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My Main Goal For 2016

15 Comments Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by Snoskred

I have a few things I would like to achieve this year. There is one major goal, though – and it is –

Eat Less, Move More.

This is a pretty simple goal. It needs to happen. My weight has been quietly creeping up to a place I am not a fan of. At the start of January, I weighed in at 95.2kg – (209.88 pounds) – if I let things continue this way, I’d soon be over 100kgs.

The Other Half and I bought ourselves the Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas. We got them on special for $124 each. This little gadget has changed my life in a good way – I will do a post all about it later this month once I have been using it a little longer. Here is a quick look at the dashboard, which you will see in more detail in my upcoming post. :)

As a part of the Fitbit thing, I’m also tracking my food intake. I was doing it with the inbuilt Fitbit food logging software, but I have now switched to MyFitnessPal. You can find me here – MyFitnessPal & Fitbit.

We bought the Fitbits on Tuesday, so I weigh in on Tuesday mornings and in the first week I lost 1.3kg (2.86 pounds).

Of course one of the very first things we did was go out for a long walk, during which I managed to pinch a nerve in my foot, making it difficult to get my 10,000 steps a day for that first week. In fact for two days I had to rest and limp about – then I injured it again and had to take another rest day. That has been quite frustrating. However even on a rest day I managed 6468 steps which is pretty decent.

I know I have a couple of readers who have set themselves the same goal and at least one thinking about buying themselves a Fitbit, so here are my lessons learned after one week.

Start Out Slow.

As soon as you get that Fitbit, you’ll want to get moving. However if you do that, you will not have a baseline to know how many steps you would usually do in a day. So my advice the first day is – do what you would do on a regular day.

Be Careful

An injury will hinder your progress and frustrate you, so rather than go all out, ramp up your exercise slowly. If you are not doing 10,000 steps to begin with, aim to add a thousand steps each day.

Work It Out

It is useful to figure out how many steps you get from things you do regularly. For example, if I need to run to the shops, it will be 2,000 steps or so. A shower is usually 200-300 steps – I keep mine on, you don’t have to, of course. Why is this important?

Step Budget

If you know that you have to do grocery shopping tomorrow, and you know that is going to be around 2,000 steps, you might want to cut back on your other activities.

For example – I like to get on the treadmill and do a walk but I will always stop around 8,000 steps because I know the rest of my daily doings (dinner, cleaning, etc) will be around 2,000 steps. On the day you see pictured above, we discovered we did not have an essential dinner ingredient, so off to the shops we went – and I went way over on my steps for that day.

Not that going over 10,000 steps is a major problem, but at this stage with the injury I really want to try and stick to 10,000 -11,000 a day.

Sleep Is Interesting

Sleep stats, that is. Above you see one of my best nights of sleep since getting the Fitbit. Interestingly, I had stayed up late reading a truly great book. When I did go to sleep, I was out solidly for 4 hours. I woke up so refreshed the next morning.

This sleep was less good but it seems like this is a more normal sleep for me.

Fitbit Thoughts

Why does it seem like this is going to work well for me? Putting this little tracking band on my wrist has inspired me to get moving and watch my food intake. Is it because, in a world where everything can be tracked, tracking the human body tells us more about ourselves? I haven’t logged food to this extent before and I am finding it to suit my Aspie, slightly OCD nature.

Saying It Out Loud

The major reason I am posting this here is to hold myself accountable. There is always the danger I could become complacent and fall off the eat less, move more wagon. I’ll update here once a month.

Over To You

Did you make any goals for 2016? Do you fitbit or myfitnesspal? :)

2016 Goal, exercise, health, Making Choices, moving forward

Happy New Year!

10 Comments Posted on January 1, 2016December 31, 2015 by Snoskred

I would like to wish all my readers a fabulous, happy, productive, awesome and wonderful New Year. Thank you so much for reading, for commenting, for writing your own blogs which I greatly enjoy. I am so glad I met each and every one of you. :)

If you read this blog and you’re not sure if I read your blog, please leave a comment with a link – or contact me privately – because I want to read all the blogs of my readers

A Quick Apology

I usually reply to comments left here on the blog but the past couple of weeks I have been feeling Not Great. I think a combination of losing Red Comb, plus hay fever allergies have kicked in big time. I have also been absent from the comment sections of other blogs. It is not you, it is me.

I’m starting to get my go back and spent some time yesterday going back through the comments, leaving replies. I hope to get back to your comment sections more regularly in the new year. ;)

And now, a quick look back at 2015 here on my blog.

Where Do People Come From?

Here is the top ten list of countries people who view my blog originate from –

My Favourite Search Terms For 2015 –

millers old ladies cardigans – Leads you to this post – Millers Knits.

snoscred – Nope, you’re doing it wrong. And yet, you still end up here! Though I can’t seem to replicate this on search engines at all. Also found – snoksred – snoskret – sonskred – nosskred – onskreds.

females in thigh boots swordfighting with men videos – This will lead you to The Pirate Movie post.

oprah most comfortable shoes – This search leads you here – Shoe Sunday – Oprah Said So.

sheeps butt – sheep testicles – These searches will give you this post – Concrete Sheep

My Favourite Search Questions For 2015 –

can spiders live in your septic tank – Yes but why would they want to? There is not a lot of spider food to be found there. They prefer other kinds of environments, in general. Like my ceiling cornices!

what are the “regular movies” with the most graphic male frontal nudity in them? – And this search results in Abu Dhabi Doo – don’t worry, there are no nude images there. :)

what does morten harket really look like nude? – I’m going with almost identical to how he looks in his bathing suit, except with added dangly bits. Just a guess, but I think I’d be right..

how to entertain a lion – With great care, I would suggest.

how to bait and kill a red belly black snake – This search term always gets a lot of people arriving here on my blog. Don’t bait or kill a snake, read this instead. People get killed trying to kill snakes. If you value your life, don’t try it!

