting to see real statistics on usage, retention, membership new and old and participation rates for Twitter.  I am betting that the stock would not trade so highly if logic and reason prevailed but then if logic and reason prevailed we wouldn't have the Twitter we have today, nor those that make the most noise on it.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

I hate teasers

Teasers are those lousy, misleading sound bites and headlines that are designed specifically to entice you to stay tuned or click a link only to be disappointed by the lack of substance that follows.

News shows used to be the worst by stating things like 'research shows that most homes contain an item in your kitchen that could make you very sick and possibly kill you.  We'll let you know what it is after this break' and then they cut to a commercial and you can't wait for them to get back only to learn that if you have the same sponge sitting on your sink for the past 13 months that it might grow some bacteria that might not be the best for you...duh.

The practice has grown beyond any semblance of sensibility on the web.  Sites like MSN and Yahoo have taken this to a whole new level of ridiculous and then they double down with their advertising links from the likes of Taboola.  (By the way if you see any advertisement by Taboola I suggest that you ignore it completely and do not click it even if you think it might be legit as I have never, ever found anything of value associated with them.)  They use titles that sound like something but are really nothing.  They are designed to draw you in but never deliver.  The term for this is click bait.

Yes click bait, just like the bait you find on a hook used to lure a fish to latch on and lose its life thus becoming someone elses' dinner.

They always take a popular subject (and there is always something to choose from) and allude to the possibility of having some new information about said subject or update about your fan favorites.  And then you sucker in only to realize that the only purpose they had was to sucker you in.  The web site they link to may have something to do with said subject (but many times it does not) because the real intent is to overwhelm the viewer with ads in the hope of getting the viewer to act on the ads or at the very least expose you to even more ads.

Even though the percentage of views that actually convert to a buy are probably very, very small it must still be profitable because we continue to be exposed to so much of it.  The cost to load millions upon millions of these ads is less than the revenue they see from their efforts or they wouldn't bother.

And there is a lot of them bothering with it.  It feels like 99% of all these ads are of this nature.  (I am pretty sure it is only 98.9% but I don't have the statistics to prove it.)  And you wonder why we have gotten so good at ignoring ads, whatever they are or wherever come from.

It amazes me that the advertising industry can be this big and spend so much money and have so little concern for their customers or reputations of the companies they represent.  It is so hard to find quality or excellence in advertising on the internet, print or broadcast let alone memorable moments or anything worthy of water cooler discussions.

Even when we want to like and talk about ads and try to make them a main topic of focus as big as the event they are tied to such as the Super Bowl, where the biggest and brightest culminate all their skill and effort into creating the hoped for viral adoration of millions to justify their fees, we can still be disappointed.

As someone who enjoys and prefers the advertising driven content over the paid subscription business model, I am left wondering what the future will bring.  I believe that the volume of advertising to content has driven much of the subscription market where you pay for the content to be ad free.  We have gone from a show that was sponsored by a company that mentioned the sponsors name in the show to a few well spaced and placed ad interruptions but with the majority of the shows hour being content, and now having longer and more frequent interruptions where the content barely covers the majority of the hour.  When a 96 minute movie takes 3 hours of broadcast time you know something is messed up.  No wonder TiVo became so popular with it's ability to skip ahead past the commercials.

And if the quality of the commercials continues to fall off across the board, then you know a vacuum will develop and that means opportunities for those who are willing to offer an alternative to fill that vacuum.  You see it happening already when you see how many have left local radio for internet and satellite broadcast and the big move from cable to internet sourced TV.

The content has to be pretty incredible to overcome what advertisement is doing to it.  That is asking a lot given the current state of programming.  Changes are coming and I am hoping for good things to come from it.  Actually I am counting on it.  I am always looking for a better way.  Let's hope we get it.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

A click of support

19 Nov 2013
There is a favorite little family owned and run fish and rice shop I really like to go to for lunch.  I used to go at least once a week but a job change added a good deal of extra distance between me and my fish and my lunch break did not increase time wise to allow for the extra travel time so sadly I do not get to visit as often as I would like.

The building is an older one that used to house a Kentucky Fried Chicken (it was not KFC back then) and was something else for a short time before it was converted to the fish and rice shop that it has been for probably the last two decades.  Even though I have driven past it often over the years it wasn't until the last decade that I discovered it myself.  The fried fish might be a little 'greasy' for some but I love it.  Fresh and made to order it really hits the spot.  Add the egg roll and some of the best fried rice I've eaten at a price that makes a  Big Mac combo meal look like an extravagance and you have the makings of an addiction or at the very least a happy habit.

I think I know where I am going for lunch today.  Just thinking about it is making my mouth water and I wish they were open early enough that I could stop there on the way to work and have lunch for breakfast.

Some mornings are like that.

What I am trying to get at is this, I, like many of you, have found that small food shops often offer up better fare than the big franchise chains.  There is a simple honesty and personal integrity that is added by those that really care about their craft that is often missing in the large corporate boxes run by disconnected employees.  When I find a place like this I like to support it.

That is not to say I am anti corporation.  Far from it in fact as there are many things that big corporations have figured out how to do, and do very well and I support them for that.  But there are the smaller businesses that also get it right and need the same support and recognition for a job well done.  I can do that by doing business with them.  This is not charity as in the course of doing business with them I am gaining something of value in return, the very definition of business.

So what does this have to do with 'A click of support'?  There are probably trillions of web pages out there now and many of them are the big boys and they do there job quite well and they are rewarded with the many 'web hits' or visits that people make to their sites.  They have ways to convert those visits to revenue and as a business they must cover their costs with those revenues or they will not stay in business long.

But fighting for attention are many small web sites, some trying to make a go of it and some doing it just for the love of it.  These are the ones that are still providing a worthy product but lack the same level of attention that the loud sites get.

We all have run across these sites in the course of cruising the web and most times don't give them a second thought.  That is just the nature of web surfing.  There are sites that I have used over the years that have provided me with everything from entertainment to information, and I was wondering what the best way was to show my support and appreciation for their efforts.  The easiest, lowest effort way I can think of is to click on an ad found on the site.  No commitment, no form to fill out, no spam to sign up for, no outlay of time other than a momentary click of a mouse that will be a sign of support.  It is a way of being mindful of another and expressing gratitude that goes a long way both for the giver and the receiver.  In my mind you are casting a vote that you want the producer to continue to produce that which you have enjoyed.

I have been mindful of the efforts of others and have sometimes gone out of my way to do this.  There are podcast that show up in iTunes that are free to download and enjoy (and I have) and I have gone to their web site with the intention of finding out additional information about the podcast and the people that produce them but also to click on their ads to give support.

Keep in mind that most of these ads are driven by the ad provider, not the content provider, and relate to the ad providers perceived demographics or user profiles.  In my experience, they may or may not get it right for me individually but that doesn't seem to be as important as the act itself.  Then I remember that those paying for the ads are people too so I try to give them due consideration.

Maybe it does take a little more effort to care...but it is worth it.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Quick change the channel

Boring...change the channel.

Irritating...change the channel.

Annoying...change the channel.

Don't want to think about it...change the channel.

Not interested...change the channel.

Disgusting...change the channel.

I have tuned into too many things over the years I guess that my level of interest has waned a bit. I am not saying this is a bad thing. After you have spent so many hours seeing the same old thing played out in the same old way over and over again, perhaps it is better to change the channel in an effort to find something new, and if not new at least worthwhile and of good report. That isn't always easy to do these days.

Thing is there really isn't a lot of worthwhile stuff out there so you really have to make an effort to find something of good report.

I suppose that part of the reason finding something new is that I have experienced so much of it before and find the new stuff mere copies, imitations, sequels and out and out ripoffs of the previous stuff.

