Slick deals

I doubt if anyone still reads this blog, but just in case....

I like the site slickdeals.net.  It's kind of heavy on the electronics, but it does have some pretty great tips with some regularity.  For example, I just found a tip for cashback from microsoft on puchases made after doing a search on live.com.  The results page looks something like this:

The results that have the little gold coin give you varying chances for cashback (30% for ebay and 7% for live.com in this shot).  You go there and have 60 minutes to buy something with paypal to get the rebate.  Anything in that session gets the discount according to the terms.  It just saved me $90.  At least, in theory.  I still have to wait the obligatory period before I can cash in, but it seems like a great chance to save money.

Singing Her Praises

OK, so I haven't been able to find many negative experiences to put on My List lately (believe me, I have tried!). So I have to put another GREAT product up here! It is Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds walking programs. Buffalo Wings (aka Super Mario) was in the market for some workout vidoes around Christmastime. He went to Best Buy and picked up a Leslie Sansone DVD with a one-mile and a two-mile walk on it. We'd never heard of her, but he said that the DVD caught his eye and that it looked easy. He started using it right away and told me that it was easy and really good. He worked his way up to the two-mile portion of the DVD pretty quickly. It took me awhile to warm up to wanting to use the DVD, but after spring break I gave it a try, and absolutely enjoyed doing the program. It is easy, low impact, no difficult moves, something that I think everyone can do, and truly a great calorie burn. I'm watching the pounds drop as I've been using the DVD consistently. I've put a bunch of Leslie Sansone DVDs on Netflix and am awaiting for the first one to arrive.

So, in my opinion, Leslie Sansone is one to put on your good list!!!!

Yummy Stuff

Scott and I have discovered many yummy, lo-cal treats lately. A couple of my favorites are:

The 100 Calorie Packs. Specifically, the Hershey's, Chips Ahoy, and Oreo Cookie bar ones.

Life Chocolate Oat Crunch cereal.

Special K Red Berries.

Fat free, sugar free chocolate pudding with fat free, sugar free Cool Whip.

Dark chocolate M-n-M's - not specifically lo-cal, but healthier for you than milk chocolate
M-n-M's.

Quaker rice cakes - caramel and chocolate peanut butter flavors. Scott likes the apple cinnamon flavor.

Kashi bars - the GoLean Crunch bars to be exact. The chocolate peanut crunch and the caramel ones are my favorites. YUM YUM YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!

All of the above treats are worth a gander.

Got any suggestions for this consumer?

Taxes again

As a follow up to my rant in Feb about taxes, I just wanted to point out that you can use online tax preparation software for free at irs.gov. Most of them make you pay to file your state return, so the state price is a factor to consider when choosing a vendor. Many states have their own online return system, which just means that you can do both federal and state for free if you don't mind entering in all the data twice. Could be worth it, depending on how complicated your info is.

Microsoft: hate hate hate

There are plenty of ways to disparage Microsoft. The most recent things they've done to annoy me include such things as paying corporations to force their employees to use Windows Live Search rather than their personal preference, bribing influential bloggers with free laptops, and most egregiously: wasting a generous amount of my time.

This latter offence was in the form of xbox 360 support. When our xbox broke and we sent it in to be repaired, we weren't in any frantic need of getting it back immediately. Microsoft thought that it would be better to send us a replacement machine than to make us wait for them to fix ours. Nice thought, but completely ridiculous in execution. Their security for online accounts restricts the games you play to the xbox you initially downloaded them to, which means none of the games worked on the new machine--the games we had paid cold hard cash for. What's worse, they knew all about this issue but waited for me to figure it out on my own and make a phone call to technical support, wait through the cheery automated menu diabolically hellbent on obstructing my access to anyone who could help me, speak to a tech who took all my details through an extended and painfully slow interview, and be escalated to the highest ranking technician available only to find that the billing people (the only ones who can help) are at a different calling center, use a different customer support database, and are completely inaccessible to me, the customer. All I could do is wait for these mysterious higher support beings to get around to reviewing my case. When I called back, I got to wait, wait, and wait again talking respectively to the machine, the tech, and the escalation tech only to be told the people who can really accomplish what I needed are inaccessible even to them... perhaps magically in Oz. The icing on the cake was when I had to fax them my packing slip to prove that THEY had shipped this xbox back to me and that the previous week's service issue had even happened. This company designs the world's databases? We are in serious trouble, folks.