Recent PINCHme Samples

4 Comments Posted on December 7, 2015December 4, 2015 by Snoskred

In December of 2014 I wrote about PINCHme samples – I also wrote this post about how *not* to sample – AKA don’t be stingy. Today I am giving you an update on recent samples I have received.

Over winter 2015 things went very quiet at PINCHme with not many samples released at all. They picked back up again in late September. The first sample they sent me was by far the least stingy and most awesome sample ever – a full sized Mitchum Clinical Deodorant.. when I next visited the shops I made sure to look for it on the shelf and was quite taken aback when I saw this –

I’ve been using it every second day since I got it and I have to say, it is pretty amazing. It smells wonderful, too. How does one use a 48 hour antiperspirant when one showers every day, one thought? I tested it out, still having my daily shower as usual on the second day and then *not* putting anything on and fate made sure I tried this on the hottest day we’ve had thus far – 35 degrees, no sweat, no smells.

It feels weird, not putting anything on after a shower, but I have got used to it. You only need to use the tiniest amount of this stuff – one click of the dial at the bottom per armpit. I’ve been using it every second day for over a month now and I still have over half a container left. Normally I would go through one roll on per month.

I knew I’d heard things about aluminium in antiperspirants so when I checked the ingredients I was a little unsure, but I did some research into that and it is all urban myths as far as I can see. I will definitely be buying this one.

Good job on not being stingy, Mitchum! In fact you did such a good job of not being stingy you have won two customers, I bought a similar product for The Other Half when I saw them on special recently.

So here we have some Dynamo clothes washing liquid – I gave this a legit trial with some clothes which were stained that have been awaiting stain removal. It removed almost all the stains. I’m keeping the second packet for more stains, and will consider purchasing a small amount of this to keep on hand. One small negative – our front load washer does not have anything to stop the liquid running right into the machine, so the detergent went right in.

There is also a Schick Quattro razor. I’m not a user of razors very often – I prefer waxing – plus I am unlikely to use anything with 4 blades as a regular thing, but I’ll give it a try. Anything more than two blades reminds me of this little ad from The D Generation

There is a Chux magic eraser – now I just have to find something to use that on! – and some Fancy Feast which the cats were big fans of. They would be even greater fans if only I would follow these feeding instructions –

Grumpy is 5kg, so that would be 7.5 pouches a day. This would be an increase of 7 pouches a day as the kitties get half a pouch/tin of wet food each morning. At 1.42 per pouch, this would cost me $10.65 a day in cat food! Unless I could find it on special somewhere..

If I followed these instructions, Grumpy would soon be 10kg, in which case I would have to feed her 15 pouches. Exponential growth! If I showed these feeding instructions to my vet, who recently told us our kitties need to watch their weight, she would probably fall on the floor laughing. It makes me wonder – is anyone out there actually reading and following those instructions? That would be very bad. :/

I find PINCHme free samples to be interesting, I always love receiving mail and sometimes the samples are a source of great products we end up loving and buying. We are still using Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets and we love them, I am a big fan of the Mitchum deodorant..

Samples are usually released @PINCHme on Tuesdays at mid-day. They sell out very quickly, so you want to be logged in at 11:58am and ready to go. Sometimes they have surprise samples on other days, as well.

You can sign up for PINCHme here and I do not receive anything for sending you there, sadly. They ought to have a decent referral program. They do have one but it is linked to the samples which usually sell out within minutes, plus there is some blather about having to be logged in when you refer someone.

FYI the usual statements apply – nobody paid me to write this post, I do receive free samples from PINCHme but they are samples anyone can receive if they are a member and they sign in at the right time to claim a sample.

customer feedback, exercise, kitties, PINCHme

Hackers – How To Protect Yourself Online

6 Comments Posted on November 2, 2015November 2, 2015 by Snoskred

Rami Malek plays a hacker in Mr Robot

These days, you probably give out your personal information to websites on a regular basis and feel comfortable doing so. Anything you register for requires at minimum an email address and a password. Once you have given out that information to a website, you have zero control over it. If that website gets hacked, what information have you provided to the hackers simply by registering there?

Consider the users of that terrible website Ashley Madison. A lot of data was compromised. Some of the site members had used work email addresses, a lot of those email addresses had their full names clearly visible.. Now you might say – those people deserved what they got. I could argue both sides of that case.

Just recently a British phone provider was hacked, and British Gas customer login info was put online. Here in Australia recently, David Jones, Kmart and Patagonia were hacked. And these are only the companies we *know* about.

The Bigger Point Is –

What will happen if a website that you use regularly gets hacked? What information of yours will suddenly be available to the dark web?