Sequels are o.k. if you are truly building upon the foundation and adding to the flavor of the original, but more often than not it is just someone cashing in on the popularity of the original and not putting a lot of effort into it. Think of any Hal Needham movie done the second time.

Or sometimes, someone thinks it would be a good idea to remake a classic. Trouble is it is seldom if ever as good as the original. They know this and yet they do it anyway. Why? Because they know that if the wait long enough to do the remake, they will have a new audience to play to, one that has not experienced the original and will have no basis for comparison. Do you think Pat Boone would have been anywhere near as successful with "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti" if his audiences had heard them done by Little Richard first?

For those of you that do not get the above references, and for those that do but know of some that will not, that is my point. To the young, everything is new and it is all being experienced for the first time. It is still judged for its merit but with little baseline to compare it too it rates pretty well. How else can you explain some of the drivel out there?

For those of us that have been around the block a time or two, the bar is raised. Sadly the bar does not have to move up much to exclude 80% of what is presented in the way of T.V., movies and music.

And that leads me to a problem. My attention span (that was pretty short to begin with) has been cut in half yet again. I can scan the preset radio stations on my car faster by hand than with the scan button. I can scan T.V channels faster than anyone in the room is ready to appreciate and not experience a small case of motion sickness. I can peruse web pages faster than they are meant to be enjoyed. (Don't even bother getting me started on staff meetings.) What I am saying is I can name that tune in three notes (another obscure reference for those keeping score) and decide if it is something that I want to continue with or move on to the next object faster than Simon Cowell can make a buck, euro, or pound. (That reference was at least a little more current I hope.)

And move on is what I do best. Because I have too spend more and more time trying to locate something worthwhile, I have less and less time to spend enjoying that something worthwhile which should. This tends to drive the bar higher still in an attempt to only spend my time on the best of the best.

This behavior also tends to push me outside the typical marketing demographics. I don't seem to mind except now advertising increasingly tends to be an annoyance and intrusion more than the communal interaction intended. In other words, they don't get me and I don't get them.

Let me expand on that just a little with an example. If you search on a news item to get a little more information and it takes you to a news media web site that has an inserted video to go with the text, my advice is to just read the text. More often than not the video, even if it is interesting though short on depth, will begin with an inserted, irrelevant video advertisement. These ads have been shortened to 15 seconds usually but that seems like an unusually long amount of time to put up with to watch a 2 minute segment in this day and age. I have and will regularly hit the mute button on these ads while I wait for what I am really after, but lately I find myself hitting the back button, leaving the site entirely and searching for what I am after elsewhere. And all because 15 seconds has become too long.

It isn't has if there are no other ads being flung at us as the web page itself is usually littered with them. They are static, passive unless clicked on and mostly unobtrusive. These video inserts are more demanding because they have what is essentially a captive audience. That is they are captive only in so far as the person desires to see the content provided. Kinda like regular T.V. in that way. But I am not captive or captivated and so I "change the channel". Often.

So what is the real downside here? There is nothing wrong with trying to avoid crap in whatever form it takes.

The downside is when you get in hyper scan mode it becomes difficult to take it down a notch when you finally come across something worthwhile. It is hard to slow down to a pace that will let you appreciate what you have found let alone slow down to the point that you can immerse yourself in the topic at hand.

And sadly I find myself slowing down less often for other things besides T.V, movies and music. I find myself having a hard time slowing down for people. I mean really connecting with others without having my mind racing off in half a dozen other directions. I find that to be one of the saddest things of all. But awareness is one of the first steps to recovery so I am putting forth effort to keep myself in the present as much as possible and especially around others.

That doesn't mean I will turn off my crap meter, it just means I wont be so quick to hit the next button when I am dealing with a human.

Non-humans on the other hand don't have any feelings so they shouldn't feel offended when I "change the channel".

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Credit Consumers Beware

I still can not believe how stupid people think I am. I hope that they do not think the same of you.

What causes me to say such a thing has to do with the lame wad advertisements that come in the mail wanting me to do something extremely foolish such as take out a loan with them. The latest one came today from an 'American General Financial Services' company that thinks I am dumb enough to fall for the spiel that I can end the Credit Card Hassle by locking in fixed monthly payments and APR with them. They are even so kind as to let you pick a monthly payment due date that works best for you.

Thankfully they no longer hide the worst of it though there is the ever present small print, it just isn't as small as it used to be. So in big bold letters they tell me that my payment will be $156.31 per month for a loan of $5,150 (a strange number to be sure)for 48 months at (now get this) 19.85% APR. Who in there right mind would even consider a deal like this? People very hard up that haven't learned any better that's who and that is why I hope you are never in a position to do anything but laugh at the joke and the company that sends these out.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, they have the wonderful asterisk that refers to the note of small print at the bottom, this one at least is big enough that even I can read it, which might have been a mistake because it just adds to the insanity, so here goes.

"*Not a guaranteed offer. All loans subject to our normal credit policies. Rates and terms advertised are for very well-qualified borrowers and require collateral. Rates will vary based on individual creditworthiness and loan size. Rates will be higher for unsecured loans. Reply by..."

Can you believe anybody besides the government would have the gall to make you such an offer? What kind of fool do you take me for? How did you get my name and if you bought it off a list I want a cut to cover the abuse.

This is not the first offer from them nor the first from companies like them but I seem to be in the zone for these kinds of offers lately. Another one that came recently was a very official looking tri-fold envelope where you rip off the edges just like an official government notice. It had a picture of the statue of liberty on it, the words 'Form 1008-S Payment Reduction Notification' in the upper left corner and a warning that there is a "$2,000.00 Fine or 5 Yrs. Imprisonment or both for any person who interferes with or obstructs delivery of this letter or otherwise violates - 18 United States Code 1702 et seq. Advertisement - Newsletter". Pretty scary stuff...so I immediately handed it to my wife to open.

I saw it coming a mile away. It was more crap, an offering to do a refinance with them compete with many goofy references to the economic stimulus act which I had trouble following because I tend to read things a little more carefully than the next guy. The small print did indicate that it was a legal advertisement (aren't they all) and that "Schroeter Law Group is not sponsored or affiliated with you current lender (no edit check here) and this advertisement is not authorized by your current lender and your loan information was not provided by your current lender." I guess not since the name they used was not my current lender, nor were any of the amounts listed.

By the way, they go to the county recorders office and buy this information from our local public officials thereby having access to your name and address if you have bought or sold or refinanced a house recently. Again, we should somehow be able to stop this at the source, or at the very least get a cut back for a referral fee.

The last one I will mention came from a Dorcy Law, whoever that is, and I only find that out by their slightly referred too web address at the end of the letter. The rest of the letter came with the same illusionary mentions of the Obama Administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan of 2009 but nothing much else to go on. I say illusionary because I don't recall in all the hoopla and media hype about the stimulus packages passed and/or talked about, that an actual name was placed on an actual program actually instituted by the government, let alone any details on how it would work or who it would benefit. Rightly or wrongly I probably just assumed that I wouldn't qualify to receive, I would only qualify to pay for it.

Any way, it came from the Loan Modification Division, something that surely sounds more like an office section than the name of a company but that is what they had listed in the address heading along with a Washington DC address. (Does anything good come out of Washington DC these days?) In fact, there were no other names given than mine and the name of the original lender from the court records from way back when, and the only way I found a possible real company name (or at least a tie to one) was the reference in the web address at the bottom of the sheet. The letter wasn't even signed (how hard is it to get a computer to sign its own letters, I mean really) but was closed with the words "Sincerely, Sr. Home Retention Specialist". I wonder if they felt bad about printing the 800 number to contact them based on their level of effort to remain as anonymous as possible.

