Protect new car windows from permanent hard water spots, at the lot , with Glass Science's Rain Clear ,,,GEL,,,(AUG '08 update)

One of the biggest appearance depreciations right off the lot with a new car is the usual first day splash with hard water spots, whether it is Santa Cruz hard water or Capitola's or San Jose's.

A very smart way to protect you big investment for a long time is to use either Rain-x or something like it,,,and i like Glass Science's Rain Clear GEL because it goes on like vasoline filling all those tiny cavities in glass, unlike the old LIQUID version that was too runny. Rub it on with a small terry cloth towel and take off the excess with another one. Do this once or twice a year -don't forget your rear view left and right outside mirrors- and you will never have to look through PERMANENT WHITE HARD WATER SPOTS !! My advice is to not use anything on the inside surfaces of the glass other than windex-like stuff, as most of them,Rain-x and Glass Science, tend to haze and obscure with a constant need for rag polishing,,,

For your tires i have tried all the usual auto store options and have given up on the oily sprays like Black Magic, cuz they are greasy and don't last more than acoupe days. Recommend you use Original Armor All that sprays on like milk and last a week. Also good on plastic like your back hood wiper area. Again, don't use it on your dash or your inside windows will constantly fog and need a towel wipe off.

Republicans are trying to destroy California State,,,and Federal Finance,,,and thus our Democratic Republic !!

Governor Grey Davis was no mistake, in deregulating electricity and natural gas energy in California, and plunging all Californians from the 8th richest government in the world ,,,to the swimming in red ink, 15 Billion in debt this year financial mess, in just a few short years. The uber-rich the Republicans only support, to the detriment of the middle cash and working poor, don't seem to care a damn if our roads have gone from the best in the USA to the worst, and our public schools from the best to the worst. The super rich use private schools-diploma mills and have expensive suvs that can handle the terrible local roads and highways in this sorry state of California. Governor Arnold S. will not raise taxes on the rich and super/uber-rich who can very easily afford it,,, and has proven to be a terrible administrator/administrative selector.

"Soak the rich!!" and say it loud and say it proud. They killed off the Middle Class, while the Demos did little to stop it. If you want to play at Capitalism, then all you rich bastards can pay.

This was no accident. Elect another Republican at your state's and the Nation's peril !!

Gavin Newsom ,SF Mayor, is thinking of running for Governator !!

Ten reasons why this is a baaad idea:

1- He had an affair in office with a major staffer's wife,,,

2-He ,like many a mayor before, will not fix the city bus department, Muni, after accusing in public the cable car drivers of stealing the $5 fares. The local tv stations are running stories about all the longtime unsafe drivers the city and union will not fire. And there are still, no relief drivers at the end of the cable car lines where the drivers take their extremely long breaks. Last mayor Willi Brown said he was going to fix Muni, but obviously did not.

3-The "60 Minute" episode sleazy camera stores at Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf ,,,also NYC,,,are still selling second rate cameras or crap cameras to the city's visitors misrepresented as first quality , major brand merchandise !

4-The two freeways /highways through town, hwy 101 and hwy 1 , had timed lights before , but even with regular unleaded gasoline over $4/gallon, this Mayor can not or will not for efficiency sake time the major streets and boulevards, including hwy 101 and hwy 1 !

5-Unlike most major cosmopolitan tourist cities of Europe and elsewhere, there is no central reservation office or central cab dispatch office in SF,,,and the subcontracted Visitor's and Convention Bureau service is subpar.

6-The SF Zoo was privatized ,,,and is still a liability mess for the city. Two tiger attacks, and counting,,,

7-Hotels are charging $20 to $50/night to park your car, and there are not enough reasonable parking garage spaces in SF. Tour buses and large motor homes/rv's should be directed to pier 30, but are left to illegally park all over town. Pier 30 use to be free parking to all our out of town charter bus visitors and the DMC's 20-75 Moscone shuttle buses,,,

8-What happened to any agenda from this mayor, besides gay marriage,,, like city-wide pay and free wi-fi ??

9-The mayor should lead in moving its water supply,the Hetch Hetchy Dam, out of Yosemite National Park and lower into the surrounding National Forest.

10-After Arnold,,,another pretty boy, unskilled and incompetent administrator ?!
Surely ,with California's terrible economic condition after the awful Republican Gray Davis deregulated energy with the State Legislature and the resulting "Enron" dvd, California needs someone with more than just "looks".

Latest gossip on SF travel locations,,,

Friends just back from SF ,,,say not to book with "Heritage Marina Hotel" in the Cow Hollow District, on Van Ness near Lombard. They said it was "lousy!" and no details.

Also told me they did not like something other than the new paint at " La Luna" on Lombard,,,and 'ran' away !! Also no details yet.

They got very sick at the big Chinese restaurant at the corner of California and Grant in Chinatown, where all the cheapo tour buses pull up,,,the "dirty carpet!" of the "Cathay House". Stay away ,they said, until it is much cleaner and food safer !!

And they met a nice old English man who bought a camera at one of those "SALE SALE SALE" sleazy camera stores at Fisherman's Wharf,,,also Union Square,,,and he told them he paid cash,,,oops,,,and at his hotel immediately opened the Nikon camera box,,,and it was "totally defective",,,The police would do nothing, the Mayor's office would do nothing, the Chamber of Commerce would do nothing, and the SF Visitors and Convention Bureau would not do,,,a thing !! So i told them to watch the old old episode of '60 minutes' on this common NYC and SF scam, and then write Nikon a polite letter of consternation.

Yikes. Caveat Emptor, especially in SF.

Amazon.com is very sloppy about whether it is a 'new' or ' used' item ,,,

When you go to an item and Amazon says they have 'new and used' and find there are only 'used ' items,,,or you go to check-out and what you wish to purchase is 'new' but is does not say ANYWHERE on the order form that what you are buying is 'new' or 'used',,,or you select an item for your cart, and it does not display whether it is 'used' or 'new',,,

Then i would say Amazon has a major problem, besides their terrible return policy 'in the original wrapper',,,and a terrible place to work from an x-employee i now work with,,,

BEWARE of 'AllVideoWarehouse' price on Yosemite DVD

If you are looking for the excellent dvd 'Vertical Frontier' narrated by Tom Brokaw on the history of rock climbing in Yosemite,,, DO NOT BUY AT AllVideoWarehouse for $42 plus shipping,,,but rather buy from Yosemite National Park, Visitor Center Book Store for less than $20. They do ship ,as i did call , and their website is 'yosemitestore.com',,,,phone number is 209.372.0299,,,right next to the Visitor's Center in Yosemite Village, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite N.P. ,,,95389 zip. And THEY sound like nice people.

Mr. Bill Cosby, Affirmative Action, and Mr. Edwards of the SF Bay Area

Yes, whites like GWBush have gotten too far ahead by good old boy white clubs. And look at the mess this blind to mediocrity in white culture has gotten us !!

This is not an affirmation of more mediocrity for blacks and people of color/not white. A higher standard must be color blind ! Look at the mediocrity of the black Supreme Court Justice ,,,and the shame his mediocrity brings on all of us with his scandalous sexual harrassment trial, like Bill Clinton.

And then we have the low standards, get by with the worst tactics that the whites have used, reprehensible Mr. Edwards, who has gotten so far ahead , but without much principle or ethic. He racially threatened professors at San Jose State for higher grades he did not deserve. But he got them. His whole career is a sham. Such ill-gotten advancement is the pride of the black community ? I am certainly not proud of the white Jew or Italian mafia successes in the usa.

Mr. Obama, PLEASE don't pick these women,,,!!

Mr. Obama,

Please DO NOT PICK ,,,Mrs. Clinton, for the obvious reason that she has a terrible marriage and her husband was a huge disappointment when he had his chance as President, and obviously would meddle too much in your Presidency ,which needs to be so bold, not backslapping redundant.

Also ,,,please DO NOT PICK ,,,the senior senator from California, Senator Feinstein, as she has done next to nothing for men or women especially, like equal pay, during her too long tenure. What a waste of space and opportunity !! She rarely speaks out in public and does not really seem to care for the declining middle cash or working poor, just her fatcat Presidio Heights to now Pacific Heights too rich and too selfish elitists.

Don't Trust China

Communist. Steamrolls over peaceful neighbor Tibet. Long history of parents killing female ,less valuable infants. Would just as soon sell you poisoned pet food as not. Or lead-poisoned kids jewelry. Or expensive 'walking shoes' marked 5E that are exactly the same width as all their other shoddy shoes, mediums.

Is building up a war machine, not a defensive machine, and we are helping them. How many subs and nuclear missiles? The target may first be ,,,Japan,,,but count on it as sure as Islam radical terrorist freaks, the USA is in their sight. Our trade with them is anything but "Free". We give away a 30-40% currency advantage to access their market of millions, and there goes our oil from our Alaska and our Texas. Here comes $5 gas, or $10 the rich wont mind. There goes the last of the once-boasted Middle Class in the U.S.

And unfortunately, like the Japanese and others, culturally they think they are so much better than anyone else. They are not encumbered by honesty or rules regarding the respect of intellectual property or even brand property. We are behaving like such fools, so lets have that big b.s.-machine Bill Clinton tell us exactly how this is going to play out in the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years,,,if the Chinese do not kill themselves with unsanitary living conditions and bird flu, widespread massive pollution, and the proven failure pride of Communism. It did not work in the USSR. But these are the Chinese, careless arrogant and proud.

Feel safe? Just think of the short term profits for the multinationals !

How superficial is San Francisco's Hospitality ?

San Francisco's number one industry, by far, is tourism,,,such an easy industry vs factories and boiler room offices. Check. Conventions at the three blocks of Moscone and over 3000 restaurants, with dozens of hotels and motels. Check. The city with crazy standard lots of only 25 feet width and grid streets going straight up and straight down 33% grade hills and small easily recognizable neighborhoods in the northeast quarter almost sells itself. Check.

Then why does SF charge for luggage carts at SFO? Other airports don't. And exactly how much does that fee parking lot at pier 30 bring in now vs when is was a free and welcoming lot to any overnight charter/tour bus or just-parking RV for years? Because nowadays i see lots of out-of-town charter/tour buses getting $75 parking tickets for illegally parking and think of how much bad will that generates,,,times 10 ,,,every day!

