The Stew

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is a funny film. At least I think it is. I only managed to get about 45 minutes into it before my Blu-ray player sounded like it was grinding corn for the day’s tortillas.

Lo and  behold, upon inspecting the disc, a crack near the edge. So I used the handy “Report a Problem” link on the Netflix site, and they’re sending me out a new one tomorrow. End of story, right?

Well, it would be, except that this happened to me two weeks ago with a copy of “Hancock.” The replacement Netflix sent out worked fine, so I managed to finish watching that one. (It was about half of really good movie, but that’s a story for a different blog post.) I didn’t think anything of it at the time — but now that it’s happened to me twice, I had to use the Google to find out if something is amiss.

Sure enough, there are plenty of annecdotes about cracked Blu-rays from Netflix. When pressed, Netflix apparently blames the Post Office for mishandling the discs. The Post Office apparently blames Netflix for using crappy paper envelopes for shipping the discs. They’re probably both right. All I know is that it’s enough of an inconvenience that the missus thinks I should drop Blu-rays and only order regular DVDs from Netflix. Cooler heads prevailed, but Netflix should take note: Since you’re charging extra for these things, you should probably find a way to have them delivered properly.

Edit (04/21/09): Replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked.

Edit (04/24/09): Replacement of replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked. Netflix customer service gave me a Post Office number and basically told me to bitch to them.

Edit (04/28/09): Replacement of replacement copy of replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked. I’ve switched to DVD-only. If anyone knows how to contact Netflix executives to express displeasure, please let me know.

Edit (04/29/09): I thought I was going to get a DVD, but my Blu-ray subscription runs through the end of the month. So they sent me another cracked Blu-ray.

Edit (05/02/09): Another day, another cracked copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal.” This time, I didn’t ask for a replacement.

Quick — can you spot my left anterior descending artery in the first image? No? That’s because it was nearly completely blocked at the time. After doctors inserted a couple of tiny plastic/metal mesh thingys, it popped open as shown in the second image.

I had a heart attack. At 39. Unexpected, to say the least. I figured it out early enough and went to a hospital close enough that doctors say I shouldn’t suffer any permanent damage.

I’m pretty much back the way I was before, minus about 12 pounds and with a notable lack of bacon in my life. Most days go by and I don’t even think about it. Other days, I think about it as the life-changing experience that it actually was.

So anyway, if I haven’t been updating here very often lately, it’s because of this.

Substantively, the first McCain-Obama debate was a wash. Anti-intellectual conservatives can bitch and moan about how Obama sounded like he was full of “book learnin’” while McCain had experience — but that’s only going to fly for the faithful. Similarly, Obama just hasn’t been to the places or had the experiences McCain has had. Even if you feel McCain has drawn the wrong conclusion from those experiences, he still had them. Only partisans won’t admit that.

The faithful remained faithful after the debate. I saw some polling that Republicans thought McCain won by 90%-10%, while Democrats thought Obama won by 93%-7%.

It’s the undecideds — or the “willfully ignorant,” as I’ve heard them called — who will decide this thing. They looked at the unsubstantial stuff — the body language, the temperament, etc. They broke something like 1.5-1 or 2-1 thinking that Obama won, depending on which news outlet’s polls you’re looking at. Obama definitely came across as presidential, seemed to know generally what he was talking about, and didn’t make a major gaffe or take a major punch. Considering that he was ahead going into this thing, a tie does McCain no good — especially since the topic of the debate, foreign policy, was supposed to be his strongest area.

You can read stuff like that on any of a few thousand blogs. Here’s something that people aren’t talking much about, but I guarantee you will become big by the time the Sunday shows come on: Where was Sarah Palin?

Joe Biden was on every network (save ABC, who wouldn’t have him on because they couldn’t find Palin), talking about how well his candidate did and how badly the other candidate did. You’d expect Palin would have been the counterpoint, but she was conspicuous in her absence. Extremely conspicuous.

Some CNN viewers, so conditioned by the GOP to see media bias under every rock and behind every tree, emailed Wolf Blitzer to ask him why they talked to Biden but didn’t talk to Palin. He basically answered that he had yelled “Olly olly oxen free,” but she hadn’t shown up yet.

If you don’t trust that your number 2 can go on the air and say nice things about you, what else don’t you trust her with?

Check out the first headline under the “Also on MSN” header to the right. I won’t belabor the same point I made a few months ago about the media’s inability to handle any of the serious matters that concern the country in this election year.

I’ve got to really stretch my imagination to picture what the pitch meeting for that story looked like. And I wonder, if the reporter didn’t have anything to do with the idea, whether he or she died a little bit inside while writing it. I know I would have.

It also makes one wonder about the stories that didn’t make the cut that day:

• Use biorhythms to pick your living room color
• How a divining rod can help your choose your next career
• Plan your next meal psychically
• Nostradamus has prophesied your next boyfriend

We’re going to have a hard time explaining this to future generations.

Our mayor is taking part in this national push by municipalities to get people to ditch bottled water for tap water. It’s better for the environment, it’s cheaper, blah blah blah.

Only problem is that our tap water is damn near undrinkable right now. It’s truly foul. It smells nearly as bad as it tastes. A shower leaves you feeling dirtier than when got in.