I do get upset when I see these things come in the mail and almost get to the point of wanting to call them up and expressing myself to them (or at the very least play with their heads and gain a little amusement for the effort) but then I get over it and decide that it really isn't worth the effort. These people are hopeless...but I don't have to be. And neither do you. There are so many loser organizations out there currently vying for your attention that we just shouldn't waste any more time on them that we have to. Thankfully some are way, way more obvious than others. Just do me a favor and watch out. If no one falls for their nonsense they certainly won't last long.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

I got Junk Mail

Ever since I was old enough to have an address associated with my name I have been exposed to junk mail. I am not just talking about all the silly stuff they try to send you the minute you set up an e-mail account. I am sure you are all well aware of the myriad methods of spam and other loosely direct sent ads that overwhelm your in-box once your e-mail address is known. I am sure there are computer programs out there that randomly generate addresses to known server domains in attempts to find a 'live one' just so that you can receive the latest method of physical enhancement or reduction depending your gullibility.

I am rather referring to the spam e-mails ancestor, the original junk mail that travels by snail mail and arrives in the mail box located outside in a physical form that requires you to interact with it by direct physical means.

I actually like this form of advertisement. Really. It is the direct and physical nature of it that appeals to me, mainly because I can deal with it on my terms and on my time table. E-mail needs to be dealt with right now. Once opened it demands attention, mostly because if you decide to deal with it later it will sit there waiting and building up with all the other e-mail messages you have waiting for your attention. O sure you could file it into another folder, one marked 'to be read later' and let that one build up until one day you force yourself to look at them and notice that you were invited to a special party all expenses paid, for you and all your friends and close associates and all you need to do is RSVP by Friday only to find that the Friday the e-mail is referring to happened two and a half years ago.

Actually this is a good method for handling certain e-mail for your work address. It is amazing how many work assignments can get lost or company policy statements can go unread without affecting your routine daily life structure. I have found that if you quit producing a neglected and useless report and no one says anything about it for the next six months it probably won't ever be missed and your time will be better spent elsewhere. Of course if it is missed for what ever reason and it is still a neglected and useless report your time will still be better spent elsewhere. Such is the existence of a cubicle dweller, but that is another topic.

Our topic is good old fashion junk mail. Now there are some that say that you should open your mail as you receive it and deal with it immediately as a form of good time waste management. Well sometimes I am just not ready to deal with it thank you very much and hard physical mail makes that possible. If I want to wait until later to read it I can and the urgency I place on this hard mail depends on the pile I put it in and how high it stacks up without falling over or allowing me the ability to create a path around it on the floor.

Hard physical mail comes in self contained packaging other wise known as envelopes that give an indication generally of who sent it and what is in it. Here I have the ability to decide if this is something I really want to deal with right now or is it something I have to deal with right now or, or is it something I can put aside for later review.

But e-mail also comes in a form of envelope just like hard mail, I hear you say. It has an address of the sender and it even comes with a subject line to let you know what the topic of the message is. But this is where it breaks with hard mail or should I say hard mail is easier to discern. Hard mail comes with a return address that is either truthful or not and you know at a glance what you are getting. If it is from a friend they will have their address on it and you will recognize it, if it is a bill or advertisement from someone you know they will also have their address and sometimes a logo that you will recognize and know. If it is junk the return address will be none existent or a p.o. box number or other address without a name listed, or if a name is included it will be some made up funky name built to resemble someone else's name like "United States First Federal Integration Refinancing District Office". This tells you someone has something to hide and it is pretty evident right now.

Come to think of it, that is kind of what the spam mail tries to do also. The difference is that some do not list an e-mail address or some will use phony addresses. I have even received e-mail that supposedly came from myself. If they can send out spam using my own address what is to stop them from using the address of your friends. Besides we have all heard of how they send e-mail trying to pretend it is coming from your bank or credit card company in order to steal your account information. Deceiving people are deceitful no doubt about it.

Of course e-mail accounts prevent this or at least they try to prevent this with spam filters. Spam filters by the way only work a little for me. I have had more spam make its way into my in-box and more real letters make their way into my spam box than makes sense. I don't understand why it happens but it does. I think we rely on our computers too much by letting them make way more decisions for us than we should, especially seeing how often they get it wrong. Point is you can't trust them to do everything for you, you are going to have to do much of it on your own.

So our e-mail accounts have tried to develop ways to work like we use too, or at least how time management consultants tell us we are supposed to. They provided folders and sub folders to use to sort through and keep track of all our e-mail traffic. In order to sort through the e-mail you pretty much have to open it up and read it unless it is the same old drivel advertisement from emazon or am-bay telling you about the great yo-yo sale they have going this week and how they remembered that you once looked at a picture of a yo-yo so you must be an aficionado, and though you know it is junk you can't quite commit yourself to labeling all e-mail from them as junk just in case they do send you something important like a half price sale on that left-handed smoke shifter you have had your eye on, especially ones that come in your school team colors of purple and green.

So like all mail, you need to go through it and determine if there is any value to you in it and will you act on it now, later, or never. It is the 'never act on' mail that makes me glad for hard snail mail. If you get spam it is electronic. If you really get upset and want to reply to the so and so that sent you this piece of time wasting mind numbing crap the best you can do is hit the reply button and spend even more time hammering out a message to them that will fully explain in detail what you think of the piece of drivel this cretin was thoughtful enough to leave in your in-box. After much venting and fuming and fusing over just the right wording to use you hit send only to find that the address given is none functional. That's right, it is a dead address, phony or spoofed and your message goes nowhere, and all that energy that charged you up the first time around enough to want to make a reply just got recharged and still has no place to go.

Hard mail on the other hand almost always has some number or address associated with it because they are trying to get you to take action and spend money on them (especially since they spent real money on you not that cheap electronic money they use to send spam). But I have found that it is generally still a waste to get my knickers in a knot and try to make a direct reply and have found that it is much better to dispose of my frustration energy by shredding, folding, bending, and mutilating physically the item that caused that frustration in the first place. This is done directly through hands on contact. Very satisfying. Something you just can't do with an e-mail...unless you print it out, but why bother.

Later I will have to share some stories of my junk mail with you that I find amusing. I have tried to save a few from immediate shredding just because they are so over the top with stupidity. Never deal with anyone that expects you to be dumber than they are in order for the deal to work.

One more thing about hard mail that I really love. It is not a sleazy phone call from a telemarketer. If ever I have wanted to reach out and touch someone. Beyond telling them directly to put you on their "Do Not Call List" I tell them to send me what they have via snail mail. If they don't have my address I am not about to give it to them and if they have it most are not willing to send you anything by post anymore. It actually cost them something to do this and not everyone is willing to work for your business anymore. It's a shame really. It helps subsidize the US Post Office, and from what I hear they can use all the help they can get. If they do send you something you have real hard mail that might help you change your mind about them and their product or at the very least you will have something to shred.

Remember to recycle as appropriate. There is bound to be plenty of good fertilizer in there somewhere.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

iRazoo do you, or do I?

Have you heard of iRazoo? In my effort to find new ways to be compensated for wasting my time on the internet and providing a second or third or even thirtieth supplemental income I happened onto a web site called iRazoo, and as all things such as these I will pass on my findings to let you know if it is worth it or just a waste of time.

iRazoo is a new search engine web site that adds a twist of earning points with each search and letting its users provide feedback on the usefulness of the site through comments and a vote of yes or no to recommend a site also earning points. These points can then be traded in for toys or gift certificates. Seems simple enough but how does it deliver.

First off you will notice that as a search engine it is kind of weak. It will pull in sites for you but it is quite a mix with many entries seeming far off target. In fact they look like plants (paid advertisements) that have little to do with the subject at hand. That means that you will not be using this site as an alternative to do your regular searches. So the real use of this site is to gain points and earn stuff.