Okay, the real reason for this anti-Microsoft rant is "automatic updates". I didn't hesitate to enable my Windows computers to go ahead and download critical updates and install them automatically. Unfortunately, the people who designed this system are seriously lacking in common sense. Recently my computer interrupted me repeatedly with an urgent message that my computer had to be immediately restarted so that a CRITICAL update could be installed. My work--my reason for a having a computer--is so completely inconsequential to my operating system. It doesn't care, apparently, whether restarting automatically in my absence will lose my saved work. It doesn't care, apparently, whether I'm actively working on my computer--it needs to save me from myself by pestering me with nagging messages that come up every 5 minutes and can't be dismissed indefinitely. You must restart NOW NOW NOW--it's for your own good!!!

When I finally opened the dialog to see what was being installed so urgently, it was none other than the Microsoft authentication tool--one designed to verify that my copy of Windows is legitimate and not ripped off.

WHAT?

They have repeatedly interrupted me, rebooted me, pestered me so that THEY can know that I'm not ripping off their product? ...Their product that I have legitimately and legally acquired? And that I have been forced to prove is authentic on multiple prior occasions?

It's just too much. I'm buying an Apple next, even if it costs twice as much. End of story.

Taxes

We didn't file our taxes in 2005 because we didn't make any money... or so we thought. I was a student and we were living off loans, so we thought we'd save ourselves the trouble. Well, after filing for 2006 taxes and getting a hefty refund thanks to the earned income credit, I wondered if we might have qualified for a refund for 2005 without realizing it. We headed over to H&R Block to figure it out.

The final numbers for 2005 are not in yet, but it turns out that we did have a tax liability for that year thanks to... free stuff. That's right. I got a couple thousand dollars worth of free stuff out of my Internet offer searching and it is taxable income. But it's not your garden variety of income, the kind that would easily be wiped out by a standard deduction for a three person family. No, it's taxed specially and separately and no deduction applies (according the HR Block dude).

So, all that fun free stuff is going to cost me after all. What a rip off!

Returns are on My List

And in a bad way.

Now that I'm working retail again, I have to deal with returns quite frequently. That's not a problem, as long as you have your receipt, or at least the tags on the garment or item purchased. I understand what a hassle returns are (or can be) for the customer as well as for myself, so I try to be extra patient and polite. But sometimes, I just get frustrated.

Take for instance a customer (this customer may be real or imagined) who brings in a shirt and jeans. The shirt is coming apart and so were the jeans. Understandable problems and a good reason to return clothing. However, the garments were a few months old (by the date on the receipt) and had been worn numerous times and smelled like cigarette smoke. We were unable to process the shirt for the customer, but did manage to give a cash refund for the jeans. And now we have to try to re-sell smoky, worn-out jeans at a price upwards of $25. The garments were not even purchased in this town, but a town several hours from here.

Take for instance another customer, also perhaps real or imagined, who brought in a pile of baby clothes that were not only worn several (hundreds of) times, but also worn out, stained, and smelling of cigarette smoke. Obviously not brand-new and just the wrong size. The manager stepped up in that instance and took care of the problem, saying that we could not offer a refund or an exchange, but she had to say it was because we didn't carry those brands of clothing.

I later asked if there was no policy against severely worn clothing and returns / exchanges. There clearly is not, because the customer is #1, and that's what my manager told me.

I know it sounds like I'm being a big meanie. I'm really not trying to be. I understand that you have to return things. I return things. But only if they truly didn't work out. And I don't wear it and wash it and smoke on it and spill things on it for a month or two before I decide if it didn't work or not.

There is one problem, though, that I don't know how to solve. If a garment is really new, say less than a month old, and truly begins to break down in a way that it shouldn't, what is the customer to do? They paid good money for a piece of clothing that ought to last a good while, and it starts falling apart. Should that be a problem for the store to handle or for the manufacturer? Should they contact Tommy Hilfiger or Levi's or Sag Harbor or whatever? Do you see what I'm saying? So, there are problems at every turn.

What do you think?

Fantasy Football is on My List!!!!

But in a good way.

