Rebate rant

Somewhere, a Radio Shack employee is laughing at a lazy customer.

He’s laughing because the customer thought his 1 GB SanDisk memory card cost $14.99. That’s how much the price tag said. But really, the customer needed to shell out $24.99. That extra $10 would soon enter a black hole of bills—a whirlpool of wealth that belongs to no one. A purgatory of prosperity where all cash is up for grabs.

The world of the rebate.

Radio Shack employee: Is it fair to make people sell their souls in order to stop $10 from being robbed from their pockets? Is it fair to bank on customers’ laziness, forgetfulness or stupidity? Is it fair that you can afford the $10 extra to upgrade your lunch from Burger King to Panera because of a customer’s busy work schedule? I’ve got questions. Do you have answers?

It’s as if I bought a Chocolate Iced Kreme Filled Krispy Kreme doughnut that was advertised as being 250 calories. The fine print: The doughnut is 250 calories after you go to the gym and work off the extra 100 calories on the elliptical machine.

I was planning on not filling out my rebate form. I was going to write about how Radio Shack stole my money because I did not have time to undergo the arduous process. I was going to begin this blog entry by saying, “A Radio Shack employee stole my money.”

But that would be letting the rebate terrorists win.

I am taking a stand. I am filling out the rebate form. I will get my $10 back. And then I will spend it at Best Buy, just to kind of kick Radio Shack when they’re down. Wait…you say Best Buy does rebates, too? What is this world coming to?

In the amount of time it took me to write this blog entry, fill out the form, cut out the bar code, find an envelope and stamp and find a mailbox, I probably could have earned three times the amount of my rebate at my job. But that’s not the point. It’s the principle.

If the Radio Shack employees and the SanDisk manufacturers think they can cheat me out of my hard-earned cash, then they are mistaken.

An envelope with my rebate form, receipt and product bar code must be postmarked by 4/30/07 and mailed to Young America, Minn, according to my rebate form.

Oh, Radio Shack—you thought you fooled me, but at the last minute, I pulled through.

NU: Pls tell us ur jk

I had originally meant this to be a blog post, so even though it was published yesterday in THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN (!!!), I’ll link to it here.

Read all about a funny e-mail that was sent to all Northwestern students and my thoughts about using “teen speak” here.

War on Wars

We clashed with cocaine in the War on Drugs. We wrestled with wrongdoers in the War on Crime. We hunted down homelessness in the War on Poverty. And now, we’re battling bin Laden in the War on Terror.

Seriously, America, what’s with all the fighting?

I wouldn’t call myself a hippie. I have no “Make love, not war” bumper sticker. I don’t burn lingerie.

But today, I am putting my foot down.

The fighting needs to stop. The wars are causing too many casualties. I am waving the white flag. The wars will come to an end!

The War on Drugs will smoke its last puff. The War on Crime will take its last shot. The War on Poverty will spend its last dime. The War on Terror will make its last sacrifice.

I am henceforth declaring the period beginning now as the War on Wars.

Yes, we need to get rid of drugs, crime, poverty and terror. But we have doctors, sociologists and politicians who can do this. Do we really need to bring in the National Guard to take drugs away from an addict? Are soldiers and commanding officers necessary to give jobs to the homeless?

No. We need to bring a peaceful atmosphere to this country. Yes, it’s important to be “tough on crime,” but why must we be so morbid? This War on Terror: Basically, we don’t like it when people die, so we’re killing to stop the dying? How is that logical?

Want to get rid of poverty? Increase job and housing availability. To reduce crime, make policing more effective. Against terrorism? Improve dialogues between cultures. Make positive role models and good rehabilitation programs your anti-drug.

Together, we can kill the killers. Oops, that’s the War on Terror’s job. Together, we can kill the killers of the killers.

If you believe wars are bad, join my army. The army to end all armies. The soldiers who will destroy all soldiers.

The War on Wars.

If you’re Anti-War, you’re pro-War on Wars. I want YOU to join this army.

There is a house in New Orleans…

The amount of work that has not been accomplished in the past year and a half is astounding.

Last week, I described the process of rebuilding one man’s home. But that was just one house in a city where thousands are homeless.

In New Orleans, we worked with our hands to begin to rebuild. But equally important was the work we did with our eyes and with our cameras.

Any words I write will not do justice to the images of broken houses, so I will show you some of what I saw in New Orleans.

See the pictures. Take them in. Go there. Rebuild.