And now you are surprised when they say "upgrade" and it really means you don't get so much. In Ancient Chaldea we called that "extortion."

Someday you will learn.

TomTom: When a paid upgrade is a downgrade:


Stick this one in the extremely shady business practices category. In order to add more revenue to the coffers, a paid upgrade from existing TomTom 910 and 510 maps that currently include locations of Starbucks will result in losing the locations of said Starbucks! Hey, that's darned good service for all us long-standing customers.
It wasn't until after the map upgrade that my folks told me that they could no longer find any Starbucks when they did a POI search. What's the cause of this? TomTom has decided that these POIs are now a Paid For option. And, to make matters even worse, after calling support, I was informed that:

• The web-based online store is down (due to a planned upgrade that was supposed to take 21 days and is now taking much longer)
• The Windows-based version of TomTom home has access to it, but the Macintosh version does not
• This change was intentional and not based on any licensing fees

What's the solution?

For me, I think the solution is going to be getting the POIs from someplace else. I'm not sure how up-to-date they are, but the POIs available from POI Handler seem to work fine and many are free. There's a database of over 7000 Starbucks available. You may need to register for the site (I had already registered previously), but I have yet to receive anything annoying from them. Once there, follow the Download POI link to get to the screen where you can get your POIs. They're tailor made for a bunch of the common GPS devices and have pretty up-to-date data.

Magic – past and present:


Magic in Babylon and Persia: The earliest documented ancient nation who knew magic were probably the Chaldeans, a Semitic Babylonian tribe who lived in the estuaries of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. The Babylonians worshipped idols that represented the stars. They believed that all natural phenomena, as well as human fate, are under the influence of the stars. They were the pioneers of astrology. Their observations, from the third millennium on, were gradually systematised into formal prognostications, based on astrological and astronomical calculations, regarding the effectiveness of any human undertaking. Chaldean priests and magicians interpreted the movements of the heavenly bodies, the rising and setting of the sun, eclipses, etc to determine their influence on the lives of men. The interpreters were attached to a particular temple, and their decisions were accepted not only by the people at large but by the rulers themselves.

We very much love our Chris-Tmas trees. So you American Christian types stop whining about it being YOURS and you are being discriminated against when you stole it from US, the Ancient Chaldeans. Imagine how King Christopher the Tolerant would feel NOW? His descendent Ron Popeil put it this way, "Just buy my ancestor's products like 'The Clapper' and I don't care what you call the damn tree."

We knew that the lovely Chris-Tmas trees would be taken down in the Seattle Airport as soon as someone found it was a symbol of Ancient Chaldean holiday worship. That it was because of a complaint by a descendant of one of the slaves we had in ancient times is not even surprising because even after King Christopher invented baked beans for them, they were still grumpy and unhappy. But to have Christians complain that taking the trees was an insult to THEM is just as silly as watching your Chia Pets grow. We will not allow them to steal OUR insult!

Someday you will learn!

King Christopher was very tolerant. He allowed worship of all Gods so long as they were from Chaldea. This made all of the Chaldeans very happy. King Christopher was well loved by all of the Chaldeans, perhaps except for the slaves that we took from Babylon, but they were never happy anyway and always complained about the food. King Christopher became upset that the slaves were always complaining, so he invented baked beans which made them happy until they found there was salt pork in them. This began the idea of having baked beans with salt pork and some without.

It is also amusing that today's "Christmas" traditions include the television commercials for "the Clapper" where you clap your hands and turn things on and off. This was also, by no coincidence, invented by King Christopher. He would clap his hands and the slave appointed to turn things on and off would rush to do this. If the slave was not fast enough, he would not receive his baked beans. Since baked beans looked much like coal in our time, this began the tradition of coal in the stocking when you are bad.

Please let us know if there are more questions about King Christopher.

The time you now call December 25th, in olden olden Chaldean times, was known as Chris-Tmas. It was the celebration of the birth of our King Christopher The Tolerant in 2500 BC. Tmas was much like Tsar, the whole thing pronounced as "Kris muss" as you Americans pronounce YOUR holiday.

So, when your Christians decided to convert everyone and deny their Chaldean heritage, they took the true birthday of their Jesus which was in April, and decided it would be a bad idea to have two holidays in the same month for him because that would be very greedy. Your Savior cannot be seen a Greedy, because that was the other guy that none of you like. So what was the best way to make all those already celebrating Chris-Tmas, and Saturnalia and Yule and all of those other evil Pagan celebrations continue to celebrate, just CALL it something else....and say they're ACTUALLY celebrating the birth of their Jesus. So they can party just like in olden times, but must put up a fake barn with a baby in it and everything is now Christian.