Our refrigerator pitcher has provided no relief, which has led us to… buy bottled water. We bought a gallon jug of the cheap stuff, not that Aquafina/Dasani nonsense, but there’s a plastic jug in my fridge that wouldn’t normally be there.

Having nasty tap water at the exact same time your mayor is urging you to drink tap water — that’s ironic, and not in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word.

So I decided that I wanted one of these: a Nissan Altima. I was originally going to go with the 3.5L V6 — but with gas prices creeping ever higher, I decided to go with the 2.5L V4 instead, since it gets better mileage. As a bonus, it’s also several thousand cheaper.

I did the same thing before buying this car that I did before I bought my previous car in 2000: I visited CarBuyingTips.com. I think the site hasn’t been redesigned since 2000, but it doesn’t matter — it’s the best collection of stuff to arm yourself against shady practices that you’re likely to find.

Good thing I did, too, because I had a pretty bad expereince at one dealership.

Let me back up a second. I have the benefit of living in a fairly large town, so there are seven Nissan dealers within easy driving distance from me. Wielding the power of the Web, I set those seven dealers competing against each other for my business. Four responded in ways that went beyond simple form emails.

One salesperson really stood out — it was obvious he wanted my business. I visited that dealership first, and test drove the car there. I told the guy that I had at least three other dealerships to visit before I made a decision. He was cool with it. I figured I’d end up giving him my business.

Due to a busy summer schedule, coupled with the fact that car dealerships aren’t open on Sunday for some asinine reason, I didn’t get to make it to another dealer before I decided to go back and get a firm quote. He hemmed an hawed when I asked him for the best price he could give me — he wanted me to make an offer first. So I did. Based on the research I’d done, and bearing in mind that the dealership was in business to make some cash, I made a perfectly reasonable offer. He said he’d take it to his manager.

He disappears. About 10 minutes later, he finally comes back. “Good news,” he says, “we can get you in that car for $420 a month.” I told him that I’m not buying a car payment, I’m buying a car — and I want to know how much the car costs. He disappears for another five minutes and returns with his sales manager.

The conversation with the manager started off nice enough. The sales manager recognized the company logo on the polo shirt I was wearing (it was from a previous employer) and he actually knew something about the company. After some chitchat, we got back to the car — which is where it all started going downhill.

I asked how much they were willing to reduce the price. He said that he’d give me a “VIP” discount, which was still nearly $900 more than I had said I wanted to pay. I thanked him for the information and said that I would consider their offer.

That’s when he basically laid into me. I was stealing food from the mouths of his children; I was treating him and the salesperson as a “price check” and that was a crappy thing to do, etc. It went on for a few minutes, and when it was obvious that he wasn’t going to browbeat me into buying the car, he got up and left like he was bored with the conversation. I thanked the salesperson for his time and I left — in a really bad mood.

I had another appointment that day at another dealership, and I wasn’t looking forward to it after what had happened. I went anyway.

The experience couldn’t have been more different. The salesperson walked with me to check out the inventory on the lot, then we went back to her office to discuss the deal. I asked her what the best deal she could offer — and I expected her to run off to a sales manager somewhere for a half hour or so. Instead, she punched a few numbers on a calculator, then turned the calculator so I could see the number.

It was about $50 cheaper than what I told the other dealership I wanted to pay. I told her to put a “sold” sticker on the car.

In less time than I had to wait for the other guy to get his sales manager, I had bought a car. I can’t recommend this dealership enough. For those of you interested, it’s Kline Nissan in Maplewood. Ask for Terry Jo.

I won’t mention the name of the other dealership. I don’t want to give them any publicity, good or bad.

Since Best Buy changed their Reward Zone program for the worse, I’ve been shopping at Amazon.com a lot more. Since I’m cheap, I like to use their free shipping option when I can, which utilizes the United States Postal Service as a carrier.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried tracking a package at the USPS site, but I’ve found it to be little more than a joke. There are plenty of times when the site will say that there’s no shipping information yet, but please check back at night because that’s apparently when the USPS likes to do its paperwork. You can check back to your heart’s content, but every now and then there will be absolutely no tracking information available even on the day that the package shows up on your doorstep.

Even in cases when they actually decide that there really is shipping information, it can be spotty at best. Check out the picture above and you’ll see that Amazon told the USPS to come get my copy of Casino Royale on Blu-ray on April 15. Instead of picking up the package, it was magically transported to St. Paul on the 19th. On the 21st, it showed up at my door.

Compare that tracking information to what you usually get from UPS, and it’s night and day. UPS will let you know when the package was picked up, when it entered their processing facility, when it left their processing facility, when it ended up at another processing facility, when it left that processing facility, when it got on a truck and when it was left on your doorstep. It’s more of what you’d expect when you “track” a package.

So imagine my surprise when the slackers at UPS decided to hand off my Lounge Brigade CD to the USPS for final delivery. The top two thirds of this graphic shows the usual UPS thoroughness — but check out the bottom third. Granted, the USPS only had to move the package within a single city, but that’s a lot more information than I usually get out of them. Too bad I had to go to the UPS site to get it.