Free In Idaho!

Light blogging for the next couple of days… planetary alignment, blah blah, cosmic rip, blah blah, enemy territory, blah blah.

Has anyone else ever tried to renew a PC-cillin subscription?  The software on this Dell laptop expired last week.  I dutifully tried to renew it before it expired, clicking to their very helpful and convenient online renewal page.  Went all the way through the form, hit “submit”, and it coughed me to an error page.  Odd.  Let it sit a couple days to make sure my credit card didn’t get tapped.  And then this morning, it pops up and reminds me that I haven’t renewed yet.  Alright.  Check the credit card statement online and, no, they didn’t tap it.  So I tried again.

Open the virus software; yes, I know I’m expired, that’s why I’m here; click to the handy renewal page; make my selection, read the legal boilerplate, fill in the form, click submit…

Same silly error as last time.  Grrrr.  So I used their handy email link to contact Customer NoService and ask what might be the problem. And they replied thusly,

Thank you for contacting Shop eCommerce for Trend Micro

There could be a couple of reasons why you are receiving an error message while trying to purchase. Please verify you are entering all information accurately:

• The billing name should match that of the credit card you are attempting to use
• If your credit card is not listed as a company credit card, please leave the company name field blank. Entering information into the credit card field that is not associated with the credit card, such as “Home, self, or retired” will cause the transaction to fail. If a name must be entered please enter the billing name of the credit card into the company name field.
• The billing address should match exactly to that of the Credit Card you are trying to use.
• The CSC number must match the Credit Card
• The checkout button should only be clicked once, not multiple times.
• You might have forgotten to choose a shipping method. Please choose the option that best fits your needs.
• Make sure you are filling out all the required fields.  

Kind regards,

Shop eCommerce for Trend Micro

I’m sorry.  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I HAVE used the internet and my credit card together.  More than once, in fact.  Over the last few months I’ve arranged for hotels, a couple airline flights, purchased a gun, ammo, many books, some clothing, home furnishings, a couple of classes, scheduled a number of professional appointments, and I’ve managed to keep a couple of websites running. I’ve got the internet form routine down pretty well, but you know, maybe I did make a mistake.  So I go through it all again, making doubly sure to spell my name right, put in the right address, and fill in all the little yellow boxes with red asterisks beside them.  Double check it all.  Click submit (only once, because sometimes I’m a fast learner).  And it all coughs up on me again, and gives me the little helpful email link again, so I can confess that I’m a helpless dolt.

I guess they want me to try a different security suite now.  Cool!  Does anyone have a good suggestion for an internet security software suite that might actually work?  I’ve got to tell you, I’m not feeling really “secure” about PC-cillin anymore.  What’s the saying? 

You’re fired!

Can I tell you about how sick to death I am of hearing 24/7 coverage of Barack Voldemort Obamessiah?  The whole Superduper Tuesday/Hillary Campaign  deathwatch thing is driving me nuts… or could you tell by my lack of posting?  Or is it because I’m veddy veddy busy in my non-cyber life?

I could do a post about my buffalo soup recipe…

I could talk about the very clever moosecall made out of a shoelace and an empty Pringles can we saw at the Sportsman Show…

I could whine that I didn’t find a rifle at said show…

or, I could just go back to the office and finish the print job I started late this afternoon.  Yeah, that’s it.  Responsibility.  Sometimes a guy has to do what a guy has to do.  Thanks for stopping in.

I’ve been so busy this week I feel like whole days of my life have disappeared.  Whew… but now it’s Friday night.

So it’s good to start catching up with the world again, news and blogs.  There is a lot to look at and read this weekend.  It’s good to see three sources now are saying the fat little bastard traitor Adam Gadahn is a few spare parts at the bottom of a smoking hole.  What, no virgins in Hell, eh Adam?  Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?!

Speaking of sucks to be stupid, how about THIS guy in Spain.  The video that Ace posted brought a tear of joy to my eye.  I’d say, I wish we could see a bit of that in this country, but things haven’t gotten desperate enough yet.  They will, so keep the link for use as a training video.

