A Delivery for You...

The next few days are gonna be wild and crazy, and I ain't talking about Thanksgiving dinner and turkey shopping. Nicholas's arrival is scheduled for today, so hop on over to the Russellbaby blog and check out the details. Eric's becoming someone's daddy--scary thought, huh?!

Roses are Red, Oranges are Blue

Well, what a day in college football. Although I was a financial casualty of Vanderbilt University and can't really call myself an alumni, it's still fun to sit on the sidelines and watch. Of course, basketball is usually the only one worth watching--both the men's and women's teams seem to do pretty well. But football, well, is a whole other story. Instead of "Our football team is gonna crush yours!", Vandy's chant is more likely to be, "I bet our average ACT score is better than your team's!!" Nobody says "I'm going to Vandy to play for that storied football program" the way they probably do for Notre Dame, Florida State, Penn State, and heck, maybe even Tennessee.

Ahhh, Tennessee. The big orange. Scott's already beat me to the post about the game's results, but I thought I'd put my $.02 worth in. Heck, Steve even commented on his blog last week when he was in Rocky Top country for Memphis vs. Tennessee:

" . . .sitting around the hotel listening to Vol fans talk, I understand why we dislike them so much. They are talking to each other like they are playing the Midville School For The Gifted."

The thing is this: On Vanderbilt's campus, everybody gets psyched up for this game. I definitely got the feeling that Vandy thought of their game against Tennessee the same way Auburn thinks of Alabama or Ohio State thinks of Michigan. Maybe it's the whole "same state" thing. But nevertheless, the football programs were always so far apart, it seemed pointless to me. Yes, they were an "in-state rival", but Georgia vs. Georgia Tech it wasn't. Or ever would be, in my opinion. There would be posters around campus that said, "Crush the Orange", and then on Saturday we'd get the snot beat out of us 45-3 or something like that. My first year at Vandy, I think we were 2-9. The next year wasn't much better. So indeed it has been nice to seem them succeed this year like they have.

Then we get to today's game. Although I've never been on campus at UT, I can almost picture the tailgaters. I'm sure today's game was a "gimme". Akin to playing North Central Iowa State or Southeast Georgia College of Culinary Arts. I'm sure it was all euphoric and easy going and almost coceited--as if they didn't have to "get up" for this game because, after all, it was just Vandy. No nervousness. No "Gee, I hope we can pull this out" feeling. No inkling of fear that they'd be on the short side of the scoreboard.

Congratulations, Vandy. I know that Nashville is rocking tonight (or at least, a certain perimeter of city blocks off of West End and 21st). Former students and alumni everywhere, especially those who live in Tennessee and/or experience obnoxious Vols fans on a daily basis, have been waiting on this day for quite some time. Enjoy your bragging rights until next November.

Light My Fire

Just a quick shout-out (and ringing endorsement) to the folks over at GrillLovers.com. It seems that I needed a part for my gas grill. After a quick glance of the parts list in the owner's manual, I went looking and my friend Google fetched this site. The part was reasonably priced and they charged me 5 or 6 bucks shipping. I ordered it Wednesday night, so go ahead and assume that the order was actually processed on Thursday. On Saturday morning, FedEx Ground delivered my part to my doorstep.

So if you need burners or igniters or other parts for your grill, there you go. They have my stamp of approval, which means absolutely nothing, I'm sure.

Rebates: Legal Con Artists

Anybody ever have trouble redeeming a rebate?? As a general rule, I've never really thought it was a very big deal: If a company wants to pay me X amount for buying their product, I'll gladly follow their little rules and wait a few weeks for my cash. My opinion is starting to change, and I think I'm gonna steer clear of these scams in a discount's clothing.

* First, it was Dell. I made a copy of the packing slip, circled the price, blah blah blah. Then I get a letter stating that my $50 would NOT be on the way because I didn't follow all of the rules. Hogwash. After discussing it at great length with Abdul Mohammed-Aziz at the Dell call center, he cried "uncle" and sent me my check. Now, wasn't that easy?

* Earlier this year, it was Cingular. We bought a phone for Leah, and the guy gives me 2 receipts--one standard one and another rebate one (essentially, a duplicate copy printed especially for the oft-promoted "FREE PHONE WITH REBATE!" offer. I cut out the bar code, circle the price, hop on one foot, and sign my name. And I make copies. Then I get something in the mail that says I've provided an invalid receipt or the receipt wasn't dated in the offer period. Ba-loney. I called and said, "For crying out loud, I sent the receipt in that YOU gave me." After faxing or mailing in my proof with very sarcastic hand-written footnotes, my money was on the way. Geez.

* This week, I get a similar from Lexar, who manufactures flash memory devices. "Sorry, dude, your $10 ain't coming because you didn't include the UPC." Funny, I cut it out, stapled it to the sheet, adjacent to the receipt which shows when it was bought." Of course, the guy at the 800-number says, "Well, your submission was marked incomplete--if you provide us proof, then we'll send it out. Did you save copies?" Heck, I don't know. I told him that if he'd call the person or department or whatever and actually pull out my form and look at it, they would see the UPC code. "For security, the entries are destroyed after they are processed." How freakin convenient.

