Last night I’m watching TV. I see an add come on for a retailer that says a certain item will be on sale for just $blah blah blah. “Wow. That’s a great price” I think to my self. I love TV and movies so I own a monster sized sceen, which means all that little bity print you sometimes see on commercials is easily readable on my TV. Guess what? That great deal which is being advertised nationwide ends with this: “minimum 5 available per store.” You and I both know what that means. There will be 5 per store. So what do you think is going to happen the day after Thanksgiving when hundreds of people line up at some unGodly hour in the morning only to find out there are just 5 of those sale items in the store? It’s not going to be pretty. I’ll just wait until the week before Christmas and get my stuff then when it’s discounted even MORE. (That’s how they’ve trained us to shop, isn’t it?!) What a bunch of chodes. Those stores should be ashamed for using such tactics to lure people into their stores. God help the poor managers who happen to be working Friday morning. I’m sure they’re going to get screamed at.

     I know LOTS of people want to attend WBEE’s “Guitars & Stars” concert on November 5th. The show is sold out. We have a few dozen pairs of tickets that we’re giving away on air. I wish we had enough tickets to let everyone attend, but the dome (which helps us keep the show affordable) is only so big. What really burns me is when I log on to craigslist and see people scalping tickets. I contacted one of the people and didn’t make any attempt to hide the fact that I was Billy Kidd from WBEE. I offered some major stuff, but not cash. The person actually responded and said she had promised to sell the tickets to someone else. Yeah, to someone else for $125. I didn’t want the tickets, I just wanted to find this persons motivation and it was obviously money. I understand that someone will most likely have bought tickets and not be able to go for some reason. Fine. Sell those tickets for what you paid for them. To the scalper: I hope someone finds your lost puppy, then charges you a grand to get it back. It would probably feel the same as the people who really want to go to the show but lost out because of you. I’m sure the craigslist scalper would love to hear how YOU feel if you missed out on tickets so please leave a comment below.  

        Over the weekend it was sunny and 70 degrees. Halloween is still three weeks away. Thanksgiving is almost two months away. Then why did I walk into a store and see CHRISTMAS TREES on sale?! I know most retailers make a chunck of their money off Christmas but this is just too much and too early. Following that same promotional calendar the retailers use for Christmas, I expect to see the following:  4th of July items should be on shelves no later than April 24th, Labor day sales should start on June 30th, Halloween costumes should be in stores August 21st, (they are pretty close on that one already) Presidents day in February should have promotions begin on December 10th.