Author: Muttrox

I liked this innovation. Each product has a digital pricetag. That way all the prices can be updated automatically. I assume it is integrated with the cash register technology so that it always scans the right price. I’ve heard this is done in some places in the USA, but I’ve never seen it. A further idea is to automatically update the price based on market conditions. CVS headquarters could increase the price of some products because it’s a hot day, or it’s rush hour, or a competitor just opened up, etc.

Rick Sanchez got fired for anti-semitic comments. His sins appear to be:

• Saying Jon Stewart was bigoted. Which he later amended to “prejudicial”. He claimed the Stewart is bigoted towards people that aren’t from his wealthy suburban background.
• Saying that even though Latinos and Jews are both minorities, they are worlds apart in terms of their relative power.

I’m not sure I agree, but both of those are reasonable points. Neither seems particular bigoted to me.

(I can’t find the full transcript, but the first part is here, and the full video is here.)

Jon Stewart should be laying into CNN for their actions. It is sad that they don’t see a distinction between talking about minorities, discrimination, and power, and actual bigotry. Getting outraged about things like this takes away from outrage when truly bad things occur.

This picture is really just to annoy my Dad. Yup, the French still think Noam CHomsk is all that and a side of imperialism.

Germany has finally finished paying off World War I reparations

The Goodfellas guys reminisce, 20 years later.

The US Treasury has turned a healthy profit from the Citibank bailout. Total cost of TARP program approaching zero.

Court Hijinx

Ouch

Growing up

That’s what friends are for

This guys obituary is going to be awkward

Watermelon to the face

Maps of Europe by stereotypes

Together forever

Funny Iphone configuration

That’s not gravel, that’s dead fish

How to Rock

Allright, that is impressive

Kurt Vonnegut posters

Ultimate combover

Internal footage of a cruise ship in very stormy seas

The party

How to climb a transmission antenna. I get vertigo just watching.

This receipt from a brasserie (restaurant) points out one of the oddities of French economics. Coke is a luxury item. Their marketing and sales team is on the ball. A regular Coke with dinner costs 3.70 euros, a little over $4. Notice that the beer costs only one dime more.

We found five comic book stores within a few blocks of each other. I particularly liked this one that specialized in Tintin. We got a Tintin notebook for one of the kids.

Here are the two facts that most surprised us:

• The bloodline of Louis XIV is still alive. We assumed they had all been killed off. Not so, there are many descendants. They are the equivalent of Americans descending from George Washington. It’s an interesting thing to know about someone, and that’s it.
• Storekeepers can only have sales at two times during the year.

The second was the more shocking of the two. We happened to be there during the spring sale (that’s the “soldes” sign from the last post). They simply can’t have a sale at any other times during the year, by law. That’s just crazy. How on earth can a shopkeeper compete? Maybe that’s why every store and every restaurant looked the same – they are legally constrained from differentiating themselves. (That’s just a theory. I would think that if your prices have to stay the same, the only way to get more business is to differentiate yourself in some other way, yet no one does. Culture or Law, I wonder which.)

That’s real socialism in action.

They sure make them big in France.

Allright, so Muttroxia is a little backed up! Our trip to France was 3 months ago, but we’re finally sorting things out now. Sadly, our journal, a work of art, so very literary and insightful and humorous and… well, it doesn’t matter because everything after page 4 got lost somehow. We’re pretty sure our daughter put them down the toilet.

We do have the photos though. For the next couple weeks, Muttroxia will feature photographs of odd little things that struck me as interesting. Allons-y!

One of the perils of suburbia is Mrs. Muttrox getting invitations to things like Bunco (some people think this is a game of skill) and even Tupperware parties. I can’t believe these things still exist. It feels like something from the Mad Men days. I imagine it is hard to sell the stuff. I mean, I can buy plastic bins at the supermarket, ya know? One clever parent combined the sales schtick with a get-to-know-you of our childs class.

This part of the invitation just killed me.

Dads and children are invited to play outside and enjoy the slip n slide while moms mingle and see the newest in reusable products.

I don’t know which is funnier: That Dads are seen as boisterous morons who will be delighted to be exiled to the slip n’ slide, or the prhase “newest in reusable products”.

(or at least the fairly well-to-do middle-class)

I missed a couple payments on my credit card. I called up and asked them to take off the late fees and interest charged. Sir, were there any special circumstances? No, I just don’t want those charges. OK sir, let me see what I can do. 2 minutes of silence, and then, “Thank you sir, those charges have been removed is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Why on earth does this work? Because I have been with them for 21 years, and I have a good credit score and enough money that they want to keep me as a customer. They think it’s worth refunding me that money to keep my business.

The crazy part is, I’m a terrible customer for them! I haven’t paid any fees to them for the last 15 years! Whenever they get me with something, I call them and they take it off. They don’t make a dime off of me. They just keep extending me short-term loans (that’s what credit is). Free money!