cherydactyl | Entries tagged with consumer

It's been a pretty long time since I wrote anything that wasn't a meme. I've been on and off sick, extremely busy with a second micro-job and holiday stuff, worrying about the global economy and our family economy, and playing too much Power Grid on BSW.

illyaa's phone finally gave up the ghost about a week ago. So we suddenly had to move on the front of getting new phones, which I had been hemming and hawing over for about 6 weeks. We've been out of contract for a long time, longer than I thought as it turns out. By the time we actually did something about it this week, we'd been out of contract for two years. Yes, you did read that right. My Treo is four years old, and looks like it. We attempted to upgrade our phones and deal with Sprint, and had several bad or frustrating experiences on the web site and in the store we visited (the one on Washtenaw between ~~Beaners~~Bigby and Chipoltle). The biggest source of frustration is that to get the full rebates on a Centro, Sprint was forcing us to have a data plan for me. I want a PDA phone because I want a calendar and note taker and some control over applications without downloading crap from a provider's proprietary store only, and the ability to get photos off my phone by USB connection. I don't expect to use email or web on the phone. So, the extra monthly $ were feeling like a deal-breaker. Then

illyaa went on his company's web site to look for other provider's offers.

One advantage of his working for a global information behemoth (Thomson-Reuters) is they have good deals they negotiate for their employees. [The Sprint store employee we had tried to deal with kept saying Thomsom-Rooters, rhyming with Hooters. It was all I could do not to crack up.] Upshot: We are now with Verizon, who did not attempt to force me into a data plan. We have new phones, including a Centro for me. My Centro is a boring metallic navy blue instead of "vibrant rose," but I'm okay with that. lol. It came with a sudoku application, so my fidget-game needs are set for a while. :) All three phones arrived via Fed Ex yesterday evening, and we activated them this morning.

Yes, you did read "three phones." Older daughter S also has a phone now. Same model LG flip phone as her dad, but in candy apple red. It's locked to only accept calls from numbers in her contact list as of now, which is just our numbers so far. We plan to add her aunts and grandparents at least, and some of her friends too. Yes, we realize we are crazy. We figure this is an experiment, and will pay off when we go to game conventions. It will make me feel a little better about loosening the supervision tether on her. If she doesn't lose her phone by then. ;^) She needs a belt clip or a way to hang her phone on a lanyard, which we plan to work on this week.

IMO, a version of this with a grey area for the extra $ in a pie the same size of the bailout pie would have been more visually effective.

Only, I'm wondering if this is right...is this falling afoul of the American Billion vs. British Billion problem? I didn't think our bailout was in the trillions yet....

Apparently, the source for the numbers is this article at Boing Boing porsted by Cory Doctrow. It includes the Citi bailout money, which is why it's over 4 trillion.

Yikes.

Oh My. There are some sources out there saying it's even worse than that:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/calculating-the-total-bailout-costs/

I'm not that large. Really. Okay, I could stand to loose 10-15 pounds, so could many people. But what has that got to do with glove sizes?

I recently bought a really nice dress coat from Lands' End. They had my size for that; it's not even the biggest size of the regular size range (non-plus-size). It's lovely and warm, a camel colored wool walking coat.

I also ordered some gloves. Beautiful plum purple lambskin leather gloves lined with cashmere, the most expensive gloves I have ever bought. In size L. They are too freaking small. I have long fingers, which I have known for a long time, but even discounting that, they are really tight around my fingers. I called LE up and they don't make these gloves in XL. I am SOL. I suppose it saved me from buying the matching cashmere baby cable scarf and hat (which would have been a little over $100 together), but I still need good, warm dress gloves, long and large enough to fit my long-fingered, not-so-small hands.

Current Mood: heartbroken

I guess no new crock pot for me. ;^D

Replacement pot lid handle knob and screw: $2.25 plus tax at Ace Barnes Hardware

Employee who sawed the previous screw to get it off the lid after it stripped: PRICELESS

Saturday's adventure had an added twist: the black plastic handle of my crock pot lid came completely off when I went to pack the cooker for transport. Well, the screw and nut are still there, but everything else came off. It's been getting looser and looser for a couple of months. It was rather annoying trying to serve the Moroccan Chicken with the lid in that condition, but what can ya do?

