Yesterday our Vizio VX37L died. Jaime attempted to turn the TV on and it wouldn’t power up. It has this logo in the front that is amber when powered off and lights white when powered on. I noticed that the logo wasn’t even amber, which was a bad sign. When I unplugged and replugged the TV, the logo would light up amber, but quickly faded. Not good.

I tried all the simple things (unplug, wait 10 seconds, replug, etc) but nothing changed. Jaime had done a bit of online digging and other people had seen this issue exactly as we are seeing. The only solution for them was to find an authorized Vizio serviceperson. /sigh It would probably cost us $200-300 to get this fixed after parts and labor, so we were going to look for a new TV.

Before we left, I decided I would go ahead and look for some folks who self-repaired this issue. I found a thread talking about the power logic board being at fault when this exact scenario happens. Apparently if you can find one for a decent price, you can do this fix yourself, but it’s not for the weak of heart. I’m a tinkerer so this doesn’t phase me at all.

So, I’m churning through this repair thread and it abruptly ends with a “Nevermind, was able to return the TV to Costco!”

This caught my attention as we purchased out TV from Costco, but it was in January of 2007, and at that time this TV cost a whopping $899! So this repair thread became a “How did that work?” thread where many others were asking this gentleman how he was able to return the TV, how long he had it, etc. Turns out he had bought his TV in 2005 and was able to return in in 2008!

THAT IS CRAZY! So, I read on. Apparently Costco’s original return policy didn’t have any time limits, meaning you could return products ANY time after purchase for the full price! He mentioned that the manager at Costco told him that if the TV was purchased more than 4 years prior, it would have required manager approval, but his TV was only 3 years old, so it wasn’t as issue.

Our TV was less that 4 years old, so why not see if we can get this to work, maybe the internet will be correct! So, I call Costco.com‘s customer service line and it turns out they couldn’t find that information, and they gave me the number of our local costco (which is barely local to us, but that’s beside the point). I call in and the manager seems very confounded, which I was expecting due to the nature of my request. Here’s how our conversation went:

Me: I would like to return a television, please.
Him: Okay, do you have a receipt?
Me: No, it’s been a long time since we’ve purchased this television.
Him: More than 90 days?
Me: Significantly more actually.
Him: Well, when did you buy it?
Me: Early 2007
Him: How early?
Me: January (at this point I think I am going to be told that I can take a hike)
Him: Let me look it up [waiting for a minute] A 37 inch Vizio?
Me: Yes
Him: Sure, you can return that. Just bring all the cables, remote, etc. and we’ll take care of it
Me: Really?
Him: Yup.
Me: We are on our way!

I still had my doubts, but we trekked up to the Costco and got the same strange look from the lady at returns, who then started some paperwork and ended up handing us a Costco cash card with $962 on it. The total purchase price and tax paid on the TV ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO!!!!!

We were so shocked. So, we went over to their electronics department and after Jaime talked me out of another Vizio (but it was 55 inches! :-P), we ended up snagging the last of their Sony 46″ KDL-46EX701 models ( www.sonystyle.c… ). This model is no longer in production as Sony has moved to their 2011 TVs, but it has loads of features, a beautiful picture, and a 3 year warranty! Best part, it was on clearance for $899!

So we basically traded in out 3 year old 37″ 720p Vizio LCD TV for a brand new 46″ 1080p Sony LED/LCD TV.

As a final note, Costco revised their return policy sometime in 2007 to limit returns on most products to 90 days, so this plan will no longer work. :-(

-Chris

I will *try* to blog more than once a year. I’ve got some things to say, no really I do.

Stay tuned!

-Chris

1. Quit my job in California
2. Got a new job in Indiana
3. Moved to Indiana
4. Moved back in w/ my parents
5. Celebrated the holidays in Indiana with family
6. Looked for a house
7. Bought a house
8. Moved into a house
9. Sold a car
10. Bought two cars

Needless to say, we’ve been rather busy and the server that I run the blog on has been offline for a rather long time, but I’m back baby!  I’ll try to get some pictures and stuff up when I can for posterity’s sake, but you can check my facebook profile out as I update it more often.

-Chris

Here’s my take.

