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Money That Isn't, Quite
May. 27th, 2014 06:11 pmI won a $50 gift card for Amazon.com in a sweepstakes over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to spending it.
Because of the event, I decided to look at a bunch of quasi-gift cards I received from car dealerships for GoShoppingMall.com and selectyourgifts.com (which are one and the same company!) that I've had for years. They're still "good" because I hadn't "spent" them.
The business model of American Sales Industries is kind of hard to grasp. You can't exactly buy direct from them like a normal retailer...you have to have been issued a prize card, usually from a car dealership sales event or some other such promotion. The dollar amount shown on the card doesn't mean an actual cash value: it's quasi-credit for inflated prices on the catalog of items, whose actual retail value matches the "shipping and handling" fees, which the consumer has to pay out of pocket (the prize amount then only sets a limit on what you can buy, but doesn't go towards buying anything!). So to actually get "$500" of use out of a prize card, you'd have to spend probably $50 to $100 of real money yourself.
So what's in the catalog? Basically the same kind of stuff you find in the tourist-trap stores like Golden Eagle and Lily's...but not as many of them. Steak knives. Travel mugs. Little tool sets you can keep in your car. Chintzy jewelery and cheap watches. Tote bags and gunny sacks. Obsolete electronics and software.
In theory, my "$1550" in collected quasi-credit would get me 38 of their RC model cars. But I'd have to spend about $645 in real money for the shipping and handling. That's why I haven't used the cards yet.
Nor do I like smartphones, for that matter. But for some reason this promo (for a network I can't get!) appeals to me. *shrug*
A Word From Our Sponsor
Mar. 26th, 2012 08:09 pmAn official anime TV commercial for Tokyo Disneyland. Has otakudom come full circle? Your thoughts.
It Takes Money To Make Money
Oct. 3rd, 2011 03:54 pmIf I had the funds, I probably would have done it.
PS: After I wrote the above, I did a websearch and found evidence of loads of dissatisfied former clients, mainly people who paid money up front and for whom SWLLC never delivered what was promised. Thanks but NO THANKS.
Insufficently Sequitur
Sep. 12th, 2011 12:49 am
Filched from one of the support sites for Honda's Facebook contest a couple months back.
Tuesday's Blog...TODAY!
Jul. 29th, 2011 12:52 pmRemember the scene in MINORITY REPORT when Tom Cruise's character is in the clothier and the store knows him on sight? Well, I had a more insidious concept then and there. What if subliminal devices outside a store were rigged so if you looked at somebody you saw them wearing an advertisement for that store? Of course, the other person might not be aware of being in the advertising business. With THAT thought I checked and made sure I was still wearing a USF shirt!
The night after, I had a may-or-may-not-be-related dream that in my mail, I got a little pamphlet that an Artificial Intelligence had generated. What it had done was trace my entire existance that it could find in public records and over the Internet, and with that data had made a syllogistic examination of who I was. There was a lot on information that was new to me and it all made sense.
I have this weird feeling that some companies already have this capability to so microscopify a person's reality with such accuracy, but are keeping the technology a secret. Governments would not have it, or else they'd be rounding up all the world's terrorists and criminals with it at the forefront of their efforts.
Blast From The Past
Jun. 19th, 2011 09:42 pmSince the current version of the "Nacy L. Courey's Age-Dated" beer can is in a Black and Gold color scheme, any race car livery based upon it would likely resemble the livery seen in this commercial for Miller Genuine Draft and Rusty Wallace's NASCAR Cup campaign. Bobby Rahal was the parallel contender in CART/IRL at the time.
A Little Mystery Solved
Jun. 18th, 2011 11:45 pmhttp://www.theearlhayspress.com/index.html
You'd have to be about my age or older to understand.
It's all about product placement. The rules were a little different in movies and TV prior to the 1980s. The studios used to have to pay and pay big money to include branded products on screen. So instead of doing that, they'd hire somebody, the above link for a very big example, to fake it.
