Laptop Blues

Little Kat said his laptop is having problems. The thing won't connect to the Internet. I took a look and found some serious problems. Most of the services won't start up because they depend on something that has not started up. We tried to locate this missing unstarted dependency without luck.

I told Little Kat we could back up his data and see whether we could restore his laptop to the factory default settings. Momoko thought I could buy myself a new laptop, then let Little Kat use mine. At first I thought that was a bad idea. Then I took a look at the Sunday ads. Best Buy had a Dell laptop on sale for $350. It had 4G RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 15.6 inch display.

Tonight Little Kat and I try to scope out the laptop at the store. It was crowded. I asked a buy unloaded some boxes to help us out. He told us most of the low cost laptops were sold out. The only one for $350 had a small screen and no numeric keypad. The best low cost laptop Little Kat found for me cost $479. Too much.

Now we are at home regrouping.

We are PCs

Today Momoko said she saw an advertisement for a laptop. The cost was $299. She asked if that was a good price. Kit Kat and my laptops went for $279. So the one being advertised was close. Momoko decided to go for it. Her school is changing from Mac to PC. She needs the practice at home now.

I worked out in the yard cutting grass for about three hours today. It was a tough heat. By the time I came in, I was ready to pass out. Luckily I drank a lot of fluids so I did not die. I did take a nap after a nice shower. Momoko comes in and tells me she got the laptop. Good news. The price was $279. Even better than $299.

Now Momoko is setting up her laptop. We just need her to use the darn thing instead of the Mac that she is used to. Microsoft, Intel, and the PC continue to take over the world.

Demanding Good Service

Yesterday I went shopping for a second lawnmower. I chose the least expensive one that was on sale. It was a mid-range model by cost. The bag in the back that holds clippings was easy to remove and attach. I decided to buy it.

My truck was ready to transport the lawn mower. I waited 10 minutes before I saw anyone in the pick up department. I chatted with some other guys waiting for pick up. When I finally got my lawn mower, I asked for a $5 off coupon you get if they take more than 5 minutes.

The joker working pick up could only find an expired coupon. No way. He could not find me a manager in his department. So I got sent upstairs to see the big boss.In the end, a manager took 5 bucks off my purchase price. Let's hope the product itself is good quality.

Root Beer Ripoff

Little Kat slept in late this morning. By the time he got up, it was time for us to go shopping. Cokes were not on sales. But Pepsi products were. We picked up 4 twelve packs. There was some other sale in the store for A&W Root Beer. We picked up a couple twelve packs of those sodas too. The cash register guy said he only needed to see one of the packs to ring us up. I like when they do that. Prevents us from having to lift all the heavy boxes out of the cart.

Later when I was home, I was paying my bills. I was shocked to find that they overcharged me for the soda. It was supposed to be $3 per twelve pack. Instead they charged me something like $5.69 per twelve pack. Fail. I got Little Kat and we drove straight back to the store. They had suspiciously removed the sale sign from the A&W Root Beer display. Regardless I went to customer service and told them what happened. They tried to tell me that A&W was not on sale. I agreed that it might not be on sale in their circular, nor in their scanner system. But I could testify that their huge sign above the drinks clearly stated $3 each this morning. In the end we prevailed. I got back the $17 I overpaid earlier today. Little Kat and I then hauled out of there to make it home in time for Kit Kat's onion covered pork chops.

In Search of Cherry

Last weekend we had the anime convention. Then we worked on building a storage unit for firewood outside. I was very tired on Sunday. So Little Kat and I skipped our usual shopping.

This was too bad because coca cola products were on sale at our store. Today I decided to force myself to go pick up some cokes. I was disturbed to find that they did not have any cherry coke. Momoko like that the best.

All the had in cherry was cherry cola zero. Yuck. Instead I picked up an extra Barqs root beer. Everybody here likes Barqs. I also loaded up on regular coke.

Good Car Deals

Momoko said there was a car parked on the corner we drive by every day. It had a for sale sign in it. Asking price $150. Too bad they took the sign down before I noticed it. That sounds like a great deal. The car was an older Buick or something.

While on the subject of cars, here are some cars which cost between $4k and $6k, which Consumer Reports says are good buy:

• 2001 Acura CL
• 2000 Acura RL
• 200 Acura TL
• 2003 to 2005 Hyundai Sonata
• 2000 and 2002 Infiniti G20
• 2000 Infiniti I30
• 2001 to 2002 Lincoln Continental
• 200o to 2001 Mazda B Series
• 2000 to 2002 Mercury Marquis
• 2000 Nissan Frontier
• 2002 Nissan Xterra
• 2000 Toyota Avalon
• 2000 to 2001 Toyota Camry
• 2002 Toyota Corolla

There were more. But these were the ones I would not mind owning. Maybe we can get Kit Kat to buy one of these after she gets a job. Here is what MSN says are good car deals:

• 2005 to 2006 Honda CRV $11k to $16k
• 2006 Cadillac DTS $22k
• 2006 Toyota Takoma <$10k
• 2005 Porsche Carrera <$40k

Happy Sales Guy

Today my lunch buddy at work decided to skip going out. So I had to eat lunch by myself. This was not a bad thing. As you may recall, the family went to the mall this weekend. We looked at exercise equipment. Mamma Kat decided on the model of NordicTrack she wanted. I decided to sleep on it before buying.

And was I glad I did pause a bit. The next day, the store had the one Mamma wanted at another $100 off the price. So for lunch I went back to the mall. The food court in the mall was very crowded. Therefore I went straight to the store and skipped lunch.

I asked a couple salespeople if they could help me with a NordicTrack. They both pointed to the guy we talked to this weekend. He was busy with other customers. But my presence made him end his sales talk quickly. I asked him when could I get this NordicTrack delivered and installed. He said this Saturday. And with that I bought the thing.

The sales cat was very happy. He said this was the first time he sold any of this model. I bet that is because it is the most expensive one in the lineup. The extra sale helped make it more affordable. I think the sales cat gets a good commission for selling the top model. He told me sales are slow due to the bad economy. That's why they can deliver it so quickly. As long as the delivery goes well, I think this will be a purchase that is good for all us cats. We will keep you posted.