Just passing along another XM Satellite Radio horror story. These people are just plain terrible and I hope that nobody finds themselves in this situation. I am lucky that I do not need the money right now, but if I did it would be more than an inconvenience. I also figured that they would promptly take care of their mistake.

On to my story.

I had decided to cancel my subscription to XM because of the way they bill. They do not bill every month, but rather bill you every two to three months. To me, this was not acceptable. I gave them a call and told them I would be canceling my service and they told me the outstanding balance was $30.29. No problem, I just paid over the phone and was happy to be done with it. Or so I thought!

Here’s where things get interesting.

I make it a point to check my online banking daily and review every line item to make sure that all is in order and there is no suspicous activity. You can never be too safe and I once had a company billing me $25/month illegally for about a year and I never noticed it. Thanks to that incident so many years ago, I pay very close attention to these things. Well, I happened to notice a charge from XM Radio for $302.90! HUH?!  WTF!? I quickly realized what had happened and I chalked it up to an honest mistake, but I no longer believe that it was.

This all started on 4/16/2009. I called them immediately and spoke with someone in another country. I asked to be transferred to someone in the US in order to get my issue taken care of properly and was told that it was not possible to transfer me to the US.  I gave him a chance to help me and he seemed like he did a good job. Gave him all the information he needed and was told that it would be forwarded to the billing department for a refund. He explained it should be 2 to 3 days before I saw the refund show up back in my account. I figured no problem, I wasn’t missing the $270+ at that moment and I could wait it out.

So,  on Tuesday April 21 I figured I should see the refund posted. NOPE! I was wrong. So, 5 days had gone by and no refund when I was told it would be 2 to 3 days. Keep in mind that this was an error on their part and actually could have been considered fraudelant activity! Once again, I called back and spoke with someone not from this country. I could understand her and knew she could not transfer me to the US, so I stuck with it and explained the situation.

She told me that she would escalate it to the billing department and even  gave me a reference number in order to allow me to call in and quickly get things resolved. Well, that was useless!

A couple more days went by and I heard nothing out of these people. I called  today (April 23) and once again it was answered by someone in another country  and was told that these things are handled on a first in, first out basis. I asked them does that include something like an obvious error which is bordering on illegal activity? She then told me she would also escalate it and that I should get a call by the end of the day.

This time the person was correct. I received a call from someone in the XM billing department. The problem was he was once again someone in another country (India) and had no power at all to do anything! I could barely understand a single word out of his mouth!

I went up one side of this guy, that should be driving me to the airport instead of fixing a billing issue, and down the other once he told me he needed the credit card number again that I originally gave more than a week ago so he could start the refund process. I said “Start the process, WTF have you morons been doing for the past week”. I was livid and belted him a few good ones! Still, nothing came out of it since he could only forward the information to the REAL billing department.

I asked him to immediately transfer me to the billing department in the US so I could talk to someone that actually had some power and did not have to read a script off of a piece of paper. He said he could not do that since the REAL billing department only deals with e-mails. HUH?! My god! These people at XM are truly pathetic!

Tonight, I have called my bank and filed a formal claim against XM Radio for illegally charging my card. The problem is that this could take up to 90 days! I do not feel that XM has any plans on refunding the money they stole from me and I truly believe that they charged my card improperly intentionally. Their refund process is a joke and their customer service is probably the worst I have ever seen! DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE CROOKS!

I also plan to file a Better Business Bureau complaint simply to make as many complaints as possible. This is really sad that in this day and age, a company would pull something like this to intentionally defraud someone out of a lot of money!

Please, if you read this I encourage you to cancel your account immediately before something bad happens to you! My story is not the only horror story online about these thieves, but I hope it sheds some light onto their practices. Also, you may be viewing this post because you have also had issues with them. I wish you the best and can simply say that you should contact your bank and the BBB in order to get any action out of these people.

It shows how far the Miss America pageant has sunk when someone of the stature of Perez Hilton is selected as one of the judges. Even worse is when he gets to ask a question of one of the contestants. We all knew what he was going to ask. He had to get up on his pedestal and ask the question that most people could care less about. He had to further his political agenda that the majority of the people in his state and the country believe is wrong. Or maybe it is just celebrities in California have some very serious issues. Not sure, but this guy is a complete joke. Just take a look at his twitter page. The background speaks volumes.

