Category Archives: Business

2026, Business, Computers, Family, Mysteries, Technology

Let’s Chat

25 Comments

Two of the drive-throughs that YA and I frequent (especially in the summer) are Taco Bell and Dairy Queen.  About eight months ago Taco Bell installed a chat bot to ask people if they are checking in using their Taco Bell app.  I do have the app (it occasionally rewards me with a free burrito or fiesta potatoes) so the chat bot has actually been a good reminder to me to have the phone handy so I can give them the check-in code.  At that point the system switches over to a live person to take your order.  

About four months back, Dairy Queen went to a fully automated ordering system at their drive-through. I bristled at the idea but not enough to boycott my Dilly bars.  Since YA and I are creatures of habit at Dairy Queen, it’s pretty simple and we haven’t had any ordering disasters.

Then two weeks ago I was by myself, getting my Dilly bar, and the automated voice had a southern drawl.  I kid you not.  It threw me for a loop and I spent the next hour or so trying to think back; had I completely missed that before?  Then the following week when we were there, it was a male voice with a midwestern accent.  I breathed a sigh of relief – I wasn’t going crazy.  Then yesterday, it was a woman’s voice, but not the southern woman.   

Of course, this leaves me with a bunch of questions.  How many automated voice options are there?  Who chooses which voice for the day (the manager, the person who opens, corporate office)?   Or does the computer randomly pick voices during the course of the day?  If a particular voice gets complaints, can they change it at the store level?  Are the voices patterned after particular people or just AI-generated? What happens if you don’t want to order from a chat bot?  Can you simply repeat “representative” until the computer gives up?

Any chat bots/automated systems driving you crazy?  Or that you’ve made peace with?

2026, books, Business, Mysteries

Grade-B Titles?

54 Comments

I just finished The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny (5 stars).  The main character has a tense relationship with her mom and early in the book came this:  “My mother loves a monster.  Now there’s the title of a Grade-B movie.”

It made me laugh and lead me to thinking about some other funny titles that I’ve read over the years.

  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip Dick)
  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Oliver Sachs)
  • How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You (Matthew Inman)
  • The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Elisabeth Bailey)
  • The 100–Year Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared (Jonas Jonasson)
  • Everyone Poops (Taro Gomi)
  • Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Nick Flynn)

Of course, there are a LOT of funny titles out there; I suppose authors think it will hook readers into picking up their books.  It certainly works on me.

Here are a few others I found online…

  • No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again (Edgardo Vega Yunque)
  • And To My Nephew Albert I Leave The Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game (David Forrest)
  • The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Aimee Bender)
  • Shit My History Teacher Did Not Tell Me (Karl Wiggins)
  • Everything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor (Roger Welsch)

Of course, now I’ll have to read these too!

Any funny titles on your reading list lately?

 

 

2026, animals, Business, Family, Food, History, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World Are VS & YA?

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It’s been a few years since YA and I traveled together.  This is a four-day weekend trip that we’ve talked about for a few years now.  Here are some interesting facts about our location:

  • Nearly half the residents of the US live near here
  • The gate to hell is hiding underneath North Street
  • Part of the Berlin Wall can be found here
  • Woody Harrelson was arrested in this city in 1982 before hitting it big in Hollywood
  • The Anthony Thomas Company makes 50,000 pounds of chocolate here daily, including their famous candy named after a state tree
  • The NFL was headquartered here from 1927 until 1938
  • Jack Hanna is Director Emeritus to one of the largest attractions of its kind in North America here.

Where in the world are we?  (Bonus points if you can say WHY we’re here!)

 

 

2026, Business, Computers, Food, home, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, work

It Will Be Here When?

19 Comments

It has been a real eye opener moving here from the middle of nowhere on the Northern Plains. The weather here is far more changeable and unpredictable. Pickup trucks are fewer and smaller. Lots more bugs.

Sioux Falls is our “big town ” for shopping. It is only 24 miles away as opposed to Bismarck, our former “big town” that was 100 miles away. Trips to Bismarck were few and far between. Even so, we really don’t want to be running to SF all the time for things we need that we can’t get in Luverne. That means more ordering on-line.

