fekszünk egymás mellett az ágyban, mellettünk a földön meg játszanak a gyerekek, felém fordul, azt mondja, szerelmes vagyok beléd. és abban a pillanatban a nagyobbak felpattannak és elkezdik énekelni rúzsa magdi egyik slágerének refrénjét, hogy szerelmes vagyok beléd, én meg mindeddig azt hittem, hogy a musical egy full életszerűtlen műfaj, mert hát hol és mikor történik meg az, hogy bármilyen végszóra gyerekek feje pattan elő az ágy végéből, kórusban énekelve, nyomatékosítva a szerelmi vallomást. hát minálunk.

Az új MotoX

Grocery | FL, USA

(I work in the meat and seafood section of my store. My department closes at 10 pm, but the store itself is open until midnight. It is 10:15 pm and I am finishing cleaning when a customer approaches.)

Customer: “Can I get two pounds of catfish?”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. We’re closed.”

Customer: “Don’t lie to me. The doors aren’t locked, the lights are still on, and you’re still here. I want two pounds of catfish.”

Me: “The store is open until midnight, yes. But my department closes at 10 o’clock.”

Customer: “I thought I told you not to lie to me! That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard! The department closing before the store does; do you think I’m stupid or something?!”

Me: *trying not to take the bait* “I’m afraid that’s just how it is, sir. Seafood counter closes at 10.”

Customer: “DON’T F***ING LIE TO ME! YOU HAVE TO SERVE ME! I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE!”

Me: “Yes, I can see that you’re standing right there. However, your standing there has no bearing on the time we shut down this department.”

Customer: “I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE! YOU HAVE TO SERVE ME! I WANT TWO POUNDS OF CATFISH!”

(I put a sign that says CLOSED on the counter. The customer screamed in inarticulate rage and punched my glass display case. He screamed again in pain and ran away clutching his hand, shouting about how he would sue me for assault.)

Mall | AZ, USA

(As I am walking through the store a customer approaches me from the electronics section holding a DVD of an old classic film.)

Customer: “Excuse me, young lady. I have a question about this movie?”

Me: “Yes, sir?”

Customer: “Is it alive?”

Me: “I’m… I’m sorry but I don’t understand. The DVD you’re holding is an inanimate object. It is not alive.”

Customer: “No, I mean is it live, as in ‘filmed before a studio audience’?”

Me: “No, sir. I’m fairly certain all movies are filmed on closed studio sets.”

Customer: “Okay, but is it still live? Isn’t ‘live’ better, like organic?”

Me: “No, that disc you’re holding is a recording.”

Customer: *blank stare*

Me: “If it was live then it would mean the actors were performing as you were watching it.”

Customer: “And they’re not?”

Me: “No, sir. That movie was made a long time ago. Most of those actors have died of old age by now. They filmed the movie once and moved on with their lives. But they are definitely not performing live.”

Customer: “But if they’re dead then how can I watch them now?”

Me: “Because it’s a recording.”

Customer: “Then who’s doing the movie?”

Me: “THEY did. They stood in front of a camera and made the movie. Then they took the film, and eventually made it into a DVD, and now here it is.”

Customer: “I don’t get it.”

Me: *sigh* “Okay. Do you have pictures from when you were a kid?”

Customer: “Yeah….”

Me: “You know how your parents pointed a camera at you and now you can look at them years later, even though you grew up and aren’t reenacting those pictures as your childhood self every time someone looks at them?”

Customer: *gradually dawning expression*

Me: “There you go.”

Fabric Store | Australia

(Our store has a pretty standard loyalty program where customers present their loyalty card and are eligible for various discounts. One day, a young man in his 20s with unkempt hair and several piercings came asked me to cut his fabric.)

Me: “And do you have a loyalty card?”

Customer: “Yeah, but I don’t have it on me. Can you look me up in the system?”

Me: “Sure! What was the last name on the card?”

Customer: “‘M-Squared.’ All one word.”

Me: “Umm… Okay, sure. And what was the first name?”

Customer: “Oh, that is my first name. I don’t have a last name.”

Me: “…Okay, let me search for you.”

