Now stop shopping!
So I have been trying to buy a freaking Nintendo Wii for the past few days. I actually showed up to Best Buy at 10:00 on the launch day to buy one. I show up all eager as a beaver at 10:00 in the morning on a weekend (yes, 10:00, as if I were in the freaking military) to own the newest latest and greatest in gaming only to find out they sold out at about 7:00 that morning.
And now, no one anywhere has a single Wii in stock. Amazon.com, Circuit City, Microcenter, you name it, its all sold out.
I went so far as to go to Conn's, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry's Electronics in Houston today, on Black Friday. Everyone is still sold out! The Wii has been out for 140 hours, 53 minutes, and 12 seconds and I still don't own one! By the time I can finally get one, its going to be about as outdated as Pong or one of Nancy Pelosi's suits.
I hate this consumer-oriented America! Every time I want something so bad that I'm willing to go to the store to actually buy it, its always sold out. Americans should not be allowed to shop, because it prevents me from buying what I really and truly need--a brand new Nintendo Wii.
I was even about to give in yesterday and buy a Xbox 360. Amazon.com had a deal where they were selling 1,000 of them for the ridiculously low price of $100. I swear, I was there right as the sale began. But as the time drew near, the Amazon.com homepage began to refresh really slowly... like about as slowly as W&L's Web Registration used to go... and in less than a minute, they had sold out of the $100 Xbox 360's. Man I was furious. So now, I ain't got no Nintendo Wii and I ain't got no $100 Xbox 360!
If only people would stop shopping... Sigh... When will we learn? Capitalism simply doesn't work.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/15/larry-king-internet/
I thought the only Americans to never use the Internet were the freaking Amish. But Larry King? I swear, from now on I'm getting all of my news from the Onion.
A couple of years ago now I was having lunch with a technician friend when he received a call on his cell from a desperate customer. Listening to his side of the conversation I heard him say “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.” Ten minutes after the call ended I asked him if he needed to go to see the customer. No, he didn’t, he had to finish his lunch. This reminded me of my own tendency to search the entirety of a lab computer for data that I know is not there when a student has “left it for only 15 minutes” and it has rebooted itself and cleared all the data. Is this a secret part of the technicians code to “Always hold out hope even when there is none.” Or maybe “Lie to the customers to defer their fury.” I don’t know, but I know maintaining hope in the face of hopelessness is a fairly automatic response across our staff. Maybe it is just that we do these jobs because we like to make people happy, and failing that we suppose that making them miserable is worse that prolonging their ignorance of reality.
Strangely, this tactic sometimes works. I have noted that customers who couldn’t accept complete data loss when the idea was first proposed, have brought themselves to some state of acceptance by the time all futile measures have been exhausted. At least they aren’t crying.
The good news? The election is over! Yay!!!
The bad news? The next one is only two years away. Boo!!!
You want my opinion? Just read the AP.
Dow Reaches New High on Election Results
Nov 08 4:12 PM US/Eastern
By TIM PARADIS
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK
Wall Street ended higher Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrials setting another record close, as investors grew more confident that a huge victory by Democrats in congressional elections would result in gridlock and keep lawmakers out of the way of business interests.
The market had largely expected Democrats to gain control of the House of Representatives, but an undecided Senate race in Virginia had earlier unnerved investors who dislike such uncertainty. Stocks showed gains after the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"I would think over the next several weeks that investors should return their focus to the likelihood for interest rate moves in the decelerating economic climate, the moderating earnings growth and the weakening housing market," said Elizabeth Weymouth, global investment specialist at JPMorgan Private Bank.
According to preliminary calculations, the rose 19.77, or 0.16 percent, to 12,176.54. The Dow closed above the record of 12,167.02 set on Oct. 26 and came within a few points of a record trading high of 12,196.32 reached Tuesday.
Broader stock indicators also advanced. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 2.88, or 0.21 percent, at 1,385.72, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 9.06, or 0.38 percent, to 2,384.94.
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Woo-Hoo! I made money today! ExxonMobil stock is up 2.2% today alone!
It's almost like April in November.....
Now is the season of our content when we loll and laugh and don't have much to do. I've had one call today, the person wanted to know the number of the switchboard. I wouldn't tell him and insisted on looking the number up myself. I have to have some justification for my existence. I have discovered that I am happier when I am really busy. At least then I have a plausible explanation for my office. GroupWise went down yesterday, -- a bright moment! I can't wait until we get Vista and everything goes straight to hell.
I guess we never should have gotten rid of Novell on student computers.