The Mayor says,,,he is against idling buses , but he has taken away the remedy of a big free lot that we local and the out-of-towner buses used for years, and instead we have buses circling,,,and circling,,,making more and more smog and traffic,,,for frustrating hours,,,just so one lousy parking lot rental fee at Pier 30 can be collected ?! Seems stupid and petty,,,especially for such a rich city that says it is so welcoming.

Even the local DMCs made use of the free parking at Pier 30 when there was a big convention in town and they needed to park 30-50 local buses. Yes, eventually Pier 30 will someday be the new cruise ship pier, if it ever gets out of litigation. And even when it does, shouldn't such a friendly city as San Francisco says it is have more free out-of-town charter/tour bus parking than say Portland, which the last time i was up there years ago only had 5 spaces downtown ??

We, San Francisco, can do so much better in welcoming our guest to this the most expensive city in the 48 states. Maybe we can even get the greedy concierges to take only a %5 cut ?!

Jerry Hill for Ca. state assembly;one constituent says "NO" !!

A few years ago i was working as a SF charter and tour bus driver for a very very very wealthy family, who decided not to have a proper bus toilet dump station at their new yard in SSF, moving from SF, but to just let all the feces and t.p. run across the employee parking lot into the SF Bay storm drain, for months.

Shocking, yes i know, especially since the two wealthiest cities in the entire SF Bay Area are Atherton and Hillsborough and both are in San Mateo County, where Mr. Jerry Hill worked. So i complained to the mayor of SSF and his office could not care less. Remember the business was owned by a super wealthy local American citizens family.

Then i complained to the Governor and Cal-OSHA, who were not interested. So i complained to the San Mateo County Public Health-Environmental Health offices and was told the buses were washed and dumped after 5pm so they could not get overtime permission to come out and inspect !! Outrageous, i know. All this raw sewage flowing for months into OUR SF Bay !! I got a very bad respiratory infection and almost died of it and pneumonia. The very rich company owner could not seem to care less.

So i complained to every one of the San Mateo County Supervisors, including Mr. Jerry Hill's office, who politely took my call,,,but could not be bothered. I even talked to the San Mateo County Managers office and got no interest in doing anything about this blatant pollution. It was a super ,very uber rich family owned company, enough said.

Have you even phoned an elected representative and asked for their position on an issue, only to be told that the elected representative has no position 'at this time' on that subject ? Frustrating isn't it. Maybe Mr. Jerry Hill is a good DNC political machine soldier, like Mr. Mullin, who did not care about another employer not paying legally required overtime or payroll taxes like Social Security. Let's get rid of the Sac. Capital political machine that gave us such recent loser Governors like Grey Davis and the fiscal-failure of Mr. Arnold S.,,,and the big lie of 'energy deregulation will bring down the cost of electricity and natural gas' ,,,(watch the Enron dvd). California is in terrible horrible financial straights with the worst/bottom5 roads,public schools and bond rating in the USA. The Sacramento Machine has done a huge disservice to all Californians and Americans.

San Francisco in Summer = Fog and the WORST weather of the year, every year, for Tourists

It happens every year,,,our summer tourists get off the plane in San Mateo County at SFO and are confused by the nearby sign "South San Francisco, the industrial city" big on the hill, for a city with no self esteem or pride. They eventually get to SF, the other "sf" on the same peninsula, and are met by a solid wall of cloud at sea level with visibility usually less than 100 yards/meters,,,and they are SHOCKED !!

Why did our travel agent not tell us that Summer is reliably the worst weather of every year in San Francisco?!?! Winter has the clearest skies and is the off ,uncrowded, season,,,and Spring is lovely and also uncrowded,,,and sometimes in the Autumn the temperature will hit over 90F. (National Wx Service has only one wx station in the middle temp Mint Hill area,,,for a city with so many different climates and broad range of temperatures.) Why did all the travel guide books not tell us this ?!? Maybe they thought you would be driving inland away from the fog to fabulous Lake Tahoe or wonderful but roads in need of resurfacing Yosemite National Park,,,or downtown Fresno. OK, my bad joke with the 'fresno'.

It may burn off mid-day,,,or it might not, but you can expect fog so BAD on most summer days that you can NOT see the Golden Gate Bridge ,,,AT the Golden Gate Bridge south vista point right next to it! And forget about a view from the geographic center of the city at Twin Peaks, as it too is usually clouded over every morning , evening, and some/most mid-days.

Please folks, do not blame the most expensive city in the USA, SF,,, nor the people who actually LIKE the 'natural air conditioning' every Summer of the Fog ,,,who live in and work in the crazy careless everything-has-a-price, concierges gouge 30-40% usually or your ticket prices,,,city.

It is God's will, every year.

2008 Saturn cars:no more dent-proof body panels, so what is the point?!

I like the redesigned 2008 Saturns, but when i phoned the nearest dealership i was told that none of the Saturn-GM cars have the dent-proof side panels anymore!! What a great idea, and with them Saturn is a nothing brand.

Let's see, Microsoft(thedarkside)wants to buy Yahoo(r2d2) or maybe Google(c3p0),,,

Gee, wouldn't that be swell.

A big corp infamous for terrible/non-existant customer service and mediocre products that the dumb corps and masses have bought,,,

,,,wants to buy a company with some , limited social responsibility,,,or another that talks too much in giving every possible and impossible link,,,

Sounds like another blockbuster guffaw on the Wall Street Big Screen,,,what WILL these idiots and irresponsible fools do next ,for a buck ?!

U.S. Divers-brand facemask vs Scubapro facemask: U.S. Divers wins !!

A few years ago it seemed time to replace my trusty pig-nose purge valve face mask. And i decided to get two, and different brands at an expensive Silicon Valley dive shop, so that i would always have a good spare.

Even got lens put in for my nearsightedness and astigmatism as i wanted to see what difference it would make. Bought 2 black cases, and even suckered for the bottles of anti-fog ,tho i always use and prefer good old spit.

After only a year of skin diving in Hawaii and Mexico and always , always, rinsing off with clean water and drying in the shade the two masks,,,I noticed the Scubapro mask's silicon skirt was getting quite YELLOW.
So i attended the local penultimate annual dive sale in Redwood City and asked the rep for Scubapro if they would replace the obvious by comparison much yellower Scubapro mask skirt. That would be a "no".

From now on , I am only buying U.S. Divers masks.

Beware of Amazon.com and DealYard ,,,selling defective electric blankets,,,still

Bought 3 Sunbeam electric blankets through Amazon to DealYard and after use, thus 'used', found all 3 to be defective and not work on any but lowest setting,barely noticeable.

Amazon.com has a 30 day, in new condition with original container,,,policy, so once i tried to use the assumed good merchandise by trusted seller, i did not qualify for an Amazon return.

DealYard will not return phone calls or emails, so forget them,,,in the future.

And the big successful manufacturer, Sunbeam, says they will send it to a repair station.

All in all, definitely NOT a quality assured buying experience.

April 2008, TurboTax get a "C-"for free federal tax e-filing

TurboTax went on and on about foreign income, when i told them up front i had just 2 employers,,,

And the 'next' button was almost off the page in the lower right corner,,,bad bad bad design,,,

And then to lie-to-decieve and offer to do the Cal. state form for $9.95 since the state does not offer a 'free tax forum' whatever,,,when Cal. has free e-filing for us under $50k, overtime pay legally not paid in this obscenely expensive state, and most limousine and charter bus companies stealing our tips/gratuities, same old same old Cal. Capitol corruption.

NPS toward a more un-natural and artificial MUIRWOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT

We had a hot 80+F day the other day in the SF Bay area and it sure would have been quenching to have the soft ice cream maker working at Muirwoods National Monument, now that they only have vanilla instead of chocolate or vanilla or both. There is a contract with a food service company and NPS, but who cares,,,certainly not NPS, since the other day the food counter only had 2 employees out front and a long line , with 2 of the soft drink taps out of stock,,,So who cares? NPS does not supervise this health-risk contract well enough to catch them serving with the same hand they picked trash off the floor of the snack stand with.

As you walk through Muirwoods National Monument these days and see all the fallen trees that NPS has 'naturally' decided not to work crew clean up and remove, are we not suppose to notice the heavy under brush along the trail and Redwood Creek that HAVE been removed by many work crew hours,,,nor the many evenly spaced ferns that HAVE been planted by many work crew hours to look as if a ground fire had done domestic natural work in recycling the dead and excess ground plant material to the poor soil as poor and much needed fertilizer for this amazing tallest tree on earth community?

What happened to all the work that was being done to remove the asphalt, that we were told by NPS was deleterious to the steelhead trout and silver coho salmon small runs, and replace it with out-sourced redwood walkways? There seems to be no more work on this,,,

So what if NPS publically does not take away fallen trees in Muirwoods, but secretly does remove and haul away the trailside brush and lots of poison oak,,,and also secretly plants hundreds if not thousands of ferns ,by hand, to prolong fooling us into thinking the natural ground fires have returned after more than 150 years to make if possible for these less than 4% remaining after logging trees to have baby redwoods instead of just clone redwoods?

Who cares.

Since Viacom wants a one way,their way, website for MTV,VH1,and CMT,,,

I recently signed on to CMT to vote for "Video of the Year",,,but encounter the first of many problems with CMT and its owner, Viacom. They want you to hear them, but they do not want to hear you !!

I was not able to vote,,,and was not able to get technical-webmaster help or any kind of customer service at all from CMT . Zero. This terrible Microsoft-pattern of selling to billions just for $B and having little or no customer service, needs to stop!, that is s-t-o-p for all the redneck illiterates and academically lazy out there in CMT-land, right now! What a disservice to the loyal fans of country music, to be so marginalized and trivialized and not given any expression,,,in a medium, music, that is supposedly about making tons of cash ,,,and communication! So what if i could not vote for the "Video of the Year"?

Don't expect me to waste any more time on this one-way website of CMT,,,or MTV,,,or VH1. They don't care about me,,,ditto. Hasta la vista, Viacom.

Stanford University did NOT provide a greeter for a NATIONAL CELEBRITY !!

What with all the rich scions and fat cat endowments on its huge private campus, you might think Stanford University would have its act together in welcoming a NATIONAL CELEBRITY to speak at their campus by meeting them at their limo at the entrance to the property, and at least sending them clear directions on how ,where and when to enter such a large confusing private property. But NO, Stanford U. let this famous tv personality and i wander around the maze of streets to get to the building where the speech was about to begin.

