So, what’s it like to leave a comic shop with money in your pocket?
But I’m sorry.
…
I’m so cheap, I browse the dollar bins like a vulture. And I’ve got two mini-anti-rants:
I found a small store where the owner (and sole employee, I think) has alphabetized every dollar comic. Seriously, probably five-to-ten thousand cheap comics all sorted, bagged and labelled.
He said that took years, I told him NO other store would spend the time to do that. He just smiled superiorly.
The first box I riffled through was “Impulse/Jimmy Olsen (some Kirby!)/JLA”.
Vortex Comics, Milwaukee (National and 82nd St., might technically be West Allis, WI):
…
The other is that there’s a posse of old sellers who put on a “Comic Con” (pfft, it’s really “Just a Comic Sale”), and they tour the midwest.
Most of the floor space is devoted to “50 comics for $20!” longboxes.
That’s 40¢ each! And I found plenty of Silver Age nostalgia, and an entire run of the Cassandra Cain Batgirl (2000)!
I may be re-isolating due to Covid rebound… I say bring it on, I’ve got shit to read!
This website has been intentionally kept simple. It contains no virus-like things such as javascript or flash that make other websites hard or impossible to use.
It also contains no legible text a human eye finds easy or possible to read.
The other day I ordered a cool T-shirt. This does not sound complicated. I was not expecting a freaking ordeal!
The confirmation email contained four links, all of them broken. I was finally able to go to the site directly and track the order. It shipped a few days later via DHL. Today I see that the DHL tracking site says “Exception! Assessed for duty/taxes. Check your email”.
No way this can be right. There is no duty on cross-border shipments to Canada under $150. This T-shirt did NOT cost more than $150. And who the fuck would I be paying taxes to? The shipment is still in Kentucky. What the fuck do they know about Canadian duty and taxes?
So I check my email. There is nothing there. Note that this is no longer a vendor problem,.it’s a fucking DHL problem.
So I use the DHL site to send a complaint and request clarification. I immediately get a boilerplate response apologizing for my package being late. Nothing about “complaint received, we’ll be getting back to you”. Will an actual human ever get back to me? Who knows!
If DHL ends up sending the package back, fine, at this point I’ll just ask for a chargeback from the credit card company. The deal with credit cards is basically, no product, no payment.
But we’ll see what transpires. I know that UPS is notorious for charging extortionate “brokerage fees” for packages coming from the US. If DHL is trying to pull something slimy I’m reporting them to the goddam FTC.
ETA: For all the complaints about Amazon, it’s shit like this from other vendors that make you appreciate their competence and customer service!
A month ago I asked maintenance why the lines between the tiles around my toilet were dark. Oh thats just dirt.
Nope. One of them is wet. I called emergency maintenance and he said the wax ring is at fault and it should be ok til he comes in morning.
Incident at nursing home. Bf asked me to get him cigs and lighter(he had me use his credit card). We went outside (fresh air!) by the cig garbage fixture. He smoked one, two nurses came out and said youre not allowed to smoke. The staff and visitors can. They made me hand over the pack.
I found out long term doesnt mean forever. His social worker came and said a few months is required, otherwise, they kick him out on the street. During that time, we have time to find an apt.
For those who think hes using me, he had me walk a block to a food place and get some good chicken for him and whatever I wanted(he paid). It was goood.
Followup: whether in response to my complaint or not, I did finally receive an email from DHL about the “duty/tax” charges. There is no duty, the charge is for local provincial and federal sales tax. While this is technically legit, in the vast majority of cases no one bothers, and stuff just arrives free of any extra charges. But DHL bothers. Why? So they can tack on an extra $10 “customs entry fee”, which is a small-potatoes version of the UPS “brokerage fee” extortion racket.
But the icing on the cake here? The link DHL sent for payment doesn’t fucking work!! “Server not found”.
The email says if payment isn’t received by October 1, the package will continue on its way and the collection will be done by the local carrier, Canada Post.
IOW, DHL provided negative value here – they charged courier rates, but managed only to delay the shipment and then on top of that tack on extra fees. The package would have arrived quicker and much cheaper if it had just been sent by USPS.
