My PUR Water Filter Reviews at Amazon

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Tonight I posted a couple poignant reviews, along with my usual helpful hacks, of the PUR Water Filter systems and PUR Flavor options over at Amazon.com. I'm posting them here for your amusement and (hopeful) benefit. Enjoy!

PART I, PUR Faucet Mounts:

How to work around mean old P&G and enjoy your great filter

Once, long ago, PUR was a great company with great water filtering technology. I still love their filters! Unfortunately, a big bad company named Proctor and Gamble bought them and messed them over in favor of customer abuse. This was accomplished using two methods. The first method is called 'planned obsolescence' whereby their faucet mount apparatus leak and die briefly after the end of the warranty period. (It didn't used to be that way in the good old days). The second method is called 'timed death' whereby their apparatus lock up their enclosed filters at a preset volume of filtered water, whether the filter is actually used up or not.

Planned obsolescence can be overcome by calling up Proctor and Gamble BEFORE your warranty runs out, and letting them know that your PUR apparatus is squirting water all over your kitchen. Ask them to send you a replacement or a replacement certificate. If need be, call repeatedly asking to speak to the President of P&G, never taking 'no' for an answer. Then take your certificate and get another PUR apparatus. This will provide you with a lifetime for the apparatus more representative of the lifetime of original PUR apparatus. You've cheated no one. P&G's cheat on you has been overcome.

The timed death lockout of your filter is extremely easy to overcome. Pull out the filter from the apparatus. This resets the nasty timing device to zero again. Put your filter back in. TADA! You're done. Your filter will work as before. Note, however, that PUR filters do eventually get clogged with stuff. You'll know when to change it.

I hope that helps everyone restore goodness to the universe. I still love PUR filters better than any other brand and wouldn't be without them. It's P&G's customer abuse that's not worth liking. Shame on you P&G.


PART II, PUR Flavor Options:

You don't want to drink propylene glycol

This concoction contains 14% propylene glycol. You don't want to drink it. You don't want your kids drinking it. It's also used in your car's radiator as anti-freeze. Corporate industry has deliberately and consistently prevented any adequate study of how propylene glycol affects the health of humans. Wonder why?

Buy natural flavorings and add them to your PUR filtered water instead.

Read about propylene glycol at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol
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The Narcissist End Game

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Let's play The Narcissist End Game.

I've personally watched this occur on two occasions in organizations within which I've worked. The two people who perpetrated it were best friends, which of course is fascinating. I've decided to write about this psychopathic behavior because I'm watching the exact same thing happen at Microsoft with this week's full and final departure of Bill Gates. He has left behind Steve Ballmer to run the show. The result is that Microsoft has begun its death throws. I've been documenting these death throws over at MacDailyNews over the past couple months. Apparently, Windows Phone 7 is yet another one, just in time for Bill's final fare-thee-FAIL.

Here's how The Narcissist End Game works:

The leader of an organization is so insipidly narcissistic and insecure that he (or she) can't bear the thought of leaving behind a system that will soon forge ahead into the future and forget him. Therefore, the narcissist sets up the organization's demise by putting an incompetent in line as his successor. The narcissist then departs and lets the carefully placed gears turn and grind. The end result is the catastrophic failure of his once wonderful organization.

Everyone left behind then sings in unison:

Oh, how we pine for the days when [insert narcissist here] was running the place! Oh how we miss him! When he left, everything fell apart. Only he could hold it together. If only he could return and save the day! Oh Oh Oh!

Get it? Sick stuff. And it is very real. I watched this happen at the Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine's Photography department AND at Eastman Kodak's Scientific Imaging department. In both instances the secretary was put in charge as the successor, with predictable consequences. I expect those two best friends sit around toasting themselves and their final achievement.

Now sit back and watch it happen at Microsoft. I almost feel sorry for them, but not quite. 'Oh for the days of Mr. Bill.'

:-Q*****

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