Today I called Rival's customer service to inquire about a replacement lid for this oval 6 (or is it 5.5?) qt cooker. I was told, sure, they have that listed; $10 plus tax and shipping. Oh, except they don't have any in stock, and don't know when they would or if they would at a future date. I should call back in three weeks, even though they took my name and phone number (and linked it up to my product registration record, apparently, because she had my last name on file) to record that I wanted a lid. Maybe they will decide that they need to get more lids of this style made in the next three weeks? And the kicker is the customer service then suggested going to a hardware store to get temporary hardware for my lid to use in the meantime. Argh.

I'm considering just up and buying a Hamilton Beach slow cooker with multiple crocks, which has three different models in different colors. I first saw this on one of the lj food communities I follow.

therck has one now. It comes with a 2-qt, a 4-qt and a 6-qt crock, all of which use the same lid and heating unit. I would likely instantly go buy one or two replacement lids; otherwise I'd be robbing the lid from one dish to cook another all the time. So,

therck, do you think I could cook a whole chicken in the 6-quart crock? Because if it's not feasible, I may have to re-think. Maybe I'd patch up the lid I have and use that when I want to roast and make chicken stock. In which case maybe I should get the black-and-stainless version so they match? I don't know. I don't think I want to wait three weeks to find out if my less-than-two-years-old slow cooker is close to junk.

Unfortunately, I can't go to the hardware store with the lid this evening, because there's gumbo in that thar pot right now. I had to make gumbo, because I got okra at the farmer's market last week, you see. ;^)

Interesting article about the emerging so-called Homo Obeseus. It puts forward the idea that the typical western diet is screwing us over by sending signals to our DNA to turn us into a "species" unable to cope with inflammation or balance our own metabolisms.

Dairy is a main culprit of promoting inflammation that the article's author cites. As some of you know, I've been struggling at removing dairy from my diet for going on four years now. I have regularly relapsed into eating dairy, but seeing as how I suffer from a certain pesky inflammatory ailment, asthma, reducing inflammation is of great interest to me. Most of my falling off the wagon is when we eat out, as most American cuisine has butter, milk, and cheese all through. It's practically impossible to avoid dairy completely at certain restaurants.

I don't think I'm ready to go vegan, but I am beyond ready to go completely dairy-free. My kids and husband, however, are not at all enthusiastic. My younger child's caloric intake would plummet, at least in the short term, if I removed dairy, as she takes most of it in the form of either yogurt or mac 'n' cheese or cheese pizza. My older child has turned her nose up at my dairy substitutes, especially soy yogurt and ice cream substitutes. Do you have any freaking idea how hard it is to get fully non-dairy cheese? Most soy and rice cheeses have caesin in them, a milk protein, so they melt like regular cheese. So it's dairy but not? Right. I am glad she likes falafel at Jerusalem Garden; there is some hope that I can build on that to reduce dairy in the future. Here's hoping I can find ways for us to unhook from the dairy economy.

A while back, someone posted a review of Maggie's Pure Land Soap Nuts in

green_daily. These are not actually nuts, but the dried berries of the Chinese Soapberry tree, which have a naturally-occurring surfactant in them, saporin. I am not sure what inspired me to actually try them, but I did.
( Read the rest of my review... )

According to the Environmental Working Group...

"Laboratory tests of canned infant formula conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a certified commercial laboratory reveal that a plastics chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) leaches from metal can linings into formula at levels which, according to new EWG analyses, would expose some bottle-fed infants to BPA in excess of doses that caused serious adverse effects in animal tests."

Shockingly, this article has an August issue date, but I never heard of it before.
See the full article here

I'm so glad I almost exclusively breast-fed my kids. ::shudders::

via the

discworld community. Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler is in heaven.

OTOH, Puh-lease DO NOT tell my 8-year old daughter about these...! I beg of you!

A Dove ad on YouTube that has a very powerful and powerfully delivered message.

thanks to

cornellbox, the really useful

Full explanation from the StayFree! Daily.

http://www.gethuman.com/us/

tells you how to get to a human being through the maze of voice mail menu hell for many, many companies. It's entertaining to see the escape routes built in. Sometimes you have to act stupid, or not there, or baffled (saying and pressing nothing), and somtimes you just press 0 until somebody answers.

found via www.parenthacks.com