cindy's world

The long-awaited psychic solicitation letter from Maria Duval has arrived. Yup, once you’re on one mailing list you’re on all of ’em.

The gimmick for this particular letter is a lot more interesting than that of Miss Elizabeth’s and Dr. Marissa Von Trapp’s (read about my receipt of Miss E’s 1st letter here, her 2nd letter here and other related stuff here). Miss E said that the archangel Michael appeared and pleaded with her to help me. I can’t remember how Van Trapp claimed she found me, but her letter had some tarot card enclosed with a ton of positive predictions that would only happen if I paid her $25 so that she could cast spells for me so that I wouldn’t miss the diamond tennis bracelet I’m supposed to find on the ground, for one example.

Maria Duval does not claim to be a psychic herself. Indeed, she does not tell you what she does, only that she was in her office doing some filing with, apparently, some dude named Nicos Daskalos hanging out there, too, and this guy is “a man of faith capable of performing miracles.” As her story goes, “I came across some older files on my desk. Among them, there was your name, Cindy [last name] living at [my address]! Nicos Daskalos was with me at the time. Suddenly, as if hypnotized, his eyes were fixed on these files for several minutes, then he said to me:
‘Listen Maria, you must urgently put us in contact. I can see a person very open to the spiritual world and the things which I will convey could save that person and reverse any misfortunes which this poor soul has been experiencing.’
Taken aback, I answered him ‘no problem, Nicos, but what do you want me to say exactly?’ ”

Apparently, that was when Nicos disclosed that I’m supposed to have some long-sought significant change take place from October 3 but that there’s an evil element that could stop this great thing about to happen to me and thereby affect my destiny by stopping this change. “It’s absolutely imperative that we neutralize the affecting saturnine influences which are related to that very specific date.” Since I don’t have delusions of grandeur and expect to turn into some Christ-figure, I’m gonna say that this so far just reminds me of a Buffy or Angel episode. Then some stuff about who Nicos is and his “extraordinary powers,” and of course, HER personal vouching for him that she holds him “in very high esteem and I have a great deal of admiration for his extraordinary powers.” Well gosh, I was skeptical of him until YOU told me such, Maria! Whomever YOU are! Anyway, her letter goes on and on through 5 pieces of paper, front and back, and the last page ends with your payment option. Check? Money order? Please make those out to Maria Duval (why would I pay her instead of Nicos? hmm, could it be that this Nicos doesn’t exist? Maybe Nicos is her fake money cow, like “nickels,” as Marissa Von Trapp “traps” you). Cash? Mastercard and Visa. As for how much she wants, just a measely $10. And then you sign the agreement. If your miracles don’t happen (I didn’t even read the letter to find out what riches and love and luck are promised me), you get a refund. Like many people are gonna jump thru hoops to get $10 back. But if they collect $10 from 100 people, that’s $1000! And I’m sure they sent this to a ton of people considering they didn’t use a postage stamp, they used a presorted standard pre-printed stamp seal. OH, COME ON! How many files did this Nicos guy zone out on, Maria? How messy is your desk?! Maria Duval, by the way, is from Everett, MA so these scams are not just based out of Beverly Hills like the first one.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part. There is a second letter written in what appears to be Russian handwriting, on what appears to be blue ink on lined notebook paper. It’s 6 pages, and it’s signed by Nicos himself. When I look closely, I can see the little pixels that form the letters, which means it’s NOT written by hand, it’s STILL computer-generated, mass-produced. Lemme just skim thru Maria’s letter to see her description of what this Russian letter is.

Oh, apparently it’s 7 “parchments” to help you save yourself from “Kaliyuga,” which he says is “a dark era during which corruption reigns and the forces of destruction seek to anihilate humanity.” (Again, any Angel fans here?) The 7 parchments are “karma,” “love and affection,” “wealth and prosperity,” “inner peace,” “protection,” “health and longevity,” and “luck.” I won’t get into the descriptions of each parchment. Mainly because I refuse to read 10 pages of scare tactics about how I’m doomed and the only thing that stands between me and “anihilation” is the $10 it takes to pay Maria Duval.