(Remarkably enough, there was an ‘msquared’ in the system!)

Bookstore | Lithuania

(We close at 3 pm on Saturdays. There’s a small supermarket next door. It’s Saturday, 2:55 pm. A customer walks in.)

Customer: “Hello, I need some help. A friend invited me over to her house, and she has a small child. She told me not to get him anything, but I really think I should. I think I could get a book or a toy.”

(I proceed to show him some nice children’s books, but he’s awfully indecisive and takes a long time deliberating over each one of them. He also wants it super cheap, but good. It’s now 3:10.)

Customer: “I don’t know. This is so hard! Maybe I should get him a toy instead.”

Me: “Well, a toy is also a good option. I have to warn you, though, that they usually come more expensive than books.”

Customer: “You know what? I think I’ll go to [Supermarket] and look at some toys. If I don’t find what I like, I’ll come back here.”

Me: “If you decided to get a toy, that’s fine, but we’re closing. You won’t be able to come back if you change your mind.”

Customer: “No, I’ll go to the supermarket. I’ll come back later.”

Me: “Sir, we’re closing. In fact, we’ve been closed for 10 minutes already.”

(He appeared not to hear a thing I said and walked out of the store. I closed the store. I left some 10 minutes later, and on my way to the bus stop walked past the front doors. There was the same customer, banging on the locked door, with the CLOSED sign on it and the lights out inside, yelling to be let in!)

Artist Thomas Leveritt recently setup a special UV motion camera in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with the intent of filming random passersby. Ultraviolet rays have the ability to expose not-yet-visible changes to human skin, namely freckles, that turn even the most unblemished faces into dark explosions of dots. Leveritt installed a monitor above the camera so people could instantly see the results, and then to heighten the effect, supplied them sunscreen in a vivid demonstration of why you should probably never again step outside without it. (via Laughing Squid, Co.Create)

Retail | MD, USA

(I work in a well-known department store chain as a cashier. By law, I’m required to offer our store credit card to each and every customer that comes through my line if they’re over the age of 18.)

Me: “Okay, ma’am, your total is [total]. If you don’t have our [Store] card, I can try to save you $10 or $15 on this purchase.”

Customer: *mumbles so low that I can’t hear her*

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. Could you please repeat that?”

Customer: “I SAID NO! GOD! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH AT ALL? YOUR SERVICE IS HORRIBLE!”

(At this point she starts screaming her head off, and I see my manager, who is really short and stocky, running down the aisle to see what all the yelling is about.)

Customer: “I MEAN, WHY ARE YOU EVEN ASKING ME IF I WANT A CREDIT CARD? YOU SHOULD KNOW I DON’T HAVE ANY OF THEM!”

Me: “Ma’am, I have never met you before. How would I know that you don’t have any credit cards?”

Customer: “YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHECK YOUR THINGAMAJIG WHEN I GIVE YOU MY REWARDS CARD!”

Me: “Ma’am… those are two completely separate things.”

Customer: “NO, THEY’RE NOT! STOP F***ING LYING TO ME!”

(My manager has just gotten to my booth when the customer slaps me, hard, across my face.)

Manager: “[Customer]! Why did you just hit my cashier?!”

Customer: “HE WAS SUPPOSED TO KNOW I DON’T HAVE ANY CREDIT CARDS!”

Manager: “Get out of my store! This is the third time you’ve done this! Do not come back!”

Customer: “THIS IS WHY I NEVER SHOP AT [Store]! THE SERVICE IS TERRIBLE!”

Manager: *after the customer left* “Are you okay? Go on a break. I’ll cover for you.”

Me: “So… no hazard pay?”

Manager: “Ha. Good luck with that. I’ve been here 40 years and I don’t get hazard pay.”

(She did the customer satisfaction survey on the receipt that we print out and gave me the lowest possible rating, a 0, because of “terrible service” and actually WON a $1,000 gift card to the store via the sweepstakes system. Corporate was notified and they cancelled the gift card right away and gave me a $100 gift card!)

Related:
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 7
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 6
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 5

Restaurant | NJ, USA

(I greet a table of ten. In the middle of introducing myself this happens:)

Customer: “I have a coupon.”