In years gone by, I spent some time in email inboxes of the Nigerian Scammers. Law enforcement would hand over seized email accounts so that we could contact and warn the scam victims contained inside. I learned how to use the information provided inside those accounts to identify other email accounts the scammers were using so those accounts could also be seized. I learned to search the web for phone numbers, fax numbers, names, phrases used.

I can tell you how easy it is to follow the breadcrumbs that people leave online because I have done it many times myself. Sometimes it seemed to me to be like unpicking a thread sewn into the web – this email account leads to that email account which leads to that online dating profile which leads to this Facebook profile which gave me their mobile phone number and searching for that gave me 5 other email addresses that scammer is using.

Below you will find my top 10 tips for protecting yourself from hackers online.

You will absolutely be doing at least one of these things I mention below right now. I’m not saying quit doing that, or go and undo everything you have ever done. I’m saying going forward from now on- for your own safety – you might want to reconsider doing these things.

1. Do Not Use Your Real Last Name

Never. Not ever. Not on Facebook. Not on Linked In. Not on any website. Not on your blog. Keep your real life separated from your online life. There are a lot of great reasons to do this and they far outweigh any reasons you might want to use your real last name online.

You might pick a last name from a favourite character in a book or TV show. You might choose a colour, a word in another language, the name of an animal – but not a pet name! I recommend you avoid using your pets names online, not even for secret questions and especially not for passwords!

It is easy for people to ask you – what is the name of your pet – and if you have used it as your secret question they might have everything they need to get into your email account, depending on what email service you are using.

If you have used your real last name on Facebook, you can change it and I suggest you do so as a matter of urgency. Their “name standards” might say “The name you use should be your authentic identity” – that is all very well but not especially realistic given the world we now live in. You can add a hyphen and another word to the end of your name if you prefer. EG Sipowicz-Simone

Alternatively, if you do want to use your real last name on Facebook – let that be the ONLY place that you use it. Some people use their middle name as their last name – I frown on that concept a little but if it suits you, to each their own. :) How to change your name on Facebook.

2. Avoid Using Your Real First Name

This one I am a little more relaxed about – if you want to go by your first name online, on your blog, Facebook and Linked in, that is cool. But when you are signing up for mailing lists on websites, I usually do not recommend using your first name in that venue.

First up, the company is going to use your supplied first name mercilessly in their mailings to you. It is a lot more fun to go into your inbox and see “Hi Tiger, blah blah” “Hello Snake, blah blah” “Good Morning Bat, blah blah”

Secondly, if a hacker hacks in to the company, they can’t do a lot with Tiger Sipowicz or Snake Morgan or Bat Sorenson. Especially if you are not using that name on Facebook, Linked In, etc.

Thirdly, this is the chance you have been waiting for! You can give yourself that first name you always wanted, like Veronica, Natasha, or Beyonce. Using an Alias or a Pseudonym online is perfectly fine and sensible.

3. Do Not Use Your Real Address

Your first and last names, your home address and your birthdate are four key pieces of information that identity thieves need to steal your identity.

If you can, use a PO box for your mailing address. This means nobody can steal your mail, and you have a non-street address you can use for the web. Nobody is going to rock up at your PO Box as a surprise to yourself unless you have done something truly terrible to them. If you’ve given out your street address, people know where you *live*.

4. Do Not Use An Email With Identifying Info

Workplaces tend to use firstname.lastname for email addresses which if you think about it, that is a very stupid concept. They’ve given people more information than they need about you when you simply send them an email. If you have a Facebook account with that same name, you have a linked-in account or use your name on your blog, people can find out more about you just by searching.

For email online, you want to use a name that has nothing at all to do with you personally. I’m going to give you a new option for firstname.lastname which you can try if you like. Animal Name, Colour, Number. So you might have an email address like TigerBlue99 or SnakePink888.

NEVER use your work email address to register for a website. Some people found that out the hard way with the Ashley Madison hack. BE CAREFUL which email address you use on Facebook – do not use the same one you used for signing up on websites.

5. Choose Good Passwords

The better your password, the more protected you are. Never use pet names, birth dates, names of your family or partner, or any piece of personal information that someone could gather from your Facebook or other accounts online.

I recommend similar to the email name, you choose two different words and at least 3 numbers. Always make the first letter of each word a capital. But how will I remember that, Snoskred? Me personally I suggest a small paper notebook that you can keep somewhere safe and write them down, or use a spreadsheet or text file which you also password protect.

NEVER, EVER, NOT EVER, use the password for the email account you sign up with as the password on that website. Take for example the British Gas customers – if one of them used one password for every site on the web, the hackers can now get into their email account.

My advise is to use a two layer password system – use one password for your email account ONLY, and use another passwords for every other site. Whether that is one password for all the other sign ups you use, or a new password for every single site, that is up to you.

If you do use just one password for all other sites, I would suggest using different usernames, so that if a hacker got your password for Kmart, they can’t go to Woolworths and type in the same username and password. You could make the usernames different by just one number – eg TigerBlue87, TigerBlue88, TigerBlue89.

Rami Malek plays a hacker in Mr Robot

6. Be Careful With Your Birthdate

I personally use a fake birth date online. Your birth date is one of the key pieces of information identity thieves need to pretend to be you. Change at least one of the details – whether it be year, month, or day.