How does someone like THAT get to be a judge for Miss America. It is pretty sad that we live in a world where a guy with a little blog gets to this level. He is a nothing and he proven it once again! Then again, he has now become incredibly famous for something other than his little blog. That may have been the whole idea. He has created quite a stire and in the long run it probably won’t hurt him. Then again, it is hard for him to go any lower than he is at this moment.

Do something like he did, as shameful as it was and you are set. Doesn’t matter if people agree or disagree with you, you are instantly famous beyond your wildest dreams. Hell, it seemed to work. I am blogging about this mental midget right now. Of course, in 10 years the only way Perez will be remembered is through this one gaffe of his and how, at that one moment, the Miss America pageant had reached the lowest of possible lows.

Back to the point and task at hand.

So, here we are. An individual with no credentials to be where he was asking a question he had no business asking. In the process, he probably destroyed the future of this young lady simply because she told him the truth about her feelings on gay marriage.

His reaction was just as pathetic as he is. The only thing missing was for him to put his hands on his waist, stomp on the floor and walk out of the building.

He expects everybody to believe in the same thing as he does and if you do not then you are some sort of evil person that must be destroyed. That is just what he did to this person.

I would hope that in the future, the organizers of Miss America do not choose a judge that has no credentials and also not choose one that is openly gay. Certainly not someone whose only claim to fame is a blog. Are we that sad as a society? Well, I guess so. My opinion is there is no place for someone like Perez Hilton to be invited to be a judge at one of these events EVER AGAIN! Hopefully this incident will get the Miss America folks to go out and find decent human beings to be judges instead of someone that is just going to get their panties in a bunch when someone disagrees with their views. I have honestly never seen a more pathetic display than that of Perez Hilton after the girl answered his question.

I did vote to define marriage in the state of Florida as being between a man and a woman only and thankfully that passed. That being said, I do not go out and purposely try to make sure that gays can not get married, but I truly hope that they never can and are never afforded the benefits of marriage after this incident. It has shown me how pathetic these individuals are and how they stamper about when they can’t get their way.

Let’s keep in mind that regardless of how screwed up the celebrties out in California are, the majority of this country believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. Additionally, regradless to the attention California protests have received, most of that state is against gay marriage as proven on election day.

I would hate to break it to you Perez, but this country is built on majority rule and you must accept the deciscions of that majority. You lost the vote,  just deal with it and go back to your little blog world and try not to ruin it for the decent people of this country.

For all of us that maintain blogs, the most difficult thing to do is to pick out a theme. There are so many questions that need to be answered and the list of available themes is simply overwhelming. If you are anything like me, then you can dismiss 95% of them immediately. I had a very nice theme on here for a while, but got tired of it and was looking for a cleaner look. I looked around and decided that I would actually buy the current theme I am using. It is the FlexxTheme from the folks over at iThemes and I must say that there are a lot of great features in it. These features along with the look of the theme are what drew me to it in the first place. That being said, I found one HUGE problem with this theme from my perspective that I want to let potential purchasers know about even though it may be no big deal to most.

Regardless to what iThemes claims, FlexxTheme is not Wordpress 2.7 ready in my opinion. When I say that I do not mean that it can not run with 2.7, but it does not have the most important feature that was introduced by WordPress 2.7. That feature is the threaded comments. That’s right! A premium theme that is not so premium! Personally, I was incredibly ticked off since I had purchased a theme that did not have the functionality that my free theme had in it.

This is completely unacceptable in the world of premium themes. If you are going to sell themes, then you best well upgrade the theme when WordPress adds new features. That’s what we pay for! This deficiancy is also never mentioned on iThemes website. It says it is “Wordpress 2.7 Ready”. Obviously, it does not take the MythBusters to bust that one!

So, I had just paid $80 for a theme lacking a function that every WordPress 2.7 theme should and probably does already have. Well, except for this one. What was a guy to do? Then I remembered that I am a professional software developer and that I could fix the problem myself. That is just what I did! My site now is running FlexxTheme with threaded comments. This was my first work in WordPress development as I normally do not have time to even write articles here thanks to how busy I have been for the folks that pay me, but it seems to have turned out quite well. I plan to make some more changes too along the way as there are a few other things about this theme that bug me, but I think that is the way everyone feels about their theme and that is why the ones that can modify things do just that.

I have decided to keep this theme as I think there are a lot of great/cool features that are included in this that make a blogger’s life just that make easier.

