Got one of the common letters in the mail, "Important Information Enclosed: Privacy Notification".  Now why is it when I see one of these, the first thing I think of is "Important Information Enclosed: We are reducing your level of privacy".  Would I ever see a privacy policy change that is actually more restrictive?  Here's a quick summary of the privacy policy I got:

• Is my information shared within your family of companies?  YES.
• Is my information shared with financial companies outside your family of companies? YES.
• Is my information shared with non-financial companies outside your family of companies?  YES.

Well, that covers just about everyone.  I guess there's no privileged information anymore.  Wait, there's one more.

• Is my information shared in any other ways?  YES.

Oh, ok.  The notice provides some examples of some ways they would share info, but the only thing that limits this is the phrase "as required or permitted by law".  Well, that covers just about everything.  In fact, this phrase is in the notice: "even if you tell us not to share, we may do so as required or permitted by law."  So technically, if law permits it, we'll share your info regardless of what you tell us.  Another little twist is that your choice of what to exclude is limiting. Think "You are being attacked by three monsters and you have one bullet.  Which one do you want to shoot?  Remember, even if you kill one, it may reanimate and attack you again, as required or permitted by law."  That's what you get.

I haven't ever been a big privacy nut.  I don't really do anything that I think anyone cares about.  And if I do things and am included in an aggregate, I care even less.  But this is about garbage.  Garbage sent to my home, garbage in my email (that's a hopeless cause anyway), and uninvited phone calls.  My use of a company's services makes my personal information their property that they can sell at will.  I wonder when this happened.

This kind of crap extends to virtual businesses.  How is an Internet site valued when it provides a free service?  By the number of users it has.  With a quick sale, a change of ownership and a flip of a switch, all those users can be bombarded with advertising.  The thought that we are being farmed, bred, or fed for eventual sale and slaughter is pretty sickening.

One last note.  The formal letter introducing the privacy policy has the incredulous statement: "Your privacy concerns are important to us, and protecting your personal information is one of our top priorities."  An absolute lie if I've ever seen one.

Part of The American Dream is supposed to be owning your own home.  I am a homeowner and was a long-time renter.  Recently, I noticed a chart in MS Money that made me take notice.  It was the "Net Worth Over Time" chart.

Can you tell when I became a homeowner?  It was February 2007.  The beginning of a steady climb in my net worth.  Prior to this, I was a renter, and the chart shows, my net worth growth was pretty stagnant.  Sure it went up as I put more in my retirement accounts and paid down debt, but not like the climb after becoming a homeowner.

Some argue that the expenses of owning a home outweigh the benefits, since rent covers all housing expenses.  As the chart shows, even with the expenses of a house, the value still grows.  This is equity.  When you buy a house, you have a property worth $x.xx, but you have a loan worth $x.xx, too.  It's net zero.  Current housing conditions aside, as you pay down the loan, one side of the equation goes down, and one remains constant.  Whereas when you rent, you have property of $0.00 and a loan of $0.00.  As you pay your rent, neither side changes (for you.  It does for the rental property owner). You remain at zero.

I just thought I'd make a small post to say that this small visual reminder showed the value of home ownership to me.

I'm going to try and scan a lot of my CD covers for albums that aren't easily found through the general sources.  Not surprisingly, I have a few albums that don't appear to exist anymore and have been forgotten to time.

A lot of my MCA Master Series CDs are not represented, so those are available.  You can get them in my public SkyDrive folder:

Hopefully this helps someone out there who is looking for this album art.

It's a little late and I'm a little light-headed and headachy from primer fumes in the room getting painted next to mine, so I thought I'd type out a random grab bag of thoughts.

Capital One wants me to go paperless with my statements.  That would work for me since I do everything electronically in Money, but what about the people that would print out their statements each month from the online site?  That doesn't help anything.  I think Capital One should reduce the paper ads they put in their statements and double-side their statements.  That would cut paper usage more than half right there.

I was thinking one day about a borderline neurosis I had growing up.  Thanks to my short attention span, it never really developed.  I used to anthropomorphize everything.  I used to imagine chairs clamoring to have me sit in them, and the rest would be disappointed.  Some items I owned would be proud that they have served me so well, and others would be sad that I don't use them enough.  I'm sure some psychologist would say I had some disorder that I couldn't accept the fact that it's impossible to please everyone.  Then I would get drugs - that's a given anymore.

One of the creepiest and most disturbing thoughts that I thought up in my youth and still have to force myself to not think about is:  No one really knows what happens when you die.  What if you are just trapped in your body?  Not so bad for humans - you die, you get put in a box and you rest until you decompose and you disappear.  But what about animals, specifically roadkill?  You get hit with a car and die.  Then someone else runs over you and you feel the impact again.  And again, and again.  Slowly, you start to disintegrate and the pain becomes less with each passing car.  Finally, you are not much more than a spot and you begin to decompose and disappear.  Physiologically, I guess that's not possible since the nerves couldn't transmit the sensations to the brain, still it's a morbid thought.

I'm bugged by Circle K's new ads with the line, "Gotta buck?  Get a snack."  I don't have any problem at all with informal speech in ad copy, but if you're going to do it, it needs to be correct.  "Gotta" is not short for "Have a", it's short for "Have got to".  Idiots.

My previous complaint about Mercedes radio ads has been continued with a Lincoln ad.  I guess the dealerships are owned by the same person, or the marketing company got both as accounts.  More pompous people talking about how other people think their car (and I guess the owner by extension) is so great.  I really don't think the customer testimonial idea is so great.  Maybe it is, though, and I'm just not their target market.  Thank god for that.

Here's a rant.  This is a peeve of mine.  I was at Wendy's and I went back up to the counter for a refill.  I took the lid off the cup and the counter girl asked what I was drinking.  Coke, obviously.  So she grabs a new cup and starts putting ice in it.  I'd seen this many times and it always angered me at the simple waste of a cup.

So I asked, can't you just use this cup?  She said no, that I might have a cold and not know it, or I might have "done something" to the cup, and that it was a health risk for her to take it; they could get sued.  Ok.  I understand.  She gave me my new drink and I asked "can you throw this one away?"  Sure.  She took it from me and I said, "Now you're touching my cup.  Why couldn't you fill it?"  she quickly countered with "but I can wash my hands afterwards."  And you could have washed your hands after filling the dirty, filthy, customer cup, too.

But America doesn't think like that.  A bunch of germophobic, sue-happy morons.  Here's a clue: Germs don't obey the law.  You and your immune system are either stronger than them or you will succumb to them.  You can't pass laws and policies that will stop them.