7. Be Careful With Your Bank Info

All that a scammer needs to create a fake cheque – also known as check or bank draft – is your name, BSB and account number. If you have the funds in your account, the payment WILL clear. It won’t be until you notice the money missing that you will know your details are being used in this way.

All that a scammer needs to deposit stolen or fraudulent funds into your bank account is your BSB and account number.

8. Remove Or Falsify Facebook Info

Just because Facebook asks for information from you does not mean you should provide it. Information I would not want to list on my Facebook would include – my phone number – my real full name – my real address – my postcode – which school I went to – where I am originally from – my current relationship status – where I was born.

Go and take a look at your profile and think – does this need to be here, or does it make it easy for people to know TOO much about me? Also consider this – do you have any of these things set as answers to secret questions somewhere on the web? EG the name of your primary school, your postcode, pet names, etc. Then do the same thing for other “profiles” you have on the web.

9. Search Yourself

Search engines can show you exactly what other people could find out about you online. I suggest you regularly search for your real name, address, email address and phone numbers. In fact you might want to set up google alerts for these things.

10. Use Prepaid Credit Cards Online

Screenshot from the Australia Post Load & Go Prepaid Visa

There are a lot of very good reasons to use prepaid credit cards online, but here are just a few –

– they do not require you to provide your name or address in most situations – thus making it easier to use a fake name and PO Box with websites.

– you control how much money is on them, so if your card number is stolen the damage will be limited to the amount you have prepaid onto it

– If the website is hacked, all the hackers will have is “Valued Cardholder” and a card number, plus the fake details you may have provided. This means only limited damage can be done. If you have given a website your name and your visa card with a $10,000 limit – and that website is hacked – criminals could run up a huge sum on your card before you can blink an eyelid. Plus you’ll have to cancel that credit card and get a new one.

There are plenty of different prepaid cards available in Australia now, you can likely pick one up when you do your grocery shopping. The Australia Post Load and Go one is pretty decent if you have any travel plans coming up. All of them will have some kind of costs involved but those costs are worth it when you consider the risks of using your own personal card online.

Guidelines

As I said at the start of this post, these are just some general guidelines I would recommend for consideration. Everyone has to live their life their own way, to each their own. Nobody wants to have their identity stolen – you may not know this but identity theft can be an enormous problem for years upon years if that happens to you.

One thing is very clear – we can no longer trust companies and websites to protect our information, so our only option is to be more careful with it.

Over to you –

what steps do you take to protect your identity online? :)

anonymity, Internet Safety

My Bloglovin’ Experiment.

9 Comments Posted on September 29, 2015September 28, 2015 by Snoskred

I mentioned in the New Feeds August post that I would be trying a Bloglovin’ experiment for September. The results have been brilliant. I’ve found a heap of awesome new blogs. So much so, I figured I would write a whole post on this experiment in case my readers want to take a crack at this experiment themselves.

The Why –

Over the years I’ve found some great blogs via the comment section of the blogs I read. Not every reader of a blog comments on blog posts, though. I wondered if I might be missing a lot of deeply awesome blogs because I have no way of finding out about them.

When I found out that you could *see* who the fellow followers of blogs you love are over at Bloglovin’, an idea formed in my mind. Could the followers of the blogs I love to read have blogs themselves which I might also love? There was only one way to find out. And the Bloglovin’ experiment was born.

The Goal –

I set myself some goals starting out –

– Add 200 new blogs to my feed reader
– Follow those 200 blogs in Bloglovin

The Process –

Add all the blogs from my blogroll into my Bloglovin.

Open each page individually in a new tab and then click through to the actual blog page itself – click on the blue text where the pink box is..

Then click through to their followers screen.

Right click on each name and open it in a new tab, to open the profile screen for the followers of the blog. Anyone you are following already will have a blue box on the right hand side, so you can give those a miss – you are already following their blog.

It is important to note that the images you see on the follower screen are from posts people have saved, so those are usually not posts they wrote themselves. Sometimes I have found new blogs via those saved posts as well. For my profile, I saved some of my *own* posts so that the images people are seeing do belong to me.

I open a tab for every name on the follower screen – not all at once, but I keep opening tabs until the top of my screen is full of tabs.

Check each tab to see if that blog follower has their own blog. If yes, open their blog page in Bloglovin. If no, close that tab.

Has the blog posted anything in August? If no, close that tab. If yes, check to see if the content is interesting. If yes, follow. If no, close that tab.

My Policy –

I always follow back. If someone follows me, even if their blog is not interesting to me or in a couple of cases, written in a language I do not understand, I will follow them back.

I may not read those blogs long term in my feed reader, but once I have followed them on Bloglovin I will continue to follow them. I am not treating this like my Blogroll – where I go through every 6 months or so and move blogs which have stopped posting from the list.

However I will still follow the normal process of new feeds added to my feed reader – test drive for 6 months, then I decide whether or not to keep following them in my feed reader, and I will post the keepers here as I always do. Keepers will be added to the permanent blogroll.

My Progress –

8 days into my experiment, I had found 120 new blogs. Day 9 was a huge day with 105 blogs found. At 225 blogs, I could have easily stopped there, but the blogs I was finding were so great I wanted to keep exploring and finding more.

