Cutting Out Coupons

I came to a realization today as I was making my turkey sandwich for lunch. When I was adding the salami (what, you don't put salami on your turkey sandwiches?) I looked at the price tag and started to do some math--see, I bought the store brand over the name brand because it was $1.50/lb. cheaper. (woo-hoo!) Net savings: 40¢.

That's when I started thinking about all the other things that are supposed to save me money but aren't actually worth it.

My wife and I decided a couple weeks ago that it's OK to use credit cards to buy gas again. Yes, there's a higher price (and why that's tolerated, if not illegal, is beyond me--try that in any other retail establishment) but the difference to fill the 10-gallon tank on my Corolla is 60¢ extra on a near $30 purchase.

One of the reasons I like using cards is I get to download the activity into Quicken and keep track of my spending. Having to [remember to] collect all the receipts and enter all the info manually or, worse, having to write down or remember every purchase is something I'm just not going to do. (I'm lazy that way.) To me, it's a nominal fee for the convenience.

Plus, there's a bunch of rewards cards that offer up to 2% cash back on purchases--like gas--which offset some if not all of the cost.

Now, there are research studies which say that people tend to spend more when they use plastic over pulling tangible cash out of their pockets. But I'm not heading out to the mall for back to school clothes, I need gas. Spending this way just requires a little discipline (which I don't have).

This lack of discipline is why I'm only taking cash the next time the wife and I go to Costco. We can't seem to get out of there for under $100. Go in for some food and cleaning supplies, and come out with an XBox, 2 coats, 4 pairs of pants and a new coffee machine. Oh, sure, they were cheap, but until we saw the ridiculously low prices, we weren't in the market for them. You also have to be able to recognize a bargain when you see one. The toilet paper was half the price of the supermarket, but now I need a place to store 72 rolls in a two-bedroom condo. If you're not buying for the football team picnic or stocking your underground bunker, you probably don't need the two 20-lb. vats of peanut butter or mayonnaise.

You need to do a cost-benefit analysis. Figure out the cost per square foot of your home, then figure out if that space is best suited for saving a few bucks on condiments. Also, how much do you make an hour that you'll take the time to clip and organize 25¢ coupons and have it worth your while?

I think it was Gary Marcus in his book Kluge, when talking about failures in reasoning, who points out that most of us would drive across town to save $25 on a $50 toaster, but wouldn't bother to save $25 on a $2500 flat screen TV. We reason (or, rather, fail to) it's about percentages, that 10% isn't enough of a savings for the effort, when really we should be deciding if $25 is enough to drive across town - either it is, or it isn't.

My wife just found a new job; I just lost one. (I didn't really lose it--I still know where it is, I just don't go there anymore.) Finding ways to save money is important to us. We stopped buying organic milk and eggs, which were twice and up to three times more expensive, respectively. But combing through circulars for an hour or two to save 40¢ on substandard cold cuts?

If they win, YOU LOSE

Dear friend:

If the insurance companies win, you lose.

If reform passes without the choice of a public health insurance option, if insurers can keep denying care for pre-existing conditions, and if you can't afford health insurance, the insurance companies will keep making money while you will keep losing out. It's really that simple.

We must fight back.

Today, thousands of people across the country are taking the fight directly to the insurance companies. We'll be presenting the insurance companies with a list of demands: Stop denying our care and stop using our premiums to lobby against health reform.

Click below to fax your insurance company these demands. A copy will be sent to the Senate Finance Committee who are starting debate on the Baucus Bill today:

    http://healthcareforamericanow.org/page/speakout/sick

For years the insurance companies have expanded their total stranglehold over health care. They make record profits. The make life-and-death decisions. And they're spending millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbyists to defeat reform - over $770,000 per day!

That's your money they're spending to defeat health care reform and the choice of a public health insurance option.

You're a customer and a person with a voice, so you can fight back. Click below to fax your demands to the insurance industry and join thousands who are doing the same thing today:

    http://healthcareforamericanow.org/page/speakout/sick

Your message will get to your insurer, your Members of Congress, and Members of the Senate Finance Committee, who are starting to work on the Baucus Bill - a bill that gives the insurance industry everything it wants.

