"HP Photosmart C5500 Series" All-in-One inkjet printers ,,, DO NOT LET YOU CHOOSE THE SIZE AND TYPE OF PRINT !! What the HE-ll ??!!

Microsoft's Hotmail does not let you easily select the size and style of print before you "print" .


And now HP does not let you select the size of print with their printer software!!


What kind of a conspiracy is this?!

Dec.2010,,,President Obama and the Republicans!,and some Democrats have EXTENDED TAX CUTS FOR THE SUPER RICH instead of letting them expire after $700 BILLION IN LOST TAXES on 1jan2011 ,,,!!

What-the-hell! did we elect a Democrat to the White House in 2008 for !!,,, if he, as the first black President, is going down in history as the biggest compromising character and hypocritical national leader since Bill Clinton promised!! us on tv he was not having an affair with Monica ,,, and President Kennedy was cheating all the time we now know on us in prolonging the un-Win-able VietNam War and dragging his feet on Civil Rights and cheating on his beautiful wife, in the White House !?


If a Progressive Party, like the TR's bull moose from the 1910s and the Repubs, appears soon (Greens?) especially from the now definitely proven to be ineffectual (too easy virtue to make a deal so corp. american can make a fast buck) Democratic National Party, President Obama will have had only one term.  He has just so severely disappointed his base , that it would take another bro-Gov. Florida corruption election with the sick Supremes for him to get a second term.  We now know what we did not want to know; He talks with high purpose but does weak embarrassing back room deals instead of standing strong with his base and fighting for principles and worthy goals.


So he has agreed to weaken Social Security.  Huge disappointment.  HUGE.  And not bring back progressive taxation, on companies that are EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS FOR A FAST BUCK and the super rich who can sooo afford it; It is such a weak excuse to say a recession is the wrong time to raise taxes on those who can easily afford it, when you won't raise taxes in the go-go bubble good times of the 1990s !!


No wonder old good Democrats have been 'retiring' and leaving Congress and Washington,D.C. like a fire alarm only they can hear!  Or maybe it is like a sinking rowboat ,,, with the Republicans throwing away the oars and all rushing to the front to get a better view as it sinks ,,, and the Democrats have legs straddling both gunwales, not sure if they are suppose to rock the boat or jump off the left side or the right side or stabilize the boat.


So we got a National Medical Plan, if it doesn't have even a public option, since the President campaign talked about Single Payer. And now the federal courts are weakening it with questions about everyone having to pay in, like all having to buy car insurance to drive in California.  Or buy flood insurance if you buy a house even tho Ross Creek probably will never flood unless mgmt wants it to.  Or be drafted in college for VietNam when then there was zero chance of winning and our leaders knew it.


The bankers are again so arrogant--have you seen them partying lately too?-- after their big tax dollar bail out when we should have let them be broken up and started a national public works program for more American jobs and to fix the Crumbling American Infrastructure (see documentary dvd) from highways to exploding gas lines to water lines and sewage plants to bridges falling in rivers and killing people.  We should have outlawed a.r.m.s mortgages and nationalized all housing mortgages at a super low rate like 1%fixed to keep Americans in their houses.


But none of that is going to happen , i guess.  Now that President Obama has shown his true nature of compromise, tho talk big, but don't fight for what you said you believed in.  We, the public, have just lost all hope.  Maybe the blacks will still vote for him;  They don't value education over a fast buck and understand compromised ethics.  And Mexicans expect so little from their govt(mordita anyone) that they as Mexican-Americans won't give a dam about the USA's future and vote for him too.


But his embarrassing back room recently revealed behavior, like Clinton's and astonishingly Kennedy's, has severely disappointed in my opinion the white vote and the majority vote made up of hard working, well educated, not rich Americans. 