By Day 15, I’d added 250 blogs, I’d only visited maybe 40-50 of my 282 blogroll blogs and I began to see this experiment would be an ongoing marathon, not a sprint. I felt that 250 blogs added was enough for one month. Since day 15 I have only added new followers of my blog(s) to the list. That added another 19 blogs to the list.

Adding New Feeds –

On my way through the followers, I did find blogs I was already reading that were not on my blogroll – mostly new feeds I am test driving. When I found them, I followed them. This is one reason why the numbers do not add up – eg follow 282 blogs, then follow 250 more, that should = 532, however I am somehow following over 900.

What I love about Bloglovin’

– I love that it is easy to follow people – one click and they are on your list.

– I love that you easily find blogs that are interesting by checking out the followers of the blogs that you already enjoy. Most other feed readers cannot tell you anything about the people who are also following a blog you read.

What I Do NOT Love About Bloglovin’

– That you can follow people as well as their blogs. That means anytime they like a post, you’ll see that in your feed. Also if the person has 4-5 blogs and you follow them, you automatically follow all their posts. But this follow people option makes things very confusing in general.

– On the follower screen, you cannot tell whether or not someone has a blog. If they have more than 20 followers, in general I find they do have a blog. Anything less than that, and chances are they do not have a blog. There should be some kind of indicator that people have a blog – I’m thinking dots would work – just to save people time when trying to find new blogs.

– I’m not sure if the sidebar is showing me all the blogs I am following. I can’t copy and paste them into a text file or spreadsheet to check for sure.

– I do know the sidebar is showing me the blogroll with two separate listings for a-z which makes things very confusing. Normally I like to alphabetize my blogrolls and new feeds in alphabetical order, so I can cross check and make sure the list is correct. I may have found a fix, but it will take me a while to implement..

– You can’t see all your followers. As I type this it says I have 52 followers but I can only see profiles on my follower screen for 32.

– There is a trend of people following you until you follow them back, and then they unfollow you. Seriously? Ain’t nobody got time for this kind of shizzle. If I catch anyone doing that to me, I will be unfollowing foreverz!

– A deeply annoying development in recent days – people who sign up to promote buying Bloglovin followers and then follow thousands of people. Currently I am getting 5 of these every day. If I were Bloglovin, I would add a cap to the amount of people you can follow each day – I’d limit it to 300 myself – and I would find out the IP address of these spammers and block it for good. I would also make it so the post they are promoting cannot be “saved” on their system. In fact I would block the URL they are trying to promote entirely.

Things I Learned

– I can’t follow a blog which is posting 20 posts a day. I unsubscribed after 24 hours.

– There are a lot of fantastic blogs out there in the world.

– Finding other blogs via the people following the blogs you love is deeply brilliant.

– The search function on Bloglovin’ sucks. I typed in chickens and found a lot of very old posts instead of new posts.

– Putting your blog name in your Bloglovin’ name is a really great idea – it helps you to stand out on the followers page and it helps other people to know you have a blog.

I have listed my name as Snoskred @ Life In The Country, so that people have a better chance of knowing I have my own blog if they stumble upon me on a follower screen. I do recommend changing your name to include your blog name if you want to find more followers over at Bloglovin.

– I’m not going to be saving the posts of blogs I read over on Bloglovin’ purely because I do not read my blogs via Bloglovin’. I can understand how that is a useful concept for those who do read blogs over there. :)

– In general – if you look through the followers of a book blog, you’ll find other book bloggers. If you look through the followers of a travel blog, you’ll find other travel bloggers. If you look through the followers of a food blog, you’ll find other food bloggers. And sometimes none of this applies and you will find bloggers of a completely different niche entirely!

– If you find a great blog that interests you, the readers of that blog are likely to have great blogs that will interest you.

I Will Keep Going –

I’m going to use this as a way to find blogs for the next few months. I won’t be separating the Bloglovin finds from the other new feeds in future months, they will simply be added as new feeds.

Claim Your Blog?

I wrote a post on how you can claim your blog at Bloglovin’ which you can find here – How To: Claim Your Blog At Bloglovin’

To Conclude –

I have greatly enjoyed this experiment. I will keep using Bloglovin’ to find new blogs. I will NOT use Bloglovin’ to *read* those blogs, though. I have my own RSS reader working on the home server.

Over To You

Would you try an experiment like this to find new blogs to read?

challenges, feed readers

Woolworths, We’re Breaking Up.

18 Comments Posted on August 28, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Its not me, Woolworths, it’s you. It has been you for a while now. It began with stock I wanted to buy not being on the shelves even though there was a space and a price ticket for those items. It continued with mouldy fresh food – from the “fresh food people” that is especially disturbing.

Then, you never had enough staff on the checkouts, and after waiting more than 20 minutes to check out on several occasions even though I had less than 12 items each time, I was deeply annoyed.

You kept sending me offers which clearly your marketing boffins are behind which were nowhere near as good as the offers that Coles were sending me – I was offered $50 credit at Coles in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks.. which = $280 -50 = $230 @Coles VS $300 -30 = $270 for 3 weeks @ Woolworths. A big splooshy raspberry to that!

