Mishmash Musings

So my husband and I have had our flat-panel LCD television for almost a year now, and we still haven’t gotten around to buying an entertainment center or new stand to put it on. Right now it’s sitting on the stand we had for our old CRT unit, which is actually too small for our current TV.

We have to do something with this TV soon because I have a feeling that my son might knock it off the stand while he’s playing in the living room. So I’m actually thinking that an LCD or plasma mount for the wall would be a much better option than either an entertainment center or a regular stand. That way, we’d be able to secure the TV to the wall, which would get it out of immediate danger from my son and free up a bunch of space as well.

Then again, neither my husband nor I are very handy, so I’m not sure if we’d be able to set up a wall mount on our own. With our luck, the TV would come crashing down as soon as we put it up there! So perhaps a boring old entertainment center would be better after all?

I don’t know…. I’ll have to ask my husband and see what he thinks about this!

I have Citibank credit cards and am enrolled in their online account program, which means I get all my statements and make all my payments on their site. I’ve been using Citibank for several years now, and am less than impressed with how their online service works.

One of the biggest reasons I don’t like it is that they send “online activity confirmation” emails well after you’ve done something in your account. For example, if you make a payment or change some of your profile information, you’ll get an email saying that there was recent activity in your account. The problem is, this email often comes 24-48 hours after the activity it’s reporting! So if there was something fraudulent going on, you wouldn’t know until well after the fact.

This doesn’t make sense to me at all. Why can’t the emails go out right away so you can take immediate action if necessary? For all the bad press PayPal gets, I have to give them kudos for sending instantaneous emails whenever I make payments, receive payments, withdraw money, or change anything in my account. Instantaneous. Isn’t that the whole point of sending out email notices in the first place???

Another reason I don’t like Citibank online is that it seems far too easy to change important info. For example, yesterday I changed the email address that I want my statements to go to. Today (almost 24 hours later), I received a notification that the email address was changed, with a little note telling me to call a customer service number if that info was incorrect.

The problem? They sent this notice to the NEW email address I entered into the system! How does that make sense??? Let’s say that someone did hack into my account and replace my email address with theirs. Well, now they’re getting this notice in THEIR email saying that the account is changed, while I’m sitting here without any idea what’s going on. See what I’m getting at?

Most other places (PayPal included) send an email to your OLD address to confirm the change. That way, if there really is a problem, you’ll actually get the notice and be able to call to tell them that’s not your email account or whatever.

Come on, Citibank. Get a clue!!

I’m trying to build up my retirement fund by investing in relatively safe vehicles. I currently participate in a mutual fund, and have been thinking about getting into precious metals as well. For instance, I’ve heard that now is a great time to buy silver coins or ingots because worldwide demand of silver actually exceeds production.

I don’t know much about investing in silver, but from the bit of research I’ve done, it seems pretty straightforward. If I decide to go with silver coins, they will have currency value, making them extremely easy to convert back to cash should I need to do so. Or, I can go with ingots and keep them in storage in a depository.

Before I make a move, I’d like to talk to someone who has experience investing in silver. So if you fit the bill, drop me a line and I’ll get back to you with some questions!

One of my favorite TV shows is Cold Case, and I’ve been trying to get a good friend of mine to watch it for like the last 4 years or so. About a month ago she finally agreed to watch some reruns on TNT (I think) whenever they were on. Then she called me last night with some feedback.

I was surprised to hear that my friend absolutely hates the show! She says that the “investigations” (I could just sense the air quotes as she was talking to me, LOL) were dumb because most of the time there’s no new evidence; the cold case squad just keeps talking to witnesses until they break down. Further, she says most of the deaths seem to be accidental ones and that if the killers would just keep their mouths shut and not confess, there would be no way to convict them anyway. Also, she can’t stand the way Lily Rush is portrayed and probably won’t be watching the show anymore.

Wow, it was kind of interesting to hear someone else’s take on Cold Case. None of my friends watch this show, so it’s not one that I can discuss with other people. As a result, I had no idea what kind of reaction to expect.

I guess I can see her point about some of the stuff. Heck, there have been more deaths resulting from pushes and shoves on this show than anywhere else! But I don’t know, I still like it even after 4+ years. Yes, Season 3 wasn’t that great, and S4 was barely better. But Cold Case is still one of the few shows that I look forward to watching every week!

It’s just about time for me to start placing orders for my holiday cards and personalized stationery. I always order stuff at about this time of year because I can usually score some good deals from pre-holiday and clearance sales. Personalized stationery is considerably more expensive than generic items, of course, so I always try to avoid paying full price.

This year, I might go ahead and throw some graduation announcements in with the rest of my order. One of my cousins will finish high school in 2008, so he’s going to need announcements later on anyway. If I can find some nice ones, I’ll grab them for him and just hold onto them until June.

Anyway, off to look through Christmas card designs now!

I read an interesting article yesterday in the Chicago Tribune about Internet search engines. One of the Trib’s tech writers compared results from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and a few other search engines to try to determine which of those delivered the most relevant results. Based on the results of the author’s experiment, he says people should use Yahoo (or even MSN) rather than Google.

The author tested the search engines with the query “Chicago” and got the most relevant websites from his Yahoo search. He wrote that the results were so good, it was like the Yahoo engine was “reading your mind.”

I’m not exactly surprised by the findings in that particular experiment. After all, Yahoo’s search engine has human reviewers who go over things, while the Google engine is driven by a complicated algorithm. Moreover, as the Trib writer pointed out, there hasn’t been a significant update to Google’s algorithm in years — despite the fact that people notoriously try to game Google using less-than-ethical means.

When I first started using the Internet, I always used Yahoo search. Yahoo was set as my homepage (still is), so it was more convenient for me to use that search engine. But a couple years ago, I bought into the Google hype, and when I installed the Google toolbar in Firefox, it was all over for Yahoo search.

Now, however, I’m thinking of going back to Yahoo. I don’t like seeing a single company poised to “control” information on the Internet, but that’s exactly where Google stands now. This seems like a good time for a change.

I am totally determined to stay ahead of the game when it comes to Christmas shopping this year. Not only have I made potential gift lists for all the important people in my life, but I’ve also started budgeting and saving for these gifts, and have even purchased a couple of things already.

In addition, I’m starting to clear space for this year’s Christmas haul by sorting through my son’s old toys to determine which ones should be donated or thrown out. I’m telling you, this is going to be the first stress-free holiday season I’ve had since I was a kid myself!

My reading of the news can best be described as cyclical. I’ll go through phases where I spend a couple hours a day reading news articles or watching related videos online, but then there will be periods when I do nothing more than glance at headlines. Why? Because there’s only so much stupidity, violence, corruption, and greed that I can take before I become sick of it all.

I’m in one of my reading phases now,but I have a feeling it will end soon. I mean, I just read this AP story about a mom who bought weapons (a .22 handgun and a .22 rifle) for her teenage son. It turns out that the kid was planning a Columbine-like attack on the school he used to attend because he was picked on there. (He gets homeschooled now.) When cops, acting on a tip, searched the boy’s room, they found a bunch of weapons, Columbine videos, and “violence-filled notebooks.” Nice.

The mom told police that she bought these weapons for her son just to “indulge” his interests since he seemed unhappy. Oh, that’s smart…. Your teenager is depressed, so you go out and buy him weapons??? Get a friggin’ clue, lady.

You know, I once thought people were too quick to blame the parents when teens acted out, but now I’m rethinking my position. Perhaps there’s a lot more truth in that sentiment than I was willing to concede.

Oh, and does this look like someone who’s qualified to be homeschooling in the first place????