For a Fistful of Dollars

Welcome to the new Dollar Tree of Marshalltown, Iowa. 'Bucky' the Dollar Tree mascot was at the Grand Opening on Thursday.

  The Long John Silver’s restaurant in Marshalltown closed last year. The building remained abandoned until this summer when it was demolished. The lot was repaved, a new foundation was poured, and a new building quickly started taking shape. I was hoping it would be an Olive Garden but we soon found out the new building was going to be the new home of the Dollar Tree which was going to be moving from its current tiny location buried next to the closed Staples store, the closed Econo Foods store, and a nail salon.

  I love all dollar stores and the Dollar Tree is the best of class in that particular department. It has a steady supply of closeouts, bargains, not so top quality merchandise, and top quality merchandise in tiny portions. Two months ago the old Dollar Tree stopped restocking their shelves and moving their remaining inventory to the front of the store. I went there to get some dollar store items as bribes for my chess club at St. Francis and the pickings were getting pretty slim. The Dollar Tree clerks told me that the new store was going to open in December and they were running a skeleton staff until then.

  Last week the grand opening of the new Dollar Tree was announced for Thursday December 10th. I happened to have the day off in order to get some warranty work done on my car so Kathy and I took a trip to the new Dollar Tree. The parking lot was so full that we had to park in the bank across the street but the new Dollar Tree was so roomy that once we were inside it didn’t seem crowded at all.

  The old Dollar Tree was very tiny with five aisles with a counter with two registers. The new store was massive by comparison with five registers, ten aisles, and coolers for cold and frozen food. Kathy and I inspected each aisle. There was the same Dollar Tree merchandise just a lot more of it. One entire wall consisted of gift bags with different holiday sayings in different holiday colors. While the old store had room for a few cans of vegetables the new store has an entire section of canned vegetables.

In addition to name brand cereal knock-offs, the new Dollar Tree has an impressive selection of canned vegetables at 79 cents a can which may or may not be a bargain.

  The vegetables highlight one of the things to keep in mind when Dollar Tree shopping – just because an item is a dollar or less doesn’t mean it’s a bargain. A can of Libby’s green beans may seem like a great price at 79 cents a can but many supermarkets regularly beat that price. The other thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of name brand imitations. A cursory glance found a ‘Just For Men’ knockoff as well as items purporting to be cheese and sour cream but were really fakes made of mostly vegetable oil. I saw a can of what looked like frozen orange juice. Closer inspection revealed that it contained ‘10% juice when properly reconstituted’.

The Dollar Tree has it's share of knockoffs some of which are disguised more than others. On the left is just FOR MEN hair color not JUST FOR MEN. The item in the center looks like cheese but is really 'sandwich slices'. At least the SOURCREME on the right is clearly labeled as UNREAL...

  While the savvy shopper needs to be aware of ripoffs at the Dollar Tree there are plenty of bargains. A tube of name brand toothpaste for a buck is a good deal. I also saw brooms for a dollar which could only be bad if it snapped in half on the first use.

There is some top quality merchandise at The Dollar Tree. The toothpaste for a buck seems like a bargain and would be especially useful if you fail the marijuana test.

  Kathy and I did most of our shopping in the new frozen and cold food section of the Dollar Tree. There were plenty of frozen dinners for a dollar as well as overpriced chicken pot pies. I noticed that eggs were a dollar for a half dozen. I got a meatball hot pocket and a berry pot pie and Kathy got a box of six frozen pretzels.

The new Dollar Tree has room for cold and frozen food in addition to the normal fare of candy, cookies, and other junk food but the Broken Pawn does not condone the battering of mushrooms or any other fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, or poultry and strongly condemn any such actions!

  After a few impulse buys that included a pack of five basketball cards we quickly checked out and were on our way. We got home and I fired up my meatball HotPocket in the microwave while Kathy put the frozen pretzels in the oven. I’ve never had a HotPocket before and I thought it was a disgusting blend of tasteless dough, tiny tasteless meatballs, and the grossest kind of SpaghettiO's tomato sauce. I can’t imagine why they are so popular. On the other hand Kathy’s pretzels were outstanding. They were crispy on the outside, doughy on the inside and had just the right amount of salt. I had mine with mustard while Kathy had one with cheese and one with peanut butter and she liked them both. The frozen berry pie is still in the freezer and will break the food tie between the pretzels and disgusting meatball HotPocket.

After selecting our purchases we were able to quickly checkout and were on our way!

  Despite the dubious nature of the meatball HotPocket I had a great time at the new Dollar Tree. I We only spent $7.21 for our seven items and my five basketball cards included all-stars Chris Bosh, Draymond Green, and Demarre Carroll. Visiting the Dollar Tree isn't going to be on my weekly to-do list but I will be a more frequent visitor to the new store than the old one.

