Screw United Airlines

These airline bastards just piss me off to no end.
First they take away your ability to fly with luggage unless you pay huge fees.

Now, United Airlines has the gall to offer a "Premier Baggage travel option." The have the balls to declare, "The more you travel, the more you save!"

No, United!! The more I avoid your shitty airline and fly Southwest, the more I save.

Its the condescending tone that really eats at me. It's like some smug new Biz School grad, who has just taken something away from a child, dangling it in front of the child and setting new rules for getting it back.

They ask, "Do you enjoy traveling abroad with more than one change of clothes and shoes?" YES!! Of course I do you idiots, so why do you make near frickin' impossible to afford to do that??

Read this garbage for yourself, and then do whatever you can to avoid United Airlines. Drive, fly Southwest, take a train, hitch hike, or walk. But screw United "Nickle and Dime ya!" Airlines. Every dollar you avoid giving this crappy airline is a dollar that shows up in the negative numbers on their annual report.

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Email Begins here
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Do you often travel with one or more checked bags? Or enjoy traveling abroad with more than one change of clothes and shoes? We launched Premier Baggage with you in mind.

The newest of our Travel Options by United(SM), Premier Baggage allows you to check two standard bags on all United(R) and United Express(R) operated flights domestically and internationally without fees for an entire year.*

You can purchase a Premier Baggage annual subscription for the limited-time, introductory price of just $249. Which means, the more you travel, the more you'll save!

Biden is right: Ukranian women are the most beautiful in the world

Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine and made an observation: ""I cannot believe that a Frenchman visiting Kyiv went back home and told his colleagues he discovered something and didn't say he discovered the most beautiful women in the world. That's my observation," he told Yushchenko. "It's certain you have so many beautiful women."

Believe it or not, this is not simply another Biden gaff. If you have ever been to Ukraine, like Joe Biden and myself, you would very likely make the same comment. It's not belittling or minimizing, but rather, it is quite an amazing fact.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, their gorgeous women have also caught the eye of perverts from all over the world, and sex tourism is a problem. And one of their greatest exports to the U.S. is mail order brides. Those are problems that should be dealt with both inside Ukraine and in the countries that send Ukraine these problems.

But the fact remains a fact: While the U.S. is stuffed full of fat people complements of McDonalds and Coca Cola, you just don't see that in Ukraine, at least not anywhere near the epidemic levels in the U.S. You will see a preponderance of slim, attractive women in Ukraine.

Joe Biden was right (this time). And kudos to Ukraine, the land of hard working, innovative, beautiful people.

How to Fix Outlook "Restore Down" resize window problem

Are you having trouble with Outlook 2007 after you click the "restore down" button? Is Outlook minimizing to nothing more than a tiny bar, forcing you to always run Outlook in full screen mode, not letting you resize the window?

It took me awhile to figure this out, but here is the solution. Simply right-click on the minimized Outlook bar and choose "resize." Now you can resize Outlook how you wish.

Have a great day.

Mr. Franken goes to Washington.

Seven months after his election, Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of Al Franken in the disputed U.S. Senate race.

This is 60 votes for the Democrats. Let's see something get done with healthcare.

Microsoft MCE fails users with major error: won't list Digital Sub Channels

Today is the last day of analog TV broadcast. Yet, Microsoft has still not fixed a well known, well documented error in Windows Media Center for Vista and XP. Apparently the bug is fixed in Windows 7 beta, but that doesn't help 99.9% of us right now.

This bug has been documented everywhere, all over the internet. For a very long time now.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistamedia/thread/52c101b6-9cae-45f4-81e4-d7370bcbb54a

The bug prevents you from getting ATSC (over the air) tv listings for sub channels. For example, channel 13-1 will show in the listings. But channel 13-2, 13-3 and 13-4 will all have exactly the same TV program listings as 13-1. This means that you can't record from the sub channels. It's a huge pain in the ass for people who rely on over the air TV reception.

Yet Microsoft doesn't respond, doesn't fix the problem. They seemingly could care less.

I am told the only way to fix this is to lie to Media Center and tell it you have a cable TV connection, and then to tediously remove all of the channels manually. Yeah, right.

Come on Microsoft, get with it!!

KFME Digital Channel is now 13.

Loyal readers (if there are any) will realize that I often post solutions to weird problems. Life is full of weird problems, some of them very small and very specific but all of them annoying.

Last week I had trouble with the TV card in my media computer. We use it as a DVR with Media Center to record atsc over the air TV shows.

