Ode to Internet Friends

Painting our nails, doing our hair,
sleepover party, talking and beer,
separated by miles, but friendships so dear,
you all know what I’m going through.
You all know what I’m going through.

JenHinton.com is our corner bar,
where we whisper of fears and wish on a star.
Our hearts are together though we come from afar.
You all know what I’m going through.
You all know what I’m going through.

The Classy Closet offers advice,
guidelines, suggestions, and tips to entice,
the Chicks Who Chat will share any vice
You all know what I’m going through.
You all know what I’m going through.

You are my friends, my helpers, my mates,
you understand me, you know what it takes,
you don’t ever judge me, you’re not ever fake.
You all know what I’m going through.
You all know what I’m going through.

Why is it....

That I can think of all kinds of things to blog about when I'm in the car or at the store, and then when I have blogger open in front of me, it all flies away?

It pays to shop around.

My mom and I spent all day Wednesday going to car dealerships and looking at Wagons and Crossover SUVs. She has an 11-year-old wagon and wanted to replace it with a newer vehicle. She likes to haul a lot of stuff, so a car wasn't going to cut it.

Finally, she had it down to the Subaru Outback, which is more of a station wagon build and the Toyota Rav4, a crossover SUV. On Friday, we went back to both dealerships, test drove the vehicles, and learned a little more about them.

Joey at Subaru was nice, a brand new car salesman. The ratings weren't quite as good for the Subaru. Also, my mom had seen some sort of sale advertised three weeks earlier, but no one knew what she was talking about or offered to pull out old sale papers. That was kind of a black mark.

Jed at Bob Tyler Toyota was also nice, a very good salesman, and we went in and made an offer. After some back-and-forths, he took an offer to the Sales Manager. Came back with a counter offer of $24,908. We haggled some more, Jed went back to the SM, and he came back with the same offer.

We left. We went back to Mom's and I looked around online at other options. Was there something we missed? Every other vehicle in the price range either was too small or the company's in bankruptcy or had poor ratings, and if we were going to stick with the $24,000 price, why look at other vehicles that cost the same or more?

So, I went to the VW dealer's website, and I asked for a price quote on a Jetta Sportwagen. I received an automated response, but as of yet, no prices. Then I went to the Quality Imports website and checked the prices on a 2009 Rav4 from their dealership. I clicked on the "make us an offer" tab and made a very low bid. Within a couple of hours, I had gotten an e-mail quote and then a very reasonable offer by phone.

We figured we'd be on the road at least three hours, plus the time to complete the transaction, if we went to Ft. Walton Beach, and Jed had spent a lot of time with us showing the car this week. So, I called him, told him that I had an "out the door" offer of $22,622 from Quality. Could he match it? "I'll make it happen," he said.

I picked up my husband from work at 5pm, stopped by for mom, and by 5:45pm we were at Bob Tyler Toyota. We played the game of him writing the amount on the paper, mom initialed it, then he took it to the General Manager (bypassing the SM, he said). When he returned, he had a new number written on the paper. Still more than $24K. And I lost a little respect for him, because he basically said that Quality must be lying to us, just to get us to drive over there. There's no way they could be selling the vehicle for that low. Bob Tyler paid more than $21K for the car, so how could Quality have an invoice price of $20,900? I said that Marty at Quality told me they'd make their profit through a dealer rebate (sounds like the dealer holdback I read about on Edmunds). Jed insisted there were no incentives available for the Rav4 (although holdback isn't an incentive). We said we had to check it out.

After we left, I called Marty at Quality and basically told him what Jed said and asked to verify the price of $22,622. He checked and called me back and said he'd left off a couple of fees to the tune of $10.50. I said I could live with that and we'd see him in the morning.


My mom and I hit the road about 8:30am and we arrived around 10am. We took I-10, because we figured Highway 98 (the beach route) would be at a crawl on the 4th of July. Marty said the car was being gassed up, so we started the paperwork. Turns out they hadn't calculated the sales tax exactly right because of us living in a different county. Then we added on the extended warranty and road hazard protection for a grand total on the check of $24,246 and change. So for less than Bob Tyler wanted to charge us, my mom got the vehicle she wanted, plus she is protected for seven years against anything going wrong with the car AND for several years, she's covered for any flat tires or rim damage.