At this point I was more than ready to break up with you. The one reason I went back – Coles only stock small Twisties packets and I wanted the larger packet.

But then, the final two straws.

Did you know your catalog now sucks?

Each fortnight, when I shop, I look at the catalog for Coles, then the catalog for Woolworths. I do the main shop at Aldi and then visit Coles and Woolworths for items on special which cannot be purchased from Aldi. Woolworths decided to change the catalog.

With this new catalog, to view *all* of each page, you have to use the scroll bar on the side.

This is extremely annoying, especially when so often the bit you scroll down to see is boring advertising junk that has NOTHING to do with shopping! And then, they fill double page spreads with this junk!

Well, Woolworths, I DECLINE THIS CONCEPT. Even so, I thought I would still give you a chance to earn some of my $$, by using the *paper* catalog which arrives in my letterbox. But no.

You don’t want me reading your catalogs, online, or paper. You had to send me the clearest possible message.

Message received. Content noted. We’re broken up, for good. KTHXBAI.

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, country life

Ten Years Ago Today

10 Comments Posted on August 21, 2015June 15, 2015 by Snoskred

The TV show Six Feet Under aired their final episode.

Even ten years later, with a multitude of shows that have since ended, I still believe that Six Feet Under has one of the best ever endings to a show.

The show was uniquely placed to create an amazing ending because it was a show about a funeral home and it had a certain style, each episode began with a death and the show was essentially about the funeral of that person. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m not sure we will ever see anything like it again.

You can read the oral history of the ending here – ‘Breathe Me’: The Oral History of the Six Feet Under Finale’s Death Montage

If you never saw it or you want to revisit it, here is a link to the youtube video. I do warn you, BYO tissues, even if you don’t know these characters.. it is so sad and yet beautiful at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNwARV9tPUw

looking back, television shows

Planning A Caper

6 Comments Posted on July 27, 2015July 26, 2015 by Snoskred

Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman celebrating the awesomeness of magnets.

One of the reasons I am such a fan of Breaking Bad is the fact that so much of the show is what I like to call “Planning a caper”. As in, making crime plans.

While 99% of the capers shown on the show are things I would never, ever, not in a million years attempt, there are two local capers I would consider planning, if I were at all inclined towards being a criminal.

Of course, the fact that I am sharing them here tells you everything you need to know about whether I would actually do any of these things. I’d need a personality transplant, plus, installation of a more criminal bent of mind, plus, for one of the capers, I would need to be more physically fit.

If I could commit a caper, these are the ones I would attempt.

Caper One

Within 2km of where I live, there is a field where they do athletics. They have a speaker system there. It is very, very loud. Starting around 8am on weekend mornings, an announcer starts making announcements. This goes on all day. One of the two regular announcers has taken to calling the races, like you’d hear if you were watching a horse race. It is disturbing to everyone who lives within earshot. That is a lot of people!

To fix this, I would need to plan a caper. It would likely involve “casing the joint” first – then some climbing of fences in the middle of the night – never going to happen! – and then, if possible, the cutting and removal of speaker wires. Sadly, my feeling is this would not disrupt the noise for very long.

Caper Two

They installed a new roundabout here recently. It is the only roundabout in town where you can turn right from two lanes. The amount of times I have seen someone nearly get themselves killed turning right from the left lane..

One day someone will get killed there, and then I’m gonna kick myself for not actually going ahead with this caper – which would involve going out in the dead of night and painting the turn right arrow out with black paint. Like this –

I’m thinking summer would be the better time to do this particular caper so that the paint would dry faster, however, there are some major problems with this – most problematic would be the fact that the roundabout is on a high traffic road, even in the middle of the night. I’d need some witches hats, and maybe a yellow flashing light, a high vis vest, and a ute type vehicle.

The Breaking Bad Caper

So what is the 1% of caper from Breaking Bad that I would attempt? Magnets. In the first episode of the 5th season, a laptop has been impounded by the police as evidence. That laptop happens to contain some incriminating evidence, so Walt, Jesse and Mike plan a caper. And thanks to Sony posting two videos on youtube, you don’t have to watch the whole show to see it. Here is a discussion of the possible caper –

Here is a test of the caper, which features one of the most epic Mike Ehrmantraut lines of all time, including Miller time.

And here is the actual caper itself. The music makes this all the better.

bitches, country life, television shows

Your Religious Beliefs Are Yours.

18 Comments Posted on July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 by Snoskred

I’ve seen some excellent posts over the past couple of weeks since the Supreme Court ruled Yes to same-sex marriage. I have also seen posts where people have talked about their religious beliefs and how these beliefs mean they do not agree with the ruling or the fact that same sex marriage is legal in the USA now.

I’m been ruminating on this some over the past few days and here is my bottom line. We cannot allow the religious beliefs of one (or of many) to = the human law all of us have to abide by and the human rights we should all be entitled to. Because if we do that for any one religion, we might have to do that for all religions.

I don’t know how many Christians want to eventually live under Sharia Law, allowing their daughters to be married off from the age of 9 to *much* older men.. in fact this event has already occurred right here in Australia. Just last Friday a father was sentenced – NSW father found guilty of procuring 12yo daughter as ‘child bride’ is sentenced to six years in jail – and I suspect this is likely occurring quite often here though it will not often be discovered.