Actually, Super Mario should be writing this. I think he forgot that he is a blog member here. Someone ought to remind him. :o)

Super Mario LOVES Fantasy sports. He does football and baseball each year. Last night, I called him from work, and he said he had won something through Fantasy Football. He can't remember exactly what he signed up for or how he had won it, but it had to do with a local radio station. The radio station notified him and let him know that he had won FOUR FREE ROUNDS OF GOLF!!!!

Super Mario is also on my list for many reasons, but for one because he is constantly winning things. I don't know how it happens, but it does. Little door prizes at school. $100 for computer surveys. Once, in Iowa, he won tickets to see Mamma Mia! through a local radio station. When he was a teenager, he even won a trip to Nashville! I can hardly wait to see what he wins next.

Cingular follow up

You may remember from a previous post that after many calls and conversations, Cingular refused to send us the $1.17 refund for a credit on our account, nor would they just close the account with the credit on it. So we got an account statement every month for years after the account was closed.

I'm happy to report that although we gave them no forwarding address, somehow a check in the amount of $1.17 was sent to us through Mom & Dad Henrichsen's address.

Yeah! Finally, an end to the long saga.

But wait. An additional $1.17 check also showed up. Do we dare cash them both? Or will that set in motion a series of events ending with us being turned over to collections agencies, credit scandals, and denial of a home loan application next year? I think they are teasing us.

Thank You Notes are on My List!!!!!

I know that might sound silly!
Who invented thank-you notes? I would really be interested in the history of them, so if someone knows, please enlighten!

OK, so thank-you notes are not ALWAYS on my list. They're only on my list under certain circumstances.

Yesterday, I dropped off some food for some of our friends from church. They had experienced a death in the family last week. I walked in and saw the widow and her children (who are all grown) sitting a table littered with lists and thank-you notes. I thought how un-offended I would be if I never got one of those notes. Should families in such stressful situations be required to send thank-you notes for flowers and meals? I don't know . . . perhaps it is a chore that will take the family's mind off things for the moment. But it is my opinion that the principle of the situation stands.

Another time that I believe there ought to be some grace given when it comes to thank-you notes is after someone has a baby! Getting thank-you notes out after showers that happen before the baby are not such a problem. But after that baby gets here! Whew! I think that up to one year after the baby is born should be an acceptable time to send out thank-you notes.

A brief update

A quick update on the issue I had with Verizon Wireless.

I faxed Verizon the information that they requested (power of attorney and letter from doctor) so that I could cancel Marty's phone without the cancellation fee. A few weeks later my statement showed that they were charging me for breaking the contract. Dad happened to be in town again, so he called again to see what was going on.

Mysteriously, even though I had faxed all of the information twice, that letter from the doctor didn't make it. Hmmm. Dad re-faxed it.

I got a call the next day. They didn't really think Marty's health issues were serious enough. I was even asked, "Well, is it terminal?"

A few more weeks with more hoops and paperwork and I finally found out that they would waive that cancellation fee.

The account now shows that they owe me $20.

That's what I was trying to tell them in the first place!

Upscale hotels

Sonnet's post noted that her letter of complaint had been unanswered. This reminded me that I wrote a letter a year and a half ago to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. that was never given the dignity of a response either. Not even a terse dismissal. But then, I guess it makes sense that if the establishment in question has provoked an angry letter in the first place, I shouldn't be too terribly surprised that nobody has the time to actually provide any minimal attention to a previous customer.

My experience was during one of the AMA's meetings. My room was paid for at an extremely high price, by my standards. I thought this would entitle me to, say, a functional shower as well as problem resolution, but I was mistaken. By the end of the stay I had spent what seemed like hours on the phone with tech support trying to get the internet connection in the room working, I had missed a shower because the handle fell off in my hand, and there had been several other small but understandable problems like maintenance needs on lights. When I went to check out they had generously credited my account for some but not all of the internet charges to my room, which all would have been reimbursable anyway. The problem was, with the internet/phone "package" credited, all my individual phone calls were charged separately and because they were personal, they were not reimbursable. So, by being generous, they had effectively increased my personal expenses substantially. I tried to explain this to the front desk, but they didn't get it and treated me like I was just scamming them. After several attempts to spell it all out I was at risk for missing my flight, so I left thinking a letter would probably help.

It has been a year and a half and I'm still waiting for a response.

