Oh what an eventful week it has been. We first had some very rare but good old fashioned winter days, indeed a massive four days of wind, rain and storms. But as it is said, all good things comes to an end, and it has been pretty well clear with only isolated showers since then, with the night temps dropping like a rock again. There are no more storms in sight.
Anyway last Friday I went to my PO box and found a note for a registered letter for Sally. I thought it must have been something to do with the child support issue, as I said, I contacted them by mail posting the death certificate, etc. However when I went in to collect the letter, it was from New York!! Hmmmmm..... it can't be the child support issue as it is a State issue, administered by the State of Texas. New York is a long way from Texas, indeed about a 4-5 hour flight - I know from my experiences flying around America!! So what the hell could it be!!!!?????
Well when I got home and opened it, I got the shock of my life!!!! It was a bloody writ from a large clothing company in America!! I have never heard of this company as it is not in Australia, but apparently it has stores in many cities throughout America, so it is clearly doing very well for themselves thank you very much!!!! Apparently what Sally had done was to sell some clothing items through the Cafe Press website, it is a website where you can make your own artistic designs and the website prints it onto clothes for a fee and so you can sell such clothes with your own designs on them. Well it seems one of the designs involved a couple of words which happened to be the trademark of this particular company!! OMG!!! What other dark secrets Sally has which I yet don't know about!!!!??? Well I am sure Sally didn't do this on purpose, and with so many companies around there seems a high likelihood that whatever words you choose with the design that it will coincide with a trade mark of a company somewhere in the world!!! It seems as her nearest kin I get to pocket her financial gains but at the same time I am also responsible for her liabilities, and so if this company decides to sue, that will be the end of me, through no fault of my own!! I had no idea that Sally had done this. I knew she had a Cafe Press account and was trying to sell stuff but I didn't know what she was selling, and in any case, I know she had never made any money out of it, this I know from the Tax Returns that Sally had to submit each year. I have a beef with large money making companies to begin with. I believe in the fact that nice people does not make money, well not a lot of money anyway. Companies becomes large and successful only through unethical means, you have to be a bastard to make money, you also have to be dishonest, unethical, and be uncaring of your fellow human beings. As I say again, nice people does not make a lot of money. And I must say, a struggling disability pensioner with only a couple of websites can hardly be seen as a threat to the profits of such a successful company - but as I say, you have to be a bastard to make money, and part of it is to screw little people into the ground, indeed a Goliath squishing a little ant.
The letter was dated 12-July, this places it within the curse of The Three Weeks, indeed within the more intense Nine Days of Av.
The author of the letter obviously doesn't realise that Sally has passed away. Well the letter contains a series of demands, all which has to be met within 10 days of the date of the letter. The demands basically involves disclosing any other products attempting to be sold with the offending trade make, and to submit written undertakings never to use the trade mark ever again! However the letter states that even if the demands are met, it does not waive or prejudice the rights to remedies which are expressively reserved - in other words, the bastards can still sue!!!!
As I say, with the many hundreds and thousands of companies even in America itself, there is a high chance that given any names or even any designs that you choose for the products being sold, that it will coincide with a company name somewhere!!!! So if the law allows a large profit making company to sue you for what was an honest mistake or oversight, then it's about the the law gets changed!! But that is as likely as there being a man on Mars, as govts and large companies are in bed with each other!! Furthermore, me being utterly unaware of this until now, it is even more a travesty of justice that I would be made to pay for this honest mistake. I am certainly Sally would not have done this deliberately. It is a good thing that Sally has passed away, as this would have so upset her and made her utterly livid!!!! She would never have gotten over this!!!
Anyway, the first problem is, the letter stated the demands has to be met within 10 days of the date of the letter. It didn't say 10 "working" or "business" days, just a straight 10 days. So with the letter dated 12-July, ten days brings it to 22-July. I visit the post office only once per week, and as of last Friday which was 19-July, the letter hadn't arrived. So the earliest it could have arrived would be Monday, that would indeed be 22-July. However of course, the demands are to be in written form, which means a letter has to be sent in return, and it takes a week for a letter to reach America. Therefore impossible to meet the 10-day deadline. As it was I didn't get to the Post Office until last Friday, that being 26-July. So the reply to the demands were composed over the weekend, and posted on Monday 29-July, so add a week, it will be possibly the following Monday 5-August.
Second problem is I have no access to Sally's Cafe Press account nor the email addressed used in association with the account, so I wouldn't know what else she was attempting to sell. I do know however that she never made a cent nor a penny for that matter from her Cafe Press websites. I know this from the Tax Returns Sally needed to file each year as she was actually a business owner with an ABN.
Anyway I did compose the letter, being a relatively polite letter in spite of my feelings to the contrary, firstly explaining that Sally has passed away, enclosing a copy of the Death Certificate, and that I have no access to her online accounts. I addressed each of the demands to the best of my knowledge, and posted the letter via the normal means. I was not going to outlay the extra money involved in making it a registered letter when it was already late through no fault of my own.
However I am sure this will not be the last I will hear from them, especially since the writ was dated within the final week of the dreaded The Three Weeks.
So that was curse number 1 that hit this week resultant from The Three Weeks. Curse number 2 involved my computer. I had for the past couple of weeks noticed one of my fans inside the computer was becoming rather noisy. Silly me didn't think much of it, figuring that the computer is getting old anyway. The noisy fan also originated within The Three Weeks, and it turned out to be the fan associated with my water cooling system that I had installed many years ago on my computer. The system gave up the ghost this past weekend, causing my computer to overheat and shut down. Fortunately my computer automatically shuts down when it reaches a certain temperature to avoid any damage. But when I realised what had happened, two and two came together. The noisy fan was associated with the water cooling system, and it had gave way completely, causing everything to overheat. So my computer is now out of action until I can get a new water cooling system. That will have to wait until either I get my tax check or payday. Then I spend the next weekend taking my computer apart to install the new water cooling system. Hopefully no other issues crops up. I really need a new computer, but that will have to wait until I get the word from the landlord as to whether my lease will be renewed or whether I will have to move out. The tax check will pay for immediate concerns - car servicing, car alarm repairs, trailer repairs, etc, all designed to get me ready to move out if I have to. Any remaining money will have to be set aside to put towards moving expenses, assuming I have somewhere to move to, an assumption that appears to be rash considering the housing crisis in this hell-damned god-forgotten state of Western Australia.
Meanwhile I am working from Sally's old laptop, plus I also have my phone and tablet devices all linking to my emails and websites. So not totally cut off from the world, it just means I can't play my vid games!!!! This little laptop won't be able to handle the kind of vid games that I have.
The Telstra saga... well hopefully resolved. I was able to set up my account again, only thing is they wouldn't let me use my original email address!! WHY I will never know, it was not as if the email was being used!! The account was closed down, meaning, the email address was NOT being used!! Uh well trust Telstra to make up these silly rules for no reason but just because they can!!! So I had to choose another email addy which really messed up my plan! I have different email addys for different things, so this Telstra power play really messed that up, which me being a Virgo does not like at all!! Nevertheless at least, for the time being, the account is working. And another thing I discovered is instead of paying a fortune for my prepaid gigs for my portable, I can just add the extra gigs to my phone plan for less than half price!! You see, you can turn the mobile phone into a portable wi fi device, so I just that now when I am at work or otherwise away from home, just use my mobile phone as a portable wi fi device and use my much cheaper gigs allocations. This makes my portable wi fi virtually obsolete.
Watch this space as I wait for my tax check.......
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