Monthly Archive for February, 2011

Page 5 of 6

10 Things I Would Not Do for a 10% Discount

Published on February 9, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 0 Comments Tags: 10% Discount, Freebies.

Well I am about to pass masonry. What a load.

Just like that post title: Whuck? Shouldn’t it be 10 Things I WOULD do for a 50% Discount? Well, maybe.

GiftCardGranny spammed me with this list of discounts available for people of a certain age or older.

Read this and see if you don’t puke with their oversell:

Thankfully, there are also plenty of financial perks that come with getting older – if you know where to look. For the frugal shopper, our “golden years” offer a wealth of discounts on everything from groceries and clothing to travel and, of course, restaurants. At Gift Card Granny we’ve rounded up 136 of the best deals aimed exclusively at the senior set.

As I scrolled through the list, they are all (well, 92% at least) are for Ten Friggin’ Percent Off.

10%.

Shit, sales tax is 6% in Kentucky, 7% in Tennessee places where we do most of our conspicuous consumption.

Here are ten things I would not do for a 10% discount:

Pick my nose with YOUR finger
Cross the street against the light
Yell, “Foosball” in a crowded theater
Drift using a lawn chair
File my income tax using grape juice

Birthday freebies are somewhat better - if you can wade through the massive amounts of spammy crap.

Culver’s – Free sundae as well as a few printable coupons when you first sign up
Fuddruckers – They have a Fudd Club which will w-mail you a coupon for a free 1/3 pound burger
IHOP – You’ll get a free meal when you sign up and on your birthday.
Krispy Kreme – Free half dozen glazed donuts and a coffee mug with either coffee or soda in it! You might want to sign up ahead of time.
Ruby Tuesday – Free handcrafted burger of your choice.

We Seasoned Citizens deserve more. I demand more. When it’s my birthday, I am dig out my walker and shuffle into Hooters and demand to see their best breasts – FREE.

Costa Rica Initializing: Choose 4WD and GPS and GSM

Published on February 8, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 0 Comments

I got an email funny from Gayle today which is a geezer rant about gadgets. It starts out kinda slow with the stereo-typical, I’m-a-geezer-therefore-technologically-retarded…

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

The rant rages on about GPS and Bluetooth but says Geezers are capable of handling two gadgets well: teevee remotes and garage door opener. In my case, both still give me a challenge.

It ends with a funny line:

“Paper or Plastic?” I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank, dumb-assed look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot.”

I don’t own a cell phone.

I don’t own a GPS.

I don’t own a 4 Wheel Drive car.

Any Costa Rica tourist without all of the above and knowledge of how to use them is doomed to end up in Jurassic Park with a T-Rex running up their butt.

We rented a cell phone. Seems that AT&T (Always Testy and Terrible) was going to charge Nancy $19 a minute for roaming around Costa Rica. Costa Rica’s monopoly utility ICE (Ee-say) has forced all their customers to embrace GSM, transitioning from PTSD or LSMFT or Mayberry RFD I forget which. The last few holdouts just got their free GSM 3G phones. So we made sure our rental was the GSM 3G just in case the monopoly decided to change their game plan and cause premature disconnection.

(Update: It was a 3G phone which is better than a GSM I am told.)

We rented a GPS. (OK, correction, I DO own a GPS, it came with the car, but it’s five years old and can’t be updated and doesn’t offer turn-by-turn directions in Smallburg and sure as hell can’t find a river to yak on.) I got a quick tutorial in the hotel lobby on it’s operation. Easy-peasy. And we loved it. Yes, we made a lot of U-Turns at her insistence, but she was wrong regularly at this one spot too – nobody’s perfect.

We rented a 4WD stick-shift Suzuki Jimny. What’s the female equivalent to a ball-breaker? Ovary Osterizer? Uterus Upender? I was having a blast blowing up and down the mountains throwing shifts like I was Riccardo Patrese. Nancy was not having as much fun as I. For a person who has vertigo, she didn’t complain more than 18-34 times. I was driving like a Tico.

You know what’s exciting about Costa Rica? You can be blasting up and down mountain roads listening to the tires, wife and GPS squeal and the paved road can disappear. Fer Chrissakes, our GPS would warn me of speed bumps and narrow bridges, whuck? It can’t tell when a road changes from asphalt to river bed? (See above “road.”)

When it Costa Rica, make sure you get initialized. GPS, GSM, 4WD. And wouldn’t hurt if you were packing some URL (Uterus Replacement Laces.)

Geeky Animated Gif Monday

Published on February 7, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 0 Comments Tags: Steelers Win Super Bowl.

UPDATE:

The Steelers won a football game yesterday.

(Prediction written on Sunday at 1:58 CST – you can check it out. Steelers 24, Packers 10.)

Punches were not thrown.

Too bad.

Turns out it was a pretty good game. For Packer fans.

My Friend and His Life of Ooze

Published on February 6, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 0 Comments Tags: General Motors, Uzbekistan.

Jim works for GM in Smallburg. He took a short term assignment in Uzbekistan. Yeah, I know! Generous Moters has a plant inUzbekistan.

GM holds the majority 52 per cent stake in the General Motors Powertrain Uzbekistan CJSC which will be a separate entity but run in coordination with GM Uzbekistan.

They will be building Chevy sedans there as soon as Jim and his gang get things kosher.

The new model, which is aimed at such low-priced competitors as the Renault/Dacia Logan, is known within General Motors as the Global Small Vehicle for Emerging Markets, or GSVEM. It is said to be slightly longer than the Chevrolet Spark, which went into production late last summer in Uzbekistan.

Who would have figgered? His blog is Big Jim’s UZ Adventure.

I choose ooze. You may decide duh, it’s Uhz. Whatev. Spring is springing in Uzbekistan.

The fields have the beginning of green. It rained once and cleared the air a bit. I’d say we are about 3 weeks ahead of Kentucky. Maybe even a week or so ahead of Louisiana. There will be cotton growing along the silk road soon. By the way, the traffic I hear out my window is actually on the Silk Road, connecting China and Europe. Pretty cool stuff.

What a life experience! He’s working with Kentuckians, Koreans, Uzbecks, Mexicans and Belgians.

Imagine the accents. Would love if he could record their dinner table conversations! Especially where a boss chewed out a waiter for not having lamb chops.

Costa Rica: Street Kid Gives Me A Great Laugh

Published on February 3, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 2 Comments Tags: Costa Rica Street Kid.

Many countries have street kids. Some just are beggar kids, some are selling some junk souvenirs, many offer food while cars are stopped in traffic.

Usually they are depressing or irritating or both.

One Costa Rica street kid still brings a smile to my face with his sales pitch and attitude.

The weather was windows-down weather. We were just on the outskirts of San Jose heading to the airport to come home. I stopped at a traffic light and was first in line for the street kid.

He marched up to the car holding toward me a bag of cookies and started rattling of who-knows-what in Costa Rican.

You can’t beat a street kid, they have heard and seen it all.

When I responded, no entiendo, (I don’t understand in Spanish Spanish) he upped his volume about two levels and looked me dead in the eyes and said perfectly:

COOKIES!

What he didn’t add was:

DUMBASS!