Month: July 2004

Boycott the movies

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After the most recent incident at the movie theatre we have decided for certain to stop going to the movies.

Our local Sony Loews have steadily increased their matinee costs over the last eight months. I’ve verified via my past Discovercard statements that between November 2003 and January 2004, they increased their adult matinee price from $6/person to $6.50/person and then between June and July of this year, they increased it again from $6.50 to $6.75. So in the past eight months we went from paying $12 to see a movie to $13.50. That’s just uncalled for. I also noticed that their evening shows are $9 per person, but $9.25 for what is called the “Adult Premium”, which is a ticket to a Friday or Saturday evening showing. It’s still the same movie no matter when you see it, so to me this is just a way for them to make even more money off people.

For only $2 more than the cost of two matinee tickets, we can buy the movie when it comes out on dvd (which these days doesn’t take nearly as long as it used to) and we own the movie and can see it as much as we want. Seeing how we’d often pay to see the movie at the theatre AND buy it on dvd, if we just buy it outright, we’d actually be saving money. And I sure like to save money. And once we get a large widescreen HDTV, that whole movie experience will be right in our living room. Considering we can easily make our own popcorn and hot dogs for a fraction of the price the theatres charge, the theatre will no longer have anything to justify their outrageous costs.

I think as time goes on and prices at the theatres continue to increase, more and more people are going to adopt our attitude. It’s bad enough to keep paying more when you’re not getting any additional value for your money, but it’s even worse when having to deal with morons at the theatre who more often than not ruin your experience.

No go

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So after waiting half the day today, the sellers came back asking us to raise our price another $3000 after we already offered them more earnest money and to push back the closing date. In essence, they came down $1000 dollars which is insulting. They totally expected us to bend over backwards to accommodate them without giving us any reason to by not compromising on ANYTHING. They came down a total of $3,900 during our negotiations. And their agent told our agent that they’re just not that motivated to sell. Um, so take the damn house off the market. We withdrew our offer. After hearing that, there was no way I was taking my chances with those people. If they aren’t motivated to show some good faith, I will be damned if I’m going to deal with them. I could foresee lots of problems dealing with those PITAs.

So we’re back to square one AGAIN. Third time’s a charm, right? Right? I’m about ready to give up. And I’ll tell you something, I am starting to be very distrusting of Polish people. I can say that, you know, because I am Polish! You know that stereotype about Polish people being cheap? It’s so damn true! Both houses were owned by a Polish family and BOTH times they were completely cheap and greedy. Makes me embarrassed to be Polish, dammit.

Ask me if I care

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I told Joe today that I’m not bending over backwards for any of these people trying to sell their home. We found another place that we liked and put in an offer this morning. The sellers counter-offered us asking for more earnest money, a rent back option and they only went down $2900 in price. Well why don’t I just bend over? To me that’s insulting. If you want to add contingencies, how about being more flexible in price?

So we counter-offered with more earnest money than they asked for, an option to push out the closing date (they can choose between two different dates) since we are uncomfortable with the rent back, and a lower final offer price than we originally were going to offer. But hell, if they want us to give, then they must be willing to do so too. I’m not playing that game like we did with the last sellers.

Our agent called us a bit ago to say they want to give us an answer tomorrow after they check their options to close on a new place (since they haven’t bought anything yet). Our agent seems to think that since they didn’t balk at the price and that they didn’t flat out say no that it’s a good sign. Of course, after what happened, we are paranoid enough to think they could be lying and either waiting for another offer, or working with someone else who already put in another offer. In any case, I’m not worried, so it doesn’t matter much to me. It didn’t take us that long to find this place, so we’ll find another. That’s my attitude now.

I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Everything must go

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Joe’s parents had a garage sale this weekend. I was at work yesterday, but I helped them today. Is it any wonder we sold a ton more stuff today than they did yesterday? Like five times more stuff? Yea, I’m taking all the credit. Ok, how about most of it? ;)

Yesterday they just threw stuff on the tables. When we were setting them out today I couldn’t understand why like items were spread across different tables and glass sets were separated instead of together. So I organized the tables by type (toys, clothes, appliances, etc.) and set everything up so that it would capture attention and look appealing. I cleaned some of the items that had gotten dirty as well.

I could tell that my efforts made an effect because items that were previously passed up without notice were being looked at by more people after I rearranged them.

So … what kind of job do you think I could get with my presentation skills? I admit, it was a lot of fun trying to make things more appealing for potential sales.

The only thing I didn’t like was how some people would try to chew down the asking price to the point that I wanted to tell them it was no longer for sale. I always expect some negotiation, especially because we didn’t stick prices on anything, but sometimes it gets ridiculous. There was this one couple who was really pissing me off. We would tell them “those are 50 cents each” and then they’d grab 10 things and say “$3?” and we’d be like, “we’ll give them all to you for $4”, you know, trying to be generous since it should really be $5, but they’d come back with “$3?” No, not $3! The guy from the same couple told me “Too much, too much. Why so much?” when I wouldn’t lower the price on my almost-brand-new $50 Vans from the $10 asking price. He kept harping on me, almost trying to “shame me” for expecting that much. Well don’t buy it. Like I care. This one lady paid the $10 because she knows it was a good deal. They were barely worn and other than the bottoms looked completely brand new. Those people were beyond cheap. Like the garage sale prices aren’t low enough to begin with. I hate selling to those kind of people. I will give the nice courteous people deals just because I don’t feel like they are trying to rip me off.

Anyway, it was really fun hanging out with Joe’s mom. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m so comfortable around her that I say whatever I feel without watching my words. We had fun making fun of people and calling them names. LOL! I’m going to miss her when they move to Arizona next month. :p

Snapfish – An Update

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Snapfish responded to my refund request but apparently their customer service doesn’t know how to read. Instead of issuing a refund, they processed the photos again. I called them and explained exactly what I said in my request (that resending them isn’t going to prevent them from getting damaged since they don’t use cardboard mailers) and I want a refund. They processed the refund, but I guess they couldn’t stop the photos from going out because they came in the mail today. And guess what? They are bent, AGAIN. I knew it! In any case, since that’s cleared up, I’m going to upload my photos and order them through Shutterfly. Maybe the third time is a charm?