MORE LIKE SUCKQUIEM

HAHAHA

Mercury! Yummy!

Recently this video was recommended to me via email because it contained important revelations about CFLs. But I instead gained some important revelations about how ignorant our own politicians can be.



I wrote back:

This guy doesn't actually have a lot to stand on so he made his speech distractingly flamboyant. But it doesn't work very well.

CFLs are actually quite hardy & not that easy to break. The levels of mercury, furthermore, in a CFL bulb are not actually as high as this guy is ignorantly implying. Precautions are necessary in the unlikely event of breakage, but the broken glass of any kind of light bulb is probably more of a threat than the mercury.

What he's really protesting is the inconvenience of using CFLs. But even then he hasn't done his homework.

Americans are quite pretentious in thinking that we can abuse the environment & its resources as much as we do & not bother with recycling or conservation. Our nation really just produces a lot of garbage, because we can afford to. One day when our money runs out we'll find that we have been behind the times.

It should not be a huge problem to visit a recycling center. On top of that, CFLs last so long there would really not be many trips needed. They do not burn out like incandescent bulbs. They last for multiple years. The average life of a CFL is 10,000 hours whereas that of an incandescent is 750. How long would it take you to use up 10,000 hours?

As far as production in China, I would expect the US private sector will eventually take an interest in CFL production since it is obviously going to be a reliable market. And if it's not cost effective, then it is still in the US's best interests to acquire CFLs from another country. Perhaps when we run out of landfills we can rent land from China as well. I don't think that China has some secret plot to kill the US through commercial products. I think they are doing what they do best: mass produce things. They are a country of industry. On top of that, they have no reason to try to destroy us. If the US was gone, who would buy all their stuff?

While I don't support a full ban of incandescents, I do think that we need to start having more awareness of our resource usage, & I do think that widespread conversion to CFL would be a good thing. He's right that we should be searching for alternatives outside of CFL use. We should be switching to CFLs as well as seeking as many energy solutions as we can find. We should be doing all of that.

AT&T Customer Service

4,000+ rollover minutes to use by July 4th. Plus the 600 I never use. How will I do it?

23 months ago I was in the midst of a painful, languishing dating situation. He was hot, he was a musician, he had a good job, he had a great house, he had 4 dogs. He was also hot. The problem was that he had a Cingular phone & he wouldn't fucking stop calling me, constantly, all day, all the time. He would even call me during my Thursday night BWL raid, when I had told him I would be unavailable to chat. But I put up with this nonsense because, well, he was hot.

He ran my T Mobile bill up to $200. I went out & got a damn Cingular phone.

I got rid of him a month later. I just can't talk on the phone that much. And here I was stuck with a 2-year contract. I had perhaps 5 friends with Cingular accounts, all of whom were more likely to text or call from a landline than call me on their Cingular phones. I'm not much of a phone talker to begin with.

I gave the phone to my mom who used an average of 45 weekend minutes per month & nothing else. Add 600 new rollover minutes, every billing cycle. For 23 months. Yeah, minutes expired while I paid $55 each month. Sheesh.

But emancipation is now imminent.

Cancellation was a painless, pleasant process. Cancellation can't be done at the AT&T website, & when I was informed I would have to call their customer service number I experienced misgivings.

I called 1-800-331-0500 & went through the automated menu options. The recorded voice spoke quickly (unlike HMSA Provider Services' recordings, which draw out every word & every space between every word to the max length short of actually slowing down the recording) & I only had to choose options twice: 0, then 4. Then as I was being transferred to a representative, my T Mobile phone lost signal & I was disconnected. For a second I thought it was a dirty trick (they did this to us at Tricare), but then I realized it was my T Mobile connection. Talk about irony.

My 2nd call to the 1-800 number was answered almost immediately by a CSR who was not from India (hey, this is already better than Dell!). Not only could I hear her clearly, she was very pleasantly to the point & did not attempt to waylay my cancellation attempt by reciting special offers that I might be interested in over & over again (already better than Citicard). I explained that I wished to cancel simply because of non-use, which could be seen plainly on my account information. She then transferred me to another representative who would do the actual cancellation.

I was interviewed briefly & not inappropriately, & then the cancellation was done. I was informed of the exact end date, my options should I wish to reactivate, & details of my final billing. She thanked me for my business with AT&T & wished me well.

Now, that's how a cancellation of service should go.

Aye-Aye!

Omg, I want one.

This is an Aye Aye; it's an endangered nocturnal primate in Madagascar, unafraid of humans (they've been known to scamper up & sniff environmentalists' shoes) but reputed by natives to be a harbinger of death, & so now is an endangered species due to habitat destruction & superstitious extermination by villagers.

The picture at right is of newborn Kintana, captive bred in Britain. Apparently this species is the only surviving member of its genus, having branched off from the Lemur line 66 million years ago.

So far at least 2 babies have been born & hand-raised in captivity at Bristol Zoo. I only just heard of these guys from a cool email that Mike sent today, featuring the 25 strangest animals.

This thing is my ideal pet based on appearances alone. Talk about love at first sight. If it could intermittently mutter evil-sounding phrases I would be catching a plane to Madagascar tomorrow.

Omg, so cute.

All My Faves

My friend Mike just told me about this. It's a page of popular website links, segregated by interest.

My goodness.