Thank you for fighting back against the insurance industry - the real enemy in this debate.

Let's clog up their fax machines! Click here:
    http://healthcareforamericanow.org/page/speakout/sick

With your help, we'll be the ones who will win.

Thanks!

No Compromise

my 3-yr-old understands negotiation better

clipped from pol.moveon.org Pass Obama's health care plan Last night, President Obama challenged Congress to "meet history's test" and finally fix our broken health care system. He pledged to seek common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and assured them all: "My door is always open." Republicans responded by heckling, booing, and hissing. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) screamed out "You lie!" as the President defended his health care plan against false right-wing attacks. We can't afford to let right-wing extremists like Joe Wilson hold health care reform hostage. As Obama put it, "the time for games has passed. Now is the season for action." Let's send a message to Congress, demanding swift action to pass real health care reform. A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your senators and representative.

Why does Hitler get such a bad rap?

But then why do people try to equate Obama to Hitler, if he was such a nice guy, Pat?

clipped from www.mediabistro.com First They Came For The Nazi Apologists... If only the powers that be at msnbc.com understood that Adolph Hitler actually was a man of peace, they wouldn't have acted so rashly in removing their site's link to a Pat Buchanan column essentially blaming England for World War II. no worthy news organization should employ a commentator who engages in such vile fiction. if you want to read Buchanan's column ("Did Hitler Want War?"), written to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Germany's invasion of Poland, it's here (screen shot below). Be ready, though: It truly is a litany of lunacy.

You can't fix stupid

for me, “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school" says it all

oh, and I really want one of those shirts - brilliant marketing, if you asked me

clipped from thinkprogress.org Missouri school district bans t-shirts for acknowledging evolution. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.” Law professor Jonathan Turley notes, “Evolution is not a religious issue. Extremists want to make evolution into a religious question, but it is not.” “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

All holidays! All the time!

I'm going caroling at the pool, dressing up and going trick-or-treating for Labor Day and baking pumpkin pie in April. From the people who bring you Back to School sales in June - this is worse.

clipped from online.wsj.com 'Twas 147 Shopping Days Before Christmas ... Rocked by Slump, Retailers Get Jump on Santa; 'Let's Get Past Halloween,' a Shopper Laments It's the time of year when Dad's mowing the lawn, Mom's packing up a picnic, and the kids are splashing in the pool. Yep, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Toys "R" Us Inc. decided to market its summertime Christmas discounts with an image of Santa lounging on the beach in sunglasses. Sears.com and Kmart.com used a vintage, snowy street scene accompanied by offers of free shipping. One person who is a little nonplused by the explosion in July Christmas sales is Mr. Barnes, the Texas songwriter with a band called Brave Combo who wrote "Christmas in July." "I wrote it to say that when people are focused on making money, nothing is sacred," he says. "Of course, it was mainly intended to be amusing."

Bugs in new iPhone OS 3

Landscape keyboard! Cut & paste! More new APIs than you can shake a developer at! Everybody's all hot and bothered over the iPhone OS 3.0 release - but what about the numerous bugs?.

clipped from www.woot.com 12 Bugs We've Found In iPhone OS 3.0 Multimedia messaging does not support sculpture, macrame, or interpretive dance. Voice memo recordings totally don't sound like me. I don't sound like that, do I? Seriously? Turned on adult content filter but everybody in my videos still has their clothes on. Adding a task to calendar did not result in task getting done. Clicked this blue "compass" icon but kept getting some stupid web browser. Still no apps to cure the nagging feeling that I should've bought a Palm Pre. The touchscreen is now on the back of the phone instead of the front. Gone to the bathroom four times already today, and Remote Wipe hasn't worked once. Spotlight search crashed with memory overload error trying to index my Harry Potter cosplay photo collection. Tried out tethering, but I think I broke my finger smacking that phone around the pole. Apple still hasn't fixed the no-hardware-keyboard bug. "Cut" function does not apply to monthly AT&T bill.

