What good is a blog if the blogger can't use it to vent from time to time? We use our journals for psychotherapy, some of us, some of us Quakers, who journal as a matter of religious practice. I always encourage Quakers to journal i.e. blog, as a part of their faith and practice. Most don't though. They never get over their paranoia about being semi-public with their thoughts.
The customer return lady was understably "I'm not a computer and can't recall all our changing policies, so you'll forgive me if I pick up the phone." And I did, immediately. What I was there for was to see about getting my money back (like $29.99) on a pair of Dataproducts print cartridges meant to emulate HP's 61s, black and tricolor. But does Fred Meyer except print cartridge returns anymore? She made the call. Answer: if the customer has opened it, then no, no refund, tell them to contact the vendor.
Walking home, none the richer, I was reminded of Walter Kaufmann for some reason, one of my teachers at Princeton. He was a firebrand, maybe making up for being short, and I recall a lecture where he criticized Kant for being petty about some chocolate he'd not be getting, because the ship had gone down with all hands.
I know not to what event he was referring to, only that the message was Kant might not be deep, more like petty and blind to his own ethical blindness (aren't we all). He was an asshole basically (my words, not Kaufmann's, the latter's "Kantsipation" jokes notwithstanding).
WK went on to say he wouldn't blame us if we thought Heidegger's stuff was pure puke. He never assigned us such vomit in any classes I took. I think he'd waded through Heidegger's stuff himself, poor guy.
So yeah... venting. Where was I?
Rewinding (flash back): I unclipped the plastic shields on each cartridge, which was all I was supposed to do, and put them in their Envy 4500 series ink jet printer cradles. No dice. I was informed these cartridges were non-performant.
"Did you remove the tape?" the printer asked (paraphrase), not in a human voice but on its tiny screen.
"What tape?" I was thinking, "you mean the plastic clips? Yeah, I did that already" (the printer wasn't listening, I was just thinking out loud).
So what "tape" was the printer talking about?
The cartridges have some tape on them, and a signature "do not remove this chip" warning. So is the chip behind the tape? I'll be sure not to remove any chip, but I will remove this tape, obeying the printer.
Wrong! The tape is the chip in question, or rather a chip is integral with the tape, which is also a little circuit board.
But then it wasn't working anyway, before my faux pas. Your honor, I draw the court's attention to my having followed instructions correctly, at least until I didn't, and started trusting my printer.
So Fred Meyer should take the remanufactured inkjet cartridges back right?
No, it's really my job to complain to Dataproducts -- which is what I'm doing, indirectly. Actually I'm complaining to the whole printer ink industry, which smells as rotten as the Kingdom of Denmark did, to Hamlet that time.
I then found authentic HP 61s, a pair of XLs, for only a few dollars more, but like for much more ink. "Free" delivery (I pay for Prime). Duh. That's the way to get my ink from now on, right?
I also got an extra long shoehorn, good for seniors who don't always have as easy access to their feet as they once did.
People need to stick up for themselves.
Remember the emperor with no clothes story? What is the moral of that story anyway? It's that people are cowards and won't speak up in a crowd, out of fear of what peers might say or do in retaliation. Only an innocent child, semi-clueless, daring to be naive, manages to blurt out what's on everyone's mind e.g. what was so great about German Idealism anyway?