  My 3-2 mark in NBA games on Friday netted me $80 which would have made for a nice Dollar Tree spending spree. I got extremely lucky when Pelicans missed a last second free throw to allow the Wizards to cover the spread and was very unlucky when the Timberwolves blew a second half 16 point lead against the Nuggets. Friday's result puts my record at 18-12-1 with $480 in mythical winnings. As usual, tonight's picks will be using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only with mythical wagers of $110 per game to win $100.

My computer likes four of tonight's 10 games. I will take the Pistons getting 2 at home against the Clippers, the visiting Raptors getting 5 at the struggling Indiana Pacers, the Wizards getting 4 on the road against the Memphis Grizzlies (who played in Miami last night), and the Trailblazers getting three in New Orleans against the Pelicans.

A Turkey of a Deal

  Three weeks ago, I predicted that Viswanathan Anand would retain his world chess championship over the youthful world #1 Magnus Carlsen in a close match decided by tiebreakers and said I’d love to make a bet on Anand getting two games. It’s a good thing no one took me up on the bet since Carlsen easily defeated Anand 3-0 with 7 draws. Anand had a chance to draw first blood in game 3 but couldn’t get the win and was outplayed in game 5 and a blunder in game 6 sealed his fate. Carlsen will be a great World Champion and having a youthful champion from Europe making millions of dollars just from endorsements will give chess a more popular footing in the mainstream media at least temporarily. I’ll know the boost has staying power and chess is really mainstream when a search for ‘Magnus Carlsen’ on TMZ turns up more than news about Will Ferrell’s son Magnus and some titillating details of Boy George and his male escort from 2008 (Don't believe me? Click this and check for yourself). My prediction of the match had solid reasoning behind it but was as wrong as wrong can be. Unfortunately for me, another plan of mine went so wrong this week it made my world championship prediction look like psychic wizardry!

  Last month I got a phone call from a company wanting me to take part in a brief survey about the air quality in my home. I took the survey in the hopes of being able to pull some sort of phone pranks like I did last year but the questions were pretty vanilla and there wasn’t even a sales pitch to go along with it. Two weeks ago I got a phone call from the FiltroPur air purifiication company thanking me for taking part in the survey and offering me a home demonstration of their fine air purification products and in return for my time I’d get a $100 gas card! I liked the idea of getting $100 for an hour’s non-work so I scheduled the demonstration for Monday since I was taking Thanksgiving week off from work.

Meet Sandra, the FiltroPur demo lady and her laser particle counter which told me I had a quarter million particles per cubic foot of air in my house!

  I forgot all about the demonstration until yesterday when I get a reminder call from the company. The reminder person asked if ‘my wonderful wife’ was going to be part of the demo. Kathy wanted no part of the demonstration and quickly made plans to take Ben (home from college for Thanksgiving week) out shopping. I told the reminder person that while my wonderful wife wouldn’t be at the demo, my two beagles would attend and likely be active participants.

  The demo was scheduled for 1:00 and at 1:30 I got a call from Sandra the demo lady to let me know that she was at the front door (for inquiring minds, yes I do have a doorbell). I turned off the rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger I was watching and let Sandra and her two large cases in the house. Daisy and Baxter barked and howled for a few minutes at this intrusion but quickly calmed down and settled down to watch the demo with me.

  Sandra exchanged some pleasantries with Daisy and Baxter and myself and then got right down to business. She sent up a couple of test balloons by asking if anyone in the house smoked or had allergies which I parried by answering no. Sandra was ready for that and launched into a talk about how the air inside houses is more polluted than the air outside the home. The she plugged in a laser particle counter which told me there were a quarter of a million particles of different kinds in every cubic foot of air in my house. I assumed it was a high number because of the dogs, cats, birds, and rabbits but Sandra said that the number was low and that some of the houses have half a million particles per cubic foot. Sandra started talking about all the different kinds of particles in the house. I must have flinched when she mentioned dust mites because she stopped listing the different particles and mentioned how nasty dust mites were and that morning breath and tired eye were caused by inhaling dust mites overnight and having them land around my eyes and start crawling inside. Dust mites must be a pretty common ‘flinch’ line because Sandra had a picture of dust mites enlarged over 1,000 times and showed off her knowledge of dust mite trivia by telling us that dust mites defecate 20 times a day, a fact which impressed Daisy and Baxter greatly.