Me: “Okay, hang on to it. It is applied at the end.”

Customer: “Hang onto it? I don’t have it with me. Is that a problem?”

Me: “So, you want to use a coupon that you don’t have with you?”

Customer: “I don’t understand why you have coupons if you won’t accept them.”

Me: “…”

Expensive Shoebox

What would be the most expensive way to fill a size 11 shoebox (e.g. with 64 GB MicroSD cards all full of legally purchased music)?

Rick Lewis

A shoebox full of valuable stuff seems to top out at about $2 billion. Surprisingly, this turns out to be true for a wide range of possible fillings.

The MicroSD cards are a good idea. iTunes songs cost about $1 each, and MicroSD cards have a capacity of about 1.6 petabytes per gallon. A men's size 11 shoebox is about 10-15 liters, depending on the brand and type of shoe, which means it can hold up to 1.5 billion 4 MB songs (at about a dollar each). (That's about 20 times as many songs as the iTunes store offers, so you'll have to buy some of the songs more than once.)

Expensive software like Adobe®©™ Photoshop®©™ CS®™ 5™ has a slightly higher cost-to-megabyte ratio, since it retails for several hundred dollars and takes up several hundred megabytes of space. Or, at least, it used to, until Adobe moved to a cloud model.

Once you start considering software prices, you can probably crank the "cost" of things in a shoebox as high as you want by making unlimited in-app purchases. And while the resulting RPG character may technically represent the result of your spending that much money, it's hard to argue with a straight face that your character is in any sense worth a trillion dollars.

So let's think about actual objects.

There's gold, of course. 13 liters of gold is worth about $10 million as of this writing. Platinum is a little more expensive at $13 million/shoebox.[1]Not yet an SI unit, sadly. That's about 10 times the value of a shoebox full of $100 bills. On the other hand, a shoebox full of gold would weigh as much as a small horse.

There are more expensive metals. A gram of pure plutonium, for example, would cost about $5k. As a bonus, plutonium is even denser than gold, which means you could fit almost 300 kilograms of it in a shoebox.

Before you spend $3 billion on plutonium, take note: Plutonium's critical mass is about 10 kilograms. So while you could fit 300 kilograms of it in a shoebox, you could only do so briefly.

High-quality diamonds are expensive, but it's hard to get a handle on their exact price because the entire industry was built on a scam the gemstone market is complicated. One site quotes a price of over \$300,000 for a flawless 600 mg (3 carat) diamond—which means that a shoebox full of perfect-quality gem diamonds could be worth as much as \$20 billion—but \$1 or \$2 billion is more reasonable.

Many illegal drugs are, by weight, more valuable than gold. Cocaine's price varies a lot, but in many areas is in the neighborhood of $100/gram.[2]My search history after researching drug street prices would probably get me on all kinds of government watch lists, if I weren't on them all already for all the other things I've researched for this blog. Gold is currently less than half that. However, cocaine is much less dense than gold,[3]But wait—what is the density of cocaine? As usual, the Straight Dope Message Board folks are on the case; in this discussion, they consult the CRC Handbook and Merck Index, before giving up and deciding that it's probably about 1 kg/L, like most organic substances. They do, however, learn its boiling point and solubility in olive oil. so a shoebox full of cocaine would be less valuable than one of gold.

Cocaine is not the most expensive drug by weight. LSD—probably the most widely-consumed substance sold to consumers by the microgram—costs about a thousand times more than cocaine by weight. A shoebox full of pure LSD would be worth about $2.5 billion.

Some prescription drugs can be just as expensive as LSD. A single dose of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) can cost \$13,500, which—for the average patient—puts its shoebox value in the same \$2 billion range as LSD, plutonium, and MicroSD cards. Other drugs are even more expensive.

Of course, you could always put shoes in the shoebox.

Judy Garland's shoes from The Wizard of Oz sold at auction for $666,000, and—unlike the other things we've considered—may have, at one point, actually been placed in a shoebox.

If you really want to fill a shoebox with an arbitrarily large amount of money, you could get the US Treasury to mint you a trillion-dollar platinum coin.

But if you're open to leveraging our monetary system's legal authority to impart value into an arbitrary inanimate object ...