Just found this online. Whoa…

Economic and social correlates of IQ in the USA

What’s of particular interest to me in the way IQ correlates to the way people live in the US is:
* people who are of highest IQ (category listed as 125+) are the least likely to be married by age 30, but are also the least likely (by a dramatic difference) to be divorced within 5 years once married
* less than 2% of the 125+ IQ group have illegitimate children, compared to 32% of the lowest IQ (<75) category
* poverty, incarceration, receiving welfare, dropping out of high school, are directly correlated with IQ, such that the lower the IQ, the more likely you’re going to deal with those 4 life experiences. 55% of the lowest IQ category drop out of high school as compared to less than 0.4% of the highest IQ group.

Okay, so I’m a 30 year old single woman high school grad with no children and no criminal record who is financially independant and doesn’t even know how to apply for welfare. That must mean I’m “smart.” HAHA.

I just spent the past hour completing a 12-page IQ test online. I was just surfing the net and one of the sidebar ads waving at me with stupid colorful insomniac-click-here-for-fun flashes sucked me in. As if I need to further demonstrate on myself why I shouldn’t watch late-night marketing when my boredom is high and common sense is low, I invested all this time completing the test thru a site called “Tickle” and when I finished the test, the site wouldn’t give me my score unless I went thru like 5 advertising pages in which I was forced to give out personal contact information for products I don’t care to be solicited by. In the fine print on one page asking me to select various newsletters from Hewitt-Packard, it said that if I don’t select any, one will randomly be selected for me. And it wouldn’t let me proceed without clicking on stuff and giving them my email address. Another alarming ad was for Vonage, the phone company. Apparently this company has gone from cell phone provider to residential land-line provider. It forced me to put down my phone # to be contacted by a salesperson so they can solicit me to transfer to Vonage with some 1st month free promo. I seriously considered just closing the window, but I invested over an hour of my sleepless night really answering the IQ questions to the best of my ability, and I wanted to see the result! So I gave the cliche fake number 555-5555, and it let me get thru the screen. I’m mad about this trickery, by the way. Make you waste all this time and they hold your results hostage until you pay the ransom with your personal information.

I don’t know much about IQ tests, except that I learned in a college class that it’s the 2nd most unreliable test, the most unreliable being a personality test. Looking at the content of the IQ test, I can see why now. It’s a lot of recognizing and perpetuating patterns (which appeals to my OCD side) both with visual figures and with numbers. To perpetuate a numerical pattern, some basic math is required. Knowledge of square roots, for example. To solve some other problem, I even employed the Pythagorean Theorem. You can’t tell me that if I did not have the education I did, that if I grew up in some heavily rural area (they only had one question that even mentioned goats) and therefore would not have known how to figure out how far apart 2 cars are if they leave from the same point going in opposite directions for 6 miles, then turned left and went for 8 miles (the answer I arrived upon was 20 miles apart), that I would be less intelligent than I am now. I’d still have the same brain. Just different frames of references. That’d be like saying all the great warring American Indian tribal leaders are of low intelligence because they don’t know what number should follow 64, 16, 4, 1, 1/4 (I chose the answer to be 1/16).

Anyway, the anti-climactic result they spit at me is as follows, without much explanation:

Congratulations, Cindy!
Your IQ score is 136

A summary of your intellectual strengths from certified staff PhDs
How your IQ compares to others
Average Tickle IQ scores by state
Charts and graphs of your results on 5 intelligence scales
Simple exercises to improve your IQ
The complete answer key to all the test questions

Oh yeah. The test had fill-in-the-blank quotes, too, which required knowledge of some lesser-used words and multi-layered nuances in order to deduce the meaning of the phrase and to fill in with the appropriate word. Anyway, despite knowing that IQ tests are unreliable, I’m still looking for validation in the result: what the hell does 136 mean? How do I rank in the spectrum of IQs of the general populace? I feel swindled that I had to give out my fake phone number for an unsatisfying result. But if they think I’m gonna subscribe to their site and PURCHASE a 15-page IQ report, they must think my IQ is lower than theirs! Which it very well might be, I don’t know because they don’t bother to explain it. Unless I buy the result analysis.

I was half-asleep on the couch last night when I realized Hey, am I supposed to buy Mr. W something for our 1-year anniversary? Oh well. I didn’t. That’s how casual our relationship is, I suppose.

Except that when I came over tonight, there were something like 2 dozen long-stemmed red roses in a large bell vase waiting for me. The vase was even wearing a red skirt that read, “I LOVE YOU!”

I suck.