Thought for the day: God is a woman

I know I'm going to get myself into trouble by saying this out loud, but here goes:

Walking through the subway today, as I do almost every day, I was subjected to, as I am almost every day, the perhaps clichéd sidewalk preachers and signpost-wearers, warning of eminent doom, and that I must repent and follow God if I was to be saved eternal torment.

This one in particular, fairly new to this particular tube connecting the bus terminal with Times Square, wearing his "Fear God" hoodie and carrying his small, hand-lettered sign (but don't they all?), was again going on about the coming appocalypse (apparently the almighty has a timetable for withdrawal...). He says that Jesus is going to send all of us to eternal torment for not loving him. This got me thinking.

First, I never went to sunday school, but I'm pretty sure it's not Jesus who's going to be handing out the damnation red cards in the final days. (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) Everything I've read or heard about Jesus suggests he was a pretty forgiving and accomodating guy. If he can forgive the people publicly flogging him, I think he'd be willing to overlook the occasional lustful thought about my neighbor's wife.

It seems to me that the spirit of those sermons wasn't, "follow me explicitiy or I'll see to it you're tormented for eternity," so much as most of us are heading for a bad place, so grab your personal ethical floatation device so you don't end up there. Not, "follow me or I'll damn you," but "I'll help you if you do." A subtle difference, yes, but an important one.

Then I started to wonder who it was (deific or otherwise) that would choose to see you tortured for all eternity for not loving them completely? My mind went back to some relationships I've had.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

The Swine Flu (When Pigs Fly)

Now I'm ready to add my voice to the din. Now that I have a few minutes, that my wife has distracted the kid.

My chiropractor and I have the same opinion - our family is not going to get debilitated by swine flu. We disagree, however, on why.

See, I've based my opinion on science - empirical data and statistical history. He's based his on near-psychotic delusions.

I'm writing this having spent the day home with my kid, who's been hacking for the past 3 days and whose temperature has broken the point where his daycare would call us to take him home.

According to our "doctor," this means everything is as it should be.

He's not wrong in theory, he's wrong in practice.

What my son is exhibiting is a "normal" reaction to a foreign body. Most of us call this "sick." I do not consider this a "normal" state.

In our discussion this morning, he reitterated his lack of belief in "germ theory." (you can hear the quotes when he says it.) See, bacteria and viruses don't make people ill... sorry, "symptomatic." He feels you don't catch colds from viruses, because viruses are all around us - you come into contact with them all the time. (this is his assertion, and I'm sure there's some study somewhere, likely done by other chiropractors, that would validate this claim.) You get them, he says, when your imune system is compromised - when your spine is out of alignment.

When he reitterates, yet again, that a healthy imune system fights illness, I ask, isn't it better to not get infected in the first place?

I used the analogy of a trained fighter. You could be a 10th-degree blackbelt, and, if you ever found yourself in an altercation, it would likely save your life. I know just enough self defense tricks that it could possibly, maybe, save my life - if I were ever in need of it. I'm still standing today, not because of fighting skills, but because I don't get into those kinds of altercations.

This is when the "doctor" goes into psychotic denial mode.

"But you're going to get it anyway," he says. Except for the fact that I rarely (pre-kid, anyway) get sick. Arguably it's because I have a healthy imune system. I also wash my hands and don't suck on used kleenex.

"You're arguing that I'm OK because I have air bags, I'm saying I'd rather not get into an accident."

He mocked our teaching our son to cough into his elbow. This is a man who doesn't wash his hands after taking a dump in the office. He then procedes to touch people around the face and neck.

Make no mistake, the only reason my family goes to him is because my wife works for him. No one is twisting my arm to get me to go to a chiropractor - I will probably continue to go regularly, to someone else, after my wife finds her new job. I do find it beneficial. I also continue to take naproxen and ibuprofin for my tendonitis.

Tomorrow we're steam-cleaning my son's plush toys. Most of the victims of bubonic plague didn't believe in germ theory, either.

Why I like Woot

yeah, cool stuff at great discounts is nice, but the fact that someone actually goes through the effort to write this stuff - daily - keeps my attention.