Yes, i had a map of both Thomas Bros. and a Stanford U. variety and yes, i had been on campus many many times. The point is this building was almost inaccessible due to temporary street closures , poor visibility night signage of street intersections, and the definite lack of anyone around to ask ,since calling campus security has been a waste of time in the past.

Stanford University need to assign a formal greeter to every dignitary who wants one coming to campus, to not just politely welcome them , but to make sure they get to the proper building on time. It was very close timing, but with a little luck we made it !

Sacramento's Arena does not greet at the edge of the lot its CELEBRITIES !!

As a limo driver, it is amazing what poor manners some venues, like Sacramento's Arena, have in NOT assigning a greeter to meet CELEBRITIES at the edge of the parking lot !!!

I drove the Ice Skating Stars show there and we had to wait for more than 10 minutes while a dumb parking lot attendant tried to give us directions to one of several POSSIBLE entrances for these NATIONAL SKATING STARS !!

Was the management of the Sacramento Arena born in a barn ?! No class.

San Francisco television stations news sensoring ,corporate to corporate

Last weekend a San Francisco bus of Greyline's/Coach USA/Coach America/San Francisco Sightseeing/Franciscan/and numerous other alias',,, ran away without a driver(the "assistant safety coordinator"!!) downhill INTO THE MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM !! Fortunately no one was killed, maimed or injured. Saturday, March 22,2008.

I did not hear about it until the next day, Sunday i believe, so i phoned NBC-TV in SF to see if they were going to cover it,,,and i was told "it is not our market,,,Monterey is KSBW-TV". But a few days later the same SF NBC-TV station did a segment on the Los Angeles Quantas airplane that blew out some tires. This seems like a huge cover-up and double standard. An airline from Australia in LA gets reported but the huge bus company does not when based in same (SF) city. There is something very rotten here.

That night i did see a very short and obscured segment on the CBS-TV-5 ,,,but they did not interview the driver or show anymore than a close up still of the bus sticking into the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

What about ABC-TV-7 and KRON-TV-4 and TV-2?? Did they duck their public trust too ?? KQED-TV-9 gets its new filtered/biz censored by huge donor Chevron, so no need to expect much from that channel.

This is the same company,the largest tour bus company in SF and the supposed California tourism industry standard, that recently had 2 very serious accidents, also covered up. An adult was runover and killed on Nob Hill by a bus driver making an illegal left turn in front of Grace Cathedral. Then a wheel chair adult was not strapped to the floor anchors on a tour to Muir Woods and in one of those steep narrow road turns the wheel chaired adult went out the bus door and onto the road!!

This is a bloodsucking-but-useless Teamster's Union workforce-no overtime pay,unlike other SF large tour bus company!!- that has glorified bus washers and tire changers as mechanics with little formal and technically respected mechanic school certification. The fleet is old, dented, and dirty with seat upholstery that probably has not been steam cleaned of sweat,food residue and germs in over 10 years.

What a pathetic state of 'professional journalism' in these United States of America !!

Trader Joe's has Italian Blood Orange Soda in 1L bottles again !!

San Josey, California,,,

Try it ,,,it's great,,,you may like it too !!

Beware of Alaska Airlines telling you it is ok to bring bear spray in your checked bags

This happened to me ,even tho i confirmed it with Alaska Airlines management as being ok, yet when i got to the airport the TSA confiscated the safe $30 can from my checked bag !!

No apology and no refund from Alaska Airlines,,,
typical.

"Romney did a good job as leader of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics",,,my ass!!

Whoever keeps spreading the b.s. that Mr. Romney, the 2008 Presidential candidate, did a good job as the head of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics needs to fix his/her forked tongue !!
Bus drivers for the public and for vips like Sports Illustrated had to work-drive from 6am to 2am with only 4 hour off to sleep !! That is a huge safety violation and overlooks DoT's federal 8 hours off in 24 hours rule. Bus companies and bus drivers were threatened with being fired back home for breaking the 'contract' with the Olympics when the SLOC lied to us all about a fair wage and then driving 2 days to get there cut out pay in half by having us work not the promised ' no more than 10-12 hours, but these very unsafe hours. Many bus drivers and bus companies like LA's Hotdogger bus company quit rather than risk accident to $400,000 buses and injury/death to passengers and pedestrians or other road vehicle occupants. I was there and quit in less than 7 days.
Stop the b.s.

Feb. 2008,,,Test drove the new Mazda 'miata',,,nice, BUT

The seat is too high, for non-Japanese taller people. The leather is nice, but with so little of a bucket seat you slide all over the place in normal driving. We want to sit lower and more securely.

The color selection is limited, as you can not buy a pearl ice blue with tan leather in the new convertible hardtop. No more orange leather, please. And the center console is too big bloated to easily buckle up !!

The Europeans have been enjoying small car turbo diesels for years, so why do we still get the same old same old boring premium gasoline only engines ??

The rims and not that good looking with so many spokes,,,and no alternatives.

So much potential, and we get all these compromises. Wake up, Mazda, and give us something new and great like your direct injection engine, but better !

Comcast ADDS more blackout delay,,,!!,,when switching channels !!

If Comcast were not terrible at customer service already, they had to big corporate tyrant ADD more delay, blackout wait time, when you go from channel to channel !!

Another huge reason to get satellite,,,or HD antenna !
March 2008,,,the 21st century,,,and we still do not each have control over our tv's volume. The commercials and networks do ! Crazy, for $1000 to buy a new HD tv and be so little in control.

Ralph Nader ,,,and the 3 recently boring Democrats who could only say "change"

It is too bad all 3 leading Democrats bored us to tears for a couple weeks with that "change, for it" b.s. the media lapped up. Count on it, Ralph is not going to waste your time with more of that nonsense !!

It is almost Springtime and time to clean those difficult outside windows,,,with Windex Outdoor Cleaner!!

We use to pay a knock-at-your-door migrant worker $50 to do a spotty ,hit or miss job of cleaning all the windows on the outside of the house. Now, we can just hook up the container to a hose, rinse and soap and rinse the windows, and be done in less than an hour easily. Highly recommend the green plastic container by S.C.Johnson Windex Outdoor.

Try the Three Sisters Cafe if you are passing Oakhurst on 41 to Yosemite

It is an outstanding restaurant and very reasonable prices, beautiful decor, friendly waitstaff.

"Deregulation" has cost the USA Billions if not Trillions, just in this recent ban-credit-ARM fiasco

All this Presidential and politician talk about the 1980s and 1990s rush to the 'benefits' of deregulation have resulted in another foreseeable financial fiasco !! As if the infamous ripoff of the Savings and Loan Disaster were not bad enough for the image of the less regulation please American banking industry, now we have fraudulent and illegal credit card scams and a real Credit Crisis !!

I do not believe that someone as smart as Alan Greenspan did not see the pure financial folly of the 1995-2000 Dot Com Boom and Bust, nor the overheated USA real estate market, nor the U.S. Congress-bought unfair edge of the American banks. Smart ,ivy league university educated bankers must have seen this coming from miles away, and if they claim they did not, then they should be held fully and completely liable without any taxpayer bailout of their greedy risky behavior.

Lord knows after ripping the public off for decades they can certainly afford to pay for the entire mess !!

"1-800- dental tech",,,How do you find a good teeth cleaner??

I so seldom see the dentist, as it usually means it is x-ray time again, or i have an expensive cavity to fill. Ouch.

But it is the dental tech that i see 3xs, now going to change to 4xs, a year. And this one is fabulous!!

In Silicon Valley, call up Dr. Brown and ask for Mrs. Barbara. Their office is close to 280 x 85. Super careful around sensitive gums. And the dentist is a good guy ,too.

Feb. 2008,,,Don't buy an Acura for technical high performance quality and durability

Have a 2000 Acura Integra Type-R and the mechanic just found out the harmonic stabilizer/whatchamacallit attached to the end of the crank shaft ,,,has frozen. Bummer, in only 7-8 years. It is a few hundred $$$ dollars to fix !! Also beware that if the rubber timing belt breaks inside the engine, it will cause the engine to destroy itself, unlike some Toyotas like my old regular gas MR-2 that was SOOO FUN TO DRIVE,,,that keep the valves and pistons in synchrony until the engine stops. That's $$$$$ thousands in expensive bad design and poor product !! The mechanic says he sees frozen units on Acuras often. I have also replaced the oxygen sensors/ fuel mix sensors on the bottom of the car --2 at $250 each-- twice, which is too many times in my book. The mechanic suggests that the CPU controlling the gas and air mixture may be at fault. And that computer chip is like $800 buckeroos, suckers !!

Santa Cruz's famous restaurant "Tacos Morenos" keeps declining in value

I have been going to Tacos Morenos for years,,,and am sad to say that the quality may still be there , but after a visit in Feb. 2008, the burritos are much much smaller. And they have been giving us less and less over the years, in spite of their big success. Maybe that is the problem, too much success taken for granted, and as is usual with some businesses, the customer is taken for granted too. Sad that is time to find another good-great value quality Mexican taco and burrito restaurant in the Santa Cruz area.

Lincoln towncars are likely to scratch those fancy dress shoes

As a limo driver for years, i have to be very careful getting in and out of Lincoln town cars,,,and even check the occasional Cadillac from Hertz,,,for sharp edges just above the brake pedal on the automatics that will tear up those expensive dress shoes. You would think Ford would have fixed this years/decades ago, wouldn't one?

Ford USA will not long stock parts after 14 years, so AVOID BUYING A FORD !!

We have a 1994 Ford Taurus Station wagon that surprisingly has required very little maintenance over the years since we bought it used from Hertz in 1995. But every now and then you need to fix something a shopping cart breaks in a parking lot or that breaks like the door panel screws due to heavy use. It has only been 14 years,,,and we had this problem at only 12 years too,,,does Ford expect us to buy a new car when the old one still works?! Ford's yellow pages motto of "built to last" is hollow if you can not buy small replacement parts !! After just 10-12 years , you call a Ford dealership parts department and ask for a part and you are like to hear the same thing ,over and over, "That part is OBSOLETE."