I am a conservative, this does not default to republican in my book, as the republican party has veered very, very far from it’s days of Reagan conservatives. Now, the republican party is happy to grow the government just as much as the democrats, and with just the same amount of bureaucratic inefficiency as their counterparts “across the aisle”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for a two-party uber alles system, where the parties spend all their time fighting one another from some ideological bulwarks without ever wanting to work together. But, when you represent a party that has a base that believes in fundamentally small, efficient, and effective governments, who focus solely on what the Constitution requires of them, then they need to represent that view in their daily work. This won’t always be the case, just as sometimes a parent has to overstep their own ideal bounds with their children to steer them away from potentially fatal situations, when they might often let them learn on their own. Sticking your finger in hot water teaches you about hot things and the danger/pain of abuse, sticking your finger in a light socket may prove fatal, thus destroying the entire point of teaching at all.

There will be times (great depression) when the government is forced to act in extreme ways to fend off complete national collapse, but it must relinquish those powers once the emergency is over, lest we see a oligarchical nation come into power before our very eyes.

Looking at heavy-handed communist or socialist countries gives me pause, because most of those nations were founded with the best of intentions. Making the working-class, middle-class people more powerful by putting the government on “their side” looks great on paper, but the more you trust those without accountability outside of themselves, the more personal responsibility you (perhaps inadvertently) hand over to them. You no longer need to worry about working for yourself, you work for the country. You earn what the country earns and live how the country lives. Communities are “installed” as needed by the motherland and all you have to do is what you are told to do.

This system can work, but you don’t need the government to drive it. You can loan money to people without interest, believe it or not. Thanks to our overly-bloated tax and banking laws, it is much harder to do that, but you could do it easily once upon a time. There are lots of things that we now need the government to do for us, that once upon a time, we could do without the help of the government.

There are some things that a government should always be doing. Protecting the nation from threats for foreign and domestic is a good one. Guaranteeing citizens protection from crime and fraud is another one. Also, currency control in order to govern inflation and economic growth to prevent huge swings that are potentially national threats.

Neither of the candidates seem to want to focus on these issues. They both seem content to throw money at problems that call for much deeper reform. The fear I have with Sen. Obama is a complete democratically controlled government. The GOP had that a while back and they hosed it up badly. Checks and balances are our friends, after all.

But, I tend to think that the only thing that will wake up the republican party is to see how many conservatives cannot bring themselves to vote for Sen. McCain. Give me a conservative candidate next time, and he/she will have my vote.

I cannot discount Sen. Obama’s ability to bring a nation together under a notion of change, but we need to change for the better. Believe it or not, this country has “changed” greatly from what the Constitution has laid out for the federal government and I think we need to “change” back into the original vision of the founding fathers.

In debates with folks at work, and following an email list that I run for family members, it seems that many of the Obama supporters would rather the government take over stuff that is working inefficiently. They are fine with giving the government the go-ahead, having them tax the rich more, and then wait for the government to handle it. The problem with that mentality is what do you do when the government lets you down? What happens when a promise about pre-existing conditions turn into a wait in long lines for a “specialist”. What happened in other countries are people paying out-of-pocket to see doctors when they want to.

If malpractice was reformed, health care would see a dramatic shift in pricing and availability. Instead, the candidates want to funnel *more* money into a flawed system. You can’t federalize health care insurance without federalizing health care. The government will soon dictate, like a giant HMO, which doctors can charge what prices under their care. Once that division takes place, it won’t be long until the other doctors are forced into their system to still have patients.

Why not take those monies that you want the government to have and funnel them into non-profits and charities designed to help offset health-care costs specifically for people with a pre-existing condition? There isn’t one? WHY NOT BE PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE AND START ONE!?

I know plenty of people that could afford health care, but choose to buy flat-screen TVs and new cars. They take trips and vacations and have the latest technology, then turn around and say that health care is too expensive. Issues like that are about priorities. People with multiple kids have to adjust their spending as well as people that lose lawsuits. Life isn’t “fair” for everyone, but there are ways to make it work, if people are personally responsible enough to actually make it happen.

In my time in Church, I’ve seen that there are people that have a passion for just about anything you can think of. If you want to adopt, they can get you grants, huge sums of money donated by people who have a heart for the suffering of orphans. If you want to go on a mission trip to help build buildings in 3rd world countries, you can get donations to help you accomplish that.

Many children’s hospitals are funded by benefactors so that families can get the care they need without having to bear the entire burden. To think that there is no hope for adults that have a certain condition(s) is to discount the true nature of Americans. You can bet that there are people who have money to send and would happily fund an organization designed to help certain afflicted people get the care they need.