My own "Not Yet Funny, never ever NOT going to your movie, Not even watching your tv show for 5 sec,,, LIST

1-Ben St-ill-er
2-Owen W-ill-son
3-Steve Carr-eeek-ll
4-David Sp-aaah-de
5-Martin short
6-Will F-aaah-rrell
7-Jack Bl-aaah-ck
8-s-eek-th rogan
9-jas-ohno alexander
10-co-noway-an obrien
11-jerry steinfeld
12-lady gaga
13-kim jong ill
14-vince vaughnono
15-putin
16-senator mcc
17-baba wawa
18-dukes of hazard
19-walker texas ranger
20-

Mom and Dad, Are you hugging and cheek-kissing your kids every day? You should let them know you love them every day,,, or they might grow up to be,,, Republicans !!

This year, 2010,  and this month of December for Christmas, the Republican National Party seems to want us to remember that they were the Big Bad Grinches of Christmas' past ,,, and now all the Nation's Christmas future !!  (Obviously, they were not shown enough affection as children !!)


So,,, are you hugging your kids and telling them you "love u", every day ??
Yes, you feed and clothe and send them off to school and make sure they do ALL their homework ,,, teach them good values and morals to develop good Democrat / Green character ,,, but doesn't everybody do that ??  Yes, you teach them to be civil and kind and polite ,,, and education is very important ,,, as is a honest hearty healthy democratic republic of the USA ,,, and be fair, like steep progressive taxes of old.  


But do you hug and squeeze their little lungs, cheek-kiss them and actually tell them "i love you" every day ,,, so they really really really KNOW IT ,,, (and hopefully don't turn out as unhappy, mean and nasty, unloved, selfish and dishonest,,, obviously neglected as children,,, anarchistic Republicans) ??
Senator McC,,,probably bottle fed. So sad.

The TODAY SHOW's website STILL does not work !! Dec. 2010: Where is the list of present day show topics/segments? Where is the top of page "email TODAY" or "email Matt" ??

What a mess, visually and practically.
NBC,,, UNIVERSAL,,, the TODAY SHOW ,,,


yikes

A little Christmas decorating for the snowless suburbs ,,, and practical Gardening too: Scatter some gypsum on the lawn and the flower beds, looks like snow, but will help break up the sticky clay soil and aid aeration come SPRING !!

Yeah, it's a rip at $12-14 for a 50lb bag , but it goes a long way.  

Save some money at the USPS: all insured packages are treated the same and the risk of losing one is minor, so pay the minumum of $1.75 and RELAX

Yes, if they lose the package they will only pay the minimum of $25, but do you really think/plan/expect YOUR PACKAGE  to be the one in a million to get lost ?

Comcast ,,, Dec. 2010 ,,, When you pay for 'digital cable' and 'HD cable' , why can't you get the best , HD, for most or all channels ,,, instead of both ??

 i recently bought my first big flat screen tv on one of those tv shopping channels and made the mistake of buying one with analog and digital.  I had so many channels, plus all the duplication in analog ,,,and in digital ,,, and in HD  ,,, that i went through Hell but did send the tv back.


Now with Comcast i am paying in Silicon Valley for 'digital HD tv' and yet here i am , again !! , with the inferior digital channels having the lowest number and be pushed on me and the higher quality HD channels are somewhere in the 700s !!  I don't know which channels are in my package because they are not marked and differentiated from the HUNDREDS OF OTHER CHANNELS.  And when i use the 'last' button on the Comcast remote , i often get in a situation where i am not going back and forth between two different  programs on the higher quality HD channels , as i wish, but between the digital and HD version of the SAME CHANNEL AND PROGRAM !!


Comcast is basically a monopoly if your apartment will not let you put up a dish and AT&T is so awful.  And it is so frustratingly mediocre from what it easily could and should be for the money, like $105/mo. !!

Comcast ,,,Dec.2010,,, You can not turn the tv cable volume high enough at "50" ,,,

This is a no-brainer basic in Silicon Valley.
  
So why is it so hard for Comcast to care to deliver by cable a signal you can turn to a 'loud' level !?