I'm really tempted to fax the final bill of sale over to Jed to prove that Quality Imports was true to their word.

Quality Imports also gave us a free lunch. They were having a cookout and Scion enthusiasts show. Here's a little video I took with my new Flip Mino, which I won from Liz at This Full House. I'm still kind of getting the hang of the video, so it's not the greatest, but do check out the Green Boxzilla. It's awesome!

Never give up... Never surrender....

The watchwords of the crew of the Protector, the sci-fi spaceship made real by aliens in the delightful comedy film GalaxyQuest.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I'm never going to give up my quest to win a laptop computer. Or a notebook/netbook/mini or whatever other cutsie name they come up with for a compact and portable personal computer.

My quest has today taken me to The Mommy Files, where the prize is a Toshiba Portege A-600. It weighs just over three pounds and includes an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor SU9400, 3GB of SDRAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a DVD-SuperMulti drive. It comes with Windows Vista installed, but nobody's perfect. I also love the fingerprint reader. Wow, just like James Bond.

Hope on over to The Mommy Files before midnight on Wednesday for your own chance to win this beauty. And my offer stands -- if you win, and you don't really need the computer, I'll be happy to take it off your hands.

Don't it make my brown eyes blue...

So, DH left work at 5pm and walked down to the theatre and he looked over to where the line formed for the Elcano, and he said, "Doesn't look like there's a line today." So we hotfooted it (literally, it was boiling) one block east and a couple of blocks south to the gate of the port, and the cop was turning people away. And it wasn't 5:30 yet!

Flashback to Saturday. We parked at DH's work, and he said, "Let's go look at the farmer's market" so we walked over to the next block and looked at the stuff, and then we headed down to the port. The line was out the gate and up to Main Street, so we waited for about an hour, and we were about 25 people away from getting inside the gate and they shut it.

The Juan Sebastian de Elcano is a Spanish tall ship, a sailing ship, that is visiting Pensacola as part of the Fiesta of Five Flags and the 450th Anniversary of Pensacola. Nothing was said about how the gate was going to be shut 30 minutes before the tours were scheduled to end. Not until after Saturday morning. Then the paper says the gates will be shut a half hour before the tours end. So, we should have been able to get in on Monday. Nope, they shut it earlier.

Now, I would imagine that these tours are nothing new for the Elcano and its crew. They should have some reasonable idea of how many people they can have aboard during a three-hour tour window. How about having someone at the gate counting off as people go in (there's a clicker that counts, we used them at Disney before)? How about looking at the line and establishing a cut-off point before people waste their time standing in the hot sun for an hour?

I understand if it's full, but use some common sense and don't waste people's time.

So, I'm very sad. I could be made happy again if I won a beautiful Vivienne Tam-designed HP Mini. If you read my blog regularly, you know how badly I want a laptop of any description, but I have coveted this Vivienne Tam one for months, since it was first unveiled. It's gorgeous, it looks like a stylish evening bag but it's a computer! The website BlissfullyDomestic.com is giving one away today. I won't win, because I want it so badly. Such is the way of things. Still, I have to try. You might as well try, too, and if you win, and you really don't care about it that much, you could give it to me, and that would be your good deed for the day and help you get into Heaven.

Win a Sony Reader

84 words

Is it the Swine Flu?

Oops, sorry all you darling little piggies. I should ask, "Is it the H1N1 Influenza Virus? I have had the most major headache all day. It's definitely a sinus headache. I hope that's all it is.

We did eat Mexican on Wednesday night, but it was at Moe's Southwest Grill and I don't think that anyone there had been to Mexico recently. Well, unless they went on spring break or something. If I die, REMEMBER THE ALAMO! No, there's no relevance. I just felt a battle cry would be nice at a time like this.

Trickster is having a lot of sinus issues today, too, but according to the American Veterinary Association website, cats don't get the swine flu.