Many issues are just like this! We moved to California a couple years back and now we’re tired of it. The lifestyle is okay, but it’s not Indiana, and we don’t have any family here. In addition, this state is hemorrhaging money into a broken school system and countless junk programs. There are *plenty* of people out here who complain 24/7 about it. They talk about lobbying this and that and trying to change it in such and such a way. Good for them!! Get in there and make a change, but for us, we are going to move to a place that’s more affordable and closer to family. We will bear the responsilibily of moving ourselves and make it happen. I think Californians in general like the idea of a socialist agenda with a huge state government, so I am compelled to leave if I disagree. So be it. I don’t have a right to live in California with a government of my choosing.

The issue I face is that if America takes a turn toward a big-government behemoth, we will have to leave the country to escape that kind of government intervention. That’s a bit tougher for me to do because there have been many people who have fought and died for this country and I want it to flourish like it has the first 225 years of it’s life. We don’t need a bigger government, we need bigger citizens that will take to hear the infamous question: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!”

So, who am I voting for? Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess I pray that there will be something that can convict me what is best for America in the long term, and not just for me in the short term. Here’s to hoping!! /clink

As a last thing, here is JFK’s tremendous “Ask Not” speech. If you’ve never read it, you really should. I pretty much agree with every assertion he makes in that speech…

www.famousquote…

-Chris

Well, I’m migrating all our photos on our photoalbum site to Flickr. It will take something like 4 days to complete, but it will be nice to have that whole thing offloaded!

This picture was the latest upload when I checked it this morning and it is definitely one of my favorite pics. Jaime cracks me up…

Here’s the URL: www.flickr.com/…

New photos will be appearing regularly over the next couple days, oh boy!

Also, so many of those testimonies are so very familiar to me! I guess that reinforces that we are rarely alone in the stuff we struggle with every day. It’s a powerful idea that God knows our plights and wants to take those burdens away, it’s really powerful when you see that idea play out in real life in a video like this.

-Chris

I remember first seeing the movie in high school, right in the middle of some serious teenage angst regarding life in general. It really resonated with me on so many levels. The idea that the world is mostly an annoyance that is only tolerable if it is walled out… I can relate to that!

As I’ve grown older, The Wall, at least musically, has remained powerful. It is, without question, one of my favorite all-time albums just because of the continuity of the music contrasted with some varying styles. It’s a great listen. I had listened to the album and had a desire to watch the film again because there are some subtle differences between the soundtrack and the movie and it had been quite a while since I’d laid eyes on the movie.

As I’ve grown older, I have come to realize that much of what I loathe is not really the world, but the fact that people are seemingly okay with the idea that they do not need to be self-responsible. By that I mean more and more people are content to blame everything on the government, or on others. With blame comes dependence, and so goes mankind it seems. Blame the government for not telling you that putting a hair dryer in the bathtub with your child is dangerous, get a gigantic label and buying restrictions on appliances in order to protect you from yourself.

Many people seem to be okay with this idea that they are never at fault. I, while I would agree it is a convenient way to live, find it deplorable. Whenever we are playing or interacting with Emma and she hurts herself or something, we make a point to remind her that if she runs too fast or doesn’t look where she’s going, she will hurt herself. I see plenty of parents that would coddle them away from the issue and then rearrange the furniture or something so it won’t happen again.

These are the children that drink and drive later in life and kill a teenage friend, all the while wondering how mommy and daddy are going to get them out of this one. It is a terrible shame and it makes me focus doubly hard to make certain that Emma is self-responsible and fully capable of running her own life as much as she’s able.

That said, The Wall just drips of outward blame. I never noticed it as much growing up because I guess I related to him so much as a “misunderstood artist”. As I have advanced in years, it has become evident that I wasn’t “misunderstood”, I was credulous. I thought I was a one-of-a-kind kid with ideas and feelings that none could understand, so it was best that I shut those folks out and handle it myself. I now see that I was just another teenager trying to grow into adulthood but confused about how to make it happen.