San Jose, Ca., Dec. 2010 ,,, and STILL ,,, such a MESS of a place to live ,,,

ok , we got rid of that Terrible morally-bankrupt Mayor, Ron Gonzales ,,,


But,,,


1-TRAFFIC:  Some , some call this the 'heart' of Silicon Valley , but we do not have one expressway or boulevard with TIMED LIGHTS BY COMPUTER !!  I  am not talking regular 2 lane streets, but divided 2x2 or 3x3 or 4x4 major thoroughfares !!  NOT ONE .  Our new much better Mayor says they have been on the 'to do' list for decades ,,, and we have the personnel , paid for in place for decades ,,, and the huge computer in place for decades ,,, 'but we need a new larger computer.'  Really !!  Traffic is horrible. The commute is horrible.  Even before and after the holiday shopping season.  Valley Fair is still the #1 grossing shopping center (with tons of free parking) and the $Bs spent to 'redevelop' and teardown and rebuild most of downtown San Jose , with the city govt. moving back downtown(WITH LOTS OF EXPENSIVE PARKING METERS AND EXPENSIVE LOTS ,,,will city govts ever ever ever learn?!) in a new super expensive building(with a falcon nest on top, ok, and a cool 24-7 falcon cam , to keep the 30-60 diseases transmitted to humans ,pigeon problem at bay) , the DOWNTOWN is still mostly a ghost town ,,, in spite of the new high rise luxury office buildings and many luxury high rise luxury condos ,,, and a monument that looks like a cowpie ,,, oh, and not enuf night walking police , natch.  So computer timing all the major divided boulevards and expressways would do so much to alleviate the terrible traffic and the skunky smog pollution, but we will die waiting for the politicians.  It is so easy a FIX.  (oh, SF has at least 3 timed streets.
They did have at least 5, including highways 101-van ness street and highway 1=19th avenue.)  Sooo embarrassing , for the much vaunted computer industry.


POLICE:   We live in a really, if that is possible , nice looking and expensive part of southern central SJ called Lincoln Glen with homes on Westgate and Cottle going for well over a $M, even tho the wiring and plumbing are too old 1950s behind the walls ,,, and when you phone the SJPD that there are carpenters remodeling a house on the street, again, and at the end of the day RACING DOWN THE 25MPH STREET AT OVER 50MPH WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG FAMILIES MOVING INTO THESE OLDER RANCH STYLE HOUSE ,,,What do you get from the SJPD ?  Nothing.  They never show.  Day after day.  You call ,,, and the San Jose Police Department ,,, NEVER SHOWS.  No excuse.  And they are among the highest paid ,,, in the  Nation !!?


POLLUTION:  This valley, Santa Clara ,use to be famous for plums, cherries, walnuts and apricot tree orchards for miles and miles.  And before in the Spanish and Mexican rule days , the Almaden cinnabar MERCURY 'quick silver' mines !! Nowadays, we have all these computer industry 'Superfund' toxic cancerous underground chemical leaking tanks that have massively and broadly polluted our ground water.   And real estate agents are getting OVER $1M for a standard ranch 3br-2ba built in the 1950s for less than $20k with aged wiring and old fouled pipes !!?  (Talk about lack of full disclosure ...)


Smog is as bad as L.A. ,,, due to the rim around the Bay of these small hills, a natural smog trap, in Summer and some days threw out the year, like just the other day.  "Don't go outside cuz it is a 'spare the air day' !!" 


Diamond lanes are under used, and we only have 4x4 freeways unlike SoCal that has 8x8s and 10x10s, even 11x11s and can afford to lose a lane to such politican foolish failure of a plan.  So cars in the other 2 or 3 lanes just sit during the commute,,, making more SMOG !!


We are force to pay Federal Flood Insurance ,,, because of Ross Creek, which is a small concrete channel ,straight, about 12-15ft wide.  SUCH A RIP OFF !!


COST OF LIVING:  We kicked out the lying bum , Republican Governor Grey Davis , who got us to de-regulate home gas and electric rates by weakening the state PUC long time mostly effective cost controls.  But we did not RE-REGULATE home gas and electric rates! Big state govt failure on Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's and state legislatures part !!  i know a retired couple , both 92, living on one state public school teachers pension and their savings ,,, who are PAYING $400-500 PER MONTH FOR PG&E HOME GAS AND ELECTRIC , BEFORE THEY TURN THE NEW AIR CONDITIONER ON FOR HUSBAND'S HEALTH REASONS  ,,, AND $100 PER MONTH FOR WATER FOR A 3BR-2BA WITH A NICE FRONT AND BACK YARD LAWN AND MANY TREES.  This is highway robbery.