We receive PBS through KFME. KFME recently switched from digital channel 22 to digital channel 13. Maybe most set top boxes can redo the scan easy enough, however, I was lost. I could not find channel 13 programs. Googling around, all the information I could find (including FCC filings) showed KFME on channel 22. Finally I called the bastards and asked them what was going on. They said they switched to digital channel 13, and finally I was able to finally make that adjustment manually to the file:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\prefs\atscprefs.xml

It all works for now. I hope this was helpful to you.

Norm Coleman is violating my rights. Can we sue him?

The settled Minnesota Senatorial election continues to dragson. And on. And on.

Blame Norman Coleman, the failed former Senator from Minnesota, who is without a doubt washed up forever in Minnesota politics.. This whole process has revealed Coleman for what we knew he was (or is): a weak kneed goose-stepping Yes Man for the Republican Party.

Obviously, the Republicans want this whole drama to last for six years. They will do ANYTHING to keep just one more Democrat out of Congress.

As a Minnesotan, I feel that my rights are being violated. Although the recount process was executed in a non-partisan way, and the appeal was unanimously settled, Coleman continues to drag this on, filing one lawsuit after another.

When can we as Minnesotans sue Norm Coleman? His abuse of process leaves the State of Minnesota with half of the represenation in the Senate that we are constituationally entitled to.
His abuse of process leaves us weak and unserved.

Norm Coleman, go to hell. And take Rush Limbaugh with you.

Solving the Microsoft Excel Error Message, "The file is corrupt and cannot be opened"

I had to send my laptop back to the factory to get fixed recently. I included the password, and when the machine came back, the login password for my account had been disabled.

I keep a list of some website passwords in a Microsoft Excel file called WebPasswords.xls. I use one of Excel's built in encryption methods to protect the contents. Usually, when I double click on this file it opens in Excel, and I am prompted for a password. If the password is correct, the spreadsheet opens in Excel.

On this occassion after entering the password, Excel returned the message "The file is corrupt and cannot be opened."

I retrieved a backup of the file, but got the same message.

To solve this problem, I reconfigured my Windows Vista user account with my old password (the same password I had used before the Best Buy Geeks disabled the password on my account).

That did the trick, and now I am able to access my protected Excel spreadsheet. I hope this solution works for you, too.

Republicans want more tax cuts? Let's try "Trickle Up" ecomonics for once!

The broken Republican record just keeps on skipping, "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts."

Another 600,000 Americans lost their jobs this week. It's pretty damn clear who will benefit from tax cuts, and its not going to be the unemployed.

The truth is, America is built on "consumer spending." When consumers don't consume, then the house of cards starts to collapse.

During George Bush's reign of terror, the US treasury's coffers were plundered by "tax cuts" for the wealthy. He happily ran our deficit sky high, while exporting jobs. It was war on the middle class.

Not surpringly, the middle class has tightened its belt, and now the world is collapsing around us.

Look Republicans, if we want to revive this economy, your "tax cuts" ain't gonna do it. They never did amount to anything more than a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, putting a disproportional pain on the middle class. Tax cuts won't put dollars into the pockets of the unemployed. And its not going to "stimulate hiring" -- why should it?? Who wants to hire when the middle class isn't buying?

Tax cuts are not the answer. Nation building here in America is the answer. Its time to try Trickle Up economics.

Where have all the copper pennies gone?

A confession: I hoard pennies. I don't just hoard them, I separate them into copper and zinc. The copper pennies minted prior to 1982 go into this jar. The zinc pennies minted since 1982 go into that jar. Every day when I get home, I empty my pockets, and then over the weekends, I pick out the pennies, and stick them into the appropriate jar.

Why? I don't know. I guess I'm kind of that Robert guy in the popular "Everybody loves Raymond" TV show.

Ok, so here's the interesting part (sorry, this is as interesting as it gets)...

When I started this obsession about 4 years ago, I was adding more copper pennies than zinc pennies. I would even occassionally find a wheat penny.

But starting around 2007, I noticed that I was adding mostly zinc pennies.

I postulate that somebody or bodies have been sucking out all the copper pennies while copper prices were high. Afterall, it was just last year when copper prices were so high, pennies were worth more as copper bullion than they were as currency.

So there you have it.... my expose about the run on copper coinage. Don't believe me? Just reach into your pocket right now and pull out all the pennies. I'll bet that the zinc pennies will out number the copper pennies by about 10 to 1. It wasn't this way 18-24 months ago.

Trust me, I know. I'm obsessed.