As the Economy Gets Worse, So Will Crime
Welcome back!
Crime is up. Welcome to this new fiscal reality. Now it’s time for some safety tips for the New Depression.
More and more people are having to go without. Jobs are being lost at an alarming rate. People are getting desperate and because of this crime is on the rise.
Now, I’m not telling everyone to run out an buy a gun, or take drastic measures to protect themselves. I’m merely saying that as the economy gets worse, we need to be more vigilant.
I live in an upper middle class suburb of a major city in the U.S. We are far enough out where people don’t lock their doors, because many feel that crime doesn’t happen here. My little town has had quite a wake up call recently. A neighbor was recently robbed. Someone had their car stolen in the Walgreens parking lot, in broad daylight. Petty theft is on the rise all over. Times are tough and people need money.
There are a few simple steps that you can take to protect yourself without spending a lot of money. Again, I do not tend to alarm, but I do want to bring this issue to light. I know that crime is up much across the country with robberies at the top. In the past few months, in my area robberies have been way up. Before the economy took a down turn, the biggest robbery was maybe a bike.
The first step is simple and it’s free. Lock your doors. I know this seems too simple to even mention but you’d be surprised how many people don’t lock their doors. By doors, I mean not just the house. Lock the car, shed, garage, etc. Anyone can come in and take what they want when the door is not locked. Have the door locked even when you are home. Once you start locking your doors on a regular basis, it will become habit. Also, never leave your car running, ever! It’s just too easy for a crook to hop in and drive away.
The second thing that you can do is to keep an eye on your belongings. Always keep your purse on your body, never leave it in the cart when grocery shopping. I cannot tell you how many purses I have seen sitting on the passenger seat of empty cars. When you leave something like that visible and unattended, you might as well beg a thief to help themselves.
This is the same with a man’s wallet. When in crowded places, watch out for pick pockets. I know that this is rare in most small towns in America, but you’d be surprised what people would do to get by. Also protect what is in your wallet and purse, have the phone numbers of credit cards, and the cell phone company on hand, so that if something is stolen or lost, you can make the necessary calls right away.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is to just be aware of your surroundings and have common sense. If you see something out of the ordinary that seems odd, give the police a call. You don’t have to call 911. Most police departments have a non-emergency phone number that you can call. Most times the police will thank you for keeping a watchful eye. I’ve called them a few times myself and I have never had a negative reaction. It’s their job.
Common sense should guide you. I saw one of the stupidest things while I was out today. Someone had just purchased a 48″ flat screen television and left the box at the end of the driveway for the garbage man to pick up. The driveway was next to a busy highway. This is basically an advertisement to criminals. Common sense would say, never put packages from expensive purchases out on the curb for the garbage men (cut the box down and recycle it). Many towns have recycling centers to dispose of packaging. If the packaging cannot be recycled, I would suggest disguising it so that you can’t tell what went into that package. Don’t advertise to criminals.
The world is not a complete bad place. I am not suggesting you run out and buy a pricey alarm system or something as extreme as a gun. I just want to stress that now is a time for vigilance. Keep an eye on your surrounding and your posessions. Lock your doors. With a little common sense, we can all stay safe. So through these tough times, safety is possible, but it may require just a little more effort.
How to Cut Advertising Out of Your Life
They’re not on your side.
Day after day, we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements a day; all encouraging us to spend money in some way. Some manipulate us. Some make us aspire to a life we don’t have. Some make us feel like shit for not having something or make you feel too fat or too skinny.
I could write a book on the wrongs advertising inflicts upon us. But that’s not what this post about. This post is about how to cut advertising out of your life, as much as possible.
It’s possible and I’m going to show you how to block advertising today!
Ad Blocking Software
If you use the computer a lot, you know that you are bombarded with ads to pretty much any website you go to (including this one…). Not only can they be annoying but they can be a major violation of privacy as cookies track your movements from site to site and target ads towards you based on your history.
For example, pretty much every website I go to has advertisements for the latest deals on flights to London. It’s no coincidence that I love England and would give my left foot to go there again. So, the ad networks track me when I price out dream vacations. They know what I want, sometimes more than I do.
So, how do block the ads out?
If you use Safari on the Mac, I recommend SafariBlock. If you use a PC, the Firebox browser has extensions such as Adblock.
There is not a simple solution to block ads in Internet Explorer. You’re better off switching to FireFox anyway, it’s much more secure and works a lot better anyway.
TIVO – DVR’s – Digital Video Recorders
While the TIVO may seem like an unnecessary gadget to have, especially with it’s ongoing cost (monthly fee), it’s a great thing to keep around. There is a TIVO remote hack that allows you to set the TIVO to have 30 second skip. This way you can skip all commercials.