JOBS:  One company locally , HP , laid off over 30,000 workers ,,, and sent the jobs to India, China , whatever.   And there is this crazy attitude here that 'everyone must be one of those Silicon Valley Multimillionaires, so stop complaining about the inflated high too high prices on most every thing' !!  Most companies don't pay anywhere near THE COST OF LIVING IN THE SOUTH S.F. BAY AREA !!  It isn't that 'd.i.n.k.' /double income no kids is not nearly enough to buy a condo or a small cheap house in a safe neighborhood, it is that compared to the 1950s and 60s , it will take you at least 4 INCOMES  to get that then STANDARD OF LIVING, a stay at home mom, 4 kids, all college and university educated, long 3 month summer vacations of the western national parks with the parents, 2 cars in the garage/driveway, and an $18,ooo 3br-2ba house built in 1953 that would sell nowadays for OVER $700,000.oo !!  This place and the economy are SO OUT-OF-WACK !!


SCHOOLS: There are way too many school districts in 'Silly Con Valley'.  Too many Superintendents getting too many golden handshakes and golden parachutes and bloated salaries ,,, with little or NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the PUBLIC SCHOOLS to do better than worse !!  This again is more of the same sick area mentality of 'get rich quick , be as irresponsible as you can as no one will notice , and to hell with everyone else'.  There should be one large and well organized school district with accountability at every level.  Parents that suck at parenting and don't have their kids do their homework  get   'bonehead' classes in parenting.  Teachers that still don't know how to teach get a semester with a great model teacher.  Principals who hide in their offices and do little get replaced by eager recent college graduates.  And fat-cat Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents of Silicon Valley who ,i swear i personally witnesses, do nothing but sit at their desk and for 6 months receive full pay for only planning their weddings, get immediately Fired, and replaced by eager recent college graduates.  We , as a State and a society, can not afford the waste ,as rich as we in the USA are, of professional educators at public schools who do not do their very best every day.  If the unions and educators and administrators can not get behind that , then maybe it is time to get rid of all public instruction as failed Meg Whitman proposed and just do paid charter schools for those that can afford it.


WEATHER:   Yes it is mostly pleasant.  But why is the only federal or govt weather station at the San Jose Airport , where no one lives, instead of at downtown San Jose ,,, or Valley Fair where many shop ,,, or at multiple locations like Willow Glen and Eastridge and the Rose Garden neighborhoods ?


SECRET CORPORATE TAX AND FEE BREAKS, TOO TOO MANY:  Why do we have to allow all these politicians this massive secrecy ,,, if all these massive deals are so good for us !?  And these same companies shit on this land and the Bay.  It makes no sense.

AAA has gone Way Downhill in Roadside Service !! And does not apologize or give credit for BAD SERVICE ,,, beware

In 2010, i had 3 bad service calls for roadside assistance with CSAA , and complained loudly about all three, but got not one credit and not one apology.


The first time i locked myself out of my car at work in SF. The female tow truck/service truck driver arrived soon enough, but the tried to put wedges all around my Acura window and then fish for the door release ,,, instead of using a slim jim .  I asked her to not loosen my window in its channel and use the slim jim instead ,,, and she said if i didn't like it she left!!  CSAA sent out a guy who quickly used a slim jim with much less risk of breaking my car window glass.


The second one was a work vehicle in monterey with a rattling hubcap, i told the CSAA dispatcher.  A young guy shows up with a small pair of RUSTED needle nose pliers and small RUSTED screwdriver and " i didn't bring my tools , cuz i usually don't need them."  So i sent him away, and the next guy had a full tool kit and wrench tightened the one loose hubcap.


