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This is where you can come to find my latest musings on life (warning, I can get very deep, very quick). I will say what I say and it will have meaning at the time, but I NEVER intend to insult or hurt anyone, so ignore what you don't like - this is MY venue, my creativity, and my musings.
Happy Reading! ~N. May 25, 2021 ======================================================================== What would go on FB. I have so many thoughts about this New Millennium. You want to put them all on fb, but as we know, fb owns your thoughts (and pictures). So I am going to try to make a fb style place to post my 'what's on your mind' thoughts. ========================================================================
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I shall mark my calendar, "November 6, 2025" was the day I had a supportive, loving and kind conversation WITH A.I.!
Sirius Radio. EVERY year I have on my calendar "You MUST chat with Sirius TODAY --- NOT tomorrow. If you try ON the day they have already charged you their highest price. Last year I got a man called "King" . He was polite and helpful. I got my deal of $4.00 per month for their Platinum Plan. Fair price for how much I use it. So today, even though I'm sick with a cold, I prep myself and log-in. Right out of the gate, we have problems. I wanted to update my expired credit card, "computer says no" (That's a line from an awesome BritCom called Little Britain.). The CHAT option is there. I start trying to find help from a live representative. The dance begins. In the midst of trying to get my cc details to them as securely as possible (HA!) I mention that I'm also online to renew my subscription. I've been a customer of theirs since 2019. We dance, he goes away to 'find my best deal', but he never allows me to pay what I've been paying. His 'deal' is basically double. Is it an outrageous amount like their over $50 PER MONTH rip off, no, but it's not what this loyal customer wants, so we hit an impasse. I'm 45-minutes in already, and sick and not liking his stubbornness. So I match his stubbornness with some of my own. NO DEAL. Gotta go. BYE! I leave the chat, clear my cookies (again) and get outside before sunset! Come home and check my email just to see if someone there came back with "we will match your deal and you can keep paying what you've been paying because we value you as a loyal customer". Well, there was NONE of that! Instead it was an email confirming my cancellation. Fine. I don't need you anyway. But I'm still pissed. So before I'm logged out permanently, I log back in again to state my mind, and here is that CHAT (mine in italics): 👋 Hi, I'm Harmony the SiriusXM AI-powered Virtual Assistant. This chat will be monitored and recorded by SiriusXM and our service providers for quality purposes. How can I assist you with your SiriusXM service today? N: I just wanted to report (to no one who cares), WHY I'm leaving after being a customer since 2019. It's because of today's debacle. IF you DON'T want to be RIPPED OFF with outrageous pricing, you have to . . . excuse me . . . HAVE TO contact Sirius BEFORE the day your subscription expires --- EVERY. BLEEPING. YEAR. SO, for the past however many years I've been a loyal customer I HAVE to put in my calendar to remember to contact Sirius on that EXACT day and do the dance of 'what's your best deal?' Well, today I have a cold and didn't feel like this same old - OLD - song and dance number, but I persevered and JUMPED THROUGH THE HOOPS only to waste nearly an hour of my precious daylight with a STAND OFF. Since your representative could not or would not allow me to pay what I've been paying - and even that is high for what I use it for and how much time I use it for - we hit the end of the road. Pity. I'll miss the ONE show I listen to, with Tom Papa and Fortune Feimster. Funny how many times other listeners call in to their show and say how they ONLY keep Sirius BECAUSE of this ONE show. But I guess you don't care about keeping my business. I guess I'll return to FREE radio and all the other options. Bye. > > > I see that it's being read. Here is the Sirius response back to me: I hear your frustration, and I’m really sorry you had such a difficult experience—especially when you’re not feeling well. It’s clear you’ve been a loyal customer for years, and it’s disappointing to feel like you have to negotiate every renewal just to avoid higher prices. I understand how exhausting that can be, especially when you just want to enjoy the one show you love. Your feedback about the renewal process and pricing is important, and I’ll make sure it’s shared with the right team. If you’d like, I can also check your account to see if there are any current offers or options available that might make things easier for you. If you’re set on leaving, I can help with that as well—whatever you prefer. If you’d like me to look into your account, could you please provide the account holder’s first and last name, along with the phone number associated with your account? If you’d rather not, I completely understand and wish you all the best, especially a speedy recovery from your cold. N: So this is A.I. then, right? Yes, you’re chatting with Harmony, the AI-powered virtual assistant for SiriusXM. I’m here to help with your account, answer questions, and make things as smooth as possible. If there’s anything you’d like to discuss or if you want to