• If you have a reservation at a hotel that you made months in advance, it’s worth it to check whether prices have dropped in the meantime.

    Marriott makes it easy and lets you search for a new room while holding your previous reservation. We just did this and saved $362 with a stay that’s one day longer than the original.

    Wednesday June 26, 2024
  • It’s crazy how many devices it takes to purchase plane tickets at the correct price. Today I bought some plane tickets.

    I get a business discount that’s at least noticeable, and sometimes fairly large. My wife found tickets for us last night on Google Flights on her laptop and today I bought them on my laptop, since my account has the discount applied. I noticed that they were like $500 more expensive, even with my discount, but I bought them anyway, because there’s a 24 hour free cancellation period and I figured I could change the flight later.

    Tonight we discussed it and it turns out that in less than a day, the price shot up quite a bit. So my wife started looking for other tickets, since our dates are a little flexible. It turns out that leaving a day earlier would save us $500, so I tried to change my existing flight. The United website happily let me do it, but the price was exactly the same as what we saw on Google Flights, so the discount was completely gone, even though it said it was giving me the business price.

    So I pulled out my Android phone that wasn’t on the home WiFi and has never logged into my United account. I found the lower price on Google Flights, selected it, confirmed it on the United website and then logged in to my United account.

    It said it was giving me the business discount there too, but this time the price was correct and I actually got the $500 off. I knew this was a thing, but to see it actually happening with my own eyes was something else.

    Wednesday June 26, 2024
  • Uncategorized

    Target shopping carts are ridiculously overengineered.

    Many of us have experienced the luxury of pushing a Target shopping cart. Compared to shopping carts at other stores, they feel like they're floating through the store, gliding smoothly around corners.

    Recently, I had a shopping trip where my cart only had 3 wheels. I didn’t even notice until I took a quick turn in it and it felt weird because of all of the stuff I had in the cart. The rest of the time, it didn't tip or try to rest its weight on the missing wheel. It just worked. Wild.

    Saturday May 25, 2024
  • Silliness

    TFW you need to use your phone as a flashlight

    but the Flashlight app is too bright so you decide to open an app that has a white background but every app you open seems to have a dark mode and then you realize that you have an app that you wrote years ago that’s installed on your phone and you definitely didn’t put dark mode support in and you open it and it works great.

    Thursday May 23, 2024
  • Video Games

    Video Game Review: Rollerdrome.

    it’s good.

    Wednesday May 22, 2024
  • Uncategorized

    Companies are a lot more willing to send you new hardware for “free” when yours has issues and you have a monthly subscription to a connected service

    Wednesday May 22, 2024
  • Business

    ,

    Life

    When negotiating, silence is a superpower.

    Wednesday March 6, 2024
  • Uncategorized

    Vanilla Visa Gift Card tips

    If you happen to receive a Vanilla Visa gift card, I have a couple of tips based on my recent experience.

    Don’t try to use them on Amazon. That’s the only one that I tried, but from what I hear, most online retailers won’t work. However, I was able to use the card to add money to my balance on the Steam store.

    Don’t use your computer to view your gift card balance, use a phone browser instead. Apparently using a web browser on a computer to log into the Vanilla Visa gift card website hasn’t worked in years.

    Sunday February 25, 2024
  • Business

    ,

    Silliness

    ,

    Home

    ,

    Shorts

    Every now and then I think, "Why don't I have a bunch of envelopes printed with my outgoing address on them?"

    “My Brother laser printer is reliable and it has a special slot in the front for printing envelopes. I should have a stack of these, ready to go. "

    Then I put an envelope in the slot and my printer tells me that I have to open the back door of the printer (which is against the wall, in a corner of my office) to print an envelope.

    That can’t be right, can it?

    It is.

    So dumb. So now I still have a stack of blank envelopes. I’ll forget all about this and do this whole dance over again in a year, I bet.

    Even smart printers are dumb.

    Friday February 16, 2024
  • Richard's Rules

    ,

    Food

    Richard's Rule #4

    The optimal number of people in your group at a food festival is 3. 2 people run around and grab food while one person holds down the table. Doing it with just 2 people is not nearly as fun.

    Tuesday February 13, 2024
  • Movies

    ,

    Video Games

    The Other Fifth Element

    While at my in-laws for Christmas, we watched the 1997 cult classic movie “The Fifth Element”. I ended up on IMDB, looking up some of the actors to find out what else they’d been in and I saw that some of them were also something called “The Fifth Element” that came out in 1998. I had no idea that there was something else called “The Fifth Element” and the fact that it was released so soon after the 1997 movie made me wonder what the heck it was. Turns out, it was a video game released for the PlayStation. And it’s BAD. Really, really bad. No wonder I’d never heard of it.

    Here’s some videos of someone else playing it: www.youtube.com/watch and www.youtube.com/watch

    I managed to get my hands on a copy of the game, and I found it wildly unplayable. The controls were horrible, the levels visibly loaded as you went through them, and the enemies were just dumb. I couldn’t aim or even walk around very well, and the camera was totally drunk.