We have been astounded by the speed on-line orders are delivered to us. The other day I ordered some bookends at about 10:00 am. They were delivered by 6:00 pm the same day. Other orders come overnight and are delivered between 5:00 am and 8:00 am. Is this normal? Does this happen elsewhere? I think if folks back in western ND knew this was possible, they would protest the wait times for their deliveries!

I wonder, though, how long deliveries across the country will be quick and speedy. The other day I got an email from a produce company in Oregon I often order celery root and savoy cabbage from. They were offering a $500 bonus to any customer who could recommend a CDL trucker who could deliver their produce. There seems to be a trucker shortage. Hmm. I wonder why?

Do you get orders delivered fast? Tell some delivery stories. Know any truckers?

2026, Business, Fantasy, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Cereal Ploy

34 Comments

I saw a funny meme on Facebook last week:

It made me laugh at the time but now I’m thinking that this has to be on purpose.  Cereals have been in non-resealable bags for decades now.  I can’t think of one single good reason except that not being able to re-seal the bags means the cereal gets stale faster and then we toss the stale stuff and buy new.   YA and I have quite a collection of clips that we use for cereal, veggie sausages, pasta, marshmallows – all items that aren’t re-sealable.  YA likes to sort these clips by colors on the hood of our oven.

Thinking about this of course led me to thinking about shampoo bottles.  According to the internet, shampoo companies began to use the phrase “lather, rinse and repeat” in the direction sections of their bottles.  I can’t find anything that specifies which company’s marketing department came up with it first but I’m guessing all the other companies jumped on that bandwagon as fast as their little feet would carry them.  I don’t know when consumers caught on and probably caused an uproar, but in checking the shampoo in our bathroom currently, one kind (baby shampoo) doesn’t say anything about repeating.  The Prell and the Head & Shoulders both now say “repeat if desired”.

So what will it take to get re-sealable cereal bags?  Another consumer revolution?

Anything you wish came in different packaging?

2026, Business, Computers, Technology, TV

Don’t Bug Me

37 Comments

To say I have a love/hate relationship with my cable company is to overstate half of that equation.  After many many years of being disappointed by them (service, price, communications), I pretty much approach any interaction with them with trepidation. 

A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail and then a couple of texts about upgrading my gateway.  Since I wasn’t even sure what that was, I ignored the texts.  Then a few days later, I got two more texts.  These day, I hardly click on any links that are sent to me…. way too many scammers… so last Thursday, I made a quick appointment and headed over to their store.  I wanted a straight answer about what this was, was it really necessary and the most important, if there was a cost attached.  I wanted a live person to look me in the face to give me the facts and then hand me their business card so I had their name. 

Turned about to be fairly easy.  Although they’re calling it an upgrade for me, it was clear that they are trying to get everybody on the same platform with the same connections/software so it will be easier/cheaper for them.  But since it wasn’t going to cost me anything, I said “OK”.  But before he went to get the new modem, he launched into a pitch for getting my mobile phone service.  This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this so I fended him off pretty swiftly.  I got the new modem, went home and set it up.  It went better than I expected.

Next morning, I had to take the old modem back; I got to the store at 10, their opening time.  A different young man waited on me.  I told him I wanted a receipt, since I don’t have much faith in their ability to keep track of whether I’ve returned equipment (previous bad experience).  He looked me up to get the receipt and then promptly headed down the mobile phone service path.  I cut him off and said I wasn’t interested and I had told my salesperson just yesterday that I wasn’t interested in “putting all my eggs in *_____*’s basket”.  He kept going so I had to amp up a bit.  I said “we’re still paying down our phones (not true) but even if we were not, I STILL wouldn’t give you all my mobile business.”  He did stop at that point.  Sigh.

In a perfect world, I won’t have to confront the dragon again for about a year but I’m thinking that I’ll wear a namebadge that says “Please don’t ask me about my mobile service.”

Have you had to handle any pushy salesfolks lately?

2026, Art, Business, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Postal Joy

44 Comments

I’ve done the math before about how many cards I send out so I won ‘t bore you with the numbers again.  The biggest category is birthday cards – that averages to about 14 cards per month. 

