This Just In!

My friend Heather jsut sent me this....hysterical!

What were they thinking?

2 products I recently saw in the store......



2 products I recently saw in the store......

Winter Wonderland Yesterday

State of the Union

Ok, so I was out doing a little shopping for a birthday present and also a little bargain hunting.

1. In the fall I saw a cute top actually made in the Vietnam in a store I like to shop, (JJ are the initials). It was $149 at that time. Cute but too much AND the person who made it probably got less than $1 to produce it. Yesterday I could have purchased that shirt for $35, 1/2 off the mark down price of $70. But I didn't because I was insulted that the store thought $149 was a fair price in November but could really afford to sell it for $35. I would have paid $50-80 for the shirt in the fall, a fair price in my opinion, but a GREEDy start price prevented me from doing so.

2. I was also in a store that shall be known as PB. I would venture a guess that over 90% of their items come from China or other Asian countries. There was a nice display of items that were on the birthday list that I wanted to take a look at. These items STARTED AT $200 and went up in price. One style came with pre-warped wood. I guess that saves the buyer time wondering if the purchase was worth the money. Again, I would spend a reasonable amount of money on a nice quality item made in Asia but I have been insulted by a store that is GREEDy enough to think that I am going to open my wallet for a poorly made small item that they paid the worker pennies to make.

I guess what I'm rambling on about is this. This country is in the current predicament because of GREED. Consumers paid way too much for "stuff" and the retail/mortgage companies were more than happy to oblige us by selling us overpriced CRAP (it is what it is) and houses we couldn't afford or "need", so that now even the people who lived within their means will be bailing out the mostly stupid for years to come. All because of greed.




Disclaimer: I am not a tree hugger, I own a gas guzzling SUV along with the little Toyota's. I eat meat and have a PETA sticker that says "People Eating Tasty Animals".

Flashback to the 70's

I think the picture says it all......ack!

Random Musings

1. What good is driving cute little tree hugging Prius if you drive >75MPH? On a recent 600 mile road trip I was routinely passed by an assortment of people in Prius (what is the plural of Prius?) who obviously only want to look like they are environmentally sensitive as they whizzed by me on the highway of life.

2. Oprah can afford a gastric by-pass....nuff said.

3. I think people aren't spending this Christmas because most stuff for sale is WAY overpriced and most of it is carp. Does the world really need a small plastic animal that poops jelly beans? I did however think about getting on of these as a stellar family Christmas bingo prize...

Technology is Stressful

We decided to purchase a new wireless router to increase our home's "inter-web" capabilities...
We are currently using the THIRD one. Some companies are better than others regarding installation instructions, sigh. C stopped me from throwing a DLink at the wall. We are not keeping that one, nuff said.

I Want To Be a Somali Pirate

Me thinks that is the only way to riches these days :-P

What Happened to TV's?

We have a tv going bad and we will "need" to replace it.
I know the new LCD/plasma tv's are very cool but seriously folks, have you seen the price on these things? In addition to the new, cool tv you will need at least one HDMI cable ($50) because if you want to
have a decent picture you will need HD from the cable company (another $15-60+/month depending on what you already have). Then there is the energy consumption issue. These units use at least 5X the power of an "old" set. Even off they use at least 2.5X the power of the former set. We were also informed by a very knowledgeable sales person that you can have your unit "calibrated" for a mere $250 to save energy and extend the life of the tv. And don't forget the premium surge protector because these new units are very sensitive to that sort of thing.
Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Asthma inhalers that used to cost less than $10 are now more than $50 because our delightful government decided that the tiny amount of propellant was harmful to the environment and we are having the hideous CFL's with stinky light thrust upon us but yet we can buy expensive energy hog tv's that don't last as long as their predecessors and that's ok.

VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN

i can say this because I'm from Illinois :-)

MAKE.IT.STOP

I am so glad the election is near. Too many more infomercials and robo-calls and I might have to be committed to the new sub-standard mental health facility up the road....sigh.

Long Time, No Post

I know there are thousands of you out there who have been dismayed by my absence.
Let me summarize my life since the last post.
Old dog died.
New dog obtained (cutest dog ever)
Oldest daughter now married.
Continuing to work out.
Been to the beach twice this summer.
No major renovations but there are some brewing.
I will try to be have updates more regularly (at least once a quarter, tee hee)

If I Make It, Will They Buy?

I make handmade lampwork beads. With the US economy being what it is, bead sales have been a bit slow for me. I am going to start making beads that incorporate all the glass that I don't usually use that is just gathering dust and see what happens. I am also going to try "Muses" (see left). Fun to make and a 3 R project (reduce, re-use, recycle), at least in part :-)
The beautiful face of the muse is from the UK made by ingeniouslycreative .
More later.....

Bathroom #3, The Final Installments

Bathroom #3, Weekend 2, Days 1 and 2

The videos say it all!

Bathroom #3

It's been a while since my last post...Sorry!
We are now working on the 3rd (and final) bathroom re-do.
This is from last weekend.
What it started out as


The goals for the day

Bathroom #3, The Final Frontier

Well, you can't just re-do only 2 bathrooms! This is the piece of furniture we purchased at the flea market to be the vanity in the "powder room". We have the faucet, now we have to get the vessel sink. More to come.

Bathroom #2, The Saga Continues

We finished bathroom 2 of 3. It is great IMHO.

Water Conservation - Philosophy Question

Our esteemed Governor has asked all North Carolinians to reduce their water consumption by 50%. If a household already is conserving how exactly do they do that?
If your household turns off the water while brushing teeth, takes short showers and only washes full loads of laundry and dishes, what's left?
I believe this is an example of the "bad child" syndrome..... Let me explain.
Good children do what they're told, learn from their mistakes, make good choices, do their best in school, etc.
For this they (hopefully) become productive citizens of society with little need for social or parental interventions be it in time or money.
Bad children do what they please, make the same poor choices over and over, fritter away the resources given to them, etc. For this they are frequently given extra attention, time and social and parental resources.
So good children have the satisfaction of a job well done, while bad children have lots of fun and get bailed out of trouble frequently. When a good child needs a little extra cash, they get a second job or take out a loan. Bad children freeload and usually get "free" money (or whatever the current need is) that they neither earned or deserve.
I believe the good children of North Carolina will soon be punished for already conserving by being forced to cut their already meager water consumption by 50%, while it will be relatively easy for the bad children of North Carolina to reduce their consumption because they have done nothing to help water conservation to this point.....sigh.
Yet another example of excellent government thought processes.

Observations

1. If a car has cruise control but nobody uses it......wait.....why don't they use it?
2. Why don't the "up-scale" grocery stores have items in stock so I can pay their inflated prices and then get out of there?
3. What is the financial stability of a person who has a very nice Lexus and has to go in to pay cash for their gas?


****sigh******