Wisdoma by Brian Kindsvater

While painfully obvious to anyone who can count electoral votes, and recognizing that Obama will easily sweep California, Oregon, and Washington, at this point on November 4th none of the news networks have the guts to call the election for what it is.

Sure, there is something about not calling an election before the polls close on the west coast.

And, there is idiocy. Or sanity. Or a silly hope to cling to manufactured drama to keep people tuned in. Depending on your perspective.

So, major news networks, now that I have called the election, you are free to do so.

November 4, 2008, 6:48 pm Pacific.

Police officers in West Virginia have charged a drunk with battery on an officer because he lifted his leg and let out a stinky fart.

You can read the actual police report here.

It seems to me that if a person is drunk, by definition they are mentally impaired, and that should excuse a whole range of ridiculous charges the government can pile on, such as battery, obstruction of justice, etc. There is simply not the required intent because, after all, the person is drunk.

According to Billboard, 1981 had 3 of the top 13 songs of all time: Physical (Olivia Newton-John), Bette Davis Eyes (Kim Carnes), and Endless Love (Lionel Richie).

1981 also placed the 80th greatest song – Waiting for a Girl Like You (Foreigner), and split with 1980 the 47th top song – Lady (Kenny Rogers).

While Billboard’s methodology is suspect, 1981 definitely was a great year. I remember it well, and the music was great.

The large number of mega hits in one year could have been the result of the end of the disco era. 1981 was the first year, in many, without any major disco hits. 1981 was also the year Rapture by Blondie was released. Not the first rap song, but a turning point away from disco heading towards rap having a major influence.

Interestingly, these huge hits also essentially marked the end of the careers for their singers and bands. Not bad, to go out on top (or to take the money and run), although I would have like to see more hits.

So lets hear it for 1981 – and for Bette Davis Eyes !

Billboard Magazine has released its Top 100 Songs – ever, listing The Twist as the #1 song.

The #4 song, and several others, never even hit #1. One only made it to #3.

Basically, if the song hung-around the hot 100 for many weeks, even in the lower echelons, that somehow made it an all-time great song. This highly distorts the rankings, favoring many songs from the 1990s and when the record labels were rigging the charts by controlling airplay and not releasing that many songs.

Billboard doesn’t even try to explain blatant inconsistencies between prior charts. For example, in 1980 when Billboard released the top 40 songs of the 1970s, way up near the top of the chart were Joy to the World by Three Dog Night and My Sweet Lord by George Harrison.

Suddenly, Joy to the World barely makes it at #100, and My Sweet Lord is simply gone. How does one go from top 5 for the entire 1970s to not even in the top 100?

Andy Gibb’s, I Just Want to Be Your Everything from 1977 is listed as #22 all-time. Are you kidding? That was nothing compared to Shadow Dancing.

When Billboard released the top songs of the 1980s, Every Breath You Take by the Police was listed as the top song. Now – only #25. Somehow, Endless Love by Lionel Richie has jumped way over to #13 all-time.

Bottom-line: Billboard has newly jerry-rigged its methodologies in a manner that makes it a joke. Anyone who has watched the charts over the years knows this is the dumbest hot 100 ever produced by Billboard.

The Twist? Great song. Hung around the top 100 for an amazing number of weeks, especially in comparison to other songs of its time. But only 3 weeks at #1, with minimal airplay or sales since its release. Definitely not the biggest song ever released.

Best Buy just sent out an email promoting the new video game Madden NFL 2009. They included a huge graphic highlighting Brett Favre passing for the Green Bay Packers.

Yes, the same Brett Favre who was traded to the New York Jets YESTERDAY.

Uh, hello advertising numnuts at Best Buy: spend 15 minutes finding a new picture for your email campaign.

World Record Press Release Announcement:

Brian Kindsvater snarfed 6 ice cream cones, including a double cone, all different flavors, in 45 minutes at the Sacramento Zoo Safari.

Earlier in the day Brian had another ice cream cone and three icees

Afterwards, he was looking happy, but a little green.

For autographs, Mr. Kindsvater can be found this next week at the local gym.

If anyone has seen John McCain’s campaign let me know. It seems to be missing in action.

A while ago SMUD, the local utility provider, decided that for online account payments only Visa would be accepted. No more Mastercard.

Naturally, my bank had switched its cards from the Visa to the Mastercard program.

So I complained to SMUD, noting their motto “The Power to Do More” and its apparent inapplicability to offering “more” payment options for its customers.

Of course that meant I started mailing in payments that SMUD had to hire someone to manually process and bank. And complained again.