So before you want your religious beliefs to become the law of the land..

Take a moment to think – do you want someone elses religious beliefs to become law?

I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and to their beliefs, religious or otherwise. I also believe that everyone has some basic rights which we should all be entitled to. Those basic rights should include the right for children to have a childhood and an education and to not be married off to older guys because their parents say so and because that is how things are done within their religion.

I believe that nobody should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on other people who do not hold those same beliefs, and I want to give a very clear – but quite fake – example to try and illustrate this.

My Fake Example

So, let us imagine that there is a large colony of people living in Antarctica. We will call them the Ticans. These people have their own religion which is not well known outside of their country. It relies on a holy book written thousands of years ago. One of the laws of this religion is that you cannot eat beetroot – not cooked, not raw, not any form of beetroot, nor can you eat food that is prepared in the presence of beetroot or in the same room as beetroot.

So, unfortunately for the Ticans, global warming has made it almost impossible to continue living where they presently live. As the closest continent, Australia extends an invitation to all 200,000 Ticans to become Australian citizens. They offer to house the Ticans in Tasmania as it is closest in climate to Antarctica. Because Tasmania has a population of just over half a million people, this is a significant addition to the population.

When they arrive in Australia, they are horrified to find that Beetroot is on the menu. And not just occasionally, but regularly, in all kinds of locations. Fast food places like Mcdonalds and Subway serve beetroot. Beetroot is even found on hamburgers and in sandwiches. The Ticans are horrified!

Business owners in Tasmania discover that the reason Ticans are not visiting their establishments is because of the beetroot. Some of them choose to become “beetroot free” – as in, they remove beetroot from the menu entirely, to try and seek the business of the Ticans. Now the Tasmanians who love beetroot are outraged. How dare these Tican people change the Tasmanian food culture due to their religious beliefs?

Who is in the right here? Would it be ok for the religious beliefs of the few to change how things are done for the entire population?

Perhaps Not So Fake?

While the example I provide here is fake, unfortunately this kind of situation is also something that has happened in Australia. Some KFC outlets removed Bacon from the menu. Halal certification is a huge thing in our country now, and there is even a movement to boycott Halal products.

So why on earth should the people of Australia have to change their menu to suit any religion? At the time of the 2011 census, only 476,000 Australians (representing 2.2 percent of the population) reported Islam as their religion. That is a tiny percentage of people.

Should anyones religious beliefs about pork over-ride the rights of Australians who do not hold those same beliefs and simply want to have bacon on their burger?

Why would anyone expect that their religious beliefs should always = the law of the land?

My parents have been together for over 40 years now. They are married, which means they have full legal rights. If one of them were to become ill, my other parent would be in the best place to know what their marriage partner wants as far as things like life support, organ donation, etc.

That is the reason why I am happy for same sex couples in the USA – that they now have access to those same rights as my parents do. That once they are married, they will never again be locked out of the health decisions of their long term partner, that they will be able to attend the funerals of their loved ones. Now, we just need to make this happen in Australia, too.

Why should heterosexual couples be the only people entitled to those legal rights? Because a book says so? That book says a lot of things that people have decided are outdated and no longer apply.

Over to you

When the “holy book” of a religion is interpreted to mean that children can be married from the age of 9 upwards, shouldn’t we be absolutely horrified by that? Shouldn’t we be utterly determined as human beings to make sure that no such “holy book” can determine the laws of our lands?

Angry Snoskred, religion

Peak Perks Travel Scam

6 Comments Posted on July 16, 2015July 21, 2015 by Snoskred

Via this scam post I have been informed of a new scam. Here are the emails received by Srihari.

Email One –

——————————————————————
Dear

SEEK determined you as an appropriate candidate for our vacancy and forwarded us your resume.
Attached you can find brief description and job responsibilities for offered position.
In case you are interested, please fill in the application form and send it to sean.talley@peakperkstravel.com:

First name:
Last name:
Age:
Postal code:
Day-time tel.:
Mobile tel.:

Best time to call you:

Are you currently employed or studying:
If yes, please provide your current workday schedule:

Have you ever been convicted of a crime since the age of 18:
If yes, please provide date(s) and details:
(Answering “Yes” to those questions doesn’t constitute an automatic bar to employment)

—————————————————————————-

APPLICANT STATEMENT.

I certify that answers given herein are true and complete to the best of my knowledge.

I authorize investigation of all statements contained in this application for employment as may be
necessary in arriving at an employment decision.

This application for employment shall be considered active for a period of time not to exceed 45 days.
Any applicant wishing to be considered for employment beyond this time period should inquire as to
whether or not applications are being accepted at that time.

I hereby understand and acknowledge that, unless otherwise defined by applicable law, any employment
relationship with this organization is of an “at will” nature, which means that the Employee may resign
at any time and the Employer may discharge Employee at any tune with or without cause. It is further
understood that this “at will” employment relationship may not be change by any written document or
by conduct unless such change is specifically acknowledged in writing by an authorized executive of
this organization.

In the event of employment, I understand that false or misleading information given in my application or
interviews may result in discharge. I understand, also, that I am required to abide by all rules and regulations
of the employer.

I also understand that if I am hired, I will be required to provide proof of identity.