(Note: if you're unfamiliar with woot.com, if you visit the site after today, the deal mentioned below will have changed.)

clipped from www.woot.com There’s only one gadget column on the web with the unique perspective that comes from being transported through time to discover that you can no longer control your bowels. And here it is. That’s right, Fjafalgnjir the Vexed is back for another installment of Ask an Incontinent Viking. When this 11th-century Danish warrior found himself in a world he never made, did he cower from the iron dragons in the sky, or flee in terror from the “sorcery” of a standard light bulb? Well, for a day or two, yeah. And the whole incontinence thing wounded his warrior’s pride. But he got up, dusted himself off, wiped himself off, and found work answering your tech questions. I love naught in life so well as my Mattel handheld football game, a wonder more thrilling even than the heaving teats of Gerðr. But it eats batteries the way vitterfolk devour goatling flesh.

Insert tab A into slot B

Well, I guess it's time for what's getting to be my monthly posting about trips to Wisconsin - or as I like to call it, Chez Cheese. I know, I know, I haven't posted in two months. I actually wrote this one last month, but I never got around to finishing it. I didn't have anything to say about the month before because, frankly, it was uneventful (well, from a travel standpoint, anyway).

I did have the multiple gate-change, 4-hour layover fiasco in Chicago's O'Hare. (I was going to call the post, "O'Harried" or "O'Harrowing." Perhaps fortunately the post never happened.) While I was walking to my gate at one end of the terminal - the end of the terminal - they changed my gate to one in a completely different terminal. Let me say it again - changed while I was walking there. I lugged my 40 lb. shoulder bag (because who needs wheels?) and my backpack with laptop and accouterments (is that were luggage comes from, or is it the other way?) around the football stadium that is O'Hare for 4 hours. I had time to kill, and what was I supposed to do, buy a book and sit and read it?

They changed my gate 3 more times while I waited. Others told me that it was par for "No'Fare." So, while arduous, I didn't feel it particularly interesting enough to write about. Except that, well, I just did.

I knew what my topic was going to be last month, however, very soon after I landed. There is the unsung villain, perhaps villainous sidekick, rather, to air travel - car rental.

First off, there is the possibly illegal, though certainly unethical practice of tricking you into an upgrade. You reserve a small to midsize car, and when you show up to collect your reservation they say, "I have a monster SUV, or a fancy, high-end sport sedan available...?" Oh, they have plenty of smaller cars, too. But they're making you say, "OK" to the bigger car by presenting them, and only them, as options, usually without telling you they'll cost more.

Last month I switched to Avis from Enterprise, because I didn't like the later's practice of being a mere $10 cheaper, but offering a car so stripped down I was lucky to have automatic windows. (Does anyone have manual, roll-down windows anymore? But then what motion do you use when you want to talk to the person in the car next to you?) They (Enterprise) told me that for a "modest upgrade" I could get things like a stereo radio, cruise control (essential to keeping to the speed limit in a foreign state) and a key fob, so I don't have to fumble with gloves on in the snow and rain to get a key in and unlock one door then reach over and manually unlock the others to let in my passengers who're still standing outside. You know, the stuff we never had when we were kids. I know the corporate bean counters back home would balk at the word "upgrade" on my receipt, so I opted for the one who gave you all that stuff in the base rate.

If only they would give you the base rate. Booking the car through my corporate travel site, there's a price quoted for a midsize sedan of $48/day. Last month, when I got to the counter, the helpful woman at the counter said, "I have a Saturn Vue...?" Knowing as much about cars as I do economic foreign policy, I say, "m'OK," and am surprised to see a sporty little SUV waiting for me. And here I am thinking, wow, how nice of Avis to have such nice cars - worth the extra $10. There was some monster snow that weekend, so it turned out to be fortuitous.

So this time at the counter I'm told, "I have a [some brand I forget], which is a midsize SUV." Then, as I pause for a moment to consider what could be "midsize" for a monster truck that's far too huge for most people to get around in, and how it still qualifies as one, "it's $89 on your corporate rate." It's late at night and I'm tired, so my mental gears aren't completely greased.

