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Hof's Webrider Summer 2002

Welcome again to the general purpose webzine for the AFSCME 3357 website. Everyone is welcome to read this, but FYI for the next installment, I am planning a special MEMBERS-ONLY edition, designed to give us some things to talk about for contract negotiations. On with the show.

Contents

Make Your Own Powerpuff Girls Video

Free Lord of the Rings Video?

Problems with Testdrive incentives

How much car do you need?

What does your car cost to drive?

The 2003 Honda Accord

The Worst Insurance

Guadalcanal Anniversary

Comedy Encyclopedia

Musical Links

K&N Air Filters

Tiger Territory

Dreamkids a Fraud?

Spamnet Problems with the Shrek DVD

Spyware & Adaware

Good and bad Amusement Parks

It's not a Dancing Cow this time, It's the Powerpuff Girls

You can make your own Powerpuff Girls music video and follow the links to other games and activities at http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/ppg/play/videodirector/index.html

Free Lord of the Rings Video - maybe

.Last fall I went on a futile hunt for a Kia dealership to testdrive a Sedona minivan to get a free Shrek DVD. Two dealerships didn't have any Sedonas. The third, Tom Wood Kia in Indianapolis, said that they weren't participating in the promotion. (This is one of many reasons I don't like the Tom Wood dealerships. I think the feeling is mutual.) Anyway, Kia is staging another testdrive promotion for their next vehicle, the Sorrento SUV. This time, when you testdrive one you can get a Lord of the Rings Video. Based upon my past experience, I'd have to rank this as a maybe. Anyway, here's the link: http://www.kia.com/060402.shtml

Good and bad Businesses of the week: Test drive incentives

Bad -Nissan, Mazda

Good -Lincoln

Speaking of testdrives, it's been the better part of a year since I testdrove an 2002 Altima, and I'm still waiting for my watch. It's been several months since I test-drove a Mazda MPV, and the gift certificate that was promised has yet to cross my path. On the other hand, the free gift for testdriving the Lincoln Towncar was promptly received and much appreciated. While the Towncar wasn't for me, I fell in like with the Lincoln LS, which I discussed in the last installment of this column. Don't even get me started about Nissan. I drove the Altima last fall, and the promised incentive has yet to appear.

How much Car do you need? The Special Edition Saturn SL's

Speaking of testdrives, recently I checked out two special edition Saturns. What caught my eye was an advertisement for a Saturn SL with Air Conditioning for $9995. As most of you know, Saturn practices a "no-haggle" pricing strategy. This has worked for them to a point, but it has limits. In my experience, the list prices of Saturns have always been competitive, but when you figure the discounts available on other cars, the Saturn is less competitive. Moreover, the more options on the cars, the less competitive the Saturns become. If you have your hearts set on a Saturn though, I encourage you to keep an eye out for the Special Editions. Instead of discounting, Saturn will regularly produce a limited edition of a model with an option package that is specially discounted. In this case, the SL series, the traditional Saturns will be discontinued at the end of the 2002 model year. They will be replaced by the new ION, a larger car that is really only 200 lbs and a few inches smaller than the (dull) L series midsize. http://www.car-data.com/xpage.preview/pre.template.asp?mfg=saturn&model=ion

To keep up interest in the lame-duck SL's Saturn produced two special editions of the SL; the spartan, but-not-stripped $9995 SL Blue model and the SL-1 Sport edition for $11,600. The SL-1 Sport is the version that I drove. It is unique in that it has the up-market SL-2 interior, but with the SL-1 single cam engine. With a CD player, sunroof, spoiler, and a bunch of extras, it is a very good value. The single cam engine with a 5-speed performs adequately, and it provides fuel economy numbers that are hard to find these days. The bottom line is that at half the cost of the average car and with twice the gas mileage, this is a very good commuter car that you can drive for half the per-mile cost of the average car. With the CD playing and the sunroof open, I doubt if you'd feel like you're roughing it. If you're interested, get to your Saturn dealer soon. At the 4th of July break they were to switch the line over from the SL to the ION, so when these are gone, they're gone.