In watching The Wall I began to see it much more as a tale of a childish, spoiled adult that refused to take responsibility for his own life. In the absence of his charge, anyone who could step in gladly did to use and abuse him and push him further into his own prison. Yes, his mother was over bearing. Indeed, the schoolteacher was a mean-hearted power monger. Sure his wife cheated on him. It’s true that his manager was a money-hungry maniac willing to risk Pink’s health to ensure continued success and it sucks that his father died in the war when he was just a baby. All these things are terribly tragic and can make life a huge drag, no doubt.

However, his mother’s continued control over him was completely self-imposed. She was long out of the picture, but he couldn’t let her memory go. He’s the one that chooses to relive and in many ways wallow in the very thing that he claims to hate so much. His wife did cheat on him, but only after he pushed her so far away that she was forced into the arms of another man just to feel companionship. Once she had fled Pink’s embrace, he suddenly wanted only her and then became indignant that *she* was responsible for destroying him.

His manager, while quite ruthless, didn’t have to work very hard to control or exploit Pink. Pink’s general malaise and inaction which devolves into a near-catatonic self-perpetuated state of loathing give the manager a perfect platform to inject drugs and basically puppeteer Pink into whatever he fancies. The schoolteacher is unique in that many kids are subjected to the “wrath” of schoolteachers and if they get a bad one, it can leave a memorable impression. In Pink’s case, I empathize with him having a teacher that didn’t understand or encourage his high-art gifts, but once the purview of the schoolteacher was no longer a factor, blaming past tyranny for future indiscretions falls right back into the irresponsible rut that shapes his life.

The one part of the movie that really took on a whole new meaning was the final two “acts”, if you will. Pink suddenly realizes that he has succeeded in walling himself in. He has built a wall out of all these “bricks” that he has fashioned from all the wrongs that have ever been done to him.

Once complete, there seems to be a notion that he truly grasps that these bricks were made by him and for him. They might consist of the actions, or lack thereof, of other people, but *he* made them. They weren’t bricks until he fashioned them into bricks and laid them into the wall. At this point, he is beginning to separate his mind. Part of him sees that the only guilty party for his life and the course he has taken is himself. The other part is still clinging to the comfort and solace of all the hatred and disdain.

This leads to the final scene where Pink is put on trial by his own egos. He is forced to evaluate his life and chooses to call as witnesses the people that he holds accountable for his life’s course. As they “testify” in the proceedings, you get to see how his perception of these people have really worked to shape him into what he has become. The final segment involves the judge himself ruling over the trial. The judge declares that because he has revealed his deepest fears he must be subject to the full penalty of law. The penalty? TEAR DOWN THE WALL!

So why bother recounting this whole thing? As this election season rolls on, there seems to be hints of this sort of thing happening in the world around us. So many people are victims of their own lives and have become dependent on the government to take care of them. They are so willing to become socially catatonic and let the government drug them up and drag them to their next gig. They just wall themselves in and let the world around them do what it will.

I find this sort of thing almost completely insane. I believe that the government should do three things primarily: 1) Protect the nation’s sovereignty, 2) police the population and 3) prevent fraud

With those three things being handled by a government body, people should turn to other as necessary, and pull up their bootstraps otherwise. There was once a time when kids broke their arms on playgrounds and the jungle gym wasn’t torn down and replaced with a huge padded cell. There were cars that were wrecked and no money was expected for a repair because, “It could happen to anyone.” There were once communities that worked together, knew one another, and formed the necessary committees to make their little pieces of the world safe and hospitable. There used to be families that were able to afford to eat dinner together every night of the week, where family was far more important than jobs or cars or status.

The government doesn’t need to babysit you for you to be able to live a fulfilling life, but it will gladly do so for merely half your income. I for one think it is high time that self-responsibility made a huge comeback! All we have to do is TEAR DOWN THE WALL!

-Chris

However, I recently purchased a new laptop so I could seel my older one to my sister who was in need of a capable computer. Plus I bought a car, so all told it was a killer birthday giftwise. :-)

But, I now embark on my 31st year shuffling around this mortal coil and I’m excited to see where God will take me this year.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!!

-Chris

It’s a tragic tale, but it has a happy ending. Shall we begin?

Over the last couple of weeks, there was some bizarre behavior exhibited by the Explorer. Every time I had to brake hard for any reason, a plume of black smoke would billow out from under the hood. Of course, it led me to do two things, 1) Check under the hood for something obvious, and 2) try to figure out exactly which actions caused this smoke to billow.

