Get a Goddamn Bluetooth

OK, people, we’re going to keep this simple.  When you have a phone in your hand, you drive like a fucking moron.  I know you think you’re a master multitask-er in the car, but you aren’t.  If you weren’t a good driver in the first place, you are now 100 times worse.  This is in no way debatable.

A bluetooth is not super advanced technology anymore.  I’ll tell you what is high technology – the medical equipment required to repair your internal organs from the multiple stab wounds you’ll receive after cutting me off while driving 20 miles an hour below the clearly posted speed limit while carrying on a conversation about your cat.  The added bonus?  $30 to $100 for an earpiece is far less than the copay on that ER visit.

 

This is a beautiful device, and will save your life either from an accident, or my wrath.

Are you one of those 50+ year old individuals that feels like you can’t keep up with technology, so you feel like you can cherry-pick what technology you want to use (cell phones) and not bother with the technology that seems like too much work (using a hands free device) while driving?  Tough shit.  On a touchscreen phone you can sync a bluetooth for the first time in fewer screen taps than it takes to dial a number you don’t have programmed into your phone.  Get a fucking bluetooth or don’t talk while you drive!  That’s not asking a lot!

Are you 65+?  Well, then I have a whole separate question for you.  Why do you insist on driving during rush hour?  You’re retired!  You can drive below the speed limit erratically whenever the hell you want!  There are only TWO times a day when you shouldn’t be doing that, and it’ll make for a nicer drive for you, anyway!  Why are you even awake during morning rush hour!?

Old lady, let’s not pretend you need that gun in the car to make you dangerous behind the wheel.

Anyway, back on track, you need a bluetooth.  Gone are the days where you’ll look like your meds just ran out when you’re talking in a direction that no people exist, but you still get all the benefits of being able to screw with people and make them think you’re talking to them when you really aren’t.  It’s all up to you and the direction you face!  Hell, multitask conversations instead of driving and conversing.  I can think of plenty of times I’ve wanted to tell two people at the same time that they’re retarded, all with the extra benefit of looking like some big shot that can’t be bothered to hold a phone up to my head.

 This man either just got finished closing an important deal, or just got news that he received a Wall Street bailout.  Industry sustaining go getter or giant flaming douche-bag, at least he’s definitely a big deal.

These days they’re more comfortable, have better sound quality, are easier to pair to your phone, and have extra features.  You can still talk on them and transfer your contacts and stolen MP3s to other people through them, but now they have voice to text abilities, noise cancellation, extended battery life, etc….  Plus, they’ll stop you from getting a ticket in one of those awful states with all the laws.  

For the record, the fact that WI has a law that you have to ride in a car seat until you’re 25 and 200lbs and no hands free law is kind of stupid.  I guess we have more car seat manufacturing plants than bluetooth factories in this state.

Kohl’s Department Store vs Math

Ah, Kohl’s Department store. You are one of the only department stores in the country that has managed to grow and prosper even through the darkest of this recession. How do you do it?

Is it your friendly staff and customer service?

No, you will never find someone on the floor past the cash register, and the people that are at the register are required to jabber on about Kohl’s cards and cash and savings, yadda yadda yadda, for all eternity.  It is impossible to leave that store without Kohl’s letting you know what a favor they’re doing you by letting you shop there.

Is it about the wonderful brands you carry?

No, no one shops at Kohl’s to look great. You shop at Kohl’s to not look bad. Have you ever said to someone “wow, nice shirt. Did you get that at Kohl’s?” Nope, that’s not a thing. Kohl’s is pretty much Goodwill with a bigger selection, and some of their clothes don’t smell like the previous owner.

Kohl’s has been so successful for the simple reason that they have managed to capitalize on our country’s greatest weakness. Math. They then take that weakness and exploit it using watered down discounts and coupons. Floor sales, mailer coupons/discounts, charge cards discounts, special sale day discounts, scratch off discounts, and more all look deceivingly good.

For example –

Everyone that has ever been to Kohl’s knows that everything they sell is at LEAST twice as expensive as Kohl’s expects you to pay for it. An item they expect to sell for $50 is on the floor for no less than $100, and it’s usually closer to $150 depending on what type of product it is. Items that have more opportunities for discounts (clothes) are usually higher.

Dress pants are a good example. A pair of pants they expect to get $40 for would be at least $120 in store. Doesn’t seem so bad, because it’ll have an immediate sale price of 40% off. That brings it down to $72 already! It’s still high, but that’s OK, because we have a 20% off coupon and when we start our Kohl’s charge we’ll get another 10% off. 70% off of $120 is $84, so we’re getting these pants for $36. They can’t be making that much money on these things!

