SinoPenn

Back in the states last week, among some of the commercials I saw were a few annoying ones from a company advertising freecreditreport.com. The songs were dumb, and the commercials were on so often during daytime television that those loser-esque tunes would soon stick in your head for days to come if you didn’t weed it out via AC/DC or something. I won’t pretend to know exactly how they make their money, but given what’s posted on the US Government website, they’re not exactly the ones to go to.

Only one website is authorized to fill orders for the free annual credit report you are entitled to under law — annualcreditreport.com. Other websites that claim to offer “free credit reports,” “free credit scores,” or “free credit monitoring” are not part of the legally mandated free annual credit report program. In some cases, the “free” product comes with strings attached. For example, some sites sign you up for a supposedly “free” service that converts to one you have to pay for after a trial period. If you don’t cancel during the trial period, you may be unwittingly agreeing to let the company start charging fees to your credit card.

Some “imposter” sites use terms like “free report” in their names; others have URLs that purposely misspell annualcreditreport.com in the hope that you will mistype the name of the official site. Some of these “imposter” sites direct you to other sites that try to sell you something or collect your personal information.

Annualcreditreport.com and the nationwide consumer reporting companies will not send you an email asking for your personal information. If you get an email, see a pop-up ad, or get a phone call from someone claiming to be from annualcreditreport.com or any of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies, do not reply or click on any link in the message. It’s probably a scam. Forward any such email to the FTC at spam@uce.gov.

There you have it. AnnualCreditReport.com. No silly jingles. Unfortunately, no access outside of the United States either.

The AnnualCreditReport.com website is only accessible through ISPs (Internet Service Providers)
located within the United States and its territories.

One of the reasons I was home was because of the death of my Step-father. About 3 days had passed when my mother received a phone call from a creditor (outsourced to India, of course). The bill was for something valued at around $60. Not sure what it was. Upon learning of his death, this creditor proceeded to tell us that the bill still needs to be paid. It would still reflect on his credit report, and we wouldn’t want the deceased to have a bad credit score, would we? WOULD WE?!

What the hell is that? Your credit score now matters AFTER you die? Who the hell thought of that one? I’d appreciate anyone telling me why that would matter to me. When I’m dead, I’m pretty sure they won’t honor a car loan request. Then again…

As soon as I find myself a nice working US Proxy, I’ll see if I can find out what mine is, just out of curiosity. Doubt there’s much on there, considering the time I’ve lived overseas. But I certainly am curious.

The song, Lightning Crashes, as sung by Live, has always been known as the Bad Luck song by myself & Ben, my friend back home. Every time we heard this song randomly, something bad would happen. It didn’t work if we specifically played it. But if it happened to come on the radio (in heavy rotation back then), the curse would strike.

For example: We were driving around town & the song played. We got back to our friend Gary’s place, where I called my girlfriend. She promptly broke up with me.

Another time, I’d just finished work and had a couple drinks at Snuffy’s. (Before you say it, no this was NOT drunk driving, as it was only 2.) The song played on the radio when I was there. As I left, I got in my car and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue. I got as far as the Draft House when I got rear-ended by a guy in a new Bonneville. His car, not a scratch. My car, totalled. Nice Oldsmobile Cutlass, of the 1986 vintage too!

Again, driving around, again, heading… somewhere, the song played. Ben’s Cavalier broke down.

Again, the song played, then a phone call came in. Ben’s girlfriend dumped him (though this happened a lot with that particular girlfriend).

This all came back to me today as I was listening to music and the song played. I have the mp3 it seems. Came with a collection I downloaded. Since this is technically “random”, the curse struck.

My computer crashed out, bringing an hours worth of work with it, and now I’m plagued with intermittent computer problems. It seems the curse is still in effect and is no longer only associated with girls & cars.

San Diego, California. My first real experience in California. Before this, I’d often joked that California was simply another country, and instead claimed Canada as a state instead. I was certainly wrong about that.

We cut our trip to Warren short so Grace could visit WD-40’s home office. Grace & I spent 3 days in beautiful, mild weather, fine restaurants & of course, the beach. Thanks to David at WD-40, who played host during our stay, we managed to see some of the best parts of San Diego in a rather short time. These parts include Del Mar, Jakes Restaurant & an overall view of the city & its suburbs.

The beaches were fantastic, and the sunset was beautiful that first evening. We had dinner at Jake’s Bar in Del Mar, during the Horse Races. The restaurant itself was packed, and while I love seafood, I had to pass this time, as I’m not that skilled at eating shelled sea creatures without making a mess.

The 2nd Evening, after Grace finished her meetings with HR & Logistics, we ventured out on our own and walked over to The Bondi. The restaurant, owned by various people in WD-40, features Australian cuisine and beer, including James Boag’s Premium on tap. Nicely decorated with good music, this venue is worth the stop.

Our stay was unfortunately short, as the third day took us to San Francisco, then back to Shanghai. Apparently we just missed Comic Con as well as a small earthquake during the trip. All the more reason to go back!

