You can read on for the gory details, but the bottom line is that they suck. So don’t use Lowes installation for any of your home improvement projects.

Now, for the details. We used Lowes for countertop installation. We planned everything several weeks in advance so that we could get the new countertops installed during a certain 2 day window. When we paid for the service we were told that due to the significant lead time there would be no issue with the date. Everything was set.

When the Friday before the install came around and I noticed we hadn’t received a call from Lowes I called them. No surprise here, but now no one at Lowes has any recollection of us ever requesting a date. They had us scheduled for 7-10 days after our install date.

After getting nowhere over the phone, I ended up in the Install Manager’s office and wouldn’t leave until he had a resolution for me. We ended up getting the install 4 days after the original date.

I asked for a 10% refund for the install getting screwed up. They agreed.

So imagine the complete and utter shock yesterday when I checked my credit card statement and the refund was not rung correctly. I was refunded some random amount which amounted to around 5% of the price, rather than the 10%.

Today I went into the store to deal with the Store Manager. He was not interested in hearing my story or helping resolve the issue, so he pawned me off on the same install manager that I had been dealing with.

I’m supposed to get the correct refund issued tomorrow. We’ll see about that.

We almost used Lowes for the installation of the tile in our lower level. I’m glad we decided not to. I can only imagine how the house would look with half-installed tile and non-installed countertops.

But on the bright side, maybe I ‘d eventually get a refund. Or maybe not.

So to reiterate- don’t use installation services from Lowes.

Thank you. That is all.

(I was 1 G away from a decent alliteration in the original title, so I decided to force it.)

The Gallbladder is an organ that is found in all vertebrates except horses, rats, and Lamoids. It stores bile that is produced in the liver. The bile is used to aid food digestion. In humans, the gallbladder is shaped like a grape.

It is a non-vital organ, meaning you can survive without it. Sometimes things go wrong with the Gallbladder and you have to have it removed. For instance, as in the case of my Aunt this week, sometimes the Gallbladder develops Gangrene.

This can happen for many reasons. It doesn’t seem all that preventable. It does sound extremely painful.

You can read more here.

Source: wiki

A county island is an unincorporated area within a county that is surrounded by incorporated areas. For some reason, when the surrounding area grew, the island area was not annexed by the surrounding cities.

County islands are mostly found in the Western States, like Arizona. Understandably, they can cause issues, since the county must provide services that the city usually provides like police, fire, and garbage collection.

Source: Wiki, but the term came from this article about a bank robbery in a county island.

Tom probably doesn’t know this, but I routinely fix typos in his posts. I used to point them out to him, but he would get pissy about it, so now I just quietly fix them. I figure it’s not unlike the role of an editor in a newspaper, so it’s no big deal.

Don’t get me wrong, the kid is smart, but his talent leans more toward math/science vs. Language. Plus, we’ve already established a minor fracture in his brain.

So anyway, in reading his SbtB post, I came across a word that I couldn’t fix. Turns out it was a real word.

Retcon, which is short for Retroactive Continuity, is a term used in fiction writing and describes the purposeful re-writing of fictional history to make two story lines make sense. It’s popular in Comic Books, and apparently in old NBC sitcoms.

Source: wiki

Alright Kiddies, I’m back from a mini break, and I’m going to lead off with a post about Ladies Night.

It turns out that Ladies Night is not just for bars. In fact, I found 2 non-bar Ladies Night activities in the last week.

#1 is Caswells Shooting Range in Mesa. On Tuesdays and Fridays ladies get free lane fees and gun rentals.

#2 is Speedway Raceway, a Go-Kart track in Phoenix. On Wednesdays Ladies get discounts on races. But that is not all. Ladies in bikini tops race for free all night. And if you are a guy lucky enough to be able to round up 3 chicks in bikini tops and can convince them to head out to the track with you, you’ll get one free race too.

Ladies dressed as Naughty Nurses will get whatever they want. Any guy that brings 3 ladies dressed as Naughty Nurses will be worshiped as a God.

Special Note: I’m instituting a standing rule where any .: legitimate :. mention of Naughty Nurses is worth 10,000 arbitrary points.

…there was Good Morning, Miss Bliss. It was only one season long (1988-89), and aired on the Disney Channel. It was originally pitched to NBC, but they passed. After the show was cancelled after 13 episodes, NBC reformatted it into Saved by the Bell. The main difference was that Miss Bliss focused on the teacher, where as, SbtB focused on the kids.

Zach, Lisa, and Screech were on ‘Miss Bliss,’ along with Mr. Belding – all played by there later SbtB actor counter-parts. The original pilot for ‘Miss Bliss,’ however, starred Austin Green (90210), Jaleel White (Family Matters), and the late Jonathan Brandis (seaQuest DSV).

The episodes of Good Morning, Miss Bliss were later retconned into the history of ‘Saved.’