Wrong. Those discounts most definitely do not work like that. The discounts apply one at a time, so we’re looking at an entirely different number. the first 40% does take it from $120 to to $72, but your second discount of 20% is not as effective. Those sneaky marketing people have now devalued your additional coupons, because instead of your 20% coupon being worth 20% of the $120 ($24), it’s only worth 20% of the $72 ($14.40). Your coupon is only worth 60% of what it seems like it would be worth.

The 10% of the card gets even worse. 10% of the $120 would be 12 bucks, but now you’re getting it off the current value of the $57.60. That’s 5.76 off, which takes that 10% discount and makes it worth less than 5% off your total starting amount.

Your original estimate of $36 for the pants is actually off by $15.84, at 51.84. You’re paying 44% more for those pants than you might have thought. Even if you had three more 10% off coupons for a total of 100% worth of discounts those pants would cost more than the $36 you had in mind.

It gets even worse if you have one of those little coupons Kohl’s mails out every so often for $10 off your next purchase during a select time period. That would bring those pants down from $51.84 to $41.84, making them very close to what you originally expected to pay for them, right?

Nope, that discount gets applied to the original $120 price of the pants, even though Kohl’s at no point ever intended you to buy them for that much. Your ten dollars is subject to all your discounts, so it’s actually worth $4.32. Not exactly as exciting as your original $10. Instead of your $36 – $10 coupon sitting you at $26 you actually are going to be paying 51.84 – 4.32, or 47.52. That’s almost 83% more than you thought.

This is all better than if instead of those pants being 40% off initially, they were 20% off, and then an additional clearance price of 20% off the sale price! If that was the case you’d end up paying about $4 more for those pants.

Long story short, if you do go to Kohl’s just get in line behind an old lady. I guarantee you will watch her get about eight total discounts adding up to somewhere around 200% off of her purchases. If Kohl’s can make money off those people that have all day to take advantage of every coupon that’s ever been offered in all existence, that would mean that if you have a job or a family you have absolutely no hope of avoiding getting sodomized by them.

Zooey and Apple, Perfect Combination

After having seen those new iPhone ads featuring that knucklehead Zooey Deschanel dancing around and talking to Siri, I would have to say that those two are a perfect match.

Both are trying to come off as quirky underdogs to be appreciated by the unique free thinking people, when they are most definitely not these things.  Apple is huge, yet they still are represented as the artsy, creative type that ventures away from vanilla Microsoft, yet that company is making enough money to make CEO billionaires.  Someone will have to explain to me exactly why Apple products have such huge markups, because the 25 cents an hour we pay those Chinese slaves factory workers hardly justifies the $700 price tag on phones phones and the $2500 MacBook pricing when you get get similar spec’ed competitor equipment for less than half the price.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/27/foxconn-suicide-tenth-iphone-china

Deschanel is similar.  Not only was she not always the offbeat goofball that her latest appearances would have you believe, there was a time where she actually tried to be sexual!  I know that it’s hard to believe, but that time did in fact exist.

Yeah, that's a girl you would assume would have weird tastes and be awkward around guys.

 

Apple and Zooey, both household names.  Both overrated.  Both pretty annoying.  Both have incredible marketing.  Both apparently think Siri can do a lot more than it actually does.

I am feeling a little bit more generous toward Zooey after that picture, though, so I’ll leave her alone until people start killing themselves because of her.  Although she did recently divorce Ben Gibbard, and anyone who has ever heard a Death Cab For Cutie song knows that guy is constantly teetering on the verge of suicide.

Tiny Soda Cans, Why?

OK, so while shopping today I came across those stupid, tiny cans of soda that have been popping into existence.  Either 7.5 or 8oz cans are available for people that don’t care for the standard 12oz cans, but what’s the reason behind the can size downgrade?  Is weight of a full 12 oz can too much for the lazy people that inhabit our country?  Are the tiny soda cans so adorable that they make the soda taste better?  It must be one of those, because there is no other reason to drink those stupid things.

If we look at common pricing at Target or Walmart the tiny 7.5oz cans come in 8 packs for about $3.  12 Packs of 12oz cans are $4.  Bizarrely enough, this means you pay 37.5 cents per 7.5oz can and about 33 cents per 12oz can.

Why are you paying more for small cans?  For one additional dollar you can go from 60oz of soda to 144oz of soda.  Even if you drink 7oz from each can and throw them out you’d still be saving money!  This isn’t like buying a 2 liter where it’ll run out of carbonation over time and it’ll be tough to lug around with you where you go.  It’s almost like by buying 7.5oz cans you’re telling companies that not only are you basically retarded when it comes to math, but you’re actually willing to pay more money in order for them to give you less.  They’ve already had their laughs when it came to selling low calorie small portions to you at grocery stores and restaurants while still charging the same amount, but now they’re sticking it to us again, and changing around the quantities of the items around to make it harder (still not hard) to directly compare items.

