Wait, I did see that truck, it was on the road broke down or out of gas. If I had known your camera was on there, I would have asked the driver for it. Since they did not know your name anyway.
Don’t you love retail.

Oh wow Joe,
Unreal!

Go see Mike M. at Valley View Ritz. He used to work at Ewald downtown. And he is “the man” who knows everything about any camera you would want.

( and tell him who sent ya there.. )

Hey Joe!
well. . . you should do as I do. . .whenever i’m told that something at best buy is “out-of-stock”, or they have run out of it, I promptly exit the store & head to circuit city. If they don’t have it either, it is a sign from above that you really didn’t need it anyway!

Good luck with Best Buy! They’re not the most reliable as far as getting stuff in. You might be better off going somewhere else. Oh! Make sure whatever you buy at Best Buy is actually in the box before you leave the store. I’ve heard too many stories of folks who left Best Buy thinking they had their purchased item and then coming home to find something totally different. A few months ago (this was in the news!), a couple bought a movie camera at Best Buy. When they got home and opened it up, there was a rock in it so be careful!

Joe

Call Apple Store for cameras and Ipods. Did you know your mugshot at RT.com lives? You should charge them bigtime.Look under columnists! jon@24073

Jon,
I am delighted that they’ve seen fit to include me among the living.
Joe

Yikes! Next time you go to Best Buy, check out what you want, and then go home and order it online. You’ll get it a lot faster that way.

Thanks for the tip. They had the camera today but not the iPod, so I’ll order that online. No rush, though. Have to learn the camera before I go away.

Definitely go see Mike. He used to live next door to me and is the most positive person I have ever met. My brother-in-law, a professional photographer, lives in Myrtle Beach and has consulted Mike by phone for over 20 years. He had never met him until we discovered by accident that we were all acquainted with Mike.

Ya just gotta love those mythic trucks.

We’ve been waiting since last Christmas for the Target trucks with huge loads of Wii game systems. They always arrive on Sunday mornings, according to the manager of the electronics department. When all are in church that parade of infamous trucks arrives–unseen–and then all the systems are gone by the time church lets out and folks can actually get to the local Target. But hope springs eternal, as does retailing mythology.

However, last night we actually received the Halo 3 game which we ordered and paid for a year ago–in time for Christmas 2006. Of course this did involve sitting on the floor of the closed mall from 9 p.m. to 12:01 a.m. with about 500 other idiots who’d already paid for this game.

On today’s news I heard that some of the deluxe models of this game had scratched discs, and were defective.

Guess they fell off the truck. But they’ll be available in December. 2007.

On the next truck.

Oh, gods, not an iPod. Joe, Joe, Joe — I can’t believe you fell for slick marketing. Sure they’re pretty, but you’ll be locked into crappy software forever. And if you ever want to use another brand, you’ll lose all your music.

Why don’t you talk to me about these things?

Forgive me, Andrew, for forgetting to consult the only person I know who appears to have a pretty solid understanding of all these unnecessary technological contraptions you and your co-conspirators have marketed us into believing we must buy.
What do recommend, m’lord?

I think customer service is dead. I had an experience with cameras last February that involved Best Buy and a local camera store.

I had already had a sour camera experience with Circuit City.

Last fall I searched long and hard before I found anyone in an electronics store that could talk intelligently about one of the scanner/printer/faxes that they decided are the only things they want to sell us as printers.

The bad news is the one person I found who knew anything about them wasn’t in a Roanoke electronics store.

I am close to giving up on bricks and mortar, and that’s hard for me to say since I believe in local businesses.

Before you buy the iPod read, “The Tao of Steve,” an article by Elizabeth Spiers.

Thank you very much, David, for your thoughts. I felt myself drawn closer to Web shopping after the CC experience.
I’ll also look up “The Tao of Steve” before jumping into an iPod.
Of course, if Andrew would come forth and enlighten us, I’d be grateful.

I realize that I have signed on to be your personal PC repair guy and electronics guru, but gimme a chance, guy!

Sandisk — that’s the brand of choice. But lemme look at the different models. You want video?

And will you pay me 50% of whatever I saved you over an iPod?

Andrew, you’re already in for a healthy percentage of net profits from this blog. I think it comes to something like *^)% (sorry, the number keys are acting up again).
You da man. I await further instructions.

What do you want to use it for — carrying a few hours of music for the short term, or storing everything you own?

Do you plan to get rough with it (e.g., go jogging), or mostly have it in your pocket whilst you do yard work?

Do you want video?

Answer my questions and I can help ya.

No video, no rough stuff, just playing it at home or in the car or when I’m doing the yard stuff. I’d want, like 80 whatevers, so I can pretty much put a whole bunch of stuff on it. And keep adding.

You guys are funny.
Why don’t you just go iPod shopping together Joe & Andrew? .. LOL I’m sure you already have numerous links & pics you can look at by now from Andrew.

One thing I would never order unline (unless I’ve seen it, held it & looked thru already) is a camera. And talk about reading? ohhhh, that’s always alot of fun when it comes to a new digital .. you don’t read little pamphlets anymore, they come with a Book!

