HeidiAllen.com

I’ve never cared much for the Post Raisin Bran that’s available on supermarket shelves. Sure, the raisins are nice, but the “bran” tastes and feels like texturized, shredded cardboard. So when Costco (where I do my cereal shopping) got rid of their only other edible, vegan cereal, Post Raisin Bran was not the obvious replacement.

(Side note: Costco stocks one or more Kashi cereals. They may or may not be vegan, but they seem entirely inedible to me. Kashi used to make one of my all-time favorite cereals, Chocolate Pillows, but they discontinued it back in 2004 or so.)

(Side note #2: Anyone want to invest in my new cereal, ‘GoRegular Cardboard Crunch’? It’s all natural, vegan, low in fat, sodium and sugars, and high in fiber. AND it’s made with 100% post-consumer recycled material!)

Anyway, out of desperation, I finally got around to looking at the “Premium” Post Raisin Bran. The box design is different from the supermarket version, and states that the product is “made exclusively for Kirkland Signature by Post”. The ingredients looked acceptable, so I took some home.

What a difference! It’s not heaven by any means, but it IS what I’d always imagined that raisin bran was supposed to taste like. Here’s a comparison of the ingredient lists:

POST RAISIN BRAN:

Whole grain wheat, raisins, wheat bran, sugar, corn syrup, salt, wheat flour, malted barley flour.

KIRKLAND SIGNATURE PREMIUM POST RAISIN BRAN:

Raisins (raisins, glycerin), wheat bran, whole wheat flour, cane sugar, malt extract, whole grain barley flour, molasses, grape juice concentrate, caramel color, salt, vanilla flavor, mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E), and ascorbic acid (natural vitamin C) for freshness.

Maybe someday Post will decide to integrate its multiple Raisin Bran personalities into one, and non-Costco members will get the chance to taste the better version for themselves.

As I was browsing through women’s clothing at Ebay the other day, I stumbled across an auction touting used, dirty socks. Right away, I knew that this wasn’t just a joke. I suspected something much stranger.

The auction listing kept all bidder info private, and the seller promised that the socks were seriously worn and smelly. “In fact,” she wrote, “I’m wearing them right now.”

Uh-oh. Could it be? Could there possibly be smelly sock fetishists out there? I typed “used socks” into the search field. Sure enough, 155 matching auctions came up. Of the ones that I checked, all kept their bidders’ identities private.

Next, I Googled “used socks”. Yup. “usedsocks.net” shows a beautiful woman in a bikini and proclaims “This is my personal website where I am selling my used socks.”. “usedsocks.org” features a sex blog and foot photo gallery. Poco Panties cashes in with used panties, bras, lingerie, clothes and… socks.

And no, I’m not linking to these people. Find them for yourself.

But the proof that this thing has gone (somewhat) mainstream is the eHow tutorial. No, I’m not kidding. You, too, can learn how to make a profit selling used socks. Of course, you have to be a young, attractive female who doesn’t have a problem with putting suggestive photos of yourself online. Or you can do it through Ebay, where the photos tend to be more tame.

Since I make my living as an internet researcher, I come across fetish trends on a regular basis. I pity the young teen who types something like “intercourse” into Google Images and tries to learn about sex through the resulting photos. They’ll be left with the impression that making babies requires two men, one woman and several very flexible orifices. Or one woman who has (apparently) no internal organs, and one very large sex toy.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if someone travelled back in time and tried to show a group of 19th century men some modern day porn. Remember, back then, you were one lucky dude if you caught a glimpse of some woman’s ankle. I think seeing a woman stuff a football up her behind (yes, it exists) would make them drop dead on the spot. Their brains would explode.

Even today, most of the world’s population would be unable to comprehend what the hell they were seeing. And if they were able to wrap their heads around it, their most likely reaction would be outrage. We in the western world have become desensitized to over-the-top images of sex and violence. The clash of cultures is often a clash of the overprotected versus the overstimulated. We would do well to remind ourselves of that from time to time.

A story today on the BBC News site says that the Taiwanese government has begun efforts to help increase the country’s birthrate:

In 2009, Taiwan’s birth rate stood at 1.0 births per woman. This is well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Why do they want more babies? They need workers to replace their aging workforce.