Apart from the Mayflower, I've been annoyed by this class of hotels in general because of their nickel and diming you to death... or more aptly, dollar and five dollaring you to death. You would think paying hundreds of dollars for a night's stay would entitle you to make a local phone call from your room without paying a dollar. Not so. You would think there would be a continental breakfast or something. Not so. You would think you would be allowed to carry your own small bag to your room without being pestered incessently by someone who wants to take it for you and hang around your room pointing out features like the thermostat until you give up and grease their palm. Not so.

This is why I prefer to use Priceline whenever possible for hotels. I've had a pretty good experience and the hotels I have gotten there have been more reasonable. For example, Marriott's Courtyard hotel in Washington DC was only a couple blocks from the Mayflower but included free internet service, free continental breakfast (including a waffle bar, and other warm foods--not a scrimpy tray of bagels and donuts), and free local and toll-free calls. If I can just get free toll free calls (should be an oxymoron if not free, I know, but it's more the rule than the exception!) I can use my calling card to get 4 cent rates anywhere.

I wonder if the Courtyard hotel would have answered a letter...

I Heart Regular Roast Beef

Arby's. Mmmm. I know, it's terrible for me. But, mmmm. Tonight I was hungry, and it was late, and I didn't want to wait the hour it would take to pull something out of the freezer and get it ready.

9:49.

Arby's closes at 10:00.

I pull up to the drive through screen at 9:55. It took a minute (I think they were hoping I'd change my mind and go to Taco Bell), but then I heard, "Welcome to Arby's. Can I take your order?"

It took a few minutes to get my food ready because they were making it fresh for me (well, the beef was already slaughtered and roasted), but I was still driving back home by 10:00.

As I left the window, the employee locked the window and began turning out lights.

My fries were so hot they burned my tongue a bit. And she'd gone ahead and given me a few packages of Arby's sauce. Mmmmm, Arby's.

Taking on the Giant

I've been putting off doing this. But I'm still irritated. I'm mad at Wal-Mart. Here's a letter I recently wrote and sent to the manager of a local store:

On Thursday, June 15, I purchased two 32 oz. bottles of hydrogen peroxide from your store. Upon arriving at home I discovered that one of the bottles was lacking its tamper-proof safety seal. On Saturday June 17, 2006 I returned to your store to return the defective bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I expected the return process to be straight-forward and easy based on Wal*Mart’s published policy.

Instead the attendant at the customer service desk, Keasha, proceeded to accuse me of trying to return water instead of hydrogen peroxide. I recognize that water and hydrogen peroxide have similar physical properties, so although I was taken aback, I was not upset when she initially asked if it was water in the bottle. I assured her it was indeed hydrogen peroxide and again explained my reason for returning it. Before accepting the return Keasha called over her manager, who in turn called someone from the pharmacy. I’m sure that these actions were according to protocol, but I found it quite offensive that when each of these individuals arrived Keasha said, “She wants to return water.” The pharmacy representative confirmed that the bottle contained hydrogen peroxide and authorized my refund of $1.03.

I understand that loss prevention is an important issue for a major retailer like Wal*Mart; however, I think the way I was treated was offensive and unacceptable. I shop at Wal*Mart because of the reasonable prices and the convenience of your store to my home, but after my recent experience I don’t anticipate returning to your store. Additionally, I will be sharing this experience with my friends and family.

I appreciate your time in addressing this issue.

So far my letter has gone unacknowledged. And that bugs me too. I wasn't expecting free stuff, but I'd appreciate a letter of acknowledgement. Apparently Wal-Mart doesn't care about me and my $1.03 or how many other dollars I might or might not spend there because they make plenty without me anyway. Nevertheless, my Wal-Mart boycott has begun (at least of that store, I'm ambivalent about other ones).

A softer, gentler hate

John recently asked if I still hate Microsoft after getting my Xbox 360. Well, yes. But it's a softer, gentler hate.

I'm not a big gamer. I like games, sure, but I'm not the type to put in the number of hours to justify owning a $400 piece of "ultimate" gaming equipment. The trick about the 360 is that it is a bit more than just gaming, it's more "entertainment" equipment. They advertise that connected to a Windows Media Center PC, the Xbox 360 can access your photos, videos, and music from the computer and play it on your TV. Cool. That was the selling point for me. Not to mention the fact I could get a "free" 360 by doing a bunch of online offers. I'll save the details of the so-called free offer debacle for another post, but suffice it to say that I got my 360 and it was reasonably priced.

