My Commonplace Book

What a coincidence!

I had no sooner finished recommending Arm & Hammer's Clean Shower to lkeele in response to her question about bathroom cleaning products, when someone posted an offer on freecycle for two bottles of Clean Shower!

I asked for them ... and got them! I'm picking them up Tuesday evening. It isn't anything exciting,  but it's definitely a cost-saving, as I use this stuff religiously. The whole bathtub enclosure really does stay sparkling with no cleaning at all if you use it after every shower.

And the coincidence is funny. Maybe my friend who insists that the Law of Attraction works is right.

(I'm just kidding, but she really does believe in it. She's a member of my UU church, but she's also a member of the local Church of Religious Science, which teaches "Our thinking and our expectations create our reality.")

Especially for oniricwolf, sleepingwolf and maxh42:

( Funnee picshurz )

We don't normally see responses to offers since they're normally in private email, but this person used Reply All. They're moderated, thank heaven, so it didn't go out to everyone -- but it did come in to the pending message area where we got to see it.

This was the entire text of the offer: "OmegaBrite Capsules. I have about twenty of them - package is open, but each is individually sealed.  500 mg per capsule."

This was the response asking for them:

SUBJECT: Re: Offer - OmegaBrite Capsules

i live right near you.....they sound healthy! i'd be happy to pick them up if no other takers on the edge of their health....btw, what are they?

This was posted to the national modsquad the other day by a mod with a keen sense of humor.

Subject: The Virgin Mary lives

Here is a post for the day:

Hi, I'm 5 months pregnant on my own

(As usual when something ironic or iNtuitive is posted there, someone takes it literally. Another mod responded "I'm sure they meant that they are living on there own and mistyped...." )

Today another mod posted this:

Subject Some people are too attached to their appliances

Up for adoption:
We have a washer that needs a new seal on it, but the motor is fine.  It has a laundry softener is in and the tub size is extra large, it is electric. Please bring a truck and the extra hands for loading.  The washer has been good to us and we want it to go to a good home. Thanks

This is too funny! The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Application form letter from Yahoo:

The following person would like to join the freecycle group:
Email address: Applicant <applicant@yahoo.com>

Comment from user:
Love to swing as well BBC here

Mod 1 to applicant [in all seriousness]:

I'm not sure what you meant by your comment.  Could you elaborate, please?

Mod 2 to Mod 1:

I'm not sure you really want him to elaborate that one. Really. But I think your note might help him realize that Freecycle isn't the right place for what he's looking for. It may be free, but I think it.. uh... qualifies as more of a service (and isn't legal for all ages!)

*shakes head* No idea why he thought this was a place for that...  I mean, he could mean something other than what I think.. but.

Mod 1 to me:

----Forwarded Message----
From: Applicant <applicant@yahoo.com>
To: Mod 1

Just looking for some nice ladies to hangout with and get to know...

Might you have any words of wisdom for this poor, misguided soul?

lol

Me to Mod 1:

Don't look at ME! You got yourself into this!

Um, just tell him that freecycle doesn't accept ISO posts, and give him the URL for Craigslist.

Sunny *who has tears in her eyes from laughing so hard*

Me to Mod 2:

LMAO!!!

Hey Mod 2, I've never heard "BBC" in this context, but I know he's not talking about a UK radio station! I know what BBW means ... can I infer that the first two thirds of BBC mean the same thing? If so, I can figure out the rest....

Sunny *totally cracking up here*

PS -- What's that red glow on the southeastern horizon? Mod 1, go put a bag over your head until you stop blushing!  *g,d,r*

I don't know how it'll turn out yet, but I had to share it! I'll post an update.

ADDED: When I logged on this morning there weren't any messages from Mod 1 to the rest of us, just this:

Mod 1 to Applicant:

They have a song just about this situation:

"...Looking for love, in all the wrong places..."