Well, if the Ford family is rich enough to buy back all the stock and take it private, maybe that is what they should do, as you would think an American car company would stock parts for at least 15-20 years. We can not get a turn signal lens, nor a rear hatch latch. And you know they are fuzzy accounting making tons of money profit!!

So forget Ford !! They own Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar,and Land Rover, too, remember.

Mea Culpa: my blog is for blowing off steam,,,

so if you don't like it, don't read it.

U.S. Rep. of Cal. Tom Lantos, deceased, was not so good a Representative of all his constituents

I have been a resident of Burlingame for about 20 years and a long time frustrated constituent of U.S. Representative to Congress Tom Lantos. At first when i knew no better i voted for him. Then when i noted his office's lack of respect for the resident voters in his district and his spineless go-with-the-flow record, i started voting for any and all of his opponents. Let us not get carried away with a elder politician who had tons of seniority but did little to stand up or in opposition to the massive corruption in the state capital of Sacramento or the same vote-buying slime behavior in the nation's capital.

For instance, California is now in terrible ,desperate financial straights maybe for 50-100 years because Governor Arnold will not raise taxes on those that can very well afford it,,, because the old and only Governor ,tidal wave kicked out of office, Grey Davis and the bulk of the state legislature lied to us repeatedly saying that the deregulation of energy, both electricity and natural gas, would result in much lower prices,,,when, in obvious fact, the prices skyrocketed more than 4Xs especially with the fraud added by many energy and finance/banking companies in cahoots with Enron. Where was Tom Lantos and the wisdom and outrage of such massive repeated government bungling and boldface lies ? Not even a blip on the public radar or media about him taking the honest ethical and brave proper stand.

Again, when Governor Reagan was ultimately responsible for the closing of the state mental hospitals, like the huge Agnews in the south S.F. bay area and the large Sonoma mental hospital in Sonoma, starting the huge expansion in our homeless statewide problem, where was Tom Lantos in the early 1970s to stand up for the mentally ill who the rich state of California at that time could well afford? Quietly, neglecting the power and privileges of his public responsibility? He had a moral responsibility to speak up for all those unfortunate insane people who could not speak up or pay up for themselves.

Again, when Governor ,,,ugh,,,Grey Davis used a back room committee to take away even more of our state's weak blue collar overtime coverage and enforcement, where was the ineffectual Tom Lantos ???

On the nation front, did he loudly oppose U.S. Govt torture of our enemies, by either the military or other branch? Like senior senator Diane Feinstein, "where is the beef?!" We see all the constant coddling of the super rich people and super profitable corporations, all the truly ugly highrises in San Francisco from her mayorship,,,but no bold moral do-the-right-thing vocal leadership.

Where was Tom Lantos in opposing the supreme folly of the Bushes and both their ruinously expensive and terrorist encouraging middle east wars? Did he get the countries over there who said they would pay for it to do so? Did he make any difference at all ?

Even on such a small matter as making sure a California employer who was paying by check ,,,was also doing the legal and correct thing of paying payroll taxes, Tom Lantos and his staff lost the IRS permission letter not once, but twice,,, and don't we have ENOUGH ! corporate corruption in California? San Francisco Bay is very polluted, so where was Tom Lantos' big effort to make it better? We are short what 20,000 nurses in California and there are so few openings at the state's community and state colleges,,,hells bells, Tom !!

Legacy of HUGE disappointment. Go big, or go home.

The Democrats can still EASILY lose the 2008 Presidential Election

Hillary will be an ugly race/contest if she is chosen by the semi-educated forgetful American electorate. The media would just love such an ugly mudslinging day after day circus ,to sell more newspapers and magazines and tv advertising. The media keeps talking about all of Hillary's friends, but look and all her ENEMIES, numerous and Strong !!

First, the Republicans are just itching to get her in the ring with her long suspect history. Ask any Rep-robate how long they have been getting hate mail predicting only Hillary will be chosen by 'those terrible liberals'. Then ask your self how many of the less than overwelming majority Democrats are going to vote for Hillary and let Bill back in the White House, OUR White House again!! Then think of all the environmentalists--yes i know that is another Republican smear dirty word--that remember Bill and Hillary championing overtly all the benefits to the good old USA of NAFTA,,, NAFTA passes,,, and a trade deal trumps local state and national environmental and health regs and laws so that we now not only have lost tens of thousands of higher paying jobs but we have encouraged massive pollution on the Mex. border by the factories/maquilladoros and we have widespread ground water pollution by previously known cancer causing MTBE, courtesy of our former good friends in Canada.

Remember that old saying "strong fences make good neighbors" ,well, we are about to have our living standard and health standard lowered to Mexico and India or the lowest corporate common denominator ,,,and that should be super scary to all but the super selfish super rich,,, ok, even they will not be able to buy there way out or away or separate from contaminated food, water, air, soil and ocean. Then there are those of us that remember -just like yesterday- when Bill Clinton shook his finger at us all in the USA about how , like Kennedy, he was not cheating on his wife IN OUR White House almost daily/weekly for years. Never again.

How did we go so against Darwinism and survival of the fittest in electing since the beginning such a decline in human character and personal quality of our American Presidents ?!

Do NOT buy Sunbeam electric blankets, especially N31-G2-S model, DEFECTIVE and Sunbeam will not stand behind their products !!

It was at least 20 years since the family got new electric blankets so i went shopping on Amazon and Ebay etc. and found a fair price for 3 new Sunbeam brand ones. It was spring or summer so we only used the low setting but now that it is winter and freezing cold, ice forming on the bird bath out here in coastal central California , we tried the medium and higher settings and they do not work !! At any setting we only get low warmth.

So i contacted Sunbeam's agent at esecurecare.net and they recommended a repair company i could send them too, versus full credit for replacements which would have been the right and honorable thing for any company to do. Recommend you avoid Sunbeam as there are other electric bedding manufacturers out there.

Why has Bank of the West pushing near 6%stupid front -loaded FranklinTempleton mutual funds??!!

You would have to be very unread and unadvised by even your nag Mother to bite at either a huge front or back loaded mutual fund, but here is big successful Bank of the West trying to piss off its customers with a huge dumb mistake in investing, a near 6% loaded mutual fund selection !! And Franklin Templeton must think we are all rich and stupid too !

The Best and most gentle Dental Tech in the SF Bay Area!!

Yes, it is important to choose a good dentist who knows a cavity from a car lease payment opportunity. But isn't it the Dental Tech that you see more often, once or twice or three times a year, and who has to clean the calculus and tartar from around your delicate and sensitive gums ?

I highly recommend Mrs. Barbara at Dr. Brown's near 280 and 85. I am in my 50s and have been around , in and out of alot of dental chairs, and for my money or the dental plans in 90 days new job probation, there can't be too many people/Dental Techs with a more considerate and caring , very careful touch. So if you are tired of your dentist or dental tech always criticizing and complaining in your ear about your less than perfect flossing/dental taping daily habit, you should treat your self and your gums to Mrs. Barbara.

Dr. Dean and Ed Muskie were GREAT Presidential Candidates!!

Anyone or any publication that promulgates the misjudgment that Dr. Dean for his unusual laugh, once!, or Ed Muskie for crying, out loud!, were therefore unfit to be President of these United States is stupid and a know-nothing about good character, compared to the current slime of the Bush 43 and 41, Reagan, Clinton, Agnew, Johnson, and all the other very flawed wack jobs some p.r. genius like Rove has sold us, to our national detriment ! Our nation would not know what to do with a man of good character, like the basketball star and congressman,Bill somebody,,, who the press had to nit pick to withdrawal, when there are so many much more obviously flawed characters out there , like Clinton (both). Remember how Congress hated Carter's ethics ?

Time magazine, the nightly tv news,,,Newsweek, they are all out of touch on this and not on the side of a better democratic republic for continuing to say this b.s. And so many people then BELIEVE this 'b.s.' !! Total , unforgivable nonsense. In the future, maybe people will figure out that too many in the news have poor judgment and or a hidden bias. Dr. Dean and Mr. Ed Muskie deserve so much better in the remembered history of this once ,,,great nation.

Carson is such a class act on late night TV !!

Carson did a good job on hosting NBC's New Years Eve in NYC big tv broadcast,,,the celebs seem to like him,,,and he is not so east coast weird as Conan(the talking lips Bush photo is his best bit), who i can not believe is a lock for the west coast's old Tonight Show of Johnny Carson fame, and Jay Leno , who has done well. There is ,and long live !!, a huge difference between east and west coast. Network managers don't get it yet. Dave Letterman, with or without writers, has been getting weirder(those stagehands,,,ugh,,,) and the famous" Top 10" is not as good as it use to be. And Carson has done his time, with seminary and dating that Hollywood blonde ditz. Bill Mayer and John -------, the news cynic are both so smart, current, and funny,,,but for talk show hosts, i hope Carson gets a shot at an earlier than 1am slot.

Time to retire Steve Poizner, the State of Ca. Insurance Commissioner

Forget what he might have said to get elected, but it seems the current State Insurance Commissioner is too soft on big excessive-profits insurance companies, specifically he and his office are not hard enough on dishonest practices like low balling quotes to fraudulently get you into a high pressure salesman's sights.
Do not re-elect Steve Poizner and beware of AARP's Hartford insurance company. Shame on you AARP !!

Maui Hawaii has only one old too small, technology out of date HOSPITAL,,,why?

It is bad enough we have to live in California next to such a corrupt,polluted, incompetent and uneducated country like Mexico, especially with the inability of all recent Governors including Arnold S. to control and properly administer the state of California(CalTrans is totally out of control, and costing us Billion$ in unnecessary incompetence cost overruns on the Bay Bridge Fiasco and Hwy 87, etc.), but now it seems the similarly corrupt politicians in Honolulu are content to let residents and visitors to the island of Maui get sick and die, rather than let good residents like Dr. Kwon continue with the public majority supported and privately funded new ,modern high tech hospital plans of 20 years ,with the funding already online. I am so tired and frustrated by the public good non-representing California state legislature, and now to hear on the Maui public access tv station how the Hawaiian state legislature has sold out and will not do the right thing for its people in such a beautiful place is just too sad.