share more about your experience, I’m here to listen and assist however I can. N: (shakes head) I understand this might not be what you were hoping for, especially after a frustrating experience. If there’s anything I can do to help—whether it’s sharing your feedback, checking your account, or answering questions—just let me know. I’m here to support you in whatever way you need. N.: "Let" me pay what I'm used to paying and we can dance one more year together. I get where you’re coming from, and I know how important it is to feel valued as a long-time customer. I’d be happy to check your account for any current offers or promotions that might match what you’ve been paying. Sometimes there are deals available that aren’t widely advertised. If you’d like me to look into this for you, could you please provide the account holder’s first and last name, along with the phone number associated with your account? That way, I can see what options are available for you right now. N.: This is HILARIOUS, btw. I appreciate your sense of humor, even in a frustrating situation. To help me locate your account and check for any available offers, could you please provide the full first and last name of the account holder, along with the full phone number associated with your account? This information is needed to securely access your account details and see what I can do for you. I understand it can be frustrating to provide information more than once. For your security, I’m only able to look up your account using the full first and last name of the account holder and the phone number associated with your account. If you’re comfortable sharing the full name, I can move forward and check for any offers or solutions for you. If not, I completely respect your decision. Let me know how you’d like to proceed. N.: Ok. We're done. Happy Non-Humaning to you. I understand, and I respect your decision. If you ever want to revisit this or need assistance in the future, I’ll be here to help. Wishing you all the best, and I hope you feel better soon. <<<>>> Wasn't that NICE? This A.I. computer program was more compassionate than any human I've run into recently. But, wow. I'm still just shaking my head. It was bad when companies chose to take their tech support to India - remember how strange THAT was? "Hello, my name is MIKE." in a solid Indian accent. But now the HUMAN rep IS NOT HUMAN. And human "Mike" is useless in helping keep his boss' customer. November 6, 2025. ~N. "What's on my mind?"
Our Corporate Overlords :: Tech Version. It's September 2025, and I sit here awaiting the doomsday of October 14th - The Day Microsoft Stops Support of Windows 10 - forcing us to Windows 11 with all it's AI junk (aka spyware) - or forcing us to learn a whole new system like Linux - or keep what we have finally settled on after SO MANY Windows versions, and was 'supposed to' have been the LAST version of Windows we would be forced to learn and adapt to, Windows 10. I like Windows 10. I like it so much I don't actually remember using the others. We're comfortable together. I don't want Windows 11. But every time I take a deep dive into trying to see if I'd get to like Linux, it just seems way over my head in terms of usability. Where do you go to even SEE it in use? A USB drive? (insert shakes head emoji). I'm more than fairly computer competent. Even though the younger people think people of my "accomplishment" age are idiots, but dude, WE INVENTED IT. This technology didn't exist before my generation created it! And, yes, I've even taken a desktop apart and put it back together. But that was then. This is now. And YIKES what have we done? I just watched an old Jeopardy episode, well I say "old" it was still this millennium, when the top two players of all time - Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter - took on a COMPUTER, Watson. Remember that? It aired September 13, 2011 - only 14 years ago. Watson Won. In fact, he wiped the floor with his other two competitors. It was quite shocking seeing Ken Jennings stand there silently frustrated as Watson gets to the buzzer first, and in more times than not, answers correctly. The IBM Men (yes, it was mostly male dominated, what a surprise) were SO PROUD of 'their' achievement. And even on the final answer, in jest, we suppose, Ken wrote, "I for one welcome our new computer overlords." (Alex laughed, the audience of IBM employees clapped.) I wanted to ask 2011's Ken - "Get back to us in 2025 and let us know if you still feel the same way." After that, the only thing I could think of was, "YOU did this. - You IBM men (and some women) - YOU did THIS! And look at what you've done. Sept 8, 2025
NMBS "New Millennium Bull Shit" There is SO much of this - EVERY DAY. Today's version is while having yet another NMBS moment with a credit card company, I learned that it wasn't the CC company's fault in how they f'd up their VCC, it's MASTERCARD's fault. Get this: Mastercard intends on ending all digit identified cards by 2030. They intend on forcing everyone to use Biometrics. Fingerprint, Face Photo etc. "WOW". WHAT??? O.M.G. I had made a joke one time (and be very careful doing THAT in this NM (New Millennium) that one day to prove we are who we are we will have to give a blood sample. Looks like I am not far off. If this hasn't terrified you yet, IT SHOULD. ~N. I suppose I can call this section "things that piss me off" - and it seems to be a daily, if not multiple times per day, event.