... you could just write a check.

Grocery Store | FL, USA

(I’m working in the deli section of my store part-time and studying computer science at a local university. Tomorrow I have an exam and it’s making it hard to concentrate at work, as the elderly woman I’m serving notices.)

Customer: “Excuse me, young man. I said I wanted the smoked ham, not the honey ham.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I’m just a little distracted. Smoked ham coming right up.”

Customer: “You really should pay closer attention to your work.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. I just have an exam tomorrow and it’s a little hard to concentrate.”

Customer: “You look a little old to still be in high school.”

Me: “I’m not in high school. I’m studying computer science at [University].”

Customer: “[University]? Oh, no, no, no. That won’t do at all.”

Me: *stopping slicing* “Excuse me?”

Customer: “Oh, honey, you need to leave that university right away. You’re not smart enough to go to college.”

Me: “Uh…”

Customer: “If you were, you wouldn’t be working here. Besides, God ordained you to be part of the servant class. The purpose of your life is to serve the good people, like me.”

(My jaw is hanging open.)

Customer: “You need to invest yourself totally in your work here. This is what people like you were meant for. You should never try to rise above your station. You’ll make God very angry.”

Me: “…well. I’m just going to step away from my ‘station’ for a moment. [Coworker], could you give me a hand here? I really need to step out.”

(I walked into the cooler, closed the door all the way, and didn’t come back until the customer had gone and I had calmed down.)

I love the look on his face when he gets to the smallest one.

[theflyhater]

Shoe Store | FL, USA

(I am ringing up a customer. The transaction goes smoothly until he is about to walk away with his purchases in his cart.)

Me: “Oh, sir, you can’t take the cart out the doors. Our alarm will go off.”

(The customer ignores me and keeps walking. Thankfully he turns around because his wife wanted to purchase another pair of shoes. Once that is done, I try again. Once again, he ignores me.)

Me: “Sir, you can’t take the cart.”

(The customer and his wife ignore me and continue to leave, until the security alarm goes off.)

Customer: *pokes head back through the door* “Am I good?”

Me: “No, you can’t take the cart.”

Customer: *smiles and nods* “Okay.” *leaves with the cart*

Me: “Well… okay, then.”

Restaurant | Vancouver, BC, Canada

(It is 20 minutes before close. A man comes in alone and demands to be seated in the closed half of the restaurant. He insists this is the only ‘real’ part of the restaurant. My coworker takes his initial order then sends me over to continue with him. He’s ordered something that only comes as an add-on to an entrée, but he wants it first while he’s deciding on the entrée. This is no problem and I go to drop off his drink.)

Customer: “Limes are very precious in this city. So precious. Do you have any limes?”

Me: “Yes, sir. I can get you some if you like.”

Customer: “Yes, both lemon and lime are so precious.”

(I fetch him some.)

Me: “Did you decide on an entrée this evening or do you still need a few minutes?”

Customer: “What time do you close?”

Me: “10 pm.”

Customer: “[City] is terrible! Nothing stays open. If we were in a different city you’d be open till midnight at least.”

Me: “Well, they do stay open in some areas where there’s things around them that are open later like movie theatres. But we find here people don’t really come in for dinner so late. Did you need another minute with the menus?”

Customer: “This city is terrible. I hate this place so much. All the stores are awful. Everything is awful.”

(Another guest is trying to hail me so I politely excuse myself from the still-ranting man. A few minutes later I bring him the add-on he wanted as a starter.)

Customer: *in a demanding tone of voice* “Is it cold?!”

Me: *glancing at the clearly steaming food* “No, sir. It’s hot.”

Customer: “If you’re sure.”

Me: “Did you decide on an entrée? I can get them cooking it while you’re eating.”

Customer: “I’ll have chicken.”

Me: *thinking of the dozen diverse items on the menu that contain chicken* “Chicken, sir?”

Customer: “Yes, but only if it’s fresh. It needs to be really fresh! You need to give it the smell test. If you haven’t stuck your nose into the burger it’s not really fresh! If it’s not fresh I’ll just send it right back!”

