At the office today someone put out candy bars in the kitchen. The box had a sign telling people they can buy them and support some organization, and there was an envelope in which to put your money.

That reminded me of a classic prank Deion invented (and used against me) back in high school, and I recommend you all give it a try sometime.

So I’m selling candy bars for some dumb fundraiser thing, I don’t remember. They were two bucks a pop. I set up a box with an envelope and a sign on it. I put the box in the room where we used to work on the newspaper, so that as people went in and out of that room they could buy some candy bars. Sounds like a fine plan right? Just come back later and collect the loot.

Sure enough, after I left Deion comes along and crosses out the $2 price and writes “Sale $.50!” on the sign. I come back a while later to find significantly fewer candy bars, and an envelope full of quarters. As I reached into my wallet, pulling out the money I’d need to subsidize the cost of Deion’s “sale”, I remembered how great it is to have such good friends.

At the Natick Mall two weeks ago, we stumbled across what must be the coolest furniture store ever. It’s called LoveSac. They don’t make anything except these enormous bean-bag looking things (they’re not actually bean bags, they’re filled with shredded foam). You can get them as large as 6 feet and fit 3-4 people on them. They are comfortable as hell. You can re-shape them so you get back support for sitting upright, or flatten them out for lying down. How cool is that?

I recently posted some new pictures on the website from this weekend. Yes, the photo gallery still looks like crap but hopefully I’ll get it looking better in the next few months (if I can find time to work on it).
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I got the TV today, and it’s sweet. Absurdly big for the room it’s in. I also bought a table in chairs for my little dining room today.

Total cost of TV: approximately $4000 at Tweeter. Total cost of table and chairs: $48.95 plus tax at Walmart. Plus, the pieces all fold up for easy storage… bonus!

If you recall from last time, Tweeter agreed to get me the new Sony TV. It was supposed to be in their store yesterday. I call up because I’m ready to come down there, and sure enough it isn’t. Didn’t make the shipment. Whoops!

So I tell them I’m willing to drive to another store and pick it up – no problem. The guy tells me it’s in Manchester, NH. I tell him that’s fine, but at that distance I’d need to pick the new TV up first, then come down and swap it at my house, then bring the old one back. He tells me that’s against store policy. I tell him I’ll leave a credit card. He says he’ll call me back.

He calls back and tells me there really is no TV for me in Manchester. They screwed up and showed 1 available in the computer, when really that was the floor model. He says he can get one in on Friday. Friday’s no good for me. I want it in my house up and running by Friday afternoon. I tell him I’ll just take my money back because they’ve screwed me over for too long. They can come pick up the broken TV at their leisure.

He talks to the manager. They now “guarantee” that the Sony will be delivered to my house by Friday. I say OK, knowing that it’d be a big hassle for me to have to re-shop for a TV and renegotiate the price down. We’ll see on Friday. What a bunch of idiots.

So a few months ago I bought a new television, the 43″ Samsung HLM437W. The day I got it, I realized it had what looked like white clouds under the screen, so I called Tweeter to send a guy out and look at it.

When the guy shows up, the thing won’t even turn on. Turns out I have struck the infamous three blinking lights problem. He agreed to exchange it for a new set. Well… the sets were supposed to come in Friday, Feb 21st… now they’re slated to come in March 14th. Great.

Yesterday I called up the guy at Tweeter, and he agreed to sell me the Sony 50XBR800 at the same discount he gave me on the Samsung (about $500 off). I hope this new one isn’t a piece of crap too.

Last night Kim and I went and saw Coldplay down in Connecticutt. They were quite good, although went pretty overboard with a political message about free trade. Chris had “Make Trade Fair” written on the side of his piano, and also on his left hand, so you could read it when they showed a camera shot of him playing. It was ridiculous. They even put up a maketradefair.com sign projected on the back wall of the auditorium. Now I’m all in favor of free trade, and I know some aspects of it are advocated on the fair trade website (dropping agrigculture subsidies, for example) but honestly, I don’t want my entertainers preaching to me. Thanks to the war issue, I’ll probably never see another George Clooney movie again (well, the war issue plus Solaris). Hey Hollywood, please do me a favor and shut up.