Paper Towel Overload!

How many times have you stared at the paper towels or toilet paper, looking at the various options and wondering what’s the best deal? It’s not even just which brand is best, but does it really make a difference if you buy double rolls or triple rolls or stock up or not? Do you get out your calculator to figure it out or do you just shut your eyes and grab the closest package?

For years, my husband and I played the calculator game. We had an idea that Angel Soft was the cheapest brand, besides the Walmart store brand and possibly some 1-ply options. Then we did the math at Sam’s Club and started buying the POM brand of paper towels and toilet paper.

Recently, I wondered if POM was still the best deal out there, so I wrote down a bunch of different brands, packaging options, and prices at Walmart and Publix. Now, prices vary from store to store and week to week, and sometimes you can find sales or coupons that will make a big difference. This chart is a start, at least.

Data collected in April 2013

As you can see, POM still wins for best price, but it’s close. If Publix has a sale or coupon for its Greenwise brand, it could tip the scales.

You’ll notice that I took the price per square footage out to four decimal places. When I first started the chart, the POM was coming up at one cent per square foot, and everything was two or three cents. I knew all the others couldn’t be exactly the same price, but it takes hundredths of the penny to see the difference.

The final column shows you the difference between the product on that row and the POM price per square foot. Is it worth paying just over a penny more per paper towel to buy Brawny’s Pick-A-Size towels and be able to easily tear off half a sheet if that’s all you need? My mom uses either Bounty or Brawny paper towels and they’re definitely a little thicker and nicer.

This chart has made me more likely to try some different brands to see if it’s worth paying just a little more for a better product.

The Oscars Tribute to Musicals

The 2013 Academy Awards had a theme. The ceremony paid tribute to movie music, and they definitely hit some high notes. They also could have done a lot better.

Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were in tribute to composer Marvin Hamlisch was amazing. What the segment needed were some film and video clips playing beside Babs or behind her, demonstrating the scope of his work.  Plenty of people who only vaguely know Hamlisch by name would recognize the blind skater tripping over the roses in Ice Castles, the gold-bedecked dancers of A Chorus Line. Heck, how about a powerpoint of movie posters or soundtrack album covers reminding people of how much he did?

The tribute to movie musicals of the last 10 years was a nice idea. It’s too bad that they only paid tribute to two of them. They had a few clips from Chicago and a song from the show. They had a few clips from Dreamgirls and the breakout song from that film. And… that’s it?! In less than five minutes, I recalled The Producers, Mamma Mia, Nine, and Hairspray.  Wikipedia reminded me of The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and Sweeney Todd. And does The Muppets count as a musical? It had several good original songs. They could have done live “clips” instead of whole songs. They could have mixed up the live performances with clips from different films and given some variety in the same amount of time.

The James Bond tribute did two minutes of clips cut together without any real flow. I would have liked to have seen something a little more thought out, maybe by filmmaker Chuck Workman. They could have gone chronologically, by actor who played 007. They could have done groupings – Bond girls, incredible stunts, fast driving, daring escapes. Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger was fantastic, but what about some of the other great songs – Live and Let Die, Nobody Does It Better (by the aforementioned Marvin Hamlisch), and For Your Eyes Only, just to name a few. And even though it’s not an “official” Bond film, as in produced by Cubby Broccoli, the original Casino Royale featured the Oscar-nominated Burt Bacharach-composed song The Look of Love.

All-in-all, the producers of the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony had some nice ideas, poorly executed.

The Catholics Change Their Tune

Back in 1578 (according to Wikipedia), the Roman Catholic Church handed down this edict with regard to punishments for heresy (in other words, not following the Roman Catholic Church): “…punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit.”

Fast forward 400-some-odd years, and the Catholic Church is all about life. A position statement on the death penalty, published on the Florida Conference of Bishops website states, “The Church’s commitment to the value and dignity of human life leads us to oppose the use of the death penalty. We do not question society’s duty to protect itself, but we believe that there are better approaches to protecting our people from violent crimes.”