Not today, you bigwig asshats.  I hope they’ve designed those tiny cans specifically to fit into your billionaire rectums, because that’s right where you can put them.  Please do not let this give you the idea to release anus flavored soda, though.  Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb have enough competition as it is.

Craigslist, The Modern Day Flea Market

People are always jabbering on and on about Craigslist, but do any of you people actually use it?  I was just kind of curious, because I’ve been on there a few times, and I’m not sure if anyone actually successfully buys or sells anything on there.

My first complaint comes with the fact that the pricing is never accurate.  Ever.  A third of everything on there is listed for a penny for reasons that I can only assume include making it come up earlier for people searching by price, and to make people call them with offers.  I know this, because every time I offer to buy someone’s furniture for a penny they seem to get offended.

Even with non penny prices, things never go as they should.  Selling your phone for $100?  When I call you sudden interest has caused the price to go up by $50.  What caused this mysterious demand?  What did you tell the first person that called you wanting to buy it?  “Thanks for your interest.  I’ll get back to you after a little while because I need to consider if I still want to sell it now that someone actually wants to buy it, and I may need to consider other peoples’ offers.”  This isn’t Ebay, you filthy troll.  I’m not looking to haggle with you.  Even if I was, I shouldn’t get a call from you informing me that the price has gone up after I’m halfway to your place.  Marking up an item based on how committed they’ve got someone into the sales process is going to get your house burned down.

I’m not even convinced I want to go to your house, you dirty creeper.  Discounting the fact that there’s a 20% chance you’re going to try and turn my skin into lampshades, everyone seems to have the similar sales mantra of “first come first serve”.  Do you think I’m going to drive 20-30 minutes to your house on the off chance that you still have that $10 DVD player?  If it was a good enough deal for me to want it, the odds are good someone else has the same idea.  Although it would be worth buying, it’s not worth my time to get the chance to buy it.  I’m not asking you to put the goddamn thing on layaway for a month, just hold it for an hour!

Fine Craigslist grade merchandise!

Internet, you’re supposed to make my life easier, yet it still seems like you’re just giving the weirdos better access to bother the normals.

I Will Kill The Inventor of Customer Satisfaction Surveys

You ever get those little surveys from retail stores or fast food restaurants that offer you a dollar off your next purchase, or a chance to win money by taking them? Why on Earth do companies rely on these things to make decisions?

Think about the people that are willing to take a 10 minute survey to explain how they feel about their trip to WalMart.  Would you want to cater everyone’s experience around the opinions of someone who has so much extra time that they can spend twenty minutes online taking a survey for a one in a billion chance to win $1000 worth of WalMart merchandise?  If you have that much extra time and so little money that the miniscule chance of winning a mediocre prize paid in cheap products has an influence on how you live your life, you shouldn’t be taking a survey from them, you should be applying for a job working for them.  It almost makes me want to spend time filling out those stupid things, since it makes me upset to think that these companies are now going to be basing business decisions around catering to these morons.

$1000 chance of winning with only a million other people surveyed! That's like .1 cents for 20 minutes of time!

Hey Taco Bell, we already know that your customer service is terrible without the help of some strongly disagree ratings on a survey.  No one goes there and orders more than two things without expecting you to screw something up.  That will never change until you start paying people more than minimum wage.  I don’t even expect it to change, and I certainly don’t want you to take any measures to fix it.  I’ll order one extra taco every time I drive through to make sure you include enough food to fill me up, but you have to hold up to your part of the bargain and not increase operating costs by replacing those creatures that work inside your restaurants, causing operating expenses to go up.  I want to pay 99 cents, and only 99 cents, for each spongey tortilla shell filled with what you call cheese and beef-like product. If you want to make me happy you can stop wasting money by doing these ridiculous surveys and put 10% more imitation meat product in your dollar menu items.  My cancerous tumors and morbid obesity aren’t going to develop themselves.

I don't know what this crap actually is, but give me three! Actually, make it four, because you'll forget one and probably screw another one up.

This world already caters to the 1% of the population that comprise the “squeakiest wheel” demographic.  Please stop giving these people things, and stop making an experience around what these people want.  The customers that have the time to fill out stupid surveys and call and give feedback on the customer service they received by a disinterested clerk at a cheap retail store are the customers that are ruining things for everyone else!  If someone told you that there was a tiny base of customers that would tie up the majority of your customer service department, return enough items to cause half of your refurbished or open-box inventory, and constantly demand credits and free things from your company, you shouldn’t be saying “how can I give these people everything they want?”.  You should be saying “how can I get those dumbasses to go ruin my competitor?”.  Maybe end every one of these surveys with “thanks for wasting your time taking this survey, you goddamn idiot”.

