Iron Sky now on DVD!

The largely fan-made Iron Sky movie has finally come out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

This tongue-in-cheek movie is about Space Nazis invading the US.  The premise is that the 3rd Reich managed to make it to the moon in 1943, landing on the dark side and establishing a large base.  They've had 70 years to prepare for this invasion.

The film had a limited theatrical release which means Boise was not a good market.  Bummer.  At least I can still see this movie on DVD.  It is available at Amazon.

Wish List

I'm not quite sure how I got there, but I stumbled upon the Tabasco website and then on to their "country store"....

.....where I found out they sell my favorite Chipotle sauce in 1 gallon jars!

Now I realize that a 1 gallon jug of hot sauce might seem inappropriate, especially at almost $40 a pop, but if you like Tabasco, it is actually a great deal.  A standard five ounce jar comes in around $4 or so.  That would make this jug worth over $102 if you bought it five ounces at a time!

I'm definitely putting this on my wish list.

Chegg for School Books

This morning I was poking around the College of Southern Idaho's student portal to see if I had any advance notice of what books I would need.  Only one of my classes has a syllabus up already and it was dated for the spring of this year...not the fall.  I guess the professor is reusing the syllabus and forgot to update the term information.

No worries.....the syllabus was well written, aside from the typo, which tells me a lot about the professor and the class.

I really want to know what my books might be so I can decide if I want to purchase them at the bookstore or through Chegg.

Dealing with textbooks can really be a pain in the wallet.  You generally have to buy all our books and hope that you can sell them back at the end of the year without getting totally screwed....and there are a lot of ways to get screwed.

Saving with Coupon Sherpa

For over a year now I've been keeping a small second wallet for the myriad of giftcards and store loyalty cards that everybody and their dog seems to issue these days.  Sometimes I keep coupons in there as well, but I have to remember to cut the coupons and then put them in the wallets before I go to the store.

There is no way I'm keeping them all in my wallet on the off chance I might be able to use one, the payoff isn't worth the effort.

I've been using Key Ring to help me get rid of quite a few loyalty cards and now I have Coupon Sherpa to help with some of the coupons.  The app has two components to it, a retail side and a grocery side.  I'm not getting much use out of the grocery coupons yet, but when I'm out and about shopping it is definitively worth checking out both the Key Ring Coupons and the Coupon Sherpa.  Sometimes the coupons are the same ones I could have clipped and carried, but also there tends to be some ones I hadn't ever seen and for places I normally don't get coupons for.

Worth checking out.

Save on Brew (Cheaper Beer)

Who doesn't like saving money?  If you answered "me", then please shoot me an email and I'll give you an address to send some of your extra cash my way.

For the rest of us, those that like to drink beer anyway, there is an awesome website devoted to finding you deals on beer.  The site is simply SaveOnBrew.Com and it simply looks up a database of roughly 300,000 advertised "beer deals" from among 50,000 retailers.

They had me at "save on brew".

When you go to their website you have to verify that you are of legal drinking age and you should be forewarned that the site is definitely Not Safe For Work.  While most of the site is "clean" there is an integrated blog and the lead story shows a wet T-shirt contestant.

Shaving Some Dollars Off of Your Hygiene Budget

I stumbled upon a website that combines frugal with convenient wrapped up in awesome.

Dollar Shave Club will ship you new razor blades every month for a low price, much lower than if you went to the store (any store) and bought blades there.  They'll even throw in the handle!

If you want to change blades, they'll give you a new handle.  How awesome is that?  If you knew the markup on razor blades.....I've read upwards of 4,000% (?!!!) you'd see how these guys can do this and still make a buck.

Expensive Possible Gift for my Brother in Law

From the website Firebox, and reported by Gizmodo, comes personalized superheroes.  For $127 and a couple of headshots and you can choose to become Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Cat Woman.

You can also become the Super Villain The Joker.

Seems kind of pricey, but an awesome gift for the DC Comics Übergeek in your life.

Meh....call me when they make a Deadpool version, or maybe a Captain America.....something Marvel at least.

Suck It!

