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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 20, 2022 17:45:54 GMT -5
Happy Vernal Equinox. Spring is here for those of us that reside in the Northern Hemisphere. Winter is coming for those in the southern... -M We just call him Verne, for short, in these parts.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 21, 2022 21:54:57 GMT -5
So, this has been an interesting two days. On Saturday, when I collected the mail from my mailbox, there was a letter from the Illinois Office of Comptroller. It stated that my Il State Income Tax Refund was being withheld, for payment of an outstanding debt, to a local authority. this was news to me. When I examined the information, the local authority was the City of Chicago, for a parking violation. i live in Bloomington, IL, which is much further south than the city of Chicago. I haven't set foot in Chicago since 2015, let alone parked there. Then, I noticed the name of the debtor, with was a woman, with a Latina name! It was obviously issued by a computer, due to incorrect data entry, as it was addressed to me, with the woman's name as debtor, which no human should have missed (though with the State of Illinois, I wouldn't place a bet on that). So, I prepared a letter of protest to submit to the Comptroller's office, pointing out that the name of the debtor doesn't match mine, that I do not live or work in Chicago, have no spouse or children with that name and not legally or financially responsible for their debts. I even used the word "fiduciary," which always sounds good when you address bureaucratic incompetence. I held short of a planned reference to "Kafkaesque," as I doubted anyone there had read The Trial (or seen the movie, with Tony Perkins and Orson Welles).
I wrote that, while at work, to upload to the Comptroller's website on my day off, Wednesday. When I got home tonight and checked the mail, there was another letter from the Comptroller's office. And a check! It seems that a human being actually looked at the report and realized that someone had royally screwed up and issued me a check for my withheld refund. I have a sneaking suspicion there were several mistakes like this, prompting a review, though I would like to think someone in government actually knows what they are doing.
I haven't seen much evidence of it; but, I like to think it.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Mar 22, 2022 7:50:32 GMT -5
Bert, sorry to hear. The last time I was stubborn and wouldn't take medical advice, my wife literally forced me to go to the ER, where we found that the abdominal pain I was having was because my appendix had burst inside me. I had to have emergency surgery and the toxin from it was leaking out inside me. After I came out of the surgery I remember the doctor that did the surgery told me that the only reason I was alive is because of my wife. If I had waited much longer it would have killed me. So on behalf of us stubborn old cantankerous men that won't listen to reason, don't give up on him Bert. He may still come around at some point.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2022 16:12:52 GMT -5
he's taking his 02 levels every 4 hours or so, and thus far has remained in the mid to upper 90's.
so. ..so far so good!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2022 13:44:10 GMT -5
Went in a local shop I’d never been in before. A mini-market (if that’s even a term). Cheap food. Their “speciality” is selling food whose use-by-date is very nearby, allowing them to offload it at a lower price.
Example: 39 pence for a packet of biscuits. In a supermarket, the biscuits might be £1.65 or something. Big bottle of Diet Pepsi for much less than elsewhere. Plus, some beef, fruit, water, etc.
Do they have those kinds of shops outside the UK, for all you international members?
There are pros and cons. Obviously, one is gonna have to consume the items quickly or you’ll find yourself with out-of-date food. But with a bit of planning, and sharing, well the items do represent a bargain.
I did buy a glass bottle of orange juice, which was a novelty. Haven’t seen a glass bottle drink for years, not since someone - probably a corrupt politician - decided everything had to be in plastic bottles. Yet glass is reusable and better to recycle.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 26, 2022 21:30:01 GMT -5
Went in a local shop I’d never been in before. A mini-market (if that’s even a term). Cheap food. Their “speciality” is selling food whose use-by-date is very nearby, allowing them to offload it at a lower price. Example: 39 pence for a packet of biscuits. In a supermarket, the biscuits might be £1.65 or something. Big bottle of Diet Pepsi for much less than elsewhere. Plus, some beef, fruit, water, etc. Do they have those kinds of shops outside the UK, for all you international members? There are pros and cons. Obviously, one is gonna have to consume the items quickly or you’ll find yourself with out-of-date food. But with a bit of planning, and sharing, well the items do represent a bargain. I did buy a glass bottle of orange juice, which was a novelty. Haven’t seen a glass bottle drink for years, not since someone - probably a corrupt politician - decided everything had to be in plastic bottles. Yet glass is reusable and better to recycle.