I would also highly recommend anybody that is looking for the look that is given by the FlexxTheme, to take a look into the Flexibility2 Theme. A friend of mine uses this one on her site (the actual reason I did not use it on this site)  and it looks great. If you would still rather burn through $80, then go ahead and give the money to the person that developed Flexibility2 and then you can remove the little link at the bottom, which really should not bother anybody anyways even if you do decide to just go with the free version. This is probably the best theme available today for WordPress and it truly is version 2.7 Ready!

Hopefully this post gives some people considering this theme some useful information that I wish I knew about prior to my purchase of the FlexxTheme. Always keep in mind that the old saying “You get what you pay for” does not seem true in the world of WordPress Themes.

I got some great news thanks to a tweet by @wbaustin today. Simply the greatest news that I could have received actually as I am a huge proponent of US Citizens being the only ones allowed to be hired by US companies for products or services ending up back in the US. Well, this joyous news was that Sallie Mae is getting rid of it’s offshore call centers and “other” operations. One can only hope that means getting rid of the technology off-shoring also and bringing them back to this country as they should be.

I applaud Sallie Mae for stepping forward and realizing, as I have, the true problem that is causing this country and the world such pain. US companies should be required to only hire US Citizens for their job openings for a product or service sold in the US. That is the bottom line. We can eliminate all the call and data entry centers and all the higher paying technology jobs and take them out of places like India and let the people that deserve these jobs have them. People from other countries have far less entitlement than the people of the US when it comes to filling jobs for US Companies.

It is a different story say, if GM opens a plant in China in order to produce vehicles that would then be turned around and sold in China. In that case, I would expect them to hire Chinese workers. I do not even think any other country in the world would allow their companies to get away with the economic terrorism/treason that our government has allowed companies in this country to get away with.

I hope that this is just the tip of the iceberg and we can bring back the millions of jobs that were sent offshore for the sake of putting an American in line at the soup kitchen higher profits and larger bonus checks for executives.

There is also a deeper point to be made on this and I actually missed it. They said that when they were originally going offshore with these jobs, they thought it would allow them to save money and make a profit. Obviously, it did not and this is a key point for any company thinking of getting into off-shoring. It turns out that it is cheaper to keep the jobs here because 3/4 of the time things have to be fixed by someone in the US anyways. I can’t tell you how much money my company has lost because of poor programming that had to be completely redone. Even the best that they have do not cut the mustard here in the US. It takes my Indian developers three times as long as to complete something as my domestic developers and I have 1/4 of the bugs in the work the domestic developers perform. That is even with giving the Indian developers the easier tasks. It is truly a myth that sending jobs to someone that will do the job for pennies on the dollar in comparison to someone here will save you money. It just does not work out that way and at some point all these McMBAs will figure that out.

Every time I call customer service and get somebody not from this country I ask to be immediately transferred to the US. That is the type of thing that might help in bringing jobs back to this country. Anyways, I certainly do not want to try to understand what the heck the person on the other end is saying when I can just talk to someone here and my call will be completed in 1/3 of the time. See, cost not saved.

Another thing I would like to see is to have a restriction on hiring foreigners into executive or management positions here in the US. That is really a big problem that needs to be addressed and I think I’ll take that up a little later.

All I heard the few days leading up to this Earth Hour thing was “don’t forget to turn your lights out for an hour…it will save the planet”. What a pile of dog crud that is. The idea behind this Earth Hour thing is that if everyone turns their lights off for an hour a year, then the planet shall be saved from global warming. Uh, are you serious?! Only the human race would be so naive to believe that it can control something that not only it did not create, but has been happening cyclically for as long as the Earth has existed. It is not a phenomenon created by man in any way, shape or form. Let’s just make there very clear right off the bat. That’s a big problem, but is not my biggest issue with this Earth Hour scheme.

If you really want to call Earth Hour anything, it is a scheme to save energy. Simple as that. The problem with this scheme is that it has the same logic as telling people not to buy gas on a Tuesday and then gas prices will go down or not driving one day out of the year. This is not enough to make a difference. If you truly want to do something, then you have to make a concerted effort towards a lifestyle change with the goal being to reduce the amount of energy you consume and not saving the world.

I would love to know the number of people that turned off their lights and simply went out to the mall to shop. Hmm. That is even worse. You used even more energy if you did that. Earth Hour Fail!