    There isn’t really any story to speak of, and what there is makes no sense and has little to do with the actual plot of the movie.

    And when you finish a level, your reward is that you get to watch a pixelated cutscene from the movie. I’d rather just watch the movie again.

    1/10.

    Sunday December 31, 2023
  • Richard's Rules

    ,

    Food

    RIchard's Rule #3

    Most Chinese takeout places have a very similar menu. However, there are one or two things on the menu that they are really good at, and the rest is either OK or nearly inedible. The trick is to figure out what the good things are.

    Sunday December 10, 2023
  • Richard's Rules

    Richard's Rule #2

    If you walk into a party and there’s swag when you walk in, grab it. You might see the swag and think “I’ll grab it on the way out so I don’t have to hold on to it all night.”

    The problem is: other people will leave the party before you and you’ll end up swagless. Just bring a Baggu or something similar and fill it with swag.

    Thursday December 7, 2023
  • TV

    You see, the thing about Rick and Morty is

    it’s so full of comedy that you never see the emotional beats coming. If it were a drama, you’d be expecting it. But this show earns the surprise of the big emotional moments by being laugh-out-loud hilarious 90% of the time.

    Wednesday December 6, 2023
  • Richard's Rules

    Richard's Rule #611

    If you lose something while sitting on a soft surface, such as a couch or a bed…it’s underneath you.

    Friday December 1, 2023
  • Food

    Easily the best eggnog I've had

    Eggnog has long been a staple of the holiday season for me. When I was growing up, my parents would pile all of us into the van, pour everyone some eggnog and we’d drive around looking at Christmas lights.

    Writing that sentence, I now realize that it’s probably because we were very poor and couldn’t afford Christmas lights, much less a tree. In fact, the first (and only) Christmas tree I remember us having when I was still living at home was made out of a TV Guide that I folded up to make a tree shape, then spray-painted green, sort of like this: bydreamsfactory.com/diy-folde…

    But I digress. Since eggnog and the Christmas season are linked together so strongly for me, I’ve always made sure to grab some when I’m in a grocery store around the holidays. I always liked the thought of eggnog more than the flavor, but I still drank it for sentimental reasons. I’ve tried a lot of different brands over the years, and I never found one that I truly loved until a few years ago, when I spotted the Organic Valley brand of eggnog in Whole Foods. I immediately loved that one, as it wasn’t cloying, wasn’t too heavy on the nutmeg, and it didn’t have the fake, almost butterscotchy flavor that many brands have. I usually ended up buying 3-4 cartons each holiday season.

    And then the pandemic hit, and supply chains were stretched thin. In 2021, Organic Valley eggnog was gone from shelves, due to a butterfat shortage. In 2022, it was still gone, but they promised that the eggnog would be back.

    This year, it showed up! Kind of. Now it’s bad. Organic Valley decided that this year, they’d make their eggnog in a new reduced fat version (presumably because there’s still a butterfat shortage). Reduced fat isn’t what you want to be drinking at the holidays.

    This new eggnog is watery and not as good as the original. It’s getting a lot of one-star reviews on their website from people who had it before and are very upset with the changes.

    CleanShot 2023 11 19 at 06 16 23 2x

    I tried it myself, and it’s definitely not as good.

    But then I discovered that at some point, Organic Valley posted an eggnog recipe on their website. It uses heavy cream and whole milk, so I tried making it. It was really easy to make, and it’s just as delicious as the stuff they used to make.

    I’ll probably just do that every year now, unless they bring back the good stuff.

    Sunday November 19, 2023
  • Travel

    We were walked from a hotel for the first time.

    After nearly 400 nights of hotel stays since we decided to become Marriott Bonvoy members, my wife and I have had mostly good stays.

    This past weekend though, we had a comedy of errors, starting with us getting “walked” from the hotel that we’d reserved. I don’t like that term. It makes it sound like we were escorted from the promises. I didn’t even realize that was something that could happen.

    I reserved a room more than a month ago, but when we were about an hour away, we got a call from the manager of the hotel to let us know that they overbooked and we had no room for the night. She said that they’d already booked and paid for a room for us at the Doubletree in town instead, and I just needed to show up at the Doubletree and everything would be taken care of. I found it strange that she would send us to another hotel chain instead of another Marriott branded property. She also gave me 10,000 Marriott points as an apology. It kind of threw a wrench in our plans (especially since we don’t stay at Hilton owned hotels as a general rule), but fine, we had a place to sleep for the night.

    Imagine my surprise when we got to the Doubletree and I was told that they had no idea who I was, the room had not been paid for and that I needed to pay for a room. There’s only one Doubletree in the whole city, so I was sure that I was at the right one. So then I called the hotel, hoping that the manager could resolve the issue but she’d already left for the night. I talked to someone else there, and he said although he saw the reservation in the system, he had no knowledge of us being walked and I should call the next day when someone who could help me would be around. Not his fault, but that was completely unhelpful because I needed a room that night.

    So now I’m sitting in the lobby of the Doubletree, watching groups of people check in and being worried that we might end up with no room at all. I go back to the front desk and decide to pay for a room myself and sort it out with Marriott later, since the hotel was the one that completely left me in the lurch.

