echodrift

Defeating the purpose

I am the fortunate owner of a 2000 Chevy Cavalier. For those who don’t know, Cavaliers (at least ones that I’ve ever come across) have the gas tank on the passenger side of the car. Why is this of any importance? That doesn’t seem to be the case for, oh, 90% of other vehicles out there. (The statistic is completely made up by the way, but that’s the way it seems. It may be as high as 95%.) They all have the gas tank on the driver’s side. This poses a problem when it comes time to fill my gas tank.

Earlier today I noticed that in just a few hours one station raised their price from $3.69 to $3.85. I really did not want to wait and see that the only gas station in town with gas for $3.59 was about to raise theirs as well so I decided to stop and fill up my car. It’s not a small station; at least when it’s compared to others in town it’s not. However, there were only two pumps that had cars in line with tanks on the passenger side. One of those was somewhat hijacked by a person who backed in. I was driving around to take the same spot so I ended up behind this person. See, we passenger side tank owners have to be pretty aggressive when it comes to finding a pump.

As is the case for many gas stations out their this one requires that you either prepay or pay at the pump. I had to wait while this person decided how much they wanted to put in, went inside and prepaid and then began fueling. Finally it was my turn to fill up. I very much dislike going inside to pay because there are always lines. So I pulled out my card, completed the transaction, and began filling up. Once my car was finished filling up (a whole $37.14 worth for a Cavalier) I waited for my receipt but only to be told that my receipt was inside. Wait, wasn’t that the point of paying with my card? To not have to go inside and wait in line? Since I’ve started keeping track of everything we spend I really wanted the receipt so that I could put it in when I get home. Going inside was my only option so I did.

Through it all I did learn one thing. It wasn’t enough to tell the cashier that I needed a receipt for pump 7. She wanted my card which I, of course, had put in my wallet in my car when I locked the doors to come inside. She finally gave it to me when I told her the amount. So now I know. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to fill up again for a while. My car may be a pain with its passenger side tankness but it sure does get good gas mileage.

Scatterbrain

Note to self: If you have an idea for an entry you had better write it down somewhere because sure as not you’re going to forget it by the time you have time to sit down and write the post. I can’t remember what I was thinking about earlier for the life of me. I have a vague feeling that I had even come up with two ideas but right now I got nothin. (Yes, that is without a g, thank you very much.)

When software becomes spyware

Several years ago AIM was the only instant messenger I used. I had an MSN account and a Yahoo account from different email addresses I had but everyone I talked to used AIM. One day a new version of AIM came out. Like quite a bit of software there were several notifications that you should upgrade to the new version. I thought “Why not” and upgraded. It required a restart of AIM as is usual with most software upgrades. However, when I restarted AIM it popped up with some kind of AIM Today page in AOL Browser. The problem? I never installed AOL Browser. I never asked for it to be installed and I was never informed that it was installed. I immediately went to Add/Remove programs to get rid of it since I wanted nothing to do with it. (Side note: there is no Add/Remove Programs in Vista. It is instead called “Programs and Features.” If you’ve always looked for Add/Remove Programs it is really annoying that it’s no longer on the top row of icons.)

To my surprise AOL Browser did not appear as an installed program, thus having no remove option. Do you know what that reads as in my book? Spyware. I never asked for it, I was never informed about it, and I wasn’t presented with an easy method to uninstall it. I found an uninstall file buried somewhere in the AOL program folder and promptly uninstalled AOL Browser. It wasn’t long after that I uninstalled AIM completely and have used Trillian or Meebo ever since.

Now what would bring me to write about something that happened several years ago? A certain well known company has also been involved in such shady practices. For a while now Apple has only offered QuickTime with iTunes included, or iTunes with QuickTime ,depending on which you were originally after. Before I had an iPod this annoyed me to no end. I had no use for iTunes and didn’t want it on my computer. Let’s not forget that several items are added to startup once you install this bundled.

It appears that they have stepped up their software bundling practices. If you’ve installed one of the latest versions of this iTunes/QuickTime monstrosity you might want to check out your control panel and look for a MobileMe icon. How did that get there? iTunes. Did I ask for it? No and I am highly irritated by it. When you try to run it it asks you for your MobileMe log in information. It also has a prompt for you to be able to sign up for an account if you don’t have one. How handy… except I don’t want a MobileMe account, thank you very much. (To be honest I didn’t notice this until I came across a post on this site though I’m pretty sure I would have found it sooner or later.)

MobileMe isn’t the only thing that comes with the iTunes/QuickTime install. While browsing my installed programs list I found one called Bonjour and couldn’t recall installing it. A quick search shows that it is yet another Apple product that is installed when you install iTunes without any notification whatsoever. Yet another program I never intend to use that’s sitting there junking up my computer. Thanks, Apple.

Weekend recap

This past weekend involved many fun adventures. One of those adventures was taking Poe and Midna along on our trip to visit my family. Our friends that we would have asked to watch them were also going to be out of town and I really didn’t want to leave them alone for several days. The trip there was relatively calm. Poe took it very well and slept on our laps most of the way. Midna was a little more unsettled but eventually did calm down. About halfway through the three hour car drive we stopped and let them run around in the grass for a bit. At least, that was the intention. They were both rather frightened of outside. They’ve been kept inside since we’ve had them so it’s no real surprise. We completed the trip with no further misshaps. The next day we decided we would try the outside thing again.

First the cats encountered the dogs— through the glass door. My mom has two dogs that run loose most of the time. The cats had already had a tiny run in with them when we carried them inside the night before. What this picture doesn’t show is how much Midna arched her back and bushed her tail out after seeing the dog. Since they were running around the back of the house we decided to take the cats out to the front. What we didn’t count on was my mom’s dogs running to the front of the house as quick as they did.

As you can see, Poe was not amused. We hadn’t brought Midna out yet so he was the only one that got to experience the dogs up close. (That is, until one of them got inside the house the next day. That made both of the cats run downstairs and stay there for a good while.) See, not only is Poe not amused about the dogs he really didn’t like the whole outside experience. At. All. He wasn’t quite as bad as Minda who wanted to bury herself in our laps or run under the steps but he didn’t seem to enjoy it at all.

On Monday my mom suggested that we go hiking at a nearby park. I’ve been to this park several times but never on the trail she wanted to go on. So off we went to climb this ridge. And a climb it was. They’ve made it fairly accessible but there were some pretty steep parts. I took several photos that I’ll be posting on 365 this week so look out for those.

This is what we were treated with at the end (rather, the midpoint) of our hike. Sadly it was a rather hazy day so the mountains didn’t show up all that well. I think if I were ever to move farther away from this area the mountains are one of the things I’d miss the most.

After a short break we headed back down. The trip down was considerably shorter than the trip up. Maybe because my mom and I stopped less to take pictures but maybe because of two incidents we had. The first happened when we stopped for a minute to rest. My mom thought she felt something crawling on her neck but then realized that there was a HUGE hornet on her leg. Maybe it wasn’t a hornet but it was large and definitely looked like it could sting. That certainly shortened our break and off we went again. It wasn’t long, though, before she started yelling and pushing me off the side of the trail. At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I saw this:

Believe me, when I saw that I started screaming as well. My mom thought it was a copperhead but when we showed the pictures to some family they said it was a rattlesnake. Whichever the case it’s still a snake and likely poisonous. Michael had walked right by it on the other side of the path but it was between us and our way forward. My mom and I walked very slowly off to the side and managed to get around it. Her pictures were probably better since she had her telephoto lens; you can bet I wasn’t going to try to get closer for a better picture! Once we were past it we definitely walked a bit faster and kept a sharper eye out for any more snakes.