Now I'm not a prude or anything, but I'll admit that sometimes I'm a little put off by breastfeeding in public.  I don't have a problem with it per se, but some mothers are almost a little militant about it.  If they want to feed their offspring they simply pop a breast out and latch the tyke onto it.

Heaven forbid you say anything about it.  Hell hath no fury like a pissed off new mother.  You might as well have used the C-word....and I don't mean cesarean!

Lehman.com EPIC FAIL

This holiday season I've prided myself in being able to get my shopping done early and generally outside of the dreadful Black Friday craziness.  Every transaction, whether in person or online, went smoothly, save one.

Much to my dismay, my dealings with Lehman's through their webstore was pretty much nothing but EPIC FAIL.

A couple of months ago I managed to pick up a used...widget that I was going to give to a friend.  He had managed to completely boff his widget and I found one at the local Youth Ranch Thrift Store. The one I got was missing pieces and needed the tiniest bit of repairs.  With some new parts and about twenty cents in repairs I figured it'd be a cool present.

When I started looking up replacement pieces and factoring in the cost of said parts as well as the shipping.....and shipping again to my friend, it was pretty much 90% of the cost of just getting a new one.  Sorry, but jumping through hoops for 10% and ending up with an obviously patched widget isn't really a great gift.  I could not buy the parts and hope he still had the old parts.....

An important thing to note is that the widget is an old item that is still being made but not widely available.  I managed to find the widget at Lehman's and saved the appropriate webpage until I was ready to purchase.  That time was just before Thanksgiving.

I popped onto the webstore, prepared to purchase a new widget (which comes with those special parts) and I'm surprised to find that it is on sale for 20%.  Awesome!

I go ahead and order the item only to find that my receipt doesn't show the sales price.  What gives?  Lehman's has an online chat agent so I pop on and wait for someone to come and assist me.  Eventually a "chat agent" pops in, but the best she can do is tell me to call into the store the next day and talk to someone there in customer service.  Evidently they process online orders the next business day.

I find this solution unsatisfactory.  Why should I have to spend effort on two separate days to go shopping because they cannot get their webstore working correctly?

When I fire off an email to their customer service I ask that they either honor their webstore price and send me a new receipt or cancel the order.  Actually, my email ends with "Please charge my card the correct amount and email me a corrected receipt or cancel the order completely."

The next day I get the following email (this is an excerpt): "Yes, the 20% special price was $34.36. I see that your order was cancelled per you request. If you still want it at that price, please place your order on our WEBsite and email us immediately so we can intercept the order and change the pricing."

So.......they couldn't get my order straightened out and they cancelled it.  Actually, I wasn't completely sure if the order was cancelled or not since I didn't specifically ask that it be cancelled, just that they cancel it if they couldn't fix the pricing.  It is "funny" that they couldn't fix the pricing when asked since I was told to ask them to fix the pricing in the first place.  I was a bit confused and fired off another email regarding the order: "Now I’m confused.  Was my order cancelled or not?  If it was then why would I need to have the order intercepted and the price changed?  Either fulfill the order with the correct price (and send me a new receipt) or cancel the order and let me know definitively that it has been cancelled.  I did not specifically request an order cancellation, just to have the order cancelled if you could not charge me the correct price."

Lehman's quickly responded informing me that yes, they did cancel my order.  That should have been my tip-off that they couldn't get things done correctly right there, but I do believe that sometimes people just make mistakes and need another chance.  Besides, they sweetened the pot a little by offering me free shipping should I choose to entrust them with a replacement order: "Yes, it was cancelled. 

However, I thought you might still want it and wanted to give you an opportunity to receive the special pricing because I detected you might not have really wanted it cancelled. 

If you would still like the game, please place your order and let me know immediately so I can intercept the order and adjust the price (and, because of this inconvenience, I will also remove the shipping charges)."

I replace the order, which still should be on sale, and it still doesn't show up as being on sale.  I fire off the email as requested, they respond and it should all be good.  My bank account shows the charge on my card as pending for $52.90, which I completely expect since the charge shows up immediately even if it hasn't been processed.  I figure I'll wait a couple of days and double-check to make sure it it corrected.

A couple of days go by and my friend has already received the widget.  Despite it being a Christmas present he'd opened it up and sent me a quick thanks on Twitter.  This prompts me to check things out with the bank.

