The wierdest coupon ever.

So barnes and noble sends me a coupon in my email saying "25% of Any One Item". I thought why not buy the logic book at BN since the price is the same as amazon and while i'll have to pay tax at barnes and noble, i'll still be better off $7.50 after the $10 discount.
Got to the website and decided to sign up for the free trial membership. I'm told i'll have to buy something to qualify for the free trial membership. I add the logic book expecting to get the 10% discount but all i get is the express free shipping that the members get. Does their 10% discount not apply to textbooks? I try to apply the coupon telling myself the 25% coupon is better than nothing and it tells me the order doesn't qualify. I thought the textbook was an item. So i read the fine print and here's what is says:

This coupon is (i) not redeemable for cash or cash equivalents (including Gift Cards and online Gift Certificates); (ii) not valid on past purchases; (iii) not eligible for purchases of the following products and services: Barnes & Noble Memberships, Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, shipping or handling expenses, gift-wrapping, textbooks, digital content (including but not limited to digital books, textbooks, magazines, and periodicals), NOOK(TM) and related accessories, other hardware and electronics, software, products available for pre-order, products from the Rosetta Stone Series, or products marked as not eligible for "coupons or promotional discounts;" (iv) not valid on purchases made from third parties accessible from the BN.COM website (e.g., used books, PC and video games, etc.); (v) may not be combined with any other coupon or discount promotion; and (vi) may not be combined with the Educator program discount. This offer is subject to change or discontinuation without notice; we will, however, honor properly placed orders with valid methods of payment with sufficient funds placed prior to such change or discontinuation. BN.COM is not responsible for typographical or pictorial errors. This coupon is not valid at Barnes & Noble retail bookstores or Barnes & Noble College Bookstores. Void where prohibited by law.

The email said the coupon can be present in stores because it says "to save 25% in stores, present at register".
No this fine print says it's not good for textbooks, software, electronics, digital stuff including nook stuff PLUS it's not valid and Barnes and Noble retail bookstores?

They just lost my business and potential membership. Well, i wasn't gonna keep the membership but at least i'd purchase stuff from them while i had it. If i'm not going to get the 10% membership discount on first purchase, have a coupon that applies practically to nothing, why sign up for a useless membership on to go through the trouble of cancelling later?! I mean amazon beats the membership prices at barnes and noble anyway. Plus, i don't get taxed for amazon purchases.

So back to amazon i go.

Is this me, is this you? or is it a sign?

So i got up early, studied, drove to the testing site and got there before 7:30, 7:25 to be precise. waited in my car till 8. They open at 8 so i walked in at 8:15. Sat till 8:50 to be called only to be told i needed more than my drivers license if i'm testing here. Lady at the test center said to call prometrics. I called prometrics and they said to call ETS for a voucher. ETS says they can't help me.

Part of me was excited as i left thinking it's God's way to prevent me from flunking the first time. Got excited when i geico told me i was getting the check and started counting my blessings.
I'm not interested in paying for this test again. In hindsight, i should'be gone ahead and studied for the 1/29 exam instead of switching gears. At least that would've allowed me to take a full load in the spring.
After coming this far, it's hard to back down. What if it's the devil trying to deter me?

Am i going to study for this exam past today? No. Will i continue to improve my vocabulary? Yes. But even if i decide to do this again, i would not be devoting time to studying this. I may spend an hour here and there at work mastering barron's stuff via my kindle but to spend dedicated time otherwise for this? i believe i'm done.

While i was a little upset earlier, I'm moving on today and following my plan. In hindsight, i read the ID instructions. I just didn't get to part bottom part where it talks about testing outside you country. Oh well, Ne a Nyame b3y3 biaa y3.

Somewhere between shocked and petrified

So i took one of the CAT on the kaplan CD and my score was even worse than my SAT. 'Shocking' is a better word for it. Now, i say that to make the point that i didn't even study for the SAT which at that time was also on a 1600 scale. Now i was soo mortified that i packed all my stuff from the library and came here. I did another kaplan CAT online and got a much better score. Something i'd be pleased with getting. I did an ETS powerscore one and an even worse score. On the 2 kaplan tests, i did better on the verbal. In this ETS exam, i did significantly better on the Quant. What's crazy is that i guessed on about half of the math.

Should i not show up tomorrow, i forfeit $160 and forfeit the opportunity to apply to JHU. But what if i do poorly? will having a previous awful score mess up my chances? All i've had in my mind this weekend is reasons why i shouldn't take this exam. Lord, if you please, whisper to me one cogent reason why i should go ahead and not forfeit.