The last time was a friend and his little son in a new  Lincoln SUV with a flat tire at Pebble Beach CC.  The CSAA/AAA dispatcher sent a guy in less than 45 minutes ,but he did not bring the right size lug wrench for that make of car and size of lug nuts ... 
so my friend had his new Lincoln towed to Costco by a retail tow truck and had it fixed there so he could get home quickly.


THAT IS 3 BIG FAT FAILURES IN ONE YEAR BY AAA ,,, WITH NO APOLOGY ,,, AND NO CREDIT ,,,


Beware of AAA's lousy low standards recently !!

Did Gweneth Paltrow (sober) Rockstar kill those 2 songs on GLEE or what !!

Cee-Lo 's line "sorry, i can't afford a Ferrari" in  "Forget YOU!!" is classic.


Why have i not heard it on SF bay area radio?  We have a great classic rock station in 98.5FM,,, but where is the Reggae station, and the Dance song station, and the Foreign top song radio station ,,, ??  For all the Sillycon Vallay and Wine Co and SFer money, there is such limited culture in the SF Bay Area.

What can the average American do to help our Friends the average Irish, besides buy more Guinness beer, curse bankers, and cry in our beers ?

Best wishes for the New Year to Ireland and the Irish !


And the Portugal citizens who were also so welcoming to this low income traveling cheap American ,,, and the Greeks.

I hope the British public will not let the British Press do what they did to Diana to the new Kate

If i was in Britain i would be in Kate's Club: i would flash mirrors(you know, those 2sided steel camping small mirrors with a lanyard hole) in the lenses of the paperazzi ,,, and get in front of them with tongue out to ruin their photos,,, and even flash cameras in their faces to temporarily blind them as they do to their victims.  Try and keep them at least 50m away with 'friendly close-knit group arms-linked walking'...teach them some manners ... with lots of polite suggestions.


Lord knows the Brits are as out of work as we are. And what they allowed last time to happen to Princess Diana should not have happened.  Will and Kate deserve a private life and private spaces, tho you have a better law than we Yanks do on that subject of individual privacy.  More must be done by you everyday Brits !!


And of course, no violence.  Not even any civil disobedience.  Just public courtesy, that biz seems to be so lacking of.  What do you do when you see an old tottering person trying to cross the street? You help them across if they accept your offer.  What do you do when you see a scruffy teen purse snatch or pick a pocket? You insist they give it back, or you'll call a bobby.  What do you do when you see a pack of ruffians bump a little old man off the side walk falling to his face?  You tell the rat-pack to get some manners and help the old fellow up and ask if he need medical or other assistance.  Common public decency, that the British are so famous for.  Maybe not the Irish, but the British, most definitely.


All the best, Will and Kate !!  Protect young love and your monarchy !!

What i want for Christmas ,,, The RNC has the extreme Tea Party, so i want separate from the DNC a Progressive, Fiscally Responsible ,Green, USA jobs first ,end Effectless Wars Party

One that will do more than one thing at once ... like start fixing all the USA infrastructure and hire millions of out of work Americans AND re-do the tax code.


And remove any ceiling from SSN taxes.  And tax the hell out of anyone making more than $1M/year.


And remove Trick Dick Nixon's limit on BP like oil environmental disasters.  And tax,fine and eliminate any company that tries to poison the public and the USA long term without any corporate responsibility, like Silicon Valley.  Bigger fines get bigger responsible action !!   No more pandering to Wall Street.  White collar crime will no long be encouraged and tolerated. Long jail terms for all the Madoff's and Delays.  Very very long terms in no luxury prisons.


And if you want to import some dumb Chinese national instead of hire an out of work American, it is going to cost you lots.  And like western Europe , fix our porous borders.


A Party with principles and spine, heart and guts.

Dancing With The Stars, Monday 22 November 2010 ,,, It took PAST 2AM-PCT to log-on to ABC to VOTE !! ,,, AND it took more than 30 minutes to use a landline phone line for the 5 allowed votes !!

Don't you think , show rich that they are, that ABC should be ready for this huge use of its website? 


And shouldn't the landline phone companies like ATT also be ready and able to hand such a one night volume??


WHAT GIVES ?!!

