This is the home of T. Rob's perpetual complaints, or something like that.
Monday, April 2, 2001: Want to know who the real enemy is? Click HERE.
Thursday, March 15, 2001: Why is it that video rental places continue to lie to us?
I mean, when you go to a video rental store, they say "Two-day rental" and hand you your video. But it's due back earlier than two days later. A "two-day rental" is really a one-day or day-and-a-half rental. A "five-day rental" is actually a four-day or four-and-a-half-day rental and so on.
Let's say it's 8 p.m. Tuesday night and you rent a video. Logically, that means the video would be due back at 8 p.m. Thursday, correct? WRONG. It's due back at noon Thursday. Either I have slipped into another dimension, unbeknownst to me, where everything I know no longer exists or the video rental retailers are using some new math I'm unfamiliar with. Last I checked, two days was the equivalent of 48 hours.
Then, when you turn the movie in at 3:30 p.m. Thursday (just a bit more than 3 hours late by their definition of two days), you've actually turned your video back in after having it for only 43.5 hours. They're telling you you're bringing your movie back late, when in fact, you're bringing it back early.
On top of that, they charge you $2.50 as a late fee for a $3.75 movie. Wait a minute. Half of the cost for a two-day rental would be $1.80 or so. This is just another example of their inability to do math.
And people ask my why I buy so many DVDs. Why? Because you probably save money in the long run and you avoid a heck of a lot of hassle.
Friday, Sept. 8, 2000: Today, began awfully crappy with what is by-far the worst cooperation I've ever received from a school district on a photo assignment. I traveled the distance to nearby Neosho to try and illustrate a story on a bond issue being requested by the school district because of overcrowding.
That's all well and good. But you'd think the district would have wanted to work with the newspaper to get a shot that best illustrates its situation. If voters can see and understand the problem, they will approve it.
Wrong. They apparently don't really want the voters to realize how bad things are for them. Instead, they will spend more time worrying about how not to get kids' pictures in the newspaper.
In my nearly 8 years experience as a photojournalist, working for six daily newspapers, covering an estimated 30 school districts at least in part at one time or another, I have yet to encounter this situation before today.
Reader, I ask you...why would a school district not want publicity unless it's doing something wrong?
Unless, of course, the kids have requested this because they don't want anyone to know they attend the Neosho School District.
Your comments are always welcome, please e-mail me on any topics you agree or disagree with. Just think of them as letters to the editor *grin*.
Now playing: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire
Strikes Back, Imperial March.
