Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: May 2016

• Long Road to Load

  Posted at 12:55 am by kayewer, on May 29, 2016

  We live in a world of nearly instantaneous gratification, so when my computer started loading much slower than usual, I was slightly concerned. Make that crestfallen. Make that ticked off. Okay, a range of emotions went through my head.  Not my lifeline to the digital world, and not now with a three-day weekend coming up. It’s bad enough when somebody takes your computer from you, but another when it quits by itself.

  Now I have to figure out what the bleep is wrong with it, besides the fact that it’s over three years old. I keep it clean, both in terms of surface and hard drive. I avoid viruses by having good software installed. Maybe it’s just one component, like the video graphics or an outdated hidden feature I don’t know about. But why does other stuff work okay? Maybe it’s just one website that is causing the trouble. So in times like this, we turn to the local computer technician for help, and I’m taking it there for diagnosis and treatment. Maybe its time has ended, and I need a new computer. Nothing lasts like it used to, especially electronics. The days of taking the old television to the repair shop are gone. Now people toss them on the curb.

  The thought of buying a new computer makes me cringe. There are too many choices, too many prices and too much hassle involved. Apple fans would love for me to come over to the dark side for over a grand, and Windows fans argue the finer points of good old Windows 8 against the latest Windows 10. And who knows what happened to Windows 9.

  Maybe I need to go back to the good old typewriter. A qwerty keyboard, a ribbon and a bottle of correction fluid. No printer needed.

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• Coin Artists

  Posted at 2:49 am by kayewer, on May 22, 2016

  TD Bank just announced that it is discontinuing their Penny Arcade automated coin counter machines after a lawsuit and NBC investigation shut them down a few weeks ago. You can bring in coins you have rolled yourself, but mechanical counting, the bank says, has lost its popularity, and they want to ensure accuracy for all bank customers.

  How the heck did coins become such a burden?

  To this day I am holding onto a Euro coin which nobody wants to exchange for me. I got it in change at a supermarket in place of a quarter, and I know it’s worth more than that. I refuse to give it up, and I’m determined to find somebody who will give me fair market value for it. Foreign currency exchanges won’t even touch it: I went to three in New York City and got the polite brush-off.

  A friend of mine is not above going to the mall food court and counting out coins in place of paper money. It does involve waiting while she separates and tallies up the denominations, but they spend just the same. Also, coins bulging in your handbag add quite a bit of weight. I should know: if I didn’t dump out my quarters and pennies once a week, I’d be carrying around the weight of a toddler on my shoulder.

  It used to be fun to go to the coin machine and have it spin your metal money around in a centrifuge like way. The Penny Arcade was a sort of interactive experience featuring a red-headed computer generated little girl who talked you through the process of getting paper for your coins. “Wow, you sure saved a lot of coins,” she says as she directs you to her friend the teller and reminds you to check the reject slot for any duds.

  It seems whatever magical force counted the coins registered more duds than they returned to the reject slot: the NBC experiment allegedly put $300 in coins in one Penny Arcade and it counted short by some $44.00. TD’s non-bank competitor, Coinstar, was found to be accurate, but you surrender 11 cents for every dollar you put in unless you elect to receive an e-gift card in place of cash.

  TD is still offering to give out coin sleeves so you can count your coins yourself, but I long for the days when coins were as valuable to a bank as paper.

  Here’s what I think: TD should replace the Penny Arcades with coin counting stations, complete with sleeves, sorters and hand sanitizer (coins do make your hands smell metallic). Somebody has to give respect to coinage, and it could redeem some of the damage done by this mechanical mayhem.

  Either that, or round everything up and abolish coins altogether.

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• The Great Experiment

  Posted at 1:41 am by kayewer, on May 15, 2016

  When I first began participating in social media, it was a scary idea. Everything said about social media discusses the pitfalls above the pleasures. Bullying and ignorance are just as prevalent on social media as in the school hallway or work restroom. But I took the chance and have a presence on a few sites. Strange, but I don’t feel any more social now than before. Maybe I feel even less human.

  Sure, we sometimes offer comments or other feedback, and we can track how popular we supposedly are by who reads what we post, but are those numbers actual measurements of real life? Is the person with one hundred friends less of a human being than one with one million? All it takes is one “friend” to post a hateful comment, and sometimes all the positive ones have lost their effect.