Try Craig's List instead: http://baltimore.craigslist.org/cgi-bin/personals.cgi?category=m4w

GRRRRRRR. This was sent as a post to a freecycle group in Maryland. This attitude drives me crazy.

Offer - temperamental female cat

Beautiful black 3-year old female cat available.  Lets you pet her when she wants, not necessarily when you want.  Has been known to swat you with her claws if you try to pet her when she's not in the mood.  Has not been spayed.  Getting rid of because daughter got a snake for her birthday and doesn't have time for the cat anymore.  Pick up in ___ this evening, or after 5:00 p.m. Monday - Friday.  Picture posted in photos under ___.

This cat has obviously never been socialized properly. They haven't bothered to spay her. Now the kid is tired of the cat so they got her a snake and she "doesn't have time for the cat anymore" so they're "getting rid of" the cat.

Not "finding a new home" for her. Just freecycling her like any other object, first come first served, pick up this evening.

Fortunately that group doesn't accept pet posts at all, so it didn't make it out to the group. I recently beefed up my pet rules based on some things that sleepingwolf and oniricwolf have in theirs, including this:

1. YOU MUST WAIT A *MINIMUM* OF 24-48 HOURS BEFORE CHOOSING A RECIPIENT to ensure that you have enough possible homes to pick from.

While that's not really enforceable, since we can't know what's going on in private email between the owner and the prospective adopters, at least we can prevent them from saying "Pick up this evening."

I just hope this person doesn't decide to just dump the cat somewhere -- especially since she's not spayed. I wonder what will happen to the snake when the daughter gets tired of it, or it gets too large. It's a lot harder to find a new home for a snake than a cat, even an unspayed, unsocialized one. Dump it in the woods somewhere?

I wish there was a way to keep people like that from getting pets in the first place.

I was startled by this freecycle post:

OFFER: Inflatable furniture

Silver coloured loveseat and chair.  Sold by Target.  Can be filled with vacuum.

It wasn't until I read it a second time that I realized what she meant, and then I had to read it a third time just to quell my unease that she had found a way to violate the laws of physics.

This is ridiculous. I think everyone on freecycle has made a New Year's resolution to declutter!

In my group, between the time I left the computer in the late afternoon to have dinner, run an errand, and go to a meeting, and the time when I got back from my meeting and checked the mail at 11:00 (the meeting ran late, and then I was chatting with someone in the parking lot), there were 60 new messages!  In just a few hours! It's been like that since December 31 -- hundreds of messages a day.

All those messages have to be read to make sure nothing is amiss. A lot of them are moderated and need to be read carefully before they're approved. Some of them have a rule violation and need to be sent back with a letter explaining the problem and how to fix it.

We lost one of our key moderators just as the holiday season was beginning, and there are only two of us there ... and my co-mod has a group of his own, plus another group he took over "temporarily" to keep it from closing and has not found a new mod for yet, plus a couple of additional groups that he helps with. I also have to help with another (extremely large) group.

I have things I want to post on LJ. I want to read my friends' posts. But all I have time for is #@&*!%$ freecycle! I'm getting burned out, but my co-mod can't take over another group, and I can't leave more thousands of happy freecyclers in the lurch. I gave blood, sweat and tears to make my group one of the best groups in the network, and I can't just walk away from it. I enjoy moderating it, but I need three or four more mods to keep from being overworked.

But right now I'm too busy to recruit and train any! Catch 22!

eudyptes sent me a link to the Aquarionics blog, which is asking why "Freecycle – a movement devoted to giving things away for free and using other people’s (freely given) resources to do so – is becoming [a huge corporate entity]."

I wanted to answer, but trying to describe the history of the controversy got longer and longer, and I finally gave up and decided to post it here and simply provide a link. As lengthy as it is, the following account is still incomplete -- believe it or not, it only hits the highlights. There have been a great many more abuses, and rationales, than there is time or space to include.

Of course, there is more to be written -- the lawsuit is still going on. But as far as I know, this is the first time all the history of this sorry spectacle has been gathered in one coherent account.

