The bed linens with a money-back guarntee.

Before I tell this bed-linen story, I must tell another story. During the years when I blogged for the Albany Times Union, I had many extensive personality conflicts with the TU’s social media strategist and self-appointed blog snitch, Kristi Gustafson Barlette. She always sent me unwanted notes about how I could improve my blog to…

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Speedway math strikes again

My local Speedway gas station has slowly – and. I. mean. slow. ly – switched over to adding 7-Eleven products. It still has Speedway branding, the gas pumps still say Speedway, and the convenience store still offers their wonky Speedway math. I’ve written about Speedway’s problems with math before – where they offer one price…

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“You’re paying cash? That’ll be an additional $3.00.”

Time to run some Saturday morning errands. And one of those errands is to pay my phone bill. Normally I just do an electronic payment from my back account, but I had come into a sizeable amount of cash recently, and decided to pay my Verizon phone bill with the cash in hand. You know,…

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So much for a “good deed has its rewards,” BJ’s Wholesale Club. Meh.

I was shopping at what was once the location of Northway Mall (now a strip mall with a Target and a Lowe’s and a BJ’s Wholesale Club, among others) when, upon leaving the Lowe’s, I noticed something on the ground. It was a membership card for BJ’s Wholesale Club. Someone must have dropped it. Well,…

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I prefer my chicken without homophobia, and on Sundays.

I knew it would arrive at some point. The Capital District has suffered from generification for decades – when the locals go crazy for the first appearance of a national chain store or restaurant at the expense of local product. I still remember the crazy-long lines along Route 7 in Latham when the first Sonic…

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The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts is NOT on my Competition Season schedule. Here’s why.

Competition Season, my all-encompassing term for when I enter my photographs and artworks into various fairs and shows, is coming up soon. I’ve already got some entries ready, and there’s some concepts that I’m waiting to do in the next month or so. And yes, I’m entering my works in the same five shows as…

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Gas rose 29 cents by the time I pulled in? Come on, Speedway…

Okay. Let’s get things straight right now. Joe Biden does not control the price of gasoline. Joe Biden is not the President of Sunoco. He is not the main shareholder of Exxon. Gas stations are private companies, they determine the price of fuel based on supply and demand. And let’s face it. They’re not above…

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A response from Allstate re last week’s blog.

Let me recap. Last week, I received a letter from Allstate Financial Services, thanking me for signing up with them for my financial portfolio and insurance needs. Only thing is … I hadn’t signed up with Allstate. I had a life insurance policy that I canceled in 2010, I also had an auto policy that…

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GM’s new loyalty points update is as clear as mud.

Two months ago, I blogged about how I had saved over 17,000 GM loyalty points for all the maintenance my 2013 Chevrolet Cruze “Dracourage” underwent. When I went to cash in those loyalty points, I discovered that 17,000 points barely equals $80 bucks in redeemable credit. Ugh. That’s right, pull out your calculators, a GM…

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So someone’s claiming I poached their photos. It’s a phishing scam. Don’t fall for it.

Here’s the deal. I am extremely scrupulous when it comes to any photos on my blog. They were either taken by me, or … well, there is no “or.” I made a mistake about eight years ago when I used someone’s flickr photo, thinking it was available through Creative Commons, the photographer contacted me, I…

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