Daisy and Baxter inspect the FiltroPur SFS air purifier and Commercial vacuum cleaner

  I was thoroughly disgusted by the thought of breathing in all these dust mites and having them defecating on my eyeballs while I was sleeping and considering building myself a bubble to live out the rest of my days when Sanda told me that FiltroPur had a solution – The FiltroPur SFS (Sanitizing Filtration System). What looked like a cheap plastic air cleaner that was sold at Wal-Mart for $59 was really a hospital grade FDA approved particle remover that could clean 1000 cubic feet in just a few minutes with a very fancy looking metallic filter and a lifetime warranty that was valid as long as you purchased a $129 filter every year. Sandra proceeded to plug in the laser particle counter again and put it right next to the SFS which registered less than 1000 particles per cubic foot!

  I asked how much the SFS cost not so I could buy one but so I could say I couldn’t afford it and get my gas card but Sandra said she couldn’t tell me the price until she showed me two other products. One was the Enviro-Breeze furnace filter that would make the air coming out of my furnace super clean and only cost $149 and never need replacing and the other was the FiltroPur Commercial vacuum cleaner which Sandra demonstrated by vacuuming dirt through a filter using every one of the eight attachments that came with the machine and then pulling out the filter.

  Once Sandra had finally finished with all the air purification and vacuuming, it was finally time for the prices. The SFS and the Commercial cost $1899 each BUT I could buy three of the units for the price of two ($3798) and four for the low, low price of $5048 that was good only during Sandra’s visit.

Only $3,780 for three units with easy payment options...(Click any picture to enlarge)

  Despite the sales pitch, I still wasn’t buying any air filtration products so Sandra played her final card and showed me the three easy payment options for the $3798 two unit package. There was the ‘Budget’ plan where you pay $4,789 over 3 years, the ‘Economy’ plan where you pay $4,624 over 2 years, and the ‘Executive’ plan which costs $4,348 over 1 year. I noticed that there was no plan that allowed for a cash payment so I offered up the ‘Buffett’ plan where you can pay the full price right away. Sandra said she would bring that idea to her bosses and offered to let me pay the full price right away. I declined and Sandra packed up the SFS, the Enviro-Breeze, and the Commercial and put them all back into her car and returned with my $100 gas card.

  Except it wasn’t a $100 gas card. It was a card that had a registration form that I had to fill out and mail in and THEN after 8 to 10 weeks I’ll get a voucher for $10 dollars that I have to mail in with a gas receipt to get a check AND THEN I can mail away for another voucher and EVEN THEN I can only redeem one voucher every 30 days. So it will take over a year to get my $100 in free gas if nothing gets lost in the mail.

When is a $100 gas card not a $100 gas card? When it is a card offering 10 $10 gas vouchers with 19 rules and regulations. It was enough to make these turkeys happy that Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

  I’ll spend some time filling out all the forms in an attempt to get my free gas, but it was wrong of FiltroPur to tell me I’d be getting a $100 gas card when I was really getting a registration card for a voucher system. And I was wrong not to ask for the card up front before wasting my time listening to Sandra talk about clean air and filtration and breathing dust mites in my sleep. I made it clear on the phone and during the demo that I wasn’t going to be buying any air filtration products and now I know that the only reason FiltroPur sent a sales representative was that they weren’t going to be giving me a gas card either. But know that I know this scam, the next time Filtropur calls, things will be different.

In this scene from classic movie 'The Punisher', our hero Frank Castle liberates the ill-gotten gains from the company that preys on the innocents that host air-filtration demonstrations in the expectation of getting a $100 gas card only to be given phony instructions for time-wasting vouchers....

One For The Thumb

On the left is my 2013 Chevy Spark which barely needs half a parking space but believe it or not has four doors. On the right is car salesman Chris in front of some larger vehicles.

  In November I wrote about my visit to Clemons Chevrolet in Marshalltown when I not only won a $5 Wal-Mart gift card, but also received a tour of all the new GM cars none of which cost under $16,600 (NOT including tax, title, and license fees). Between then and now, my trusty Kia Rio passed the 95,000 mile mark, which prompted me to start looking for a new car a couple of months ago without waiting for cheap gimmicks in the mail to lure me in to a car dealership.

  On January 2nd, 2010 I made an Internet inquiry for an inexpensive car at seven in the morning. Within an hour Des Moines Imports had emailed me an outstanding offer for a stripped down Kia Rio and I drove to Des Moines that morning and bought the car after a quick test drive. The car has been in a word OUTSTANDING. All I do is get the oil and tires changed and the Kia Rio has never left me stranded, unlike my Chevy Aveo (clutch), Geo Metro (Dashboard), and Chevy Cavalier (engine sensors).

