Al's Morning Meeting

Mouse Print, for example, went after Scott toilet paper which still advertises that every roll contains 1,000 sheets of paper. How could it be, when competitors are shrinking their rolls? Mouse Print learned:

Each of the 1000 sheets is now 3.7 inches instead of the old 4.0 inches long, thus making each roll 300 inches shorter.

I think it is not so much about toilet tissue as it is about consumer awareness. Mouse Print also looks closely at claims for cars, cell phones, sweepstakes, travel and groceries. For example, Mouse Print points out that mayonnaise was always sold in quart-size (32-ounce) jars. Now, Hellmann's comes in a 30-ounce jar. It sort of looks like the old 32-ounce jar, but it is a little bit smaller. Who knew? The company said the cost of making the product has gone up and rather than raise prices it just shrank the container.

Then there was this, an examination of Chrysler's money-back promotion:

Imagine spending $25,000 for a new car and then having buyer's remorse. To give customers more peace of mind, Chrysler has begun offering a 30-day return program. TV commercials promise "if not satisfied, simply return it within 30 days."

The truth is, it is not quite so painless a process, particularly to your pocketbook.

*MOUSE PRINT: "Customer responsible for 5 percent MSRP restocking fee, 50 cents per mile driven, and all financing, insurance and tax charges."

One might reasonably expect to have to return the car in good condition (additional fine print requires that), and to have to pay a usage fee for every mile driven. In this case, if one were to drive an average amount of 1,000 miles during the first month, that means there will be a $500 charge for use.

The real bite comes from the restocking fee, which on a $25,000 list price car (even if you paid $20,000), would amount to $1,250. It is unclear how much the taxes, financing and insurance charges would add to this, but the total charge to change your mind about buying this car could easily be over $2,000.

I think this idea would make a wonderful TV consumer franchise or regular newspaper column. It also, of course, will raise questions about why publications and commercials allow deceptive "mouse print" to run in the first place.

More Dispatchers to Get Medical Training

This idea makes so much sense, I wonder why it took so long to happen.

The Bangor Daily News reported that Maine is the 20th state to adopt mandatory training standards for Enhanced 911 dispatchers. Soon, every dispatcher in Maine's 45 largest emergency call centers will have the training to coach callers through medical emergencies as they wait for an ambulance.

How much medical training do your local dispatchers get? Is there ongoing/follow-up training, too?

Autumn Colors

Here in Florida, it is hard to believe the rest of the country is in the midst of autumn-leaf season. Autumn here means the palm trees drop big orange nuts that clog my gutters and conk me on the head.

This is a map of the normal peak times for fall colors.

• Why do leaves change color, anyway? Here is a site that explains it all.
• Here is a painless little chemistry lesson.
• Lots of people share their autumn pictures on Web sites like Flickr. Here is a site that helps you learn how to take better pictures of those fall colors.
• What kind of trees are those, anyway? Click here for some help.
• Even if you can't go there in person, you can use live Webcams to see the colors changing in lots of places. About.com listed these:
• Acadia National Park -- Maine -- View turning leaves on 40,000 acres of Atlantic coast shoreline. Mixed hardwood colors light up the green spruce/fir forest. 
• Selway-Bitterroot -- Montana -- The Selway-Bitterroot real-time digital camera system is installed outside of the Stevensville USFS Ranger Station, Montana. The camera views Crown Point, 7 miles to the northwest and overlooks the third-largest wilderness in the Lower 48.
  
• Glacier National Park -- Montana -- There are now five outside digital cameras located in Glacier National Park. You can curser over each link to see an updated quick shot.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- Look Rock Cam
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- Purchase Knob Cam -- North Carolina -- The Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers views via Look Rock Tower and Purchase Knob. These digital cameras offer some of the best autumn views of the Smoky Mountains.
  
• Dolly Sods Wilderness- - West Virginia -- The Dolly Sods Web camera system was installed in the USFS Bearden Knob air quality monitoring compound in November 2003. The camera views the Canaan Valley and Mt. Port Crayon, 13 miles to the south.
• The Nation's Capitol -- Washington D.C. -- This Web cam view is from the Netherlands Carillon looking east toward the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol building.
• Mt. Washington -- New Hampshire -- Web cam view of part of the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, the highest mountain in New England.
• Brasstown Bald -- Georgia -- Web cam view from Georgia's highest point, near Blairsville.
• Mammoth Cave National Park -- Kentucky -- View of Green River Valley looking north-northwest. The visual range is approximately 15 miles and overlooks a massive upland hardwood forest.
  
• Shining Rock Wilderness -- North Carolina -- A view of Cold Mountain from the largest wilderness area in North Carolina.
• Penn State Campus -- Pennsylvania

E-Tutoring

So your kid needs some help on his/her schoolwork and you don't have the dough to hire a private tutor. What is a parent to do?

Some are now finding help online, from tutors in India.

See this story from Reuters. The online tutoring costs as little as a few bucks an hour and call centers report that tutors often have years of teaching experience and advanced degrees.

A New Delhi tutoring company, Educomp Solutions Ltd., estimates the U.S. tutoring market at $8 billion and growing. Online companies, both from the United States and India, are looking to tap millions of dollars available to firms under the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act for remedial tutoring.

It would be interesting to experiment with these online services and see what kind of instruction a kid would get.

NBC recently did a story on TutorVista -- take a look.

How Is Barbaro?

It has been some time since we heard how Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner who was seriously injured in the Preakness, is doing.

The University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Medicine Web site updates his condition regularly and says he is still in a leg cast but is hanging in there pretty well. Barbaro walks outside a half-hour each day and is eating well. Click here for more. (Penn still has a message board set up, where fans can post notes to the horse.)

Here is a piece from the Associated Press' racing writer.

We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.