For what reason?

I'm an Obama supporter - I voted for him and would consider voting for him again. While I'm not on board with 100% of his policies, I agree with the majority of them. I also find his level of engagement with the people to be refreshing. He came into the office at a very hard time and has tons of work ahead, but I think he is making progress. With that said, given today's news that he is now a Nobel Laureate, I have to ask, WHY???

What exactly did he do in the first month of office that made him worthy of the nomination for this honor? Was it the masterful use of Twitter and other web technologies that won him this prize? Perhaps all the plans and ideas he pontificated upon during his campaign run were SO GOOD that they alone were deserving?

• 1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines & Jody Williams "for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines"
• 1993 - Nelson Mandela & Frederik Willem de Klerk "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa"
• 1964 - Martin Luther King, Jr. "Leader of "Southern Christian Leadership Conference""
• 1962 - Linus Carl Pauling "for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing"
• 2009 - Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." [via Twitter]

I think perhaps we are lowering our standards - or maybe the Nobel Committee just needed a couple extra followers on Twitter?

I'd like to point out that GANDHI didn't get a peace prize. Gandhi did express some displeasure this morning via a hasty tweet reading "This is totally bogus man http://bit.ly/8UFk6". He of course quickly took it down.

Anything remotely resembling a fact in the post was taken from wikipedia. If you don't like wikipedia - leave

Shazam!

I have an app installed on my iPhone called Shazam, it made news when it debuted some 2 years (or more?) ago. Basically, you hit a button in the app and it beings recording audio. In a store and want to know what that song is? QUICK SHAZAM! Holy sweet mother of 1990's I REMEMBER THIS SONG - wait what was it called again? SHAZAM!

We don't really use it all that often, but I was looking through it today and thought it would make an amusing listen for our readers (or lack thereof).

There is likely a more effective method of linking these.. I'll work on that, but for the time being, here they are. Don't laugh too hard.

P.S. Two One of the songs I couldn't find right away in some free - legal - streameable - format I'll add them if I find them it somewhere

EDIT: Post redone with a less annoying method for linking the songs woo!

EDIT 2016: Yea those things are long gone, removed broken links and fixed a typo.

Sears Fail

csfail

630-924-8801 10:26AM, 10:47AM, 10:53AM, 2:01PM, 2:20PM, 2:27PM 7,4,4,5,5,17 Minutes 800-732-7747 10:32AM, 10:44AM 8,12 Minutes

800-341-2517 2:06PM, 2:30PM 13,10 Minutes

The above is my dutifully transcribed history of my 85 minutes back and forth with Sears this morning. Is it confusing? Seem ridiculous? It is.

Some background, we bought new appliances at the beginning of July (the impetus for out spending freeze). The fridge was 1/4 of a inch too wide... so we bought a second fridge. Sears was great for this, they credited the old one, delivered the new one all was well. Except that the 2nd fridge didn't match our appliances, despite our having asked specifically that question.

As such, we returned that one too and ended up getting one from Abt. We coordinated the pickup and dropoff and everything went fairly well. The only issue is that the sears folks thought they were picking up the FIRST fridge... AGAIN, however we straightened that out and off we went.

I've been diligently checking my credit card waiting for the credit on this second fridge. I called once the first week, twice last week, only to be told each time that it was 7-14 business days before I would see the credit. I kept asking if everything looked ok, they kept saying yes.

Well, this morning I called and they told me something new, 7-10 business days, call the store they will have to issue credit everything appears to be fine. Called store, they tell me to call their delivery group - only they can issue the credit, call delivery - call the store, only they can issue credit. SIGH. I attempt my standard tactic in this situation. The dreaded conference call. The store doesn't pick up this time, I leave a message.

Three hours later, no one has called. The whole process begins again. I try for the conference call... again. The guy in the store actually chuckled when I ask him if I could do the conference. HE LAUGHED AT A CUSTOMER. Well done.

Finally I had both parties of the same company on the phone. They commenced with the arguing, with each other. back and forth for about 10 minutes they asked who and why and how. Eventually the store relented and said they would be crediting my card. However, he 'knows' corporate policy and this is NOT it [I roll my eyes] just give me my money.

Just to add insult to injury - we paid a portion of this with a check. I'm told I have to come in to retrieve my $250 bucks. After work I trek in and ask the manager "any manager will be able to help you". She has no idea what I'm talking about. Great. "Go over to appliances, I wasn't told about this" off I go. I stand there waiting - manager wanders over t oan employee who had just finished ignoring me for a solid 4 minutes - he knows nothing. Another manager wanders over - OH HE KNOWS - he just doesn't remember where it is.

Another 5 minutes of waiting and I had my envelope and was practically running out of the store.

If I hadn't called, I wouldn't have received credit. If any ONE person I spoke to in previous weeks had even BOTHERED to look at anything on the account they would have been able to see something was amiss.

I won't be buying anything more from Sears any time soon.