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This little page here is designed to reduce my stress level. If you recognize yourself here, you have a
chance to reform. I'm usually nice, even if I am smiling over clenched teeth.
Stumbled across the piece of wisdom on an on-line blog for techies.
"DaveS
Posted March 22, 2007 00:09 March 22, 2007 01:09
The cost to RIAA member companies for online sales is close to 0 per song since apple, etc. bear all the costs of servers
and software.
The cost for physical CDs includes pressing and distribution (shipping, warehousing, tracking, processing returns).
Given that, a drop in cost-per-disc CD sales with a gain in zero-cost digital sales needs to be reported with adjustments
for the difference in costs.
If 2 songs are sold gaining 1.40 in pure profit (since record companies grab .70/song) how does that compare to the revenue
less pressing & distribution from 1 CD?"
Geez, Dave (last name obliterated here to protect the moronic)I'd like to respond, but I got to get down to Guitar Center
to get me all that free gear they are giving away. Then I got to go and get sprinkled with pixie dust, because I don't have
to invest anything in learning how to play an instrument. Then I have to go and get that free studio time, where my fellow
musicians, producers and engineers are all standing by to create a recording. Then I have to mix it and master it so it will
sound good compressed into an MP3 file - so that poor Apple and I-Tunes can bear the brunt of the expense maintaining the
platform that delivers it you.
This stupid bastard probably would rather listen to the microwave hum than a musician anyway. Hope your tongue gets compressed
in your hard drive and your ears fall off and you work real hard for nothing for a real long time.
***************
Just one time before I die (and that could be any day now) I'd like to get a mention in one these 'Best of' articles that
some of the local rags like to run.
I admit that the ego needs a little caressing from time. The best that I have is a customer stating that we are the 'best
store in the...neighborhood' or one guy saying that we are here because we 'just refuse to die'.
Not much to keep me putting my pants on in the morning.
I had thought about taking out an ad in Chicagoland Tails, a pet magazine and proclaiming myself the favorite record store
for dogs in the city. I could just euthanize any critics.
So it was with more curiosity than anticipation that opened the "Best Of" issue of the local New City rag.
I was shocked to discover...
"Best Place to Buy CD's....
Best Buy...
Where a Maxell fifty pack spindle is only $17.99. Wait..this category is for music Cd's released by record companies?
People still buy those ? Did we enter a wormhole? Is this 1996? Who you gonna vote for Clinton or Dole? And did you hear about
the new Nintendo 64? It sounds awesome.
"Best Audience Comment: "Who buys CD's anymore?"
"Best Place to Buy Music Cd's Then"
Virgin Megastore "
I guess the lack of record company ads has finally got to this smarmy little rag. Best Buy doesn't appear to be advertising
their spindles there either. A lot of massage parlors and book stores.
I guess after reading shit like this even a good bodice ripper (or back rub) would look like literature to you. "Best
Place to Buy CD's Then"? The grammar check must be broken over there.
At least the four or five readers of this zine have the good taste to name Reckless as their favorite place to buy CD's.
Still I've been dying to find out who won "Best use of bone marrow as an appetizer" and I'm overjoyed that
they approve of the fast food red beans and rice at Popeye's.
I guess that I must be in a wormhole because I'd rather vote for Dole or Clinton (or Roosevelt or Eisenhower or Lincoln
or anybody) than the progressive dickwads we get to vote for. I'd rather listen to music than spend my off hours burning it.
Of course, I never was much one for sitting my fat ass on a couch and twiddling my thumbs immersed in some make believe fantasy
game either.
MAYOR DALEY PLEASE!! put up a big toll booth at the borders of our city so that weasels like these stupid m*%#@*f*%#%#@s
stay up in their suburban wastelands. Until then I'll avoid these 'winners' like the plague.
WORST PIECE OF ONE PLY TOILET PAPER - NEW CITY!
Best audience comment: "Who reads weekly shoppers anymore?"
AND IT CONTINUES....
The phone rings and a woman on the other end says that she is doing a story for NEW CITY and wants to check some facts.
She asks for the store's correct address and phone number. Then she asks if we still do in-store performances. I say 'not
anymore' and she slams the phone down. No 'thanks', no 'goodbye', no pleasantry that one has grown to expect from a toll collector
or bored fast food worker. Just slam the phone down, honey. Time can't be wasted on the likes of me.
The next week, the story on indie record stores appears. I guess that they are trying to make nice after the smarmy 'best
of ' issue. It should be up at http://www.newcitychicago.com/chicago/5812.html for a little while.