  With a track record like that, it was a no brainer for me to call Des Moines Imports and ask them if they had a stripped down Kia Rio for me, but the salesman told me they didn’t have any. That led me to request Internet quotes like I did in 2009, but the lowest price I could find was a $14,800 for a Kia Soul. That was so close to the list price that I felt I could keep on looking. 2 weeks ago I did another Internet search for a car, but this time instead of a Kia, I requested a quote for the cheapest GM car, the Chevy Spark.

  Why would I pick another Chevrolet car after I just recounted the times I’d been left stranded? Well, I was hoping I’d have thousands of reasons and besides, Ben is still driving the Aveo (95,000 miles), Matt is still driving the Cavalier (110,000 miles) and our 2004 Chevy Venture is still running good at 85,000 miles so it’s not like the cars are lemons – they just had some problems and the crummy GM service (as recounted here) made me want to look elsewhere for a car.

  I got an email from the Jon the Internet Sales representative from Bob Brown, the same dealer I had purchased my five Chevrolet cars from. Instead of getting a quote, I got a sales pitch asking me if I was familiar with the ‘programmable 7-inch diagonal touch screen’. I wrote back to Jon telling him that I was interested in a low price and not spending time being upsold and that if we had to discuss ‘7-inch diagonal touch screens’, I wouldn’t be getting a car from Bob Brown.

If you want a car that costs more than the Gross National Product of some countries, this Camaro has just had it's price reduced to a economical $64,250! I think they had to lower the price to make up for the fact that this Camaro has merely half the doors my Chevy Spark has.

  The next day I got an email back from the Internet salesperson getting down to brass tacks. He said the dealer would have to trade with another dealer for the car and asked me what options I wanted. I told him I wanted a radio. It seems that Gonzalo from Clemons Chevrolet was right last November when he said that power windows and air conditioning were standard on all Chevy vehicles. The only Sparks the dealer could get all had power windows and air conditioning, but he did manage to find one with a manual transmission and I got a few hundred dollars off the price for having all the extra equipment.

  The Friday before last we had our last chess club at St. Francis. I drove from club to the dealer, met Chris the salesman, test drove the car, and signed all the paperwork. Chris didn’t try to upsell me, but the finance guy tried to sell me a rust proof package. I said no and when he asked me why I told him that of all the Chevy vehicles I ever bought the only one that rusted out was the one I bought the package for but it didn’t rust out until the rust proof warranty expired. With all the power windows and power steering and power brakes, I did get the extended warranty and I hope they’ll honor it if I ever have to use it. I did mention my problems with the Aveo’s clutch not being covered under the ‘bumper-to-bumper’ warranty and also that the incident was featured prominently in my ‘award-winning blog’ so maybe if I have future problems I can get a little extra consideration.

The $43,000 electric Chevy Volt will save you almost $7,000 in fuel over five years.
Not the kind of green I was expecting.

  I decided to leave the car on the lot for a week and last Saturday, Kathy drove me down to the dealer and I picked up the car as I had arranged. Chris the car salesman was writing up a sale of a used car, but as soon as he was done arranged for my car to be washed before I left. While I was waiting I took a look around at some of the new cars on the showroom. There was a Camaro that had a retail price of $66,020 but was on sale for only $64,250. I assume they were marketing the car to the rare people suffering from a split personality disorder that would case someone to spend SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS on a car but only if they could save $1,800 first. There was also a Volt Electric car (despite the name, the Spark is a gasoline only car). The Volt costs $43,000. Assuming an average mileage of 32 miles per gallon for the Spark (27 city, 37 highway), I could expect to buy 3,125 gallons of gas over 100,000 miles. If I paid an AVERAGE of 5 dollars a gallon, 3,125 gallons would cost me $15,625 which would be about half the price difference between the two cars. I didn’t count any ‘green’ tax rebates but I also didn’t count the cost of charging the Volt’s battery ($3 a charge) or any gas I’d have to buy when I exceeded the 40 mile range of the batteries. I also looked at a $55,000 SUV which was really a $47,000 SUV with the optional Luxury Package that included heated seats and a rear seat entertainment system. I thought a $47,000 vehicle wouldn't leave any luxuries to be desired but I thought wrong.

If the base $47,000 Tahoe does not have enough luxury (even with four doors!),
don't fret - this $55,000 model comes with an optional luxury package including heated seats!

 
Monster truck to go...

  I was looking at a $55,000 Silverado Truck that had a base price of $41,000 but was tricked out with a $14,000 package that made it look like a monster truck when Chris the car salesman told me my car was ready but he wasn’t allowed to let me leave until I activated the six month free OnStar feature of my new car. The OnStar is a magic genie or a civil liberty nightmare that can give directions, call for assistance, allow for hands free calling, perform diagnostics, or even unlock my car in case I get locked out (if I had power locks). OnStar knows where you are at all times and I don’t doubt for a second that it can't listen to your conversations and someday it will be able to take video of you while driving. I pushed the little blue ‘O’ button and was greeted by a robotic voice asking me if I wanted to activate my OnStar trial by code or by talking to an attendant. I repeatedly said I wanted to talk to an attendant, Chris repeatedly said I wanted to talk to an attendant, but the automaton voice kept telling us it could not understand our response and repeated the question. After two minutes, the automated voice told us to please wait for an attendant.

