Category Archives: shopping

The Toner Prices Are Too Damn High

mom, personal, shopping 2018.05.14 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Although I try to write as much as I can every day, some days, and some years, just turn out better for me in that regard. At the beginning of 2010, when I was in the middle of a period of peak productivity (including writing the short story that would eventually become my first novel, The Prostitutes of Lake Wiishkoban), I quickly realized that my old inkjet printer was costing me a mint as I kept replacing ink cartridge after ink cartridge when they ran out.…

I’ll Always Be a Toys “R” Us Kid

politics, shopping, toledo, videogames 2018.03.19 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

As Toys ‘R’ Us Closes Up Shop, Small Business Are Left to Fend for Themselves (inc.com) How vulture capitalists ate Toys ‘R’ Us (theweek.com) I was part of the generation that was the prime target of one of the first regulation repeals of the Reagan Administration. For a long time, the FCC had a policy stating that cartoons couldn’t serve to just advertise toys, and although many skirmishes had been fought between the FCC and corporate America over this policy — most notably with ABC’s Hot…

Monument to My Ego

books, personal, shopping 2017.08.29 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Conceptualizing three-dimensional space has always been an issue for me. While I’m somewhat good at designing things in two dimensions — the graphical elements of my website and my book covers, for example — my brain has always had a very difficult time wrapping itself around the most basic elements of three-dimensional design. Anyone who has seen my laughable attempts at drawing can tell you just how messed up my head is in that regard. I have depth perception and two good eyes; I just…

Adventures in Cell Phone Hell

personal, shopping 2014.12.06 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

If you’ve done any studies in macroeconomics, then you know that capitalism is not, in and of itself, a perfect and foolproof system. When a company is able to develop a monopoly on something, particularly a product or service that is vital to the people in a community, then there’s a great risk of harm simply because the monopolistic company can set whatever price they want on their product or service, since there aren’t competing companies to keep a check on rising prices; similar problems…

Merchandising Fail

internet, personal, politics, shopping, television, videogames 2012.12.09 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Tis the season and all of that, and no blog of mine on the subject is complete without a gratuitous link to my Amazon.com wishlist and a semi-serious plead for you to buy me stuff. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with this time of year, coming from a family without any Christians that still went through the gift-giving ritual most commonly associated with Christmas in this culture. The whole gifting thing, along with the hilarious “War on Christmas”…