Food, etc.

I (finally) watched Food, Inc. last night. I wasn't as disturbed as some of my friends by the semi-graphic images of the conditions in which most animals are raised/slaughtered (I saw a lot of that when we watched Diet for a New America in 9th grade), but I did find the movie super depressing.

My thoughts:

1. People are so concerned about health care becoming "Socialized"; why is no one freaking out about the food industry? Huge farm subsidies, monopolies that pretty much eliminate competition, no true free market..? Did I miss something in high school government class?
2. "Food libel" is a felony in some states? You can lose your right to vote because you were found guilty of "slandering" a food producer? For serious? Libel should be a civil matter, not criminal. Apparently, free speech mostly only extends to weirdo hate groups.
3. I quit eating soy and soy by-products because it's a migraine trigger for me. It's amazing how much food has soy in it - I hope it doesn't become the new corn; if so, I'm screwed.
4. Wow, what a depressing movie.
   

/End of rant

***

Achilles' sleep schedule is slowly driving me crazy. He naps after work, and then goes to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning.

***

I have been incredibly grouchy for the past couple of days.

***

The previous two things could be related.

***

Listening to Greek language CD's in my car has had an unintended consequence: I'm no longer tempted to talk on the phone (or worse, text) while driving. The language CD's work better for me than books on tape or music because they're more interactive. Maybe I'll try another language after our trip.

Double click, double standard

This is probably sort of a non sequitor after my earlier post about being more positive, but have you seen the recent PSAs about online safety?

-Click- That's the sound of your classmate forwarding a picture from your profile to everyone he knows. -Click- Some guys posting graphic comments about your body -Click- and worst of all your dad seeing a photo of you topless all because of the time you posted those pictures on your profile. Anything you post online, anyone can see; family, friends and even not so friendly people. Visit CyberTipLine.com. Brought to you by the US Department of Justice, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Ad Counsel.

source

I think I understand what this public service campaign is trying to accomplish: they want girls (everyone, really, but girls especially) to be safe about what words and images they post online. I think that's a good goal. I even understand why most of the messages are directed at teen/tween girls; I've seen To Catch a Predator - teen girls are probably the most common target of online perverts and criminals.

What I don't agree with is the other message this ad campaign seems to be sending: "You girls need to be careful about how you come across online, because once everyone thinks you're a slut, you're ruined forever."

Does a young woman's sexual reputation have to be the main focus of these ads? Why not her academic/professional reputation? Why not focus more on the actual real, physical dangers of talking to strangers online?

Even worse is this statement: "That's the sound of your classmate forwarding a picture from your profile to everyone he knows. Some guys posting graphic comments about your body..." Newsflash: teenage boys are going to talk about teenage girls bodies regardless of anything a girl does or does not post on the internet. Blaming the victim for being a target of bullying? NOT COOL, AD COUNCIL.

So, what could possibly work better than couching an important message in sexist rhetoric? Try being honest, direct, and to-the-point. Half-baked emotional appeals to young girls need not enter the picture.

Teenagers can smell B.S. a mile away. The less of that you use in your ads, the better.

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you

Dear Internets,

I took Lola the Corolla in today for routine maintenance (oil change, inspection). I figured that since she recently passed her 40,000 mile milestone, I'd take her to the dealership and get their 28-point inspection while I was at it.

A couple of hours later, the dealership called. Lola needed about $1200 worth of work done. Would I like them to go ahead and do it?

Um, no. Please give me a written estimate. Thx.

When I picked Lola up this evening, I looked at the estimate. According to the dealership, I needed to spend $200 for a new battery*, $65 for a new air filter, and over $600 in transmission, power steering, and cooling system "flushes" among other things.**

That sounded unreasonable (to say the least), so I looked up prices for parts online when I got home. A battery and an air filter for a Corolla (parts that are not THAT difficult to replace yourself) cost about $70 and $12 respectively**. The other services weren't even recommended for a car around Lola's age and mileage. The dealership is pretty much guilty of attempted highway robbery (hardy har).

Never again, Internets. Car dealerships are the devil.

Love,
Jane

*I thought you were supposed to replace batteries when they died?
**Since one has to assume that the auto parts store would be making a profit selling the parts at those prices, the dealership's price is extra ridiculous.

P.S. I am officially DONE with anything that involves the word "maintenance" or "service" or "call center" for the next several months at least. This is just getting ridiculous.

Growly things

Dear Internets,

Sorry for the crap post. I am sleep-deprived and irritable, and wearing the clothes from the back of the closet since I haven't had easy access to laundry for the past couple of weeks. I'm trying hard not to be super whiny/grumpy/homicidal about (STILL) not having my washer/dryer, since I realize it's hardly the end of the world and there ARE laundromats in Austin*. But it's hard to be upbeat when I feel so rumpled.

