Tuesday, 18 October 2011

A few weeks ago, we paid a visit to Lowe’s and spent just over a hundred bucks. I gave the cashier a $10 off coupon. Getting back in the car, however, I noticed I had a 10 percent off coupon which, in the case of our bill, would have meant a savings of just over a dollar. No big deal, I thought. Jennifer reminded me that we could use the 10% off coupon next time we went to Lowe’s.

Today, I stopped at Lowe’s to buy some screws. I had the 10% off coupon in my wallet and I thought, hey, instead of using it to save maybe 10 cents on a few screws, I will ask them to apply the coupon to my bill from a few weeks ago, thereby getting store credit of a dollar, which I can then apply to the screws.

So I walked up to the customer service counter. A young girl looked at the coupon, then told me that if I use the 10% off coupon, the $10 coupon would no longer apply. “I know,” I said, “but 10% off is, in this case, better than $10 off, so I’d rather use that one.”

She began typing away at her computer. After a few moments, she looked up and told me it would be a couple minutes because she had to essentially refund everything on the list and then re-ring it. I chuckled at the crazy nature of this process – at Target, for example, the cashier would simply ‘zap’ the coupon then ‘zap’ the receipt and, viola!, the computer would state the refund amount and I’d be given store credit.

After about two minutes, during which time she had to manually enter every item, she announced she had refunded me the total. I signed on some crappy screen. She then said she would now enter in all the items again, this time applying the better coupon.

After another two minutes, she told me my new total. It was higher than my original total.

“Um,” I said, “that’s not right. I should have gotten 10% off this time.”

“You did,” she said, “but it looks like it’s not as good as $10.”

“Well,” I said, speaking slowly for the typical American math student, “since I spent more than $100, then 10% is more than $10, so my savings should be higher.”

She wasn’t sure what to say (math can be like that sometimes), so she called over her manager. He double-checked the sale and said that his employee was correct.He then noticed that the tax amount was higher. I was confused, so he explained that the taxes in Hennepin County (that’s where we were) are higher than in Ramsey County, which is where he believes West St. Paul (that’s where the original sale was located) is.

I laughed, and told them I would not be paying the higher price – especially since I didn’t buy anything in Hennepin County and therefore should not be taxed for it. He said he didn’t know what to do, but since it was obvious I wasn’t about to sign for the sale – and he probably didn’t want me to just walk away with my $100+ refund – he typed in some magic manager code that allowed him to adjust the price to the original sale price. Why didn’t he give me the better price at that time? Good question. Lowe’s has a low price guarantee, but they evidently don’t stand by it.

I then walked over to select the screws I needed. Lowe’s keeps their screws in little bags which I ABSOLUTELY HATE for two reasons:

1. I can’t tell if the screws are the right size.

No big problem here, I just poke the screws through the bags. On this occasion, I found the right size screws on the third try.

2. That’s not how many screws I want to buy.

I only needed four screws. There were ten in a bag. Those assholes.

I went to the self-check out counter. It was acting funny, so an employee came over and said she would ring me up. She farted around with the self-check out computer for a few moments while she canceled my transaction, then tried ringing me up on her computer, only to announce that she couldn’t use my coupon because I had already used it.

“No I didn’t,” I said.

“Did you just return something?” she asked.

“No,” I clarified, “I tried using it to get a lower price, but your co-workers couldn’t figure out how to do that, so I ended up not using it.

She then typed in a special code and gave me 10% off on the bag of screws.

Anyway, that’s my last time at Lowe’s. I heard on the radio yesterday that they are closing several of their stores in the near future. Now I know why.

Monday, 17 October 2011

Did you ever read Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul? If you haven’t, don’t bother; it’s barely better than adequate (there’s a reason why Adams is better known for The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). The reason why I bring it up is because there’s a moment in the story when the lead protagonist, Dirk Gently, becomes enthralled with a gadget (sorry, I don’t remember what it was – something unmemorable, evidently) – and I mean completely enthralled. The best line in the book occurs at this point. We read:

He had never before even guessed at the existence of such a thing. And to be able to move from total ignorance of something to total desire for it, and then actually to own the thing all within the space of about 40 seconds was, for Dirk, something of an epiphany.

I had  a similar epiphany today. Well, all except the owning part, which I’ll get to in a minute.

This morning, shortly after arriving at work, I checked on my favorite blogs, including Proper Noun Blog. She mentioned a local phenomena called “Little Free Libraries.” It was there that I was directed to a website about Little Free Libraries. She provided a link, but I was too lazy to click on it (come on, it was Monday morning).

A few minutes later, I received my daily email from AWAD. AWAD has over a million subscribers in tons of countries, so I was a little surprised to see a link to our local Star Tribune about…Little Free Libraries.