I received one of those Adobe PDF flyers via email that instructs you to print it out and present it to the store as a coupon. This one says, “Try your coffee ICED. Stop by your neighborhood Starbucks Coffee between noon and 9pm for a complimentary iced grande beverage.” The fine print even had copyright information, 2006 Starbucks Company, and the language “All rights reserved. One Grande beverage per person per visit with this email. Please print and present this email to your Starbucks Barista. Offer good only at participating Starbucks Coffee locations. Expires September 30, 2006. Barista, please use discount code 113.”

Just to see if it works, Mr. W printed this flyer out and took it to a local Starbucks. The manager on shift came out and talked to us and yes, it is a scam. Someone spent some time copying/scanning an actual Starbucks flyer and made it into a PDF format coupon. Starbucks does not give promotions through email, ever. A real Starbucks promo would come through snail mail, it’d be a full-color ad, have a bar code on the bottom, and is usually printed on cardstock paper. Basically, she said, anything through email can be assumed to be unauthorized and fraudulent. But she honored the flyer anyway and gave Mr. W a grande iced chai tea, just this once, because we genuinely didn’t know that this was fake (at least, not for sure). Because customer service was so nice, that particular Starbucks has now earned another customer in Mr. W. He normally refused to pay for overpriced coffee except on the rarest of occasions, but now they’ve touched his overcaffeinated heart.

Last night, I read an email from Jordan that ended with a line asking if Mr. W and I were planning something to celebrate our 1-year anniversary coming up. That marks the 4th person who knows our timeline off-hand. How do they remember that?

1) Mr. W had approached me about 3 weeks ago and said, “We have our one-year anniversary coming up on the holiday weekend; let’s do something –” I didn’t even hear the end of that sentence as I whirled around to look at the calendar on the wall behind me. What holiday weekend? It looks like Labor Day is coming up in the beginning of September, which stands out to me because college roommie Diana had emailed me earlier that day asking if I’m gonna be in town so that she could come to LA and visit. I totally didn’t relate that to our one-year anniversary! Oops. I admitted that to Mr. W, who then laughed and admitted that the only reason he remembered was because his coworker had said to him, “Hey, you and Cindy have your 1-year coming up. Are you doing anything?” and he in turn had looked at the calendar and said, “What? When?!”

2) I had a coworker bring up to me in a conversation about vacation plans last week over lunch whether we were gonna go somewhere for our 1-year anniversary. “You have an anniversary coming up soon, you guys going anywhere?” How do you keep track of that?! Do people remember because they had bets going about how long we were gonna last or something?

3) After receiving said email from Jordan, I forwarded it to Mr. W because I thought it was so amusing. We’d met Jordan on a cruise after we’d been together almost 6 months, so it wasn’t like Jordan could “remember” when she found out or heard that we got together.

4) In response to reading the forwarded email, Mr. W said to me a little earlier, “You know who else remembered?” He named another female coworker of his, who’d asked him the other day hey, isn’t your 1-year anniversary coming up? “What the heck? How does everyone remember that? Do they all remember precisely where they were when they heard or something?” Yeah, he said, because she said she remembers it was Labor Day weekend because that’s when she was moving.

I suppose this is why women (with the exception of me) get so offended when their men forget important dates, because they’re even able to remember other people’s important dates. I had a few sheepish instances of forgetting an anniversary until some time later when I’m at work and have to date a document, and then it’d suddenly hit me, HEY! our 6-month anniversary just passed! And then I’d quickly jump on the phone and call Mr. W and say, “Do you realize we just passed our 6-month anniversary and you didn’t even say anything and we didn’t even do anything special this past weekend?!” He’d say, “Why didn’t you say anything?!” and I’d say, “I was waiting to see if you’d remember! And you DIDN’T!”
But later on I confessed. I think.

I gassed up the Lexus this morning for the first time. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. With slightly less than a quarter tank left, I filled up with Chevron Premium for a total of $41.17. It’s too bad that 3/4 of the tank got me under 300 miles. While waiting for my car to drink up, I took a paper towel around to places that had those little yellow dots of bird poop. With the slippery new clearcoat on the car, those poop chips just fell right off. I didn’t even have to dissolve them. Goal: keep wax job up so it’d always be like that.

