I went to Best Buy the other day, and let me preface this post with saying that I love Best Buy.

So I was shopping for DVDs for my daughter, and I had a $10 Reward Zone card and a 10% off any DVDs coupon. So I found a copy of Annie for $9.99, and a copy of Stuart Little for $12.99. I thought those were reasonable prices, so I grabbed em and headed to the register. I figured I'd be looking at about a $10 total bill at the end.

After taking the 10% off, and then taking the $10 off, the cashier told me my total was $1.68. Stunned, but not willing to argue a lower price, I paid her and left the store.

Looking at my receipt, Annie was $5.99, Stuart Little was $6.99.

Here's the reason for my post: WHY are they marked with prices HIGHER than they are selling them for? There were no other tags around them. Those were the prices.

How many people pick up a movie, decide that the price is too high, and put it back? I know I do that every time I see one for $20. But now, I have to ask myself (and probably one of the floor clerks), is this really $20, or is it actually $5.99?

Best Buy could probably increase their quarterly earnings by a percentage or two if their movies were marked with the more appealing, lower price.

/soapbox

Labels: Best Buy

Holy cow. This looks awesome. It also looks like I'm holding off on buying a new coffee table.

Microsoft Surface is a new technology that basically uses a multi-touch screen to create an entirely new user experience. I can jabber on at length about this, or I can let the folks at Popular Mechanics demo it for you. Check it out:




And here's Microsoft's site as well:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/ (why isn't this in Silverlight?)

Labels: coffee table, microsoft, surface

That's right. I'm talking to you. And you know who you are: Memory Foam retailers.

I'd been sold a dream. A mattress that conforms to me, for a perfect night's sleep. And made of space-age material, no less. From NASA!

Anyways, rather than bite the bullet and buy a full mattress, I had heard wonderful things about mattress toppers. Basically, just imagine a memory foam mattress that's only 4 inches tall. It sits on top of your existing mattress, but provides the "comfort" of a memory foam mattress.

So in November, I got one. Got it on sale at overstock.com. Since then (and I've tried attributing this to just about everything else), I've had the most amazing back pain imaginable. To the point that I could hardly stand up some days. I attributed it to lack of exercise...carrying my daughter...yardwork...anything but that precious mattress.

I finally took the thing off of my bed over the weekend. My back is already perfectly fine. Don't buy one. They suck.

Labels: memory foam

So I'm interested to know if anyone else has had an "opportunity" to sit down with the people from General Ionics. For those of you that have not heard of them, General Ionics is a water filtration company. They've got all sorts of special patents, and provide the technology for NASA to turn astronaut urine into clean, clear drinking water on the space shuttle.

I have to think that the astronauts don't know about that one. I don't care how good your technology is, I'm NOT drinking filtered pee. Mine or Boris'. No way, no how. Although, I suppose given a choice of death or drinking filtered urine, I'd be slurping the stuff.

Anyways, I had an opportunity to get a visit on Tuesday, to do a full assessment of my "water situation." I went in just as skeptical as anyone. Surely my city water is fine. Everyone drinks it, nobody's dying, nobody's getting sick.

After his demonstration, however, I have to honestly say he swayed me. Our water is gross. It's not going to harm us, necessarily, but it's dirty. It's hyper-chlorinated. And he gave me enough free stuff to make the purchase worth it.

1) 4 years worth of every soap in my home. Bar soap, laundry soap, dishwashing soap, shampoo, body wash, etc.

2) 200 lbs. of water softening salt.

3) A Soda Club machine.

They sent an excellent plumber over the next day to install everything, and I am now the proud owner of a General Ionics full-house water filtration system. And I honestly feel like I made a good purchase. No buyer's remorse. At least not yet.

So, in the comments, I'd love to know if anyone else has had experience with this company, or any other, and what their thoughts on a device like this are.

Also, based on the demonstrations and my experience with this new device, I don't understand why they are selling these on an almost exclusively referral basis. It seems to me that this stuff is industry-leading, works-as-advertised. Why is it then that the company that provides water filtration systems for NASA, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and several breweries has a brand name I have never heard?

Labels: general ionics, soda club, water

You're presenting at Mix. You've got an intriguing title and abstract:

High Speed Development with the AJAX Control Toolkit

You're ten minutes late. Very professional. Helps your credibility.

Labels: AJAX, Mix07