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Black Friday memories: What's the longest you've ever waited to shop?
dooroftruth.com
This new Apple Newton better be good ...
Normally this is the place where I tell you a story, involving either an uplifting moment I witnessed or a personal humuliation, and then ask you to share your own stories on the subject in the comments.
Except today we're going to talk about Black Friday shopping. And I have absolutely no experience in this area. It would be like trying to share with you my favorite passage from the Book of Mormon, or my favorite Justin Bieber lyric, or my favorite Real Housewife of Orange County. Those databases are empty.
A decade or so ago, I would occasionally wait in line for an hour or two for concert tickets. This was back when I had a lot more free time, and the best way to get to the Bridge Concert or see Bruce Springsteen was to arrive early on a Sunday morning at the Wherehouse. (Remember the Wherehouse? Did I just dream the Wherehouse?) But even when I was a kid, there was nothing I wanted enough to sit on a hard sidewalk overnight next to a bunch of similarly insane driven people -- or ask my parents to do the same. I'll get the Atari 2600 Pitfall cartridge in a month. Or I'll wait a year, when it's marked down ... Read More 'Black Friday memories: What's the longest you've ever waited to shop?' »
| November 26 2010 at 08:10 AM
One man's war against decorative pillows
I often think about what kind of counseling my wife and I would go to if we didn't get along fantastically. I'd definitely want one of those therapists who works with puppets, where each person gets to put a sock thing on their hand and use it to say what the other partner might say. I think I'd be good at this. I wish we could win some free counseling in a school raffle or something just so we could try it out.
beddingstyle.com
Evil comes in many styles and colors.
The first item on the agenda during Puppet Therapy is going to be our decorative pillows. You can look at this as a tribute to our relationship -- that the primary source of friction is the number of useless pillows we pile on the bed every morning, and remove every night. Or you can see it as my extreme hatred of unnecessary labor. Either way, I'm officially declaring war against the decorative pillow. This is my cause.
When I was still in the dating pool, I was always eager to check out potential partners' rooms -- not for perv-y reasons, but to see how many decorative pillows were piled on the bed. If she had two normal pillows and two decorative pillows, I figured I was dealing with someone who is relatively low maintenance. She's going to be able to get ready for the day in less than 20 minutes, and won't freak out if I want to go to my friend's bachelor party. And if she was one of those Type A dates who piled up dozens of decorative pillow in multiple waves all the way to the foot of the bed, I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom (which inevitably had a small pyramid of decorative soap) and sneak out the window.
My chief complaint about decorative pillows isn't the look, which I find sort of pleasant. It's the incredible waste of time involved. I recently timed myself dealing with our decorative pillows, and made the following calculations: Read More 'One man's war against decorative pillows' »
| July 02 2010 at 10:32 AM
One parent's love/hate relationship with Ikea
When things go right at Ikea, it's a mystical experience, like a "Twilight Zone" episode -- minus the freaky final five minutes where you find out you're a zoo exhibit for martians. Imagine if you will a company, that could read your mind before you arrive at the store, design exactly what you need and somehow charge six bucks for it ...
skylore.com
Go for the Lerberg. Stay for the meatballs ...
That's what happened last week, when I was looking at the Emeryville Ikea for CD racks to supplement my basement organization project. I was searching for a simple wooden wall-mounted shelf that would hold around 100 CDs, and hoping to pay less than $50. I walked away paying under $18 for three metal racks, which fit in way better with the industrial motif of my basement workout area, and hold a total of 250 discs. Incredible finds like this are not an unusual occurrence. Probably my all-time greatest kid buy was a $10 play tent from Ikea, which has survived both of my crazy boys and will probably be enjoyed by my grandchildren as well.
And yet when Ikea is bad, it's losing-big-in-Vegas bad. I walk out of the building with an upset stomach full of Swedish meatballs, wondering what the hell I'm going to tell my wife about the white shag rug couch covering I bought for $69, in hopes that it would make our torture device of an Ikea love seat a little less uncomfortable to sit on. (In reality, it just made the furniture look like a Bichon Frise.)
My dysfunctional relationship with Ikea is outlined below, broken down by category. Your thoughts in the comments ... Read More 'One parent's love/hate relationship with Ikea ' »
| January 19 2010 at 06:02 AM
"I'll be screwed if they ever ration ..."
Upon hearing yesterday about the Eggo waffle shortage, I reacted the same way a few of you probably did. They still make Eggo waffles? (It's the same feeling I used to get when flipping through channels in 2007 and realizing that "E.R." was still on the air -- more than a decade after I last watched the program.) Since my parents mostly made waffles from scratch, and my wife gets the generic organic brand from Safeway, this wasn't news that impacted our lives much.
grubgrade.com
Whatever ...