COMCAST,Nov.2010 ... Call their Customer Service, in MEXICO, and ALWAYS hear "due to LARGER THAN NORMAL CALL VOLUMES AT THIS TIME" really, really?! ... and talk after a 3-5min. wait to a polite Mex. guy who does not know what he is doing, like deleting a favorite list,,,UGH

Comcast's on screen programming is SO HORRIBLE ...
so archaic ...


And the remote has 53 buttons ...REALLY?!!  We /Comcast needs 53 buttons after the basic 10 on the keypad ... REALLY ?!!


It is bad enuf we have to call Mexico from California ,when so many are out of work (HP fired over 30,000 employees). And these 'old timers' in Mexico don't even know how to do something as basic as ... delete a favorite list.  I was told to menu button and favorite icon ... but should have used menu button and then menu icon to select setup of the screen choices and go on to select 'setup favorite list' !!  Dumb dumb dumb Mexicans and lousy Comcast customer service !!


And Congress and we Americans are depriving worthy American students of a good high school education by letting administrators not be professionally accountable/fired for school performance ... and college tuition ,too expensive!!, to rise too high for most hard working, ambitious, honest American students. 


"DUMB-ass America" ?!! 
... Really !!

After being drafted for Vietnam, in 50 years sorry to say, all the American spilled blood and wasted $Trillions of tax dollars probably WILL NOT MEAN A THING .

There is the massive corruption, the low level of public education, the poverty of few very rich and many very poor in most backward countries, and the religious intolerance of radical terrorist Islam in the Middle East and countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran and ...


What a waste.

COMCAST , Nov.2010, makes you pay $99 ,plus $5 box rental!!, for digital and HD tv ... then hides the HD as a second choice in the 700s !!

I am now watching hot-Maggie on CBS Early Show on Channel 5 , "KPIX" ... but i have to go all the way down the list , not the next channel space !! , to channel number 705 !! , "KPIXD".  THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING.


Comcast , why can't i select HD as my first choice, and only see those channels ?  And see just digital channels if there is no HD for that channel ??  THAT WOULD BE THE LOGICAL THING TO DO , COMCAST !!


I bought a lcd tv on one of those shopping channels , HSN or QVC , and it only had digital with analog scan so i could not just scan digital and HD programming into my tv ... and i could not separate them !!  And the shopping tv channel did not tell me this , plus gave me a hellacious time returning the weak transitional tv from years ago technology.


Why isn't cable tv better? We can thank our Senators for being too weak in speaking for us , instead of corporate -campaign contributor interests !!

Nov.2010, the current TSA dust-up: First, X-ray radiation is ACCUMULATIVE ... Second, the everybody pat downs are a CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION , clear. And TSA has major security holes EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT ON TV NEWS like unscanned cargo in the belly of passenger planes. SO WHY THIS HARASSMENT MISDIRECTION POLITICAL MOVE ... NOW ?!!

Even my dentist has told me that dental x-ray radiation is accumulative with each exposure in our bodies. So he has backed off teeth x-raying me not just once a year, but once every three years.


And now the TSA wants to irradiate ALL OF US, ALL THE TIME , EVERY TIME WE GO TO FLY AT ANY AIRPORT, NO EXCEPTIONS ...OH, AND AN $11,000 FINE IF YOU REFUSE FOR ANY REASON.


Let's see ,,, who are these recently unemployed, low training , low pay , new employees who now have so much power to ruin all flyer's days, for the millions of people who fly every day ?
Have you not read a newspaper of all the FAILURES of the TSA to catch training runs with empty guns and dull knives ??  Didn't you hear about how unsafe the cargo area is ?!!


And after the 2008 Democrat win, TSA is not going the computer-based , logical threat policy fork in the trail ... but further down the illogical , x-ray and intimate pat down everyone , even children under 12 at first and pilots , until they protested.  And active military ... and veterans ?!!


Civilized western european travelers are already pissed off at the visa limitations ... and now this !!  We are going to lose more and more big cash paying travelers to the USA if we continue much longer with this no logic-scan everyone (dumb ass) security policy.