Me: *thinking that we’ve at least narrowed it down to the four chicken burger options* “Absolutely, sir. I’ll triple check with the kitchen, but our chicken is generally really fresh. Do you know which of the chicken burgers you’d like?”

Customer: “No, no, no! You’re not listening! You have to listen to your customers! It . Must. Be. Fresh. I know it’s not! I eat here all the time and it’s not. This place is terrible. All the restaurants in this city are terrible.”

Me: “I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad experience, sir. I can tell you that our chicken today is very fresh. Is there a particular burger you’d like?”

Customer: “I’ve called head office and left a message for the CEO, you know. They didn’t care about freshness. No one cares about freshness. You’re not even listening! You have to listen to your customers! You know what, f*** it! I’ll just take this to go.”

(I go get him a take out box and he puts the hot food in that, dumps the salad out onto the table and the floor and storms out. He paid for the add-on and even left me a one cent tip.)

Ahoy mini hammock, love this little contraption that gives you stress relief and a little bit of R&R. Called the Füüt, we totally picture ourselves getting a couple of these for our YD office. You hear me boss?

Designer: Three Dot

-
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs - Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE - We are more than just concepts. See what's hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(Some Foot Rest! was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. Webble – Active Foot Rest by BriteObjects
2. The Rest Goes to the Dry
3. Rest Your Weary Legs

Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary."

Mrs. Memory: "Hi, I need to come back and see Dr. Grumpy."

Mary: "Um... Actually, you have an appointment today, at 1:45."

Mrs. Memory: "No I don't."

Mary: "You do, ma'am."

Mrs. Memory: "I most certainly do not. Otherwise I wouldn't be calling you. Now, as I was saying, I need to see Dr. Grumpy again."

Mary: "Okay, well, if you'd like to come in today we have an opening at 1:45?"

Mrs. Memory: "Oh, that works perfectly. I'll be there."

Mary: "Great! See you then."

Mrs. Memory: "Thank you for getting me in so quickly."

Pub | Cumbria, England, UK

Customer: “I’d like a pint and a half of lager and a bitter shandy.”

Me: “A pint or a half?”

(Customer looks confused.)

Me: “Of bitter shandy?”

Customer: “A pint and a half.”

Me: “Of the lager?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “And would you like a pint or a half of the bitter shandy?”

Customer: “No, a pint and a half of lager and a bitter shandy.”

Me: “And would you like a pint or a half of bitter shandy?”

Customer: “No, I want a pint and a half of…” *pauses* “Oh, yeah a half of bitter shandy, please.

Retail | Raleigh, NC, USA

(The card reader in my store is a little different, in that it asks you to select credit or debit before you swipe. It is much more intuitive than most, and the machine gives very explicit instructions, but it still trips people up. The following happens at least 10 times a day.)

Me: “Your total is [total]. Go ahead and select credit or debit on the screen first, and then swipe.”

Customer: “Credit.” *swipes card*

Me: “You’ll need to hit the credit button first, and then you can swipe.”

Customer: *swipes card*

Me: “Ma’am, if you’re using credit, you’ll need to hit the blue button on the screen. After you do that, you can swipe your card.”

Customer: *hits button on screen*

(Screen now reads, in large letters, PLEASE SWIPE CARD.)

Customer: *stares blankly at screen*

Me: “Ma’am… swipe your card now.”

Customer: *swipes card* “Why is it asking for a PIN? This doesn’t have a PIN, it’s a credit card! Why doesn’t your machine work?!”

Me: “It’s asking for a PIN, because you hit the green debit button instead of the blue credit button. Hit CANCEL, and we can start this again…”

Jewelry Store | France

(It’s a very busy week in our shop. My colleague and I are running to keep up. A customer enters the shop, and we both salute him politely. The customer mumbles something and snaps his fingers at my colleague. She manages to smile at him as she answers:)

Colleague: “I will be with your shortly, sir. Just a minute, please!”

(The customer huffs again and turns to me. This time, he doesn’t just snap his fingers, he whistles as you would call a dog before pointing at the ground in front of him. My answer? I bark at him before smiling sweetly.)

Me: “Sir, if you treat us like dogs, be ready to be answered by b****es. Please leave.”

