Author: Andy Labis

By:

The Dude on the Right
I know e-mail programs are boring, but I was having problems using "Thunderbird"
today, but low and behold, actually reading some "help" stuff on their website
seemed to have solved the problem.  On a corporate level, in conjunction
with our move into the the fledgling website called
MySpace,
we are also considering adding our "Stu
& The Dude Reviewin’ the Movies for You" episodes into this brand new thing
I found called YouTube.  Like MySpace, the site doesn’t seem that popular
right now, but if we can help them grow a bit, well, who knows.  I’ll fill
you in on our YouTube profiling in a later blog or podcast.

All that other crap going on, the biggest problem I have right now, other
than it being a weirdly, crappy, movie-going weekend, is that the fall TV season
is coming up, and I think, especially for Thursday nights, I’m going to have to
hunker down and spend the money for the

dual-tuner TiVo that is out now.  How else can I juggle watching the
racially divided "Survivor,"
versus "My Name is
Earl" & "The Office,"
versus "Smallville,"
and versus whatever ABC seems
to throw at me.  My TV life is so complicated.

Thanks for listening.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
By blog accounts, this one is long, but damn it’s exciting.  Almost as
exciting as my day.  Let’s get to it…

So, I had an exciting day
planned.  First I figured I would catch a movie, and I did.  It was
the movie "Crank,"
and the review should be posted tomorrow (quick hint – stupid fun, with some
quality kills and gratuitous nudity).  Then I planned on getting the
dude-mobile washed, and I did that, too.  I also needed to buy some new
underwear.  Man, what an exciting day.

But two other things became of
interest to me as the day went on.  One deals with an always sore subject
with me, and that is the FCC and their messed up "censorship" guidelines. 
The second is I can see why a major retailer might be losing some customers.

First off, and maybe you never paid attention, nor thought it would affect you,
but thanks to our government raising the fines on what
five people decide is indecent,
CBS stations across the country are having to make a decision

if they should air "9/11," a documentary, because of some of the language
and content in the program.  Yup, thanks to the moniker of "saving the
children," five years after the 9/11 attacks, television stations are having to
worry a lot more about anything they might put on your TV, many times, now,
because of "back-door censorship" by the government, rather than if the show
just sucks.  Me, I find it sort of sad that when kids ask why other people
hate the United States enough to crash planes into our buildings, a lot of times
we tell them it’s because those people don’t like the freedoms we have. 
Yet at this anniversary of the 9/11 attacks a lot of you won’t have the freedom
to decide if you want to watch a gripping documentary about that day. 
Thank you Senators, House Representatives, and President Bush for raising the
fine.  And, oh yea, thank you also to the five people at the FCC who
decide, for all of us, what is indecent.

On another note, if the folks at
Sears find they are losing customers, they might be right.  I know today
they lost one for sure, and probably a second.  Carson Pirie Scott, on the
other hand, just gained a new one.

First, why I’m done with Sears.

Me being
a dude, you can probably guess the state of my boxers as I went to the local
mall in search of some new ones.  First stop – JCPenney.  I’ve always
had decent luck shopping there for clothes, but their Labor Day sale on
underwear, and the disarray of the display, left slim pickin’s for this dude. 
I had three other shopping options for underwear:  Sears, Marshall Field’s
(now almost Macy’s), and Carson Pirie Scott.  Figuring Sears would be the
better frugal choice, I cruised around the mall and found myself in their men’s
underwear section.  They didn’t have the brand I was looking for, but the
Hanes’ stuff was on sale and even though their display was also in disarray, I
was able to find enough in the size and color I like to replenish my boxer
drawer.  Now I have to preface this a tad because I was already a little
perturbed at Sears because of my mother’s latest dealing with them (more on that
later), but under the assumption that shopping at Sears would save me a few
bucks, I was sticking with my underwear purchase there.  That was until I
tried to pay for them.

I head for the first cashier area where no one seemed
to be working, but people in line seeming to hope someone would show up. 
So I head around the corner and down the aisle to the next cashier area, only to
find a line of five people and the cashier just getting on the PA system asking
for a manager.  I ain’t got time to wait for that.  So I head to the
next cashier area.  One cashier and this time about ten people in line
(granted by this time I found myself in the women’s clothing area, where I did
find it odd that the men’s restroom was there, behind the lingerie display, but
being in the women’s area, I thought it might be busy), and I headed to the last
cashier area on the floor.  Again, one cashier.  Again, ten people in
line, and already being upset at Sears, deciding my underwear purchase, no
matter the state of my current ones, didn’t warrant waiting that long in line. 
Being the nice guy I am, I did put the boxers back in the underwear display, but
I was still without new underwear to buy, and rather than shop at Marshall
Field’s, the Chicago institution it is, soon to be named Macy’s by the Macy’s
people, I took a protest of my own against the name change and said to myself,
"Self, what the hell, let’s give Carson’s a shot."

So I cruised around the
mall a bit more, and I almost stopped at Radio Shack, and no, not for underwear,
but no one else was in the store and I didn’t want to be pestered by the sale’s
folks there, so I took a pass.  I’m sorry, I digress.  Back to Carson
Pirie Scott.  Walking to the men’s clothing area, there, in the middle of
one of the aisles, was a well organized display of the Jockey underwear I was
originally looking for.  And you know what?  They were on sale. 
At this point they were still a little more expensive than if JCPenney’s had had
them, and Sears still had the best price of all with the Hanes, but I really
needed the boxers so I figured I would suck-up the extra couple of bucks. 
I head to the cashier area, staffed with two cashiers and only one person in
line, they finish their transaction, I put my underwear on the counter, and on
top of the savings I was getting from them just being on sale, the sale’s
associate seemed to scan a coupon that I didn’t have.  Suddenly my
underwear purchase was cheaper than both JCPenney and Sears, and with that,
Carson Pirie Scott has gained a new customer, and combined with the following, I
will find it hard for me to return to Sears.

The other customer that Sears may
have lost is my mother, and this blog is already too long, so I’ll save her
complete story for another blog.  To put it simply right now, I took her to
Sears to get a new microwave a little while ago, a KitchenAid (Mom likes
KitchenAid).  It was a special order, and the Sears’ folks were also hired
to install it.  The install folks came, put in a microwave, and Mom was
initially happy, only something didn’t seem right, her spices fit between the
microwave and the top of the stove.  Eventually Mom figured out that it
wasn’t the microwave she paid for (sadly, it was a lesser microwave).  The
Sears’ folks did refund my Mom her money, correcting for the microwave that was
installed, but from what Mom tells me, the salesperson who handled the refund,
rather than taking any responsibility, told my brother (he took care of getting
things straight), that the KitchenAid people must have shipped the wrong
microwave.  The more I think about it, that excuse seems like a quick
copout, and it is also burning up my Mom because she feels the same way. 

Anyway, more on Mom’s microwave during a later blog, otherwise this blog
might go on forever, especially if I get into another tangent about the cool
fountain at the mall, why I was thinking of heading into Radio Shack, and my
experience at the car wash.

So Sears, sorry, but I’m not planning on shopping
with you anymore, and I have a feeling my Mom might be done with you also. 
Carson Pirie Scott, the next time I’m looking for clothes, I think I’ll stop by
your store first.  For a sale, you’re not as expensive as I assumed you
were.

Sometimes you can’t seem to find the underwear you want, sometimes you
can’t seem to get the microwave you paid for, and sometimes you don’t have the
freedom to watch what you want on TV.  What a wonderful world.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!