In any case, here's what they say about the home team,
*****************************************************
Record Emporium
3346 N. Paulina, (773)248-1821
If you have ever dreamt about owning a record store, Record Emporium may be the store that's been haunting your dreams.
Around since 1979 and jam-packed with CDs and vinyl, at Record Emporium you'll find classic rock, folk and, oddly enough,
Shania Twain. Mike Felten, owner of Record Emporium, also gives people a chance to buy from home through the store's Web site,
www.recordemporium.com.
*************************************************
| Johnny greets the warden at San Quentin |
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| Jim Marshall photo |
Apparently Jackasses aren't unlimited.
I hope that I haven't confused anyone by putting two words together. Maybe we will call this page Jackasses Limited. If that
doesn't offend anyone."I was viewing your website, and I noticed you are using jackasses
unlimited. I
have purchased and setup jackassesunlimited.com...I am informing you of
this
because I dont want to have a conflict with your site and mine. thank
you for
your time on this matter.
webmaster of JackAssesUnlimited.com"
Wait a second, I don't capitalize the J,
the A and the U. That should be enough to eliminate any confusion. Whew!
The Mother of All Jackasses :"You know (the poor folks uprooted due to Hurricane Katrina, who have lost their homes,
jobs, loved ones and seen their city devasted) were underprivileged anyway, so this is working quite well for them"
- Barbara Bush
The Questioning Jackass... After a tough retail Saturday. Jackass walks in fifteen minutes before closing time, gets two steps in the front
door and declares, "I don't know how you guys survive!" Thanks for that insight.
I think the same thing whenever I walk into a chain store, but my social skills are a little bit more developed. I shrug off
the jackass. I didn't think he was asking for my analysis of the retail music climate. He takes a couple more steps in and
attempts to put the listening station headphones on, he drops them and knocks over a couple of albums. "Are you price competitive?" he demands. "With Starbucks," I reply. He snorts and
mutters at the listening station. Unable to figure out how to work the thing, he leaves.
So
it is another Saturday night and this jackass ain't got nobody. His idea of a good time is walking into a shop and try to
run it down.
So
let me explain how I 'make it'.
Our
friends in Oklahoma taught my wife how to make jerky. We have all the equipment, all we need is meat. When a 200 pounds plus
rack of meat walks in my front door and conducts himself as if he has no tangible purpose on the planet, I just consider
the possibilities and independent business has always had to innovate to survive.
Jackass YoYo Fan... Customer buys a $3.99 disc on line. We have a minimum order
of $4.99 pasted all over. After we get done with credit card fees and all the nonsense we have to deal with we’re lucky
to make a nickel on these sales. We also have it stated on our grading page that discs may not have the final artwork. These
are clearance discs. We think that you might appreciate getting a full-length disc for a fraction of the price. I know that
I’m supposed to take all of these masterpieces home, but my wife doesn’t share that idea.
So this guy buys a disc and tries to convince me that Israel is part of the United States and should
qualify for domestic shipping. It didn’t work.
Although the order was less than our minimum, I thought I’d bend the rule and let it go through.
I recently had a .99 customer berate me because ‘someday’ he was going to spend $100 but not with me because of
my ‘stupid rules’. Likewise I think that all the fees that I am charged are stupid rules, but the credit card
companies and my bank don’t listen to me. So thus begins our saga…
hay
just got the cd YO YOS -uPPERS AND DOWNERS- what did you think
of before send me this joke cd with no sleeve no booklet and no g.box !!!!
im simply amazed
and shooked ! i dont need this cd as it is ill like to get a FULL refound to
my visa acount . its not fair this mass and this big big dispointment, after ill get my 9.99$ back ill send you this cd. way
didnt you told me before ive made the order? 'cos its not writen anywere! let me know ASAP
I too am
‘shooked” I respond to Mr. Jackass:
We will refund your account when we receive the disc
back.
This is why our minimum order is $4.99 - even on
budget sales titles.
From our Gemm page ...
"Items priced below $6.99 often do not have complete
artwork. ASK before ordering. There is a now a $5.00
minimum order."
And
then:...
what do
you say about .....after well receive the disk we will refund..... hows gonna pay the shipping to you .!
maybe you
prefere that ill proch to gemm.com with
our problem. i have to say that im buyin alot of staff on the web and its
the first time i get this tritment.
im askin again becuose its not the order that ive
made, please give me a full
refund to this order im NOT a socker. or find me the disc sleeve and a g.box
No ‘socker’
this guy..