Burlingame, Ca. is 100 years old,,,whop,,,and STILL denies most of its citizens are RENTERS

I have lived in B-game for about 20 years and it still amazes me that this outwardly-nice-looking small town still is in major denial about it citizenry. The city planning office will tell you too that most of the residences are occupied by renters, like SF, and that the bigger majority of registered voters are ,you guessed it, renters. The problem is the city and its elected mayor and city council are in terminal denial about who they represent, always putting on the election material that they are interested in B-game's "businesses and home owners" !!
Hey, when was the last time a business could vote ?! OK, so most politicians even at this lowly local level have been sold out to any and all fat cats. But still, businesses do not vote, especially if they are owned by people/corporations that are not residents of the small small town of Burlingame.
BPD is a joke and we are getting ripped off on rents where the city does so little for most of us in old buildings with soft regs vs new buildings with tougher rules ,such as only one washer and dryer for over 20 units ,,,ridiculous !! I called the chief of police once because my landlord at the time told me he was a cop, and get this, could walk in to the rented house "any time and any room, occupied by your two female roommates or you,,,anytime, day or night, as i have the key",,,what a crime, right?,,,and the crummy chief said "that is impossible with anyone on our BPD",,,so go talk to this illegal poser as a cop then !! And this landlord-claimed to be a cop DID let himself into our bedrooms !!!, right before we all immediately split.
Maybe B-game has dreams of being another Hillsborough full of the filthy rich this country is going down the drain of by and for, but it is still just an over priced, renter majority, very small town with a HUGE honesty self-image problem.

Good news !! A bargain ,sort of, in airport shuttles,,,

Dec. 2007,,,I phoned "Super Shuttle" airport van service ,800-258-3826, to see how much it was from the peninsula, San Mateo county, across the S.F. Bay to Oakland airport,,,and was quoted $110 each way !! And like most airport shuttle companies, they have in the last few years forced their employee drivers to buy or lease the vans they use, plus pay maintenance and insurance !! I have yet to find an airport shuttle company in the S.F. Bay Area that does not unfairly force its driver employees to assume this unfair share of the business burden.

Someone recommended Bayporter Express, 415-467-1800, from mid-peninsula Burlingame to the Oakland Airport ,,,and it is 'only' $40 each way !! Huge savings over the much larger other airport shuttle company. And no additional mandatory driver's tip. Happy shopping !

Dr. Bindi, father and son surgeons, from California,,,BEWARE !!

Several years back Dr. Bindi was working at the Good Samaritan Hospital Clinics in Silicon Valley as a surgeon and orthopedist. He did an unethical and illegal surgery on me by having his 'recent medical school son' (no residency yet) assist in the operation, as i was informed going under the general anesthetic. I filed charges with the hospital and the state of California Medical Board, but both Dr. Bindi's seem to have fled to Mexico or Canada or somewhere,,,The Board of Orthopedic Surgeons were like a wall, no help. Amazing that this kind of brazen medical misconduct is allowed and protected in the state of California. Beware of both these men !

San Francisco Symphony's unprofessional behavior !

Did anyone else see and hear a few years back the James Taylor concert ? Where the S.F.Symphony's rhythm section was a few bars behind, obviously on purpose. Very unprofessional.

Dec.2007,,,President Bush is still trying to sell his Presidency as a unsubstantiated fear-monger, and few are busting him for it !!

Maybe ,,,after President Bush is out of office, someone will have the courage and honesty to show that Mr. Bush's entire Presidency is and has been based on unsubstantiated FEAR MONGERING !! And look what terrible shape the USA is in because not enough press and public leaders have been outspoken enough to say this is so very wrong!

And like a true fraud, whether he is really smart or just acting very stupid to appeal to his electorate and home state, President Bush will not protect whistleblowers.

Why did all our public financial experts, like Susie Orman and Jim Cramer, miss the stupidity of A.R.M.s?

This is the level of elementary school playground stupid, so why did the financial editors at Time and Newsweek, The Economist magazine, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, Jean Chatzky,Suzie Orman and Jim Cramer, miss what any 5th grader could tell you was a very bad idea/ deal ?!?

Go back to your elementary school playground days and consider if you would say 'yes' or 'no' to such foolishness. The every-school-has-one bully comes up to you and says
"i want your lunch, but i will let you keep your unhealthy lousy food if you pay me every lunch period, a penny to start ,,,and who knows what i will take in the future, maybe a penny and all your clothes,,, then a penny, all your clothes and your front teeth i will knock out, then maybe the next lunch period, a penny and all your clothes, and knock your teeth out and shave your head and write coward on your forehead and make you the laughing stock of the school every day and every hour."

Now most playground-wise elementary school kids would say to themselves , "i am very hungry, all the time, but this is ridiculous ,,,and afraid as i am of this typical every school bully,and a penny is ok cuz i am very afraid, but i can not agree to let someone take all my clothes and leave me naked on the playground and knock out my teeth and make fun of me, when i did nothing wrong, other than have this 200 lb bully sit next to me in the lunch room. I'm crying and calling for 'Help!', "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"

That is exactly how obvious allowing an unscrupulous and untrustworthy and probably un-American bank or mortgage company to sell the desperate and dim-witted a rising and open-to-extortion 30 year house loan called an A.R.M. /adjustable rate mortgage.

So how could all these so-self-called financial experts, like Wall Street Week on tv, and all the others miss the sheer stupidity and enormous risk of this common deal?


The Feds should have outlawed this at the get go.

But it is not yet outlawed by any state or the Feds!!

TRAVEL WARNING:San Francisco, California, Burritos and breakfast place on Mason x Jefferson, next to the 7-11

Dec.2007,,,Just had a steak burrito at this popular diner next to the 7-11 at Fisherman's Wharf, on Mason i think, near Jefferson. And got a huge bad case of "Montezuma's revenge"--ooouch !!-- late that night !!
BEWARE,,,Where is the lazy Public Health Department of SF??? When are food service employees going to learn to do a much better job on public health !?!?

TRAVEL WARNING: Morro Bay, California "Kitty's Diner"

Dec. 2007,,,Just ate at highly recommended by the locals "Kitty's" in downtown Morro Bay. Food looks good and tastes good. But got nasty 'montezuma's revenge' that night !! Oooouch !! Where is the public health department ? When are latinos going to learn to do a better job of cleaning food surfaces ?? Beautiful waitress tho.

As an alternative, the locals say take "Main St. exit" off 101 then 'Harbor St. " downhill to the right to the harbor, and there is another highly recommended by the locals diner on the right at the harbor, with a nice view of Morro Rock and the boats.

The U.S. Military/Navy has a stupid,sleep-deprived and asleep at the trigger way to defense !

First, when you are drafted or enlist, you have to sign away(!!??!!) all your right under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a 5th generation Californian and American.
Yikes !!!

Second, you are/were given 2 sheets and one blanket.Period. It you wanted another blanket, the usual stupid response was, "sounds like a personal problem", meaning the U.S. military couldn't care less. So say you used your own sleeping bag or down comforter in those cold drafty noisy ships, then that would be "non-govt issue and not allowed". The Navy ,still to this day, operates without any appreciation for the value to heath and safety of a continuous 8 hours of sleep !! Stupid bastards. So every macho ship at sea under the American flag is full of falling asleep at the trigger/jet/helm sailors and pilots and crew, just because the military is too short-sighted macho stupid.

Sakae Grill and Sushi, Burlingame, California, on Park at Bgame Ave,,,BEWARE !!

My buddy and i ate at Sakae in Burlingame,California and had lots of sushi and beer, but were overcharged $20 on a bill we could not read even in daylight and sober. We/I got lots of resistance the next day in getting the $20 gouge back. It took days,,, Obviously the manager/owner/ some guy there has a "guy-jin" racist problem with tall handsome white males , after Japan lost WWII and maybe before that. Beware.

Why all the sticky plastic steering wheels on Fords, Chevys and Setras ?!!

Who wants a sticky steering wheel ? ?

And what are all these car and bus manufacturers pawning off on us with this inferior plastic on steering wheels and on dashes that are always sticky?? Is it toxic waste ? You can soap wash cloth the steering wheels on these vehicles and they are still STICKY !!


Let's tell where all these car mfgs can stick this crappy plastic !!

Do NOT buy KitchenAid 5 Quart Stand Mixer as a rebateable gift !!

Do not buy KitchenAid mixers as a Christmas present or wedding present, if they offer still the rebate, as they do not honor it in good faith!

I bought one for a best friend's offspring's wedding and filled out all the required paperwork and sent in my copy of the receipt. I left the upc code on the box , in case the bride and groom wanted to exchange it, tho i was the only one on the registry.

After several months , i checked to see if the gifted couple had exchanged it and they had not, but KitchenAid would not give me, the purchaser , the rebate !! They said i lacked a upc code !! So the store got me one off an empty box and then KitchenAid said it was too late !! Such un-American deceitful behavior, as if this situation of gifting presents at weddings or Christmas had never happened before,,,

Let's teach KitchenAid the proper way for a super rich and powerful company to behave properly to it customers here in America ! Boycott KitchenAid for gifts !!

Score of good reasons Not to buy a home in-San Jose- Silcon Valley, California

1-Ground water pollution,,,Santa Clara County and San Jose are in Silicon Valley which has the greatest concentration of Superfund sites in the entire USA, including Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Like any naught infantile industry, the computer industry started here in what Was a very high quality of life area,,,and then fouled their nests ,,,and walked away from their serious toxic waste leavings. Originally they used more toxic chemicals and bad decision decided to bury these tanks underground, which then leaked into the ground water. It would be ethical and responsible of the pc-computer industry to gather together and pay to clean up this huge mess, instead of acting like spoiled brat children that demand tax breaks and leave their messes all over the house for some else to clean up!

2-Air pollution,,,Since the South Bay Area is rimmed by low mountains like the Los Angeles area, we nowadays -2007- have smog so bad it is a green layer on top of a brown layer, besides the newsreaders telling us to stay inside. Local people seem to be too busy working and just don't give a damn.

3-Historic pollution,,,There are Spanish, Almaden neighborhood 'quicksilver' mercury mines in Silicon Valley that have been leaking into San Francisco Bay since the 1700s and no one seems to want to do anything about it. That includes our cardboard-like ineffective new Governor, the Terminator-Governator who is chained to a totally incompetent state highway department, Caltrans, full of $Billion cost overrun civil servants who should all be fired and have their pensions stripped; A Terminator-Governator defeated by puny civil servants, red ink, and potholes,what a sorry sad movie that is.

