I find this idea intriguing, and may sign up for it myself in 2007.
[MSNBC: The Washington Post] Attention holiday shoppers! These people haven’t bought anything new in 352 days — and counting. These 10 friends vowed last year not to purchase a single new thing in 2006 — except food, the bare necessities for health and safety (toilet paper, brake fluid) and, thankfully, underwear, and maybe socks (they’re still debating whether new socks are okay). (Click for the story in its entirety.)
I ran to Target, where I returned my Motorola MD7151-2 phones, because of the loud hum on the line — even after the “troubleshooting” suggestions of making sure there are no other appliances sharing the same outlet with the base, and making sure the base isn’t near any computer equipment.
I couldn’t get its many pieces to fit back in the box as they came, so was unable to close the lid to the box. The clerk at the customer service desk yanked the lid across and down, taped it shut, and threw the box over into a corner.
“Do you just send those kinds of things back to the manufacturer and they re-box them?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I just defected (as if that’s a verb) that one, because of the hum,” she replied.
I thought, “Good lord. That’s a hundred-dollar phone system, and you just defected it, just like that? There could be something wrong with my phone line, or I could be lying, or something.”
I just shook my head, took the credit to my credit card, and wondered as I left how big companies make money sometimes.
I spent the afternoon at Helios, where I edited Mary’s Getting Started Guide, from 1:00 until about 5:00.
I stopped by the ABC store on the way home, bought a bottle of my liquor of choice, Canadian Club, and asked at the register, “You don’t sell gift cards here, do you?” Of course they don’t.
I stopped next door at Baja Burrito, and I bought a small container of their salsa, which I topped on some Scoops along with a little cheddar cheese to have nachos for dinner.
In my Palm Pilot, I logged all of the holiday cards I’ve received over the last couple of weeks, and then placed them all around my small fiber-optic-totally-decorated-Christmas-tree-in-a-box, which sits on a desk in my living room.
I got a phone call, and absolutely couldn’t understand a word the person was saying due to the loud hum on my line — with my old phone.
I went to BellSouth’s website, where I found these, rather simple, instructions to ensure that the problem isn’t with your inside wiring. I checked my NID, and determined that the problem was not in my inside wiring, so made a service call.
The call was entirely automated, and while the automaton asked me contact questions, in the background they ran a diagnostics test to see if there was any trouble indicated on my line. There is.
They committed to having it fixed by Thursday. Things that make you go, “Hmmm,” or should I say, “Hummm.” What I’m really thinking is that Motorola is the one who got the raw end of that deal!
I went through my Christmas storage tub, and decided on which cards to send out this year. I wish I could remember, or had marked, which cards I sent to which people last year.