Copy Alerts recently notified me that some of my blog content had been ripped. So naturally, I followed the trail that led me to the offending site. Sure enough, word-for-word, there’s a post of mine. All 466 words. Copied. Verbatim. Well, except for the title, which they changed to The Risks of Tippling Water.

So I join their forum;

• user name: pistblogger
• pw: youreadouche

and I proceed to leave three comments exposing their thievery. I followed up with an e-mail, giving them notice that I intend to go after their host for copyright infringement if my content isn’t removed.

The next day I received an e-mail from Maura, one of their moderators, informing me that my comments had been rejected. Big surprise there, eh? Seems I hadn’t gone through the proper channel to report the abuse. Apparently I was supposed to contact their “Abuse Protection Team.”

Ironic, isn’t it, that a spam site that’s stealing content would reject comments because the rules weren’t followed.

Whilst I continue with my volley of e-mails with Maura, feel free to use my user name and pw to drop a comment on their forum. Maybe use their “suggestion” option to suggest that they write their own content.

Tags: copyright infringement, stealing blog content, theft of blog post

We’ve all experienced it. You smell a woman’s perfume trailing three aisles behind her in the grocery store. It’s so heavy in the air that it permeates your nose and mouth and you fancy you can still smell her four hours later.

We are literally being bombarded with scent. There are body washes, body lotions, leave in conditioners, moisturizers, deodorants, feminine sprays……you name any part of the human body, and there’s a scent on the market developed especially for it. And then, to compound it further, we wear clothing that’s been washed and dried using lavender-vanilla detergent and orange-hibiscus fabric softener.

So, after applying all that, you spray on perfume as if it were the cherry atop a sundae.

Listen, perfume should make people want to draw closer, not run in the opposite direction. If you feel you need to bathe in the stuff, might I suggest actually bathing instead?

Here’s something that might put it into perspective for you. I want you to go to the refrigerator and take out anything that’s in liquid form. The milk, V8, OJ, that bottle of wine nobody liked and has been in the back of the fridge since last May, the soda, the tabasco, the Italian salad dressing. You get the picture. Now I want you to put a teaspoon of each of these liquids into a glass, stir it and drink. See how all of those flavors are competing with each other? Did you just throw up in your mouth a little? Good. That’s exactly how you smell when you top off your scented body wash and deoderant with 1/2 gallon of your favorite perfume.

I really don’t care if you’re buying it in the large economy size, or paying $3256.13 an ounce for it……it’s not my scent, and I don’t want to smell it three aisles away. Or worse yet, get trapped on a plane with you. I’d rather be stuck in an elevator with a dozen cigar touting chain smokers.

Lest you think I don’t like perfume, I assure you, I do. My current favorite is Design by Paul Sebastian. As much as I like this light refreshing fragrance, I don’t spray it directly on me. I spritz it into the air and walk through the mist.

And that, smelly-grocery-store-lady, is how it’s done.

Tags: fragrance, perfume, scent

I’m not going to mention any names, but, as you’ve probably noticed, one of our presidential candidates is sporting a fairly obvious comb-over in an attempt to deceive us into believing he has hair. FYI – Fairly obvious deception in a presidential candidate is not a good quality.

Remember that recent TV ad campaign featuring the talking spot on the interviewee’s shirt? Guess what?  I haven’t heard a single word this candidate has uttered. His voice simply cannot rise above the blah-blah-blahs of that comb-over. Seriously. It. Is. Distracting.

Think of the precedence this could set if he actually gets elected. There could be comb-overs sprouting up all over this country. Eventually the multitude of comb-over voices and their nonsensical blah-blah-blahs will drive the rest of us utterly and totally insane.

Ya know, if his running mate had any leadership potential at all, she’d pull him aside and whisper, “If your wife won’t tell you, I will; Dude, you’re bald.” Perhaps he really should have chosen Tina Fey. I’ll bet she’d tell him.

And don’t even get me started on the barber that’s actually inflicting this look upon the rest of us. A do-no-harm oath should be a requirement before they are even allowed to touch a pair of scissors. It’s hard to believe any self-respecting barber would ever consider crafting these eyesores.

Pssssttt……Guys, for the record, women do not find comb-overs attractive. Not even in the slightest. Not by any stretch of your imagination. We would rather see your head shaved clean.

Here’s a tip. If you part your hair just above your right ear, and the hair is actually long enough to reach your left ear….do us all a favor and shave it.

Tags: John McCain's Comb-Over

I’m normally not an alarmist, but I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve got some genuine concerns about the water we’re drinking.

Concern #1 – PBA, the chemical compound used in hard, clear polycarbonate plastics like baby bottles, water bottles and food containers. It’s been used since the 50′s, but it’s just recently begun to receive negative attention because it appears that PBA in the body mimics the effects of estrogen. Exposure to high levels of PBA may present a greater risk of developing a myriad of health problems, including breast and prostate cancer. And even more recently I read an article that indicates that people found to have high levels of PBA in their urine are more likely to suffer from heart disease and/or diabetes. So, this stuff is leaching into our baby formula, water and food products through the use of #7 plastic containers. FYI – numbers 3 and 6 indicate that similar chemicals are present in the plastic. But wait, according to the good ‘ole FDA, the amount of PBA being released into our food and drink is too low to cause any harm. Hey, aren’t they the ones that approved Vioxx for the market? We all know how that turned out. Personally, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Concern #2 – Recent AP research found that huge quantities of medications are contaminating our tap water. Hospitals and long-term care facilities are discarding millions of pounds of unused, expired or spoiled medications down the drain. Minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals in the nation’s drinking water is commonplace, and affects some 46 million Americans. Evidence exists that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residue harms fish, frogs and other aquatic species. And our water reclamation plants aren’t removing these contaminates during the treatment process unless they’re following their purifying process with reverse osmosis. So, it’s quite possible that we’re ingesting minute amounts of antibiotics, hormones, pain medications, heart medications….even Viagra in our drinking water. Double yikes! You can read more at USA Today
I’ve tried using filtered water pitchers. The water tasted better than it did straight from the tap, but they weren’t all that convenient, and they really weren’t much more economical than bottled water when you consider the price of the filters, which need frequent changing.

So, I started buying bottled water by the case. My favorite brand is bottled in #1 plastic. Phew. However, I’m putting at least 30 one-pint plastic bottles in the reclying bin each week. When you think about it, that’s a minimum of 1,560 bottles per year being generated from one two-member household.

So I’ve done some homework, and for about what I pay for a year’s supply of bottled water I can purchase a reverse osmosis under sink water filter. Better yet, I found some that are made in the U.S.A.

If any of you are currently using an RO filtration system, I’d love to hear from you before I plunk down my money.

Tags: contaminated tap water, PBA