Blog of Josh Hall

A cited source
Excited more.
A sight of sores:
A site of moor.

No matter how smart you truly may be, chances are someone is passionate about how stupid you really are.

There are some crazy foods out there from around the world.  Kallie has introduced me to pluots (apricots and plums cross planted), and I know there are a bunch of stuff on the west coast that I’ve never seen on the east coast.  I had never heard of fennel or leeks before valentine’s day 2010, but now I’ve seen them more and more.  here are 2 crazy vegetables. the romanesco broccoli is pretty crazy looking! it comes from rome and is also known as broccoflower.

another one would be the purple cauliflower. why aren’t these vegetables present at rave parties? these things are nuts! well vegetables, not nuts, but you get the point.

This is effing ridiculous.  A class action lawsuit waiting to happen.  If anyone knows an attorney, I’d be willing to talk to them and split the winnings with you.

So I get contacts earlier this spring, and each of the 4 boxes come with a $10 mail in rebate for CooperVision.  So i send in the UPC box tops and after like 3 months, i get this stupid visa debit card in the mail.  WTF is this crap?  Where’s my $40 check??

So here’s the deal with this thing.  It’s like a credit card with a $40 limit.  If I want to buy something that costs more than $40 – I’m screwed because it won’t accept the charge.  I’d have to be able to tell the cashier, “Take $40 from this card, then the rest on this other one.”  That’s hassle.  Coopervision has an anti-marketing campaign here because their name is tied to all of this frustration.

The trap doesn’t stop there.  As if that wasn’t making it hard enough for you to spend, you have 6 months to use the card, or you get assessed a $3 “monthly maintenance fee”.  WTF.  I want to [do very violent things].  This thing has a time limit?  That makes me feel like I’m really just borrowing money from Coopervision, and if I don’t burn it all before they remember they lent it to me, they’re going to take it back.

Keep in mind, since it’s a credit card, If I spend $35.32, I have to do the math in my head to know what is left on the card.  Then I have to remember how much is on the card for the next time I use it.  The closer I get to $40.00 without approaching it EXACTLY, the less likely I am able to actually use the full value of the rebate.

Whatever.  I can use this thing in 6 months.  I’ll just take Kallie out for a nice dinner, split the check, and it’ll be nice.  So here we are, at a swanky restaurant in Chicago, and I explain to the waiter what I need him to do.  He comes back and says, “Sorry, this card was rejected for $40.”  I’m livid.  WTF.  I tell him to try $39.99 maybe???  It dawns on me that perhaps I have had it for 6 months and they pegged me with the maintenance fee.  Anyway, after a second time, and much embarrassment, he says that it accepted $30 and he put the rest on my other card.  I apologize, and thank him for his patience.

So I go home and log into the webpage account for this card to figure out what the crap is going on here.  Here’s my statement.  Can you decypher why it didn’t let $40 through????  WHAT THE EFF is that $36????

I’m so sick of this card, I just gave it to Kallie and said, “Buy something.  NOW.  GET RID OF THIS VICIOUS CARD.”  So she gets on half.com and buys a book for $8.99 shipped….WTF IS GOING ON WITH THIS STATEMENT?!?!?!  DIE, COOPERVISION.  DIE, PREPAID VISA REBATE CARDS.  You’re effing ridiculous, frustrating, and should be banned before water boarding.

This is just disgusting business tactics to not give money.  They say they’ll give you a rebate, but they make it nearly impossible for you to claim that money.  It’s like a carrot dangling on a string, and I’m about ready put that carrot someplace that CEO won’t appreciate.  Or maybe he would.  I’m throwing down some serious hate here.

Had they just cut me a check, I would have enjoyed the experience, and done business with them again.  Now I don’t trust them, and I want to kill anyone will the last name “Cooper”.

BUYER BEWARE

You should never be surprised that something has caught on, no matter how stupid you think it is.  There are enough people in the world, that anything can be successful as long as it reaches the right market.  Look at the Chinese technology entertainment industry.  Look at LARP’ing.

Kallie and I drove to Chicago on Oct 15th for the Urbanathlon on the 16th.  We were a little scared about the 7.5 hour drive since our car has been giving us so many (expensive) problems.  It lasted though, and hopefully we didn’t shave off too many days of it’s life.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in the West Loop, which was a nice short walk to the starting line.  when we got to our room, it was a 2 double bed suite.  Whenever something is not as it should be, I let Kallie be in charge.  I’m too nice and just suck it up and take the hand I was dealt.  Kallie goes to the front desk and she gets us a room with a king bed, the only “downside” is it’s a handicap room.  So, where we asked for a different room because we’re tall and need a larger bed, we got a larger bed, but the room has light switches and counters at about half-height.  The bathroom was just a big tiled room with a curtain and shower head off to the side.  I’ve never seen that before.  It was very mental hospital-ish.  Whatever though.

The race was fun, but I didn’t get the time I wanted due to muscle cramps around mile 7.  It took me nearly an hour to finish the last 2 miles.  It was frustrating and embarrassing.  I don’t know what caused them.  It wasn’t unusually cold and I should have had all the nutrients I needed.  I hadn’t had anything like that come up in my training.  When I got to the finish line, as I was jumping off the first taxi hood, my right calf cramped and I almost fell on the ground since I could use it to balance when I landed.  I also couldn’t get up over the second cab until it stopped, so I just stood there stretching and rubbing it, while all these bystanders looked at me.  Ugh.  I think the picture to the left sums it up pretty well.  Even after the race, just sitting on the ground drinking water, my muscle was cramping.  Ridiculous.  Nothing I could do about it though, and I raised a bunch of money for the Living Ministry, so it wasn’t about me, it was a race for the ministry.  Now it was time to have a great weekend in Chicago with my wife.

So we were going to meet up with Kallie’s cousin, Julia, for lunch.  Julia was thinking a place called “The Girl and The Goat” (check out my review) but they were only open for dinner.  She also had to work, so that limited our time.  What we decided to do was Kallie and I would go to eat dinner, then come see a show, where Julia worked, and then we’d get drinks afterward with her.  I’ll tell you more in the reviews of the restaurant and the play “Detroit” at the Steppenwolf theatre (review here), but to sum it up, we had an awesome day.  So great.  We couldn’t have planned it better ourselves.  THANKS, Julia!  Sunday morning we got some fruit sushi / frushi at Orange before heading out for home.  We had eaten there last year and thought it was so good that we made a point to go back this year.  If you’re in the Chicago area, I’d recommend it.