Yet another kindle post

Obviously, i'm bored from having to cram for this exam. Just previewed amazon's christmas commercial for the kindle and it states the price as $139. Boy am i glad i didn't wait till Christmas to get it.

Anyway, gotta go back to reading.

Nook Color

Here's something i thought about for a brief second this monring: Supposed i didn't own the kindle, will i purchase the nook color? It only lasted for a second because my answer was "no." At $250, it's a luxury item. At $139, the kindle is something most people can afford. Besides, i enjoy buying kindlebooks taxfree among other perks that comes with the kindle.

Besides, i'm not into the andriod and iphone stuff. I don't care for it and i certainly don't want to read on a LCD screen for long hours. I may as well do it on my computer. BN claims the nookcolor is great for reading magazines and periodicals and also children book with color. Which middle-class family, in this struggling economy, buys a $250 nook for a 8 y.o? And for the adult, why buy another android tablet to read magazines if you can access the magazines website on your phone that has the android technology?

For someone who'd like to own an ipad but can't afford the hefty $499 tag, the nookcolor might be a better option to settle for. But then it's going to be limited in the amount of apps it can run. if the primary purpose is to read, then the nookcolor will be ok if the person doesn't have an android phone. I mean BN has a nook app for the phones anyway.

I, personally, can't find one reason to buy the nookcolor. I think for someone who has BN membership, the regular nook is an option. I just never joined BN because i never saw the sense in paying to get discounts considering i wasn't buying lots of books in the past and when i did start buying lots of books, i realized i can get even better discounts at amazon as compared to those with BN memberships.

After being named the whatever scholar - can't remember the award anymore but it came with a lovely plaque and $100 BN gift card. Anyway, i sold the gift card to my roommate. I actually offered her a 5% discount but she chose to give me the full price.

Either, i'm glad there's competition in the ereader world. There's sony, kobo, amazonkindle and the nook.

Fedex

I've always preferred UPS to fedex and i'm glad amazon uses UPS. So while waiting around for a package from fedex on saturday, i checked online this morning only to find a delivery exception saying i wasn't home. There wasn't a note on my door and the leasing office was open till 5pm ( the exception was made at 3:56pm). i was in the kitchen around that time. i didn't go to bed till 5:06 and all i did was open the door and didn't see a note saying i was missed so i know the fedex person WAS NOT HERE. i mean why not leave a note on my door or leave it in the leasing office? or even knock?!

So now i have to wait till tuesday, am i home tuesday? no? but i'll leave a note telling them to leave it at the office. Hopefully, my roommate doesn't take it off.

Lord i can't wait for this lease to be over.

Dealing with ignorant people

Most of the time, i just let them speak their ignorance, listen, laugh at them in my head and walk away. i've been doing that to my roommate and yesterday i wish i'd said something to him.

I had some shito i bought in philly sitting on my kitchen counter since i got back last week. Last night while putting some on my rice, he tells me "i looked at the bottle and it said to refrigerate after opening so it's probably gone bad. Just to let you know"

First of all, wtf! Second, what do you know about african food to tell me how to store something i've been eating since i was little. I told him it doesn't need to be refrigerated. he goes 'well, i'm telling you because it said it has shrimp in it and it looks like the shrimp might be marinated."

I looked at him and decided i wasn't going to respond to his ignorance simply because i needed to get back to the NCIS that was playing on my laptop. But i did think, stupid fool, how do you tell me how i make something i've been making since i was 8? If he wasn't ignorant, he'd realize that villagers in hot parts of Ghana who don't have fridges make this. I almost told him i made this and took them to school for 3months but i deciced as always, let him him think what he thinks. I make it a point not to argue with an ignorant person who thinks he's a know it all because it's worse than chasing after the wind. It's plain foolish!

To tell me the shrimp has been marinated? what the ! Did he even see shrimp in the thing while looking at it? Reminds me of Marcia telling me palm oil is bad for you. Yet, i'm the one who isn't fat and have been eating it all my life and my greatgrandma ate it and lived to 106.

Sometimes i pity the ignorant and sometimes i'm thankful for them. Hadn't not been for ignorance, the God who worked that miracle knows i wouldn't have graduated from college. So let them think there are no fax machines in Africa and that it is a big jungles with people roaming through it. For when they ask me what my favorite food is and i reply "snake legs" and they go "that's nice" (which is usually the response i get), they wouldn't realize that it's my euphemism for "you ignorant fool, snakes don't have legs. ha ha!"