  Once I was waiting for an attendant, Chris’s job was done. We said our goodbyes and I headed a few miles away to the Half Price Book Store. About halfway to the bookstore, Brenda the OnStar attendant started talking to me through my car’s speaker system. Brenda took my name and information, activated my account, told me about all the things OnStar could do for me (like call an ambulance in case of an accident), and tried to sell me some OnStar phone minutes. I only had one question for Brenda which was if it took over five minutes to get ahold of someone to activate my account, how long would it take to get ahold of someone in an emergency situation. Brenda proceeded to tell me that the emergency division was much better staffed than the activation division. I felt better hearing that since I don’t know how to swim and while I was waiting for Brenda I had a vision of being swept away in a raging flood and calling OnStar as my tiny car quickly filled with river water only to be told by the friendly automaton voice to please wait for the next available emergency technician and that my call was VERY important to them. Brenda then tried to sell me more phone minutes at which point I arrived at Half-Price Books and bid Brenda and OnStar goodbye.

I can open or close every window in my Spark with my left hand. On the right is a convenient beef stick tray. Both are standard options on the 2013 Chevy Spark without the need to buy an additional luxury package.

  After my side trip to Half-Price books, I headed back home. There was an auxiliary sound jack so I could plug in my amazing iPod and listen to music from my Rhapsody app. The sound in the car was really good and the only problem I had on the ride home was when the car started vibrating like crazy on the highway. After a little trial and error I realized that when I was playing with the power windows I had opened the window on the rear passenger door which caused the intense vibrations. Interestingly enough, my tiny Aveo had the same problem. I closed the window and had a smooth ride home.

  I’m sure people will ask me how I like my car and when they do I’ll tell them what I always say : ‘Ask me in a couple of years’. I will say now that the Kia Rio was the best car I’ve ever owned and will make a dependable backup for any of the other four cars we have. If anyone had ever told me that I would someday own five cars I would have said they were nuts but here I am with five cars. As I got home and parked my white Spark right behind my white Kia Rio and took a picture of both of them, a guy with a truck and a trailer pulled up and asked me ‘How do you like that electric car?’ and when I told him it wasn’t an electric car he said ‘Then why do they call it a Spark? Because it’s so tiny?’

The 2009 Kia Rio (l) and the Chevy Spark. Welcome to Marshalltown, Chevy Spark!
You have a tough act to follow.

Must See TV

  On Thanksgiving weekend, I was planning on getting a new TV for the family. Wal-Mart always has good deals on TV’s for the Black Friday weekend and I was planning on heading out on Thanksgiving night to pick one up.

  That was the plan, but the massive bowl of vanilla ice cream, berries, and pound cake I had for dinner after our Thanksgiving lunch had other ideas. I passed out in a sugar induced coma around 6 and when I regained consciousness at 9:30, I figured the TV I had was just fine and went back to sleep.

  I woke up on Friday nice and early and Kathy and I took Daisy and Baxter out for their beef stick treats. There were even more specials for TV’s and laptops on Friday at Staples, Wal-Mart, and K-Mart but I was too lazy to head out to wait in line for 2 or 3 hours and wasn’t that interested in a new TV anymore.

  My dad was a TV repairman for RCA from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. This was when a television was such a big investment that people would buy annual service contracts to have repairmen come to their house whenever the TV stopped working to have the bewildering array of tubes and wires replaced or sometimes even to climb up on the roof to fix an antennae. Drug stores used to have giant tube tester machines for the do-it-yourselfers with a large stock of tubes on hand.

  Just like most auto repairmen have old cars that they can keep in good working order, we used to have older, smaller black and white televisions that people would throw out or trade in. We didn’t have a color TV until the mid-1970’s, when my brother bought one. When he moved out of the house, he took the TV with him and it was back to discarded black and white televisions, only these had solid state circuit boards instead of tubes. Once TV’s went away from tubes, traveling repairmen were hardly needed because when a TV broke they were now light enough to be taken to a repair facility.

  When I moved to Florida in 1985, I got my first color TV and I still have it today. It was around 20 inches diagonal and was plenty big at the time. While the kids have had smaller TV’s, the main family TV has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. We used my grandfather’s 25 inch console TV when he passed away. That TV broke and 6 years ago we got a 35 inch television to replace it. It was our first HD television, but since we don’t have digital cable, the only high definition television we see come from DVDs.