( The freecycle controversy )

Someone tried to post this on my freecycle group today:

SUBJECT: WANTED:  See List (PLEASE!!!! )

I am in need of a few things, and would love it if someone out there has any of the items I am looking for. Recently lost my job, totalled my car, and have no money to get things. Sorry about the sob story, but I could really use some help.
 
1. Twin bed frame
2. Any Spongebob Bathroom Accessories
3. Any Dallas Cowboy items for a boys room
4. Swiffer Wet Jet
5. Any cat, small dog or hamster accessories
6. Any ideas where I could have a yard sale
 
Sorry so many items, but wanted to get as much out there as I could.
 
Thank all of you for consideration, and appreciate any help at all.

She lost her job, totaled her car, and has no money ... but what she wants is theme bathroom decorations and a glorified mop that requires expensive disposable refills?

We didn't allow the post because it contains at least four major rule violations, but that's not the part that irritates me. If her sob story is true, and she doesn't have a job or a car, then she must need stuff that's a lot more important than the luxuries she's asking for.

Last month she asked for a Digital HP Photosmart E317 Camera. Yep, model number and all. Hers broke and she wanted exactly the same camera, she said. (She admitted "I know this will be a hard item to locate.")

Either her sob story is phony and she's just trying to selfishly get what she wants by making people feel sorry for her, or her values are badly skewed. Public transportation in this area absolutely sucks. If she really is job-hunting without a car, her options are seriously limited. Asking for luxuries -- and being picky about exactly what kind -- strikes me as very inappropriate.

What a member asks for is their business, of course (as long as they follow the rules, which she didn't bother do to). But so is selecting a recipient, and I'm certainly never going to choose her for anything I offer!

An essay was posted to the Yahoo group FCNext today. It describes the experience of a loyal freecycle moderator who finally woke up to the egregious problems in The Freecycle Network (TFN), and I want to post it here as well.

The essay gives most of the background to the current situation, but I wanted to mention something it omits. It's obvious to many of us who have been moderators for a long time that TFN founder Deron Beal has a bad case of what's called Founder's Syndrome:

Founder’s Syndrome occurs when a single individual or a small group of individuals bring an organization through tough times (a start-up, a growth spurt, a financial collapse, etc.). Often these sorts of situations require a strong passionate personality - someone who can make fast decisions and motivate people to action.

Once those rough times are over, however, the decision-making needs of the organization change, requiring mechanisms for shared responsibility and authority. It is when those decision-making mechanisms don’t change, regardless of growth and changes on the program side, that Founder’s Syndrome becomes an issue. ...

Deron has become so embattled that he is attempting to stifle free speech. Not contenting himself with idle threats of legal action, he actually did file a SLAPP suit -- and was awarded an injuction by a clueless judge until an appeal got it vacated. He's now being roundly criticized in a legal forum and ridiculed by those he has shaken his fist at. An article in the blog of Grist Magazine begins:

I've got a funny story for you. Here's a preview of the punchline: freecycle, once a clever, idealistic way to prevent material from entering landfills, has been made by its leadership into a clown show. ...

The following essay is very passionate, but all the facts are correct. It's being reposted in various places, and I wanted to give it a little more visibility.

It was sent to one of the moderators of FCNext for posting without attribution. TFN mods who speak their mind publicly soon receive a "request" to step down as moderators and surrender their groups. If they decline, their groups are summarily de-listed from the freecycle.org site and sent a Cease and Desist notice to stop using the freecycle name. If they don't comply, TFN has Yahoo eliminate the group.

That's not concocted as drama -- I've seen it happen to a number of mods who spoke up with opinions, or even asked inconvenient questions. Anyone who would attempt to stifle public speech with legal action certainly has no scruples about eliminating it within the organization. Moderators who care about the hundreds or thousands of their members who are happily freecycling can't risk speaking publicly.

