centrs's dashboard

My cat *refused* to eat anything other than Fancy Feast (and only the Salmon varieties) her entire life. I tried many times to gradually introduce Science Diet, Iams or Eucanuba, to no avail. She simply went on a hunger strike until I caved and popped that can of Fancy Feast. She lived to be 20 years old! My advice- the brand is not as important as the main ingredient. Go with fish whenever possible. Chicken and beef are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones. Not good for people, not good for pets. Salmon is loaded with Omega 3 oils and is an excellent source of protein.

We had our kitties on Kitten Chow when they were little and had the HARDEST time switching them over to adult food (kitten food has more fat in it to plump up little babies so it is much tastier than adult food). Our littlest was the hardest to change. We started out mixing the kitten food with Iams Hairball but she would just pick out the kitten food and leave the rest! Eventually we just put the adult food in the bowl and she decided to fast for several days, she's quite stubborn and never did eat that food. Come to find out she just hated that particular food and we later discovered that she was diabetic and her high blood-sugar levels killed off any appetite she did have. Anyways, we switched them to Science Diet Indoor Adult formula and she LOVED it. Now she's on Prescription Diet M/D for her diabetes which she also likes (although you do have to have an actual written prescription from your vet to purchase their food). However, being that your cats are elderly, you might just stick to the Meow Mix as changing foods can be very upsetting and stressful to cats that love a routine. If you do switch them to canned food, I'd get a recommendation from your vet as a lot of canned food is very high in sugars/carbs and relatively low in nutritional value which can be unhealthy for older cats. Especially if they develop diabetes or kidney problems. Prescription Diet and Science Diet have a line of canned food that is generally better than the run-of-the-mill grocery store variety but I'd still just run it by your vet.

Wow, this is quite deceptive.

Banks are on a collision course with abject crappiness.

Thanks for the tip. Sounds a lot like First Republic, actually. Not a lot of locations, but excellent customer service and I believe they also reverse ATM charges.

Guys, go with Imperial Capital Bank (I'll have to add them here later, I guess). They're a tiny bank with only a few branches in SoCal (Bevery Hills and La Jolla) but they have excellent internet support. Anyway, they don't have ANY ATMs of their own. So they let me use whatever ATM and then reverse the usage fee! It's so awesome. I never have to worry about finding the "right" ATM. Oh, and they pay out like 4.5% on checking accounts (but your balance has to be over $1k to get that).

(I don't work for them in any way. I've just been through a lot of banks and I'm so glad to finally find a good one. Oh, did I mention that when I call them a (intelligent) human being actually picks up the phone?! It's like, amazing!)

Yeah, really. And with interest added.

on my statement, it shows up as a monthly fee. so, if i did 4 transactions on other atms, i'll be billed $8 at the end of the month. however, i recently opened a new account and closed the old one and now i'm not seeing that charge even though i've been using other atms. maybe it the kind of account that i had? or, will they catch up to me and bill me $1MM in 10 years? heh.

I believe that that was once the case, but Wamu has since begun charging for using other banks' ATMs.

Yeah it's pretty crappy, but many (probably most) banks do this so they can pretty much get away with it. Good job Citibank for not doing this. :-) There is no Citbank anywhere in my state, but otherwise I might look into them.

And does that additional fee show up clearly in your statement or is it hidden?

I guess this would be one reason to stay with Citibank. That's pretty annoying that your own bank would charge you for using another ATM.

Everyone has to pay the fee charged by the ATM owner and that goes to the owner ("their" bank, whatever name is on the machine). Many banks (Citibank is apparently an exception) for some reason see this as an opportunity to charge an additional fee to their customer that they pile on top of the amount charged by the ATM itself. This additional amount is completely unnecessary and goes to your bank.

In other words, most of us pay both the ATM operator and our own bank for the "convenience" of being able to use the machine to access our account. My credit union charges $1.50 and WaMu charges $2 in addition to any fees charged by the owner of the ATM (so the total fee for using the "wrong" ATM is usually around $3 - $5).

Here's an example of how it appears on my bank statement. I paid $1.50 to my credit union and $1.75 to the ATM operator (I withdrew $60 and the additional $1.75 is a fee charged by the ATM), so the total fee for using the ATM was $3.25:

Hmmm.... I do get a charge when I use another bank's ATM or an independent ATM - but I always thought that charge was coming from them. Perhaps Citibank gets a cut of it? I don't see any separate ATM withdrawal charges from Citibank showing up in my online register.

This is disappointing, but most banks do charge you for using another ATM. Even my nice credit union charges for using another bank's ATM (although it is free if you use an ATM from another credit union, they are all partnered or something). Citibank would be the only place I've heard of that does not slap this charge on people.

Basically, I'm not surprised that they do this, but I agree that they shouldn't advertise "Free ATM cash withdrawals worldwide" because I, too, thought this meant "We won't charge you".

I'm really happy with the "Tokyo Train Station" -- so serene.

Thanks for the head's up on the disconnect between the description and the link. I've updated the company details to match the source the link goes to.

Fun! I haven't seen that yet, thanks for the suggestion!

i have the same problem all the time. i'm on t-mobile.

oh, too cute! i'll have to try it. did you see ICHCheezburger on twitter? they will post tinyurls to some of the better photos of the day.