The next time you go to buy a phone and you see three sales people trying placate some irrational stupid’s tirade about how his phone is too confusing because it has too many options that he can’t simply ignore (because he paid for those features!) and how he was tricked into getting a flip phone that was too difficult to use, remember that if you have service with that company you are indirectly paying for the customer service it takes to handle that idiot.  80% of the calls at that phone company’s call center come from the same 5% of people.  You know why so many companies outsource customer service?  It’s because those morons waste so much money worth of peoples’ time that companies can no longer afford to hire Americans to talk to you while keeping service rates competitive.  Those high maintenence jackasses are ruining things for the people that have legitamate problems and just want to speak to someone that can understand the finer intricacies of their own language.

You know why it’s so hard to get a warranty issue taken care of?  It’s because those special people are trying to scam a return due to something they did wrong, or because they don’t take the time to actually try to figure out and resolve the problem on their own. All technical support people assume you’re retarded, because 80% of the time they’re getting calls from that 5% of people that don’t take the time to see if their electronics are plugged in, or have batteries in them, or just need a basic thirty second fix.  This is all not assuming the person the person is a downright bastard and just complaining about imaginary problems with their phone to get the upgraded model he wants.

SPOILER ALERT: 90% of all electronic issues can be resolved by turning the device off and back on, but do you think these people try that?  I swear to you, if I had a recording that played before I took each customer’s call that said “please turn your phone off and back on” I would take half as many troubleshooting calls.  I am not exaggerating.

Next time you go shopping, think about the fact that if you could get rid of the 5% of people that ruin it for everyone else with their incompetence, illogical complaints, ridiculous lawsuits, and abusive attitudes your expensives would be considerably less, the company you worked for would be much more profitable, and you could be paid more.  Now this is not the case if you’re a lawyer, since they feed off the stupid lawsuits and the threat of those lawsuits, but if you are, I feel fairly comfortable tossing you into that 5%.

Hail to Amazon, Our Retail Overlords

Let’s face the facts, Amazon controls our lives, and we should all be thankful for that.  To celebrate their control over our lives, I have created this top 5 list of reasons I appreciate them.  Hopefully they’ll appreciate it enough to make sure I’m the first one to get an Amazon drone chip placed in my brain when they run the rest of the operations in this declining wasteland of a planet.

#1  I am a guy

Oh dear, what will I do without being able to wander around in in a retail store trying to find things?  Being able to type a word in a box is way less convenient/fun than randomly stumbling around a department store trying to find things.  How will I know what shoes are right for me without trying on twenty different pairs in three different places over the course of three hours?  I miss interacting with indifferent sales people and zoned out customers wandering around like drunken hobos.  Do these pants make me look fat?  These are things that will never come out of my mouth.

Why yes, Amazon prime, I would like to use your for your free month duration. See you again next November!

#2  Screws with California

Now, I’m a red-blooded American man in the heart of the Midwest, so it’s only natural that I love to watch California fail at everything it does.  Needless to say, things have been pretty great lately.  Their economy is in the dump.  They’ve strung together a list of governors that have thoroughly embarrassed them for quite some time.  Hollywood is putting together horrible movie after horrible movie.   The government and its citizens seem to spend every waking moment trying to undo what the other is doing.  If you turn the TV off for a week you’ll have no idea whether or not they allow gay people to get married.  Doing absolutely nothing to help them is Amazon, making sure to do everything in their power to not pay that filthy state a single penny in sales taxes.

The best part about the whole thing is that Amazon is using California’s own stupid laws to punish them even further.  I think we can all agree that the whole ballot referendum thing is dumb as hell.  It shows everyone the exact reason why this country is a republic instead of a democracy.  Even better than not paying sales taxes, Amazon actually spent over five million dollars to collect signatures to overturn the law that would require them to pay sales tax.  So just to make sure you’ve got this straight, Amazon said “not only will we not pay you sales tax, we’re going to spend millions to waste state money on ballots, petitions, and voting in order to cause you to lose money in the process”.  Sounds awesome to me.

#3 Slowly putting Best Buy out of business

Anyone who has actually been to Best Buy has secretly harbored thoughts about burning that place to the ground.  Tell me with all honesty that you’ve never left that store with the thought of wrapping one of those overpriced HDMI cables around a sales person’s throat after they’ve interrogated you about a TV package, or where you stood on your cell phone plan.  Explain to me how they ALWAYS show up when you are in the middle of browsing yourself, and then sprint off into the back room the second you actually have a question.