4-Incompetent,Deaf and Ineffective government,,,San Jose's last mayor,Gonzales of Sunnyvale politics, belongs in jail for his bid rigging and general incompetence. How the local political machine thought he even had a cardboard prop chance like Gavin 'prettyboy' Newsom of surviving the status quo long enough for one term is amazing. The new current mayor, Mr. Reed ,promises a huge turn to honest government with a start on a Sunshine Commission, but San Jose and California have not seen much political sunshine in so long because of the corporate-political 'fog' it is going to be an enormous task. The state is gerrymandered to the limit and you can not get rid of some of the old rust like Lantos because neither party will put up a range of good candidates for the PUBLIC to choose from!!

5-Bad community design,,,A long string on San Jose and Silicon Valley mayor seem to have sold their souls and the area to suburban housing tract developers, so that getting around as most of us do by car is very very difficult. For instance, major highways 85 and 87 were on the county map for 30 years as "proposed routes" and much needed with all the yuppies and geeks and stock millionaires driving fast , but were not built. And when built , the State of California-Caltrans accepted a defective highway 87 that warped like a roller coaster, and had to be rebuilt and widened from a totally inadequate 2x2 new ,21st century ,7 million people in the Bay Areas 9 counties so almost as crowded as LA, too narrow freeway. There is not one LA super wide freeway in the entire Bay Area. Talk about lousy, lack of foresight planning!! Even on major streets and cross town boulevards, the Traffic Department says that all the traffic lights are suppose to be, should already be,should have been for years and decades timed,,,but they are too busy or incompetent to do it just yet,,,what with how valuable our time, gasoline, and sitting in traffic for hours smog-generating health is. Highway 101 south of town was Designed with a huge bottleneck to slow traffic in and out of southern Coyote Valley, and the stupid bottleneck has only recently been removed , at the cost of incompetent State Legislature millions $$$$$. Silicon Valley is no pre-designed Pleasanton.

6-Poor Police performance,,,In the 1960s and 1970s the SJPD cops in their cruisers were allowed to sleep their night shifts away on the safer west side of the Santa Clara Valley, in clusters of cruisers hidden behind schools-which i personally witnessed-while most of the crime was newspapered to be on the poorer east side of the Valley. But i can remember the west side, Willow Glen burglar who repeatedly broke into peoples upper income homes to just make loud noises and stand in the master bedrooms while the couple cringed for their lives hiding under the sheets, and then this burglar would leave. This went on ,,,for years!!! If you call the SJPD for say carpenters drag racing down an upscale expensive neighborhood ,,,every day after work on a remodel,,,you might think the local pd would come out,,,but no, the cruisercops are too busy somewhere, doing something, and making some of the highest pay in the state for doing a terrible job of community policing. Or say the local high school kids decide to tp/toilet paper a city sidewalk, city owned beautiful tree every year, will the local pd talk to these budding jd s and put a stop to it, no. You can get better service from a mall guard.

7-Redevelopment Agency corruption to totally rebuild downtown San Jose after the city allowed "Valley Fair" shopping mall to be constructed on the western outskirts and draining all the business out of the downtown area, taken over by various Mexican eastside gangs, and now trying to entice shoppers and visitors back with free parking on nights and weekends,,,was another huge bad idea. Nowadays this shopping mall is the number one grossing mall in the state, more than any in LA or Orange County. People do not still feel safe because there is not a cop walking every block downtown at night--see the above "poor police performance". Women have been raped, downtown, at night , on the city streets. And the city and the SJPD cops still don't get it.

8-Secret, backroom giveaway deals to local corporations costing us $$$ millions and billions in lost tax revenue and fees,etc. Some would say that Silicon Valley must do this to entice good companies to come and stay, but after so many have poisoned our wells like Fairchild and IBM, do we really still think this corporate morally corrupt scheme still works for the benefit of anyone but these careless multinational nation-homeless businesses?! If a business does not want to be American, then they may not be our friend, but our enemy.

9-Joke of a city council,,,Like most politicians-representatives in California and the USA, San Jose's in Silicon Valley can not be bothered with your complaint call or inquiry. PS=this city does not work. period.

10-local newspaper,,,I will give the San Jose Mercury News credit for only recently trying to be a great investigative, honest,for the people newspaper instead of the corp and govt shallow he said/she said trashcan liner material that is the bulk of most newspapers.

11-Local Schools,,,San Jose State College was, besides the old canneries for the fruit trees of old Santa Clara Valley, the mainstay of the community. Unfortunately, through poor-terrible administration by the State , it was allowed to become more mediocre while changing its name to 'san jose state university' when it is functionally no better than a second tier state college to the UC system-also mismanaged by slow expansion. SJSC was always a commuter school , in downtown, so it easily lost its identity. What with the foolishness of the greeks frats and soros,keeping files of tests, and way too many drunken orgies causing their decline to almost barely visible level,,,and the repeated poor leadership of college president after college president after college president, especially with the long line of corrupt and incompetent mayors not helping matters generally much, the college is a local joke. They just gutted the famous Industrial Arts department , where shop teachers learned their skills for decades under master craftsmen, and gave it too the famous Engineering Department, as if !! we need more geeks that can not even use hand tools, let alone machinery. Ask any major local corporation,even the computer kind, and they will tell you most EE grads are tool klutzes and the Governator needs to restore public education in the State of California to a much higher level , if he can, tho doubtful. Our public schools are rated near the bottom on spending per pupil, tho the public school administrators are stealing golden salaries just fine tyvm,,,and the overall quality of our high school public education graduation crop is a joke compared to the rest of the USA and the civilized world. Stanford's computer was tapped and the newspapers revealed that most students were (parentals) buying just "A"s and "B"s, tho the university does not seem to be too ashamed about this, they just don't want to talk about grades anymore, with anyone,,,especially the press. And UCB /Bezerkley ,like San Jose State, does not seem to be able to be good neighbors and good friends to the city it is downtown inside. Santa Clara University has become famous for ,,,ready for this,,,burning couches in the streets, by the students. Such incompetent State level public school leadership, for decades!! Both Chico State and CalPoly in SLO lost their parent week celebrations because of inadequate policing,,,so sad. The new Merced UC campus is mired in frivolous swampshrimp lawsuits and should have been finished 20 years ago. Willow Glen High School is over run with rude and misbehaving, mostly latino, underachieving and bussed-in students.

12-Worst roads in the USA, for YEARS,,,If California was an independent country, we would be one of the 15 richest countries in the entire world !, yet the state budget is secretly lack-of-political sunshine mismanaged year after year, after decade. The Terminator-Governator in a campaign pledge promised we californians a state audit,,,but we have learned to accept much less from a Hollywood movie star-action figure,,,so much much less. We use to just joke about how awful the state DMV/dept of motor vehicles was. Now it is also the state CalTrans/highway department, for their bungling of the Bay Bridge 1989 repair when it was built on wood in the water and mud back in 1936 and the wood had rotted away,,,to their bungling of the new bridge design and build process from a reasonable 1 billion $ cost est. to the current afraid-to-ask-negligence-over 7 billion $ and years late estimate,,,California has become a joke of mismanagement by the Gov. and Legis. after their repeated lies that deregulating energy would mean the cost of natural gas and electricity would go down, when it shot up 4xs, and they made an Enron ripping us off movie about it. There were 15 other stupid states lined up to deregulate, so we were not the only state ship of fools and fooled !! So our city roads and highways and freeways are just covered with potholes and big hard hitting cracks, and some rate our roads the worst or among the very worst in the entire USA. I just paid several hundred dollars in wheel alignment car charges because the all the roads, but in the richest neighborhoods like Hillsborough, are so poorly maintained. Maybe that is why the Governator drives so many suvs-Hummers.

13-Housing prices, own or rent, that will make you laugh or cry, guaranteed,,,What with all these obvious, plain as day problems, you might think you could get a bargain on housing in Sillycone Valley, but you would be so wrong. Low income housing looks like a barrio or ghetto. And anything remotely livable costs you an arm and a leg, ala get off the boat in SF rip off merchant pricing in the 'gold rush',sucker rush of Sam Brannan and manifest destiny. I live in a steal of a 2 bdrm rental, with parking safely off street, and a 3rd floor view,,,but rents on the peninsula in my area go normally for $2k/mo for such an old building. Check CraigsList to be truly shocked. My folks built a custom, not tract home in desirable Willow Glen-Lincoln Glen neighborhood(since LG shopping street heart/center is near d-e-a-d,,,) in 1853 for less than $20k. Ranch style one level ,2 car attached garage, 3bdrm, 2bath. Big lot. Now expanded ,twice, to 5bdrm, 2 bath. And it could sell, 1953 old pipes and old wires and old paint as is ,,,for,,,are you sitting down?,,,over $700k. The wires on the original electric stove top--remember "all electric" ads for homes-what a joke--are sooo scary.

14-horrible State Bond rating,,,who really cares how badly our state is mis-run.

15-lots and lots of 'homeless' people wandering around and getting into trouble,,,It is not just generous SF that use to give away cash of $300-400/mo to anyone claiming at the city window to be homeless. There use to be a mental health hospital , called Agnews, for the thousands of mentally ill in Silicon Valley. But during Governor Reagan's term, the state mental hospital of Agnews was closed and now the land has been sold off to Sum Microsustems or somebody, when it was a good place to keep the mentally ill off the streets and from getting into criminal behavior ,drugs,littering our sidewalks, etc. That was a huge bad idea, Governor Reagan. Sonoma mental hospital, huge, in the north bay was also closed.

16- call "911" and see if you can wait for 1,5 or 30 minutes,,,On the highway i see lots of accidents, some just fender-benders, some with blood, and it is amazing to me that CHP hangs up on you in SoCal if you call an accident in and it sometimes takes 5-10-15-30 minutes in NorCal to get through to a polite CHP dispatcher, to HELP THEM get info on a recent accident and get out there to help the accident victims.