You know how there are reasons you don't wear certain articles of clothing as often as others? For example, maybe you have one pair of work pants that looks great with one of your tops, but when paired with anything else makes your hips look like you could give birth to an 11-pound baby without even noticing? And you should probably get rid of the pants, because when you run out of laundry you tend to pair them with a perpetually wrinkly tee shirt and a cardigan and pretend that's OK because the cardigan is black (and therefore professional-looking) and your boss works from home on Mondays and won't see you anyway?

Yeah.

I feel like the anti-Holly Golightly. I want my washer. Or my mom.

If you run into the Universe, you might mention that I'd like some donuts.

Love,
Jane

*Seriously, Sears Home Delivery is like a bad boyfriend. If they would just ADMIT that they aren't going to be able to deliver my washer/dryer for the next decade, I could move on with my life, get a roll of quarters, and go to the damn laundromat. Yet they insist upon giving me a false sense of hope. Sigh.

Is it time for the Christmas break yet?

Dear random coworker I have met twice,

Thanks for throwing me under the bus. Instead of emailing my boss to say "We were too busy to get to that," you said "We were too busy to get to that, and Jane said that you all were in a similar situation anyway."

Um... For the record? I ran into you in the alley when I was walking into my building. You started saying how busy you were and how badly you felt that you hadn't gotten to our project. I said, "oh, I can understand that. It's a busy time of year."

You suck.
Jane

I am not a $30 cookie sheet kind of girl

Dear Internets,

I told my family I'd rather not get birthday or Christmas gifts this year. They complied (mostly) and didn't get me gifts for my birthday, but my mom told me that she felt really bad not buying me anything.

Since making people feel bad pretty much defeats the whole purpose of "no gifts, please," I decided to send my family a link to my Amazon.com wish list so they'd have ideas for things I might like if they decided to buy me a Christmas gift.

BIG MISTAKE! I keep the list mostly to use as a reference for things I might like to someday buy myself. Apparently, I don't self-censor as much as I should*. My mom told me she thought my list was "weird," and that she's buying me "a nice, high-quality cookie sheet" instead.

Now, I have nothing against cookie sheets (lately I love baking, and at one point actually requested a couple of cookie sheets or a hand mixer), but I'm not really a $27 (plus tax!) cookie sheet kind of girl. To me, that would mean that I'd have to commit to 1.) not finding something new and exciting to replace my baking hobby for at least 54 batches of cookies**, and 2.) not accidentally losing or misplacing the cookie sheet. (I could just as easily be Disorganized or Forgetful Jane as Distractible Jane.)

Also, what exactly makes my list weird? It's like she doesn't even know me (sniff!). I'm tempted to show my mom weird and give her a stocking full of these for Christmas. Hmpf.

Love always,
Jane

P.S. Stay tuned for a Christmas giveaway.

*I did put the Mr. T bobblehead on there mostly as a joke. Is it uncouth to be facetious on a wish list?
**I figure after about 54 batches of cookies, the cost of the upgraded cookie sheet would average out to be about an extra $.02 per cookie, which doesn't seem too unreasonable.

Sigh...

Dear News Media,

I keep reading news articles talking about how this election will have the biggest turnout since 1908.

Ummm... Last I checked, women and Native Americans couldn't vote in 1908, the voting age was 21, and Blacks were often kept from the polls by bigots.

I know you guys like to avoid superlatives, but I think it's safe to say "biggest of all" in this case.

Love anyway,
Jane

P.S. Polls start closing in 11 minutes..!

Regressing

Dear Mozilla,

Normally, you can do no wrong in my book. I love Firefox and have preached about it to just about everyone I know. However, I can't stand the thing you call the "Awesome Bar," at least not at work. It violates a little thing I like to call "my privacy." Like Microsoft with Vista, you forced a fix on me for something that wasn't broken in the first place.

I tried all the upgrades/tweaks/add-ons that were supposed to make it work better, but it just didn't do it for me. I'll try to get used to Firefox 3 at home, maybe, but at work I am going to be one of those bumps-on-a-log who reverts back to Firefox 2 until there's an option to disable the Annoying Bar. I just can't take it.

Love always,
Jane

Oh dear...

Dear Media,

Dumb people say dumb things on the internet all the time. This doesn't mean that you should report them in the news. Yes, James Conradt put silly things on the internet. It would have been wrong to spread untruths about the OU players regardless of whether or not the news media picked up on them. To paraphrase Mike Gundy, these guys are just kids.

But if you're so upset by false media reports, please stop saying Al Gore invented the internet. Yes, you are sports journalists, and thus, not naturally inclined to do things like fact check (see above), but that is just annoying, even if you thought you were being ironic.

Love,
Jane

Lions and Tigers and Credit Bureaus (oh my!)