In the meantime, I am easing my pain with the pleasant diversion of trying to win things. The prize du jour is a charm bracelet from Things Remembered. They have some beautiful charms that you can customize. Visit MommyGoggles and leave a post about your favorite charm from Things Remembered.

Did you ever do something really generous for someone...

And then they turn around and kick you in the butt and tell you that you didn't care enough?

That's basically what happened to me today.

I wish I could go back and retrieve those two months of my life that I gave up, when my dad was dying.

Don't Trust Online Tax Services

We came home Thursday to a big package from the IRS saying we didn't report some of our income last year and we owe a big chunk of back taxes and interest.

Last year, I filed my taxes through the government's Free File program, using eSmart Tax by Liberty Tax Service. Maybe they should call it eDumb tax. Apparently, it didn't include any of my 1099s when it totaled up my taxes.

Now, some people (including my husband) say that I should have realized that our wages and various incomes (a grand prize cash win among them) added up to more than the total on line 1. However, I worked two jobs for two months, I got a substantial raise at job #1, when I did my taxes I realized that job #2 had been paying me less than I was supposed to be paid, my husband went full time at his job for the first time. The final total was much more than the previous year, so it sounded right to me. I suck at math.

And besides: if I have to sit down with all the paperwork and add it up manually, why should I take the time to plug it all into the software? It's supposed to do it for me and get it right!

We went back to the Liberty Tax Service and looked at last year's returns, and I see in Step 6 where I filled out all the 1099 information. The software just didn't add it in.

Obviously we have to pay it; at least we still have some of the big win in the bank to cover it. I do plan to include a letter of explanations with printouts from the Liberty Tax site, and I also plan to send copies to Liberty Tax explaining just how much their "free" service ended up costing me. I've been told they have a guarantee and should cover the penalties, which makes me feel a little better.

Beware.....

Customer Service Kudos

When last I blogged about Lowe's, I was pretty irritated at my neighborhood store. After I blogged, I used the "contact us" form at Lowes.com to report my problem. Within a couple of days, I got a call from a manager at the local store wanting to try to figure out who the women were that gave me the problem. She looked up my cousin's name and printed out their gift registry, and she left that and a 10% off voucher at the customer service desk. I went in the next day, picked out a light fixture from the list and used the discount. The quick response and the discount went a long way to making me feel better about the store.

Then today, we had a message from PetSmart. We'd been in a couple of times over the last week or 10 days, only to find a big empty space where the Iams Digestive Care 16.5 pound bag should be. I sent an e-mail to Iams, to see if they discontinued the size, and they confirmed that they still make it. I also sent an email to PetSmart, to ask if they were still going to stock that size in the store, because the shipping charges on a heavy bag of cat food are pretty outrageous. Well, the message today said that the food had been ordered and to call the manager when I had a chance. She was very apologetic that they'd been out of stock, assured me that the food had been ordered on Monday and should be in by next Wednesday. She sounded very sincere when she said how sorry she was that the store had run out. So, I'm feeling pretty good about PetSmart, too.

A great classic of 20th century cinema....

Some movies are worth paying $20 for on DVD. Others I wouldn't buy for $20, but when I find them in the five dollar bin at Wal-mart, they're a must have. So it is with Smokey and the Bandit, the fun-lovin', free-wheelin' story of rebellion on the open road. When I saw the title, I thought surely it must be Smokey and the Bandit 2 or perhaps Smokey and the Bandit 3: Smokey is the Bandit. But no, it was the 1977 original, the first movie that made me think that it would be cool to jump a car over something (a goal I still hope to attain someday). You know what went wrong with Smokey and the Bandit 2, at least for me? It was that it didn't fulfill the promise delivered at the end of the first movie. The fellers (including Sally Field and Fred the basset hound) were headed to New England to bring back some lobsters. Instead of doing that story, though, they brought in the elephant and it was all downhill from there. The less said about Smokey and the Bandit 3: Smokey is the Bandit, the better.

Why are stores so stupid?

Or maybe I should say, why do they hire stupid, lazy people to work there? Or maybe the people weren't as stupid as they acted, and they really weren't given the proper tools to help the customer.