Share with me the moment you realized that the Geek Squad did not actually consist of the brainy geeks like you hear about winning chess tournaments and creating homemade computers, but the geeks like that kid you knew in high school who never brought a lunch because his stomach was full of what he removed from his nose with his finger during his first four periods.  Sorry Geek Squad, but the lack of social skills kind of geeks are not the ones I want touching my computer equipment.  I admit, it’s a clever way of providing a warranty that’s over twice as expensive without actually providing a valuable extra service, but I’m not interested at this time.  If a “geek” is the type of geek we’re looking for, by the time he turns 30 he should have a better job than making $9 an hour poking at a computer for five minutes before just reformatting it or replacing it though warranty.

You go Amazon.  Let’s watch them hire their pesky sales people, pay their ridiculous sales tax, and harass their customers for long-term warranties that are voided if you look at their products the wrong way.  Good luck with that.

#4 Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire is awesome.  Do better, higher end tablets exist?  Yes, they most certainly do.  They also cost two to four times as much.  For under $200 you can’t afford NOT to have a Kindle Fire!

Now, the trick to the Kindle Fire is realizing why it is so damn cheap.  For $200 you’re hauling around a wireless Amazon catalog.  Sure, the Amazon app market isn’t quite as large and inexpensive as the regular Android market.  Sure, It doesn’t have as many apps as the Apple market.  Sure, the Apple market is really expensive just like everything Apple related and Apple users can go shove their devices where the sun doesn’t shine.  But to get back on point, for two hundred bucks it still goes on the internet.  It still plays movies, accesses your email, plays your stupid Angry Birds, takes you to YouTube, etc, etc….  It does everything non-app related you want, and all it asks if that you hit a button that’s stuck on it every once in a while to consider buying one of their apps or shopping on their website.

#5 Hilarious reviews

Saving the best for last, have you people read some of the reviews people leave on this site for products?  Wow.  The tragedy of shopping at stores nowadays is that most of the people that are regularly shunned from society or unable to interact with human beings in person have ways around doing these things, so part of the human zoo is now missing from our lives (WalMart excluded).  The good thing is that they now go online and post hilariously ridiculous reviews on Amazon’s website.  Whether it involves not understanding the product or reading the details before they bought something, angrily venting about something only they feel is related to the product, or not operating the product correctly, I feel like our lives can all be enriched by enjoying the suffering other peoples’ stupidity brings upon themselves.

Go to http://leasthelpful.com/ to enjoy many wonderful online shopping critiques straight from the dummies themselves.

Cell Taxes, You Have No Idea

So, do you ever think to yourself after getting your first couple cell phone bills  “boy, that sales rep sure is a lying pile of horse feces”?  Sure you do, and usually with good reason.  One thing he isn’t 100% responsible for is the fact that your bill is legitimately going to be somewhere around 15%-40% higher than it should be thanks to a million different areas of government getting their hands into your pocket through your cellphone bill.

This picture actually has nothing to do with taxes. It's just displaying RIM's entire current net worth.

Now, for the sake of keeping this brief enough for the ADHD masses that decide to read a blog over a book, I’m going to keep this to the fees people actually see on a bill, or most easily relate to paying drastic increases in money over.

I’m not going to go into great detail on how the FCC tightly regulates spectrum (think of spectrum as the limited radio frequencies wireless operates on) and auctions it off for proceeds, because it seems like you need an engineering degree to fully understand how dicked over you’re getting.  $60 billion dollars they’ve made through auctioning that spectrum off to companies, and you know where that leads.  Those companies that own that spectrum are going to bleed that money right back out of the consumer without the consumer realizing they’ve just been inadvertently taxed by the government while that government sells to the wealthiest companies, pretty much ensuring that only a few companies control the vast majority of spectrum.

Instead, let’s focus our attentions on the things we do see on the bill, so I can show you how it’s possible to be paying as high as a 42% tax rate on your bill.  Looking on your bill you see about a million little bonus costs.  They’re tricky, because they’re listed in multiple areas, but we’ll start with the ones that are listed as taxes, and make our way to the ones charged as fees.

When it comes to taxes, this is generally only going to include sales tax.  Not so bad, right?  Sales tax is usually pretty low, and some states don’t even have it!  Well, laugh it up Oregan, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Montana, but if you think you’re getting off that easy, you are very wrong, because there’s plenty more in store for you.  Anyway, state sales taxes usually range between 4%-9.45%, but that’s just regular sales taxes.  Some states have a luxury (excise) tax, and some of THOSE states have decided that cell phones are part of that luxury tax, as the first thing I relate to cell phones are cigars, yachts, and monocles.  I mean, when you’re not at home there are always all those pay phones on the sides of the streets nowadays, right?

