KenLockman

I just thought of something….how come more stores do not give discounts for using cash instead of a credit card. As you may or may not know the stores have to pay a fee (usually 3%) to the credit card companies for each credit card transaction. In my hometown of Austin there is a huge liquor/wine store that charges people less money for each item if they use cash instead of cards. In fact all the signs even say “cash price: $19″ , normal price $22 or something like that.

A few times now I have bought a car using a credit card instead of getting an auto loan and the car dealers always refuse to do so unless I pay an extra 3% to cover the credit card fees. (At which point in time  I get up and walk out telling them no thank you…either except my money as is or sell the car to someone else)

But anyway, the point is it would make sense for all stores to offer a discount for people who use cash instead of cards. If anyone knows why they do not feel free to email me at kenlockman at hotmail dot com.

There was a time not too long ago when you would call me, I would not answer, you would leave me a message saying “Hey it’s me, call me back”, i would later check my phone, see that you called, check my voicemail, hear your unnecessary message, delete it and never call you back out of spite. Perhaps this happened multiple times at which point there was another step added – me deleting you from my phone. I’m happy to report though that this waste of time has slowly been resolved by the addition of text messaging to our lives. It appears you no longer find the need to leave me “Hey it’s me” voicemails and instead just text me with your desires.

Sup, it’s me. LOL. Call me!
or
Wat u up 2?

However once and awhile someone will still be bold enough to actually leave a voicemail even though they know that i will get an alert this new voicemail at which point i will have to call my number, enter my ever changing 45 digit password complete with symbols, 2 uppercase characters, and one lowercase Indonesian character just so i can hear your message 50 seconds later. Normally i would be upset if this voicemail wasn’t truly necessary of a voicemail but now it no longer matters. I’m proud to announce i haven’t listened to a voicemail in nearly 6 months…all thanks to google voice!

What’s google voice? It’s a lot of things but what i like most about it is it’s free and it will automatically convert your voicemails to texts….almost instantly. Now i will warn you that these texts are often terrible interpretations of what you actually said but unless you called me from the inside of an airplane engine the translations usually capture enough key words for me to understand what the message was about. If i see words like “funnel cake, flags, rolling captures, sunscreen, all day mass” I know that you’re probably calling me with details for our upcoming Six Flags trip. If see “hey, tonight, something, eat, camel, pepperoni” then I know you probably want to go get pizza later in which case I won’t call you back simply pretend i didn’t realize i had a voicemail because I don’t care for the way you lick the pizza grease from your fingers in an NC-17 kind of manner while also talking about Scary Movie 6 or some other thing I have no interest in.

So yeah, hats off to google for allowing your number to stay in my phone!