[A warning to my lovely, sweet readers... This is a bit of a rant. While I don't want to offend anyone by getting too political, I figured I should get this off my chest - I was so caught up in thinking about this issue that I accidentally wore my shirt inside out to work today. (Bill and Jim would be so ashamed!) If you are feeling non-political this morning, feel free to go read about unicorns instead. XOXO, Jane]

Dear VantageScore,

You are officially on my poop list. I check my credit report three times a year, once from each bureau. Every so often, I pay $6 to see my credit score (and the credit bureau's "interpretation" of my credit score). Yesterday, when I pulled my report from AnnualCreditReport.com, I figured I'd check out my credit score on the new VantageScore model.

Now, I suppose I should mention that I am not actually angry about this new scoring model on my own behalf. I'm not planning on applying for credit any time soon, and my score was fine anyway, so I have nothing really to worry about. But there are a few things that bugged me, VantageScore, and I'm pretty sure that you are ageist, classist, and (after a little research) quite possibly racist as well. Also, I think you hate single people.

Sigh. Where to begin?

(From report)

"Top Negative Factors Affecting Jane's Score:

1) The average loan amount across open, recently reported real estate accounts, such as a mortgage, is too low. Having low loan amounts has a negative impact on your credit score.

Now VantageGuard, that just offends me. I bought my condo by myself*. Sure, I would have liked to buy one of those beautiful condos in a high rise downtown, but I knew I couldn't afford a huge mortgage payment with my current income. Does having an affordable housing payment make me a riskier borrower? I can't think of a logical reason why.

I can, however, think of a logical reason why this is the top negative factor on my credit report. By heavily weighting mortgage information (or lack thereof) in determining a person's credit score, VantageScore provides a way for lenders to legally justify charging young, single, or poor borrowers higher interest rates** on auto loans, credit cards, personal loans, and mortgages without violating the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (or other anti-discrimination laws), even if these borrowers have previously used credit responsibly. After all, what groups tend to take out smaller mortgages (or not have mortgages at all)?

2) The balance amount paid down across your open real estate accounts, such as a mortgage, is too low. Paying down the balances on your real estate accounts can have a positive impact on your credit score.

Fair enough, I suppose. I've only had my mortgage for a year. But again, why is there so much weight placed on homeownership? I wonder.

3) Your report shows that the available credit across your open, recently reported revolving accounts, such as a credit card, is too low. Having low available credit amounts on revolving accounts has a negative impact on your credit score."

Um, VantageScore, now you're just smoking crack (oh yes I did go all 1995 on you!)(Oooh! I did it again!). I calculated my percent of available credit used across all of my available credit lines (based on the balances on the report YOU provided), and I only used 2.5% of the credit available to me this month. I went back a few months, and my credit used never went over 3% of what's available. Even on a single card, I never used more than 10% of what was available to me.

Now, I know you use "complex, proprietary algorithms" to calculate my score (best not to get me started on how this completely undermines Truth in Lending), but how does using 2.5% of my available credit make me look irresponsible? Shouldn't it all be based on how much (or little) I use my cards? Why are you punishing me for having lower-than-average credit limits?

Wait a second... "Experts" recommend that credit limits be proportionate to income. Silly me, VantageScore. We all know that income in the U.S. is evenly distributed across different age, race, and gender groups.

OK, OK, VantageScore, I will tone down the sarcasm. It's not very nice of me.

According to the credit bureaus that created you, you were developed, VantageScore, to address problems with the more common FICO score, such as score variability between different credit bureaus, non-predictive scores for borrowers with limited credit history, and consumer difficulty in understanding credit scores. (Ha.)(Sorry, couldn't help it.) Allegedly, your creation was not just an attempt to get a piece of FICO's cash cow and suck up to banks by offering up a convenient scapegoat for the mortgage crisis.

Why should I be so upset that you provide credit scores that (essentially) factor in a person's income (and/or net worth)? Well, credit scores are generally the main factor in determining the interest rate a borrower is charged when s/he gets a loan. Thus, if more lenders begin to use VantageScore, people who are not older, white, and married will have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money. Not particularly fair in my book.

See you later, VantageScore. I'm off to go turn this into a letter to my congressman.

Not your friend,
Jane

*Remind me someday to write a love letter to the State of Texas for requiring me to sign all my mortgage paperwork as "Jane X____, A Single Woman." Gotta love community property states! (And I thought my cousins were bad.) I asked my mortgage officer if I could cross out "A Single Woman" and write "Spinst-ah Witch!" He was not amused.

**Despite (somewhat) popular misconception, credit scores are not generally used by lenders as the sole means of determining who does or does get loans, how much money is issued to a borrower, or if the borrower has the means to pay back a loan. (That is what banks hire loan officers to do.) Rather, one of lenders' main uses for credit scores is to set normalized (i.e. fair, non-discriminatory) interest rates.

According to a loan officer at my credit union, lenders used to set interest rates based on a borrower's "relationship" with the lender. (You can imagine how that would lead to some pretty icky rate-setting practices.) If you're a nerd like me, here is a really interesting article from PBS) about the history of credit scores.