Now, this is great, but counties, cities, and municipalities of all shapes and sizes also need to get their piece of the pie, so you might find your phone bill containing a whole load of extra little sales taxes tucked in there, too.  There really isn’t any regulation on what local municipalities can tack on your bill, so if you get a tax happy bunch, be prepared to watch your bill shoot up.

Though entirely unrelated, this comes to mind.

Ok, so sales taxes can be a tough pill to swallow, and luxury taxes at double that level get tougher, but what are these fees on this bill, and can it really be that bad?  Of course the answer is yes, or you probably would be pretty mad you read this far.

We start with both federal and state USF  (Universal Service Fund) fees.  The Federal USF charge is huge, and for the most part it takes your money in order to make sure cell phone service isn’t more expensive for people that live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere.  Ever wonder why those crazy rednecks that live in the middle of a swamp get a cell phone tower devoted pretty much solely to themselves and a couple other neighbors?  Yeah, you help pay for that.

Some of the rest of the Federal and the majority of the State USF charges go towards putting wireless in government buildings and libraries.  Also, there is Lifeline, which is basically like phone welfare.  Now I don’t want to say that getting a dollar amount off your cell bill when you’re low income is necessarily a bad thing, but I will tell you that the Lifeline discounts I normally see (usually around $13, sometimes more) come off cell phone plans that include multiple smartphone family lines with unlimited minutes and messaging.

Not to finish there, 45 states and many cities go an additional step and tack on a fee for emergency services.  This 911 fee is a reasonable enough idea (and would be more reasonable if it didn’t feel like it should already be included in one of the billion other ridiculous taxes), but the problem is with the amount.  With some states it’s about .40 cents, and most people can live with that, but when you get to certain areas it’s absolutely ridiculous.  Chicago’s E-911 fee is $2.50!  A flat $2.50!  You’re going to tell me that you are using $2.50 from every cell phone in the entire city to run your emergency services?  If you are, you need to make that stuff about ten times as efficient.  If you’re just trying to gauge out more taxes, have the decency to name the additional taxes what they are.  Try something like “Our Future Governors Legal and Prison Upkeep Fee”.  Not to mention the state often charges an additional .24 for some goofy state utility tax.

Last, but certainly not least, there is the Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee, which is your cell phone carrier’s way of telling you that you’re going to be paying for all the stuff the government forces them to pay for.  Federal mandates for storing pools of numbers to assign, the services they’re forced to carry to make sure you can port your numbers to and from other companies, E-911 setup, services for the hard of hearing and speech impaired, and the Regulatory Fee they pay to operate all get passed right on to you in the form of a fee that usually ranges between $1.25 and $1.80.

Now there are other little things other states have to toss a few cents onto your bills, but this seems like a good enough idea for the time being.  To sum it up, let’s take a look at what fees a person in Chicago can expect to pay on a five line family plan.
OK, so we have a five line basic family plan for a person living in Chicago.  Let’s estimate it at about 69.95 for the first two lines, and 10 for each line afterwards, putting the pretax bill at $99.95 (Verizon Pricing.  Basic limited minute family plans with all major carriers are pretty much the same).  Not bad for five phones, not bad at all.  There might be a $30 activation fee if you can’t get them to waive it, and most companies have some workaround for that, like ordering online, or bugging them enough.  Then start the problems.

Now, you get a subsidized price off your phone for starting a new line.  Free phone that would normally retail for a hundred fifty bucks!?  Nice.  No tax on that, right?  Wrong.  The government has decided that since those were essentially being treated as freebees by companies to get you to sign big revenue generating long-term service contracts, they were not being taxed enough.

If you think about it, that really makes no sense.  Right in that sentence they admit that it’s in return for the big service contracts which are very well sales taxed.  Now you are not only getting the full tax on the phone that was subsidized, but you are also getting fully taxed on the service plan that is higher to make up for the cost of the phone subsidy.  That is seriously stupid and basically ends up with you getting taxed twice.  It boils down to paying taxes on a loan you take out to buy something you’ll be paying taxes on.

Whatever, so you got jobbed on some sales taxes on your phone.  Now, a smartphone like the iPhone can frequently go from $700 down to $200, so if that was the case you’d be paying taxes on an extra $500.  In Chicago, the city of super-taxes, that would be a pretty huge hit.  Thankfully, in this scenario we’re only getting a $150 subsidy, so the sales tax is slightly less absurd.