Points are relatively easy to earn, in fact it was so easy that they changed the rules within days of my joining. It seemed that some would just hit the site, grab points and move on without any seriousness in evaluating the recommended sites, so they added a timer which means you cannot vote for a site until 30 seconds have past. That is o.k. because the site comes up in a new tab, and while you are waiting for the 30 seconds to pass, you simply go back to the search page and click on another site to open up, and another one after that.

Update: They will only let you open one searched page tab at a time now so no multi-tasking means it will take 3X as long.

Three is the limit however as you can only earn points on three sites per search term used, and that is not a daily limit, that appears to be for all time. That means you have to get tricky if you want to search on a topic you are familiar with. For example, you might look for ‘Mini 500’, ‘helicopter’, ‘mini 500 helicopter’, ‘mini helicopter’, ‘500 mini’, ‘500 helicopter’… anyway you get the picture. Also each page can only be used once for points so you will have to choose carefully. Notice I did say page and not site so each page on the site can bring you points.

The three click limit is very…well limiting. Again, as a search engine iRazoo is less than stellar for those that know there are thousands and millions of web sites out there for just about any topic and to hold yourself to just the first three is rather silly.

The next limit that you will become familiar with is the daily earning limit which is currently set at 300 points per day. Because of the way the points are paid out, 8 here and 8 there, I don’t think I have hit an exact 300 yet. 300 divided by 8 gives you 37.5 so I always have a number that leaves me short and it doesn’t look like it will pay you partial points to fulfill your max. This just means it takes you longer to reach a prize level.

So what are the prize levels, or in other words, how long will it take to get something for nothing? First thing to remember is that there is very seldom a something for nothing; you are trading your time, interest, and feedback if nothing else. Even with the layered multi opened page approach I use it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to max out my points (your mileage may vary). In the iRazoo advertisements they say that you can earn a prize in as little as 10 days but that has to be 11 now since you can’t reach a full 300 point day to make the 3,000 point minimum prize level in 10 days.

So what do you get for your 3,000 points of effort? A $5 gift certificate to Amazon. Now you will have to run the numbers for yourself and decide if 5 hours worth of effort over an 11 day period is worth a $5 gift certificate but $1 per hour hardly seems worth the time, especially if the usefulness of the search engine just isn’t there.

If you wish to accumulate your points there are higher prizes to be had such as a Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 40gb, or Xbox 360 60gb for 100,000 points. An unlocked 16gb iPhone can be had for 600,000 points (that’s 2,000 days or 5.479 years for those that are counting). Or you good just hold out for the $25 Apple iTunes music card for 18,250 points (about 61 days work).

Can you get more points and can you get there faster? Yes, sort of. Two ways are offered, one is that there will be banners appearing for which you can take up an offer or buy product and the sponsor will credit you with points, eventually, (allow 6 to 8 weeks…you know the drill) and in the mean time you have given you info out to yet another someone on the web and possibly some hard earned dollars for a product you might not really have wanted for which there are plenty of other sites to get rebates on your purchases. If you can’t tell, I don’t think I trust the banners.

The other way to get points on iRazoo is to put a link to iRazoo on your web page about iRazoo or tell a friend about iRazoo so that they can join iRazoo and take advantage of this thrilling iRazoo search engine web site by joining iRazoo themselves and earning their own iRazoo points and iRazoo rewards, and for each person that joins iRazoo based on your sponsorship and promotion of iRazoo you will receive 50 iRazoo points and the person referred will also receive 50 iRazoo points. So feel free to click on any of the hyper linked mentions of iRazoo and you can play iRazoo also. Did I mention that only half of your points used can come from iRazoo referrals’, yet another limit placed on your iRazoo efforts at iRazoo.


Although I haven’t been on iRazoo very long, maybe a month or so, (it has been a busy month) and I certainly haven’t been on it every day, I am up to 2,418 points and am working on my first Amazon gift card. Why, I don’t know. I just want to see if it works for one thing and the pursuit of something for nothing still intrigues me. I also can’t tell you how quickly they pay out or how true to their word they are because I haven’t hit that spot yet either. They do have a promo going where you can win a search and win $5 Amazon gift certificate but I haven’t won one yet, and I’m not holding my breath.

One more suggestion for those willing to try, leave your radio or TV on in the back ground so when you are drawing a blank on what to do for the next search word just use the first word or phrase you hear coming out of the radio or TV. Do this carefully though, for it might be a word from a commercial that you really aren’t too anxious to learn more about.

Now that I have taken the ground work for you, it is up to you to decide if it is worth it for you. If I get one gift card I will be happy but I will also move on to hopefully bigger and better things. And as I continue to look for them I will continue to share my findings with you.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Cash for Clunkers program is fiasco

I am of the opinion that the Cash for Clunkers program was and is one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. It sums up and represents all that is wrong with the government’s approach to correcting this so called economic meltdown. Let me explain.

Cash for Clunkers is once again a knee jerk governmental reaction to a problem that would solve itself on its own if left to the natural forces of supply and demand. The idea instead is to follow the plan put forward by Germany and another country that slips my mind at this time and create an incentive for consumers to go out and spend their money. One major difference between our plan and theirs is that they limited the purchase to home grown vehicles, where as we limited it to gas thrifty cars no matter where they came from.

On the surface this sounds great. Haven’t we been told that the car industry was in trouble and then proved it by taking over two of the three remaining original American car companies. This would drive consumers to their doors just drooling over themselves in an effort to buy a car that Uncle Sam was willing to put the down payment on. And what a down payment, $3,500 to $4,500 and for what, my old worthless beater that was just barely running as it was. Besides if I tried to buy the car on my own, the dealer certainly wouldn’t give me anything for it and I would have to try and sell it myself or get a salvage yard to come haul it away.

Besides that, Congress social engineering kicks in and says why not make the deal available only to those that trade that old beater in on something that gets better gas mileage. That way, we can save the planet while helping to reduce our dependence on oil energy. What a deal.

What a deal is right. First of all, free money is never free. It has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is those that pay taxes and from those that don’t in the form of inflation as the dollar continues to tank for fear that the only way out of this excessive spend rate is to start the printing presses. There are some that will understand this but there are far too many yet that don’t. Those that don’t will soon feel the effects but sadly still not understand what happened or why.

The next thing we notice is that the money only went so far and so a second helping twice as big as the first was dished up while Congress patted itself on the back for finally doing something that helped people directly instead of just subsidizing the financial mistakes of Wall Street. Only thing is this big dollop of dollars like those before it does not help all Americans or even most Americans. It only helps those that fall into their specially defined category, namely those with a clunker/beater that is worth less than the amount of the rebate and gets lousy gas mileage. I have a friend that thinks her car is ready for the scrap heap (though knowing the type car it should be far from it) and all the hype has made her interested in trading in to take advantage but she found out she doesn’t qualify because her old steed is already a fuel efficient vehicle.

The other qualifier is that you must be in a position to be able to afford a new vehicle and not later but now. This isn’t always easy even in the best of times, but that is o.k. because you can just take out a loan. (Wait a minute; wasn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place, easily obtained excessive debt?) So if you can’t qualify for a loan or if you are not willing to qualify but you don’t have a pocket full of cash, sorry Charlie.

But who wouldn’t buy a car now; the incentive from the government is just the icing on the calk. The dealers must be dealing like crazy to stay afloat, after all we still remember the deals they were willing to make after 9/11and back then they were selling way more cars than they are now.

If you happened to look at any of the ads for new cars, have you really seen any deals being presented. Most of the dealers are moving cars so fast they don’t seem to worry about making a deal. They know that if you don’t want it they have another one right behind you that is more than willing. Besides they only have a limited inventory of eligible cars and the government is providing the incentive and they don’t even have to bargain on the value of your trade in so why not sell all cars at full retail MSRP? The dealers can’t help but be overjoyed because now they have buyers that won’t even bother to question the price.