Now, here's where the softer, gentler hate comes in. The 360 doesn't come with any games. So, you have to fork over another $60 to buy one if you actually want to use it for its primary intended purpose. Cha-ching. I didn't care too much since I just wanted to connect to our family media and be able to browse all the family vids I had edited, listen to our whopping music collection, etc. while at the TV. I connected the USB wireless adaptor and... nothing happened. You see, they forgot to mention that to connect your PC to the 360 you either have to wind an ethernet cable through all the rooms of the house to connect the two, or BUY a Microsoft proprietary wireless adaptor. My perfectly good, high quality Linksys adaptor would not work. Price for a MS adaptor: $100. Cha-ching.

To avoid the cost of games and ridiculous proprietary MS peripherals, I rented a game from Blockbuster ($8 for 2 days--and people DO this?) and wound the obligatory 60 feet of cable through my house. I installed the necessary software and it worked without problems. I happily sat on my couch and accessed photos and music from the computer. However, when I went for my family videos the 360 reported that it could not play the video because the appropriate codec was not installed. AVI is not an obscure video format. In fact, I believe Microsoft made the format in an early version of Windows. Regardless, after a quick fact-finding trip on the Internet I found that indeed the only videos my 360 would play are MPEG (but not MPEG 4) and WMV--Microsoft's proprietary licensed format that uses digital rights management.

WHAT? Unbelievable! Further, using the 360 controller to control playback of DVD's or music is a little tricky. But don't worry, you can buy a handy-dandy Microsoft Xbox remote control at Walmart for only $30. Cha-ching. The fact we HAVE a handy-dandy Microsoft WMC remote control is moot. It won't work.

Hence, the hate.

But, please understand, this is not the vitriolic bitter hate I usually reserve for Microsoft, this is a mild hate tempered by the fact that I really like the games I've played so far, I like being able to download demos, access my music and other stuff. Basically, once you get the full story on what the costs and abilities will be, the 360 does it what it does really well.

A Couple of Things I Like

It's nice when products deliver what they say they do. For instance, don't you hate it when you pick up a bag of tortilla chips that says, "Restaurant Style!" but they are not at all that way? They're not thin and crispy, like those freshly fried at your favorite Mexican eatery. Well, Super Mario and I have found some that live up to the claim! Unfortunately for the rest of the world, they're only made in our neck of the woods. They're called Nuevo Laredo, are only $1.00 a bag, and they are outstanding! It's as if someone brought them to us in a paper-lined basket with a little bowl of salsa. I don't know how many bags we've gone through, but each time we eat them, we say, "Wow! I cannot believe how much these taste JUST LIKE the ones you get in the restaurant!" I hope they make it to your neck of the woods very soon.

Also, it's nice when a company delivers what it says it does. Not like our old garbage company. My kudos go now to Netflix! Super Mario and I LOVE Netflix! I like it so much because you can get any movie in the world there, or so it seems. For instance, once the LDS missionaries let me borrow the movie Charley. I loved it. It tugged at my heartstrings. I thought that it would be great to see more movies like that, but where in the heck am I going to find them? Should I go hunting around my new town, trying to find some more missionaries, just to roll down my window and ask, "Hey, do you have some Charley-esque movies that I might borrow?" But after doing some research, guess where I found a bunch of them? Netflix! Not to mention other things that my local vidoe store doesn't carry. Things like documentaries on all kinds of things, especially historical things, which is what I like so much. Or television series. Or, for Super Mario, WWF Allstars 1985 (or something like that). Netflix is amazing! And we get the movies so fast. If you don't have Netflix, you should try it! Really. It is great.

After our trash service fiasco, it's nice to have something to sing about!

I HATE Microsoft

Time after time they have betrayed me. Most recently, we needed to restore our computer to its original factory settings because a bunch of programs refused to work anymore. Neither reinstallation, tech support, nor system restore could do anything for the situation. So, I went to the ol' Microsoft "settings and transfer" wizard to make the restoration easier.

Trash. Turns out, it didn't back up both profiles, just one. And it didn't back up all our programs, just Microsoft's. For example, we prefer Firefox for our browser. It dutifully backed up IE's settings and ignored Firefox's and Opera's. Well, I should have expected that, right? Well, I specifically went to their website trying to find out if it would get all the profiles and programs and I found NOTHING. Their help files are absolutely ludicrous and have been since the advent of Windows.