So, what can you do to consume less energy and not live a miserable hot or cold life! Try these on for size:

• Install ceiling fans: These can cut your A/C bills by 40% and heating costs by 10%. In addition, Energy Star versions circulate 15% more than standard ceiling fans and are 60% more efficient than a 150 watt light bulb.
• Go Solar: If you live in Florida, Arizona or California then you should really consider this. Most states will pay for half the bill of the panels and it sure feels nice to get paid some months by your electric company as opposed to paying them.
• Break Wind: If you live in a state such as New York, which has recently learned the value of wind energy, then you know how great this potential is. Now you probably can not just go and put a wind turbine in your back yard, but you can certainly put pressure on your elected officials to get moving in this direction.
• Get Gas: If you live in an area where there is natural gas, then you are again aware of how great this is. Go out and buy yourself a geothermal unit that will heat your house during the winter months and keep you cool in the summer. This is another great alternative, which has unbelievable potential.
• Work from Home: I no longer go into the office at all, which means my commute is 0 miles a day. Therefore, I have greatly reduced my gasoline consumption instead of just not filling up on a Tuesday, which is just as dumb as this whole Earth Hour scheme.
• Get a programmable thermostat: This will allow you to keep the A/C or heat from running excessively when you are not at home.

Those are just a few ideas. I am sure there are a million other useful things that you can do without giving up the enjoyment of living life. I did not participate in the Earth Hour scheme and I would never think about it. Once again, it is a deprivation for which I get no reward. Instead, I can make some changes that can benefit me and at the same time reduce the amount of energy that I use. At the same time, I realize that there is nothing I can do about the Cyclical Global Climate Change.

Since I am originally from Upstate New York, this is pretty funny stuff. Others from that area will get a kick out of these. Jeff Foxworthy explains it all.

Jeff Foxworthy on Upstate New York

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 36 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Upstate New York.

If you’re proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights a year because Saranac Lake is the coldest spot in the nation, and Syracuse gets more snow than any other major city in the US, you might live in Upstate, NY.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from October through May, you might live in Upstate New York.

If you get 131 inches of snow in a week and you comment that ‘winter’s finally here’, you might live near Oswego in Upstate New York.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for six months out of the year, you might live, bundled up, in Upstate New York.

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance, and they don’t work there, you might live in Upstate NY.

If you have worn shorts and a parka on the same day, you might live in Upstate New York.

If you have had a lengthy phone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Upstate New York.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE UPSTATE NEW YORKER WHEN:

“Vacation” means going South past Saratoga for the weekend.

You measure distance in hours.

You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

You often switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again.

You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to use them.

You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.

You can identify a southern or eastern accent.

Down South to you means ALBANY .

Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new shed.

You go out for a fish fry every Friday.

Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

You find 10 degrees “a little chilly.” and 55 is shorts weather.

You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Upstate New York friends and to those who used to live here and left. — (chickens).

I’ve always said that Nancy Pelosi is actually the most dangerous person in our capital. It appears that she has once again proven herself extremely dangerous to the wellness of our country.She has also shown ill-regard to the true, law abiding citizens of this country. What did she do this time? No, she did not have any more plastic surgery. She is still slightly behind Joan Rivers in that department. Instead, she has decided that upholding the laws of the United States are simply not important with the comment that work sites raids to rid this country of illegal immigration are “un-American”. You can read the article here.

If this was not so sad, I would be rolling all over the floor busting a gut. For some reason, she feels that the lives of illegals are more important than those of the real citizens of this country! She says that she can’t fathom taking a parent away from a child in the middle of the night in one of these raids. Uh, Ms Speaker?! How about the families that these illegals destroy because they take a job from someone that is legally allowed to work in this country! In these economic times, the old saying that these are jobs that Americans are above does not apply. I am sure we could find some real Americans that would be more than happy to work in those places to help put some food on the tables of their families.

Keep in mind, Ms Speaker. Illegals have broken laws and are simple criminals and in many cases felons! These people must be dealt with swiftly and harshly! This is not a time to be concerned about the families of people that should not be here in the first place. Instead of taking a parent away, we should round up the entire family and deport them.That way we would not be concerned with taking a parent away from their families, but that makes too much sense for someone more concerned about finding rerplacement parts for her body than helping out the American people!

Also, by taking these actions, Pelosi is clearly sending the message that the laws that are created by Congress, do not need to be followed. That her job does not matter. That she is simply useless. Well, she may be right on that last part! Keep in mind, that her job is to create the laws and not to enforce them. The people performing these raids are simply upholding the laws created by the Congress of the United States of behalf of the real Citizens of the country. She is not in a position to say that the raids should not be taking place. Actually, by saying this she is saying that we should break our own laws and become criminals just like these illegals are.