What do you know? SMUD now offers both Visa and Mastercard payment options. I won’t be so bold as to assume it was just because of my complaints, but I wonder who the corporate schlub was who decided to limit options, probably in return for a good deal from Visa, that in return irritated untold numbers of customers and forced SMUD to spend money, manpower, and time manually processing checks.

At least they didn’t try to impose a “convenience” fee for online transactions. That is one of the dumber company policies I have seen elsewhere. How about offering online payments for free, so your company doesn’t have to deal with checks, banking, returned checks, etc. – and making your customers happy?

If you’re an affiliate promoting LifeLock you already know LifeLock is a joke. In fact, LifeLock would want to pre-approve this blog post. If you’re not a LifeLock affiliate, and you probably aren’t, then you probably didn’t understand this inside joke. But trust me, if LifeLock treats its customers the way it now treats those who have built up the LifeLock name, you would probably start looking at alternatives.

LifeLock is a service that they admit you could do for free on your own. Setting fraud alerts with credit reporting agencies, getting your name off junk mail lists, and obtaining yearly credit reports are FREE and SOMETHING YOU CAN DO YOURSELF.

But for $10 bucks a month LifeLock does promise to spend up to $1 million dollars to “recover your good name” if your identity is stolen. Whatever that means. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be reimbursed for any out of pocket losses or dings to your bank account.

It doesn’t mean you will be paid anything.

It just means LifeLock will pay investigators, attorneys, etc., to work on your behalf.

So let us look closer at the LifeLock fine print to see what is actually being promised.

First off, if your loss is greater than $1000 don’t expect LifeLock to come rushing to your aid. In other words, the larger your harm the less immediate service you will receive. Here is what LifeLock says:

“If the amount involved is over $1,000, we reserve the right to investigate the Service Guarantee request in order to determine whether the request is valid before we do anything else.

We will perform our investigation as promptly as we can.

If our investigation shows that a reasonable person would conclude that your personal identifying information was used without your authorization to commit a fraud while you were a member and you have complied with all this Agreement, we will perform as described herein.”

Hmmm, so YOU get to be investigated by LifeLock so LifeLock can try and get out of its agreement before LifeLock does squat on your behalf.

But what if you disagree with LifeLock’s investigation? LifeLock says “should we decline your Service Guarantee request following our investigation and that decision subsequently is determined to have been wrong, we will honor our Service Guarantee.”

So your remedy is to sue LifeLock, which almost no one will do because the expense and hassle involved will typically exceed the value of their service. Which remember, you can do yourself – as millions have done before LifeLock existed.

Assuming the investigation into you goes in your favor, here is what LifeLock promises – read this carefully!

“If you are our member when someone accesses your personal identifying information and subsequently uses it without your authorization to commit a fraud, due to a failure or defect in our Service, and you have complied with this Agreement, subject to the terms herein, we will pay professionals to assist in restoring any such loss or recover such expenses, as required, provided however that the maximum limit of our Service Guarantee is $1 (one) million per lifetime for all incidents in the aggregate.”

Initially, someone has to access and use your personal information and commit a fraud. That probably covers most problems associated with identity theft, but there does have to be fraud.

But here is kicker #1 – “due to a failure or defect in our Service.” So if your personal information is stolen and used, LifeLock only comes to the rescue if their service failed. What is their service? “[W]e ask the credit bureaus to set free fraud alerts on your behalf.” Big deal. Does this cover all instances of identity theft? Nope.

Kicker #2 – “we will pay professionals to assist in restoring any such loss or recover such expenses.” Lifelock will not reimburse you for damages due to identity theft. Let me repeat that again so this is probably a common misconception. LIFELOCK WILL NOT REIMBURSE YOU FOR DAMAGES DUE TO IDENTITY THEFT.

Instead, LifeLock will pay others to go after the thief who stole your identity. Do you think that young, crack-smoking, drug abusing loser has any money or assets? Me neither. Great, LifeLock pays for an attorney to sue a deadbeat. Aren’t you joyful.

Am I sure about this? Won’t LifeLock pay for your losses? LifeLock says: “We will not reimburse special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages.”

You have to read the LifeLock agreement carefully.

Manymay believe from the ads that LifeLock is essentially a form of insurance. But LifeLock is not licensed to provide insurance, anywhere, that I am aware of, and I sure didn’t see any insurance registration information posted on the LifeLock website. So beware and realize that what you are getting from LifeLock is not necessarily what you think you will be receiving. This is NOT insurance.

By the way, and you can say you read it here first, LifeLock will sued by the government over its guarantee