After some investigation, I opted to take it to MIDAS (our local garage) on Friday (9/5) and let them take a gander. They called me back and told me that the smoke wasn’t from under the hood, it was actually from transmission fluid leaking onto the exhaust pipe.

/sigh

I had a feeling that a leaky transmission wasn’t a good thing, especially with a 1996 vehicle. He said that the pump assembly was leaking and it looked like bad seals. He would need to remove the transmission to replace the seals and it would be expensive to do it. In this scenario, given the age of the car, he would recommend rebuilding the transmission to be sure that we wouldn’t be back in there in a month or two with another failed part on a 12 year old transmission.

To give you a bit more background, prior to this, here’s what I *knew* was … umm … “not ideal”.

• Front driver-side quarter panel damaged
• Back springs completely worn-out, replacement needed
• Driver’s seat unable to remain upright, board propped up by folded rear seat
• Passenger seat belt buckle required “finesse” to open
• Passenger side brake light cracked
• Air conditioning untenable, needed complete replacement
• Driver’s side door unopenable from outside until opened from the inside, if outside handle pulled while locked
• Several rips/cuts/stains in interior
• Bizarro security system requiring random driver actions for car to start

And now, a transmission replacement. All told, that would be about $6000 to get it all fixed, and the car, in perfect condition, is worth ~$5000.

This meant only one thing, I would have to go car shopping. Now, I cannot describe to you how much I loathe shopping for cars. It’s like going into a very sneaky, but extra vicious lion’s den and I never feel like I’ve prepared enough for what I’m about to face. I started praying straight away that God would provide some extra discernment and that he would really help me to remain calm and patient.

We had planned to go look at some cars the next day (9/6), but after browsing the web at some auto sites I had absolutely no idea what kind of car I wanted, much less which make/model. As I wasn’t anticipating buying a car anytime soon, my perfect (or maybe my *tolerable*) car was the furthest thing from my mind.

Needless to say, it had to be done as the Explorer would need to be topped off with transmission fluid weekly to keep it from leaking dry and ceasing up, and that was a risk that I wasn’t ready to take. We got a late start after waiting for me to finish my DVD polishing exercise (I got 1984 on DVD from my in-laws, but it was scratched. You see the only way to get this DVD for a reasonable price is to buy used and this one wouldn’t play, or at least wasn’t entirely readable due to the depth and location of the scratch, but thanks to a rouge wheel given to me a while back by my father-in-law, I was able to slowly polish the scratch enough that the DVD was readable. This, however, took longer than I had anticipated). So after a quick BK lunch, we decided that Jaime would take Emma home and I would drag myself to a couple of car lots. We had seen the Saturn dealership’s “$17,999 VUE” banner on our way there, so that would be my first stop.

They were nice enough there, but the Vue was a bit crowded inside. I’m a giant person, so I need a fair amount of room to feel comfortable, and the Vue was too cramped for me to hang out in there. Plus the $17,999 model was pretty stripped down, but that wasn’t nearly the concern of the size issue.

They had an Outlook in the showroom, so I gave it a go and was impressed. It was very roomy inside and was setup like a minivan, but looked more like an SUV on the outside. The Employee Price sale was still in force, and this model was the lesser of the two Outlook models at ~$27,000. I grabbed some flyers, filled out a customer info card and said I may be back. $27,000 was a bit more than I wanted to spend for the car because we were w/o a car payment and were really driving our debt down. I was hoping to get a payment ~$400-450, regardless of how low that figure was feeling.

I was finished for the afternoon after that one stop (105 degrees and no A/C in the Explorer makes Chris a sweaty mess) and so I was heading home. I came up to the BMW/Mercedes intersection and thought, “What the hell? The worst thing is that I find out that I can never afford to drive a BMW.”

I pulled into the BMW place making sure to stop a bit hard and get that nice plume of smoke billowing. In my shorts and T-shirt I trudge to the door as a salesman named Ritchie opens the door and greets me. I’m sure that I looked like a joyrider trying to score a test drive with no hope of being able to afford a car, and in some ways that analysis was spot on.

Ritchie asks me what I’m looking for in a car, so I told him that I need to fit comfortably and I wondered if there was a BMW that would work. So, he took me to an used X5 and I sat in it. Quite comfy, not too cramped, except in the price department at ~35k. So, to remedy that situation he got me into a 2009 Alpina B7, also quite comfortable to sit in, but even more troubling ~$147,000 price tag.

