Is it time to say goodbye to Facebook?

Have you noticed that just recently a lot of companies are riding roughshod over us the consumer.  They tell us what we want, they tell us to pay more for services which frankly aren't worth the money.  They try to tell us what to listen to, what to eat, how to dress.  The most recent and vocal of these - 'you'll grow to love it - stop complaining' companies is Facebook.  FB has become a part of my life.  I use it to keep up with my friends all over the world.  I have the FB app, I check it all the time.  But get this FB I am the boss, I dictate our relationship or so I thought.  With each new update I renew my privacy settings.  But this last update - the one that sorts stories into an order of importance that's done by an algorithm is quite possibly the beginning of the end -for me at least.  FB wants to move in with me, it wants to tell all my friends what I'm watching or listening to.  It wants me to give it a timeline of my life long before FB was an idea for an exclusive ivy league network.  FB sit down and listen, its not you it's me.  I value my privacy, my guilty pleasures, my pandora playlist, youtube videos ect.  I'm announcing a trail separation.  If you haven't come to your senses in a month, I'm afraid it's over.

10/10 Moved the facebook app to the second screen on my iphone and found I don't feel compelled to check it.  I'm thinking I'll stay with FB but only at the weekends unless someone messages me direct.

When one size doesn't fit all

There's an old saying that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me' which increasingly seems to hold less truth.  Listen to the media, pick up any magazine, or watch any talk show and they're all about how a person looks.  It's all about the size zero - but is that healthy?  Speaking as someone who never has been and never wants to be a size zero I would say not only is it an unhealthy obsession it's downright dangerous. My husband recently lost a lot of weight - around 70-75 llbs - it took him a year of diet and exercise to get to just under 200llbs.  That wasn't his target weight but he can maintain 200llbs and still eat normally.  According to his BMI he needs to lose another 10 llbs - only losing that much more would make him start to look skeletal..  With that dramatic a weight loss some people thought he was ill, our next door neighbour was convinced that he'd taken some slimming aid.  My BMI target is 120llbs I'm ten over that but if its a choice between counting every calorie to lose that extra poundage or eating normal healthy food and remaining a size 10 I know which I prefer.  Every body is different, we all have a golden ratio when it comes to weight our own personal number - your body will let you know what yours is.

Why do today's tennis players come with their own sound effects?

Lets get this out of the way up-front.  I love tennis, I've been to Queens Club and watched Wimbledon every year and I can't believe how long it has taken me to notice this.  If you google Murray v Nadal (US open semi final 2011) and compare it to say Stich v Edberg (Basel final 1993) there is one major difference - a lack of grunting.  Seriously, compare the two.  The Basel match you can't take your eyes off for a number of reasons - the players, the almost balletic shots and the grace, strength and power behind them they make their battle look effortless.  Murray v Nadal on the other hand you could be chasing a peanut across the floor and you'd still know who had just hit the ball because of their grunts, groans and moans.  The women are just as bad, Seles v Sabatini Miami 1991, Seles actually does a double grunt a sort of 'ahh- uhhh!' each time she hits the ball.  Sabatini just grunts.  Right up to date 2011 Wimbledon final Sharapova v Kvitova, Sharapova screams into her serve.  Compare this with Virginia Wade v Betty Stove Wimbledon 1977 final, not a grunt or a yell in sight. 
We know you're putting your all into each shot - just lose the sound effects.

How is this not a monopoly?

In 2008 the only two satellite radio companies - Sirius and XM merged.  Being two separate companies means they were competing against each other, the corporate way of keeping each other honest.  But when you merge two companies together and they are the only ones who provide a certain service isn't that plainly a monopoly ie there is no alternative service that you can use?  Well the FCC and Justice Department clearly didn't see it that way as they ruled in favour of the merger and up until a week ago I didn't really have a problem with it and then they took BBC Radio 1 off the air, with no warning, just a recording on C15 where it used saying that if you want music similar to that found on Radio 1 we offer the following stations.

That's when I found out how abominable Sirius XM's customer service is.  We cancelled the house subscription and to keep us they offered us 2 then 6, then 12 months for free.  The customer service rep was convinced that 'in time we'd grow to love the other stations and forget about Radio 1'.  I don't want other station I want Radio 1.  So we cancelled.  But we found out that 21 million other listeners who only have Sirius/XM subscriptions in order to listen to Radio 1 (timeshifted so that the morning show is in the morning etc)  are out there and they are ticked off.  So I joined the FaceBook campaign and duly sent off my carefully composed e-mails of complaint to their director of programming and what I got back was a form letter, saying 'thankyou for your concerns, but we think you'll like these other stations much better than Radio 1.  I sent back a reply saying that I had a subscription for one reason only R1 - a link to my home that I listen to for the DJ's the music, the whole package.  I got the same form letter back, over and over.