  On Friday afternoon I got an email from Staples letting me know that their Black Friday deals were good throughout the entire afternoon so I decided to take a look at their circular. They had a laptop nearly as good as the one I was going to get Kathy so we took a trip to Staples to get it. Staples was fairly deserted and not out of any of their Black Friday deals so we picked up the computer within 10 minutes and headed across the street to see what was going on at Wal-Mart.

  When I went to the Wal-Mart, there was a Salvation Army bell ringer at the front door and I didn’t give him any money because I’m saving my Salvation Army money for 3 weeks from now when I’ll be spending the day bell ringing. The Wal-Mart was more packed and much better picked through than the Staples, but right out front was 4 of the TV’s I was planning on getting the night before. We walked around the store, picked up a few items, and on the way out decided to get the TV. After paying for the TV, we walked it past the Salvation Army bell ringer to the car. Normally Kathy drives when we go out, but on this day we decided to take my car. This turned out to be a big problem when we discovered the TV would not fit in the back seat of my Kia Rio. It was just too big. We carried the TV back into the Wal-Mart (past the same bell ringer) and I sat on the bench by the entrance with the TV while Kathy drove my car back home and came to get me (and the TV) with the minivan.

  It was interesting sitting in the Wal-Mart entrance with this TV box that was almost as big as I was. Most people just ignored me, some looked at me with what I think was a look of admiration (‘what a big TV’), while others looked at me with a look of indignation (‘look at the show-off sitting in the entrance with his TV’), and still others with a look of disgust (‘what a tiny TV’ or ‘HA! He probably couldn’t fit the TV into his car’). One old guy in a super scooter asked me if my car had broken down and chuckled at me when I told him how the car couldn’t hold the TV.

  Finally, Kathy drove up and I passed the Salvation Army bell ringer for the fourth and last time and we put the TV in the minivan and drive home. I don't even want to know what the bell ringer thought of me after I went by him four times without dropping anything in his bucket.

  Matt was unimpressed with the 51 inch TV because he said everyone he knows has one at least that size. I can’t argue with that because I see a gigantic TV in almost every window that we walk Daisy and Baxter past. Matt also said that television shows wouldn’t look good because we only have regular cable TV and not the high definition cable or satellite dish.

  Matt’s opinions notwithstanding, I’m pretty impressed with the new TV. We watched the Avengers DVD last night and I thought it looked great. The Law & Order: Criminal Intent marathon on WGN also looked pretty good to me.

  I know that as far as big TVs go, this one is bottom shelf, but I’m impressed that I have a high definition TV that wouldn’t fit in my car when I think of the little black & white televisions I had growing up. And I learned something I didn’t know before. Now I understand why so many people have SUV’s and pickup trucks - so they can get their giant TV’s home. The only think still puzzling me is how the cavemen got their giant TV’s back to their caves from the Wal-Mart before the wheel was invented.

Ring out the old..ring in the new.

WINNER!

  I took three days off this week and along with having Thanksgiving and the day after off this will be my second week off this year. My last week off was spent in New Jersey but this week I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but relax and take lots of walks with Baxter and Daisy for beef stick treats.

A winning scatch off ticket led to a midweek trip to Clemons Chevrolet in beautiful southern Marshalltown...

  This vacation came at a great time for another reason. Last week in the mail, I received a notice from the local Clemons Chevrolet dealer that I may have won a prize. All I had to do was to scratch the number off the ad and if it matched, I would definitely win one of the prizes. I scratched the number off and what do you know, the numbers matched and I was a WINNER!! All I had to do was go to the dealership and pick up my prize and since I had the week off I didn’t even have to spend any of my weekend to do it.

  Now that Clemons Chevrolet of Marshalltown, Iowa had certified me as a WINNER, it was time to find out what I’d won. According to the large print on the ad, I could have won $10,000 in cash (or a used car), a Wal-Mart gift card worth from $5 to $2500 dollars, a new iPhone, or a $100 Visa gift card. Then I looked at the smaller print. There were 45 thousand prizes in total, 44,996 $5 dollar Wal-Mart gift cards and one each of the $10,000(or used car), $2500 Wal-Mart gift card, iPhone, or $100 Visa gift card. Long odds, but somebody had to win the ten grand, so why not me? I had until Tuesday to pick up my prize and decided so I decided that would be the day I’d get it.

...but not before a side trip for Broaster chicken at Haley's grocery!

