Retail Renting, Song Lyrics You Thought Were Correct (But Aren’t!), And Lakers v Suns Thoughts
Quick-hitters:
- Somebody clearly turned down the thermostat outside this morning, because it was freezing cold!
I can’t wait for Spring.
- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,850.
Current unfiled-rebate-o-meter: $775. Damn I’m a lazy ass :P.
- (from Consumerist) Apparently, retail renting, where a person buys something from a store with the intent of returning the item after using it, is becoming (or already is?) a serious problem in this country (original article here). How there is any debate as to whether or not this is ethical astounds me. It’s one thing to buy a product, and then change your mind and return it. It’s a wholly different matter to buy something, with the intention of using it once, only to return it later!
(By the way, the term “retail renting” isn’t quite correct. Krunk and I have decided to name this “retail borrowing.” How is it “renting” if a person gets his money back?)
My two favorite arguments heard in favor of retail borrowing are:
1) [A store] sucks, so they deserve to be retail [borrowed]!
2) If the store didn’t have such a lax return policy, this wouldn’t happen!
Please. Stop. It’s the same customers that see nothing wrong with retail borrowing that probably ruined Costco’s awesome return policy. And I don’t want to hear that stores can charge a restocking fee, and just put the item back on the shelves. Not everything can simply be put back on the shelves; these returns have to be marked down, returned to the manufacturer, or destroyed/donated. Never mind the fact that the store has to waste their time processing returns on these borrowed items. And what if stores, in an effort to curb retail borrowing, decide to start charging restocking fees on all returns? How is that fair to those who are returning products for legitimate reasons?
Please do not confuse retail borrowing with what I call the delayed return/rebuy: a person buys a product from store A, buys the same product from store B, and then returns the item purchased from store B using the receipt from store A. I have no problem with this, as long as store A is getting the exact product back in brand new condition. In fact, I’ve done this before to get an item immediately from store A, while saving some money by buying it cheaper from store B (and usually, store B is an online outlet, requiring me to wait a few days to get the item).
Clearly “the customer is always right” has gone way too far.
- Have you ever sung a song, only to find out some time later that you were single one line (or part of one) incorrectly this whole time? Up until recently, I thought this line from the song “Hard to Handle” by the Black Crowes went:
Hey little thing let me light your candle
cause Mama I’m sure hard to handle, now,
Yes, I am
Click on that link above, and you’ll see that the line actually is:
Hey little thing let me light your candle
cause Mama I’m sure hard to handle, now,
Gets around
Several other lyrics sites confirmed the “Gets around” line, but I was 99% sure that they were all wrong. I went to YouTube, found the video of the song, and sure enough, I was wrong! That being said, “Gets around” makes no sense at all to me. I just cannot get myself to sing the line correctly, so much so that I will continue to sing the line as “Yes, I am” even though it’s wrong :P.
Loyal readers (all none of you): is there a song lyric that you continue to sing incorrectly, because it sounds better than the correct lyric?
- What a game between the Lakers and Suns last night! I think I’m going to go ahead and Ung-hex the Lakers by calling them the favorites to win the NBA Championship this year, Bynum or not (more on that another time). As long as Kobe’s finger doesn’t get worse, and Odom or Gasol don’t get hurt, who’s going to beat this team?
Shaq looked terrible for three quarters, but he looked pretty good in the 4th, so much so that I’m starting to think that the trade won’t be as awful as I first thought. As long as teams insist on doubling on Shaq, Amare and Nash are going to get great looks at the basket. It appears that the Suns’ chemistry—not something to be overlooked in the NBA—is much improved, and I previously mentioned that addition by subtraction was, perhaps, the key motivating factor for the trade:
It almost sounds like the Suns are taking the addition by subtraction approach: by dumping Marion, that frees up valuable PT for Diaw and Barbosa. Or maybe the alleged Marion-Stoudemire chemistry issues boiled over, forcing the Suns to move Marion for Shaq!
We also saw how bad the Suns’ defense was, especially against the pick-and-roll. We also saw how big losing Marion was; do you think the Suns could use his perimeter defense and three-point shooting? And I thought Shaq was supposed to clog up the paint! How many points did the Lakers score in the paint?
We’ll see how the Suns handle the next couple of games on their schedule: v Bos, v Det, @ Mem (yawn), and @ NO. That gate at New Orleans should be especially good; I expect Chris Paul to go for 40 and 15 in that game.
Until next time.