$150 phone subsidy with a sales tax of 7% from the state.  That’s $7.  Now, the service plan is 100, and that gets taxed at the 7% excise tax from the state, 7% “communications” tax from the city, 3% from the fed.  Nice, there’s $17 more.  So after sales tax we have a one time $7 worth of tax on a $0 phone, and a regularly occurring $17.  That’s a good start.

Now this is when we come to the USF charges.  These are charged  at the account level, and then more small ones for each line.  We’re looking at about about $1.00 a line in all these goofy little charges, one of which might be a utility charge for who knows what depending what part of the city you’re at.  Add that to the rest and your recurring fee just jumped to about $22.00.  I would like to stress to you that I have estimated this DOWN to $1.00 a line, assuming you’re in a generous area

Fees are where things get most interesting, as these are charges PER LINE.  We’re looking at regulatory cost recovery fees of about a $1.50 a line on average, and our Chicago special $2.50 insane E-911 fee.  I hope you’re calling 911 a lot to get your money’s worth, and if these taxes hint at anything, it’s that you might just need to use that number after you see your bill so they can zap you with those little paddles after you have your heart attack.   ($1.50 + 2.50) x 5, and we have another $20.

Nice, $42 worth of taxes every month on a $100 bill, now you’re talking.  Sure, I’ll admit, Chicago is an extreme example at what ends up being 42% taxed, because the people that live there are apparently all criminals or dummies, but all major cities are nearly as bad when it comes to cell taxes, and all smaller cities are just regular horrible.  Why is this something that doesn’t get more complaints?  Is it ok because you only have a single line plan (which have a lower tax % rate because they end up being more expensive per line) and only pay 25% taxes?  Do you have a more expensive plan, so the flat fees take a smaller % of the overall bill?   Do you live in a different city and only pay 15-20% taxes?  I don’t know about you, but that still strikes me as wrong.

I suppose if you’re a big believer in flat taxes cell phones taxes are pretty much where it’s at, since a family’s economic standing really doesn’t seem to have a huge impact on how much they spend on their wireless bills.  Hell, people that are still too poor for the good stuff are on pace to pay a much higher percentage tax rate on their bill than people with money for their own single line smartphone plans!

Oh well, just add it to the list, I suppose.  Don’t think that if you’re on a flat rate prepaid plan you’re getting off easy, either.  Although they avoid a couple of the fees, companies include those taxes into your bill.  I was going to put in a really great NSFW image of a guy bending over with unspeakable IRS related things being inserted inside him, but hey, I’m a classy guy.  That’s the note I’ll leave this on, because really, that’s the most important thing for you to take away out of this.

Flip Flops, Greatest Mistake in Apparel History

When it comes to fashion, I’ll be the first to admit that I what I know about fashion could be compared to what a TSA agent knows about self-respect.  Even still, I know that no one should ever be caught wearing flip flops, the worst thing to ever appear on human beings since open herpes sores.

I’m not the biggest foot hater or lover in the world, more like a foot indifferent, but feet look best in shoes.  Closed shoes.  Shoes that are firmly attatched to the feet.  Shoes that don’t do more damage to your posture than spending your entire waking moment slouching at a desk, staring into a computer screen while listening to 80 year old women complain about how their lives are miserable now that their grandkids only communicate with them via text.

I would say one of the things that bug me most about flip flops is that people that wear them are constantly taking them off, or picking at their feet.  First, that’s disgusting.  Second, this is not giving off the image of yourself you want people to get.  When the whole purpose of wearing an article of clothing is that it makes it easier to take off at a moment’s notice and mess around with the part of the body it was on, that part of the body should be on a woman, and it better damn well be on something more interesting than a foot.  Do you even want to attract a person with a foot fetish?  Yuck.

I remember the good ol’ days, when people wore flip flops solely for pool and shower related purposes.  That made sense, because protecting yourself from athlete’s foot and warts at the expense of a $2 article of footwear is a noble idea.  Wearing that same disposable article of clothing with $100 jeans is some strange, unintentionally ironic statement about fashion.  The only way to accessorize flip flops is with one of those giant protective safety helmets made for specials, or a backwards, upside down visor.  Maybe one of those Livestrong bracelets, too.  Those things are dumb as hell.

You are one step away from hitting this level of stupid.

You might as well go all out hobo and wear worn out sweatpants and a wifebeater.  Why bother wearing nice things on the rest of your body if all the attention is just going be drawn down to the cheap plastic planks loosely attatched to your feet?

