Warning, this blog is very unfunny, but I need to get a few announcements out of the way and Saturday is a good day for housekeeping. Or so the wife tells me when she leaves for work.

1)Site updates. Tech guy worked his little fingers off the last day or so to add some reader requested enhancements. The 2 most major changes:

a)Email a link – at the bottom of every blog, everywhere blogs appear on the site, is a new link named, uh, email a link. Clicking it takes you to a form where you can email your friends a link to that particular blog. Give it a whirl. Now it’s even easier to send someone a link to the site.

b)Karma ratings. Perhaps you noticed other new links at the bottom of the blogs. Those are for you to assign karmic ratings to a particular blog entry. Anywhere a blog appears, you have the option of indicating either you like, are neutral or you hate a given blog. This way I can separate the clunkers from the hits. Your karmic ratings move blogs up and down the ranking list in real time. If you want to see the rankings without voting, click the Reader’s Ratings at the left.

2)Other stuff. Still no agent, but I do have a pile of rejections. I thought it would take longer to get this many no’s, so I must be doing something right. At least they’re reading my queries. : )

I tried logging onto my credit card web site to check the balance so I could pay the bill but it refused my password and user name 3 times. So I had to call a number and give a Customer Service Rep ( CSR ) the security error code on the page.

sam: Hi! I can’t log into the account information website. The page says error WESCREWU1.
CSR: No problem sir, let me just verify your information. Oh, it says here your account is locked because of multiple attempts to access the account with incorrect login information. Your password has been reset and sent to you in an email. It’s good for the next X minutes for one time use only.
sam: Great! Fantastic! Thank you very much!
CSR: Since you’re waiting for your password in the mail, let me tell you about a special new offer for our special customers. This service protects you in the event of identity theft. Imagine if someone gained access to your accounts through a compromised password. Well, you don’t need to worry any longer about that, because you are covered. Our competitors are charging X, but since you’ve been such a valuable customer your rate is Y.
sam: Great! Fantastic! Thank you no very much!
CSR: Are you sure sir? Imagine if an email with information about your accounts was misplaced, or was never delivered? Identity theft has even happened to Tiger Woods. What would you do?
sam: I’d do like Tiger and get engaged to a pretty Norweigan girl, do a few Buick commercials, then call you and complain.
CSR: Sure you don’t want to consider the 30 day free trial period?
sam: I’ll be on my way now.

After I hung up, I realized I’d been telemarketed in reverse. Maybe these weasels can’t call us anymore, but sooner or later, if something we use that they provide breaks, we’ll have to call them and our guard will be down because we need help. Now that’s just evil.