As any population scientist can tell you, the higher the education level of the female population, the fewer children that they’ll have. Given that the human race is way, way past our carrying capacity (the number of individuals that can be fully supported by available resources), falling birthrates are a very good thing. Furthermore, one must wonder how the highly-educated single women of Taiwan feel about this unwelcome intrusion into their personal lives by their government.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Committee for Refugees & Immigrants reports that, by December 2008, there were almost 2.7 MILLION people seeking refuge worldwide. That number continues to grow at a terrifying, heartbreaking rate as violent conflicts, natural disasters and disappearing resources make more of our world virtually uninhabitable.

My advice to Taiwan? If you need more workers, accept more refugees. Leave your happy, single women alone. And thanks for having a low birth rate!

Let’s support education for females worldwide, so that this wonderful statistic spreads.

Dell monitor stands in the WFP series will lock into place if you push the monitor into the fully down position. Once it’s “stuck”, no amount of effort will make it budge if you do the obvious thing and push in the button while trying to move the monitor back upwards on the stand.

This affects the 2007WFP, the 2407WFP, the 2005WFP and others. If you contact Dell directly about the problem, you’ll get answers ranging from “Maybe you can get a local place to fix it.” to “Please RMA the stand to us and we’ll replace it for you.”.

Avoid the hassle. The problem is easy to fix. Just press down on the top of your monitor *before* you press the button, then move it back upwards. Viola!

Dell does have a nice tutorial explaining this (sorta kinda), but good luck finding it through a search engine.

One of my favorite ways to get a quick laugh is to read ‘The Onion’. Their articles are funny primarily because they reveal truth by mocking reality. Here’s one of my favorites, for example.

Apparently, this rubs reality the wrong way, because it fights back by frequently mocking ‘The Onion’. I came across this example in my tiny local paper’s ‘Looking Back At 2009′ news roundup:

From the North Lake Travis LOG

PV councilman walks out of meeting

POINT VENTURE, April 9–Councilman Ron Hruby walked out of the Point Venture Village Council meeting Monday after Councilman Ed Stuart’s animal control report took longer than Hruby believed was necessary.

“Your three minutes is up.”, Hruby said, pushing back his chair and throwing down his pen. “Someone come and get me whenever he’s done.”

But animals ended up being a major concern for residents in attendance at the meeting, who expressed interest in addressing deer population control, coyote relocation programs, rabies shots for domestic animals and how to dispose of animal carcasses.

Gosh darnit, why couldn’t that all be addressed in 3 minutes?! I wonder if Hruby will be reelected…

My Republican Senators and Representative recently expended a lot of time, energy and money telling the world how health care reform is bad. (This despite the fact that the final bill closely resembled something that two of them had supported as an alternative to “Hillarycare”.) Their arguments tended to revolve around the cost to taxpayers.

On the other hand, none of them have had a problem with the ever more obscene war spending that’s been going on since 2003. I’m not a Ron Paul supporter, but at least the man is consistent. If you’re really a fiscal conservative, then you’re conservative fiscally. Period.

So tonight, I called them on it. Here’s my letter. Feel free to use it as a template for your own.

You recently voiced your concerns regarding fiscal responsibility. In the near future, a bill will be brought to the floor to provide $33 billion more in funding for the war in Afghanistan. This is on top of the weapons and war budget that’s already been requested.

I strongly urge you to stand by your fiscal principles and vote against further Afghanistan war funding. It’s time to push for an exit strategy with a solid timetable. American taxpayers can no longer afford an expensive war that hasn’t made them any safer.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Heidi Allen

I’m a vegan, sometimes known as a strict vegetarian. When people discover this (for example, while overhearing me ask a question at a restaurant), they often react with hostility.

In one of the most common scenarios, the listener will turn to me with a cruel smile on their face, and proceed to describe in detail just how raw and bloody they like their meat. OK. Whatever. Maybe it’s never occurred to them that most vegetarians are former meateaters.

When they fail to elecit the desired response (Screaming? Fainting? Challenging them to a duel? I have no idea.), they get creative, and THAT’S when things get interesting.

Some brag about how much they make animals suffer when they go hunting. Never mind that a skilled hunter knows how to make a clean kill. They’re PROUD of their inability to shoot straight.

Some brag about how much meat they eat. Invariably, they’re overweight and/or in poor health. But ignore that… They’re PROUD to be actively avoiding a balanced diet.

A few days ago, a woman bragged to me that she’s never read a food label in her entire life. Apparently, reading labels is for pussies. Real Americans eat whatever cancer-causing heart attack bait the agro-giants decide to feed them.