(All the other customers applauded when he left!)

It’s true. I have recently (yesterday!) purchased a motor vehicle. It was a pleasant and invigorating experience, and my car is very beautiful and full of confusing technology and excessive purse storage. I have named him Dracarys, and he will serve me well. Having accomplished this task in less than 48 hours with only a brief flurry of emails, one telephone call outsourced to A Man, and a ten-minute in-person visit merely to sign pre-arranged paperwork and receive a bucket of swag and two sets of keys, I now wish to share with you the lessons I have learned along the way. They’re applicable to those of you who might want to purchase a new or certified pre-owned vehicle, I will not pretend to know anything about the niceties of used-car-haggling. I hear Roxane Gay’s dad is who you should bring along for that. Otherwise, this is what you should do.

Step One: 

Figure out exactly what car you want to buy. Do this online. Do not walk into a dealership. The internet is literally stuffed with rankings and reviews and Best Mid-Price Blue Sedans lists. “Shouldn’t I test drive some cars?” No. Can you drive a car? You’re set. After you’ve been driving it for a week, you won’t be able to imagine driving a different car anyway. Why spend a couple hours of your life trying random cars like you’ve flown into Phoenix for business and are trying to figure out where the parking brake is on your rental? It’s a new or certified pre-owned car. They drive. They go vrroooom. I am glad you have picked a car.

Step Two:

Discover who sells this car in your area. Let us now move to my beautiful, personal story of triumph. I decided on a particular car, as per Step One, let’s call it a Dragon. There are two Dragon dealerships in Salt Lake City. I went to the dealership websites.

Let’s get one thing straight: I do not talk on the phone.

You don’t have to! You never have to talk on the phone if you don’t want to. That is because you can…

Step Three:

Contact the internet sales department! There will either be an email address for this, or a generic “Make an Inquiry” box, into which you type “please email me, I would like to buy a car.” Then you wait. You will probably wait about four minutes, because car dealers are like travel agents were fifteen years ago: hungry, and aware the end of their industry is upon them. Okay, you have received an email from a person. Ideally, you have received emails from a minimum of two dealerships. If there is only one in your town, email one in the NEXT town. You need two to tango, trust me.

Step Four: 

Say “Hi! I’ll be doing this over email. I would like to purchase a 2014 Model X with the extra-fire package. What is your best price on that?” At this point, I received a very rapid response from each of my two dealers. Dealer One said: “That model is retailing for Money, I can offer you a discount which will bring it down to Money – $1000.” Dealer Two said: “I would have to order that in for you special, so it would probably cost Money.” NOW THE DANCE BEGINS.

SIDEBAR: In lieu of offering you a PRICE, you may hear “I can offer you 0.9% financing over 60 months!” Pay no attention to these words. You want the best price, not to be distracted with what your monthly payments will be. And, if you are actually planning on paying cash, do not tell them until the very, very end, because they make a lot of money off financing, and you will probably not get as good a deal if they know upfront they will not be making said money. Speaking of not mentioning things, if you have a trade-in, keep it to your damn self until I tell you it’s safe to mention it.

Step Five:

Email Dealer Two (or whoever made you the inferior offer) and say: “Oh! I’m talking to Dealer One, and they have one on the lot they’re willing to offer me for Money-$1000.”

SIDEBAR: The beauty of this system is you need speak only truth! You are merely a CONDUIT for the truth to be passed back and forth between two dealerships. You are not the enemy, the other dealer is. It is they with whom they do battle. You will drink the blood of the fallen.

Now, in my case, Dealer Two responded instantly to that message to announce that HE HAD FOUND a 2014 Model X with the extra-fire package, right there on the lot, like magic! Isn’t that incredible? And I could have it for Money – $1200!

Step Six:

Email the Dealer Formerly Known As The Best Deal and say “I’m talking to Dealer Two, and he can do Money – $1200.” Wait. Dealer One can now do Money – $1400! You’re no fool. You know we’re going to email Dealer Two and tell him that Dealer One has countered with Money – $1400. Wait.