  I decided to have an early celebration of my being declared a WINNER so after taking Daisy and Baxter to the Kum & Go for beef stick treats, Kathy and I stopped at Haley’s to pick up a ten piece pack of broaster chicken. It may have been luck or the people at Haley’s knew I was coming, but as soon as I came to the deli counter, there was a giant bowl of fresh broaster chicken waiting for me. The deli lady put 10 pieces in a box, I paid my 11.74 at the counter, and had no trouble getting Daisy and Baxter to hurry home and help me eat some broaster chicken. I got home and checked out the chicken.Would I get a mutant chicken that was all wings and legs or a complete chicken with 2 wings, legs, thighs, and breasts in addition to the two bonus pieces? . The answer was somewhere in between: 3 legs, 3 wings, 3 thighs, and 1 breast. Obviously a genetically modified chicken bred to be a track star. I can say that the chicken may not have been Olympic quality on the track, but on my dinner plate it was worthy of a gold medal.

Gary from Georgia on the left, Gonzalo the car salesman on the right.

  After days of anticipation, Tuesday finally came and I was on my way to Clemons Chevrolet to pick up my prize. I was greeted by Gary from Georgia. Gary took my name, address, and phone number. He also asked me if I wanted to buy a car today. I said I might be interested depending on what kind of prize I won. Gary told me that I won the $5 Wal-Mart gift card, but that I was very, very close to the number that was the $10,000 winner. The winning numbers were on a poster in the dealership and Gary told me that I probably lived only a few blocks from the grand prize winner.

  After taking my information, Gary walked me to the used car lot and left me there to wander around while he got my $5 Wal-Mart gift card. While I was looking at the cars, a man came up to me and asked if he could help me with a car. His name was Gonzalo and he was the car salesman. Gonzalo tried to sell me a new car but lost some interest when I asked him for the cheapest new car he had. The cheapest car on the lot was a $16,600 car called the Sonic. I told him I wasn’t interested in a $16,600 car and tried to see if we could cut some costs. I asked Gonzalo if I could get the Sonic with a stick shift and he showed me one that cost $16,800. Gonzalo told me how nice the Sonic was and that it had cruise control, power locks, and power windows. I asked Gonzalo if I could get a car without all that stuff and he said that those features were standard on Chevrolet cars. I then asked Gonzalo if the car had air conditioning and he told me that it did so I asked if he had any cars on the lot without air conditioning. Then Gonzalo told me that air conditioning was a standard feature on Chevrolet cars.

  At this point I realized that the Chevrolet brand had passed me by and was starting to get depressed, but then Gary came by with my $5 Wal-Mart gift card. This brightened my spirits and I said good bye to Gonzalo, Gary, and Clemons Chevrolet and headed home.

If you only have a $1 Wal-Mart gift card, I hope you like sugar and water.

  Last night, Kathy and I went to the Wal-Mart to spend my $5 gift card. I walked all around the store trying to decide what to get. I’ve been buying coconut juice with pulp at the local Asian Grocery store lately so I thought I might get a few cans, but to my dismay the Wal-Mart only carries flavored coconut water and no coconut juice.

  At the Wal-Mart, most items that aren’t food cost more than five dollars, so after a quick pass through the store, I concentrated my shopping search in the food department. Even a little brick of Velveeta cost more than five dollars. I was going to get a half gallon quart and a half of ice cream but Kathy said we already had some at home so I settled on getting a pound of frozen berries to go along with my ice cream. I had a little more than a dollar left so I got 3 tangerines. We got to the register and the total was $5.32. I used my gift card (which I was happy to see worked), fished the 32 cents from my pocket and we were on my way.

A $5 dollar gift card doesn't go as far as it used to. If you want some Velveeta you'll need at least a $6 gift card. If someone on your Christmas wants to get themselves 'Buty Pant' a $10 gift-card won't do the trick.

  It was good to be a WINNER for a change. The berries and ice cream will taste great on Thanksgiving if I can hold out that long. I would rather have won the 200 MILLION dollar Powerball jackpot, but we all have to start somewhere.

What WINNING looks like!

See Food

What's more offensive? The frog legs themselves or the fact that they are a product of China yet the freezer holding them proclaims it contains 'Delectable seafood from Southern Louisiana'! Is there deception afoot or has China purchased Louisiana?

  Almost every Saturday I don’t have a chess tournament, I go on an expedition with Kathy to the Salvation Army Thrift Store, the Goodwill Store, and occasionally the Jonathan House thrift store that benefits an orphanage in Sierra Leone. Kathy looks for Christmas candles to add to her collection (700+ and counting) and I just poke around looking at the old books, movies, and music.