Many places in the US have commercial bakery outlet stores, where packaged bread and baked products (snack cakes, biscuits (cookies over here) are sold near or at use-by date at a substantial discount. In most cases, the merchandise is perfectly good, it's usually just the unsold stock that the rack jobber (a store stockist who works for the bakery company) pulls from the stores when he or she makes their stocking visits to grocers.
Not to be confused with "Poundland"-- which the is UK version of our Dollar Tree stores in the USA.
Visited my first Poundland store in Stirling back in 2016.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2022 23:21:02 GMT -5
I'm not aware of shops dedicated for that purpose....my supermarket just has some special deals when the expiry date is 7-10 days away, usually buy-one-get-one free.
So I get 6 Yoplait yoghurts for the price of 3.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 2:42:37 GMT -5
Dollar Tree is an excellent name for a store!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 27, 2022 3:22:11 GMT -5
Dollar Tree is an excellent name for a store! Sure, maybe. Doesn't hold a candle to Poundland, though.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 27, 2022 3:44:26 GMT -5
Dollar Tree is an excellent name for a store! Sure, maybe. Doesn't hold a candle to Poundland, though.
It's real for sure-- I took this pic in April 2016 at the Thistles Shopping Centre in Stirling. Don't know the guy in the picture, perhaps his significant other was inside, picking up a basket of £1 widgets, or stocking up on the £1 bags of Twiglets or Hog Lumps. I did find it peculiar that the sign reads "Everything's £1", and yet in their shop window they advertise a 5kg bag of dogfood for £7.00... what's up with that?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 4:19:49 GMT -5
What’s up with that? Well, Poundland, who I should perhaps sue for false advertising, sell things that are more than £1. Only a recent phenomenon. It’s caused some controversy (well, when I say controversy, I’m on about complaints from friends, what clout do we have?).
The “everything is £1” was a major selling point. For lots of reasons. It also meant not having to do maths in your head. Put seven items in your basket and it’s £7. Or was. Now, you have to do the maths. Put seven items in your basket - two of which are toilet roll packs for £1.50 each - and you may be heading north of £10. Previously, you’d have handed over that £10 and got £3 change; nowadays, it’s pot luck what the price will be.
There are still a lot of things for £1. But there’s quite a lot that isn’t. I feel the store should be forced to change its name.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 27, 2022 6:23:19 GMT -5
(...) I feel the store should be forced to change its name. So Poundsland, then. Kind of encapsulates the frustration of non-uniform pricing.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 27, 2022 8:55:51 GMT -5
Went in a local shop I’d never been in before. A mini-market (if that’s even a term). Cheap food. Their “speciality” is selling food whose use-by-date is very nearby, allowing them to offload it at a lower price. (...) Do they have those kinds of shops outside the UK, for all you international members? Yes indeed! Back when I was a student, a friend and I used to buy cans of soda from such an outlet, at prices that averaged something like 25 a can. It's not that soda goes bad and needs to be sold quickly, but on top of almost expired soups, beans and the like, the store also sold "unsellable" items like cans damaged by an impact, and that included whole crates of soda in which a few cans were obviously empty. We quietly resold them to our peers for 50 cents apiece, outcompeting the school's vending machine that charged a dollar. Business was brisk (but don't tell the school's headmaster)! We completed our offer with chocolate bars bought wholesale, but those were "new" and the profit margin was lower. It was an easy way to get beer money, or comics money in my case. And that was my brief and only foray in the world of entrepreneurship!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 27, 2022 8:59:08 GMT -5
What’s up with that? Well, Poundland, who I should perhaps sue for false advertising, sell things that are more than £1. Only a recent phenomenon. It’s caused some controversy (well, when I say controversy, I’m on about complaints from friends, what clout do we have?). The “everything is £1” was a major selling point. For lots of reasons. It also meant not having to do maths in your head. Put seven items in your basket and it’s £7. Or was. Now, you have to do the maths. Put seven items in your basket - two of which are toilet roll packs for £1.50 each - and you may be heading north of £10. Previously, you’d have handed over that £10 and got £3 change; nowadays, it’s pot luck what the price will be. There are still a lot of things for £1. But there’s quite a lot that isn’t. I feel the store should be forced to change its name.The Quebec equivalent is Dollarama, and its logo used to say "everything at 1$". It now says "everything at 1$" with a small "and more" added to it. Truth in advertizing!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2022 9:20:55 GMT -5
Dollar Tree recently increased their prices as well. Now everything is $1.25.
-M
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