Chicago: More Bars in More Places

ha I like the expression on Animal's face at the end.

Jordan, why would he be playing with his snare angled away from him (as seen in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgeX9iYOFSQ&mode=related&search=)? Is there an advantage to that?

This one is pretty great too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwJAAlXomVk&mode=related&search=

It makes sense when you're playing traditional grip, the snare lines up with the angle of your left hand. Actually, from playing brass band snare I've gotten used to it being angled away like that.

I don't understand the rock guys who have the snare at a steep angle towards them, it makes it really hard for me to hit rimshots (unless the snare is raised up super-high).

john . . . did my email go through? i had a large attachment...

nnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I am listening to this band Burning Star Core and they are pretty noise, I think.

It was not a herpes ad. It was Hep. C.

Holy fuck is this Between the Buried and Me album awesome.

does anyone know why my itunes gift card balance went from $26 to $14 without a purchase? Granted, I haven't used it in ages but $12 is ridiculous.

Did you buy anything from the iTunes store in the interim? The store can "remember" your gift card in the system, so if you bought something else, it might have taken it from the gift card even if you didn't re-enter the gift cart code.

nope.

john . . . did my email go through? i had a large attachment...

Yes! I just listened to it... It was poignant.

They expire 2 years from date of issue. Maybe in the interum the total gradually decreases??

That doesn't seem right.

A gift card is supposed to be basically be money, since someone paid for it. They can't just take away your money for no reason. Something must have gotten charged to it somehow.

John, isn't it hilarious? I think we did a good job!!

They do expire?! I thought that was illegal or something . . . it's honestly probably been two years since I had it. Fuck.

In less depressing news, I've picked up the Kingsolver book "animal, vegetable, miracle" & now i'm feeling super inspired to only eat local foods, to make my own cheese, make my own pasta . . . etc. What does Minnesota do to a girl? She homesteads.

There was a big deal about a year ago about gift cards, a lot of them do lose value over time. My parents bought me a House of Blues one for my birthday two years ago, I went to use it and half the value had disappeared since I hadn't used until 18 months after the issue date. In the fine print on the back it said something like "after 6 months from the issue date this card will lose $2 per calendar month for each additional month without use".

That SUCKS, that's the companies getting free money, I agree with Nick!! Totally shitty and unscrupulous, if you ask me.

Yeah, I don't know how illegal it is, but I told my mom never to buy another gift card for people from there.

When I get together and play with some of my drummer friends, I feel like Gene Krupa to their Buddy Rich. :(

I feel like I heard something in the news about gift certificates that took deductions from the money & how it was illegal. I'll have to ask my in-house lawyer-to-be.

I think its about as illegal as those minimum debit/credit card charges at stores, i.e. technically illegal but good luck telling a store owner that.

Hmm. Well, all I know is that a friend of mine was able to redeem gift certificates from Sak's that were like THIRTY YEARS OLD -- his mother found them in a closet from corporate days gone by, and the store honored EVERY DOLLAR of them. That's classy.

Hahah altho they were maybe lucky b/c $50 thirty years ago would have gone a lot further!

I remember something about diminishing balances on gift cards....I don't know if it is still legal, but it was at some point. The businesses' justification was that it costs them money to maintain the account and if you're not using the money within a reasonable period of time (1 year or whatever) then they need to start charging.

The thing is, that argument is total bullshit.

Dear everyone,

Advise me on something. I have a file with the extension .docx

It was created on Word a few years ago and it will not open.

That's total bullshit if for no other reason than the fact that THEY'RE HOLDING AND EARNING INTEREST ON SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY ALREADY. If there were legitimate business costs associated with those handful of bytes of computer memory that it takes up, they could damn well be covered by the few cents of interest that $40 is going to earn over a year, in their hands.

Dear Jesse,

Google is a good place to start with unknown file extensions.

For example, Google told me that .docx is a XML-related file format.

http://filext.com/file-extension/DOCX

I think that means it's been converted from another version of Word?

xpost

Gift certificates from C@tch Thirty5 have an expiration date. Gift cards don't, but I don't know if they charge fees after a period.

I am not about to argue to hard for the business, but it sort of makes sense that eventually you have to account for the money, and there comes a time when it is reasonable to say that if you haven't used it yet, you probably never will.

plus, it's just bad customer service.

Dear Dan

I find Google impersonal and prefer the warmth of your assistance.

Jesse: http://www.download.com/Docx-Converter/3000-12565_4-10668996.html
?

Are you using Office '07?

Thanks guys! If this works I'm a shoe-in for partner!!!

jordan-- no. 2003.

I downloaded AbiWord the other day to help me convert some really old WordPerfect files into Word. It seems to support a lot of extensions.

Oh wait. Actually I am using '03, but the documents were created on '07.

Jesse: http://www.download.com/Docx-Converter/3000-12565_4-10668996.html
?
^^ this is a bum download. I will try John's.

Thanks.

I thought you said "a few years ago"? You're not going to be able to open it ever if you're using 2k3 and it was made in 2k7.

grep %Creator jessesfile.docx

I think part of the problem was that many companies weren't keeping track of their gift cards very well. Let's say you "sold" $7000 worth of gift cards in 2006. If you aren't keeping track of what percentage of those gift cards have been redeemed for product, then you don't know how much you owe the consumers at any given point. The business also has no idea how many of those outstanding gift cards will EVER be used.

Actually I am using '03, but the documents were created on '07.

Ah, that's what I thought (I only saw the "x" extensions after upgrading to '07).

Jesse, that download.com link works for me.

xpost, he should be able to use one of those converters to convert it to plain text or html.

In other words, it complicates accounting. I think it makes sense for gift cards to expire as long as that date is clearly printed on the card. I generally assume a 1-year expiration date unless stated otherwise.

All good points, Sarah. And in fact if I have like $.87 left on a gift card, I'm not nec going to run out and find another item just to deprive Macy's of my eighty-seven cents, or whatever! But that's okay, that's my choice as a customer. I especially think the timed deductions are just crappy, crappy, crappy.

Haha--HE will do nothing of the sort. *I* do all conversions around here apparently.

That link downloaded but then said that it can't run on Windows. Who knows. I'm trying Abiword.

http://www.cashdash.net/programs/cash-dash/gift-certificates.aspx

http://illinoislegalaid.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.dsp_content&contentID=3336