And what of these old cars that are being turned in for free money. Well there first thing to do is to make sure they don’t get put back on the street, so they are destroyed with a mixture in the engine to seize it up for good and then off to the smasher to make sure that the vehicle is beyond the use of any mere mortal. The cars are not even sent to a junk yard to scrap the recyclable parts and put them to use on existing cars that could easily use that unscarred fender or rear axle to return an existing vehicle to serviceable condition without the need of going to a new parts supplier that will have to make the new part using new material (even if it is from recently smashed up traded in clunkers) and lots of energy to form that material into the needed part.

For those of us that have had to live on a budget and are of limited means, a used part was sometimes the only means of keeping our cars alive in good repair. That brings up the other hidden cost to this whole program. Used cars support more than just those that drive them. There is a whole industry built up to support those used cars. Used cars are also the means by which many people have been able to raise their standard of living.

As a person trades in their old vehicle and buy a new one, their old vehicle has value and is still useable by someone who is willing to pay money for that use. They themselves might be trading in their older vehicle in an effort to upgrade and in so doing free up another used vehicle to pass on to someone that has a need for cheap transportation. That vehicle is a means for some to get a much needed job, or to deliver a sick mother to a doctor appointment, or deliver children to school. The vehicle creates possibilities that would otherwise have a person do without.

As all of these vehicles disappear, there will be a whole group of people that rely on these most entry level of vehicles that will have to learn to do without for awhile. Their cost of entry just went up greatly because the supply of good serviceable cars has suddenly shrunken.

So who wins with this lousiest of all programs? The bailed out auto industry? Not if you look at the list of the top 10 qualifying cars and notice that not one of which comes from one of those bailed out car manufacturers. About the American car manufacturer and labor? Well if you look at the cars that are being bought and notice that many of those Toyotas and Hondas and the two Fords that made the list are built in America then yes perhaps some citizens benefited. But for how long? Is this just a massive promotional sale that will only last as long as the ‘free money’ but will return to gloom and doom as soon as it is gone? All indications are that the plants are not ready to crank up production just yet as this has just been an easy way to move existing inventory, in other words, things still look pretty bleak over all for the industry.

But what about the economy, won’t this provide the much needed stimulus we have all been talking about? If you were one of the ones that just happened to be in a position to take advantage of this program then you paid full retail for a vehicle that you are now committed to paying for the next 5 years for. This commitment of future cash flow means that the money is spent and cannot be used for any other purpose or purchase. The fact that the government subsidized the purchase, much like a tax deduction for mortgage interest, doesn’t make it any less spent, and unlike the government you cannot spend you income more than once.

As was illustrated earlier, this does nothing for the lower income brackets but steal away from them a sooner opportunity to move up a notch or two. And what about all the cars that will now be getting better gas mileage, doesn’t that help? States are already crying because they don’t receive enough of your money in the form of taxes so how do you think they will feel when you no longer by enough gas to cover their expected gas tax revenue. They are going to want more, mark my words. Also, I firmly believe that the free market would have given us cars and trucks with much higher gas mileage ratings than we have today if they had just been left alone and let the free market help drive demand rather than letting the government set mandates. If you could convince enough people that they really wanted high mileage vehicles, the market would and will supply them. Where there is value and demand there is a market.

So the only ones that benefit from this fiasco even if it is just temporarily are the car dealers that got one last chance to gouge the consumer if they were lucky enough to retain a dealership after the last round of closures. And if they are gouging, as any consumer should readily see, then are they really the dealers that should have survived the last round of closures. I look around and see the ones that made it near my area and definitely wonder ‘what were they thinking’? Come to think of it, I have been asking myself that question about a whole lot of things lately.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Las Vegas Traveler Alert

Just got back from the other city of lights, Las Vegas. It has been a little while since my last visit and the city continues to change, and not always for the better. We have family there and it is always good to get away for a visit with them. Others came in from other towns and we quickly made a mini reunion of the shared few days. It was a good visit.

Before becoming a married man, I used to travel to Las Vegas pretty often throughout the year. Again, it is good to have family there for visits but it was also fun to see the city, the lights, and the people and just generally take in the energy that the place gives off.

It has been very interesting to see the growth, and imagination that surrounds a city full of possibilities. Over the years I have seen many different buildings and attractions come and go. Some for the better and some I truly miss.

In the past each casino or family of casinos had a unique take on their interpretation of the Vegas experience. It was fun to compare the different approaches by wondering around the city and seeing the way the buildings were decorated inside and out, to see the costumes that were worn and to notice the type of clientele that would frequent the establishments. The people were as varied as the four corners of the earth they came from. All walks of life were represented and all found a place wither it was the flash of Caesar’s or the clown tent atmosphere of Circus Circus. They also shared a common interest which created a kind of harmony within the segregated world that is Vegas. A person could spend hours just watching the people and never have to drop a penny to be entertained.

As I said, each casino had its own method of trying to draw in the crowds and they genuinely tried to compete for your business. There were attractions for you to come and gawk at, special room rates and unbelievable buffets at very reasonable prices. You could come to town and have a quick get away without feeling like it was a big production event or the one and only vacation you took for the year. You felt like there was value for your money and not just a feeling that you saved for a lifetime to spend it all on an overpriced vacation destination like you would find in Southern California or Mid Florida for example.

Now let me state here and now that I am not a gambler. I have tried it a few times and find that it is not for me. Very small stuff, I think a half roll of quarters was the biggest slot play I had done. I preferred playing pinball truth be told. I also understand statistics and odds and I know when the odds are stacked against the player that it is better not to play. In all the years of visiting cities that offer gambling the one thing I have noticed is that their house always got bigger while I continued to live in the same dwelling. Funny thing that.

In fact, I enjoyed going to watch the people and the promotions, the marketing and the advertising, the attractions and the attracted if you will. There is a definite psychology involved here and learning it would stand anyone well in the business world and in life. I haven’t learned all there is to learn by any means but I have learned that greed is a great motivator and selling point for those wishing to draw in customers. Like any business, there are those that can do it with integrity and there are those that sink to deception.

Las Vegas has always had its share of scammers and shillers and it doesn't take much work to distinguish between those you would be willing to do business with and those that you would never visit (or never again if they took you in once).

Because there were different casinos there was competition and they honestly tried to attract your business with effort. Lately though the city has gone through major merger and acquisition activity to the point that there are only a few very big operators. This is a shame because some of the once great names in the industry have become nothing more than corporate facades. Though they thought they could find economies of scale by combining marketing forces and increasing buying power through combined purchases of supplies, what they really did was decrease the level of choice by homogenizing the casino experience.

Sure the carpet is different and the color scheme changes as you go from one casino to the next, but is it really any different. As the mergers have made the companies interchangeable, the building architecture has done likewise to the point that you can walk from one to the next, staying indoors and sometimes not even realize that you have changed casinos. (This is not just a Vegas phenomenon as I have noticed this in Reno and a few other places as well.)

So change happens I know. That is one of the things that Vegas does best. It is in a continual state of reinventing itself. It will continue to try to come up with the next best new thing for tomorrow. Unfortunately it still needs to live with today, and that brings me to the travelers alert.

The bargains of yesterday are no more.

I know that this simple saying will bring some mockery by anyone that is or has been a regular visitor to Las Vegas and I even find myself hesitating to put it out there. I have traveled to Las Vegas less and less over the last few years for the very fact that it is not the same bargain destination that allowed me to visit so often in the past. I was the first to lament the loss of the bargain buffets and got sticker shock as the price of the special treats I used to allow myself such as the Friday night Seafood buffet at Sams Town went over $10 and then quickly went over $20. I was saddened when Hoover Dam started charging for parking and then gave more expensive abbreviated tours. I miss the factory tours at the marshmallow factory and the Ocean Spray bottling plant. I hope they never close Ethel M’s though they had just shut down for a remodel while I was there.