The Church is protesting the execution of Paul Howell, who built a powerful pipe bomb to kill two women who knew about his drug operation. The bomb was packaged in a microwave oven, because one of the women had a baby and wanted a microwave to heat the milk. Bomb-making materials and parts of the microwave were found in Howell’s apartment. The car used to deliver the bomb was rented in his name. A state trooper pulled the driver over, and during the course of the investigation, the bomb went off, and the trooper was killed. Many more people would likely have been killed if it had gone off in the intended victim’s apartment. A Miami Herald article goes into much more detail.

But the Catholic Church says this man, this drug dealer, this would-be killer of an innocent baby, should be allowed to live.

I don’t think any position statement was issued when Queen Mary of England and her followers burned nearly 300 people for heresy from 1553 to 1558, nor when the Spanish Inquisition killed 2,000 heretics from 1480 to 1530. And most of those people hadn’t committed heinous murders; they just weren’t Catholics.

My how times change.

Living an Unfulfulled Life

This is my response to a question posed by Kimberly at She Scribes.

I know exactly how you feel! I’m 47 and not pleased at all about my weight. I also have unfulfilled hopes and dreams, but to a certain extent, I am happy where I am. I adore my husband (the only thing I’d change is to give him a more positive, optimistic spirit). My job is very satisfying. We make a comfortable enough living (we’re better off than a lot of people, but as is human nature, I suppose, I’d like to have more money in the bank).

Here’s the way I look at life: It’s a pathway, full of rocks and boulders, bends and curves, hills and valleys. You can’t see what’s ahead, and you don’t have a map. Every moment you have choices. Do you take the left fork or the right? Do you climb over the fallen tree or crawl under it? Do you push the rock out of the way or shove your way through the brambles around it? A couple of times, I’ve hit a dead end or an impossible impasse, so I turned around and went back. In a way, it’s frustrating to retrace your steps and run into the people you thought you were going to pass by using a shortcut, but if the way becomes a little easier, it’s worth it, and maybe you learned something about yourself.

Sure I wish I’d stuck it out a little longer at one of my jobs, just to see if the big corporation that bought out the company would have offered me a position in New York. I’m not sure I would have been happy there, if they had offered it to me, but it would be nice to know. And where would I be now if I hadn’t quit my job in 2007 to try something different, only to return to the same position and pay four years later. Would I have gotten a promotion or would I have lost my job in the layoffs in 2008? No way to know. I just have to trust I did the right thing.

Life is a path to be discovered day by day, mile by mile. Sometimes the way is easy, sometimes it’s strewn with obstacles.  Some days you’ll struggle to move an inch. You’ll think you can’t put one foot in front of the other any longer. The next day is likely to bring you sunshine, gold nuggets, and fluffy kittens that will make all the hardships worthwhile, if you just keep moving.

Film Review – Les Misérables – a vivid portrayal of revolution

I held off a week, but that’s as long as I could wait to see the film adaptation of the stage adaptation of Victor Hugo’s film about the French class structure and revolution. I’ve seen the musical on stage twice, and I’ve been listening to the London cast album since at least 1986 (the CD has more material than the LP double-album, FYI).

Scroll all the way down for  a summary of the film with some spoilers, but I’ve tried not to give everything away.

The film looks gorgeous and all the performers are wonderful, although I have to admit, I found Hugh Jackman’s singing voice kind of nasal, which I’ve never noticed with him before.

I found some of the camera movement to be shaky and disorienting, and I felt like director Tom Hooper could have done more variety in his shots. We had a lot of close-ups, and they tended to be “computer wallpaper”-style with the subject always off-center and the background out of focus. It drew attention to itself, with me anyway. He could have done more with the shots to evoke emotional response; for example, through most of “Empty Chairs and Empty Table” we’re zoomed in on Marius’ face, but more camera movement (nice smooth pan and dolly shots) and wider shots showing the empty chairs would have  accentuated the mood.  Placing the camera above the actor would have made him seem smaller and more alone. That type of thought in setting up shots is missing from a lot of recent movies made by younger directors.

I am looking forward to this film earning a lot of Oscars and other awards for performances, design, and other technical categories.