Step Seven:

This is a great time to take yourself over to truecar.com, plug in the model and year and package info, and see: 1) the MSRP (what you would pay for this car if you just showed up like a yokel and handed them your money no questions asked) 2) the invoice price (probably what the dealer paid for the car and will basically never go below – I mean, it can happen, but I’m not a WIZARD) and 3) what other people in your area have wound up paying for this car. It will also say things like “a good price for this car is below X,” “a great price for this car is below Y,” and “a YA GOT SERVED price for this car is F for FOOL.” Then you know these things, it’s nice. Back to the dance.

Step Eight:

Obviously, this elaborate gamesmanship could go on forever. It will not, though, because one of two things will happen!

Scenario One: Eventually, one dealer will just give up. You have taken him to the ragged edge of invoice pricing, and he can go no further. In this scenario, you will buy from his competitor. We’ll come back to this part. But you have won!

Scenario Two: Both dealers will have gone through the basically inevitable step of saying “I have to go talk to my GM to see if I can go any lower on this car.” (Spoiler alert: when the alternative is losing the sale to another dealer, the GM will tell them they can go lower on this car.) At which point, they will say to you “I am authorized to do whatever it takes to beat the other dealer.” This is great! This is not helpful, however, to your dance. You want numbers. Again, you will speak only truth: “Hahahaha,” you type, “that is exactly what Dealer One is saying to me! What is your absolute bottom dollar on this car?” They may not tell you. They may simply repeat that they will beat the other guy. What do you do now?

Step Nine:

Those numbers you ran earlier on truecar.com? Now you’re going to use them. You are probably in “great price” territory already, having brought these two dealers to their knees. Whatever increments prices have been dropping by ($200, $400, etc), double up, and make sure that the amount you are about to offer is ASPIRATIONAL and BOLD. Email your favourite of the two dealers. Trust me: you will have a favourite by now. Mine was Dealer One. Email him and say “Okay, I’d really like to buy this car from you. If you can give me this car at Most Recent Best Offer – 2x The Usual Drop We’ve Been Doing As We Go Back and Forth, I will not email Dealer Two and ask him to beat it.” He will probably say you have a deal. If he does not, you’re not an idiot, take it to Dealer Two.

NOW, if he says yes, you could theoretically still email that number to Dealer Two, like a jerk. It’s probably fine. I couldn’t do it! I gave that nice man my word, and we barely scraped above invoice, and I was very happy.

The important thing is, one of these two dealers is going to give you the absolute lowest price you can get away with paying for this car. You have won.

Optional Step Ten:

Do you have a trade-in? THIS IS WHEN YOU MENTION IT. Trade that lil fucker in. In our case, we had already unloaded our 1999 Chevy Tracker for a thousand bucks to a nice young couple and wished them luck.

Optional Step Eleven:

DISASTER STRIKES. Because you cannot talk on the phone, but want to pre-do most of the paperwork (again, you want no surprises when you walk into the dealership to sign), you pass this phase off to your husband, A Man. (Gay women would never be so silly, I do not include them in this disaster scenario.) While your husband is on the phone, he remembers that you need a roof rack. Because he is not engaged in THE DANCE, he finishes the call, walks into the room where you are working on your misandrist blog, and says “we’re good to go! Oh, I had forgotten we needed a roof rack.” It transpires that he has paid MSRP for the roof rack, and thus eaten into some of your hard-won gains. You will hold this against him for at least a day, probably less if your misandrist blog money is not paying for the majority of said car. But it’s the PRINCIPLE.

Step Twelve:

Go pick up your car (do not buy an extra warranty, do not buy magical sealing paint, do not buy anything extra.) It is yours now. Finance, pay cash, who cares. You have forced men to the breaking point and beyond. You are a feminist hero. Play Liz Phair very loudly on the trip home.

Special thanks to John Adams of Jody Wilkinson Acura of Salt Lake City, who was a really nice guy. Additional thanks to Twitter user Pete Gaines, who spent many years in the car business and told me I didn’t have to talk to someone if I didn’t want to.

Read more How to Buy a Car Without Interacting With a Human at The Toast.