"No," I say, "I certainly don't need anything that big," remembering the seats-6-with-all-their-luggage-and-a-kiddie-pool Vue.

"I have a Dodge Magnum...?"

"m'OK," I relent. She could have said, "I have Gursis Baba Friggle Bibby...?" and I would have said the same thing, because the only thing I could picture with the word "magnum" was condoms.


I'm not sure how I would classify the Dodge Magnum. It's got the look of a car for people who like to collect speeding tickets, but it's got a cargo area in the back. It's too short to be a van, but can you really call it a hatch-back? My van technically has a hatch on the back, but "hatch-back" brings other cars to mind. The Ford Pinto is a hatch-back. So is the AMC Gremlin. Back in my day, the name we used for cars that had a cargo area connected to the cab instead of a trunk was "Station Wagon." So, yeah, the Magnum is a fancy, sporty station wagon, albeit one in which you might actually be able to pick up a date.

Now the gears in my mind catch. Is this car, also $89 "on my corporate rate?" They didn't quote me a price, but is that what I paid last time? It's still bigger than I need, certainly not "blah," and I don't recall explicitly saying, "no, I want something cheaper." "No, not that big," should mean, to most people, "don't try to upsale me, just give me what I asked for."

This is decidedly dishonest for their use of the words, "on your corporate rate." They know I made the reservation trough a corporate travel agency. "Your corporate rate" is meant to imply that your company has agreed to the price. They haven't. That's the price Avis is offering to charge your company, and not necessarily discounted.

They handed me the barely discernible, used-up ink ribboned, dot matrix printout with, "initial here, here, here and here and sign here," but I didn't notice anything about a rate. It certainly wasn't told to me. I assumed, perhaps naively, that when my travel preferences explicitly state, "small to midsize" and quote a specific price when I make a reservation, that's what I'll get. No one at the airport asks me, "I have a first class seat available...?" when I get my boarding pass.

Yes, yes, caveat emptor, and I should check what I'm paying before I sign, but I already agreed to one price, so unless someone specifically says, "this is more," then that's all I should pay. They did say (this time) a particular car was more, but to that option I said, no. Without being told, upfront, before I say, OK, what the price of the other option is, I have to assume it's what I agreed to.

Not that I'm paying for it. I'm expensing the car. I just don't want the people whose corporate pockets the cost is coming out of coming by my office, jabbing their finger at my credit card statement, going, "explain this!" I'm sure I can manage a good, "b'wah...?" and reiterate the above. They've been letting me slide on my two beers with dinner (expensing alcohol is verboten) so I'm hoping they'll let this go, too.

Now we come to the little exercise I like to call, "Insert tab A into slot B." When was the last time you got into a car that came with instructions? OK, technically they all come with instructions, but when have you ever felt it necessary to read them? These are the keys that were in the car (broken ring hole, tape and all):


First, why do car rental agencies feel it necessary to give you two keys, then insist on bolting them together? What am I supposed to do with the second key? Use it when some distempered valet snaps the other one off in the lock?

Turns out, I don't know what to do with either key. They slide into the ignition, but that appears to be all they do. They slide so far into the ignition, with the head of the key so small, that I can just barely get my fingers in there to try to turn them. I don't try to twist too hard for fear of snapping them off or lacerating my fingers on the edges.

To that point, I've seen keys like this before - small, hideaway ones that slide into the remote fob. I've assumed they were there in case the remote battery died, so you could still open the door. These slide into the ignition, but so far that you can't turn them, so now I'm looking all over the interior for a start button, something other than the familiar turning key that's so much a given they're on my son's baby toys.

I shine a light into the ignition socket, and then I take another look at the key fob. That's when I remember that the point of most technological "innovation" is to be capricious and unnecessary. (Technology for its own sake, adding complication to simplicity because it's kewl.) And it dawns on me - the plug-shaped fob is the key. I jam it into the socket and twist and voilá, it starts up.

If two keys is mockingly unnecessary, then two keys that don't work, bolted onto something that doesn't look like a key but is, is just fucking with me.

For this I paid extra.

Quiznos can suck my ass

"Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, zzzzzzz....."

