My wife's last job, she worked at home and had a computer and printer to use, so we used that printer for personal stuff as well. Before that, all the printers we have had have been broken by one kid or another. Anyway, we need a printer. Not badly, as we don't print much stuff these days (seriously, I think I could live the rest of my life without needing a hard copy of anything), so I look around at printers occasionally when I'm out.
So today, I was at Wal-Mart and I see a printer for $44, and I think that seems pretty good, then I wonder how much it will cost to replace the ink, so I look at the cartridges necessary for the $44 printer and find out that to replace both ink cartridges, it will cost about $55. So, if I buy this printer, when I run out of ink, it would be cheaper for me to buy another one than to replace the ink. What the fuck?
Anyway, then I noticed that they had a couple of printers for under $30. Now, these didn't come with a black ink cartridge at all, but it would still be either cheaper or as cheap to buy a new printer than to replace the color ink that comes with it.
Something tells me these ink cartridges are way, way overpriced, or the hardware in a printer costs almost nothing to manufacture and distribute.
I found this interesting as I have had some relatively minor symptoms of RLS since I was in college. It's odd now that RLS getting so much attention, although I'm sure that's primarily due to big Pharma pushing their new wonder drug of the day. For the longest time, I figured it was just some freak thing and nobody else would even know what I was talking about if I tried to tell them.
I first time I remember any symptoms was my freshman year in college. I was lying in bed and started having a nearly uncontrollable urge to move my legs. I see now that people try to describe it, but I really think it defies explanation. How do you describe what an urge feels like? It'd be like trying to tell a eunuch what it feels like to be horny. Fortunately it went away, but over the years it would come and go. It never got bad enough that I was tempted to try to get help, but apparently others aren't so lucky. In fact, I don't believe I've ever mentioned it to anyone, even my wife, and I tell her everything.
I see that the Dartmouth guy in the story (gotta have that balance, heh) believes the diagnosis is overhyped. It may be, but I can't imagine how. If someone has ever experienced it, they'll identify with the commercials right away, if not, they probably don't have it.
Apparently I was one of only 5 or 6 people in the country watching this show. First the bad news, I'm all wrapped up in the show now, and I find out it was basically canceled before it even started. The good news is, unlike Reunion, where the network there gave the finger to everyone who watched it (yeah, fuck you too, Fox), they actually let the producers wrap the storyline up. So instead of a possible ongoing show, what we basically got is an 8 episode miniseries.
Which is all too bad, in the grand scheme of tv. Ok, you can certainly pick out problems with the plot, the implausible evidence that just happens to be in the right place at the right time, but that's not the point. It's a fun show about a couple of decent guys on the run from a massive govt conspiracy. It's fast paced and fun with a lot of twists and turns, explosions and bad ass rogue agents. What's not to like? I've DVR'd plenty of shows over the last few years that I just never cared about watching, but I've been watching Traveler as soon as it's recorded each week. If you get a chance to get the 8-episode run on Netflix, I would recommend it.
Apropos the post below, I ran across this on CNN just a few minutes ago. It's a good rant. One thing that I especially liked was her comment about the 200 pound barrier. Listening to a lot of sports radio and reading sports blogs (believe it or not misogyny is still rampant in sports, who knew?), I see and hear a lot of disparaging comments about fat women and how gross and disgusting they are. Often reference is made to 200 pounds as some kind of obscene number. There are a whole lot of 200+ pound women out there, and believe it or not, many of them are actually attractive. For one example, watch the video.
I think it's great that she lost all this weight, and I hope she can keep a good bit of it off, although we've been hearing recently that it's very difficult to do. What I found interesting about this story were the comments about her husband -
Adding to her misery, Twitchell says her ballooning weight was also wreaking havoc on her 31-year marriage.
"We were literally just co-existing together, like roommates," recalled Twitchell.
"Friends asked my husband to e-mail them a picture of us. Later, I discovered that he had sent them an old photograph taken when I was much smaller. Even though he loved me, he was embarrassed at how much weight I had gained."
...
How has this changed her life?
"I have a marriage again," says Twitchell, who recently retired and relocated with her husband from New Jersey to their new home in the mountains of western North Carolina.
"When I finally reached my goal (weight), my wedding ring was two sizes too big. I had already had it resized twice and the jeweler was hesitant that I might lose more weight. Rather than resize it, my husband bought me a new beautiful diamond ring and when he gave it to me he said this was a renewal of our wedding vows," she recalled.
Twitchell says her husband keeps telling people that he's got his wife back. This August, the couple will celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary and they couldn't be happier.
Ok, so I know that's not exactly an astonishing revelation, but I'm not talking about a general hatred for Wal-Mart and their poor business practices, this is more of a specific complaint about a Wal-Mart in Orlando. I shop at Wal-Mart at home in Jacksonville all the time, just because it's easy and cheap, and I don't give a fuck if the store is cluttered or the people working there know anything about what they're selling. So, we're on vacation at Universal Orlando, and decide that if we want a snack, we don't want to pay $12 for a jar of nuts, or $5 for M&M's, and we need a few things to wear when going on the water rides, so we decide to make a quick trip to Wal-Mart. Now of course at home, you can't drive 10 minutes without running into a Super Wal-Mart, but here we turn the wrong way and drive for an hour before eventually finding one.
So, we get there and go in, and of course all Super Wal-Marts are laid out almost exactly the same, but that doesn't help me from feeling like I'm in the Twilight Zone any time I go into one where the groceries are on the right instead of left like I'm used to. Anyway, we get some snacks, and some water shoes and stuff, and we go the register, wait in line for about 15 minutes, then finally get to the front of the line. When the cashier gets to a bottle of wine my wife was buying, she asks for ID, and I start to show her, but then she points to my 16 year old daughter and says "No, her ID." So we explain that she is 16 and the woman says she can't sell us the wine. Of course we're flabbergasted and try to explain that we're not giving her the wine and she tells us that Wal-Mart policy is that everyone in the party must be 21 to purchase alcohol.
Now, I don't know if that is actually Wal-Mart policy, or if it's just their local policy or just that particular store's policy or what. I do know if it's Wal-Mart's corporate policy, every Wal-Mart I've ever been to has the good sense to ignore it. And I don't mind anything that discourages underage drinking, but this policy is so asinine that's it's unbelievable that anyone could have ever thought this was actually a good idea. Mostly, because it's so easily circumvented. Anyone who knows about the policy will simply leave the underage people somewhere else when paying, and the people who don't know about it will simply take the alcohol to a different register after finding out about it. The only people that will be dissuaded by it will be people like us who are legitimately purchasing alcohol and just say fuck it when confronted with their retarded policy. Anyone who actually wants to give underage people the alcohol will just do one of the things I mention above. Also, I could understand this a little more in a liquor store or some kind of smaller store where they had any chance of enforcing, or at least where underage people had no business going anyway. But this is a store that sells everything from tires to toothpaste, and where I'm likely to buy a bit more stuff and shop in a more general fashion.
Anyway, the fact that I actually was motivated to post this should show you how irritated I was with this crap. Anyone else ever heard of this ridiculous policy at their local Wal-Mart? Or any other poicies you want to bitch about?
Oh, and otherwise, we're having a great time.