Speaking of car wax, my bailiff brought in a Consumer Reports article to let me compare waxes. There are liquid wax (good for restoring high-gloss finishes, but kind of a pain to use), paste wax (decent gloss but not as good for cleaning as liquid wax, but fairly easy to use), and spray wax (new thing in a spray bottle, quick and easy, but shine doesn’t last long and not good for cleaning. Decent for maintenance). Turns out that the 2 best liquids are Black Magic Wet Shine Liquid Wax and Turtle Wax Carnauba Car Wax T-6, each for $7, excellent gloss, durability, cleaning, compatibility w/plastic, good on ease of use, and lack of scratching/hazing (i.e., not so abrasive as to mess up your paint during application/removal). Meguiar’s Gold Class Clear Coat Wax ranked somewhere in the upper middle, mostly because of less durability. Plus it’s $15 a pop. Nu Finish $8 ranked the highest in paste, and Eagle One Wax-As-U-Dry $6 ranked the highest in spray. In terms of overall score, the 2 liquids scored 84/100, the Nu Finish paste scored 71, the Eagle One spray scored 54. Just in case you guys are in the market for car wax. =)
(“Car Wax: Quality Shine for Less”, pg. 47-49, Consumer Reports, July 2006. Or, check http://www.ConsumerReports.org)

Mr. W and I went to CarMax yesterday after work to get an estimate on his truck. I have to say that my [interruption here, Mr. W just called me on the phone, brb] Okay. Now that it’s 2 hours later, I’m back. Anyway, we went to CarMax and my experience there was very impressive. If you want to sell or buy a used car, that’s the way to go! They’re thorough, haggle-free, nice people. None of the stereotypical sleazy car salespeople stuff.

I am so impressed by all the customer service I’d been receiving. Capital One Auto Financing, which gave me the lower interest rate through Costco, was prompt and professional and I received my blank check this morning at work through FedEx. After work, I drove the check down to Longo Lexus, waited awhile for a finance manager to free up so that I could change the financing from Lexus to Capital One. Everyone was busy so we sat there awhile, until my salesguy Martin happened to walk by and see us. He offered to take care of us so we went to his desk and he did the running around and took care of everything for me. Then I told him about 2 light scratches that I discovered on my car after I’d taken the car home and he said he’d bring it to the Lexus service department and see what they can do for me. Meanwhile Mr. W and I walked over to the Longo Toyota dealership right next door to meet up with Brian, the fleet manager that got us the great connection with Martin to begin with. As we waited for Brian to finish up with some customers, Martin came into the Toyota showroom we were in and handed me my car key. He’d gotten the scratch taken care of, driven my car over to me at the Toyota lot, and walked my key in. “It’s a different type of customer that would buy a Lexus, they’re more demanding,” Brian the Toyota guy said. Spoiled is more like it, I thought. Wow.

Mr. W looked at the Prius, 4Runner, and Solara. Brian recommended that we come back the beginning of next month for deals that would better suit what Mr. W was looking to do. I like people that are no-nonsense and are genuinely interested in getting you a good deal as opposed to just pushing sales ASAP. And the numbers computed floored me. Mr. W is gonna get one hell of a deal when he comes back to that place.

At work, I surfed the internet and found a State Farm agent whose office is located .8 miles from my house, and called him out of a list of 10 other State Farm agents within a mile of my home, just cuz Mr. W liked the sound of his name. The agent I had since I first drove had retired, I got transferred to this new agent and a month later, the new guy stopped working for State Farm. I called his office and he was on vacation until mid-September. Crap, I gotta find someone who can take care of the new car’s insurance. The one I randomly picked was wonderful. I didn’t speak to the agent himself, but the staff person who picked up the phone was great. She was nice, professional, informative, and already had gone out of the way for me in running some rough numbers without sufficient information. I’m definitely gonna switch to that office. She invited me down to their office (which is right next to bellydancing) to meet everyone.

I’m just so happy with how I’ve been treated lately. Ooh, and Martin gave me a nice Lexus pen today, too. Haha.

I have Paris Hilton’s uppity calypso beat song “Stars are Blind” stuck in my head. When I first heard this song, I wanted to hate it because, come on, it’s Paris Hilton and most women want to hate her. She’s got what we want — nice body, fame, fortune, youth, connections, and oodles of idle time in a life of leisure. We want to resent her because she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t appreciate it, didn’t earn it. We hate that we have to pause a conversation and wait for our men to regain focus on us when her Carl’s Jr. burger-chomping, car-washing, wet-b0dy commercial played on TV. But I really liked that song when I heard it. It makes me feel bouncy and happy. And hey, at least she’s DOING something productive and making a living.