    We’re proceeding through the reservation process and I hand my card to the kind lady behind the desk. It comes back declined. I crack a joke about how maybe it isn’t working because it’s a Marriott branded Amex that I’m trying to use at a Hilton property. It declines 3 more times, on 2 different machines.

    Apparently between my arrival and trying to purchase a room myself, their credit card system completely went down. All 4 terminals stopped working and no one could get a room. Meanwhile I’m still watching people check in who had booked their rooms 3rd party, using Kayak or the like.

    So I decide to try booking on a third party website, since those websites would probably take my card. Those websites (and the hotel website) all say that the hotel is fully booked. I try to book a room at other Marriott properties in town, and they all say that they are fully booked too. So the Doubletree seems to be our only option. I head back into the hotel.

    The lady behind the desk tells me that the only thing she can do is cancel the reservation, because in the past they’ve let people stay at the hotel with declined cards and weren’t able to collect the payment later, and the manager had told them not to do that anymore. I ask if they take cash, and if she could hold the room while I go back to my car and see if I can find enough cash to pay for the room. I was told that the room cost $165. I could only find $100 in my car.

    So as a last ditch effort, I decide to go back in and see if they can use the $100 as a down payment and I can settle up in the morning. By that time, she had talked to her manager and they made an exception to the rule so that I was able to stay at the Doubletree that night, and they would try to charge my card the next morning.

    So we finally got a room. And, I heard back from the original hotel that we booked. Among other things (including reimbursing me for the stay, giving me $100 and 80,000 more points because of the Marriott Reservation Guarantee), they have flagged my Bonvoy account as “Previously Walked” which will guarantee my reservations going forward.

    Pretty good ending, I’d say!

    Wednesday November 15, 2023
  • Uncategorized

    There’s no way that this many banks in America are the First National Bank.

    Somebody’s lying.

    Sunday November 12, 2023
  • Richard's Rules

    Richard’s Rule #358

    Always pack ice chests so that there is as little air in there as possible. Air will melt your ice.

    Saturday November 11, 2023
  • Shorts

    My wife: "Hey Siri, set a timer for 90 minutes"

    Siri: “Got it.” … “For how long?”

    AAARGH

    Thursday November 9, 2023
  • Home

    I'm tired of mosquito repellents.

    Can’t we just gently electrify our skin instead so that we become the bug zapper? That would change the game. I’d want mosquitoes to come and find me.

    Monday October 23, 2023
  • Home

    Water leak.

    My neighbor has been digging up his yard for months to construct a culvert in his ditch. A couple of days ago he sheepishly showed up at my front door because he finally hit a pipe with his shovel and water was pouring out. He hit the main pipe that’s on the company side of our water meters, so he potentially had cut off water to my house and others.

    We quickly determined that even though we had lower pressure, thankfully my house still had running water. He then called the water company’s emergency hotline and they… didn’t send anyone out.

    Yesterday, he texted me to see if I could take a look and see if they’d sent anyone out yet, because he’d ended up in the hospital with a rapid heartbeat, probably due to a combination of overexertion and the stress of hitting the water line (and pre-existing heart problems). They had not. So he called them again, 3 times. Finally, they said they’d send someone out.

    In the meantime, I’d left the house to run errands. Then I get a notification from the camera on the side of my house. Some guy from the water company walked up to where a hose/the main water shutoff is for my house. Since I couldn’t see what he did on camera, I assumed he was turning my water off while they completed the repair at the street.

    Soon after that, I see that a whole crew has arrived, with a backhoe and several vehicles loaded with equipment. They appear to be fixing the leak. I check in on my camera later and see that there is water all over my driveway, and I hear loudly running water on my camera feed.

    So I text several neighbors, because I won’t be home for a few hours, and I’m hoping that my house hasn’t sprung a leak or something. Finally, a neighbor of a neighbor walks down to my house and checks out the situation.

    Turns out, the guy from the water company disconnected my hose from the faucet and had turned my faucet up full blast, so it was just spraying water at the foundation of my house, so much that it was spilling onto our driveway, which is fairly long. He just left it like that.

    Great job, water company. What if I was out of town?

    My neighbor is still in the hospital and I texted him today but haven’t heard back yet. I’m fairly worried. Hopefully I’ll hear from him soon.

    Update: My neighbor just texted me, he’s alive and well!

    Wednesday October 18, 2023
  • Uncategorized

    It's time to reboot Murder, She Wrote

    and Amanda Tapping should play Jessica Fletcher.

    Tuesday October 17, 2023
  • Shorts

    What a fantastic array of choices!

    I was looking for a sauna bench cushion and the website that I found has so many options that I can’t decide which color to get.

    sauna bench cushion
    Wednesday October 11, 2023
  • Uncategorized

    I wonder if Drake is contractually obligated to mention his private plane as much as possible, considering that he probably got it for a big discount, or even for free

    Why else would you specifically mention your plane and that it’s specifically a 767 in a comment publicly dissing another rapper?

    Sunday October 8, 2023