But it still got me thinking -- what if something I really cared about faced a rationing situation? If two of the four Eggo factories can go offline, can the Pabst Blue Ribbon plants be far behind?
Please use the comments to finish the sentence: "I'll be screwed if they ever ration ..."
Try to stick to name brands or products that have a single maker, as opposed to broad or obvious choices (toilet paper, gasoline, water, etc.) Otherwise, pretty much everything is fair game. My list is below.
... Excedrin Tension Headache: I am completely addicted to these stupid little red pills. I didn't realize they had caffeine when I started taking them for headaches, and I quickly got hooked. Now I have to keep them in my medicine cabinet, office and workout bag, in case I need a fix, which kills my headache and gives me a euphoric vibe -- comparable to Vicodin, without the floaty feeling. I would sue the makers of this over-the-counter pain reliever, but I'm worried I might win and they would be forced to stop making more.
Read More '"I'll be screwed if they ever ration ..."' »| November 20 2009 at 06:32 AM
Trader Joe's: programmed for kid-friendly service
Like most human beings who never really got into The Smiths, I like it when the world at large is a nice, friendly place. But I've also developed what I think is a very healthy suspicion of people who are too nice to me.
The secret plot starts with balloons.
I blame this cynical outlook on the super-religious people at my college. I don't know how it was at your institute of higher learning, but the ones at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo were extremely good at recruiting. They would send the cutest girl to sort of casually stroll by when you were studying by yourself on the lawn, she would pick up on something like your Giants cap, and start chatting about the team's starting pitching. And then, just when you were thinking, "finally, I've met a nice girl who likes me at this ratio-challenged school," she would lay down the hammer.
"You know, Jesus is a lot like a Giants outfielder. Except instead of catching fly balls, he catches stray souls."
I've been thinking about this a lot, because it sort of explains why I don't completely trust the employees at Trader Joe's. While I greatly admire and appreciate all of the balloons and free juice boxes they keep giving my kids, there's something almost cult-like about their kid-friendliness.
I'm kidding, of course. Sort of. Trader Joe's should be commended for their dedication to making families feel welcome. I'm just amazed that every single employee loves kids. (Even the workers at Chuck E. Cheese's have about a 50 percent surliness rate.) Trader Joe's employees have a supernatural Willy Wonka vibe. They seemingly know my own children better than I do -- popping out of the end of the aisle and handing my kids a little cup of granola at the exact moment that they're about to melt down.
Read More 'Trader Joe's: programmed for kid-friendly service' »| June 08 2009 at 07:22 AM
One parent's love affair with Big Lots!
Furloughs are here, and our budget is tight. Sounds like a great time to visit Big Lots!, a place I totally heart these days. Where else can I pick up a 70 pack of size three Huggies diapers for eighteen dollars? Or Earth's Best organic yogurt rice crisp bars for $2.30? The bars are a perfect snacks for toddlers.
wikimedia.org
Check your snobbery at the door.
For your first Big Lots! visit, it's best to check those preconceived notions at the door. However, if you grew up visiting Pic-N-Save and/or Dollar Stores, you pretty much know what to expect: low prices, some brands you may not recognize (proceed with caution!), crowds, scattered staff, and fun finds.
When I first moved to the Mission years ago, I would snicker to myself whenever I saw people toting huge plastic bags filled with stuff from Big Lots!. I'm now embarrassed by this youthful(ish) snobbery and disdain. I had no idea of the range of new, discounted merchandise Big Lots! has. I thought it had garden and home improvement gear, with the occasional furniture deal based on the Sunday newspaper circulars. By the time I finally visited Big Lots!, I was pregnant. My Mommy-to-be brain could not get over the finds in the cookware department. We're talking quality brand name gear at a fair to greatly reduced price. As with all Big Lots! departments, it takes some time to hone in on the good stuff. But it is there.
Read More 'One parent's love affair with Big Lots!' »| April 22 2009 at 05:46 PM
Where would you put a new Target?
I'm still blown away by all the Target love in this recent post. By my most recent count, the commenters professing undying loyalty to Target outnumbered the big corporation-hating skeptics by something like 101 to 2. Do the hippies even read this site any more?
usgwarchives.org
We know it's fireproof ...
The discussion also turned unexpectedly to the subject of places where new Targets should open, which seemed ripe for its own topic. Please let us know the best Bay Area locations for a new Target in the comments of this post.
You can try a more serious approach, or something more, umm, fanciful. I'm going mostly for the latter, and, for the sake of argument, eliminating historical preservation, environmental impact reports and architectural logic from the equation. (I'm also only choosing locations that are within walking distance from my house or the Chronicle building.)