2000 years later, people have forgotten Chris-Tmas, and Saturnalia, and Yule, even though they kept the traditions of Pagan Trees and Yule Logs, and giving gifts, and peace and tolerance of King Christopher the Tolerant.

So every time you make people say "Merry Christmas" remember the truth. The Christian Jesus was born in April, and you are actually wishing a happy celebration of King Christopher the Tolerant, ruler of Chaldea.

Someday you will learn.

Instead of stopping kicking our butts, the Fictologists began to run in circles, screaming and shouting. Then they hijacked a few public chariots, forcing the drivers to go to the wrong addresses and ruining our perfect public transit record. They hijacked the chariots by threatening their drivers with violence, yelling "we are not violent, but we will beat you up anyway."

We solved this problem by non violently duct taping the Fictologists to several ox carts pointed in many different directions, all of whom were never seen again.

Someday, you will learn.

In Chaldea we also had foreign students sometimes. But we never lost them. We always knew where they were because we painted them blue. They also wore clothing that said "Beware, I am a Foreign Student." It worked very well to keep everyone very certain of where the foreign students were and what they were doing. Someday you will also learn to paint your foreign students blue, or perhaps another nicer color. You must ask Hilde from Trading Spaces.

So why not let us call our King Nebuchadnezzar 279th and let us come back and take care of what you call the Middle East again. The first thing we would do is take away the silly borders and make it all one country under our King. Everyone loves our King, and his diverticulitis is much better now, thank you for asking. Then we would take away all of their bombs and rockets and tanks and guns and eating utensils and instead give them the sporks of peace. We must then change the names of all of the towns and countries to be things like Happyville and Pleasant Town and Valium Land. Then we would put prozac into the water supply for everyone, and change their religion back to worship the Old Gods in the way that is proper and show you the real ways before they had these silly books that people read the wrong way.

You will know that these things are best and then you will let us go back to our homeland and do things the right way. Someday you will learn.

What we Chaldeans are upset about is that the W President eats like a cud chewing cow who was thrown out of the barn for being too much like a pig who belongs in a pen for pigs. His mother, the Barbara woman, should have been very upset to see her son with food falling out of his mouth as he tries to speak his naughty words. From what Chaldeans have seen of the Barbara mother, she would never eat in this manner, bringing shame upon herself and her family for generations.

We do know that sometimes the world laughs because the W President is more like, how do you Americans call them, "Bubba" from round the bend, or North Virginia, or something like that. It makes us wonder why you voted for one that way. But then we remembered. You did not vote for him. The Diebold voting machines did. And even then they did not win in a real way. Perhaps he was having dinner with those who made the choices, but they were too upset with his way of eating that they had to go and he was the only one left so he became President.

Someday you will learn.

We figured out this truth a little bit last month when the W Administration caught 7 evil people from Miami who wished to blow up the tower of Craftsman Tools in Chicago. These were the silly men who swore their undying loyalty to a man in a bad bathrobe who called himself a Mullet, or was that a Mullah or something like that. Then today we found that the W Administration people caught people who wished to blow up tunnels in New York.

"Ah HA!" we said, and nodded to each other. This is the same person who wrote of the brave Sir Robin who nearly fought the Chicken of Bristol, and who almost won many other battles. The W Administration nearly thwarted plans by people who could never carry out those plans because they are too stupid to even ask the Tom Tom in their car which way to the Craftsman Tower or to the smelly tunnel of New Jersey.

Someday you will learn, but only if you nearly go to school and almost get an education.

Now, with this Ill man in North Korea. It is clear that he makes missiles fly towards the west because he has a small manly part. It is more clear that now they are selling Viagra in North Korea because Rush Limbaugh was caught with some, so he gave them to his friend Kim Jong Ill. This is why, instead of one missile, the Ill man sent 7 missiles because before he could only manage one. Why else would he call it "No-Dong?" However, because this Viagra came from China, and because China steals intellectual property, the formulation was bad, so the biggest and manliest of the Kim Jong Ill manly parts missiles went sputter and did not perform as well as the bragging of the Ill man. This is a very common thing where men who are not Chaldean brag very much, especially in the saloon, to the woman who is wearing much make up. Unlike the woman in the saloon, the Sea of Japan was not drunk and was therefore not very impressed at the premature sputtering and following flaccidness of the formerly manly missile.

So do you understand yet? Do not do these bad things. Only purchase your Viagra from the actual manufacturer and not from the Chinese intellectual property thieves who then resell to those with small manly parts who make missiles. Someday, you will learn.