Good luck & have fun with the iPod shopping . :)

I agree that Joe and Andrew are two pieces of work! The banter has been hilarious!

Joe, no rough stuff with that new iPod, or whatever you get, ok? :)

What about a Dell Ditty? My kids have those. Andrew may not approve, though.

“No rough stuff.”

Sorry to hear it, man.

There are very personal devices, so you need to make certain, you hold it and use it some before you buy it.

The majority of the market really likes the iPod or Apple wouldn’t be doing so well.

It is easier to use, no matter what platform, but it does hook you to Apple for online sales.

However, if you are just trying to load some of your favorite CDs, the iPod is still great.

I have an original one. It made many trips to the west coast with music and downloaded books. An iPod with noise Bose canceling headphones is a way to make an airplane disappear from your mind.

It won’t fix being in the center seat, but it will help.

Excellent comments, David, which I appreciate.
But my heart (technological division only) belongs to Andrew, without whom blah-blah-blah…

Joe

iPod? iWouldn’t…

Sandisk Sansa View

Thanks, Ron. My technologically literate son (that’s a redundancy, right?) has an iPod and thinks it’s OK, but it does tie him to related Apple products.
We agreed that my first job is to learn to use my camera, which I have yet to remove from the box, owing to the absence of self-discipline provided by the psyche-crushing, life-shortening deadlines previously provided by my former newspaper job.
Not to worry, though. I have a brother and a niece coming for the Tech game this weekend, a house that needs a thorough interior pressure-washing and a vacation to prepare for.
I reckon I’ll start working on this stuff Thursday night. It’s the deadline thing.

Or, you could just boil the whole saltbox and you wouldn’t have to get the pressure washer out.

Speaking of technology, is there a reason the right 1/3 of your header appears to be cut off on the main page? It looks fine if I go to an individual entry, but there’s a clear line of demarcation (it slices right between the “J” and the “o”) on the home page.

I’ll defer to my techno-guru name a Andrew.
This much I know: That’s advertising on that side yonder. That’s my ship coming in.
That the key to my Mercedes, the honey in my tea. That’s what’s gonna separate the rabble from you ‘n’ me.
Andrew told me I’d already gotten money from those ads in my account.
As I recall, it was about $1.09 — before he took his cut.
That’s OK. Col. Sanders started small, too.

Problem is fixed. Cause of problem: When it comes to building you a Web site, Joe, you get what you paid for. ;-)

Now, the folks at http://www.thisisroanoke.com — they got a big ol’ fancy site because they paid twice as much.

ps, Andrew…

are you leaving this eastern time difference on here since “falling back”
will be here soon? You best get on the ball if Joe is paying you my friend!! LOL

Hey Andrew, did you re-do this site? It looks nice. Guess Joe must be paying you the big bucks now :)

Oh wow,
Andrew, I missed what you said before.. LOL

Dang, ‘no ruff stuff?’
Ya gotta have some fun Joe ~

Andrew… what did you do or is it my computer ..

I see the ads to the right but can’t see the previous blog topics ??

And you do know as I will remind you again, this time is set an hour behind us easterners. Does Joe really pay you? LOL

Hmm… I’ll have to check out the time thing. We should be on EDT till the change over, but these computers never seem to do what you’d expect.

And yep, I redid the site. Not hugely, but all the little sloppy things were driving me nuts. Joe tripled my fee so I felt obligated.

He passed the five-buck mark in ad revenue, so I guess he’s feeling flush. :)

I took off the previous blog topics figuring that people would probably either go to the home page (which has a lot of entries), or choose one of the archives. I can put it back, though, if it’s more popular than I thought.

As for the time, it had been set to EST and now it should be on EDT. (And it’ll switch back soon enough.)

But I’ll keep an eye on it…

OK, time’s fixed. It’s about 9:47 AM.

And Joe pays me back in favors. He’ll hold a package for me for a week or two — that sort of thing. :)

Personally, I prefer to have the most recent 5 or so blog topics listed on the home page. But then I’m lazy.

Andrew, Don’t you love those good ol’ fashioned trade-out agreements? Hey, whatever works, right? ;) Now that you’ve tweaked the site, we have to wait until Joe’s done pressure cleaning his house and learning how to work his camera before we hear from him again! Take your time, Joe…. :)

Ah, but Laura, the first 18 or so entries are on the home page, one after the other — no links required!

Always thinking of you,
Andrew

Yes, but that means scrolling (hey, I said I was lazy!).

Good job Andrew…
I was a bit lazy myself and just never clicked much on the home page. I think it’s just fine.

If Joe’s pressure washed his house today, I imagine he’s pretty tired ’bout now. And if he starts reading his BOOK on the camera… we may not see him for days !! lol

( I do believe this topic has had the most comments. Jeez.)

Laura: I’ve got an extra wheel mouse if you need it. And I can show you how to make the wheel work really fast. Old entries are but a finger twitch away!

And Katherine, I think Joe was talking about pressure washing the inside of his house…

That’s right, Andrew. It was an inside joke.

Well dang,
I thought you were going all out and doing sidewalks, etc. Dummy me .. Gitcha a woman in there Joe & let her go at it! Cleaning can be rough stuff too ya know.