Certified Pre-Owned? Sure! We head to a 5-series for ~$26k. It fits pretty well, not too cramped and quite roomy. It’s also a *sharp* looking car, so i was tempted. This would get better mileage and certainly is a bit classier than the Outlook, plus we already have the Durango, so we have the SUV if we need the space. I was about to have Ritchie cook up some numbers for me when he stops me and says, “I think I may have the perfect car for you.”

We walk around the dealership (I’m sweating profusely from the heat, fyi, and Ritchie is wearing a suit w/o a bead of sweat. Felt like a real goon by this time.) and he walks me up to this black Land Rover. It’s a beautiful car, but so were many other cars on this lot. The price was the first thing I noticed: $19,997

/confused

“Sooo, was this pulled from a lake or something?”
“No, it’s about to go to auction at that price, the wholesale price. It’s not negotiable because we will get that price from the auto warehouse that handles our auctions. It will most likely be gone by the weekend.”

Riiiight, that’s a pretty good story, but we’ll see. It’s a 2006, and has 43k miles. Not the best mileage, seems a bit high, but oh well. Even with those miles, the price was ~12k below blue book. They got me a carfax for the VIN and it was clean as well. Did a bit of scouring on my blackberry regarding auto auctions and his story checked out, that how it works (as best I could tell). Maybe, just maybe, this guy wasn’t swindling me.

I text Jaime and tell her I’m bringing a car by and it’s a Land Rover. “Of course it is” she replies, I’m sure thinking that me, the moron, went and fell in love with some $40,000 car that we are going to have to stretch every penny to afford. She came outside and liked the look, when I told her the price she was as shocked as I. She took it for a spin and thought it was a dream to drive as well.

So, we went back and he started working up the papers. After the deductions on the explorer due to the numerous problems, I netted $500 for it which I happily took. They got it all approved and printed and lo and behold, $450 payment. Both Jaime and myself were surprised that God was so good as to help up meet our budgetary goals with a nice car that works so well for me.

To bolster my confidence in the purchase, there were 3 couples that came in inquiring about the black LR3 and leaving irritated when they found out it had been purchased. Maybe I had found a diamond in the rough after all!

Well, I drove it to work the first time today and it was so nice. It was quiet (WINDOWS UP!) and cool (A/C ROCKS!). I was comfortable and it drives really well in traffic. It (supposedly) will do 12/25 mileage, but we’ll see how that goes. It does has a 6-speed transmission which will help mileage a bit, but if I get 20 on the highway I’ll be happy!!

This one’s not mine, but it looks *exactly* like it.

So, the next era begins! Here’s to another 10 years of driving the same car! :-D

-Chris

I have a MySpace page and to this day I loathe the entire experience there. It’s completely self-contained, difficult to configure to your liking, littered with junk, and basically unusable for actually finding and/or getting in touch with anyone.

When facebook launched and started to catch on, I heard about all these gimmicks and thought it too would go the way of myspace, lots of focus on “personalizing” your page to your liking, regardless of how intolerable it may be to actually use your page.

Facebook took a different approach by opening up many of their APIs. This allowed people to build applications that use facebook through a well-documented and proper interface instead of more-or-less hacking their way into it.

My wife signed up a few weeks back and invited me to join. I, as I usually do with invited to trendy web applications, ignored it and went about my business. A few nights back I finally bit the bullet and registered for the site and I must say that compared to the other social networking sites, they have done an extraordinary job of decluttering things and letting people oly do as much as they care to do.

I’ve already gotten in touch with a few old friends and wasn’t forced into wading through gobs of flashing backgrounds and transparent text to do it. The site itself is very secure and through the privacy interface allows you (by default) to keep yourself well isolated from strangers.

So far I’ve been pretty impressed with the simplicity, and the facebook-sponsored applications are not half bad. They work far better than cobbled-together junk that you often find out in the interweb. Now, there are still tons of “useless” things that litter facebook, things that I would definitely not bother with on a going-forward basis, but they are all optional and can’t be moved up into the “main content” area of anyone’s profile. That’s really nice because it keeps the meat of the profile page consistent and you’re only bombarded with the time-wasters if you choose to peruse their profile further.

So, two-thumbs up for facebook at this time. I’ll follow up if I’ve been duped. :-)

Oh, and my profile is www.facebook.co…

-Chris