According to the Wiki:

The series [Good Morning, Miss Bliss] was integrated into the Saved by the Bell syndicated rerun package; episodes from this series were later introduced with a cold open by Mark-Paul Gosselaar explaining that these were from an earlier time frame than the rest of the series (despite the fact that the previous series was, for all intents and purposes, a different continuity), along with a retrofitted version of the regular Saved by the Bell opening theme.

Source: Dave Ryan Show and then Wiki-wiki.

Here is the lynch pin to the story I did not know. There was a live-action children’s television show that ran from 1975-76 about a team of bumbling detectives who would investigate ghostly occurrences called The Ghost Busters. It has NO relationship to the 1984 Ghostbusters movie.

Now. Ghostbusters, which is now referred to as Filmation’s Ghostbusters (for clarity), was the crappy animated Ghostbusters show featuring 2 idiots and a gorilla for some reason. It ran from 1986-1988, which had the plot:
Jake Kong, Eddie Spencer and Tracy the Gorilla are The Ghost Busters. Jake and Eddie Jr are the sons of the original Ghost Busters from the live action series of the same name; Tracy worked with their fathers.

The better of the two shows was The Real Ghostbusters. It WAS based off the 1984 Ghostbusters film. It ran from 1986 to 1991 and was Emmy nominated. Interestingly, Ernie Hudson did try out for the voice of Winston, but the role was given instead to Arsenio Hall (for the first 3 seasons before someone else took over). Also, when Arsenio left, Dave Coulier took over for the Peter Venkman character, who before that was done by Lorenzo Music, who also did the voice of Garfield in the Garfield cartoons (his Peter Venkman also sounded like Garfield). TRG was ranked as the #22 best show in the IGN Top 100 Best Animated TV Shows. There were 2 The Real Ghostbusters spin-offs including Slimer! and Extreme Ghostbusters.

The interesting thing here is that the terrible Ghostbusters live action show actually did come first. So it was Filmation who sued Columbia and made them use a name other then “Ghostbusters” (hence the ‘the real’ on front).

Source: mostly Wiki and wiki.

And it was apparently good!

Published in 1986, Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game went on to win the H. G. Wells award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1986.

It was a very simple rule set based around the idea that you just purchased a Ghostbusters franchise and are based in a city other than New York. Your character sheets are called Ghostbusters ID cards and can be found here. The game was revised and re-released in 1989 when it was renamed Ghostbusters International. It’s wobsite and scans of the rules can be found here and here.

Ecto Cooler was a flavor of Hi-C juice. It was a 1987 product tie-in between the juice company and The Real Ghostbusters, which was an animated cartoon based on the 1984 live action movie ‘Ghostbusters.’ The juice turned out to be way more popular then the cartoon, and the cartoon went off the air in 1991, while Ecto Cooler could be seen on shelves until at least 1997 (or later; see below).

Now, even though Jeff may argue this, the formula for Ecto Cooler is not, in fact Candy Apple Cooler. In fact, I could find shockingly little information on CAC, but did find out the dirt on Ecto Cooler.

This blag gives the full run-down, along with a link to the teaser commercial for the product (that’s right, Ecto Cooler had a teaser commercial), but basically, orange lavaburst is not similar, but he heard rumors that a Hi-C flavor Shoutin‘ Oranger Tangergreen (which has a green-lips mascot looking similar to Slimer) may be the same formula as EC. The guy did research. One really cool fact is that receipts when purchasing SOT would ring up as Ecto! That suggested that they reused the Ecto UPC. In the end, he did prove, as much as one can, that Shoutin‘ Oranger Tangergreen is the same formula as the wildly successful Ecto Cooler.

Lastly, the Hi-C wiki states that Slimer left the box for Ecto Cooler in about 1997, but the product existed until 2001, when it was renamed Shoutin‘ Orange Tangergreen and:

In 2006, Shoutin‘ Orange Tangergreen was renamed Crazy Citrus Cooler.
In 2007, Crazy Citrus Cooler was discontinued. The formula to make the Ecto Cooler and its counterparts is no longer made. Though the flavor is basically a combination of oranges and tangerines.

There is a dice game called Bunko. It is popular among Mormon women because it can really be more of a social gathering then a game, and it’s 100% chance based, so they don’t feel like it’s the “wrong” type of gambling.

Basically, it’s like Yahtzee-lite. You play the game with 3 dice. Each game is made up of 6 rounds. In round 1, you are trying to roll 3 1’s, which is a Bunko. If you roll any 1’s, you score that many points, pick up all 3 dice, and go again. You continue this way until you either roll a Bunko (automatic win) or you don’t get any 1’s. Then you write down how many points you scored and pass the dice. Once someone either gets a Bunko, or scores 21 points, the round is over, and you start round 2, which is the exact same as round 1, except you get points for rolling 2’s, not 1’s.

If you roll 3 of the same number, but not the number of the round you are in, you score 5 points.
Example: you are in round 2, and roll 3 3’s. Not a Bunko because in round 2, you need to roll 3 2’s, but it is worth 5 points.

There are also a lot of variants and team rules and ideas for playing it as a club out there…

Source: Inspired by my Trivial Pursuit calendar, then Wiki and several Bunko sites.