My story:

We stopped at Lowe's tonight and we decided to ask about my cousin's gift registry. I looked at it a couple of days ago at Lowes.com, but I'm out of ink. I thought the store could print it for me.

Well, first the dumb girls behind the counter discussed the ending of the registry program and how they thought it was already over. They finally figured out that I was right, and the program is still alive. Then they looked up my cousin's name on one of the registers and found the listing, but they couldn't print it. So, they go back to the desktop and ask me for my cousin's phone number. I don't have her phone number. So I say, "I don't have her phone number. I looked it up online under her name." Then the lady smarts off at me, saying, "Well our system is different than the website." So, get online, bitch. I didn't say that. I just said that we'd have to buy them something somewhere else, and we left. I know they have a garden hose on their wish list, so I'll just look up the specs and buy one someplace else. From the very beginning with those chicks, it was like I was interrupting them, and they just didn't want to help me. That's the attitude I got, anyway. In this economy, they ought to have been falling all over themselves to try to make a sale and keep the customer happy.

But on to more pleasant topics, like the chance to win a 8GB iPod Shuffle. It's a promotion over at Debt Relief Place. It's a company that's in the business of helping people get their debt under control. They also have a handy debt calculator. Check it out and enter to win!

Movies at Home

DH and I have always loved movies. We've been film buffs since we were kids. Unfortunately, it's hardly worth going to the movies anymore. People take unruly or bored children to see films that are way over their heads, they get phone calls, they even make phone calls during the movie. They converse like they're at home on the couch instead of in a theatre full of people who paid good money to hear what the actors have to say.

That's why we stay home. We watch movies at Hulu or on DVD. We watch TV shows at the network websites. Oh, I guess I didn't mention that we dropped our satellite service in 2004, because it had gotten so expensive. You can get packages cheaper than $70 a month, but they're designed for people who like sports and home shopping.

That's why I was really excited today to learn about the Roku, a device that lets you download movies from Netflix and watch them on your TV. Of course, I'm always a bit skeptical of new technology and monthly fees. I want to try things out first, and 5 Minutes for Giveaways might just be giving me that chance. They are, as you might have guessed from their name, having a giveaway, and the winner gets a Roku and a six-month membership to Netflix. How cool is that? Visit 5 Minutes for Giveaways if you want to put your name in the pot. Or just wish me luck!

Since when did silver kill a vampire?

Growing up, I watched all the old Universal horror movies and I read a lot of books about creatures of the night. You killed vampires by staking them with a wooden stake. You can keep someone from returning as a vampire by cutting his or her head off and stuffing the mouth full of garlic. You can repel a vampire with a cross (although I will accept Fright Night's premise that you have to believe).

Werewolves were killed with silver. Shoot it with a silver bullet. Bludgeon it with the silver head of a walking stick (as Lawrence Talbot did, but not before he got bitten). I believe I saw one film where a silver candlestick was involved.

At some point, I think it was in the '90s, the two myths got intertwined somehow. Now silver is associated with killing vamps. At least in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, a silver bullet only slows down a vampire; it won't kill one.

It's just kind of irritating.

Scroll down a little bit...

A little ways down the page, you'll see a banner for writer Annette Blair. I made the banner and posted it here as part of a contest Annette is running on her site, and in the first drawing, I WON!

Here's the good part for you -- you still have a chance to enter and win. Just visit AnnetteBlair.com. If you don't have the ability to create a banner, you can still enter to win, so visit the site, check out the details, and while you're there, get the scoop on all her delightful books!

Do you save your receipts?

I do. It comes in handy when you find something on sale or clearance a few weeks after you pay full price. I also try to save all the receipts from purchases of Star Wars collectibles. Someday, my goal is to get everything catalogued (I started once, then the program crashed on me; I think I overloaded it) with price paid, current value, etc. Unfortunately, many stores use thermal paper now, and the receipts end up fading until you're left with a stack of blank pieces of paper. Paper that isn't even useful to write notes on, because pens don't tend to like thermal paper. Now there is a way!

Check out ChicShopperChick for a review of Neat Receipts, a scanner and software specifically designed to make sense of all your receipts. You can also register for a chance to win one (wish me luck!).