WTF?  Not only did they not take off the shipping charge they didn't give me the advertised, and promised, sale price.

I fired up my Outlook to send off an email and before I could get one composed I download one from Lehman's first-class customer support: "Regretfully, I was not able to catch your order and it has shipped, however, I did a refund to your credit card for the 20%."

Really?  You tell me on December 1st that you couldn't intercept an order that you knew about a day ahead of time?  I placed the order on November 23rd and you cannot give me the 20% until December 2nd?  Sure, you missed the order on the 24th.  It is Thanksgiving, I get that.  Maybe you guys took Black Friday and the weekend off from fulfilling orders and taking basic care of your customers.  Fine.  You could still have fixed things on Monday the 28th...Tuesday....Wednesday even.  Nope, you have to wait nine days after I place my order to partially fulfill your customer service promises.

By my reckoning Lehman's still owes me $9.95 since they freely offered to refund the shipping charges.  I politely reminded them of this and was told "nope".  Actually their response was a bit confusing: "And, I forgot to let you know, we have not had any free shipping yet this year. Although, maybe one of our future specials might be for free shipping. 

A month ago there was a $5 shipping day. 

The specials are date specific and there is one daily special per order."

I tried to point out that I wasn't asking for anything special.  There wasn't an online offer of free shipping.  In their November 23rd email they specifically offered to refund my shipping, probably because I've has to spend way too much time on ordering my widget.  If you factored in the time and frustration I haven't saved squat ordering through Lehman's.

I should have never bothered to order from this allegedly reputable company.

I should have been smart enough to see the warning signs and just took my business elsewhere.

I probably should have simply written the whole shebang off and not put any extra effort into this....but now this is just getting under my skin.

My next step, aside from complaining on my blog for 12 people to see, is to go to their local BBB.

Lehman.com's customer service is clearly EPIC FAIL, but I'm not content to let it slide. 

Black Friday Madness

Some of you may know/recall that I used to work retail for a number of years and that my wife still does.  We actually met on the job at one of the local Fred Meyers.

It seems every year Black Friday gets worse and worse while the public just eats it up.  What the hell is wrong with people these days?

I remember when Fred Meyer opening up at 5 AM was a big deal.  For at least the last decade they've had this big sock sale that was "their thing" and they served donuts and juice for the shoppers during their 6 Hour Sale.  Around 2004 a bunch of Fred Meyer executive types jumped ship to ShopKo and the very next Black Friday they opened up at 4:30 for a Sock Sale where they served cookies and milk.  Did it really take a bunch of new hires to come up with that idea?  There were quite a few other retailers who opened at 5 AM, but it seemed to me that ShopKo opening up earlier might have gotten the ball rolling.

Things have steadily gotten worse every year and this year we have stores starting Black Friday as early as Thursday!  ShopKo started their "Black Friday" ad at midnight, Target at midnight, Walmart at 10 PM, Toys R Us opened up at 9 PM!  Seriously?  Way to say "eff you" to your employees.  At least some employees are pushing back.

I'll admit that there were some items I'd love to have picked up at the "amazing" discounts they were offering.  The rub is that any great deal is limited, so to even have a shot you have to camp out well before the opening of the store and then make a mad rush to get your product.  Sure....let's miss Thanksgiving and camp out for a day to possibly save $150 on a printer or $30 on a waffle iron.  Has anyone ever heard of the time-value of money?  Has anyone bothered to extrapolate the concept to the money value of their time?  How much money would you be willing to spend to enjoy the holiday and not get trampled over by a throng of people after you've spent all night in the cold and possible rain?

Today I've heard and seen reports of people pepper-spraying each other, struggling to get a crappy waffle iron for $2, and even get beat down for protecting their grandkid from getting trampled to death.  I find it fitting that most of the truly obscene behavior is happening at Walmart.  I worked for Walmart for 90 days back in 1989 and based on my personal experiences I tend to believe every bad thing I hear about that place.