Most of all I miss the free admittance ticket I always received at the Imperial Palace to see the wonderful collection of cars in their auto collection. I am a car nut and this was a regular stopping place for a guy who could appreciate just such a collection. I didn’t make it this trip because the gal passing out the passes in the front of the casino only had 'buy one get one' coupons and that wouldn’t do me any good this trip. Sorry Imperial but I didn’t even enter the building when I found out what you had done. I felt betrayed.

(By the way, in front of the Imperial Palace was the only place I would take something from the people that were handing out little pieces of paper. All along that street are other people handing out pieces of paper most of which gets thrown away immediately when it is discovered that it is just some advertising smut. Some makes it to garbage cans but much of it ends up on the ground. Like the people that litter a parking lot with advertisements placed on your windshield, this practice should be stopped.)

But the last straw that is breaking this regular’s back is the introduction of tacky tack on fees. The hotel Orleans where we stayed for part of this visit has introduced a “Resort surcharge fee” on top of their normal daily rate. WARNING; this is not the only place to start charging this fee. The fee is supposed to cover free local and toll free calls from the room, in-room coffee (which I don’t drink), discount coupons, 10 minutes internet access in the business center and use of the fitness center. The price for all these ‘resort’ amenities is $5 per day. Not a great deal of addition given the room rate I got but still this is the chintziest of pricing gimmicks and irritates me no end. Orleans is part of the Boyd group and I would guess that they have added this pricing tactic to all their other hotels as well. By the way, the $5 surcharge was one of the lower add-ons as I saw as much as $25 per day to stay at the new M Resort.

First off, as I said; I hate pricing gimmicks. I can usually see through them and figure out the true price but I just hate the idea of them and will usually walk rather than deal with a business that stoops to these kinds of practices. (Are you listening out there? I dislike this practice so much that I will go elsewhere.) Second, the Orleans was at least somewhat up front about it and put notices in many places so that you would not be caught unawares. They even have signs on the counter at check-in and make you sign a form saying you acknowledge the charge at check-in. This is much better than finding out after the fact and trying to correct what you might think is an overcharge. Then again, with the number of notices placed I would bet they have got many a guest in a difficult and shocked end of trip gotcha. Third, the claimed resort surcharges provides for amenities that are generally standard (i.e. included) at any equivalent hotel. To pretend that there is enough value in these piddly offerings to charge extra for them whether they are used or not is really just sad.

To see this trend extend to so many hotels in the Vegas area is even sadder.

Local calls and toll free numbers should be free to call no matter what hotel you stay at. I am always amazed when I am staying at one of the nicer places and they want to charge you to make a call. At least the choice is yours. I am also surprised and disappointed when I stay at a more expensive hotel that wants to charge extra to use the fitness room. Just what does all that extra cost actually get me if not the nicer bed, the bigger towels, the bigger TV and some special perks that you can’t find at the budget stays? If I more than double the price of the local Motel 6 and all I get extra is a little vial of shampoo, lotion and conditioner then I will feel ripped off.

So now when I do go to Vegas and I have to play games to figure out what the room is really costing me and I feel like I am being nickeled and dimed, then perhaps it is time for me to start looking elsewhere for a new quickie getaway spot. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. Everyone needs a break from the daily grind, and it shouldn’t have to make you break the bank to do it. I know that everyone has different levels of what constitutes a bargain basement getaway but that is what makes it fun.

On the other hand, with as many traffic cops as there are out there (thank you homeland security) perhaps I would be safer to leave the car in the drive, catch the bus and visit the local Wal-Mart for a fun filled afternoon of people watching. I think it just might fill some of the same niche that Vegas used to do for me…and I might still find a bargain or two.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Three Stooges redone???

So Hollywood is at it again. Since they are so hard pressed to come up with any original ideas, they are easily sold on doing repackaging of current hits, sequels, or doing remakes of old classics. It is the remaking of old classics that I have had the most problems with. 9 times out of 10 they can't do it. The old classics are true classics that only work with actors, action and story lines that come within the context of the era. Very few actors are capable of recreating the magic of a past era let alone pulling off a credible re-creation of a past master. A poster of the Mona Lisa from the gift shop is not the same thing as the original. (I hesitate to use this example as many suspect that the Mona Lisa that so many enjoy at the Louvre is actually a reproduction. I guess that just shows that there is always a market for those that don't know any better or can't tell the difference.)

So what possible remake could they do that would cause enough of a stir to deserve a comment? It seems the Farrelly brothers, who I am guessing are big fans of the original and want to find more of the magic they once knew, are redoing the Three Stooges. All I can say is that if you are really fans of the original icons, then please do not do this. You will try to modernize it and then have it go through the Hollywood politically correctness department and before you know it you have disaster on your hands.

Case in point is the proposed cast of Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn. Jim Carrey has enough talent that he is the only possibility (given the right team of writers, directors, other cast members, etc.) of pulling something like this off. I would prefer to see him doing something new, fresh and original that would draw on all his strengths but this is Hollywood and we shouldn't expect so much.

The other two are where we cement the disaster. Benicio is a face I recognize but I can't for the life of me associate it with anything remotely labeled as greatness especially in the comedy category. He is a fine actor and can serve up a decent supporting role but this role would be a stretch for anyone. Sean Penn on the other hand hasn't done anything worthwhile of late, and some would argue ever. This is one of the many examples of overrated personalities that somehow manage to continue to find work in show business.

I just pulled is bio on IMDB and he has been involved in a lot of things, it is an impressive resume, at least for volume. I still remember the movie 'The Pledge' as one of the absolute worst pictures at that time only to find out at the end that he was the producer and director. How sad for me (I lost 2 hours and the price of admission). His recent stuff tends to play to the Hollywood insider crowd and that was enough to win him an Oscar promoting the homo sexual agenda. Yet another example of why I do not follow the award ceremony anymore, they've lost their way and are no longer concered about the movies and the entertainment industry.

By the way, I was reading some of the comments that came with the news article, and they were not flattering concerning the casting call nor were they even remotely kind for the selection of Sean Penn. There are a lot of people that feel Sean Penn has been anti-American in many of his comments and actions of late and it shows in the feedback to this announcement of his selection. If this industry still fashions itself to be a business, I would think two and three times before adding him to the cast. The type of audience this movie should be geared towards will actively boycott the Penn selection while the type of audience that Sean Penn would normally attract do not get and well not understand or appreciate the Three Stooges. I would do a quick rethink before too much money has been invested; try to salvage what you can.

That is what makes it all the more strange to pick these three as Hollywood is all about playing it safe when it comes to making big ticket movies and by that I mean they don't take very many chances on unknown quantities. They are pretty good at rehashing (or should I say 'paying tribute too') old story lines and ideas. The vaults are full of examples and the new releases just confirm it. I watched Bolt yesterday and couldn't count how many times I thought of the T.V. show Animaniacs, ('Now that's comedy). Bolt shows that you can take a classic or at least elements of the classic and create a parallel product that can be entertaining without smashing the toes of the original. I still really wish they would have made a Mission Impossible “like” movie with Tom Cruise rather than an actual Mission Impossible movie. It was a fair movie that could have stood on its own but it is in no way related to the T.V. show that made the title famous.

So my suggestion to you Farrelly brothers, throw away the title and the names of the characters, unless you just use them as a working title. Just like there are tribute bands that play in appreciation of the bands they love and the music they enjoy, call this a tribute movie because it will not be the original and there are far too many fans that will know it. Create a movie "like" the Three Stooges would make if they were still around but use your own characters and your own story and give it a new name and title and look. And if you ‘have to’ use Sean Penn, please keep him in the background and at least try to make him funny and not just a laughing stock. My biggest question now is will they use a laugh track. Will they need one?

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Product Review: Vacuum food savers.