For quite a few years, all birthday cards got the same postage stamp:

The post office also did a “Celebrate” stamp but I used those for anniversary cards and other momentous occasion cards.  Then five years ago, the postal service broke my heart when they announced they were discontinuing both those stamps.  Aarrgghhhh. 

I had a nice supply on hand and I bought a bunch of the Happy Birthday before USPS ran out.  A close friend of mine also gifted me with three sheets of them as well.  I began to use them a little more sparingly.  Six cards a month go to folks in one of my stamping groups – they got moved to the non-HB stamps right away.  Then “outer-ring” folks stopped getting my special stash.  Then the next ring in went to “regular” postage.   I limped along like this for FIVE YEARS.  I used the last one the first week in May.

So I was ripe for the on-line voting that USPS instituted last fall.  They said they were going to bring back some older stamps and let the general public vote.  The site did not have any limits about how many votes you got… .not even any limits on how many times a day you could vote; you gotta love a good loophole. I spent the entire month of September going online every morning and voting for the Happy Birthday option 20-30 times; it only took about 10 minutes a day. 

My persistence paid off.  They made the announcement the first of the year that my favorite stamp would be returning.  They released it on April 18 although the pre-sale went up in March.  The big surprise is that they did a completely new design – it’s in the header photo.  I’m not sure why – it probably cost them more, first for the design itself and then for whatever it takes to produce a new stamp.  Maybe after five years, the old design specs didn’t work anymore.  Who knows.  But no matter – the new design is fine by me.  Technically I like the old look better but I’ll take what I can get.

We won’t talk about how many of them I’ve already purchased.

When was the last time you actually went to a post office?

2026, Business, Food, Kids, Mysteries

Food Foolishness

16 Comments

There’s never any warning.  Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer doesn’t have a set schedule – without any notice it shows up in my Inbox.  In the olden days (back when the dinosaurs roamed the planet) it would appear in the snail mail box.  It’s the same document these days but I have to admit that I enjoyed relaxing with a cup of coffee or tea and leafing through the hard copy.

But this is not a rant about the death of print.  I swear.  It’s more a rant about how YA and I are completely helpless in the face of this flyer.  It’s unbelievable; we are both completely drawn to the new (and probably never-to-be-seen-again) products that are featured.  A little bit like the seasonally colored items that I can’t stay away from.

The theme of the flyer and the seasonal items this time is “strawberry”.  While I love fresh strawberries and I practically live on my strawberry jam, I’m not otherwise a massive strawberry fan.  But YA is.  And there are certainly lots more items featured in addition to the strawberry-laden stuff.  We made a list and I headed out.  Managed to find everything on the list with the assistance of a customer service gentleman who went to the back and found two items that were out on the shelves.  Here is a partial list of what I came home with:

  • Pickle Potato Chips: these were primarily for YA – she’s also a fan of Pickle Pizza at the fair.
  • Parmesan Tapenade: I love all kinds of tapenade, so this looked promising. It made a great pizza topping on Tuesday.
  • Potato Cheese Stix: like it says.  Cubed potatoes, mixed with cheese, frozen on a stick.  YA says they’re pretty good.
  • Spicy Taco Sauce: This turned out to be a great sauce for the afore-mentioned potato-cheese stix.
  • Strawberry Gummy Bears. Completely for YA.  I never even liked jujubes when I was a kid, so no gummies for me now.
  • Turkish flatbread with cheeses, spinach and onion.  In the freezer section – can’t wait.
  • Spicy Spuds. Another freezer options – spicy roasted potatoes.
  • Oat Bites. There are two kids – PB&J and Raspberry. Bitty little muffins with filling.
  • Strawberry Snickerdoodles. I might try this although YA will probably eat most of them
  • Garlic Salted Mixed Nuts. They also have little garlic toasted chips in the can.  Quite nice.