I have the overwhelming bulk of my shopping done this year.  Between shopping online and in the stores outside of the main rush I had no problem finding what I was looking for.  We did go to Fred Meyer's 6 Hour Sale, but coming in at 10:30 AM we were able to get everything we would have been able to get at 5 AM.  Sure, we didn't get one of the 100 gift cards they were giving away to the first 100 customers, but we a) got a good night of sleep b) didn't have to camp out and c) didn't have to run/claw/fight/bite out way through the inevitable throng.  I'd pay the $5 that was the amount of the gift cards.....hell I'd even pay the $100 that was the one "lucky" winner of the lot.

One thing I am going to do is support "Small Business Saturday" and shop at a couple of small business tomorrow.

Novermber 25th, 2011 Edit: I just learned that at least at Fred Meyer #662 there were people waiting in line as early as 11 PM last night (6 hours before they opened) and there was a mad dash to pick up one of the free $5 gift cards they gave out to the first 100 people.  Wow......let's assume that everyone that showed up at 11 PM had a 100% chance of the $100 gift card (instead of 1% chance for the first 100), was your time in the cold and rain (it rained some last night) worth $16 an hour?

How about 99 cents an hour?  That was the average amount "earned" for each of the 100 people there for the first card (assuming they were all there at 11 PM, the number climbs to a staggering $5.95 an hour if they showed up at 4 AM).

Biokleen Laundry Detergent

I'll be the first to admit that I like saving a buck or two on things I have to have so I can spend it on stupid stuff I probably don't need.  I'll also admit that like most folks some things I care about brand selection and other things I don't care.

When it comes to laundry detergent, I don't care...give me the cheapest stuff that won't make my skin itch.  Usually that means some brand off the bottom shelf that I've never heard of.  If I'm lucky, they have a "perfume & dye free" variety.  This is how I've lived for years...simply grabbing a bottle or two of the cheap stuff whenever I need some.

Lately I've come to learn that sometime the allegedly more expensive stuff is far better than the cheap stuff.  If my foray into wet shaving with a double-edged safety razor taught me anything it's that sometimes going barely out of your way can pay dividends.

My wife works at Fred Meyer and I do a lot of my shopping there.  We get an employee discount on wide range of products.....except groceries.  Grocery discounts are limited to Fred Meyer/Kroger brands and the nutrition center.  I don't know if you've shopped the Nutrition Center, but they've got a lot of good stuff.  Expensive stuff, but pretty good.  I'm not one to spend big bucks for some items because they have an alleged quality I'm not concerned with.  Some stuff is not worth paying a premium for....and some brands have one helluva premium.

Cleaning supplies in general are way over-priced in my opinion, and the stuff in the Nutrition Center sometimes borders on hippy AND ridiculous.  I don't need a product shat out of a panda's arse, picked up by trained rehabilitated circus monkeys and packaged by blind orphans....even if the product buys carbon offsets and donates 10% to some Charity (unless Charity is the name of the CEO's favorite stripper...then it's just no instead of hell no).

At the local Fred Meyer's Nutrition Center, there is a little workstation for the employee of that section.  We had to inquire about a now-discontinued product and while she was looking up some information I noticed the Biokleen.  It was on sale for 25% off and with the employee discount I figured...what the heck.  Now I should mention that I looked at the product because it was a) there at eye level and b) perfume & dye free.  I'd been itching a bit lately, presumably due to the cheap laundry detergent additives.

Holy cow this stuff is great.  First of all, we get 128 HE loads of laundry out of a single bottle!  I did the math.  Discounting any.....well, discounts, the "cheap stuff" normally runs $3.00 a bottle.  You get 33 loads with that bottle, which means the detergent cost for a load of laundry is 9 cents.  This "expensive" stuff retails for $10 a bottle, which means at 128 loads the detergent cost is 7.8 cents per bottle.  Add the fact that with so many loads per bottle you can probably wait to buy a bottle when it is on sale....and the fact that this is discountable for us, and our normal cost comes to almost half of what the "cheap stuff" costs!

Biokleen products are also about as hippy as you can get, but it still appeals to my quality and cost-sensitive sides.

*Some of these links can/may/will take you to consumer websites.  You can tell them I said "hi", but they won't know who I am and I won't profit off of anything you choose to buy.  Tell them I said hi anyway.