The "Nacy L. Courey's" beer can was an unintended icon of the late Seventies/early Eighties dramedy show. I have no idea where it first appeared, but it appeared frequently on The Rockford Files and Eight Is Enough and a lot of other genre shows.
Now the world has reversed; companies compete with one another to appear in big movies, and now, when a studio does a fake like this it's more likely for satirical intent. But it's still enough to keep The Earl Hay's Press open and busy.
Now I want to design a race car livery celebrating Courey's Age-Dated Beer. After I do one for Schleppo, of course.
Sizes And Prices Of Toys--Continued
May. 14th, 2011 12:14 amMy obsessions take me a variety of places. As said, I'm more of a wanna-be gamer than an actual one. And more of an idea guy than an implementer.
Because of the slowness and bugginess of dialup, sometimes I'll use the computers at the Public Library if I need higher speed connectivity. Madden NFL Superstars on Facebook is a current obsession, and so I did half an hour of that at the Library today. 30 Minutes is a standard block of user time there...if they're busy it is all the staff will allow.
After that, I went to a Dollar store to try out an idea related to the Carrera slot cars I'd been thinking about getting into. They have cheap toy cars roughly the same scale as the slot car hardware, so after I took measurements of a Carrera car (at the Knoxville IPMS meet site Tuesday) I compared my measurement notes and a ruler to the specimen cars on the shelves. I soon found out that while they were close, I'd still have to somehow "stretch" the toy car's body in both length and width to get it to fit over the Carrera hardware, and the result would look somewhat like this:
Not that it isn't far from my original idea, but not exactly what I'm going for either. I have more rumination to do.
(German) Words From A Sponsor
Apr. 12th, 2011 11:27 pmInterested because the hobby store where the model club meets has a Carrera Digital 132 league going as well. I doubt I'll get involved but I like exploring the possibilities.
A Word From A Sponsor
Mar. 28th, 2011 02:20 amMoonshine is a rebadged Toyota, who also builds Lexus...so if I really dolled up my car and made it all luxurious, I could rebadge it as a Lexus and nobody would care.
So whose driving did I find MOST impressive, you ask. Simona De Silvestro, that's who. I'm now a fan of hers after her fourth-place finish at the St. Pete Grand Prix.
Ban advertising for prescription medicines from broadcast TV. Cable would be okay, just not broadcast.
Rage Against The (SPAM) Machine
Aug. 14th, 2010 12:43 amIn the meantime, I threw a new signature on my account. I repeat my "Dadah Means DEATH" line from my User Info here and go on to say that I don't approve of on-line medicine commerce. Messages that come from me with a sales pitch should be pitched.
I hope this irritates the spammer and he decides to move on to greener pastures.
But I want to counter-attack him more directly. Wish I knew how.
I Feel Violated
Aug. 7th, 2010 10:29 pmMy apologies to anyone who received the spam message.
PS: A somewhat silver lining...found out which entries of my Contact List were obsolete and cleaned them out. *shrug*
Facts Of Varying Uselessness
Jul. 19th, 2010 11:42 pm* * *
General Admission to the upcoming Jefferson County Fair is $12. Except for the night of Tuesday, August 3rd, when it is only $10.
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My buddy Paul "salvaged" signage from the now-closed Jefferson City Blockbuster Video location today. Now Kermit The Frog from the Children's Department is at a place of honor above his jukebox. Dunno what he's going to do with the other pieces he got.
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Rather Manor now has air conditioning. Dad got a window unit for the living room over the weekend. We aren't using it a lot, tho'.
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I removed someone from my Friends on Facebook because they said something really stupid and politically divisive, and I didn't feel like they were worth me reading their other posts. I expect I'll be doing things like that a lot this year.
The Primary in Tennessee is in a week and the attack ads are flooding the TV. I won't be voting because all the races being decided are for THAT OTHER PARTY. I hate living in a one-party state.
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I never realized how much I missed the Sumo coverage on NHK's News (from Japan, of course!). The PBS World station airs NHK at 5PM weekdays, and this week the Nagoya Basho is getting really interesting.