( Response from an anon tfn mod  )

Questions and comments -- about the essay or just about my introduction if you skipped past the cut -- are welcome. (Reading the material at the links will allow you to discuss the situation more intelligently.)

Unfortunately, my experience the last time I discussed this issue leads me to advise readers that anonymous comments will be screened -- any question or comment presented in a reasonable manner will be unscreened and open to discussion, but anything disrespectful will be deleted without ever seeing the light of day, so save your effort and don't bother.

Aaaaggghh!

We have a member in one of my freecycle groups who is feeding stray cats. We can keep him from posting because he's basically asking for a donation to an ongoing effort, and we don't allow that, but I also wanted to tell him it's not good to feed large numbers of strays. It's one thing to feed an individual stray, but it's bad for both the cats and the neighborhood to feed feral cat colonies and dog packs.

Unfortunately, one of the mods, P___, doesn't understand that either.

This is what he posted on July 15:

WANTED:CAT FOOD

WE NEED HELP FEEDING ALL THE STRAYS IN THE AREA.We`ve spent
100s of $$ and can use all kinds of cat food.They are not
fussy THANKS,JOHN

( Cut for length )

=sigh= I'm feeling very frustrated. This is so obvious, and I can't believe that P___ doesn't see it. I hope I can convince her.

I wish I weren't so passionate about things. I wish I didn't have such a need to be a crusader. I wish I hadn't stayed up until well past 1:00 am writing this post and getting all the formatting -- blockquotes and bolds and italics and fonts and everything else -- opened and closed in the right place. But it was on my mind and I had to get it out of my system.

If you were interested enough to read all this (don't feel bad if you weren't and just skipped over the cut, it's extremely long) I'd be interested to know what you think.

Posts like this are part of why I love the idea of freecycling!

Wanted: Freezer Burned food

Ok i know this sounds a bit odd to be asking for the food thats of no good value in your freezer but listen up and i'll tell you why I want it...

I am fishing in a Catfish Tournament coming up in August and i want to make an attractant to help draw the fish into the area that i'm going to be fishing in... Now why would i go out and buy 30 lbs of fresh fish, meats and such to go and waste on fish? Esp when I can help you clean out your freezer of those fish that have been sitting in there for years untouched or meats in your feezer that have been burned by the cold...

What i would like mostly is fish (esp if you have an oily fish like mackeral that you caught or something along those lines) but i will take anything along the lines of meats... Lamb, beef, chicken, etc... If its meat and its gone bad or got burned... or even if it hasn't but its been in there for years and you want to get rid of it then give it to me... It will go to good use and will not be wasted...

Now where else could someone get 30 lbs. of food for free ... and others could get rid of old, inedible food without adding to the landfill!

I'm going to check my own freezer tomorrow -- I'm pretty sure I have some to offer him!

Wanted: Moving Boxes or any boxes.

I am in desperate need of moving boxes. I just realized i have not a single thing packed and i am moving next weekend.  I can and will definetly pick up at your convenience.

How on earth can someone "just realize" they're moving in seven days? And not only hasn't she even begun to pack, she hasn't even begun to look for boxes yet? 

Even if she were being evicted, I'm sure they would have known it's coming. And if the move was planned ... I just don't get it.

Animals seem to be in the forefront in My Commonplace Book of late, what with Friday's illness, my grandcat Toadstool's passing, and the people freecycling pets like unused appliances that are taking up too much room.  But I had another pet-freecycling experience this morning that was heartening, so I wanted to post about it. Ironically, it involved another lab puppy.

( Offer: 1 year old lab puppy  )

<rant>

This was just posted to my freecycle group:

We have a 5 month old Chocolate Lab that we cannot keep due to moving. We are Navy and moving and cannot take her with us. She has all shots and records. She is very good with kids as we have an 8 month old baby and she is very gentle with her. She is very loving and likes to play fetch. She is house trained and will let you know when she needs to go outside to go potty. Needs to go ASAP because of move. We live on the base, so if you cannot get in we can meet you somewhere.
Thank you.