You ever see someone wear a really nice, expensive suit along with a gaudy, off color tie that ruins the whole ensemble?  Now imagine that awful tie also exposed one of the most visually unappealing parts of their body.  Let’s say the new fad was to wear a solid pink circle accessory in a man’s fly that perfectly exposed his balls.  Sure, having easy access to my junk would make my life more convenient, but at what cost?

Wal-Mart

I hear a lot of people complaining about Wal-Mart lately, and let me tell you, that is really, really annoying to me. It seems like we’ve got a weird trend going on where people have lost all idea of cause and effect. When did Wal-Mart supposedly become America’s premium shopping experience?
Are there pros to Wal-Mart? No, there are not “pros”; there is only one, singular “pro”. You don’t pay a lot of money to buy things there. That’s a pretty solid pro. Now sure, there is the convenience of having everything supplied in on giant store, but honestly, when everyone is 30lbs overweight at the least, I don’t see a lack of necessary movement as a pro anymore.

So we have the pro, and what a pro. Do you think that this pro comes without cons? Do you think you can expect a company to provide you with goods at 15% off what you would pay at another store and not make sacrifices? You silly fool, you’re lucky you have me to point out those cons, and explain to you how wrong you are to complain about them.

Con #1: Customer Service

Now, where do you think the bulk of those savings are coming from? Do you think these creatures drudging away inside their giant, merchandise laden prison aren’t working to the maximum of their potential? Well, I have news for you. Of course they aren’t. Would you bust your ass if you were making minimum wage (or possibly even less if they don’t hate have legal documentation or a solid grasp on English)? In all fairness, it probably isn’t far from their maximum potential, but that potential usually isn’t incredible when you’re over 80, or were previously cast without makeup in one of those “The Hills Have Eyes” movies.

What exactly is it that you want from those people? Hey people, I want to pay a very small amount for these groceries, but I don’t want to watch you stare blankly at your shiny keychain for 10 minutes instead of opening up a second cashier lane. How is that fair? Go through the self checkout lane you lazy bastard. If you’re really going to miss the human interaction of a half conscious cashier scanning your purchases why don’t you go chat up the greeter for a few minutes? I can’t think of any other reasons those people exist, except possibly to keep them somewhere people can watch them so they don’t go euthanize themselves. Speaking of which….

Con #2: Too Many Weird Random Employees That Have No Purpose Besides Making You Uncomfortable

This one I don’t have a full grasp on the reasoning behind. I understand that these people are basically working for Wal-Mart for free when you take into consideration the tax break the company gets for employing them, but what advantage do they get from having those weird greeters at the door? It can’t be for loss prevention, since I know they barely even have self awareness, let alone the ability to detect if someone is shoplifting. At my Wal-Mart it even seems like they have one specific creature that serves absolutely no purpose besides telling you when one of the bathrooms is closed for cleaning or maintenance if you get too close to it. Come to think of it, I’m not even really convinced that it works there, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the time to find out. Still, it’s not a horrible price to pay for cheap stuff. Hell, it’s probably just karma punishing me for purposefully trying to make other people feel awkward throughout my typical day.

Con #3: Your Fellow Customers

This is probably the worst one, but it’s hard to blame the company for attracting an undesirable customer base. Sure, charging a bit more would rid yourself of these people, but now you’re going against your entire point for shopping here. Do you think that Mr. Lazy Eyes or Miss Staring Into Space While Pushing Her Cart At a Speed Where you Can’t Even Be Sure It’s Actually Moving and Not a Trick of the Eyes can afford to shop anywhere else? No, they most certainly can’t, unless rummaging through a dumpster for salvageable items is considered shopping nowadays. You should be thanking Wal-Mart for keeping those people out of your trash can at night.

There is definitely room for Wal-Mart to improve its store to accommodate for their shoppers, but again, that’ll increase cost of operation, and those costs increase merchandise costs. Extra square footage to make it easier to get around people in isles when an old person has fallen asleep against their cart, or a stoner has spaced out staring at a picture of a can of refried beans featuring a particularly racist picture of a bean with a sombrero on it? That costs money. Hiring someone to constantly clean up after obnoxious, destructive kids spilling things in your path whose glassy eyed mom is devoting all her attention toward figuring out what street drug will make her forget about the mistakes in life? That costs money. Hiring someone functional to work at the electronics department to assist some 90 year old man who won’t leave that department until someone tells him what an LED is even though you’re waiting to buy batteries, and even though he has no intention in a million years of spending more than $10 for a TV the rest of his life? That costs money.

So the next time you’re thinking about complaining about Wal-Mart and its colorful staff, take a moment to think about the sacrifices a person makes to save a buck or two. Otherwise, just appreciate the human zoo.