I don't know what these companies' deal is. Is this some sort of conscious effort to increase the bottom line by NOT having to redeem the rebate? Are they betting me the amount of the rebate that I won't be able to prove my worthiness? Or is it the result of some $8/hour envelope-opener that's mad at his/her situation and picks random people to screw over?

Bottom line--make copies of the crap. Because sooner or later, you'll get burned if you don't. Has anybody else had any experiences like this, or have I just angered the rebate gods??

New or Uzed

My friend recently turned me on to a website: Uzed.com. The principle is this: If you got game discs, CD's, or DVD's that are in like new or decent condition (and assuming they're not stolen from Blockbuster or Pop Tunes and you've got a warrant out for your arrest), they buy it from you. That's it. No strings. No goofy "online credit" for their store where they sell ceramic frogs and toothpick holders. Cash--straight to your mailbox or PayPal account.

Each title search is kinda like pulling a slot machine handle--Not sure whether you're turn up 3 bars or get grapes, cherries, and the clown. Apparently the value is determined by whatever outlet(s) they use to give away, sell, recycle or whatever they end up doing with your merchandise. It might be $.37 for your Tiffany CD, but your Dire Straits one might be $3.25. And if they've overbought a title, it's only $.10 right now but may increase later. My thinking is this: If I were to put ALL of my unwanted CD's in a yard sale, I probably couldn't get much more than 25-50 cents each for them. And I probably wouldn't sell all of them anyway. So if these folks will buy them off of me, I'll let them. Our CD collection probably numbered in the neighborhood of 250, and there were plenty of them that haven't been touched or played in months or even years. Show me the money!!

Some highlights of my returns (I swear, this is better than Wal-Mart): The Cream of Clapton (Eric Clapton) fetched me $3.38, Leah's Time Life Songs 4 Life was valued at $3.20, and in the "You must be kidding me!" category, Cha Cha Slide by Mr. C the Slide Man got us $2.40. And if you sent enough stuff back, they even give you a S/H credit, so you might even break even on sending the box to them. All in all--66 CD's and 4 DVD's is getting us $101.17--and I don't have to fight off early birds at 4:30AM!!!!

Texas de Brazil Tuvo Un Fuego

So the anniversary dinner was quite an event. A very interesting experience, to say the least. I guess if I was one of those habitually unhappy people, it would've royally pissed me off, and I'd be ranting and raving about what a terrible night we had and threatening to write to the company president, the Better Business Bureau, and the Brazilian Embassy. But we took it in stride and said that we'll always remember our 3rd anniversary.

Reservations were for 6:30 at Texas de Brazil. If you recall, my first and only time there was at a company function, and Leah hasn't ever been. Kristi and Joe condoned the anniversary visit, so we planned it. I had even signed up for their "eClub" and had gotten a buy one/get one free "Happy Anniversary" dinner coupon via email. So.....I figured that we'd probably end up having the same size tab as any other nice, linen-tablecloth type place.

We find us a spot in the Peabody Place parking garage, about 1/2 block from the restaurant entrance off of 2nd St. As we approach the intersection to cross, we hear sirens screaming. Then we notice the pole-mounted rotating red lights turning, indicating the fire trucks coming our way. We see 2 or 3 make a go through this very intersection--a couple of which were pulling along the curb, parking along the very path we were to be following leading to the restaurant. I'm thinking, "Peabody Place is pretty big--I'm sure sombody pulled an alarm or something." We keep walking. Past the pumpers, with firepeople getting off, fulling dressed in their attire and complete with oxygen tank on the back. We spotted (and heard!) a couple of other trucks--even one hook and ladder.

So we walk into the restaurant and greet the hostess. "Hi. 6:30 reservation for Russell." Here's what we heard, "OK, well.....just to let you know, the fire alarms were set off in our kitchen, so all of the meat got watered down. It's gonna be awhile before the grills get back on and the meat is ready. You're more than welcome to sit down and enjoy our salad bar while you're waiting." I said, "How long is 'awhile'? If you were me, would you wait?" I mean, no disrespect to the salad bar, but I'm not there to pay $40/person to get full on rabbit food and sushi. The response: at least 45 minutes to an hour, so we decided to go elsewhere. The manager did sign off on our little email coupon thingee, so hopefully we won't endure any problems using it in the future. If so, I'll lay it on thick about my anniversary dinner being perfectly ruined by his stupid restaurant. And I still had to pay $1 for like 33 minutes in the garage.

We were disappointed, but it didn't ruin our night. We kinda chuckled about it and said that it was definitely a memorable one. We ended up eating Japanese food at Nagasaki, and look forward to eventually enjoying a flame-free night with the gauchos south of the equator.