How much does your car cost to drive? Edmunds.com "True Cost to Own"

One of my favorite car sites, Edmunds.com has a new feature where you can compare the total ownership costs between different car models. Their "True Cost to Own" model includes such factors as depreciation and insurance, fuel economy, service requirements etc. The automated feature is still a little buggy and doesn't have info on every car model, but it is promising. The results can be surprising. For example, it costs about the same amount per mile to own an Audi A-6 as it does a Volkswagen Passat. A Ford Taurus is 10 cents a mile more expensive than a Honda Accord, mostly due to depreciation. It appears that most vehicles that I could check hovered in the 45-55 cents per mile range. When you compare this to what our work mileage reimbursement is, and what the IRS allows, inexpensive cars such as the Saturn SL look more attractive. http://www.edmunds.com/advice/specialreports/articles/59897/article.html?id= lin9126

The 2003 Honda Accord -The most popular car gets a redesign.

While we're on the subject of cars, I want to provide links to car sites that have previewed the new Accord. The Honda Accord is the best-selling car in the U.S. (if you don't count fleet purchases) so anytime that it's redesigned it is major news in the auto industry. http://www.caranddriver.com/xp/Caranddriver/features/2002/july/20020730-feature-new-accord.xml http://www.edmunds.com/reviews/roadtests/firstdrive/68223/article.html http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=5136&sid=180&n=157

The South is Rising Again - Is Alabama becoming the automaking capital of the U.S.?

According to recent press reports, Honda is planning on adding the capability to build another 100,000 Odyssey minivans and Honda Pilots at their new Alabama factory. Nissan hasn't even opened it's new Alabama plant that is designed to build full-sized pickups, SUVs and minivans, but they are already adding capacity. With the Nissan 3.5 liter V-6 making 287 horsepower in the new 350Z sportscar, and 240 horsepower in the Altima family car, it looks like Nissan may have the goods to take serious market share from the Big 3 and their unionized plants. This makes it even more frustrating that the UAW was shot down in flames in a recent attempt to unionize the existing Nissan plant in Tennessee. The UAW really needs to check itself and figure out what it's selling and what it needs to sell in order to get the non-unionized workers to join. Below is a link to an artist's sketch of the 2004 Nissan Quest minivan http://pc99.detnews.com/autosinsider/sneakpeek/index.hbs?myrec=5

From the Bad Hands People - the worst insurance

About.com has published a list of the worst buys in insurance. It's worth a read http://personalinsure.about.com/library/weekly/aa072400a.htm

The worst insurance may be life insurance that you never know about and only your employer receives the proceeds. It's called Janitors Insurance. Would your company be better off if you're dead? In April, the Wall Street Journal ran a multi-part expose' of Janitors Insurance. What is Janitors Insurance? Check out the article available on the WSJ free section: http://online.wsj.com/article-email/0,,SB101916548622630040,00.html

Guadalcanal Anniversary This month marks the 60th anniversary of the American invasion of Guadalcanal. The August 1942 invasion marked America's first sustained offensive action of World War II and started a see-saw campaign over the land sea and air that peaked in October but wasn't really over until the Japanese withdrew their starving troops in February 1943. Google lists 97,000 links to Guadalcanal. My favorite Guadalcanal weblink is Guadalcanal Then and Now - Compares vintage battle photography to 1990s images. http://www.guadalcanal.homestead.com/

My favorite Guadalcanal book is The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942, by John B. Lundstrom. This meticulously-researched book describes how a small fraternity of Marine pilots (and stranded Navy comrades) stopped the Japanese offensive in hand-me-down planes. The Lundstrom book is available from Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1557505268/atribtothecac-20/104-7190004-7995936

Something for Everyone on Comedy Tonight - Comedystars Comedy Encyclopedia

I stumbled upon a really cool site, http://www.comedystars.net. Among other things, this site includes a comprehensive encyclopedia of Comedians. Did you know that Don Adams, (of Get Smart fame) was a WWII Guadalcanal veteran? Overall, this is the type of site that, if it were in book form, I'd have a hard time leaving Borders without buying it. http://www.comedystars.net/

Speaking of Comedians, for a site focused on one entertainer only, check out The First church of Dan Aykroyd: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/2976/danaykroydintro.html (The depth of this site isn't immediately apparent. You need to play around with the links.)

