Monday, August 27, 2007

Odd Thought

Every time someone in government gets squeezed out of their job or quits to try and avoid prosecution, they say, "I'm resigning so I can spend more time with my family." You notice how you never see them, when they get the job in the first place, say "I'm taking this job so I can spend less time with my family"?

• Posted at 7:40 PM · LINK

Groo 4 U

The first issue of Groo in a long time will be coming out on September 5. You can see a preview of it over here. Please note how Sergio is drawing the new, skinnier me.

• Posted at 6:56 PM · LINK

Note To Self: Never Shop Radio Shack

I have a new reason to never go near a Radio Shack store. This is in addition to the old and sufficient-in-itself reason that they rarely employ anyone who knows the first thing about electronics or radios or even shacks. I cannot recall the last time I asked a question in one of those places and got anything resembling a correct answer. I usually get back blank stares and I often have to explain the products to the salespeople. But there's this new reason, which is that I've realized how all-fired stupid I always wind up feeling after I go into one.

Last week, my mother needed something that would be most efficiently purchased at a Radio Shack that was adjacent to a store I was patronizing anyway. The transaction would not involve any technical knowledge on the part of the staff so I thought it would be okay. Are you beginning to see the rumblings of my stupidity yet? Wait. You're about to view it in all its glory. I went in, found the item and was handing my Visa card to the guy when he asked, "Do you have a Radio Shack discount card?" I said no. He asked if I wanted one. In Pavlovian response, I said yes. I have a zillion discount cards...too many to even carry in my wallet. I have a little case of them in my car and when I go somewhere, I take in the appropriate card. And note please that these are discount cards we're talking about here, not credit cards. I assumed what the Radio Shack employee was offering me was a discount card because that is what he called it. More stupidity — on his part for saying it and mine for assuming this guy knew the difference.

Next thing I knew, he handed me a form to sign that began with words like, "I acknowledge that I have read and will abide by the terms of this agreement..." Showing a smidgen of common sense but not much more than that, I turned to the man and asked (a) what agreement? and (b) is this a credit card?

He told me they were all out of the agreement but, "It just says that you will make the payments."

I asked him, "Have you read this agreement?"

He said no, but that's what it says. I told him that I was not going to sign any document that said I'd read and would abide by the terms of an agreement that I hadn't seen, as summarized to me by someone who hadn't seen it either. Furthermore, I said, I did not want a credit card from them. "Okay," he said and he tore up the form he'd asked me to sign, whereupon I left with my purchase, feeling a bit stupid but not as stupid as I did about an hour ago. That's when my new Citibank Radio Shack credit card arrived in the mail. I guess he used my Visa card somehow to get all the necessary information because they not only had my home address but my social security number and other personal info, as well.

I phoned the service number on the back of the card. After a very long wait on hold, a polite lady apologized profusely and told me she had just cancelled the account and that I could destroy the card. Fine...but I shouldn't have had to waste twenty minutes of my life to cancel a credit card I never wanted.

For some reason, I decided to waste a bit more and phoned the Radio Shack in question. The manager apologized about eighteen times and said, "Yes, it is a credit card and the salesman should have made that clear to you before signing you up." I asked him about the agreements that people have to sign and he admitted that they'd been out of them for some time. People, he said, are still signing up for the cards even though they have to sign that they've read and will honor an agreement they haven't read. I guess you have to be pretty stupid to shop at a Radio Shack. Not quite as stupid as you have to be to work in one...but close.

• Posted at 2:18 PM · LINK

On the Button

So there's this story about Walt Disney that is often told; that when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Walt wore a little Goldwater button to the ceremony. He was supporting L.B.J.'s opponent and this was his way of tweaking the president or showing lack of support or something. Back in this post, I joined historian Michael Barrier in expressing skepticism that it happened. I think we're all correct to be skeptical about anecdotes that cast Walt Disney in a rude or negative light but this one seems to have actually occurred. In this essay, Barrier delves deep into the matter and decides that the reports are essentially true. It still seems like a childish and silly thing for Walt to have done but I guess he did that childish and silly thing.

P.S. The Snopes website, which is usually one-stop-shopping when it comes to knocking down urban legends and spurious Internet reports, doesn't believe the story. I'll bet they change the listing now that Barrier has come around.

• Posted at 12:43 PM · LINK

Monday Morning

An imagined conversation...

ALBERTO GONZALES: George, it looks like this is it. I'm probably going to be indicted and even a lot of prominent Republicans in Congress are ready to call for my resignation or impeachment. I think I oughta quit.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, sure looks that way, Gonzy. So what do you think would be a good time?

GONZALES: I dunno. I was thinking I'd wait until Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both in reruns for a couple weeks.

BUSH: Good idea. But what will you do? How will you earn a living?

GONZALES: Oh, don't worry about me. There's a lot of call out there for maniacally distorting the legal process to protect every stupid or crooked thing your boss does. In fact, I hear there's more money than ever to be made from lying in the public sector.

• Posted at 9:03 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

You probably won't want to watch this whole video clip now — it's 55 minutes — but I wanted to mention that the folks behind The Charlie Rose Show are putting whole episodes up on YouTube and Google Video for free viewing. This one is an hour with Stephen Sondheim and some of his collaborators but there are plenty of others, including conversations with Jon Stewart, Bette Midler, Jerry Lewis, Jay Leno, Jack Lemmon, Charles Schulz and many others. Here's the Sondheim show but like I said, you probably won't want to watch all of it now.

• Posted at 12:11 AM · LINK

August 28, 2007 • Current • August 26, 2007