We aren't going to give you a refund until the disc is
in our possession.
Everything from the shipping -$6 foreign not the $4
domestic (US) that you requested - to the statement
that budget items under $6 may not include the final
art - and that $4.99 was a minimum order - was clearly
spelled out on our Gemm pages.
"proch" whoever, we aren't going to allow you to scam
us.
send me your address
to deliver the disc.
ill send it regesterd so youll get it for shore
thanks for nothing
and so,the gene
pool sinks to a greater depth. We’ll add if this drama continues...
THRIFT STORE JACKASS..."Do you have used classical discs? How much are they. $7.99!!! C'mon" I'll
c'mon, jackass, if you promise to take me to the land of cigarette trees and the Big Rock Candy mountain.
ONLINE JACKASS...Comment/Question: I recieved my package opened and damaged. It looks
like you didn't properly seal the envelope, which was kinda flimsy. I know you were trying to save on shipping, but
please don't do it at the risk of damaging it. The dvd box has a dent ripped in the front and the insert is missing...You
had a HP $50 rebate coupon in there instead...what is that??? Did the insert fall out? This is definitely not
in "like new" condition. Can you please issue me a partial refund?
hmmm...couldn't be that the thing just got damaged in the mail. We all
know that doesn't happen. We just insist on using flimsy envelopes so all of the thousand of things we send out get damaged.
Of course, we don't seal them either and then stuff them with $50 HP rebate coupons...We begin welding our envelopes shut
as of this day.
PART 2- ...After we suggest a return for a full refund including shipping
Dear Record Emporium.
If I want to have tracking on the item to return it, I have to buy the full
postage for it. If I don't have a record and the dvd gets lost, I'm screwed out of a refund. From experience,
it takes a lot of time and trouble dealing with USPS regarding matters such as this. So it doesn't seem to be worth
it.
You asked me to help determine what went wrong. The problem is the shipping envelope is a NOT top quailty
envelope for shipping DVDs through USPS. Your single bubble wrap is very thin. I paid 2.49 for shipping, couldn't
you spend a dollar for a extra bubble wrap or a larger envelope? You only spent $1.29 to mail it. If you do need
to be that thrifty, just put the DVD between two pieces of cardboard inside a padded envelope. Another thing is, don't
deal with a customer on an impersonal level...you didn't even leave your real name in the email!
I'm not trying to
give you a hard time. But since you are apparently operating more like a business than a private seller, you need to
consider inconveniences like this. Things like this give a customer second thoughts about buying an item from you.
A customer shouldn't have to waste his time on a problem that could have been prevented. That's why I wanted a
partial discount instead of wasting my valuable time to get this cleared.
Since you have my money now, at least you
can take the time to take my complaint seriously....managed to get a neutral feeback
from this guy. Don't know if I am going to refund the DVD or not. It may be too much of a hassle taking the DVD and mailing
it back to us for a $9 refund. Looks like the 'Shrek' DVD was OK or we would have heard about it. If you can't get a discount
one way, there's always the partial refund scam. $9 bucks! C'mon.
I'd like
to offer all my customers the option of shipping their items in a concrete box. Hell, when you pay $2.49 you expect top shelf.
LOST JACKASS...A
guy comes in and asks my opinion on a half dozen discs. He asks to listen to a couple more. Then he asks if there is a Best
Buy around here...You just walk north on Paulina and keep on going, you can't miss it. If you reach
the Arctic Circle you've gone too far.
CLASSIC JACKASS...We are selling discs on
sale for $3. Toothless White Folk asks me if I'd take $2 because of the 'condition'. ..Look, I'm giving
you $5 off the regular used price. How about I just give you a dollar and a free kick in the ass and you listen to the
Black Crowes on the radio for free.
JACKASS THIEF ...I am
checking out a customer and look up to see a yuppie with a baseball hat and sunglasses walking out with a Jim Morrison bio
...We sell our books at half price, but that still isn't good enough for Joe Cool to buy
it? Why don't you go stealing at some place that sells at full list price to get your money's worth. Of course, it is impressive
that someone will actually steal a book at all. The dollar store is an easy mark too. I spend an evening fantasizing about
my fist landing on the bridge of his nose. It is worth the wholesale price.