I won’t even try to hit all the gun blogs tonight, much less the political ones.  Nor do I want to take time to reply to Sam in the comments.   Save that for the weekend.  Right now, I believe I’ll go find the DVD the postman brought us this afternoon.  Fire up the fireplace, grab the blanket, curl up next to my sweetie, and watch a movie.  Some things are more important than others.  Then, all I’ll need is a good night’s sleep.  Tomorrow is the Sportsman Show… think I’ll see how many classes I can sit through… turkey hunting, chukars, waterfowl, bass… maybe even find the rifle I’ve been looking for… my tail is waggin’.  Good things coming!

Remember the days of “Just Say No”?  This last week, Laura Bush announced more cancerous growth in the Federal government, which I think they ought to name “Just Go Play”

..The government bureaucracy just got a little bigger: The latest addition is something called the National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play.

It’s part of a new effort by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “coordinate and expand” the government’s existing efforts to prevent childhood obesity.

This stuff makes me nuts.  Can’t you just imagine Publius writing about the need for the Federal government to be directly involved in making sure “the children” have proper playgrounds in order to insure their maximum protection from the scourge of childhood obesity in The Federalist #397?  Yeah, right.

..According to Mrs. Bush, the Administration for Children and Families (part of HHS) will establish a new National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play. “With a $12 million, four-year grant, the Center will help Head Start programs across the country evaluate their playgrounds and their outdoor play spaces, and educate children and families about the importance of healthy food and physical activity.”

She said ACF also will provide $10 million to build and upgrade Head Start Playgrounds - “making sure children have safe places to play and exercise outdoors.”

And someday in the future, when the “We Care the Most” party gets back into power, they’ll grow that part of the budget exponentially to make up for how the “Evil Scrooge” party shortchanged Americas children, condemning untold millions of children to desperate lives as sedentary, obese little butterballs.  And we’ll deserve it.

Which gives me another horrible thought… First Ladies are famous for this baloney.  What will First Lady Bill Clinton do?

I think I’m coming down with something, a funk, or a cold, I’m not sure which.

But between Alan Greenspan, Sally Fields, OJ, the Religion of Perpetual Outrage…

I think I’ll just grab some aspirin and go take a nap.

Besides, there have been doves sitting on the railing outside my window the last few days.  They know I’m going hunting this weekend.  I think they’re laughing at me (the chukars taught them how to do that)…

It was my turn to do a John Doe shift on the Puget Sound ferries this week.  I’m happy to report that it was an uneventful trip, and the ferry was safe when we were there… I can’t say the same for the Seattle area though.  We’ve been in the Idaho desert long enough now that Seattle seems even more unbelievably crowded, way too rushed, and expensive to boot.  While my sweetie was partaking of quality girl time with youngest daughter at the GJ Fantastic Hair Emporium downtown, I went to some of my old gunstore haunts, just to “check ‘em out”.  All I can say is, you poor guys up there in Washington!  It’s expensive up there.  Ammo, pistols, long guns… $699 for an underfolder?  $569 cash price for a Glock 27?  Whew!  I saved my money for the Fort Boise Gun Show this Saturday.  Besides, it’s hunting season, and nothing I saw in Seattle beat Cabelas prices on shotshells, so I’ll spend my money here, thank you very much.

I’ve paid a certain amount of attention over the last year to the idea of SEO (search engine optimization) and page-rank, where it concerns webpages and blogs.  I’m not particularly well versed in all the ins and outs of it, but I have to say, I’m not impressed by some of the voodoo that gets done in order to get a site or a blog up in the rankings.

We can all think of blogs that post a bikini shot or two every day.  Tacky…

And the faith some folks put in “page-rank” is amazing.  Case in point, the blog I just clicked on.   When I visit my favorite blogs I often try a few of their weblog links.  Always ready for a new blog to add to my bookmarks.  I’m amazed by how many “ghost blogs” there are out there… just sitting there, doing nothing, no posts in months, obviously abandoned by their owners, who started them with all good intentions but quickly found that blogging is more of a commitment than they thought.  Like the blog I just clicked on.  No posts since December… of 2005.  Only four months of archives, and probably fewer than 50 posts total.  Google page-rank of 3… higher than many good currnet bloggers who post nearly every day.

Right.  This highlights one of the weak spots in Google’s algorithm…longevity and a few incoming links from current sites (who are probably clueless that they’re linking to a nearly 2 year old zombie), and membership in one of those silly “net ring” thingies will still give you a page-rank higher than really deserved. 

   I can’t help it…

I see one, and think of the other.