For those in Shanghai, James Boag’s is available from Just Beer & various bars. Enjoy! I certainly do!

The Mrs. and I returned from a two week vacation in both my hometown of Warren, PA and her company office in San Diego. As always, it was good to get back, and as always, I gained about 10lbs. But in my defence, those chocolate ice-cream cakes are FANTASTIC!!!

We spend the first 10 days in Warren, where I showed Grace around town. Some of the pics are on her blog. We hit up the usual spots… Kinzua Dam, Washington Park, a few malls here & there, Freddies’ Bar & Grill…. While it’s all old hack to me, having grown up there, Warren does seem to impress those who aren’t from there, and it’s especially impressive when you can see a BLUE sky, as opposed to Shanghai’s grey-ish sky, and stars at night, as opposed to Shanghai’s off-colored moon & 2 random planets.

As usual, I got on www.hellificare.com, another hometown website, and as usual, announced that there was STILL NO sign of Yetis, Bigfoots (bigfeet?) or alien dentists in white trenchcoats ANYWHERE in the Kinzua vicinity, despite some of the more vehement posts on that site about their existance.

A trip to Erie PA brought us to the Quaker Steak & Lube restaurant. Back in College, my ex, Angela & I went there to try the Suicide wings, one step below the “Atomic Wings”, the ones you have to sign a waiver for before eating. Talk about HOT!!! This time around, we went a step lower & got the “Hot” wings instead. Perhaps it’s living over here too long that gave me a much better tolerance for anything spicy, according to the missus, but neither one of us thought they were even REMOTELY hot. We’ll have to try the Suicides again, next time we’re back.

Another day took us to Niagara Falls, where Grace got some fantastic shots of the falls. We did attempt to go over to Canada while we were there, but were quickly turned back at the Canadian Customs office. Visa office in Buffalo? Who’d have thought! It’s okay though, as we figured as much. The Colt .45 was NOT in Niagara Falls, by the way.

My recent news article on www.warrenpa.us regarding Rep. Kathy Rapp may have sounded a bit harsh to Rep. Kathy Rapp. I fully support what I wrote, though perhaps it was more for here & not the front page of Warren’s biggest website (so I like to think anyways…)

As a disclaimer, I’m hardly against Rapp. For the most part, she does good for Warren, and I’d like to think she has Warren’s best intentions in mind. But to further what I wrote in that article, I do believe legislation such as what she’s proposing slowly rips our sort of democracy apart, piece by piece. The more rights we take away from people we may see as different, the more rights will be taken away from us by people who think we’re different.

If it was your own son or daughter, would you sign any legislation to limit their rights as individuals? Or how about one of your co-workers who may not be telling you the whole story about themselves? Perhaps it’s the couple gentlemen or ladies sitting at the next table over at Perkins having a nice chat about the Google Censorship issue in China. Who’s rights are you willing to take away merely by signing a petition?

Perhaps a friendly reminder to those who think American Democracy is the best thing after sliced bread, the Greeks are famed for coming up with the concept of democracy. For the most part, if the Ancient Greek society were here today, we’d probably label them a country full of gay pedophiles.

I’m sitting here in front of my spiffy new Dell Laptop conducting business as usual when a thought occured to me. Despite living in China for the last 4 years, Indirectly, I still surround myself with things from home. On my wall is a map of Warren I got from Jim Decker’s WCCBI office last time I was home. My cigarette is certainly NOT from Warren, but my coffee mug, a Guinness Beer mug given to me by my cousins, Jaime & Jimmy, is filled with my usual somewhat strong 3rd cup of instant. Even the spoon is from my mother’s silverware drawer. Sorry, mom, I’ll bring it back next time I come home if you want.

My wallet still contains my Moose Lodge #109 membership card & my American Legion post 135 card (which reminds me, I really should find out about renewing these memberships. And behind me the wall displays an old Warren Jaycees Fourth of July Celebration poster from 2003.

I’ve been running WarrenJaycees.com for about 7 years now, and I started WarrenPA.us about 2 years ago, initially to keep updated with what’s going on back home. I never planned on making it a commercial venture, but with the addition of JamestownNY.us & EdinboroPA.us, it’s starting to turn into one. WarrenPA.us used to be a sub-section of WarrenJaycees.com until I bought the Terascape.net domain name (To this day, I still thank the Jaycees for letting me run amok on their servers for 5 years). I couldn’t hope to compete with WarrenNet (which is either gone or blocked here in China) & to this day I still don’t. Debra Westfall still has the most complete index of everything in Warren online, and for that I salute her. Terascape.net/warren was born & from there, WarrenPA.us. It was a rocky start, but eventually it grew to what it is today. I joined WCCBI, got caught up with my Moose & Legion memberships & still scream for collaboration with businesses back home with little to no results. That’s Warren Online for ya.

All that came from me wanting to stay caught up with Warren news & information. Funny thing about Warren, people leave, but they still come back, even if it’s just through the internet.