Her CD comes out today, I think. The reviews slapped her with a back-handed compliment, something to the effect that it wasn’t as bad as expected by all the critics, but that it also fell short on its delivery because like Paris herself, the album had a cotton candy quality of tasting sweet initially and quick fade immediately thereafter. The recurring theme of the album, critics said, is, “I’m hot, I know I’m sexy, everyone wants me.” That’s the theme of many female singers these days (like Fergy of Black Eyed Peas), so I don’t know what the big deal is.

I still think, however, that whomever wrote the song wasn’t a particularly huge fan of hers. I think they wanted to plant some inside jokes at her expense. The most blatant one is that they played up her reputation of promiscuity with the line “If you show me real love, baby, I’ll show you mine.” It alludes to the age-old American scenario of a boy and girl standing across from each other, exploring their physical gender differences and bargaining, “If you show me yours I’ll show you mine.” That endearing image of childhood naivete has since been turned into a dirty inside joke to proposition someone, and now Paris’s line implies, “If you love me, I’ll sleep with you.” But it does still put her in the position of the power female — she has no emotions at risk, and the guy is the one whose heart is vulnerable. She is instead a bee going from flower to flower. Whomever wrote the song didn’t expect Paris to “get it,” and they topped it off by calling the song “Stars are Blind.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We all laugh at the dumb spoiled blonde’s expense.

I must be overcaffeinated to be analyzing a Paris Hilton song. Anyway, I like the beat and I still think it’s great she’s working. For now,

I don’t mind spending some time
Just hanging here with you
Cuz I don’t find too many guys
That treat me like you do
Those other guys all wanna take me for a ride
But when I walk their talk is suicide
Some people never get beyond their stupid pride
But you can see the real me inside
And I’m satisfied, oh no, ohh

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby i’m perfect for you

My love, ohh oh

I could be your confidante
Just one of your girlfriends
But I know that love’s what you want
If tomorrow the world ends
Why shouldn’t we be with the one we really love?
Now tell me who have you been dreaming of
At night at home? oh no, ohh

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby i’m perfect for you

Excuse me for feeling
This moment is critical
Might be me feeling
It could get physical, oh no, no no

Even though the gods are crazy
Even though the stars are blind
If you show me real love baby
I’ll show you mine

I can make you nice and naughty
Be the devil and angel too
Got a heart and soul and body
Let’s see what this love can do
Let’s see what this love can do
Baby I’m perfect for you

Baby I’m perfect for you

Even though the gods are crazy

Even though the stars are blind

Even though the gods are crazy

Even though the stars are blind

After driving around all Sunday to the Bower’s Museum to see the mummy exhibit, to Disneyland for the 1st free day for our annual pass (and meeting Vicky and her new man at California Adventure), I still haven’t gotten totally adjusted to the new car. The drive from my house to work this morning, I didn’t even have any road rage, despite the fact that it took me 30 minutes to drive 7 miles, which on any previous day would’ve sent me through the roof. I didn’t realize the drive was that long. I was distracted by admiring the radio display on the nav system screen, which lists all your preset radio stations AND the song that’s currently playing on each of these stations so you don’t have to change stations rapidly to see what’s playing on each. I also received a phone call mid-drive, which I answered on the car’s speaker system without ever reaching for my purse for my cell. It was some financial service or other that was checking to verify that I did indeed authorize Lexus to finance a new car over the weekend. I’d totally forgotten that I’d put a freeze on all instant credit, recorded on all 3 credit bureaus, because I’d been the victim of credit fraud. They’re supposed to call me personally to verify that I want credit opened, so that’s what they were doing. It did scare me, tho, cuz at first I thought there was something wrong with my financing and it had fallen through. I still gotta sign up with Costco and get that cheapie financing this week so I can get out of the higher-rate Lexus financing.

When I got to work (on which drive I passed 2 Infiniti G35s, they’re ALL OVER the place!), I parked way out in boonesville, BFE, to lessen the chance of people dinging my car. My poor little Accord was never so dinged as it was parked inside our work parking structure, which is just ridiculous, considering everybody’s coworkers there, so you’d think they’d be more respectful with their coworkers’ property. But I’ve had an attorney in the building open the driver’s side door of his SUV so hard into my car, as I was sitting in my car, that it shook my whole car for a few seconds. I was SO PISSED.

Anyway, I guess I’m gonna need to find time to wash this car on a regular basis to keep it all shiny. There’s already a few tiny spots of yellow, like maybe a birdie sprayed me and got a few droplets on the car. I made the mistake with the first car to put it through an automatic car wash while it was new and I got spider scratches up the yin yang. I didn’t know! I was young(er)!