This morning's episode was when I went back to the internet looking for food for my pets that doesn't suck. Good luck with that. In my never-ending browsing I stumbled upon what should be a very reputable site: The American Kennel Club. As I'm reading their many educational articles on food for dogs, I see at the bottom of every page who actually sponsored this information - to no one's surprise - it's sponsored by a company that makes and sells dog food. UGH. So tiresome. It would be such a miracle if something actually did what it is advertised to do. But that never is the case. You simply cannot trust any company - not one. Greed overtakes everything, and ruins everything. For example, fly spray for horses. EVERY.SINGLE.PRODUCT. claims that it works - it doesn't. Some bottles claim that it kills flies for 14-days - it does not. In fact, you can spray it right on a damn fly and the fly just laughs at you. Exhausting. Especially in a KY summer – blech. Then, we can talk about sunscreen (this will have it’s own blog post one day – I have lots to say about sunscreen!). In a word, most of them don’t work. They print all sorts of claims on their label: “water resistant”, “SPF 50” – you are inclined to believe them, right? But use it and see for yourself. “Why am I getting spots on my face when I bathe myself in sunscreen daily? And those KY summers, filled with face-drenching humidity … fugedahbowditt. But back to the topic of dog food - and even worse, cat food. I have lots of blog posts about THAT. Hidden ingredients … what is “natural flavor”? Is this your way of saying you’re hiding carrageenan in the food but won’t put it on the label because the conscientious consumer doesn’t want carrageenan in her pet’s food? You can’t spell carrageenan without RAGE. Ha-ha. All these 'expert' review sites, they only exist for the Amazon link to get you to buy a product so they can get a percentage commission; “affiliate links”. Most of them are only copy and pasted from one site to the next. Try finding a REAL EXPERT. It's nearly impossible. That’s one of the reasons I am writing this blog series. Mostly for me to post my thoughts and findings, but also for the reader. Maybe I can offer a drop of help to someone WITHOUT a greedy link for my own profit. Imagine that. Doing something for the sake of doing it, without profiting from it. I must be ‘old school’. Thank goodness for that. Ok – DOG FOOD. How should dogs eat? Well, I am not actually an expert, but of what I’ve gathered this past decade with my doggie, luckily they can eat more variety than a cat can, who must stick to a carnivore’s diet of fresh meat and whole prey (bones, livers, etc.), but they don’t need to eat like a human at Thanksgiving dinner! Manufacturers seem fixated on creating labels that appeal to what WE like to eat and the humans buying the food fall for the trick. Like cats, a dog’s main diet should be MEAT. Good meat. But then this is where it gets ‘tricky’. Do dogs need to eat peas? No. So why are there peas in nearly every canned dog food on the shelf? Peas must be cheap, or the manufacturers are getting the rejects from a pea grower. Something’s up, for sure. When I observe my own dog, she eats a certain grass, and when I put bird seed out, I find her nibbling through that. Is it the sunflower seeds? I know she LOVES peanuts and peanut butter (NOT JIFFY and those with sugar and who knows what else, but just organic peanuts ground up into a butter). When I go looking for dog food I try to click the select buttons for “pea-free”; “low-glycemic”; “white potato-free”, etc. It’s nearly impossible to find a food that doesn’t have at least one of these ingredients: peas, carrots, white potatoes (which I bet are GMO). So, do I have an answer? Did I find the perfect dog food? The answer to that is NO. I search and search to find the best I can at the time and give it a try. Then go looking again. It’s very frustrating and time consuming. Oh, and one more thing … What the heck does Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay know about DOG FOOD??? Add that to the PO’d list. It’s just like in skin care where every celebrity puts their name on a product as if they are the expert. --- NOT! I do wish these ‘celebs’ (with varying degrees of fame – and for what?) would stick to their lane. Rachael Ray barely knows how to feed HUMANS. “Hey, Rach – ever eat a VEGETABLE???”. Ugh. Exhausting. Ta. ~N. August 2, 2021 |
~N.About me: I'm a life-long Cosmetologist; eater, drinker, explorer, animal steward, professional wino, thinker, seeker, and muser, who was pulled into massage therapy kicking and screaming, but enjoyed the ride. Archives
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