While previous years had a positive expectation of around $2-$3 in credit and prizes in exchange for your 80 cents in postage, there's simply no way this year to cover the cost of postage. Couple this with some rules that make the coupons less useful (max of $5 at TRU or 20% at Foot Locker), and it's not worth the time.
End of an era.
Speaking of athletic footwear, I got myself some Starburys a couple of weeks ago. For the uninitiated, a couple of NBA guys got together and decided to create a line of sneakers rather than just put their name on somebody else's brand. And on top of that, they decided not to sell 'em for a hundred bucks. The whole line sells for $14.95. Only problem is that you need a Steve & Barry's store nearby if you don't wanna pay twice the price on ebay.
Apparently the brand's catching on, because about a third of our our local Steve & Barry's is now dedicated to selling 'em. They're recommended if you want some decent sneakers at a better-than-decent price.
My Zune showed up yesterday. It works just fine, but I'm really annoyed that they followed the iPod route of making the thing only work with syncing software rather than as a mass-storage device. Every danged cheapo Chinese-made MP3 player out there is simple as pie to load with songs -- plug it in and then drag a buncha MP3 files on the little drive-icon that appears. But nooooo, the high-end ones make you fight with their little sync-store thingy. Yecch.
Although it's quite a fun gadget once you get some tunes on it. Shelly played with it for five minutes, then declared that she must have one of her own.