“Okay,” I said to myself (but not too loudly), “What’s the big deal here. I guess I HAVE to click on the link and find out.

Turns out, they look freakin’ awesome. Initiated by Stillwater-resident Todd Bol, Little Free Libraries are basically mailboxes on steroids that people install in their front lawns and stock with books. Passersby and other locals then come to the library (the whole ‘if you build it…’ thing) and check out books. They check them out by pretty much just taking them. But – on their honor – they’re expected to replenish the withdrawal with a deposit of their own, or, at the very least return the book when they’re done with it.

LFLs have popped up around the metro area, in other states, and even in Canada. More importantly, have I mentioned that, as of last month, I now have a yard? Yes, it’s true. And I have a corner lot, with a sidewalk wrapping around the west and south sides of my property.About three blocks away are several restaurants, a bank, and some place where people cannibalize Jesus’ body and drink blood, so my street gets a healthy dose of people parking and walking.

I so want a little free library!   My property is perfect for it!

Here’s the official site. As always, the only thing stopping me is money. I’ve considered setting Owen up with a lemonade stand for a few weeks. I was thinking at $50 a glass, we’ll have the money in no time, but I’m not sure how many people will be willing to pay that. So…for now, I don’t have one. But I’m putting a LFL on my wish-list.

Friday, 14 October 2011

Despite having seen her in person on more than one occasion, the folks at Metro Urology apparently don’t know that my daughter is one year old. If they did, they would probably know that my daughter has extremely limited linguistic capabilities, that she is incapable of signing her name, and that she does not read the mail.

First, she received this letter in the mail:

Never mind the incoherence of first stating they’ve attempted to reach her by phone, then immediately saying she “may have been” called (which is it?), what gets me is that they tried reaching a toddler by phone. And, when that didn’t work, they tried reaching a toddler by mail. Surprisingly, they were unsuccessful both times.

But wait! There’s more:

Turns out, when my wife took Isla to the clinic, she paid a co-pay that didn’t need to be paid. So, being decent people, they sent a reimbursement check. To Isla. I kid you not. Here it is:

That’s my daughter’s full name: Pay to the Order of Isla F. [Last Name]. Twenty-five big ones. (I blocked out personal information that needs to be concealed when posting an image of a check online, according to StuffYouShouldObscureWhenPostingChecksOnline.org.)

What do you do with a check like this? Well, frankly, I have no idea what you would do, but I know what we did: we had Isla sign the check.

I’m taking it to the credit union on Monday to deposit it in her account.

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Today we ventured to the mega-mall. We went in to the Apple store along with my wife’s computer. The store was packed! There was standing room only, and I could hardly hear over the noise. I counted 20 employees in just the back quarter of the store alone. There were so many people, some of them were forced to hang out in the nearby Microsoft store.

My wife had already booked an appointment with the Genius Bar and, despite the congestion, they were only running about ten minutes behind. Once she was called over to the bar to figure out her computer problems, Owen, Isla, and I took off for Worst Service. I mean Best Buy.

At Best Buy, I went over to the ‘customer service’ counter to return some speakers I had just purchased three weeks ago. Best Buy is legendary for their strict return policies: you need to bring in a receipt, it has to have been purchased within the last 30 days, there’s a 10% restocking fee, and about half of the stuff in the store can’t be returned at all.

Anyway, I set the speakers on the counter. I had no receipt with me. The employee said he could try looking it up on his computer. His Commodore 64 couldn’t find the purchase using my check card, ‘rewards’ number, or phone number. After giving him a rough estimation of the date of purchase, he was able to find the transaction using my wife’s phone number (she give that out to lots of guys, I guess). After carefully inspecting the speakers for signs of DNA, the employee announced he would allow me to return it. And more good news: no restocking fee. Evidently, they’re not legally allowed to scam people that way here in Minnesota. Go Minnesota!

A few minutes later, my wife walked into the store and announced that her computer was fully-functional once again. We tried playing virtual table tennis on Best Buy’s Playstation, but the interface was so confusing and non-responsive, we gave up after a few minutes, happy to have our decision never to buy a Playstation reaffirmed.

Sunday, 16 October 2011

Today I bought a package of leaf bags.

Leaf bags are those large plastic bags with an opening the tapers off into ties so you can fill it with loads of leafs and then close it securely until you can find a time to dump them in the neighbors’ yards.

I’m a little disappointed at the packaging graphics. The box told me the brand name (Target generic) and unit count (32), but it failed to tell me these important facts about the product:

-To effectively hold open a leaf bag, you will need three hands.

-The bags will not work if wind speed exceeds 0.001 miles per hour.

Additionally, I think that leaf bags should come 98% filled with leaves. That’s about how full they need to be before they stand up and stay open on their own.

Maybe I’ll write to the bag manufacturers and suggest these improvements.

