After realizing that I couldn’t use the 4 GB memory card I had bought for my Palm and figuring nobody else would need it either, I decided to try selling it on eBay. I have shopped for electronics on eBay before and have generally been disappointed that the winning bids are usually higher than what you can get the same item for by shopping around. Plus most eBay sellers have ridiculous shipping rates that inflate the price further. Well, when you have something to sell, that all works to your advantage.
Category: Uncategorized
The Evil Ticketmaster
When I was in college, the student paper would always refer to Ticketmaster as The Evil Ticketmaster. They were evil then and are still evil. Ticketmaster, as far as I know, invented the term “convenience charge” which they use to apply to anything. In 1994 one of the most popular bands in the country, Pearl Jam, was preparing to go on tour. They decided to sell tickets for only $18 and said fees could be no more than 10%, keeping the ticket price less than $20. The Evil Tickemaster was hungry and would not allow anyone to tell it how to do business. Besides, how could they do business without charging at least $3.75 per $18 ticket? So they retaliated against Pearl Jam by telling all the concert places in the country that they were not to book anything with Pearl Jam. The venues, with exclusive Ticketmaster contracts, locked Pearl Jam out. Further, Ticketmaster had exclusive deals with promoters, so no one would promote the tour. The tour was cancelled.
Anyway . . .
Susan called me about a free Christmas concert by the Fox Theater’s organist and wanted me to get 5 tickets online. One thing great about the Fox is that you can go to their box office at least and avoid Ticketmaster fees. However, to get tickets online you had to go through Ticketmaster. They pointed out that there was a convenience charge of 75 cents per ticket. Also, if you wanted to print the tickets at home, there was a $2.50 charge for that. By the way, the only way to get the tickets is to print them at home. So I go to check out. Seems like the total should be $6.25. But The Evil Ticketmaster wasn’t done. Now that there was a total, they tacked on an order processing fee of $3.15.
Merry Christmas from Satan at The Evil Ticketmaster
Water Heater
After deciding against an on-demand hot water system, I went out this weekend and bought a General Electric 12-year 40 gallon natural gas water heater. Consumer Reports and others recommend getting longer life water heaters because not only should they last longer, but you are getting other extras like added insulation, a better burner, and faster heat-up times. There is not nearly the selection available for water heaters as there is for refrigerators. The differences in energy consumption are pretty minor. Disappointingly, even though Home Depot calls this a “high-efficiency” water heater, the Energy Guide on the side indicates it will use 254 therms out of a range going from 234 to 258. So “high efficiency” means 4 therms less the least efficient heater in the entire class. This is still more efficient than my old one which was rated for 319 therms per year. Sears has a 12-year model that only uses 238 therms, but GE heaters use a magnesium anode which is supposed to be better than the aluminum ones used by some Sears heaters (I couldn’t tell from the Sears website what the 12-year tank’s anode is made of). Not that Sears makes theirs (they are made by A.O. Smith). GE doesn’t even make theirs (they are made by Rheem). Not many choices and very difficult to shop online. From most efficient to least efficient there is only a 10% difference.
Rainfall Gauge
For my birthday, Susan gave me an electronic, wireless rainfall gauge. Not that it will get much use, but it should be pretty neat and beats the bucket on my front porch that I had been using to measure rainfall previously. I’ve always wanted one, ever since I wrote a paper in my college Hydrology course called “Rainfall Gauges: Our Funnel-Shaped Friends.” This one is by Oregon Scientific so it should be compatible with my network of indoor/outdoor thermometers. In fact, it came with another remote thermometer, so now I have a backup (you can only have three).
Medieval Times
Some friends of Susan’s invited her to go to Medieval Times restaurant. She asked me if I would like her to take me there as a birthday dinner. I had never been and I don’t even think I’ve known people who have gone, but I was game. As I told Susan, it should be like the Renaissance Festival without the porta potties.
We did a little research the night before to see what we were getting into. It’s kind of like dinner theater where the show is people dressed as knights fighting and riding around on horses.