There were several other things, including a six-pack of San Pellegrino; we splurge on this a couple of times a year.  None of these items were necessary and neither of us had a plan for any of it, although I did get a pizza dough while I was there, thinking about the tapenade.  I’m of two minds about this silliness.  One the one hand, it was a lot of money for nothing that we had a plan for.  On the other hand, it’s food; we have to eat regardless of the absurdity of the food items.

Tried anything new (food or otherwise) the past couple of weeks?

2026, Art, Business, Gatherings, Uncategorized

A Crafty Friday

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Crafts shows are a favorite of mine.  I love to see all the stuff that people make and it’s fascinating that other people buy all this stuff.  The Arts & Crafts show at Canterbury is huge – not normally my favorite kind of craft event, but I’m fond one particular vendor so I wait in line, cough up my cash (I get two discounts – one for being old and one for getting a coupon ahead of time).   

The lines are pretty intense so I get their pretty early.  It’s good people-watching in line.

The vendor I like make quilted objects – I met the mother/daughter duo years ago at the State Fair.  I ordered some oven mitts from them and the entry fee to the fair is cheaper than the shipping that’s why I went this year.  I also wanted to check out their inventory of a couple of other items because they are closing their business at the end of the year.  Marie is 84 and ready to retire!  I got my mitts and some toilet tank toppers and a couple of table runners since it’s the last time I’ll be seeing them.  They gave me the last two popcorn bags for free, since YA and I adore those. 

Of course, as long as I’m there, I wander through and look at everything.  This year I ended up getting a couple of dip mixes – they tasted good sampled w/ pretzels.  I also stopped and got some fudge from a vendor I’ve purchased from before.  The Turtle Sundae fudge is very good.  Tried the baked cheese guys this year (won’t do that again).  AND, I got a massive bag to popcorn… a combo of kettle corn and caramel corn.  Normally I don’t get popcorn like that but from where I was standing in line (for almost an hour), the popcorn stand was directly in my line of sight and when they let us in, I was just pulled right to the stand.  Took me six days to finish it.

Without Marie and Stanna, I won’t be going back to this Arts Fair.  Not enough vendors that I’m that interested in.  I’ll still do my Rubber Stamp event in July though and if they have a popcorn vendor, I’ll be all in!

Any arts/crafts events you’ve taken part in?  Any vendors you gravitate to?

2026, Automotive, Business, Food, Mysteries, Travel

Backwards

46 Comments

On the way home from St. Louis, YA were debating about what we should pick up for lunch and she told me that she had noticed a sign (when we were still in St. Louis) that Steak `n Shake was offering an Orange Dreamsicle Freeze.  I don’t know if I’ve whined about S`nS dumping their original Orange Freeze – but they let go of it at the same time they dropped the grilled cheese.  I haven’t been there since then – about 6 years.

But the new offering sounded good so we decided that fries and a freeze would be an ok lunch.  YA found the closest S`nS and we let GPS get us there.  As we were waiting in the drive-thru line, we noticed several posters in the windows of the eatery touting their all new beef-tallow.  These are their exact words “return to tallow is part of a broader trend to revive traditional cooking methods and highlight authentic flavors.”  Snort.  I asked the person taking the order if it were true that the fries were now being fried in beef tallow.  When he said yes, we cancelled the fries and just got the Freezes. 

When I became a vegetarian in the early 70s, it was the end of French fries for me as all the fast-food places used animal fats for frying.  Burger King was the first to switch over; for many years I got a whooper with no meat (yes, that’s just a glorified cheese sandwich) and fries.  Then Wendys switched, then S`nS, and eventually even McDonalds gave it up and moved to vegetable oils.  So this move back to beef tallow doesn’t make much sense to me.  I don’t know the science about the health benefits (although RFK touting beef tallow makes me wonder…) but from a planetary point of view, I don’t think we need more cows eating way more grains than it takes to feed humans.  My cynical side says S`nS is grasping at straws trying to deal with their currently financial struggles and think this might be a way to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Regardless, YA and I ended up at Subway for our lunch to go with our Orange Dreamsicle Freezes, which unfortunately weren’t all that great.  I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back to a Steak `n Shake again.

Fries?  Shoestring, curly, seasoned, sweet potato?  Or just pass the tater tots?