If you don’t have a TIVO or want to invest in one, most cable companies offer a DVR now and charge a small monthly fee for it. While they aren’t as elegant as TIVO, you can still fast forward through commercials and skip them entirely.
Another solution if you want to go even further is to download your favorite TV shows over the internet. The commercials are usually removed and you can get almost any popular show for free via Bittorrent. Though, the legality of this is in dispute. You can also buy most TV shows from online stores like the iTunes Music Store and Amazon UnBox.
Life is so much better without loud and obnoxious TV Commercials.
RSS Feeds
If you are a regular reader of a website and just read the content, the RSS Feeds are your new friend. All you need is a RSS Feedreader like Newsgator or NetNewsWire, or even Google Reader and you can read the content on most sites without ads. Some feeds are starting to have ads, but they are not nearly as obtrusive as content on websites surrounded by ads.
Heck, though I’m shooting myself in the foot, you can even subscribe to the feed on this site and avoid my ads all together (but please don’t!).
Sunday Paper
The Sunday Paper can usually be a useful source for coupons and deals for the week. However, it’s best to just toss the sale paper section. It’s solely designed to get you to WANT. To get you to go out and spend money.
If you want the coupons, of which there are usually only a few and they aren’t worth the trouble of clipping, just take out the coupon ads and throw the rest away into the recycling bin. Your wallet will thank you.
Personally, I hate nothing more than being tempted with a new flat screen TV every time I read the sale papers. So, just toss ‘em. You’ll want for less and be all the better off for it.
Magazines
Pretty much avoid all magazines like the plague, especially more ‘popular’ ones. They perpetuate our society’s materialism. The ads and usually most of the content it written to manipulate you into wanting ‘stuff.’
There are some quality magazines out there that have unobtrusive ads and are renowned for their quality content. I recommend The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
If you want to avoid ads even in those magazines, they have websites where ads can be blocked. Most of them also have RSS Feeds.
Junk Mail
Junk Mail keeps the Postal Service alive so it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. There are, however, ways you can reduce your junk mail.
The Direct Marketing Association has a website where you can sign up to opt-out of getting most consumer catalogs. At one point I was getting 3 or 4 of the same Victoria’s Secret Catalogs every couple of weeks. We signed up for this and haven’t gotten one since.
Also, there’s a system to opt out of all those credit card offers you get in the mail. I hated nothing more than getting offers for scam credit cards. I don’t get them anymore.
For all other junk mail that keeps coming, just toss it in the recycling bin without reading it.
E-mail SPAM
The best way to battle e-mail Spam is to get a Gmail account. Their spam filters work the best out of any of the e-mail services I’ve tried. Gmail is free and secure and you can set it up with your usual e-mail reader (i.e. Outlook or Apple Mail) to avoid their targeted ads.
If you want to avoid Spam, avoid a Hotmail account all together.
Telemarketing
Thankfully, telemarketers are pretty much a thing of the past thanks to the National Do Not Call Registry. You can sign up online here. This is, by far, one of the easiest ways get rid of a common annoyance.
Branded Clothing
Is Nike or the Gap paying you to wear their corporate logos? No! In fact you’re overpaying them for the privilege. It is pretty easy to buy clothes without labels on it. I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy and nothing I wear has a corporate logo on it. Even the business casual clothes I wear to work lack ‘labels.’
If you have any tips on cutting advertising out your life, please post them in the comments!
You Don’t Need a New HDTV to Get Digital TV
I won’t deny it, HDTV sure looks nice when properly presented. However, I’m in no rush to invest in a new television. We’ve had the same TV for almost ten years and it’s showing no signs of death, even though the power button broke off.
The desire for a fancy flat screen HDTV is very strong for both of us. But it’s something that we are refusing to invest in for the foreseeable future. We have TV now, why pay more to watch it when what we have works fine? This is a question more of us need to be asking ourselves before we make large purchases.
A big misconception about HDTV is that you will need a new HDTV to get through the HD transition or get HDTV at all. This could not be farther from the truth.
If you have cable TV, you do not need to worry about the digital transition. Your cable company already does it for you. As do satellite providers.
The government is also giving us two $40 coupons to buy Digital TV converter boxes that will convert the over-the-air HD signal to fit on older TV’s. Walmart has these digital converter boxes for $50. Minus the $40 coupon, HDTV costs you only $10 plus tax. Not a bad deal, though you’ll need an antenna. Go here to send away for your government digital tv coupon.
What about all those fancy HD only channels that aren’t over the air? A little secret is that most cable receivers can decode the HD channels and convert them to fit into a regular TV. Sure, the picture isn’t as great but the content is still there and still looks pretty darn good. I know for a fact that most Comcast DVR’s do this.
We’ll probably upgrade our TV when our current one dies and cannot be repaired. By that point, fancy flat screen TV’s will cost much less and we won’t have to pay the ‘first adopter tax.’