17-Water rates are sky high,,,My folks in San Jose pay from $50-75/month, as 2 residents with one or two kids visiting. Ridiculous !! Of course, the corporate farmers get 60-70% of the states fresh drinking water right off the top, before the what 30 million people and cities, at a giveaway rate subsidy of less than $20 a acre foot. Only in California, right !! And the water is sooo hard, you are going to get hard water white spots all over that new BMW. You would think someone would develop a product to apply to new glass to protect it for years from such ugly and hard to see through white hard water spots. And most of the county is on an antiquated=cheap many old ground well system, so the Water Company is making huge profits, but the quality of the "hard 24 gpg" ,toxic (see #1 above) water is not to be trusted or preferred. The County does not work either,,,and wants fiasco of incompetence and failure at only 60-70 mph B.A.R.T. into downtown SJ, for "whatever!" the cost. (Caltrain is such a far superior system going up the peninsula, that BART would be a total waste of Billion$ of past collected tax dollars.)

18-horrible Clay soil,,,it may have been fine for building adobes by the Spanish that have lasted hundreds of years, but try gardening in this sticky muck !! Yes, it was fine for all the old orchards of plums, walnuts, apricots and cherries, but i personally have spent $1000s over the years on cubic yards of mushroom compost,gypsum, redwood shredded bark compost, manure, both steer and chicken composted, planting mix , Schultz Profile Clay Soil Conditioner grit, and now alfalfa pellets that really temporarily increase the worm population, and since 1953 to 2007 the clay soil still looks and hoe /shovel works the same,,,sticky. Where all those thousands of cubic yards of garden soil amendments went over the many years, i have no idea, and neither does anyone else it seems.

19-Jobs,,,It use to be that every parents dream was for their son or daughter to get an EE degree and work for a computer company, make a good salary, buy a big house, and raise a family ala the old american dream. Maybe those days are gone ,since alot of Silicon Valley companies have moved out and there are other Sillycone Valley-clones in Utah, N. Carolina, etc. Maybe some companies like Apple still pay a true living wage with great benefits. And some companies like Google just vest shares so besides the fab salary and benes ,even the janitor is a multimillionaire. But for most of us , we feel betrayed with low pay and few benefits, maybe just horrible -will misdiagnose to avoid a operation cost under covered insurance-crappy Kaiser. The State of Califonia-ok, go ahead and laugh-does not widely and generally for all workers enforce the overtime laws and the work place safety laws, that is the ones they have not Grey Davis style sleazy stolen off the books with a back room commission. Raw sewage in dumped across employee parking lots, yes more than one location, and Cal OSHA tries and does look the other way ,as it runs downs storm drains into San Francisco Bay. That is why there was so little public shock and uproar over the recent container ship 58,000 gallon thick tanker oil spill , because most people don't care enough to vote for politicians who do care and do take care of the California environment. We are quickly becoming an area of the spoiled with special tax breaks rich bastards, declining to nothing middle class, and the others, the working poor who are abused by the rich and the powerful.

20-The future prospects,,,If the big bad fraud of a ass-grabbing Terminator-Governator will not raise taxes on those making over $1 million/year,,, even $10,000,000/year,,, or even $50,000,000/year,,,year after year!?,,, of such extreme affluence, then i think California is lost. We truly will become just like Mexico, rich selfish and happy vs the poor, with the ground poisoned by MTBE,etc. from a bad trade treaty like NAFTA, GATT, and WTOs with our better neighbor to the north ,Canada. Ripped off and ruined, oh so quickly.

Why do Travel Agents want to become Dinosaurs?

Today i saw a respected California travel agency agent about a trip,Hawaii condo and car, i had booked myself months ago and just needed a flight. "Why don't you cancel the condo and car and go for a package?",,,I got exactly where and what i wanted. "Well, at a month and a day before Dec 16 departure, you will be lucky to find anything for less than $800-900 for the rt flight!",,,please just look. "Ok, on Apollo ,see, there is only,,,yes, $900,,,oh, there is $800,,,that is probably the best you will do,,,oh, there is $700,,,now you can't expect any lower price this late than that!,,,ok, i have found you a $600 rt flight on United in less than 5 minutes for our $35 fee, and you certainly won't find anything lower,,,do you want me to book that,,,you really should."

Apollo is a mediocre search engine for travel-flight prices. The travel agent did not check even one airline website, when most people have heard that they have the best deals a lot of times. What about Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines or ATA or even United's own site after finding their fare on Apollo? How lazy can you be ??

Back in the 80s i was a travel agent for a subsidiary of Santana's Suntrips and went to a ripoff travel school in San Jose and also two community college campuses to learn Sabre and Apollo for little pay, no benefits, and much talked of but never went 'fam trips' , as a part time job to working as a hotel front desk manager at a successful Silicon Valley business hotel ,for low pay and no benefits. So i know alittle about the biz, just selling Hawaii vacations. And in this day and age, for a "professional" to not even check the major travel websites and airline websites is either playing to only the UberRich or just plain foolish. Most Americans want a bargain ,even if they are "late!" at a month and a day out.

A good friend has a 'bargain hunter' travel agent in Oxford, England on a stipend to CONSTANTLY look for the ski trip package bargains in France and Italy that he has requested. Every few weeks she calls and says " I found this great deal, a real bargain ! Are you interested in going ,,,(say) skiing next month in Italy?"

Why do we have so many lazy, over-priced, fast buck,get rich quick travel businesses ,,,and travel agents who think we are all just fat cat corporate travel suckers willing to pay any price ?! The dollar in your hand or your bank is worth less and less every day,,,and most travel agents think they are working just for one side of the fence, the fat cats.

I made the Apollo- United $600 reservation, but immediately went home and found on Aloha Airlines web page a lower price or $577 and then on Hawaiian Airlines website of only $469, without the $35 fee,,,and a savings of more than 20 PER CENT !! If i could do this as a pc amateur, certainly any self respecting Travel Agent could,,,or professionally should. Not all of us in the Bay Area are computer geeks and we expect more from Travel Agents, if they want to flourish.

the NRA has stopped the "Free Hunter" program, so do they give a damn at all about us blue collar hunters?

I recently--Nov 2007--phoned the Hunter Relations Department of the NRA and they LAUGHED,,, when i asked if the rich and well funded NRA could organize at cost or just above cost hunts , say for pheasants in South Dakota, for its members. They want our money, but other than fight legislative battles with fat cat lobbyists, what are they good for beyond the basic Right to Bear Arms,,,for the average member?? Hunting in on the decline and besides self protection and target shooting it is a main reason why i own a rifle and a shotgun. Seems awfully short sighted of the NRA to do so little to promote hunting and the people who treasure the wilderness, national forests, fields and out of doors in pursuit of legal game like pheasants, quail, ducks and geese,deer, etc. For most of us, commercial outfitters are too expensive and as out of state businesses, too untrustworthy and unreliable. So hunting is in a steady rapid decline,,,then what, NRA?

Kaiser P. medical insurer says "thrive",,,then why so little about helping our Immune System??!

If crappy Kaiser was even half-serious about patients that "thrive", they would be telling us all the ways we could help our Immune Systems and all the ways we should not be hurting our precious Immune Systems. But they are not.

The Yosemite National Park landslide on main access Highway 140 Fiasco

If NPS and the current concessionaire, Delaware North, can not effect a quick and effective cure , you can bet that if MCA of Los Angeles still had the park contract the road landslide would have already been fixed. I am not saying MCA was a good concessionaire in its short history in Yosemite National Park, just that what NPS and the Feds now say is impossible to quickly fix/repair with a original roadway shed is just a lack of will. If you doubt that MCA in its day had the raw clout, i can prove by giving one example.
In the 1970s and 1980s ,MCA of Los Angeles was so powerful that it ran YNP in fact. What MCA wanted, MCA got. It was just that capitalist -greed-religion simple. Raft rental at Camp Curry and the raft shuttle that made large profits? MCA easily got it , with its corporate size or Congress connections.
Does Delaware North get to do raft rental and raft shuttle? No, even tho many employees say it is a mafia invested or controlled company. Should a mafia company be in a national park? As long as the President keeps waving the "patriotic" flag and shouting "Iraq" to all the American patriotic fools that can not think past "weapons of mass destruction" and "ties to Al Queda" and ignore the obvious.
Another example is that MCA in its day was allowed to be so abusively powerful that it fully exercised an exclusive bus transportation contract inside YNP to the detriment of visitors from all over the world. Bus loads would show up at the 4 park entrances, then had to phone in a request for a bus to transport its passengers from the bus yard at Yosemite Village, and wait until one arrived in an hour ,or two, or longer. Bus guests were not allowed to make reservations so that an MCA buses would be waiting at the one of 4 park gates, but rather MCA made all these mass transit ,environmentally wiser guests wait ,,,and wait,,,and wait.
That is how powerful , for the worse, a large corporation like MCA was inside our Yosemite National Park for years, with Congress and the National Park Service looking the other way. And that is how NPS has no clout or will or true grit to fix such major problems in our national parks, such as Yosemite and the two year old ,long know and ignored rockslide on Highway 140 and the Merced River.

Mr. Robert Steel's of Treasury remarks today are pollyann-ish/disingenuous,,,

US Rep. Barney Franks committee hearing today questioned Mr. Robert Steel of the Treasury Department, who said that banks do not try to get people into foreclosure situations. Capitalist coldhearted reality unlikely, as for example Bank of America rewards its loan officers/staff for getting people to unwisely sign on for multiple loans, whether or not these people can really afford them. I have seen these reward trips in San Francisco at Christmas time, with the loan officers most successful at increased debt of individuals staying in luxury hotels and eating luxury meals , paid for as reward, by Bank of America.

DO NOT,,,switch to Microsoft's "Windows Live",,as it is full of BUGS !!

Remember, Microsoft has little or no customer service for free,,,therefore, it is October 2007 and way too early to switch to MSN Windows Live email , what with all the many major problems in it:

1. Can not print more than the first page of an email.

2. Click on an email, and another one from a different day
pops up !!

3. There is no permanent option to go back to the old,
more reliable email program...and you can not email
MSN ,the beast, to get normal free customer service
help.

4. There are other problems,,,such as white lines every inch or so THROUGH THE BLACK TEXT YOU TYPE,,, i am just too tired of Microsoft and their crappy products without lifetime free customer service to continue tonight,,,

Mr. Greenspan's bitter legacy : A.R.M.s/adjustable rate morgages, sold by smart rich bankers debt-greedy against dumber,less powerful unwise Americans

Can anyone imagine that someone as smart as Mr. Greenspan could not see the near-term and long term future peril of the folly of ARMs/adjustable rate mortgages sold to ambitious unwise working poor fools?

