This Is Only a Test 148 – Happy Thanksgiving! – 11/21/2012

14 thoughts on “This Is Only a Test 148 – Happy Thanksgiving! – 11/21/2012”

1. RE: the black friday alternative explanation (regardless of the origin of the term)

   Will, you’re plain wrong with your simplistic assertion that shops wouldn’t be in business for the rest of the year if they only made their profit in the holiday season. This is the entire reason why fiscal years matter instead of fiscal months. If a company can produce a net profit for the fiscal year, it hardly matters that most of that profit is generated during the holidays. The economy would be in big trouble if shops only opened for the holiday season (where would all the employees go during the rest of the year?) I’m sorry, I usually think you’re a pretty cool dude but you shouting over Norm to invalidate his insight (“it’s a good thing you’re a journalist”) was really patronizing and bad form.

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2. New Year is my favorite holiday. Mostly because, by the time the day rolls around the christmas stress and visiting relatives are gone, the house is empty and quiet again. Christmas is for other people, New Years is for me. Although should add here that I don’t do New Years party party stuff. 🙂

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3. Sound slightly wonky for anyone else?

   RE: re-captcha – only ONE of the words (the non-wavy one) is a google books word, the other (wavy or skewed) word is the only one that matters. If you hate Google Books, you can type whatever you want for that word (I go with the classics, “ass,” “poop” “penis” nothing as bad as the Mad-Libs from Octoberkast.)

   RE: Thanksgiving – I do a duck instead of a turkey. It’s probably more historically accurate, it tastes better, and I usually only have 2 or 3 other people at dinner and I’m white.

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4. That was a great episode.

   I’m just wondering if you’re boycotting movie theaters, airlines, and hospitals as well. I’ll leave the essential personnel that work in both state and federal government out of it.

   Working retail sucks, but getting paid time and a half is pretty awesome.

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5. I agree with Gary about Black Friday in that its depressing. As I headed to work today, people were already lined up at 10am at Toys R us, sears and Bestbuy. I just laughed to myself as I drove by. This shit really brings out the worst in people and There is not a single item in bestbuy that I desire, and that makes me feel so happy. And if there’s something I really want, I just save up for it and buy it. No brainer.

   And I really didn’t mind working today. It was from 9-5pm and I was able to get home right in time for dinner. I was able to make good money and If I would have stayed home, I probably would have been bored most the day.

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6. Swiss cake rolls >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> hohos

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7. RE: the fellow who asked about graphics tablets

   The bottom line for tablets in my experience is bigger is better. It has to do with how your physical hand movement is reflected on the screen, the closer you get those two motions the better. Monoprice actually has much bigger tablets for cheaper, the drawbacks being having to install two drivers, the monoprice driver and a wacom driver , and the pen pressure levels are not as smooth as for wacoms.

   so as far as what one would want for price, monoprice for size, wacom for sensitivity, either way his sister is gonna be beating her head on the desk over line quality.

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8. I have to say it was heartwarming making my way through San Francisco yesterday and seeing people in the streets carrying food on their way to family and friends. You see a lot of people rushing past you every day, but you don’t really have any sense of where they are going.

   However, I do have to say it was slightly depressing seeing the endless lines of people outside Old Navy and Target while I was on my way home at 1am…

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9. thunderbird is still being updated and is very feature rich similar to firfox. I just got the new update for thunderbird

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10. I bought some Twinkies when I moved to Tucson a little over 13 years ago. I can assure you they go bad. Although they still look fine, they have hardened up and feel more like balsa wood. They are still in their packaging. I didn’t record the date, but a few years in I ate one and it tasted fine at the time.

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11. I just want to point out, that as someone who works for Amazon (and I am not speaking in any way officially for the company), we had to work not only on Friday, but we had to work on Thanksgiving itself. Just like the people at Walmart and Target, we had to spend our holiday working. And with Black Friday “week” and Cyber Monday, many of our fulfillment centers are putting their employees on 60 hour weeks. And while the customers don’t have to wait in lines in order to buy their deals, we have had mandatory overtime for the past month just to prep for the orders coming in.

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12. Not to downplay what you and your coworkers had to do on Thanksgiving and will probably have to do throughout the Holiday season, (this stuff is horrible all over the sector) but I work in a brick and mortar that opened at 8pm on Thanksgiving. I had to get there at 7 and I worked until 9 the next day. I skipped Thanksgiving with my family as I’m sure many of your cohorts did so I could sleep in to make it through the night, I drank coffee for the second time in my life (no real sacrifice I just usually drink Soda for caffiene), I think I lost two pounds (didn’t get a break until around 2:30 AM and ate some of the cold catered food that was there). I also think I did okay on my commissions, of course no one wanted anything to do with upsells which is which is how our performance is graded and my best sale of the whole time there just cancelled his order today. To make the sale I clued him into a piece of furniture that was on clearance for $100 below what the nearest competitor was selling it at, so helping him out cost me $130. Which pretty much negated the whole day for me. C’est la vie though.

    The things that people at warehouses don’t have to see though are people strangely walking away in tears when they realize they can’t get a voucher for a $300 TV or miss the fights that break out in lines and countless assholes who make the phone ring constantly asking whether the 8PM doorbuster TV is still there 10 hours later.

    I’m honestly surprised at how many people are so clueless as to how this stuff works. Please tell all your dumb friends this, stores put out doorbusters to get you into the store to spend money on other things than the doorbusters.

    I’m a little bitter, but I survived the thing on the receiving end but I swear to god the next time I hear of a friend of mine returning something without a good reason Ima cut that bitch. Don’t buy unless you know you want it assholes.

    Sorry for the rant…

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13. RE: the black friday alternative explanation (regardless of the origin of the term)

    Will, you’re plain wrong with your simplistic assertion that shops wouldn’t be in business for the rest of the year if they only made their profit in the holiday season. This is the entire reason why fiscal years matter instead of fiscal months. If a company can produce a net profit for the fiscal year, it hardly matters that most of that profit is generated during the holidays. The economy would be in big trouble if shops only opened for the holiday season (where would all the employees go during the rest of the year?) I’m sorry, I usually think you’re a pretty cool dude but you shouting over Norm to invalidate his insight (“it’s a good thing you’re a journalist”) was really patronizing and bad form.

    It’s funny when Will gets really strident about something despite being wrong.

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14. I like how Whitta is suddenly more civil towards Romney as soon as he lost (I’ve been listening to these older podcasts in no particular order)

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