Cookbook Postcards

Cookbook Postcards
April 30, 2007

The other day, I received two postcards from Food & Wine Cookbooks. When they send you a postcard for a cookbook, if you don’t send the card back within 15 days telling them you do not want the cookbook, it’s sent to you and billed to your credit card. And I have found that sending their postcards back seems to be a problem for our friends at the USPS (on one side of the card is my name and address; on the other side is Food & Wine Cookbooks and their address) who want to return the card to me as if it were addressed to me (no matter that the stamp is on the other side).

Both postcards were for the same product: their annual cookbook, which I always want. But I didn’t want two copies and didn’t want to go through the hassle of sending in a postcard (Which one should I send? Will the post office mail it back to me in any case?) So, I thought it a good idea to contact the folks at F&W and see if they could straighten this out.

Since there was no number on the postcard nor a customer service number on their web site, I used the “contact us” option and sent an email in which I cited the two postcards, the distinct account numbers on each, and asked for an explanation. Their reply, and I quote:

“You responded to two offers. Most recent was for a free offer, where you only had to pay the shipping and handling of $2.99. The other was for the Best of the Best Cookbook from a previous offer.” And they also said that if I had any questions, I should call the 800 number they gave me.

Well, I did have a problem: both cards were for the same offer rather than what they told me. Armed with their 800 customer service number, I called, explained the situation, read the representative the email I had sent and the response from customer service. After she had taken my name and address, she said that there was nothing in the system regarding any order. I explained to her again that these postcards generated orders if they were not sent back and I only wanted one copy of the book in question, not two. But, she said, there is nothing in the system. The promotion company sends out the postcards, she told me. She said there was nothing she could do. I told her, a bit tartly I must admit, that she was saying that Food & Wine customer service (who I had been told to call if I had any questions) couldn’t help me with their own product. I then asked to speak to a supervisor.

A few minutes later, she came back on the line (having spoken to her supervisor, it seems). She then asked me to repeat my full name and address since she had not written them down before. She wanted to know the last four digits of the credit card that I DIDN’T want charged for a book. Hmmm. I told her I only had one credit card on record and gave her those four digits, stressing that is the card I want charged for a book.

I told her there were account numbers on the cards I got. Did she want these so she could figure out what was going on? She was clueless about what the numbers were and took them down reluctantly for her supervisor. Which of these accounts did I want stopped for future solicitations? I HAVE NO IDEA. One is correct and one incorrect. You figure it out. You have my records and account information. I don’t.

What’s the bet I get (a) two copies of the same book, and (b) two postcards for the next solicitation?

The Spider and the Fly

Driving to a meeting yesterday afternoon, I noticed a small, pale brown spider making his/her way across the inside of my windshield. At a certain point, the spider was right in my field of vision, so I knocked it away, not seeing where it went.

A minute later, I saw what I assume is the same spider scampering across my dashboard and along the window sill by my left arm. Again, I flicked it and didn’t see where it went.

My next view was the same spider running up my seat right at my crotch.

This time, I was lethal.

Spam Titles

From time to time, I collect the titles of spam messages in my email junk inbox. It's time once more to weave some of them together without changing any words or titles. Here is my latest installment:


Everything should be okay. Always on time, your surprises gotta make it better. Marinade ominously. It’s money in your pocket, foreigner. Remarkable results can be achieved. Our spring action, variety of styles, hit the jackpot. We stared at our empty plates when he called her little soul to go by himself restive. Weird, isn’t it, unless you’re Norman Manly, an amateur from California. The narrow depth of field hit me; I have done that last week. It’s time to resort to voodoo if you could change one thing.

A We Story

The other day, I was in Magianno’s for lunch. It’s a chain of restaurants in about half of the lower 48. When the waitress arrived at my table, I asked what the specials were. She replied, in part, with: “Today I have … and I have … and I have ….” Then I asked where the men’s room was. Her reply: “My restrooms are upstairs and to the left.”

This gets me to the kernel of all this: what’s with this use of the first person (either singular or plural) by waiters at restaurants? With this waitress, she implied she was an owner/manager/chef. Then there is the use of “we.” It’s pretty common to go somewhere and have a waiter ask:

“How are we doing?”
“What do we want to drink?”
“Are we ready to order?”
“What are we having?

Should I invite the person to sit with us to be part of the group? Should I say something like: “I don’t know about you, but we are having … ?” How about: “What’s this ‘we” crap?”

What's in the Box?

I just received a new digital camera to replace an earlier model of the same camera. Let’s call them T100 (new) and T1 (old).

When I got the T1 several years ago, it came with:
1. a full owner’s manual (116 pages) with details on everything (menus, settings, etc.);
2. a dock into which you place the camera to (a) charge the battery inside the camera (full charge in a couple of hours, but nothing tells you how long it takes), and (b) move pictures to your computer through an attached USB cable;
3. a CD with various software that is useless to me, but useful for some.

With the T100, I got:
1. a partial owner’s manual (30 pages with the basics of push the shutter to take a picture, how to charge the battery, etc.);
2. a cord to connect the camera to a computer for USB downloading;
3. a battery charger where you have to take the battery out of the camera, stick it into the charger, and plug the charger into the wall;
4. a CD with various software that is useless to me and the “real” manual as a PDF file if you wanted to find out how to work the camera on more than a point-and-shoot basis.

In addition, when reading though the supplied printed manual, I see that battery charging time for the out-of-camera-camera experience is “330 minutes” for a full charge. Not sure why it’s in minutes: that’s 4.5 hours.

Also included in the box is a brochure with all the accessories you can buy for your new camera. One that is available is an out-of-camera battery charger that will charge your batter “in just 1.5 hours, over 3X faster than supplied charger.” Cost? $50 from lowest online supplier.

Another accessory you can purchase is a dock (like the one that came in the box with the T1) where you can transfer your pictures to a computer and do “in-camera charging … that’s approx. 30% faster than your camera’s supplied charger.” Sounds like about 3 hours instead of 4.5. Cost? $45 from lowest online supplier.

All of this is sort of like food packages or cleaning products where the volume has gone down to keep a price point (or even when price go up).

Insofar as the manual being supplied printed or as a PDF file, in the long run it’s no big deal. Having a PDF file means I can carry it with my on my laptop if I have questions away from home. However, at the beginning of having a new piece of equipment, it is important to me. I want to leaf back and forth to find different stuff that relates to what I am trying to learn and that is harder when scrolling through a very large PDF file.