So a week later we still don't have R1.  The Facebook campaign has had some reaction. R1 is coming back but Internet only which means you can't listen to it in the car and for the pleasure of listening online you have to pay Sirius/XM $12 a month in addition to your subscription.

I would really like to thank Sirius, due to their arrogant attitude and appalling lack of customer care we investigated other solutions and found one that for a one-time payment (just less than the cost of a yearly subscription to S/XM) gives us a time-shifted service on any show we want to listen to and also steams Pandora and Radio 538.  Bye, bye Sirius/XM - customer lost.

Why do some websites give you Hobson's (no) choice?

I can't always get what I want in Utah so I shop online and it wasn't until hubby had lunch with a security expert from Zions bank that I took a good long look at how much of my credit card information was dotted around the web.  Being proactive - I set about removing it, if I'm shopping on a new site I shop as a guest but it seems that more and more sites let you put your credit card information in and then won't let you proceed with the order until you register with them.  Drugstore.com is one such example, I suppose the reasoning is - oh I got all this way - all my information is there I'll be able to go back next time and just one click everything.  These aren't websites there are on-line store fronts. 

Can you imagine walking into a bricks and mortar store and getting all the way to the checkout before they tell you 'sorry you can't buy this item until you hand over all your personal data to us for us to keep'. Oh and for future reference CVS.com lets you shop as a guest, I'll be using them again.

Am I wanted by the health police?

I'm all for a healthy life style, but there is a rising trend especially in the US to force employees into becoming fitter more productive individuals by making them get fit.  Trouble is that extends to their families so once a year I get poked and prodded in the name of corporate health - and I don't like it.

There will be no mention of which companies I am referring to because this post comes from personal experience and I don't want to get hubby into trouble but their mo goes something like this.  They take your blood, analyse it and they compare the numbers with the results you gave them last year.  Last year I had a fairly structured argument with the person who gave me my test results.  He told me my cholesterol numbers were up from last year and I responded that the numbers hadn't moved but the guidelines had been lowered to make more people take cholesterol reducing medication.  I've seen for myself how being on statins dries up your skin and takes the lubrication away from your joints.  He didn't know how to argue that one and it goes further than that.  To get the carrot of money off your health insurance you have to complete three programmes on their website which last year actually made me put on weight.

Its a one size fits all approach, which doesn't target the couch potato or the guy eating all the wrong things who most of the time opt out of the programme because they can afford not to make the effort.  Lets face facts here - we could opt out - but its a very expensive carrot and we need that extra money.  I just think that the whole thing is intrusive and way too ra ra for me.

Update - Goalposts have been moved again but wider this time.  So our friend who weighed himself before he went in for the screening actually lost 14lbs between home and work - must ask where I can get a set of those scales..  My numbers are a lot lower than last year so we both qualified. 

Why is no-frills news in such short supply?

The rise and rise of on air personalities.  In the UK we have newsreaders their main job is to read the news, if they have a talent for interviewing they'll do the odd pre-recorded and occasionally live interview.  Some present other shows for the BBC.  If you go to their webpage it takes a bit of digging to get to say a profile of news reader and presenter Fiona Bruce the bio is simple and there is a picture, no twitter feed, no facebook page.

We have news shows, like Panorama that focus on one topic and they don't always get the balance right and we have British bulldog Jeremy Paxman who presents Newsnight for those who want no-nonsense reporting.

Compare that to Fox News in the US -our local Utah station is Fox 13 - although I prefer KUTV 2.  Go to their national webpage and right up front is the list of on-air personalities - it says it up in the top right hand corner.  Go to Shannon Bream for instance and up pops a glossy bio, no facebook but you can follow her on twitter and our local stations pound it into us that we can get them on facebook and twitter, you can even win prizes for liking them on facebook.

The reason for this post is the throwaway comment made by one of our local news 'anchors' last night

'if you care'

she threw in after an entertainment story.  She obviously didn't give a damn about that story she'd just read but her job is to report not emote and its her job to do that about every story that the people who put the bulletins together include that day. Until news organisations give us the news not opinion, I'll still be sticking to comedy central and bbc america for news with the occasional bout of NPR.