Frozach Submitted

Within reason, I think if you’re craving something, you should go for it, although this theory is mostly born of my own poor logic. I’ve all too many times craved, say, a brownie but thought I shouldn’t eat a brownie and so instead snacked on (just for a completely random example) 12 almonds, 1 slice of cheese, half an apple, 1 banana and then, oops, a handful of chocolate chips, amounting roughly 3x the calories of a brownie, a brownie that I craved exactly as much as I did 500 calories ago. And so, when I really want a brownie, I make my favorite brownies and we each eat one and then I stash the rest in the freezer, so they are not out on the counter, calling to me that we haven’t been cut in a straight line and you should really even us out or we’re going to go bad soon and you don’t want us to go to waste or any of those things that brownies tell me when we’re alone together.

[Hm, here I should probably interject some sort of "sure, okay, brownies talk to me but I'm not like crazy or anything; it's not weird. Brownies talk to everyone, right? Haha?" reassurance but I'm not going to. I'm going to make this as awkward as possible.]

... Read the rest of brownie ice cream sandwiches on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to brownie ice cream sandwiches | 166 comments to date | see more: Chocolate, Ice Cream/Sorbet, Photo, Summer

مجسمه‌های زیبای زیادی در دنیا وجود دارند، اما بعضی از آنها از نظر اسخت و مفهومی که تداعی می‌کنند، تفاوت زیادی با بقیه دارند.

در این پست مجسمه‌هایی را با هم مرور می‌کنیم که خلاقیت سازندگان آنها، بسیار آشکار است.

- اسب‌های وحشی، کاری از رابرت گلن – مکان نصب: لاس کولنیاس تگزاس:

- مجسمه عابران در ورشوی لهستان:

- مجسمه ماهی آزاد در پورتلند ایالت اورِگان:

- مردم کنار رودخانه، کاری از ونگ فاه چئونگ – نصب شده در سنگاپور:

- کفش‌های کنار رود دانوب، بوداپست مجارستان. این مجسمه ویژه به احترام یهودیانی که در جنگ جهانی دوم کشته شدند، ساخته شده است. از قربانی‌ها خواسته شده بود که کفش‌های خود را در کنار رود دانوب دربیاورند و بعد به آنها شلیک شده بود. (+)

- اسلحه گره‌زده شده – تورتل بی – نیویورک:

- از قالبت برو آ! یا مجسمه‌ای که می‌شود از آن تعبیر به «رهایی» و «آزادی» کرد. این مجسمه را زنوس فروداکیس ساخته و در فیلادلفیا نصب شده است:

- روح سیاه، لیتوانی:

- مجسمه مسافر در مارسی:

- مجسمه نلسون ماندلا، آفریقای جنوبی:

- مجسمه بامزه پلیس در حال سقوط در بروکسل بلژیک:

- گله گاو، دالاس تگزاس:

- عنکبوت، لندن:

- اسب آبی- تایپه، تایوان:

- ساختمان در حال غرق شدن، ملبورن:

- پارک ایگوانا در آمستردام:

- براتیسلاوا، اسلواکی:

- مجسمه شاعر معروف رومانی -میهای امینسکو- در «اونستی» رومانی:

- صحنه‌ای از جنگ جهانی در Eceabat ترکیه:

- مرد آویزان، پراگ:

- مجسمه روح اسب، در Grangemouth بریتانیا:

- خوک‌ها در بازار – نصب شده در آدلاید استرالیا:

- مرد ناشناس ایسلند:

- کوسه، آکسفورد بریتانیا:

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I’ve been editing short videos for a client and uploading them to YouTube so that I don’t have to burn a DVD for each iteration. After finishing a near-final cut…

Client: This is a disaster! The audio is echoing!

I double-check both the original and the uploaded version. Both are fine.

Me: I’m not sure why that could be. All the audio files are on one channel with no duplicates. Let me re-render/upload and see if it was just a simple computer glitch.

I send the new cut.

Client: The audio keeps repeating! And it doesn’t stop when I hit pause! It just cuts the echo out.

Me: Wait a second, are you double-clicking?

Client: What does that have to do with anything?

Me: I mean, are you double-clicking and opening up the page more than once? That would cause it to “echo.”

Client: Forget it, I fixed the problem.