I am sure many of you have seen the infomercials advertising home vacuum sealers to preserve food. The idea is to buy in bulk and save money then repackage with the vacuum sealer to use the food in a more suitable manner, either through sizing or just allowing more time to use the food before it spoils. It is a great idea and I was hooked.

I am a great conservative and love to save money and with careful shopping you can find some items that are cheaper when bought in bulk (though that is not always the case, so shop smart and read the labels and calculate and compare) and if not you can always wait for a really good sale and stock up. Problem is when you stock up really big on a really good sale, will you have time to eat it all before it goes bad? When I was single I had a hard time finishing half a loaf of bread before it started growing penicillin in its natural state. Vacuum sealing food sounds like just the answer I was looking for.

Next problem, as many of you may have seen the same infomercial and have been tempted to jump on board, is the price of these popular units. Foodsaver which is the company that made the idea of vacuum sealing so popular has several different units on their web site beginning at $79.99 and running up to $299.99. The one on T.V. seems to have been priced around $129. That rates an ouch in my book and I just couldn’t justify it so I never bothered, though it was always in the back of my mind that if I could find a decent price on one I would probably go ahead and get one.

Years went by, I got married and I came across a Rival brand sealer that was on close out at the local megalamart. Since there were now two of us to share one machine’s usage and the price was around $50 I quickly talked myself into it.

The Rival machine works pretty much the same as the Foodsaver machine as near as I can tell. Looking at the two side by side they look very similar and comparing our usage method to that seen in the demonstrations given for T.V. I would say that they are comparable.

I must say that we did have fun with it…for a time. It was way fun to put food in a bag and suck the air out. We created a mini production facility and went to work sealing away blocks of cheese and family pack purchases of meat for later use. We felt like we were doing ourselves good by our efforts. The packages went into the freezer and the food stayed useable long after other buys would have been tossed. The idea worked.

Mostly..., as I mentioned, we would set up a mini production facility I meant that in a fun way but the reality is that you almost had to set up a small production run whenever you wanted to use the sealer. Because there was extra effort involved in set up and clean up, the sealer got used less and less as time went on.

Also, you had to buy rolls of material and create your own bags in the size you wanted or buy pre-made, pre-sized bags. There are also canisters that you can buy that are supposed to attach easily to the machines and provide a quick reusable platform for storing rice, sugar, pasta and such. Well, the bags were easy enough to make though we sometimes made them bigger than they needed to be thus wasting some material. We seldom did the 'cut open the bag take out what you need and reseal the bag' because it was a pain to retrieve the machine each time for what should have been a simple set up. No wonder they say that many people leave them out on their countertops, it's just easier that way. The special design canisters worked about twice and we were never able to get a seal to hold after that. They are pretty much just like any other canister now.

The sealing of the bags was a wonderful thing to do and watching as it happened…when everything went right. Sometimes it didn’t, or wouldn’t. Sometimes the machine would just whirr away and nothing would happen because we didn’t have the flap just right or there was an uneven cut along the leading edge when we tried to make our own bags. That is my guess anyway. Also if there was any chance of a liquid being involved there was also the chance of a mess being involved. It is hard to suck out air without sucking out the liquid so if you were going to save soup for a later microwave reheat at work, be very careful. That applies to juicy things like fresh fruit, and marinating steaks and chicken breasts like they show on T.V.

Well, we did use it for quite some time (but nowhere near as much as I thought we should) before one day the pump was running like crazy and nothing was happening no matter what we tried. Our machine had given up. We still liked the idea of a food sealer and thought that we would get another one at some point but we never made it a high priority or found ourselves willing to pay the going rates for a new machine. We thought about switching to the Foodsaver brand but still couldn’t justify the price even with two of us using one.

Normally the story would end there but we were walking through the store the other day and came across a hand held battery operated food sealer vacuum pump put out by Reynolds (the same people that bring you Reynolds wrap). The price was a blowout bargain by comparison to the units we had been looking at. The Handi-Vac starter kit with the pump and a couple of bags was less than $10. I think that included the batteries. I could live with that so we bought it, brought it home, broke it out and gave it a try.

I can tell you right now this is the way to go. If you have ever thought of getting a food sealer and you are not going into the business and need a commercial unit, this makes sense. The pre-made, pre-sized bags are a wonderful design. If you can operate a self-locking bag you can definitely operate this system. And its reusable.

Put the food in the bag, press out as much air as you normally would closing these bags, seal the bag with the self locking seal, then apply the hand vacuum pump to the bag at the spot indicated while on a hard flat surface and begin to remove the air with the push of a button. Air comes out, just like the big boys and its done slick as a whistle. If you want to readjust things inside, or get something out, go ahead and open it up at the self-locking seal, pull out what you need and reseal it and put the vacuum pump to it again and your done. I like this, a lot. It works.

I think a big part of the difference is that with the Foodsaver you suck the air out first and then try to seal the bag with a heat source that fuses the material together, while the self-locking stirp on the Reynolds bag is operated by running your thumb across it like we are all used to from using sandwich bags and then applying the vacuum pump after the bag is sealed and ready to go. This simple reversal of steps in the process makes all the difference.

Some things to remember are to not overfill the bag and when filling it be sure to leave the pump corner empty enough to create a flat surface to run the pump on. The bags are a special design with a pump spot that is a one way valve to allow the air to escape but seal tightly after the air has been removed. The bags also have a rough surface inside. This is to allow the air a pathway out of the bag around whatever you are storing when the vacuum pump is working.

So what is the cost of these special bags? I was just in the local store looking for some replacements and found packages of the quart size for about $0.23 each and gallon size around $0.30. Not too shabby when you consider what it gets you as well as the easy reusability feature.

There is one other entry level vacuum food sealer competitor and that is Ziploc. They have a system that is even cheaper but it uses a manual pump to create the vacuum function. From my experience, using a manual pump is a two handed operation most of the time and that would mean you would still need a third hand to work the bag. Since I am looking for simplicity and functionality I think the better pick is the battery operated unit Handi-Vac from Reynolds.

Bags from both Ziploc and Reynolds have similar design features. There are some lettering and highlighting differences but not enough to change the functionality of either bag. The Ziploc bags do have a textured inner lining that runs across the whole of one side for the air pathways where as the Reynolds bag only textures a couple inch strip across one side. Both work equally well.

The pricing on the bags seem comparable to so the only difference is in the cost of the manual pump vs. battery operated, or $3 vs. $10 in the starter kits. Since the store I went to was out of the Reynolds bags in the size I needed I decided to try the Ziploc bags and they worked just fine. Both seem to make a quality product and at a whale of a difference in price compared to the popular Foodsaver brand but then again, you don’t have to pay for all that late night T.V. advertising time.

So what did we do with it? We bought a 5 pound bag of shredded cheese at the local Costco for about $2 more than the normal 2 pound bag at the local grocer, broke it down into 5 one pound bags, vacuum packed and put them in the freezer. Then we did the same thing with a 5 pound bag of pepperoni, first wondering how much to put in each bag to cover one pizza and then remembering that it is no trouble to open it up, take out what we needed and reseal the remainder. How cool is that?

Now I know that this is no consumer reports with a comparison done over months of testing with detailed analysis of vacuum rates, seal pressures, freezer burn protection and time intervals, but this is also not a paid endorsement, (if it was I would tell you so). This is just my shared experience and opinion on a pretty good idea. I hope you find it handy.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Search Me

As I stated earlier, this year I am going to show a renewed effort to increasing income. That includes trying to make a successful blog. I mentioned that I would share with you my efforts in these regards and so I shall. Just as I have profited from the lessons of others, perhaps you can profit from the experiences I have gone through. By sharing these with each other we all benefit. I do not subscribe to the ideal of knowledge being power only when one person has it and withholds it from another. Knowledge only has power when it is put into motion. Pass it on, pay it forward. That is how we all have been benefited and enjoy what we have today.

