I got an e-mail from Yahoo Answers a few days ago with the subject line “A little thank you…”. Here is the full message:
Where is the “thank you” in that message? The whole thing is about why I should be using Yahoo Answers even more.
FWIW, I think Yahoo Answers is pretty neat. I use it from time to time and try to answer some questions. I figured that since I use it sometimes, they were thanking me for that. I guess not…
We’ve used SunTrust for years, and overall we’re quite happy with them. Our issue lies with their apparent trouble in updating their own system.
The first case of this was about a year ago. Three times in the course of a month, we’d try to pay for something (usually a meal) and our card would be declined. I knew we had plenty of money, so I’d call them and they’d unblock it. It was blocked “for our security”, which is fine – I appreciate them being proactive. The dumb part was that when they blocked the card, they’d call me to let me know — but use an old number of mine that I haven’t had in years. Every time, I’d have them update it to a new one, but the next time they blocked the card they’d use the old number again. I eventually called and got escalated high enough that someone was able to change it in a way that would stick.
A similar thing just happened with our checks. I tried to order new ones online, but couldn’t because our address had changed. I called them up, explained that, verified the address, and placed the order. The new checks arrived yesterday at our new address — printed for our old one. 
I have no idea how they still have that address. They verified the new one on the phone, they sent the checks to the new one, and I changed our address online with them about 10 months ago. Anyhow, they’re re-printing them now…
I’ve not looked close enough at this plan to see if it’s anything that parents should do, but I have no confidence in their ability to keep track of money. Check out this chart they show during their commercials:
The bar on the left represents $10,000. The one on the right represents $20,000. Notice anything strange? The bar on the right is nearly three times as large as the bar on the left, not just double the size.
Here are the same charts, only zoomed in and measured. The numbers represent the height (in pixels) of each one. You’ll notice that the one on the right is more than three times the height of the other.
I realize that the one on the left is set back a little bit, but not nearly enough to cover that kind of difference. Also, I have to say that I got this idea from an old article on cockeyed.com that dealt with Quicken in almost the same way.
Some friends of ours were staying in a hotel in downtown Atlanta, so we went down to visit them. We went swimming and let the kids play for a while, then went up to their room so we could figure out where to eat.
Their room was up on the fifth floor. When we got up there, they warned us to keep our daughters away from the railing. It turns out that the bars around the rail are wider than your average 3 year old and they could easily slip through and fall five stories into the atrium.
Is that just a lawsuit waiting to happen or what? Other than that, it was a pretty nice hotel, too.
We stopped a Burger King while on vacation and let our daughter play in their play area. It was a decent little play area, but this baffled me.
Here is a sign that says “Shoes go in here”, with a sign pointing to a tic-tac-toe board. It’s possible that the sign is just pointing to the picture of the shoes, but it doesn’t matter – there is no where near there to put your shoes.
Here you can see where the shoes really go – on the other side of the play area. This seems to be a case of a manager saying “here, hang this sign up”, and the person that did the hanging didn’t really give a rip.
We have a Panda Express restaurant near us and we enjoy going there. It’s fairly cheap and it’s pretty good food. However, I’m amazed at how stingy they are about their napkins and their plasticware.
They don’t have them out anywhere. For a while, I thought “well, they’re new – they just forgot”, but it’s become quite apparent that isn’t the case. The only way to get more is to go up to the cashier and ask. However, they only have one cashier so if it’s busy you might end up waiting a few minutes just to get a silly napkin…
