Category: Shopping

This weekend, Matt and I went to look for a bed. We have a mattress, but no bed frame because it was a piece of furniture we didn't really need in the beginning and so we decided to wait. But now, we're starting to want a bed frame for a few reasons (not important).

So we decided to make the rounds. The first shop we went to had really neat furniture and so we were looking around when a salesman came up to us and asked us if we were looking for anything in particular. Against my better judgement (I don't really like sales people, but I'll explain that in a moment) I said we were looking for bed frames. So he took us upstairs and showed us some of the ugliest bed frames I'd ever seen. We didn't enthuse with him as he pointed out the various styles and the he asked me what our price range was. I didn't specify a dollar value, but simply said, “fairly low.” So the he went into this diatribe about how he wouldn't have anything for us as we would be only interested in “fashion furniture” from over seas with “welds that would break.” And on and on for 15 minutes. Not exactly nasty, just condescending. And the really dumb part, was that he had a couple of beds in our “fairly low” price range. They were ugly and we wouldn't have bought them anyhow, but certainly not after he launched into condescension. After his rant, he left us abrubtly stating that we could “look around if you like.”

Now c'mon. Matt and I are 23. We don't have a ton of money. We have to start somewhere. Where the heck does this guy get off being rude to us? Why did he even bother talking to us if he was just going to cop an attitude. I'm sorry we weren't the quick sale he was looking for.

Which brings me to my point. I've gotten to the point where I don't even want a sales person helping us. It's especially bad at furniture stores. They're typically snooty or they hover and put in their “designer” opinion. I can't believe that sells stuff to anyone. It just makes me want to sprint out of there at top speed.

So here's a bit of advice to the sales people out there. You're more likely to get me to buy something if you just leave me alone. Sales pressure techniques and insinuations about my income (or lack there of)will not work on me. They will just piss me off.

We live in Wisconsin, yet it is so hot in our apartment building that we almost never run the heat. In fact, quite the opposite, we almost always run the A/C. It's quite irritating, really … and expensive.

I found a couple of really cool photo sites … Image Cafe and istockphoto. I particularly like istockphoto because you can upload your own photographs in exchange for credits that you can either get cashed out or you can use towards getting stock photos from them. The only problem is that I don't have a digital camera that's good enough to produce pictures acceptable for the site. Boo hoo. You need 2 MP and I've only got 1.3 MP. Blah. Maybe later.

What else? Hmmm… I've got real work to do on Jesser and now I shall probably do that. Blah. Lots of icky programmy stuff. I hope I have the head for it today.

Oh yes! I got an excellent deal on headphones at amazon marketplace. They're very nice wireless headphones that are regularly almost $90 and I found them for $17 plus S&H. So I was quite jazzed. I really couldn't pass that sort of deal up. They're great too. They work flawlessly. Yea for amazon marketplace!!

I absolutely love catalogs. It's like shopping, but you don't have to deal with annoying sales people who hover. You don't have to feel weird about browsing for hours and not buying anything and their an awesome place to get ideas for stuff you want to make.

I've gotten a couple of new catalogs recently. I think my favorite is Oriental Trading Company. It's filled with cheap stuff you can buy in bulk. A lot of it is chincy party favor sort of stuff, but man, if you're looking for good theme decorations (Tiki, Halloween, Jungle) it's definitely the place to go. I also got a really great beading catalog. It's got tons of neat beads you can't find just anywhere and other good findings.

And the best thing about catalogs … they're free!!

Well, as Matt said before, fall has come to Madison. After a summer of the most beautiful weekends, it rained all day today. Not that I mind it … I love rain.

But in spite of the rain (or maybe because of it) we had a very productive day. We went to the used book store and got a few new books. Matt got an ancient (1970s) photography book for a song and we bought two new cookbooks, one devoted to Asian Cooking and the other to Smoothies. Both were really good deals.

Then we went grocery shopping and when we got home we cleaned the house. The rest of the day has been spent cooking and listening to musci and watching some Malcolm in the Middle on DVD. Now we're working a little and I think later we'll go see if we can't find the hottub.