The Wi-Fi Explosion

If you're looking for the next big thing in computers, it's wireless networking. I'm not going to bore you with technical details. If I did, I'd have to spend time checking my facts, and that just doesn't fit with my personality. I have to say, I don't have a wireless card yet because I don't control the pocketbook in my household. (If I did control the household finances, a wireless connection would be really useful because my household would probably be a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER.) Anyway, I'm keeping my eye on wireless networking because it could end up being the broadband connection for the rest of us. In essence wireless networks let multiple users share one broadband connection. You can set this up as one user paying full fair and the rest acting as free riders, or everyone can chip in a reasonable amount. At least two companies, Boingo and Joltage, are experimenting with aggregating wireless nodes or "hotspots" into ad-hoc networks. Their websites are below http://www.boingo.com/

http://www.joltage.com/jsp/home/home.jsp

Here's an interesting newsstory from ZDNET about an underground movement in Great Britain for identifying hotspots and marking them with chalk, a phenomenon known as warchalking:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-939483.html

Political Humor + Music

The Boot Newt Sing Along Page advertises itself as having early 1,400 Political Song parodies. I didn't count them or try them all out. The few I checked raised a chuckle or two. http://bootnewt.tripod.com/

Name that Tune Patriotic Song Game

This link was timely for the 4th of July - Save it for next year http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/nametune2.htm

K&N Air Filters

Well, the Googleteer ª doesn't get skunked too often, but I've been looking for objective opinions about the effectiveness of K&N aftermarket airfilters. I haven't found any. K&N filters cost about $50 give or take. Supposedly they are extra-efficient, add 5-10 horsepower to your car and can be cleaned and reused, so effectively they last the life of your car. Here's the K&N site http://www.knfilters.com/facts.htm

I'm about to lay down my money for one of these. I'm hesitating, because if these filters do everything they claim, why aren't they prominently featured as original equipment by a carmaker looking for an edge? If you read this and have an opinion on the K&N filters, e-mail me at conslawNOSPAM@aol.com.(Delete the nospam before sending the mail, just put in the conslaw part)

Weird Al concertfinder

I know what you're thinking, where is Weird Al Yankovic playing tonight? Find out at http://showcase.netins.net/web/mikewrld/cgi-bin/concert.html

Schoolhouse Rock DVD

Imagine everything you learned in school from ages 6-12 being crammed into one dvd. Well, all those old schoolhouse rock videos (you know Conjunction Junction etc.) have been combined into one volume for the first time in a dvd to be released in August. http://www.dvdfile.com/news/web-wire/press-release/titles/schoolhouserock.html

Spamnet - could this be the first step towards a cure for unwanted e-mail?

I'm sick to death of Spam in my AOL account. I've had the account for 10 years, but I'm on giving it up because of increasing Spam e-mail. A new program called Spamnet has gotten good reviews for blocking almost all spam with very few nonspam messages. How does it do it? The more subscribers that rate a message as spam, the greater confidence that it can be blocked. For broadly distributed spam, the first few recipients can keep everybody else from wasting their time on the message. It seems like a great idea that should have been implemented a long time ago. Why wasn't it? I don't know. More to the point I don't think it's going to work on AOL, so unless their spam filtering has gotten a lot better in version 7.0, a lot of longterm AOL users will have incentive to switch ISPs. http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2872317,00.html

Soundboard Fun

Perhaps this whole "work" thing just isn't doing anything for you. Perhaps you just don't feel like talking and you'd like to have a celebrity or a cartoon character do the talking for you. Check out the Soundboard fun from TechTV.com http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/siteofthenite/story/0,24330,3340113,00.ht ml

ilibrary.org - Free Database searches

Have you found a link to a magazine or newspaper article only to find that the full-text can only be accessed by subscribers or there is a hefty access charge. Your public library may have already paid the access fee. Check out this site. http://www.ilibrary.org/ (I found out about this site right after state budget cuts have put ilibrary on the chopping block in my area.)

The Googleteerª What's a Filk? Take a popular song and replace the lyrics. That's a filk. I ran a Google.com search on "Filk" and lyrics" 5550 hits. Am I the last one to know about this word?

Tiger Territory Today's featured animal is the tiger. We've done otters, and I forget what else. Did you know there are (or were) 8 subspecies of tiger? What about ligers? Tigons? This site has a lot of information that I'd never seen before, not even in National Geographic. http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/

Dreamkids a fraud?

Last year I looked into a situation for a person who had a problem with a company called Dreamkids. Dreamkids sold jewelry through a store on eBay. DreamKids touted itself as a charitable organization associated with basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon. I suspected a fraud, but I looked on the web, and the only thing that I could find was the organizations own site (which has since disappeared. I've expected more publicity since then but things have been quiet. I did find this link to an investigative report by a Tampa television station WTVT: http://www.wtvt.com/investreptr/dreamkids.html

DVDs too clever for their own good?