  The merchandise from the Goodwill comes to them in a big truck, but the Jonathon House and Salvation Army take donated merchandise from town and sell it in their stores. Every once in a while one of the stores will have a box of music or books that haven’t been put on their shelves yet. Last week I saw a big box of records at the Jonathon House. They were all country music records from the 1960’s and 1970’s. The first record was a Roy Clark album recorded live from the old Austin City Limits TV show (You may remember Roy Clark as one of the guitar playing jokesters on Hee-Haw) and right behind it were country music records from many of the stars of the time. Once at the Salvation Army I saw an entire box of records of easy listening music. Robert Goulet, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, etc…

  Vinyl records are part of a long-ago past (although they are making a comeback of sorts). These records were likely dropped off by the family of someone who had died or had been committed to a nursing home. I often wonder what the owner of a box of 8-track tapes or records would think of them sitting on sale in a thrift store for pennies on the dollars. I have over a thousand records from my younger days and I can’t imagine giving them away even though I haven’t listened to any of them in at least ten years. Some of my records have collectible value (picture discs, 45 picture sleeves, etc.) and I even have the Rolling Stones album ‘Some Girls’ with the original cover that had to be replaced when they were sued by many of the celebrities who graced the original cover without permission. But the fact is anyone who wants my records probably just has to outlive me and then head to the nearest thrift store a few weeks later.

  In between going to the thrift stores we went to the Hy-Vee grocery store to pick up a birthday cake for Ben, who turned 17 on Saturday. After picking up the cake, we walked through the store and there was a freezer labeled as a ‘Cajun Fest’, containing all sorts of goodies from the Bayou. My curiosity was piqued and I wandered over to the freezer.

 
Alligator...eww

  The freezer had all sorts of odd meats. I saw breaded catfish, crawfish, catfish nuggets, alligator, and frog legs. I’m not much of a fish eater. The thought of eating catfish and crawfish doesn’t whet my appetite. The idea of reducing the alligator population appealed to me somewhat, but I didn’t enjoy the alligator dinner I had in July so passed on that. Besides, the alligator patty packages mentioned that the alligators were farm raised and having seen Planet of The Apes, I didn’t want to support the idea of some farm raising all these alligators who may escape and take over the world someday.

  That left the frog legs. Kathy had never seen frog legs in a supermarket meat case before and was completely disgusted by the sight of them. I had a plate of fried frog legs in Syracuse at a chess tournament almost 30 years ago and as I recall, they were fairly tasty. I’m no frog expert, but these looked to be very muscular frogs and the thought crossed my mind that they may have been genetically modified. I felt kind of sorry for the poor frogs. They had obviously grown to a healthy size only to be unceremoniously (Maybe there was a ceremony – I wasn’t there) chopped in half, skinned, and wrapped in plastic as part of a Cajun food display. Despite that, I was still thinking about getting the frog legs but then I saw the three magic words – PRODUCT OF CHINA. That did it for me. I decided to make a stand for truth, justice, and the American Way and passed on the frog legs. Shame on Hy-Vee for pitching Chinese frog legs in a freezer meant to celebrate Cajun foods from Southern Louisiana.

 
Frostbitten Strawberries!

  After we left the Hy-Vee, we made our way south to the Goodwill store and then headed back home, making our final stop at the Hy-Vee Drug Store. The store used to be called Drug Town, but I think they had to change the name when the new to town drug dealers would head there to restock.

  Not only is the Hy-Vee Drug Store a full service pharmacy, it also has a post office, sells lottery tickets, and sells regular food as well as close out food from the Hy-Vee supermarkets. Last year I wrote about how I got apple juice for $1.16 a gallon and 15 stick packs of Wrigley gum for 44 cents there. Every week when we get to the Hy-Vee Drug store, we walk around the store and I always make sure to see how much frost has accumulated on the ancient containers of frozen strawberries.

Paydirt!

  As we walked through the store, there was a big display of Chicken of the Sea Coastal Cuisine at the end of one aisle. It is a box with a sealed pouch of rice and a sealed pouch of Tuna mixed with one of four flavors (Tuna in a Teriyaki Sauce, Tuna in Tomato Herb Sauce, Tuna in a Ginger Sauce, and Tuna in a Light Pineapple Sauce). I’d purchased the Pineapple Sauce variety the week before and not only did it taste good, it only took two minutes to make, and best of all only cost a dollar!

  I love a bargain and at a dollar for each meal of 400 to 500 calories, this certainly qualified. I bought eight boxes of Coastal Cuisine, making sure to get some of every coastal flavor. Even though they are a ‘Product of Thailand’, they’re labeled as ‘Coastal Cuisine’ which at least sounds international and not pretending to be from the Bayou.

You don't have to take my word for how easy Chicken of the Sea Coastal Cuisine tastes or how easy it is to prepare. You can see for yourself!