What we should really do is take back the money from AIG and use it to rid this country of ALL illegals and give jobs to the hard working people of this country. Not people that infiltrate this country simply to screw a legal US Citizen out of a job that could save their families. Again, I am not concerned what happens with these illegals and their lives. I am concerned with the people of the United States that could use these jobs to get back on their feet financially. So, the next time you open that mouth of yours, Ms Pelosi, it best well be in the form of an apology to the citizens of this country that elected you. Keep in mind, those illegals have no say as to whether you keep your job!

Don’t worry folks! I will keep guard! I have turned in a few people that I have suspected to be illegals or running a human trafficking operation and will continue to do so. We can all do this. Simply contact the authorities in your area and explain what is going on and they will take it from there. One of the greatest moments I have had is seeing a family taken out of the house next to me in handcuffs because they were illegals and assisting bringing illegals into this country. I did my part, now do yours! We can rid this country of this, but it seems like it is up to individuals if the government won’t actively pursue the enforcement of these laws.

</rant>

Not only is today St Patrick’s day, but it is a big day for a Korean mega-star. BoA has released her first US album! This is a big step for the Korean singer, which has mainly been concentrating her efforts in Japan over the last several years. Her music is the typical pop princess type of music. Great for execising if you are older and want something upbeat to keep you moving. She will also be a huge draw to the younger audience as her music is typically on par if not better than people like Britney Spears. I have not had a chance to listen to this album yet, but am looking forward to receving it. I’m one of those people that prefer having the physical disc and loading it into ITunes instead of purchasing it from ITunes. I guess I am just old fashioned.

I have listened to the clips on ITunes though and it does seem like a very upbeat album. No ballads though, which BoA has done very well with on past albums, but she and her management is definitely trying to fit into the hip hop/dance music that the young folks here in the US are into these days. Listening to the clips, I find this album very similar to Britney’s Circus album minus the personal trainwreck. Like I said, it is great for people like me too that go out and exercise and need something to keep us going. Pick up your copy today and enjoy.

With Jon Stewart ripping apart Jim Cramer on The Daily Show, he has finally put a nail in the coffin of these hosts of financial programs that feel that they are financial experts and hopefully shown the people that watch these shows that they simply provide entertainment as opposed to useful financial advice. As I have said before, the news media put a lot of the nation in fear which has now led to this global financial crisis.

People like Jim Cramer and Suze Orman have simply continued to drive people into fear and away from investing in the future. They have both also provided some of the worst investment ideas I have ever seen! Both these people are nothing but hacks! Complete morons when it comes to giving financial advice. When the market was skyrocketing, I could have been a financial expert. It does not take much brain power to get things right. As they say, anybody can seem like a brilliant  leader when things are going well, but you find who the true leaders are when things are bad. These two people are certainly not leaders in their industry.

These people are simply entertainers. They are not at least concerned with your financial success. They are in business to create their own brand and make themselves rich through their television programs. They have become larger than life in the good times, but their lack of financial brains has come out now in the tough times. The funny thing is that there are lots of companies that are doing very well right now, but these two clowns have yet to mention anything.

Instead, they are using scare tactics and saying that you need to get all your money out of the stock market. So, when you have people that are so stupid financially that they think these two are intelligent, what exactly do you think will happen. Yep! That’s right! The market will plummet and the economic crisis will become worse as simple fools listen to these dolts and sell their stocks in some sort of organized panic.

Cramer and Orman are only concerned in making themselves rich and they have done that. I see them in the same light as I see all those get rich guys that have all those infomercials. You know the ones I am talking about. People like Don LaPre and Carlton Sheets. They do not make money in the same way as they tell you they do. They are getting rich by getting you to buy their products. Cramer and Orman do the same thing, but are getting paid the big bucks by the networks because they give the networks high ratings, which in turn allows the network to charge high rates for advertising during these programs.

Here’s an idea for the folks over at Drudge. I would like to compare what these two people were saying on their shows and what they were really doing. For example, are they saying things like “IBM is headed for bankruptcy” and then letting the stock go down and buying 100,000 shares and then praising the company a couple months later and allowing the stock to rise and making a fortune when they then sell the stock. I’m thinking that might be interesting to see. After all, we already have seen the clip of how Cramer says he manipulated stocks by buying and selling large amounts to make it appear things were either good or bad depending on what his needs were. He even called it a game! So keep that in mind people. For all you that have lost your retirement savings and can not longer afford the basic necessities, these two are playing “games” with your money and are to blame for your difficult times!

