• Shopping. Just a quick note... I am on vacation for two weeks starting Wednesday. Any orders placed at the Artificial Duck Co. Store after tomorrow (Monday) will ship when I get back on September 26th.
• Vacation. In other news, OMFG! MY VACATION STARTS IN THREE DAYS!!
• Palinmony. Umm... is Sarah Palin ever going to agree to be interviewed... BY ANYBODY?!? What the hell is she hiding that she won't even appear on FOX News where they're positively wet over her? Are people seriously going to vote for Palin based on a couple of speeches alone? If she somehow makes it to the White House, she'll be closer to the presidency than any Vice President ever, shouldn't we know her answers to the big questions? Or are the Republicans so confident in their zombie minions to not give a shit, that she's going to be off-limits until election day?
• Britcom. A couple people asked me about a reference to Gavin & Stacey in my entry yesterday, which is a British television series that has just started showing here in the US on BBC America. I'm a huge fan of British comedy, and love it. It's so rare to find a show now-a-days where the lead characters are actually... nice... sweet even... and it's a refreshing change (especially with the Pushing Daisies premiere so far away). If you don't get BBC America, you can buy episodes at the iTunes Music Store. But check it out quickly before they start showing the sure-to-be-crappy American remake that they're working on...
• Rebate. When sending in for a mail order rebate, I wonder what the national average is in actually getting your money. Because I'm running at about 50%, which sucks ass. There's always some lame-ass excuse... "we never received it" or "that rebate expired" or "you didn't include all the required materials" or some other bullshit that's either an obscure technicality or an outright lie. Companies come up with rebates that they never intend to pay out, and I don't understand how this is legal. I just sent in an $80 rebate for SanDisk memory cards and a $75 rebate for AcuVue Contact Lenses... will either of them pay their promised rebate? Here's hoping.
My next Bullet Sunday will happen while I'm far away from here. Time to start packing a suitcase, I suppose.
I love comments! However, all comments are moderated, and won't appear until approved. Are you an abusive troll with nothing to contribute? Don't bother. Selling something? Don't bother. Spam linking? Don't bother.
PLEASE NOTE: My comment-spam protection requires JavaScript... if you have it turned off or are using a mobile device without JavaScript, commenting won't work. Sorry.
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
I must be lucky – I always get my rebate checks. I do try to avoid them if at all possible though.
Looks like ABC and Charlie Gibson got the first interview with Palin. I’m sure her handlers will be nearby just in case. *rolls eyes*
I read today that Palin won’t be giving interviews until the campaign gets her up to speed. Does that mean they are brainwashing her?
Vacation, woohoo!!!
I’ve had decent luck with rebates lately but none were for all that much. I prefer the ones you can request online without all the old “cut this from the box, mail that receipt with this circled/highlighted, fill out this form” baloney.
Oh no… I can’t believe they’re going to do and American version of Gavin and Stacey. It is such a funny show, I’m sure a lot of the humour will get lost in translation.
I remember reading about a rebate site that has info about companies that pay with phone numbers to call if they haven’t paid in a timely manner and allows you to keep track of your rebates so you’re reminded when you should be getting yours.
I’ve got a pretty good track record with them, but I skip the ones that sites like Fatwallet.com say will never pay.
I guess I am lucky because as far as I remember, I have always gotten my rebates when I mail them in. I think it is ridiculous that we still have to mail in rebates when everything is computerized and there should be no reason it can’t either be automatic or something you can do online, but I feel the same way about mailing in Yoplait lids for the breast cancer donation. Seriously? Mailing around garbage is the best way to do this? I’ll cross my fingers for you that you get your rebates!
I think companies want to make rebates as difficult and inconvenient as possible so that people will either not bother or put it off so long that it expires. If they truly wanted to pay out the money, they would offer instant rebates or just put the merchandise on sale.
Damn that Sarah. I expect that you willl AVOID AT ALL COSTS the television on your vacation…she is simply not worth it.
We bought an HD tv (Sharp Aquos) and the accompanying blue-ray disc player. The rebate was for 8 movies on blue-ray. I sent everything in and 6 weeks later got word that I sent the wrong code from the tv box. 6 WEEKS LATER! Who keeps the packaging box that long? Needless to say, I lost out. 🙁
I read about a guy who called to check on a rebate.
The Rebate Center verified some of the guy’s personal info and said he’d failed to send in card X. The caller then said, “The info we just verified came from card X.”
That’s what I want to hear Palin talk about. What’s she going to do about crooked rebate centers?!
RE: rebates – same here. About 50/50. I don’t get the whole concept of rebates anyway. Why not just include the extra discount in the freakin’ sale price? It would make too much sense?
I’m running at about 35%. A little more than a third. Rebates suck ass alright. I don’t even pay any attention to them anymore.
Palin and her newest child and her preganant 17yo daughter made US and People, does that mean she’s the Brittnay Spears??
Don’t do rebates, never have gotten one that wasn’t all messed up.
Vacation? what is this you speak of? Vacation? I thought you were American? We don’t take vacations, the world will fall apart without us doing our jobs.
Offered vcation days per country:
Denmark with 31,
Austria and Finland at 30 days.
France and Norway are at 25 days,
Germany at 24 days,
Belgium, Ireland, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland each at 20 days.
Brazil at 22 days,
Australia at 20 days and
Colombia and New Zealand each at 15 days.
The U.S. is second from the bottom with 10 days, tied with both Canada and Japan.
Only Mexico, with a piddly six days, offers employees less vacation time.
Just dropping my opinion on Gavin/Stacy. Love the show. I saw it when it debuted on iTunes and bought the first few episodes. It is so realistic charming and fun. Something yeah, you don’t see often. Definitely enjoyable.
Have fun vacationing and have a fruity drink in my honor! 🙂
With rebates, make a couple (or more) copies of everything, and after the prerequisite 6-8 weeks have gone by, send it in with a nice LONG cover letter, which gets longer each time you send it in, with copies of everything you have sent in. It helps to highlight sections that say “include this” and “include that” with copies of this and that. One time I couldn’t get BC/BS to reimburse me for something like $800 they owed me in medical expenses because, according to them, they didn’t “receive” the receipts. So, fortunately I had made a copy of all the receipts and I made another copy and sent it to them. AGAIN, they didn’t receive them after I called in something like 4 weeks. So, I made ANOTHER copy and sent it in. When I still didn’t get my money and I called them up, they had the audacity to tell me that the receipt copies were “too light” (from all the copying!!!) for them to read the amounts. Well, I got real LOUD and almost irrational since it had been something like 6 months by then, and they accepted my telling them what the amounts were on the receipts. So….bottom line is, always keep the FIRST copy to make subsequent copies from!! (Although today’s copy machines are much better than the ones from 25 years ago.)