"Sale" out

I saw a web site today expressing the differences between men and women. One of them said that a man will spend $2 on a $1 item he needs while a woman will spend $1 on a $2 item she doesn’t need. This is, of course true. It’s been shown through studies that a woman will spend more money at a store that is having a sale than she would if they are not. I don’t know if any such studies have followed the spending habits of men but I would imagine that men would be at least a little more likely to buy an item if it’s on sale or at least to chose the sale item over a comparable non sale item. I, myself, have purchased items that were originally priced higher than competing items but were on sale for less.

Here’s the thing though. I HATE sales. I consider them to be insulting. And the bigger the sale the more distaste I have for the store hosting it. I especially hate “perpetual sales” like those you see at the jewelry counter at K-Mart. Why would I hate stores for giving me such great deals? Well, it’s simply a desire not to be reamed.

You see, we all know that each and every item on the shelf has to pay for a certain number of things. It has to pay for the materials to make it, the truck to ship it, the lights to illuminate the associate to help you decide you want it and the cashier to take your money. If it can’t do that and still have a few cents to spare then it’s not worth it to the company to sell it. Another thing we all know (deep down) is that when an item is on “sale” it is still paying for all of those things but has fewer “cents” left over after the sale. No company is going to take a loss on their sales. Now it’s true that they may sell one item for less than the total costs of the aforementioned list hoping the sale will entice you to buy other things. That, however, leads me to my problem with BIG sales.

If a company can afford to sell one or two small things for less in order to get you to buy other items that’s fine. But when you see a “store wide” sale you KNOW they’re still making a profit on the items they’re selling. So if you go in and buy an item that was $10 and it’s now marked down to $6 but they’re still making a profit it just goes to show you how much they’re reaming you when you are purchasing the item at the regular price. For this reason it really bothers me when the sale is for high percentages.

The last thing that bothers me is the perpetual sales. I hate it that every time I go in to K-Mart I see a 70% sale on their Jewelry. If it’s ALWAYS 70% off it’s not a sale…that’s the price you’re selling it for. Do not try to insult me by pretending that the item is worth more but that you are offering me a great deal. If you have to TELL me it’s a great deal then it ISN’T a great deal.

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Edit: I just had to add this. I would accept this as the one exception to the rule that sales are bad

Is Hollywood killing people?

Most of my blog posting are rather humerus in nature but this one is something serious.

I am one of those Harry Potter fans who was looking forward to the Half Blood Prince release for evil reasons. I won't spoil anything but I have not been happy with the editing or directing in the most recent installments. I am amongst the many fans who have begun to lose interest in the movies as they stray further and further from the characters we've come to love in the books and have leaned increasingly on sensationalism and computer graphics to awe their audiences. Warner Brothers is aware of this lack of enthusiasm and they have worked hard to try and overcome it. They have even pushed back the release of the film. I think one reason they've done this is so that those who have been given the pleasure of viewing the film can write their (hopefully glowing) reviews and get people interested in the film before it's release.

Something else happened prior to the film's scheduled release however. Rob Knox who played a supporting role was stabbed and killed in a bar fight. Now these kinds of terrible things happen every day. It's not that uncommon an occurrence. I might even look past it as coincidence if it were not for other prominent deaths preceding movie releases.

The movie the Dark Knight was rumored to be a very good movie. It was, however, to be very dark and much askew from the previous installments of the Batman movies. As such there was some trepidation that it may not be received quite as well by the standing fan base as the others were. You can only put so much of a movie into a trailer so the producers needed to come up with another way to make people interested in this movie. People who were loyal fans as well as those who may never have seen a Batman movie before.

What happened prior to the release of the Dark Knight to garner this interest? There was the sudden and unexpected death of the costarring actor Heath Ledger. What better way to get people to watch a movie than out of respect for the dead right?

Then we move on to the last recent and prominent example. The movie Frost/Nixon was set to be released on a limited basis in select cities. Being a political movie it was standing on a rather narrow line to begin with. People could love it or they could hate it. Now I've seen some of the earnings for the movie from it's first week but it's hard to tell what they mean. As the movie was released only in select cities you can't compare it to the massive earnings of nation wide releases. However, it seems to me that in the time it's been out there the 1.8 million it's earned is somewhat meager.

