Today my love affair with Amazon.com diminished by a sizable notch. In one fell swoop they moved from my preferred shopping site to being on par with everyone else. It happened when I learned that Amazon.com offers customers no price protection whatsoever. And that makes it not such a good deal after all.

You see, after weeks of searching for a new printer I finally settled on the Brother MFC-9840cdw Color Laser Multi-Function Center with Wireless Interface. Basically everyone had it for $649-699, but I decided to get it from Amazon.com because they have been my favorite retailer for a while since I paid the $79 per year fee to become a member of Amazon Prime, which gives you free 2 day shipping on all your orders.

Well, even though the printer doesn’t arrive until Monday, I saw ads from two different major retailers this weekend that this printer has dropped to $549.99. Instead of being upset, I was actually glad because I figured that Amazon would match the price! But when I contacted them my joy turned to disappointment.
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Ok, I know this post sounds sensational, but its not. It’s literal.

I bought a case of LaCroix flavored sparkling water either at Costco or Kroger, I can’t remember which. All it is, is lightly flavored sparkling water and I thought perhaps it might be a more healthy alternative to all of the Coke I drink.

Well, I was wrong. You see, it’s only an “alternative” if you can actually drink it. But I thought this stuff was disgusting! Instead of just throwing it out, I thought I’d give it to my dogs as a treat. But even that didn’t work! One of my dogs drank a little of it, then stopped. The other one took one little taste and then refused to drink another drop!

I’m not kidding, I can’t even get my dog to drink it! And here is the photographic proof. (Click on the photo to see her actually running away from it!)
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Lately I’ve been getting increasingly more angry whenever I visit either Costco or Sams Club. I buy a LOT of crap at these places and I’ve got the top membership levels, so why is it that they always want to see my receipt before I leave the damn building?

I mean, let’s face it. I just waited in some horrendous line, they don’t even bag your stuff up for you, and then 50 feet from the checkout they want me to stand in another line and then reproduce my receipt to allow some lackey to glance at it, glance at my cart and draw a line on it with a marker? What the hell is up with that!?!
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Everyone has been driven crazy by a poorly staffed call center, sitting behind a horrible Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVRU) while calling a service provider like the phone company, cable company, government office or technical support. Well, help has now arrived.

Paul English, the CTO of Kayak.com, decided to build a site to help people get through to a real human after one such frustrating call. The result is GetHuman.com.
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Unfortunately I won’t be able to post this review until after the holidays as we purchased a couple of these digital photo frames to give as gifts.

However, for those of you contemplating one of these, read on to find out if it’s right for your situation.
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