Trying to restore Outlook was an even greater joy. I put phrase after phrase into the help box and it would constantly access the internet to pull to the "latest" information and bring back absolutley nothing of relevance or use.

Restarting Media Player reminded me of one of my pet peeves about all software vendors--they all put shortcuts in every conceivable location across your hard drive and change your program associations so if you open any kind of media remotely associated with their software (even if it was CREATED in different software) it will open in Media Player. Some companies go so far as having a "check all" button for file associations but requiring you to uncheck every box manually rather than providing a "check none" button.

Reinstalling Microsoft Money is the kind of tribulation I can only hope builds character, because it sure didn't help my blood pressure. They make it difficult to figure out during installation how to avoid installing the half-gig of video and audio files to show you how to use the program. Did they consider people may actually already know and want to bypass their bloat? No! In fact, despite my going to the trouble of disabling the audio and video installation, I find every time I open a feature for the first time, there's that grating voice telling me in the most obvious terms how to do what I've done for years.

Did I mention I hate Microsoft?

Windows Media Center software? Trash. I paid extra money for a remote control that would supposedly control audio and video on the computer. Well, it does if you only intend to use 2 of the 65 buttons. Stop and play usually work. Rewind, fast forward, and the other buttons: not so much. But my biggest gripe is that when you put in an audio CD it cheerily offers to rip it to your hard drive, but only using Windows Media Audio format. You have to pay extra for the mpeg codec--despite that we have the mpeg encoder installed on our operating system from other software. Microsoft, apparently will have nothing to do with my legally owned existing codecs--I have to buy it from THEM.

You may have heard all the hype about Vista, the next Windows version. Well, I certainly hope they get around to fixing the problem I had while using Windows Explorer the other day. I was deleting folders in the left panel while the right panel showed the contents. It deleted all the contents first, but then gave me an error message because the folder was not empty--apparently unable to delete the hidden thumbnail index file because it was a protected OS file. They've had HOW many years to fix the most basic aspects of the operating system? I don't care if Windows Vista makes my computer stand up and do a gig, I don't want more of the same crap if I can't delete a folder without their technology having a breakdown.

Internet explorer has a new beta version out--from what I understand it just steals all the innovations from Firefox and sets your browser search to MSN automatically not giving you the specific option during setup to choose another provider--say, Google, the most popular search engine in the world. Well, if you can't beat 'em, bully them, I guess. Seems to be the long standing MS mantra.

This is one of the largest and richest companies in the world right? How can they consistently and bitterly disappoint me with nearly everything they do? And their stock has been going down... I wonder why?

Wrongs Made Right

A year or so ago I was traveling by van to a conference with some of my colleagues. On the way home we stopped for lunch at Perkins. It was busy. Sunday brunchers filled the restaurant. We understood that we would have to wait a bit. We waited. And waited. Still waiting. Finally when the place was completely empty we were shown to a table. We waited. And waited. More waiting. In all, we spent nearly 2 hours there—only 30 minutes of which were we eating. We were all pretty disappointed.

I was the only one disappointed enough to call their national customer service number. But I emphasized that my feelings were shared by the other 5 people in my party. The person I spoke to took my information and apologized profusely.

A few days later I got a message from the manager of the restaurant we’d been to. She apologized for our treatment and asked me to call her back. I didn’t return her call immediately, but she wanted to make sure things were made right, so she persisted in calling until she got a hold of me. She sent 6 vouchers for free meals. Unfortunately, although she had said they’d be good at any Perkins, they did say they were only good at hers.

So I called the local Perkins restaurant and spoke to the manager. I explained the situation and asked if he would accept the vouchers we had—acknowledging that he had nothing to do with our complaint. He told me to come in and he would give me vouchers for the local restaurants in exchange for the ones I had. After all, he said, Perkins is a brand name, and he didn’t want us not eating at any Perkins because of a bad experience at one.

As I passed out the vouchers to my colleagues, they were all quite impressed with what my complaining had accomplished.