  Those of us who game on social media exchange lives and give little gifts as determined by the company producing the games. It’s a third party way of saying “Joe Blow said hello, and here is another chance to waste your time playing Sweet Bashing Story on your work time.” They know that extra lives or gifts won’t help you win the game any faster. They’ve programmed them that way.

  When you’re on social media, you can still do silly things like make bad posts while drunk, upload a selfie you forgot your boss can see because you have him on your friend list, or make a grammar error that offends somebody and they and their friends cause your computer to crash with their feedback about what a jerk you are.

  I really don’t want anybody to follow me on social media as if those who do are sheep just flocking around like-minded people: I want them to come on my journey with me. By my side. Respecting my opinions as I respect theirs. Don’t make jabs to put me down, and I’ll try to help lift you up.

  And I’ll send you an extra life or help you get the key to unlock level 254.

  I’ve realized that some of my social media friends are just curious about me: I know this because they added me to their friends list but don’t know exactly how to ask how I’ve been since the last time they saw me. We’re a shy bunch of social media friends.

  So what does it mean to post videos and comments and gaming help if we’re really not being very social on what is called social media? I don’t know. While I’m figuring it out, I’ll just keep posting. Maybe somebody will read this all the way through and answer.

   

   

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• A Dressing the Issue

  Posted at 12:44 am by kayewer, on May 9, 2016

  My mother pointed to a dress in the Lord & Taylor ad and said it would look good on me. That’s a subtle hint that I should try to get and wear that dress. It looked kind of nice, but of course no mention of it was made anywhere on the ad (“On the Cover:  etc.”) that would clue me in as to how to get that particular one. This meant either going to the store and having a discussion with a sales associate, or going online and trying to pin it down. I did the latter. The last time I went looking for a clothing article in a picture at the store, I wound up having a battle of wits with a sales associate at Macy’s who, of course, never got a copy of what she was supposed to be ready to sell to anxious customers like me. We found the article, but she was still too jaded to appreciate the smell of victory (over the smell of fake leather and fitting rooms).

  I found the dress easily enough on the website: a Vince Camuto. It took about three seconds to click on the size chart to find that sizes stopped at 14.

  Of course, one can’t blame the designer for restricting his sizes, but he did lose a potential first-time customer in the process.  Maybe next time–the third–will be the best experience ever. How I’ll get there, now that I’ve exhausted two different forms of shopping, is yet to be discovered.

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• The Gift in Gift Cards

  Posted at 2:15 am by kayewer, on May 1, 2016

  For Administrative Professionals Day I got cards and flowers and such, and I also got a few gift cards. Every gift card I receive is a golden opportunity, and I like to use them. Sometimes I accumulate them for a bit, but they always get used. I have already planned a visit to Starbucks to get a drink or two (but not of coffee, since I’m a tea drinker). I can visit Outback for their wonderful food which will take me five visits to the gym to work off (totally worth it) and Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Then I can hit Wawa (there seems to be one every two miles around here) and Barnes & Noble (not quite as many, but I know the locations of five of them). If I get stomach distress, I have a card from CVS. Once I feel better, I’ll do Dunkin’ Donuts.

  Stores seem to like their own gift cards more than cash or credit. I never get a bad attitude from somebody behind the counter when I use one. Recently I had a coupon mailed to me from McDonald’s for a free Extra Value Meal. Normally I don’t do a full meal because I like to have my own beverage–even if it’s just water–but I was on a time crunch and decided to go for it. The cashier didn’t know what to do with it and had to ask a manager. Funny how some of these things work: cards and coupons are both virtual reality cash, but one was more of an enigma than the other. Maybe they just didn’t know where to store it: under the cash or under the gift cards.

  Even if you get a card from a place you don’t normally visit, it can be a fun adventure just to poke your head in and try something on your gift giver’s dollar. It’s great to discover a new favorite. Some folks go on trading websites and swap for a familiar merchant card at a loss of some value off your original gift. I can’t picture doing that, especially if the gift card involves food. I’ll try something new at least once, and often I’ll end up coming back and having it again. Those same folks who trade their gift cards sometimes seem to feel that the giver shortchanged them by not getting an actual item, but I don’t feel that way. A gift card adds something new to a regular aspect of life–the shopping or dining experience–which puts you in control of what you buy, so actually the giver is getting that item for you in a way.

  Thank you for the gift card. Whatever I get, I’ll think of you as having wrapped it.

   

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