————————————————————
By filling above form, I certify that I have read, fully understand and accept
all terms of the foregoing Applicant Statement.

In some cases, it may take some time to verify your application.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any further information.
—————-

Sincerely,
Sean Talley
sean.talley@peakperkstravel.com
sean-talley@outlook.com
Peak Perks Travel and Tours, Inc.
http://www.peakperkstravel.com
——————————————————————

Email Two –

——————————————————————
Hello

We have received and reviewed your application.
I am glad to inform you that you meet our requirements and we are ready to hire you for Processing Assistant position.

Now we have to conclude the agreement with you.
Please find “Employment Agreement” in attached files.
Read all sections so you will have a clear understanding of your responsibilities and rights.

If you agree with the terms and conditions and you are ready to proceed, please follow these steps:

(1) Print out the attached Agreement, sign and send it via email or fax to +61363019535

(2) For security and identification purposes, please send us a scanned copy or photo of your ID (driver license, passport or student card etc.).

(3) Print out attached payroll form(Adobe PDF file), fill it out clearly in block letters, sign and send it back via e-mail or fax.

We will be able to start within 2 business days after we receive signed agreement.
We provide training on-the-fly, so our probationary period plan will include:
* 1st-10th day – Payments management, preparing reports, general paperwork, simple bookkeeping
* 11th-20th day – Customer support & typical problems solving course, extended workgroup communications.
* 21st-30th day – Independent work with other team members and customers in constant contact.
* 25th day-… – signing of permanent employment contract.

Email Three –

——————————————————————

Congratulations with your first order!
Our client has already remitted AU$10209.95 to your bank account at 3-40p.m. Sydney time on 29/05.
Transfer should appear on your account tomorrow morning (30/05).

It will be great if you will be able to handle it before 11:50a.m.

Please deduct your sales commission 5%(AU$511) and cost of transfer,
and remit the remaining amount via Western Union to our accountant and her assistant in Philippines:

AU$4821(incl. WesternUnion fee $28)
first name: Ritchell
last name: Mahinay
Manila, Philippines

Please send it in PHP(Philippines Peso).

Use our office address as receiver address:
Peak Perks Travel and Tours, Inc.
M/F Dumrique Building, 209 A. Bonifacio Avenue,
Tanong, Marikina City, Metro Manila, 2000

Your nearest Western Union locations:

NSW CONVENIENCE STORE
119a Macquarie St.
Parramatta, Nsw 2150
+61-1800501500

DALLAS NEWSAGENCY
Shop 6 Connection Arcade
162 172 Church Street
Parramatta, Nsw 2150
+61-1-800501500

PARRAMATTA CBD NEWSAGENCY
Shop16 272 Church Street
Parramatta, Nsw 2150
+61-1-800501500

Please send me email with Western Union money transfer control number (MTCN).

You may indicate “Peak Perks Travel”, “Peak Travel” or “Travel” as purpose of payment.
Please save all documents regarding all transactions you have made.

IMPORTANT! Don’t use Western Union Online transfer to send money.
Bring cash or use a debit card to send money at a Western Union Agent location.

Please confirm that you have received this email.

If your bank branch isn’t open on Saturday then you can try to find other branch on your bank website.

Snoskred Says –

If this scam is successful, the scam victim will be out just under $10,000. :( And they may do it more than once before the victim finds out the funds transferred in are stolen or fraudulent.

Banks should hold some responsibility here. They do not make it clear enough to people that these scams can happen, and that fund transfers or cheques can be reversed at a later time if the transaction is found to be fraudulent.

I would advise anyone caught by this scam to make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman. The scam victim may be able to sort out a deal with the bank where the bank pays some – or all – of the losses.

I would also place a complaint with Seek, and if they had my resume and information, I would remove my details from there if at all possible.

Angry Snoskred, job scams, what not to do

Eat Less, Move More.

Start Out Slow.

Be Careful

Work It Out

Step Budget

Sleep Is Interesting

Fitbit Thoughts

Saying It Out Loud

Over To You

A Quick Apology

Top Ten 2015 Posts

Where Do People Come From?

Top 5 Scam Posts Of 2015

My Favourite Search Terms For 2015 –

My Favourite Search Questions For 2015 –

Top Ten Viewed Posts Not Written In 2015

The Bigger Point Is –

1. Do Not Use Your Real Last Name

2. Avoid Using Your Real First Name

3. Do Not Use Your Real Address

4. Do Not Use An Email With Identifying Info

5. Choose Good Passwords

6. Be Careful With Your Birthdate

7. Be Careful With Your Bank Info

8. Remove Or Falsify Facebook Info

9. Search Yourself

10. Use Prepaid Credit Cards Online

Guidelines

Over to you –

The Why –

The Goal –

The Process –

My Policy –

My Progress –

Adding New Feeds –

What I love about Bloglovin’

What I Do NOT Love About Bloglovin’

Things I Learned

I Will Keep Going –

Claim Your Blog?

To Conclude –

Over To You

Caper One

Caper Two

The Breaking Bad Caper

Take a moment to think – do you want someone elses religious beliefs to become law?

My Fake Example

Perhaps Not So Fake?

Why would anyone expect that their religious beliefs should always = the law of the land?

Over to you

Email One –

Email Two –

Email Three –

Snoskred Says –