I’m still annoyed that my evil ex-boss stole my favorite highlighter. But she’s gone, so overall I’m much better off.
So many things are going wrong this week, I’m about to become un-chill. My credit card number got stolen, and my credit union is not being their usual helpful self. I’m taking a class that starts in two days, and the materials I need are sold out (I could order them from England, but it would probably be good to have them before the course ends in a month). I can’t pay rent because the website doesn’t work, that’s the only option for making payments, and the office people aren’t super helpful because it’s a third-party service. And I just found out that some music books I ordered should have been delivered today, but were returned to the sender because of “insufficient address”, which is weird because I put the correct, complete address in the order, and also when I log in to my post office account, this package shows up, so apparently they do have the correct address after all, so why do I not have this package in my delicate hands right now?
Grrrrrr. Just give me my books. If one more thing happens this week, I will probably go into angry bear mode.
And could someone tell autocorrect that “were” is an actual word, so please stop changing it to “we’re.” It’s very annoying.
We were idling behind a car at the Git n’ Go waiting for our turn at the gas pumps. The driver emerged from the convenience store carrying a six-pack of bottled beer, and opened the trunk of his car. Then he thought better of it and carried the six-pack up to the left rear passenger side and began stowing it on the seat.
Mrs. J. joked that he was doing that for easier access. After a minute or so he straightened up and emerged with two beer bottles in hand, got into the driver’s seat and drove off.
I know people do that kind of thing, but this was an unusually blatant display.
My gf had some doctor’s appointments yesterday. She’s a cancer survivor and had been putting off seeing her doctors.
I was a little nervous about what news she’d have to share. When I got home I asked how her appointments went. She told me she was going to have to have a colostomy. I was shocked. I immediately teared up and took her hand. I didn’t know what to say. She looked at me and said, “What? You should have one too”. She meant to say colonoscopy.
I would have taken down the license number and car description and reported it. Maybe things are more easygoing down Kentucky way, but around here, that sort of thing is taken very seriously and the cops would have been grateful for the tip.
Back to my rant about my stupid T-shirt order and DHL. In response to my second complaint, I get yet another email, this time with a correct payment link, so I paid the bloodsucking bastards the $6 in taxes and the $10 for the privilege of having them collect it (of course, on the rare occasion when the postal service collects duty and/or taxes – and they usually don’t bother except on big-ticket items – they don’t charge you extra for the privilege!).
Also got a letter of apology from DHL saying that had technical issues that led to the bad links.
I suspect the next stage in my adventure will be the package arriving with taxes still owing. At this point I am ready to assume that maximum incompetence will prevail. At least I have several pieces of paperwork showing that everything owing has been paid.
I have a question. Money is tight so using leftovers is key. The rest of the house likes breaded boneless porkchops, but I don’t like them. They are less expensive though, so I have to make due… but… what to do with the leftovers?
I’ve seen recipes where people cut off the fat on the edges, grind them up in a food processer, and make ‘burgers’ out of them. It sounds good on paper, but IRL ground up cooked pork meat has the consistency of sand.
My question is, how do you get that meat to stick together like ground beef? I’ve tried adding some cooking oil and kneading it, but it still falls apart. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Why are you trimming the fat? As I understand it, the fat is what holds a beef burger together. Although if you are grinding up already cooked meat, that might not work as well.
That’s the thing: already cooked fat & gristle won’t blend well into the meat ( some say it’s vomit inducing ). The cooked ( and then refrigerated for storage ) leftovers get incredibly dry. Granted, you can spice the ground dried meat and put it on pasta ( with tomato sauce on top ) and its a decent but heavy meal… but you can’t eat that every day. Eating it two days in a row is a lot.
I’ve discovered that if you spice the ground meat and add ground peppers, it makes an OK burrito if served with salsa. I’ve found that grinding Habaneros with Jalapenos (at a 1 to 5 ratio ) makes a nice cost effective pepper relish to mix into the meat if going that route.
Be careful of going the 2 to 5 route, as the next day you may end up “clean as a whistle”.
( This is The Pit, I can say that, right? )