My picks are below. Yours in the comments ...
The U.S. Mint: I'm hearing that a group will transform this favorite field trip location from yesteryear into a museum, opening as soon as 2012. And God bless them. When I walk by the Mint at night now, it isn't swarming with rats like it was five years ago. But that still gives us three years to make it a Target! Or better yet, a Target-themed museum! Read More 'Where would you put a new Target?' »
| March 06 2009 at 08:08 AM
One parent's love affair with Target
I know I'm not supposed to admit I love Target. I'm suspecting that by the fourth comment, at least one person will tell me that their fourth generation family hardware store was put out of business by the Target that sprouted up down the street, and allege that everything in the retail superstore is made by 4-year-old children in Malaysia.
Noah Berger/Special to the Chronicle
A thing of beauty.
None of this is likely to stop the elated feeling I get when I walk inside one of the better Targets in the area -- I favor the two-story ones with the shopping cart escalators. They are to big box stores what Oakland is to cities. If I ever had to fight a Viet Cong-style guerrilla war, I'd want it to be at a Target, because I know my way around that place with my eyes closed. I'm pretty much indigenous to Target. (Hint: If you're ever fighting a Target war involving raids and surprise attacks: camp out at night in the outdoors section.)
These same feelings don't manifest themselves in K-Mart or Wal-Mart. The difference between K-Mart and Target is like the difference between eating a Totino's pizza roll and one of the better Stouffers offerings. Not only does Target have superior products, but they have wide aisles for my Jawa Sandcrawler-sized shopping cart, their bathrooms are clean, the red vested staff is accessible but not pushy and many of them have really interesting facial hair.
Below are a few more things I love about Target. And no, this isn't a paid advertisement (I resent the accusation) or some weird attempt to save the Chronicle by sucking up to a major advertiser. Although I am planning a 17-part series on why you need to shop at Macy's ... Read More 'One parent's love affair with Target' »
| March 04 2009 at 08:08 AM
Stroll to jail
I'm still laughing at the absurdity of what happened when I offered to give away my son's old Peg Perego stroller for free on the Marin Freecycle site. All I wanted to do was to be good to the environment by not throwing the thing away but the exchange ended up being as dramatic as a drug bust -- and a lesson in the misunderstandings that can arise with Internet communities when you trade random information online with strangers.
bedding.com
The crime of the century starts here ...
Freecycle is an environmentally conscious and fabulous free exchange of used goods where people can offer stuff that they don't need any more and where people go to get things instead of buying new. A woman responded to my post that she'd like my son's used stroller and I sent her directions to my apartment. I told her that I might not be home so I'd leave the blue stroller out along the wall of our building in front of our apartment.
But our apartment is hard to find even in the daytime. And when she came to get it at 10 p.m., she accidentally took a neighbor's blue stroller. I had seen their blue stroller sitting out along their wall, just on the other side of our building the night before when I went out to get the mail and thought to myself, "Hmm, I hope there isn't a mix-up." But I never could have imagined what ended up happening. Read More 'Stroll to jail' »
| July 03 2008 at 04:16 PM
Play-Doh cologne is in the air
I took a vow some time in the early 1990s never to wear cologne again. Trust me, I wore enough Polo and Drakkar Noir between the years 1984 and 1987 to last five lifetimes. If I did buy a bottle right now, though, I definitely know what I'd pick: Au de Play-Doh.
smallflower.com
The three best smells in the world are, 1. The top of a baby's head; 2. The exhaust from a 1969 Porsche 912 (just trust me on that one); and 3. Play-Doh. So when Heather Maddan got a sample bottle of the Play-Doh 50th Birthday Limited Edition cologne last year, before she left the Chronicle to edit lilsugar.com, I made a mental note to blog about it.
I never got around to it, probably because of other deadlines but possibly because of a subconscious desire to keep it all to myself. I mean, it's a Limited Edition, right? What if they only made 12 of them? Thankfully, a recent Play-Doh-related Internet search reveals that there are bottles to be found everywhere. We may be rationing gas, water and salmon this summer, but there will be plenty of Play-Doh cologne.
I don't have much of a review, other than to say it will make your man smell exactly like Play-Doh, which really has no downside. Keep it in mind for a Father's Day gift. (And remembe-- tiaras work well for dads, too!)
For anyone hanging around The Poop this weekend, we can broaden this discussion to include other smells that should be made into colognes and perfumes. (Once again, my first vote is for Baby's Head. Your suggestions in the comments.)
| May 16 2008 at 04:46 PM
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