What is a movie production company to do? Well, you don't want to kill off too many Hollywood actors or you have to go and train new ones and who wants to go through that hassle. So what's the next best thing? Kill off someone famous associated with the story the movie tells. Who could they kill off without being too conspicuous? Well, the options are limited when you're dealing with a movie about the Watergate scandal. There are not too many people still around who the public associates with it. But the powers that be managed to find someone. On Decenber 18th, Mark Felt (A.K.A. Deep Throat) who helped break the scandal died in his home. Yes, he was 95 and in poor health but in light of the other deaths I think his could be considered one in a long line of famous deaths associated with and in close proximity to the release of major motion pictures.

Maybe I'm crazy but Rob Knox, Mark Felt, Heath Ledger, Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee, Bella Lugosi, Richard Harris and a startling long list of others might disagree.

How do they define "most" surfaces?

I got an air freshener about a week ago and decided to instlal it. It is the type that sticks to the wall and you press down on it to make it spray. This is quite odd to me in the first place as it sprays right where you have to press down so you get a hand covered with air freshener.

That problem was solved by the thing breaking before I could even install it though.

Here is the kicker, however. The packaging says "Attaches to most household surfaces." and then goes on to say "Do not use on delicate or vinyl wallpaper, or bare wood. Not recommoneded for use on plasterboard or painted drywall.

So it seems that "most" surfaces refers to tile, metal and stone. I've been to a lot of houses and the places I find tile, metal and stone in those houses is floors, countertops and fixtures. None of which is suitable for the installation of an air freshener.

It reminds me of the sunscreen I get. It says in bold letters on the front of the bottle "Waterproof and sweatproof" and on the back it clearly says to reapply after swimming or sweating.

And still there aren't people out there slapping these advertising directors across the nuckles with rulers for lying (I assum because they eventually tell the truth in small letters on the back of the product.)

Ignorance at it's best

I don't know which is worse. The blatant ignorance displayed in this question from http://answers.yahoo.com or the fact that I almost understand what the person is asking.

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Who r better rite now out mario williams vs ray lewis,willis mcgahee vs steve slaton,andre johnson vs. r. moss?

i personally think all the texans players are better rite now..call it biased if u want..if u disagree try to prove it

Can someone offer a better definition of being Reamed?

I just took a trip to Lancaster with my wife. On the way through Mojave w spotted a gas station with fuel for $1.85 per gallon and decided to fill up on our way back through. This, of course, is due to the gas here in Ridgecrest costing $2.39 per gallon. When we went in to pay for the gas my wife was telling the cashier about how much our gas was. She told us that theirs was due to drop even more in the next few days and I (half jokingly) said that if it did that it would be cheaper to run our van near empty and just drive to Mojave to fill up.

Well, being the nerd I am and having nothing better to do in the wee hours of my birthday I thought I would test that theory.

According to Google Maps the distance from Ridgecrest to Mojave is 58.6 miles.

We drive a 1999 minivan that runs between 21 and 26 miles per gallon on the freeway so I went with a conservative estimate of 22 MPG.

At 22 MPG it would take 2.66 gallons of gas to reach Mojave from Ridgecrest.

Our van has a 20 gallon tank on it.

If I were to wait until I had only a few gallons left and then drove to Mojave it would cost me $37 to fill a 20 gallon tank paying $1.85 per gallon.

Driving back would use up 2.66 gallons of gas which I would then replace at the cost of $6.36 if paying $2.39 per gallon.

If you add those two figures together it comes to a total cost of $43.36

If I were to simply fill the 20 gallon tank here in Ridgecrest it would cost me $47.80 to do so.

It turns out that I would be saving a total of $4.44 by driving 117 miles out of my way to fill up my tank.

So, Schwarzenegger, are you planning on doing anything about this? Everywhere I go in California I see gas prices lower than they are in Ridgecrest. I even took several random city samplings on http://www.californiagasprices.com and in every one of them the price of gas was lower than in Ridgecrest.

And keep in mind I used some of the less expensive gas in Ridgecrest (many places cost more) and used a low estimate for my MPG. My van gets better mileage than that in reality and many cars on the roads now get 30+ MPG on the freeway even going uphill with the air conditioning on while loaded with half a dozen passengers.

Not much to say at the moment. But I just HAD to share this with all who may come across my blog. I was at a site today and found this in the lower left hand corner of their screen.

It kind of reminds me of the question about why Denny's has locks on their doors if they're open 24/7 and at the same time it kind of answers it. Strange that.