Next story: For the ward Christmas party I was in charge of the hot apple cider. So I went to Food Lion and bought a lot of cider. Turns out, it was too much. I returned to said grocery store with the receipt and 4 unopened gallons of cider. The woman at customer service had no problem accepting the return. She just didn’t want to give me my original receipt back. “I need that receipt so I can be reimbursed for everything else I bought but didn’t return.” She kept trying to tell me that there was no way she could give me the receipt back. Finally she logged a record of the transaction into the computer and that apparently fixed it all. (Why didn’t she do that in the first place? Who knows?!) But then I did the unthinkable—I asked for a receipt or record of the return for me to keep as well. Again, she believed that this was out of the question and would require the alignment of the planets and world peace and an end to world hunger in order to accomplish. I argued back that I NEEDED it. Couldn’t she just make me a little copy of that transaction she’d just recorded in the computer. Nope. And then she decided that she’d have to ignore me and help the next 4 people, who had gotten in line during the time she’d been telling me that I was asking her to turn water into wine, before she could possibly attend to what I needed.

Thirty minutes after entering the store with 4 gallons of cider I was able to leave with a refund and 2 receipts.

Again, I called the national customer service number. They listened to my complaint. The next day the store manager called. He apologized for my treatment and confirmed that everything I had asked for should have been no problem. To show that Food Lion still wanted my business, he had a $10 gift card waiting for me at the store.

No boycott needed for Perkins or Food Lion. They addressed the problems and did what they could to make it right by me.

Would you like fries with that?

Coach just had that post about covering the uninsured, and I attest once again to my lack of knowledge regarding that subject. But let me pose another question: How about properly covering the insured?

A friend of ours just had a partial masectomy. The surgery was at 3pm yesterday. She got home from the hospital around 8pm. She also had some lymph nodes removed. Here's your surgery, ma'am. Would you like fries and a shake to go with that?

What is up? Perhaps someone like Coach and others in the medical field can explain it to me. Is it not rather invasive surgery? And she didn't even get to spend the night? Is this typical, or a hospital by hospital, or worse yet, insurance by insurance case? I would hope that drive-through surgery is not protocol.

Again, this is my ignorant-regarding-subject .02! Oh, and I hope I spelled all the words right. I haven't figured out spell check on blogger.

Free Favorites

I can get really excited about certain products: free ones of high quality. I like free. That's all I ask. ;-) It's an amazing thing when a company can provide services funded on advertising alone--and that advertising is unobtrusive and actually HELPFUL when you want to find particular products or services. It's a win-win. This is how capitalism should work.

Google, specifically is on my favorites list.

I recognize the company has a few sticky points, but in general they make me very happy. And since many people probably don't even know how cool they are, I'm going to tell you.

First of all, Picasa is their photo organizing software. In a completely accessible fun way, you can navigate through your photos, back them up, print them, and touch them up to give special effects like this:

All our contributor photos on our family blog were created in Picasa.

Second, Google Earth and Google Maps are very fun for mapping. If you search for an address on Google it gives you the option to map it in several different mapping websites. Its own mapping site allows you to drag the map, overlay satellite images, and search for particular establishments on the map. Very, very cool. Google earth adds to this the ability to zoom in and out on 3D topographies like the Grand Canyon or Manhatten. There's no good way to describe this but as exceptionally cool. You can look at Manhatten, for example, and then put overlays on for roads, lodging, dining, etc. You should probably have a high speed connection for maximum coolness.

And if you want to add your own buildings to Google Earth, you can. You first create 3D models in their free software called SketchUp. It's pretty easy and fun by itself. If you upload your creation, anyone can see it in Google Earth when they enable the Google Earth Community.

Gmail is a slightly unconventional e-mail client, but it's the best free webmail out there, in my opinion. It doesn't look particularly flashy, but it does what it does better than anyone. It organizes conversations, makes finding relevant messages instantaneous, gives plenty of storage space, and allows free pop forwarding and client usage. If you want an address and need an invitation, let me know.

But my favorite use for Google is just the pure search. I like their Toolbar and Desktop Search software to make it more powerful, but they aren't even necessary. Desktop search indexes the files on your computer so the Windows dog doesn't have to dig for 15 minutes to do a single search. You just type the term and all your docs with that term are listed instantly. My loyalties have just been dramatically shifted away from Microsoft to Google forever.

Plus, you can just type "define: synectoche" in a Google search and it gives you dozens of definitions from around the web. I type "weather: iowa city" and it tells me. I type "5 kg in pounds" and it calculates it for me. Look at all the cool stuff it does.

Google is my hero. You can download most of these programs for free from here.