I silently shake my head when I see an "older person" having trouble with technology. Well, I've met my match. For six months off and on I've been battling to get the DVD-Rom features to work on the Shrek DVD, especially the famous "ReVoice Studio" program. I thought I was just incompetent, but I have a friend who is a chemical engineer, a real achiever type, and he's had trouble too. I did a little surfing - a lot really - and I found a help file from Synchroarts, the company that developed the ReVoice Studio. Apparently you can run the program from a DOS window. (Yes, DOS!). It's on my list of things to do. Meanwhile, here's the link. http://www.synchroarts.com/revoicestudio/help.html

What are all those Programs running on my Windows Machine? If you ever use Cnt-Alt-Del to determine what programs are running on your system, you'll often find some programs that are total mysteries. This site, www.answersthatwork.com, has an excellent directory that describes what these mystery programs do and which you can delete without harming your system. http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist-pages/tasklist.htm

The Name is Bond - James Bond

Here's a site with midi files of all - or almost all of the James Bond themes, and a good bit of incidental music from the films. If you're ever having a hard time getting your engine revved up at work, you'll be surprised at how much playing James Bond music can get you going. http://www.thebondlounge.faithweb.com/midi/midi.htm

I Know Where You Are and I know What You Do - And I Can Make You Watch Me.

At work, I've been plagued with pop-ups and pop-unders. These are the ads that come up without invitation in your browser window. There are two types of these. The first is driven by the actual site that you're visiting. This type of pop-up is quasi-legitimate because the site-owner believes that this type of advertising is necessary to get your attention, and since you're visiting the site for free, it's a cost of the access. The second type of pop-up is more invidious, and while the first type is annoying, the second type is alarming. The second type of pop-up is driven by "spyware". A spyware program is hidden is installed in your system either surrupticiously or by deception. The spyware then runs in the background, monitoring everything that you do, and every website that you visit. It then reports back to the "main office". It has two main uses - so far. The first, employers use it to monitor their employees. The second, companies use it to gather information about you to either sell directed advertising - which then comes in the form of a surprise pop-up. Recently, a dangerous offshoot has emerged, the the "drive-by download", http://news.com.com/2100-1023-877568.html. The most notorious spyware company is called Gator. Gator has been sued by some high profile web publishers for hijacking their viewers. This could be a landmark case. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-943547.html Gator claims First Amendment protection, and at the same time is claiming the moral high road, calling for advertising standards. http://www.cnet.com/software/0-8888-8-9697191-1.html While it seems that the best answer to spyware directed advertising, and pop-up advertising in general, is just not to buy the advertised products, the answer isn't that simple. First-off, are you really going to decide not to buy the car you want because you received a pop-up advertisement for that brand? Heck, if they couldn't get people to boycott merchants who profited from apartheid in South Africa, do you really think a boycott of pop-up advertisers is going to stick? Secondly, spyware merchants don't have to use it to sell advertising directly, they can sell the usage information. Ê It took two attempts but I finally had success in ridding my work computer of spyware. I used a program called Adaware. Adaware is a free download from Cnet. http://download.com.com/3000-2094-10045910.html?legacy=cnet

Good and Bad Amusement Parks.

Bad Business of the Week - Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom

In a mid-July family trip to Kentucky Kingdom, on a misty Tuesday, my kids were devastated when management decided to close down the water park due to "low attendance". Hey, Six Flags - if you want to guarantee low attendance, keep closing down half the park in the middle of the day because it's only half full. The park wasn't particularly clean, and the employees moped around like they didn't want to be there. They gave me passes to go back because I complained about closing the water park, but they didn't even offer anything to the broad range of guests. I'm not putting any links to Kentucky Kingdom, but I am putting links to two competitors that are cleaner, have nicer employees and are more fun. Two good businesses of the week; Kings Island and Holiday World.

Paramount's Kings Island http://www.pki.com/

Holiday World and Splashing Safari http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=holiday+world+splashing+safari

It's time to put this installment to bed. I'll check in with you in the fall. Bye Bye.

Steve Hofer - Feel free to e-mail me at conslawnospam@aol.com (remove the "nospam")

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