So in reviewing the blog results over the last year as I have shared with you on the anniversary entry, I notice that I haven’t reached that ‘viral’ stage that so many have had to hit to see real results. Do I expect to become a household name with global recognition? Sure, doesn’t everyone? Reality of course deems that real readership will fall somewhere between one (me) and the worldwide population. I’m comfortable with that.

After all, not everyone will find these rantings amusing or even interesting. Some will. I hope you are one of them. I don’t have to please everyone. Not only is that difficult, it is impossible. ‘You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself’ is a wonderful lyric as well as a hint of wisdom.

As you might have noticed, I have made some slight changes to the layout of the web site. Call it experimentation. I am trying to fine tune it and will continually try to make it better. In the process I somehow lost Google Analytics tracking ability. Google Analytics is a tracking program you load on the web page that counts how many time a page has been viewed and how many times it was viewed uniquely. It tries to see how people found your page and if they looked at another of your pages or went on to other parts of the web. It does not identify anyone specifically or in detail, just an aggregate summation of the blogs usage. If I were making specific marketing campaigns and trying to drive sales, I could use analytics too help quantify the effectiveness of different advertising approaches. As this page is about anything and everything and not about marketing any products other than the blog itself, analytics is not being used the way other sites would use it.

Anyway, in the process of moving some items around and changing the Google ads display sizes and ability to display images, I managed to lose the analytics tool. It took me a lot of searching to finally come up with the fact that I needed to reload the code. I then had to track down the right code and my id code that goes with it. The simple 5 minute copy and paste operation lasted two hours. I have checked and it looks like it is working again.

That is the thing about new technology; it comes with a new language. And like any language it takes time to learn. When computers were first introduced I remember seeing stories on the news about the changes the dictionaries had to make to add all the new words that were being created to describe the workings of computers. This explosion of lexicon was amplified by the increase of personal computers and the internet. The word blog itself is an example of this as abbreviations such as web log created first slang then standard verbiage.

As I have entered the world of online ads and marketing and blogs I have been introduced to a whole new world of language. Some I have easily adopted from previous exposure to the computer world and some that is totally foreign. Some of the terms and their meaning are easier to decipher than others. For some there doesn’t seem to be any easy reference points to quickly gain their meaning other than slogging through and hoping that repetition and context will provide a clue. Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn’t.

Repetition and context have taken me a long way though. I can read some HTML when looking at it better than I could before. With ads there are terms like e-CPM or effective cost-per-thousand, and bounce rate and absolute unique visitors. Some make sense right away while some take time to see in action to fully comprehend.

Now to go back a little, I said that my analytics tool quit working. How did I know this? Google Adsense comes with its own tracking software code that is loaded on the web page. Whereas the Analytics tool is an option you add, the Adsense reports come automatically as a result of signing up an account to display Google Ads. Google Adsense reports are much, much simpler showing basically number of page impressions and number of clicks on ads with amount earned for those clicks and it only breaks it down into today, yesterday, week, month, last month, and all time categories. It doesn’t even tell you which pages were looked at or which ads were clicked.

Honestly I don’t even know what ads are placed on the site and that is why I added the disclaimer to the pages about the ads sponsoring me and not the other way around. I figure that if this site gets bigger and really popular, say like a Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, then I will start to dictate the ads and sell them direct. Until that time, you partner with someone that knows the business and can take care of that my knowledge and background isn’t large enough to handle. Google knows this part of the business and that is why I am here and using them.

So Adsense was the tipoff that Analytics was not working since one report showed visitors on these given days and the other didn’t. See, it is good to get information and facts from more than one source. Problem identified, problem fixed.

Or is it? I still seem to have the problem of not getting enough traffic driven to my blog. I know from experience that part of the problem is that the search engines do not see me. Analytics has shown me that the majority of traffic coming to my sight from search engines came from Google. I am glad that Google sees me but that is too be expected since this blog is hosted on a Google site and uses Google ads but what about the hundreds of other search engines out there?

I know Yahoo saw me at one time but it doesn’t seem to be able to find me now. IWON that uses the Ask search engine had never been able to find me. I have used that fact to gain points for searches as you can see on my IWON hint pages but it is discouraging. I have tried any number of different combinations or words and topics and even spelling out the web address with no matches found. This is the same result on a dozen other web sites.

As I have been searching for a solution to this problem, I ran across the idea that you had to submit a web site so that the spiders or web crawlers would go take a look. I have done this a few times and I think that is why I got a few hits from Yahoo and MSN but they only looked once and they only looked at a few pages. Google is the only one that has many pages listed.

Even finding the method to submit your web page is difficult for many of the search engines. Some you run across by accident, others from a link, but many don’t seem to want to publish this information at all. This seems strange since a search engines business is to search the web and provide all the information out there to its users. You would think that whichever service did this the best would be the winner in the search engine competition but I find a lot of them lacking.

I have stated this before about most searches now just pointing you to the commercial sites and missing all the great individual informative small sites all together. Those were the fun days of the web, when you could actually connect to people and not just businesses. It was back when businesses didn’t know what the web was or what to do with it. There must be a balance in there somewhere.

If you search for ‘search engines’ or ‘submit a site’ on most search engines you will get all kinds of things, not many of which are useful. I have found that there are a lot of services out there that will mega submit your site for a fee. Some will do it for ‘free’ only to find that free also has a cost of adding their software to your site, or submitting to a constant barrage of e-mail. Jayde Online is one such company that I have signed up for and though I haven’t seen any results from the supposed submission I have seen a large influx of e-mail. They do say I can unsubscribe at any time, but I will try their newsletter for a little while and see if there is any value. So far it looks like it is directed at full on business sites.

I have learned two things about search engines and their web crawlers. First, web crawlers will look at your site if it is referred to by another site that they have crawled. The more sites referencing your site, the more chances that your site will be looked at. Therefore, if someone is surfing and comes upon this site and decides to add mention of it on their site and it is one that gets crawled there is a chance that my site would be added to the list of sites to get crawled. That is why there are many people selling cross listing services or doing the “I’ll list your site if you list mine”.

Once the web crawler as decided to take a look at your site it must have permission to look and this is granted in a file called ‘robot.txt’. The robot.txt tells web crawler what they can and cannot look at. As I found this out I decided to take a look at mine and see if it is blocking sites. I kind of think that it might be but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to change it back to a simple basic open door policy. As near as I can tell this is a Google BlogSpot hosting rule. They help you set it up initially and block things if you so desire, but it is a set it and forget it notion. I have always had the intention of having this blog shared with all so I tried to leave the setting open. I thought I had anyway. I cannot find a way to directly access the file as it is on the BlogSpot server and after hours of searching I finally came across the setup menu for the robot.txt file, redid what I thought I needed to do but it looks exactly as it did before. This may be something I just have to learn to live with.

The other mentioned items for the web crawlers is a site map of which I am not sure how to develop, again because of BlogSpot’s lock on things, and Meta Tags. I think I am using Meta tags as the topic links that I include with each entry but I am not sure if it is the same thing as what the web crawlers are looking for. These are a couple more examples of this new language I was talking about. For those that already know what these things are, do not laugh. Just reflect on the first time you heard some of these terms and remember how you just went along with it rather than admit you didn’t know. It happens to everyone, and it happens all the time.

In order to get the address out there and see if this referencing thing has any merit I am going to be surfing the web a little more and dropping the web site address if possible in comment boxes and wherever suitable and see if it makes any difference. I am not going to do this in a spamming manner. The name dropping will only be done with true contributions and comments of relevance or not at all. I still want to maintain the better side of the web where people interact with people in a positive light. I would rather shed light on the sleazy characters and scare them back into their cockroach dens than promote their way of doing things. I know I won’t always measure up to the highest standards but at least I will be trying, as I hope you do too.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.