On second thought, my neighbor owns four cheap plastic garbage pails. He sets them in his yard and fills them with leaves with no trouble. They’re also reusable. I’m going that route from now on.

And now, a special offer from Zimmerscope:

FREE: Mostly full box of leaf bags. Perform best when there is absolutely no wind, they are 98% full, and your third hand has finished growing. Contact James for details.

Thursday, 13 October 2011

Back in the late 1970s, a Witness named Carl Jonsson wrote to the Watchtower Society regarding some discrepancies he found regarding the Society’s teaching that Jerusalem fell in 607BC and the overwhelming evidence that it did not.

The Watchtower Society gets many things wrong, and most of them are not that big of a deal. You might think that simply messing up the year in which a city was destroyed 2,600 years ago shouldn’t be a big deal either. But in this case, it is. The Society uses that date (607BC) to support their claim that we are now living in the last days (it’s a ridiculously complicated back-flip of logic that I won’t get into here). So…if 607 is wrong, so is their claim that the Last Days began in 1914. And more!

Anyways…

Carl wrote back and forth to the Watchtower Society. They were initially receptive to Carl’s research, but when it became clear he REALLY had studied the issue, they became defensive, encouraged him to back down, and refused to discuss the matter, especially as this would have revealed they had no evidence for their claim, but were maintaining it as a matter of tradition.

Carl’s correspondence with the Watchtower Society is AT THIS LINK.

As a consequence of Carl’s research, the Watchtower Society revisited their ‘support’ for 607, including publishing a new book titled Let Your Kingdom Come. More recently, they wrote another series of articles trying to defend their position, like THIS ONE. As you can see, there is, once again no evidence, unless you count “because it fits with our theology” as evidence.

I just discovered today that Carl has posted a critique of some of the Watchtower’s more recent articles on the issue. THAT CRITIQUE IS FOUND HERE. I’m not gonna mince words: it’s very dry reading. But it is fascinating, and I love how, by doing the very research the Watchtower Society recommends, you can’t but help come to the conclusion that they’re wrong about things. Like 607. And the Flood.

Good job, Carl! Keep up the good work.

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Back in my pre-father days, I had this idea that, one day, when my kids asked me questions, I would know the answer. I think this stemmed from the incessant blank stares I received from adults when I asked questions that really shouldn’t have befuddled them. Questions like…

Why does the moon change shape?

How come so many plants are green?

Why does it look like wheels are spinning backwards sometimes?

How come the oil on the ground makes rainbow colors?

So, admittedly, I wasn’t surrounded by scientists during my formative years, but I don’t think my questions were that hard. And even if the adults in my life didn’t know the answer, they could have said something like, “Why don’t we go look that up?” Regardless, I promised myself that, one day, my children will look up and ask, “Why is the sky blue?” and I’m gonna tell them.

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve succeeded in this goal…kind of.

Take today, for example. Owen asked: “What’s the name for a 1,000-sided shape?” I told him: “A myriagon.”

Okay, so don’t feel bad if you’re reading this and thinking, “Geez, I didn’t know that.” The thing is, you have to remember that I’m really good at things that serve no purpose in social or economic endeavors, so knowing the answer to this question is right up my alley. If, on the other hand, Owen had asked me to help him fix his bicycle, I would’ve been totally lost.

I’m getting off the subject here. The problem is, while Owen sure loves to ask questions like the above example dozens of times a day, he also asks questions that are not quite so easy to answer. These include…

1) A repeat of a question he’s already asked 100 times.

The first time Owen asked me to rattle off the names of gods, I thought if was a good question, and I supplied the best answer I could. But now he’s asked that question far too many times. The other day, at dinner, apropos of nothing, he asked the question again – as if it’s his way of firing up the conversation. I just told him I’ve already answered that question.

2) Questions that mistake observation for intimate knowledge.

Sometimes, I comment on the world around me, just to share note-worthy items with people standing nearby. Owen presumes this means I have complete knowledge over the item observed. For example, last time we stopped at the ice cream shop, there were four young girls sitting on the bar stools all eating the same flavor of ice cream. “Hey look,” I said to my son, “They all got strawberry ice cream.” Owen then asked, “Why did they all get strawberry ice cream?” So, for the thousandth time, I said, “I have no idea, Owen, I’m just pointing it out. Why don’t you ask them?”

3) Questions that are impossible to answer.

No, I don’t mean questions that are really really difficult to answer – such as, “Can you explain the relationship between electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force?” – I mean questions that are impossible to answer. These include such gems as…

“Are most kids younger or older than other kids?”

and

“What is the smallest thing in our house not counting really little things?”

I’m sorry, but I just can’t picture a day – regardless of the strides made in scientific advancement – that any parent will be able to coherently answer questions like these.