JACKASS DOWNLOADER... It is three hours after our scheduled closing
time and the guy walks in with a cup of FourBucks coffee. He looks at my DVD's and says "Ten Dollars, wow. I can buy these
in Bucktown for a couple bucks. I have a computer at home and I can download a lot of movies myself. What I can't download,
I'll rent from Blockbuster and burn them". Well, thanks for sharing that with me. I'm really impressed
with the part that some jackass like you has a computer and actually can do more with it than play Pong (oh, that's what you
do with your free hand!) You know if you pick up butts from the street you won't have to buy cigarettes. If you bathe in the
river, you can save on plumbing. Oh, but why bathe at all? When you can download pictures of clean people for free!
Damn those twelve year old girls that get caught up in the RIAA anti-piracy nets, give this smug bastard a cell
next to Martha Stewart. I tell him that I have to close so I can go home and brew a pot of coffee. Surprise, he doesn't draw
the connection to the four dollar cup in his hand. He goes home to download a later Molly Ringwald movie.
THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE AND MORE AND MORE. THEY KEEP COMING THROUGH THE DOOR IN THIS ENDLESS NIGHTMARE.
I'LL KEEP ADDING.
"Pardon me, I have someone to kill" - Johnny Paycheck.
And if you are offended by any of the language found on this site, let me say.....
I like you, and if sometimes I take poetic license with you and you are
offended...now this is just with semantics,
dirty words. Believe me, I'm
not
profound, this is something that I assume someone must have laid on me,
because
I do not have an original thought. I am screwed. I speak English.
That's it. I was not born in a vacuum. Every thought
I have belongs to
somebody else. Then I must just take, ding ding ding, somewhere.
So I am not placating you by making
the following statement. I want to help
you if you have a dirty word problem. There are none, and I'll spell it out
logically
to you.
Here is a toilet. Specifically - that's all we're concerned with, specifics
- if I can tell you a dirty
toilet joke, we must have a dirty toilet.
That's what we're talking about, a toilet. If we take this toilet and boil
it,
and it is clean clean, I can never tell you specifically a dirty toilet
joke about this toilet. I can tell you a dirty
toilet joke in the Milner
Hotel, or something like that, but this toilet is a clean toilet now.
Obscenity is a
human manifestation. This toilet has no central nervous
system, no level of consciousness. It is not aware - it is a dumb
toilet -
it cannot be obscene - it's impossible. if it could be obscene, it could be
cranky, it could be a Communist
toilet, a traitorous toilet.
It can do none of these things. This is a dopey toilet, Jim.
So nobody can ever offend
you by telling you a dirty toilet story. They can
offend you from the area that it's trite - you have heard it many, many
times. Now all of us have had a bad early toilet training - that's why we
are hung up with it. All of us at the same
time got two zingers - one for
the police department and one for the toilet. "All right he made a kahkah,
call a policeman.
All right, OK. Are you going to do that anymore?
OK, tell the policeman he doesn't have to come up now."
All right,
now we all got the "Policeman, policeman, policeman," and we had
a few psychotic parents who took it and rubbed it in
our face, and those
people for the most, if you search it out, are censors. Oh, true, they hate
toilets with a passion,
man. Do you realize if you got that ranked around
with a toilet, you'll hate it, and anyone who refers to it? It is dirty
and uncomfortable to you.
Now if the bedroom is dirty to you, then you are a true atheist, because if
you
have any of the mores, the superstitions, if anyone in this audience
believes that God made his body, and your body is
dirty, the fault lies
with the manufacturer. It's that cold, Jim, yeah.
You can do anything with the body that
God made, and then you want to get
definitive and tell me of the parts He made, I don't see that anywhere in
any reference
to any Bible. Yeah, He made it all. It's all clean, or all
dirty.
But the ambivalence comes from the religious
leaders, who are celibates.
The religious leaders are "what should be." They say they do not involve
themselves with
the physical. If we are good, we will be like our rabbi,
our nun, our priests, and absolve, and finally put down the carnal
and stop the race.
Now, dig, this is strange here. Everybody today in the hotel was bugged
with
Knight
and Nixon. Let me tell you the truth. The truth is "what is."
If "what is" - you have to sleep eight, ten hours a day,
that is the
truth. A lie will be: People need no sleep at all. Truth is "what is."
If every politician from the beginning
is crooked, there is no crooked.
But if you are concerned with a lie, "what should be" - and "what should
be" is a
fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people
long ago: This is what should be - and no one ever saw
what should be,
that you don't need any sleep and you can go seven years without sleep,
so all the people were made
to measure up to that dirty lie.
No, there's no crooked politicians. There is never a lie because
there is never a
truth. -Lenny Bruce
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