The banks certainly are smart and powerful and personal debt/foreclosure/repossession driven enough to have foreseen this and as the power player in this business contract, must bear the full cost of such overly ambitious greed. No federal bailout is warranted tho the Federal Reserve certainly looked the other way and allowed this major stupidity and huge threat to our weaken national economy. Another nation lesson to learn.

Governor Arnold and 911: Why do we have to wait 3-15 minutes for someone to answer?!

Try calling 911 the next time you see a highway car accident. No one will answer for usually a few minutes,,,to many minutes. Then they will politely take the information, unless it is SoCal and then they will just hang up, even if someone is bleeding to death on one of the many overcrowded 6x6 and 7x7 freeways down there.

Governor Arnold is responsible as the head of state government for this. Ok, so he won't raise taxes on the elite super-uber-rich making more than a Million $/year. But he should be fixing this. This is basic public safety.

To save a few bucks, why risk your loved ones life?!

There are several limo and bus companies that demand all or most drivers be available 24/7/365. And then ,because they are employees, order them to violate the federal DOT hour of work safety law hours, since the driver is the only one liable for the $700-900 fine by CHP,,,which by the way suggests a way to falsify your DOT logbook with 'standby time' as 'off duty time' when you are still on the clock. It is a national disgrace and probably nationwide.

Beware of "Boston Coach" limo ,as a subsidiary of Fidelity Investment Company, seems to offer high pay in exchange for working too many ,possibly unsafe hours without at least 8 hours sleep at home. How important is your loved one , versus a couple bucks ?? Why does "Virgin Limo" say they pay competitive region and industry wages and then pay so very little??

Beware of "Destination Systems" who has made millions demanding 'unrestricted hours' from its bus drivers for years without regular days off or vacation time,,, retired in luxury after such putting-the-public-in risky business,,, and is now getting back into such risky business.

There are many more, hiding out there,,,Do we really want to lower all our standards to Mexico's or China's ??!

Consumers, if you love someone, you should ask more questions of who they ride with, limo or bus company, so that they will return safe and sound home to you. You would think.

Here in the 'wild west', California has lots of false front companies,,,

"California Parlor Car Tours" in SF currently in 2007 does not have any buses or drivers, yet is selling on the web like it did, after a bad accident outside Yosemite last year on 120west. Very sad for such a once-famous company.

"Tower Tours" sold its bus operation out of SF to a Seattle-based company, "(some thing)-Western", yet is still using the old name, even tho the rich South Korean former owner is just doing hotel desk bookings. The gay new construction?-millionaire owner has the Tauck Tours contract, but seems to hire others companies rejects, like the latest one with a huge anti-social hair-trigger temper.

Grey Line , Coach USA, San Francisco Sightseeing,,,that company,,, has yet invented another name to market/hide behind, besides the old Franciscan,,,it may be "Coach America",,,Why so many names for the same mediocre-standard, money-grubbing , usually dented dusty dirty and late ,smoking driver huge bus company?

Consumers must ALWAYS ask,,,do you actually have a bus and a driver ,,,and do the tour ? What is your insurance and safety record? Do you guarantee ,in writing to me, that your drivers follow the letter and spirit of the federal DOT law on hours and state laws , so that ALL YOUR DRIVERS are guaranteed at least 9 hour off each 24 hours of work availability,,,,so that they AND WE,,,will be safe and not victims of the frenquent fall-asleep-at-the-wheel USA national syndrome?? Do you pay competitive wages to all your employees ,such as overtime and full benefits, or just non-competitive wages like $10/hr period??

Or are you just one of sooo many brokers and bookies ,passing yourself off as the actual operator, just to get a slice of the money, and then resell the ignorant client to ,,,any farmed out or subbed out second or third rate outfit??

AARP sells MEDIOCRITY, not the Superior products to the aged it should

Back about ten years ago ,when i turned 50, i immediately joined AARP, thinking it would be of some to great benefit. First i tried the hotel discounts and found them no better than AAA. Second, i went to my retirement plan specialist and asked him to evaluate the retirement savings plans and annuities offered through AARP, and i was shocked to hear that as an expert in the field for many years he found them all to be "mediocre at best" !! Why not 'Superior' ????

They should be offering our older citizens the best, not the average. So recently i tried their car insurance offered through the Hartford, and for the first time ever i feel i was low balled to get me to call the Hartford Insurance Company and then fraudulently told that "the quote had to be adjusted as usual" and higher !! Classic 'bait and switch' fraud.
Now some old folks might just roll over and take that higher ,too high, price. But i complained to AARP and was basically told that they don't care about such insurance quote abuse and non-competitive pricing to the USA seniors.

Shocking , i know. Don't accept mediocrity from AARP, or anyone else !! Demand better service and prices from such powerful and supposed friends of the aged. The California Insurance Commissioner is taking too long to seem interested.

Fire Fatso Firemen,,,and Smoking Sheriffs !!

Sept. 2007,,,I was driving in San Francisco yesterday, and saw a "morbidly obese" fireman in uniform !! How can we keep ,or why, such super-unfit public safety employees ?! Also saw a S.F. policeman smoking inside his patrol car, obviously on duty. Who is going to pay for his lung cancer and certain self-destructive illnesses down the line, but we abandoned taxpayers of the mid-low working income ??!!
They should all be fired, if it is so necessary to be fit to be hired as a policeman or fireman, then it should be the same high standard throughout their career, however short. There are lots of young fit men and women willing, ready and able to take their places. To he-ll with their unions on this public safety crisis issue. No excuses, ala the popular tv show "rescue me".

Sears recommend a plumbiing company in Califonia, but the hot water heater plumbers also STOLE the hot water copper pipe loop!!!

My folks are in their 80s and often victims of tradesmen. But to buy a hot water heater every 10-15 years from Sears and then have the Sears provided plumbing company install the hot water heater,,,and STEAL the copper pipe of the subfloor hot water loop that had reliably provided hot water on demand in less than 5 seconds that now takes almost 3 minutes,,,is scandalous ,especially when Sears keeps telling us 'we don't want to hear about it anymore' !!!

BEWARE of Sears , in California and especially Silicon Valley !!

Shame on San Francisco's hotel consierges !!

Many people on vacation, in a trusting mood, will be unfairly taken advantage of by many San Francisco concierges who secretly take a 30-40 % commission on every tour booking, and lord knows what else, as a stupid judge just ruled this secret behavior "legal". It may be "legal" to take more than one deserves, but to do it secretly, is totally dishonest and unprofessional. Concierges should now show a label as to who they are beholding to, either "salaried hotel employee" with obedience to the hotels standards if any, or "salaried and commission" or "commission to 40%" based advice, so that no one will be deceived any longer as to where the San Francisco concierges loyalty does lie, usually with the dirty under-the-table dollar, like lost child Las Vegas. Shame on the Mayor, Gavin Newsom, as well for his mismanagement of a tourism economy city. How difficult is it to get relief drivers to the ends of the cable car lines so our guest do not wait the usual 1-3 hours while the solo cable car driver is on a very very long break ?

Macys.com has lousy customer service !!

I ordered several items by pc at macys.com and was told they were all in stock and would be shipped within 5-7 workdays. The shipments were late and one item in on unknown date back order, when i was told over the phone that the product was "available to ship".

Beware of this big successful stores terrible performance on the web at customer service !! Macy's, you should be doing sooo much better at taking care of your customers.

USAToday newspaper prints BAD medical advice

Recently USAToday newspaper did an article on how to treat common native plant Poison Ivy-Oak-Sumac in the USA. They did this last year. Unfortunately, their source for medical advice is obviously incompetent,,,and thus you should view everything medical in this newspaper as highly suspect. They recommended treating the oily plant contact rash that lasts for a very painful, 24-7, two to three weeks with "alcohol and water" !! Totally incompetent advice in 2007 !!

"Tecnu" brand liquid soap is the only soap that will wash this painfully irritating oil off human or dog skin within the first 24 hours, that i am aware of. It has been available for about 10 years over the counter. Yet USAToday will let thousands and thousands of Americans and our visitor guests suffer with this unnecessary rash, especially if you get it on private,delicate or sensitive skin, every year because they for 2 years will not print up-to-date medical information on this subject, nor return phone calls on a correction to this bogus article. "Alcohol and water",,,what stupid irresponsible careless and thoughtless medical advice !!

Google is doing a TERRIBLE job of running Blogger !!

Now there is little or no way to contact Blogger, with calls for help or to report problems. This is wrong, and should not be allowed ,if there were ANY standard of customer service in the computer industry. Look how rich Google and Microsoft are ,,,and how Terrible/non-existent their "customer service" is !!

Talk about Robber Barons at the turn of the century.

For instance, i did not want nor need the new Google home page for Blogger or the new Google sign-in for Blogger. Blogger worked just fine. But they were force down my pc throat. Now when i try to switch between my own email addresses, Google offers it, but does not allow it !! Shame, shame , shame on you , Google !!

Professional mechanics and radio stars, "Click & Clack" say it is 'ok' to use Regular instead of "Premium Gas Only"

Good news,,,!!!
The famous radio personalities and mechanics "Click and Clack" last month, April 2007, say it is 'OK' for most cars other than Ferraris, Maseratis,etc. super high tech,,,to use Regular Gas, with the manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Acura, Lexus, Infinity, and the second rate American mfgs, instead of the dash label of "Premium Gas Only" !! Thank you Tappet Brothers !!!!!

Now in the May -June issue, AAA says according to Jim Fennig a crew chief for NASCAR and AAA President Paula F. Downey, that if your car dash label says "Use Regular Gas" ,you don't have to use Premium Gas at $.20-.60 cents more. Gee, thanks for that big tip, AAA. Yikes, do they think we are all sheep for slaughter ?!

AIG,,,huge insurance-investment company but LOUSY service!!

I have had an IRA at AIG- Valic for years,,,and am amazed that they do not have a mailed out or online printable contribution form. Also , they do not tell you if you have over-contributed for the year ,,,and thus face IRS $$ penalties. Ouch. But they also do not bother in the least to tell you what you can contribute and if you have contributed enough for that tax year. Excuse me, but THAT is Lousy service!! Maybe they think all of us IRA and TSA investors are captive past, and thus ,,,captive present and future contribution investors only to AIG ! There must be many investment companies that appreciate and take better care of their 'showing the money' customers !!