</rant>

OK. So my last post was about bashing the idea of a green sex life. My thought is that I should just be happy that I have one, so I am not going to be overly concerned about the environment. Naturally, everybody in the world does not see things in the same way that I do and I can respect that. That being said, I decided to do some research on the idea of having a green sex life, starting with some of the items that I mentioned in my previous post and figured I would share some of what I have learned.  I plan to make this a series which will hopefully bring some useful information for those looking to go green in the bedroom.

I was laughing like crazy at the idea of a green sex life until I started looking into the reasons for making that decision. It turns out that it goes well beyond saving the environment. Like I said, I consider my safety (and my partner’s too) before the environment and if you really look into what is in some of the products that we all use, it could scare you. Same idea as opting for Organic produce. I buy those because they are not treated with something that would become a toxin in my system. In the first part of this series, we will be discussing lubricants.

KY – A dangerous product

The first thing that most of us think about when we hear personal lubricants is KY. That is pretty much the standard and they have recently been re-inventing themselves with their warming jells and putting many advertisements on the air to get people to purchase their products. So let’s take a look at the ingredients in this jelly they are peddling:

• Glycerin: A sugar that is very bad for women with a history with problems with Candida. If you are having yeast infections after using this product, get one that is much more body friendly. Ironically, this can also cause the skin to become dry over time.
• Hydroxyethyl Cellulose: A thickener for which information is not easily found, but I found it on the DOW chemical website. That is not a good sign at all, but even worse is the fact that they mention the application for this is actually in architectural and industrial coatings.
• Chlorhexidine Gluconate: This one is mainly used in mouthwashes. It has the ability to stain your teeth, dentures, toungue and inside of your mouth. Mouth ulcers and white spots in your mouth are a couple side effects. This stuff is pretty potent it would appear. Do you really want to put it on the most sensitive parts of your body?
• Methylparabe Possible link to breast cancer. Skin irritant.
• Sodium Hydroxide Caustic chemical traditionally used as a paint stripper. Also used as a drain cleaner
• Purified Water

I had to put the purified water in there just because it made me laugh that a company would put so many things that are bad for your body in a product and then try to pull the proverbial wool over the eyes with the purified water trick. The problem is that most consumers will read the purified water and not even be concerned with the other ingredients, thinking they are safe to put on their bodies. The problem is that they are being tricked into thinking they are safe.

The alternatives

Lucky for us, there are several alternatives. I will share a few of these with you since this was the orignal idea as opposed to the scaring the crap out of you, which I hope I have not already done. I’ve tracked down a few of natural lubricants that I will have to give a try and see how they compare to the aforementioned KY.

FireFly Personal Natural Lubricant:

• Made with 100% natural ingredients
• No glycerins, petroleum or parabens
• Preservative free and not sticky. The not sticky would be a joy for KY users. That stuff is crazy sticky!
• Safe with silicon, rubber and latex
• Not tested on animals for you animal lovers that are against things like that

A 4 oz bottle of this will put you out $18.95 USD.

Good Clean Love Personal Lubricant

• 95% Organic
• Available in Peppermint, Cinnamon, Lavender and Almost Naked flavors
• Oil based
• Being based on oil, this would not be a wise choice to use with silicon, rubber or latex items

a 4 oz bottle will cost you $16 USD Almost Naked also available  in 2 oz size for $10 USD

Yes Pure Intimacy Personal Lubricant

• The only personal lubricant I have ever seen described as a “High performance premium lubricant”
• No glycerins, petroleum or parabens
• Menthol and Peppermint oil free
• Available in oil or water based
• Water based products are safe to use with latex, silicon and plastic products
• Water based products do have synthetic ingredients

Prices start at $8 USD for a 0.9 oz size. Many other sizes available

Final Opinions

I don’t want anyone to confuse this post as a call to arms to make your sex life green in order to save the environment. It is certainly not that, but I ran across all this information after doing some research for my previous post on making your sex life green. Some of the information I found very useful and a bit disturbing in the context of we were putting sensitive areas of our bodies in direct contact with some terrible synthetic chemicals. So, what this really is about is giving you an idea of what problems may occur by using your synthetic lubricant and allowing you to make a decision for youself for the sake of yourself and not for the environment. I suppose the side effect of treating your body better is that you end up treating the environment better, so it seems to be a win-win. If you are someone that already has issues with synthetic lubricants, then you completely understand and maybe you have heard of these products and can give a quick thumbs up or down on them.