This pride-in-stupidity phenomenon shows up in more places then just vegan-baiting. I regularly meet people who are proud to avoid exercise, proud that they don’t own a book, proud of making snap judgements, proud to be ignorant of geography, proud to be wasted, proud to be inflexible, and on and on.

I was careful to call this post ‘Pride In Stupidity’ rather than ‘Proud & Stupid’ because I don’t think most of these people are actually stupid. They just take pride in stupid choices. But why? Is it a misguided attempt at rebellion? Shame masked as pride? A knee-jerk reaction to those they perceive as judging them? Or are they truly proud?

Give me your .02 cents… and your misplaced pride examples.

Having to create a new username and password every time I bless an online store with a purchase is becoming a nightmare. Between the stores and other online services, I now have 1,055 username and password combinations.

I repeat… 1,055!!!

Obviously, I can’t use the same login over and over. That would create potential security problems. It would also be unsafe to create so many different login combinations that I needed to write them all down somewhere. (Whoever found my cheatsheet would hit the jackpot. Well, ok. Not the jackpot. …the pathetically tiny amount of money that I usually have in my account.)

I finally settled on a spreadsheet that uses code words for 10 usernames and 10 passwords, which gives me 100 potential combinations. Of course, that means I have to memorize 40 pieces of data. (10 usernames + 10 passwords + 20 code words). And if I forget what a code word means, I’m screwed.

To deal with that possibility, I created a second spreadsheet that provides further clues to help me remember what everything means. Of course, I’m not writing down the actual data anywhere. I’m way too paranoid for that. My system seems to work pretty well, except that the sheer volumn of unnecessary logins makes the HTML version of the spreadsheet a pain to access on my iPod.

(Yes, I have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone. I hhhhhhate AT&T!)

(Update, 3/2010: I was forced to get an iPhone with AT&T. (Long story.) I am now part of the machine. Bloop bleep. We are watching me/you.)

My mother deals with her logins by writing everything down in a little book. Of course, if anyone finds the little book, she’s in big trouble, but that’s not really an issue, since she can never find it herself. This has led to the creation of more than one little book.

Some data is in one. Some is in another. And often, she’s not even sure where in the book each little piece of data was recorded. Is it under “B” for bank, or “W” for the first letter of the bank’s name? Or perhaps something more arcane? (Yes, she goes there.)

In the end, the ridiculous number of logins makes us less secure and wastes more of our time, making the whole concept of a customer logins pointless. Oh sure, we can log in to track our orders, but is it worth it? We waste waaay more time keeping track of all those logins than we save.

And why are these online stores insisting on saving our sensitive information anyway? If they’re really interested in our security, shouldn’t they wipe that data from their systems and all their backups after the return period has expired? And whatever happened to the concept of privacy?

Finally, after you’ve completed your order, does the store provide a “Logout” link? Not usually. So much for security. If you’re on a public or shared computer, and forget to empty your history and cache, the next person could order as much as they wanted on your dime.

So… are you ready for a world where online stores don’t require logins (but you can create one if you want)? Maybe I’ve missed something here. Feel free to educate me.

(sent today)

To Whom It May Concern:

AIG has claimed that bonuses are necessary to retain good employees. However, making employees dependent upon guaranteed bonuses provides no incentive for them to perform quality work.

Bonuses tied solely to revenue generation provide an incentive for corruption and/or a reliance on short-term thinking at the expense of long-term stability. This approach also devalues other important employee skills and contributions. All these things ultimately weaken a company.

Meanwhile, unemployment remains high. There are many educated, motivated individuals looking for work. Wouldn’t a better business model be to end bonuses and to spend some of that money on training new employees in case some current employees quit?

Sincerely,
Heidi Allen

CBS will be running an anti-abortion ad from far-right group ‘Focus on the Family‘ during the Super Bowl. This is after they made a big stink on more than one occassion over their policy of not running “controversial” ads from other, more moderate groups.

Here’s what I wrote to them. If you feel the same way, please chime in.

I don’t have a problem with Focus on the Family exercising their right to free speech during the Super Bowl SO LONG AS that same courtesy is extended to other advocacy groups. Since CBS made a big issue of not running more moderate advocacy ads, you clearly have a bias. It’s this that I strongly object to.

If you open the flood gates to one group, you must open the flood gates to all. CBS may be powerful, but never forget that it’s the American people who own the airwaves, not you.