WHY do people who know they might have to move soon -- likely out of the country -- get a puppy? And then WHY do they wait until the very last minute to begin to look for a home for it?

They obviously got this puppy within the last three months -- she's only five months old, and Maryland law forbids transfer of cats and dogs before 8 weeks of age. If they've been here awhile, then they should have known they'd probably be transferred soon, and wouldn't be able to take a puppy with them.

Even if they didn't know, why does she need to go "ASAP"? I just picked up a cell phone from someone on the same military post, and she came out to the shopping center just outside the perimeter to give it to me. I'm picturing this poor little puppy being transferred in the same place -- they'll bring her leash, and probably her food dish and toys (if she's lucky), and just hand her over to the first person to answer the offer. =heavy sigh=

A few months ago someone offered a kitten and said they would require the recipient to sign an adoption contract promising to make sure the kitten would be neutered and specifying the care it would get -- similar to the ones the shelters use. One of the mods asked if that was okay, since our rules specifically say that "all items must be given with no strings attached." I said in the case of an animal it certainly was, and immediately added something to the "Special Note About Pets" in our rules file. That is the correct way to freecycle an animal!

Whenever someone posts a message like this one, I send a letter reminding them to be careful in finding an adoptive home for their pet. This is the one I sent tonight.

( Letter about freecycling pets )

I doubt she'll pay attention. She has an infant and is getting ready to move, and she has more important =cough= things to do than worry about who gets the dog, just as long as someone takes it off her hands. 

</rant>

I have a question for the math and money geeks (and anyone with an opinion!).

I prefer prepaid cell phone service because I don't use it enough to make a monthly plan worthwhile -- I mostly leave it off and only turn it on when I want to make a call, or if I'm expecting one (or the possibility of one, such as when I'm meeting a friend at a restaurant so she can let me know if she's running late). I've been getting my service from Locus Telecommunications, a reseller who leases AT&T/Cingular's service and resells it at much cheaper prices.

( The background )

There's only one problem: When I called Locus to order a simm card for the new phone, they said this phone is GSM and they'd have to switch my service to one of their GSM plans. Oh. Apparently, TDMA is being phased out in favor of GSM, and while Locus is still supporting my old CallPlus Wireless TDMA service, they're no longer offering new accounts.
I hesitated, and even though momentarily about re-offering the phone on freecycle, but decided to go ahead and order the chip. It's $20, but I guess that's a reasonable price for the phone, since the rest of it was free.

So that leaves me with a real problem: The three GSM service plans offered by this company are all priced differently, and it's very confusing. I have no idea which to choose, so I need help!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:  Given that I my current usage averages about 2-3 times a month and maybe 2-4 minutes per call, which plan would be the cheapest for me?

I can't link to the specific individual service plans because they're all on popups, but the links are all on this page, and I can link to the jpeg rate charts -- the rest is mostly just blather anyway. The three services are:

• Locus Mobile -- 15¢/min for the first 5 minutes a day, 9¢/min after that, with money off the next time purchase depending on the amount you buy at one time;


• CallPlus Wireless GSM -- 10¢/min with a 25¢ charge on days the phone is used


• 02 Wireless -- 14¢/min with the same discounts as Locus Mobile

But here's what makes it doubly complicated: Unlike my old service, which was good for 90 days no matter how much or how little time you purchased, with these services the amount you buy expires in varying lengths of time depending on the amount. You have to look at the rate charts to get all of it, but for example, a $10 purchase expires in 30 days while a $100 purchase expires in 90 days, with varying amounts of time in between.

So, if I buy the smallest amount -- which is really all I need -- I'll end up spending $120 a year because I have to buy another increment of time every month. That's still the cheapest, but it's a pain in the neck to remember to do it every month, and if you forget and go too long, you lose all of your accumulated minutes.

See why I'm confused? HEEEELLLLLLLPPPP!