Right through the security screening at Chicago O'Hare (which I got through with one of those dangerous, deadly bottles of water in my bag - forgot it was there, but noticed my bags on the x-ray screen as the screener's back was turned to it to talk to the "security" person behind him - your tax dullards at work, don't you feel safe now?) is tiny Quiznos sub stand.

Long story short: the timestamp on my reciept is 1:19PM, my order number is 86. I realize how much of an error I've made when, waiting in a crowd of other people still waiting for their sandwiches, they're still calling numbers in the 70's.

There's three people working behind the counter - one person ringing up sales as fast as people queue up on line, one person making sandwiches as fast as she cares to make them, and another handing them out as fast as they roll out of the oven (i.e. not very).

Some 15 minutes later, and they're calling numbers in the low 80's, and I think I might actually get to eat something before my flight. "84!" Soon, very soon. "85!" OK, any minute now.

Except now there's a shift change for the person pulling the subs out of the oven. She leaves, and is out of sight before her replacement waddles (and I do mean waddles) into view. The replacement doesn't look like she's in a hurry to breathe (and appears to be using most of her mental capacity to remain doing so). There's an empty wire rack from the last sub at the end of the oven conveyor, and it's keeping the current sub from leaving the oven completely. So while the relief wrapper is punching in and slowly (I don't think she bent her knees once) squeezing her oompa-loompa frame between the sandwich maker and the oven, I'm watching what I assume to be my sandwich (read on) approach cumbustion.

"87!"

"What about 86!" I bark, and am sumarily ignored.

It's now more than 20 minutes past the time on my receipt. "90!" (they failed to call 88 or 89 as well) 20 minutes - this is lousy service on the season opener of Hell's Kitchen. How long should I be expected to wait for a god-damned sandwich? They only have 4 or 5 kinds on the menu, so it's not like I confused anyone with something unusual. It's not like they do anything else.

I decided I wasn't going to stand for such [dis]service and went back to the cashier and waited on line again to demand a refund. Of course there's a form that had to be filled out. I'm asked to sign at the bottom, then, "sorry about that." On the bottom it's noted, "customer said they waited too long," as the reason. (The man behind me asked, "what's good here?" I told him another place down the terminal. When he laughed, I related the above and he heeded my advice.) She handed me back my original receipt, and that was it. I paid with a credit card, so there wasn't anything necessarily to physically give me, but there was no button pushing on the register, either. We'll see if it shows up on my statement in a week.

[Disclaimer: I do realize that the quality of service (or lack thereof) of this particular, possibly franchised, establishment may not be indicative of the level of service of the entire chain. I can recall eating at at least two other Quiznos before, and getting my food in a timely enough manner. I've also worked for a number of years in the retail food business, so please don't try to tell me I should have been more respectful of the people who're only taking whatever jobs are available to them and/or that perhaps I don't understand the strains of the job.]

Spare Change

Thought this was funny. Visit the site, buy a shirt (or don't).

clipped from www.mikero.com

if only we were running out of crazy people...

more of the same, this time with audio goodness

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Michele Bachmann: "We're Running Out Of Rich People In This Country" * ACORN is "under federal indictment for voter fraud," but the stimulus bill nevertheless gives ACORN "$5 billion." (In reality, ACORN is not under federal indictment and isn't mentioned in the stimulus bill at all.) * the stimulus bill includes a measure to create a "rationing board" for health care, and after the bill becomes law, "your doctor will no longer be able to make your healthcare decisions with you." * the recovery package is part of a Democratic conspiracy to "direct" funding away from Republican districts, so Democratic districts can "suck up" all federal funds. Bachmann doesn't think this will work because, as she put it, "We're running out of rich people in this country."

"Running out of rich people?"

It might be technically correct, as fewer and fewer collect and hoard more and more of the money, but is the biggest economic problem in this country really hurting the richest of us in a way comparable to how it's hurt everyone else?

clipped from dccc.org Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a national GOP figure, actually said that one of her excuses for 'just saying no' to President Obama's economic recovery bill was because "We're running out of rich people in this country."