In a typical post-holiday scenario, I needed to exchange a few pieces of clothing that I received as gifts, since they were the wrong size. So I went to the retailer’s website and tried to locate the items I had. Even searching by the style number from the packaging, I found several entries for every […]

Over the weekend, I helped one of my relatives with a computer question that should have been very easy to answer. In short, he needed to switch the video output on his laptop from the built-in screen to an external monitor. After a bunch of trial and error, we figured out the right keyboard shortcut, […]

Recently, I tried to locate some good winter movies. You know, the kind that are typically set during the holidays and feature a steady helping of snowfall and wintery adventures (or misadventures, as the case may be). Well, I went to Netflix and tried a bunch of different searches. For instance, I typed in phrases […]

For some odd reason, I’ve picked up a new guilty pleasure: watching a ridiculous show on HGTV called “House Hunters.” No, I’m not in the market for a house. But with so little in the way of new programming available in December, it’s hard to resist watching the generally clueless people choosing between houses that […]

There’s a great frozen pizza I like to buy at Trader Joe’s. Among other things, I selected it because it has the lowest calories and fat among all their pizzas. On my most recent visit to the store, I noticed that the box had changed a bit. And along with it, the calories went up, […]

A few weeks ago, I received an automated reminder call from my doctor’s office to confirm an upcoming appointment. However, they called fairly late in the day — certainly after what I would consider normal business hours. I wasn’t near my phone at the time, so I ended up with a cryptic voice mail message […]

Last week, I called a store and asked them to place an item on hold for me. The retailer was having a big sale on lots of products, so I figured there was a good chance they’d sell out before I got there. However, once I arrived and asked for the item, it was nowhere […]

No, it’s not like Fight Club. You can talk about it all you want. But seriously, why do so many companies include competitors in their outbound marketing lists? I get several emails like that every week. A company that directly competes with us sends an email asking us to buy or resell their stuff. How […]

After going through many alarm clocks that were just too stupid to keep using, I finally have a fairly intelligent one. The best feature is the ability to move the time selector both forward and backward. In other words, if you overshoot the intended time when programming it, you just move the dial the opposite […]

This seemingly innocuous text is from the tech support page of a vendor that I won’t be naming. If you saw this message, how would you interpret it? I’d say that they’ll get back to you by the next day, except in rare situations where volume is high. Well, after exchanging several emails with them, […]