I kind of wish the film had come out in 2011, when the Occupy movement was at its height. As I pointed out in a post that year, the French revolution had some similarities with our own situation then. I should point out that, even though I love the show, I never realized the French revolution had two parts, and that Les Mis is set in 1800s, not the 1770s.

The story centers on Jean Valjean. When the movie opens, he is doing hard labor in prison. He was originally arrested for stealing bread for his sister’s starving family, and the sentenced was extended because of escape attempts. After 19 years, he receives parole, but one condition is that everywhere he goes, he has to show his papers so everyone knows he’s a convict. Because of that, he can’t get work or find anyplace to stay. Finally, one night he is trying to sleep in a stable behind a church when the bishop finds him. The bishop invites him in, says a blessing for him, gives him a meal and a bed to sleep in. Valjean repays that kindness by stealing a sackful of silver dishes and cups. He doesn’t get far before he’s picked up by police, but when they bring him and the stolen silver back to the church, the bishop insists that he gave Valjean the silver and insists he take two more silver candlesticks. The bishop tells Valjean to use the money to become an honest man.

That’s the moment that Valjean changes his life. He tears up his parole papers, changes his name, and transforms himself into a responsible businessman. A few years later, though, one of the prison guards, now Inspector Javert, turns up in his town. He is so distracted by that, he allows a young woman, Fantine, to be fired from his factory for having an illegitimate child. Fantine ends up turning to prostitution and falls ill. That’s when Valjean finds her and promises to help her and to rescue her child from a mercenary innkeeper and his wife, the Thénardiers. At the same time, Javert tells him an innocent man has been arrested under Valjean’s name.

Valjean appears in court to identify himself and save the other man’s life. Then he runs off to fetch Cosette.  The two of them go to Paris. Several years later, Cosette sees and falls in love with Marius, a young revolutionary, even though he’s from a wealthy family.

This is where it gets more complicated.

Marius asks a female friend, Éponine, to help him find Cosette. Éponine agrees to help, even though she secretly loves Marius, but when she arrives at their home, she finds her father, the former innkeeper Thénardier, and his gang about to rob the place. She screams, which brings the police, including Javert, so Valjean and Cosette are forced to flee. Cosette leaves a note for Marius, which Éponine takes, but does not give him.

The revolution begins, and Éponine is wounded. She gives Marius the note from Cosette and he sends Cosette a message saying his farewells in case he is killed in battle. Valjean intercepts the note and goes to see Marius. He finds the revolutionaries holding Javert prisoner, and he gets him released. Javert says he doesn’t care if Valjean saved his life, he’s still going to arrest him as soon as he can. Then Javert leaves. Valjean sticks around and when Marius is wounded, he carries him to safety.  During their escape through the sewers [Ewww, he just got feces in Marius' open wound!], Javert tries to arrest Valjean and threatens to shoot him. Valjean walks away, and Javert finds he is unable to fire the gun after all. Valjean’s actions on behalf of others have shaken his whole belief system.

Cosette and Marius plan to get married, but Valjean is afraid of being discovered again by the police, and he leaves. They find him again just in time to say goodbye before his death.

I love my Dyson vacuum!

I bought a Dyson DC24 vacuum cleaner on Black Friday. I’ve used it several times and I love it. It’s really versatile, because the main unit is small and easy to maneuver, it has a extendable wand tool for getting into corners, and it’s much quieter than our old vacuum.

My husband says if he’d known how much more often I’d clean with it, he’d have bought me one years ago.

Yeah, right!

Black Friday Observations

Three Walmart stores, two Target trips and a partridge in a pear tree later, I have a bunch of new movies on DVD and Blu-ray; 6 pairs of pants for my husband that have to be returned because sizes aren’t consistent from brand to brand; a new shirt and nightshirt for moi; a couple of laptop accessories, and a Dyson vacuum cleaner that didn’t cost me a dime because my mom agreed to buy it for me for Christmas.

I must mention that the signage was terrible at most of the stores where I shopped. Kohl’s and Belk, where I bought those pants for hubby, didn’t have any of the racks marked with Black Friday pricing. I just had to guess at which ones were on sale. That meant looking for the brand names from the sale papers on the walls. I was only carrying my list, not the sale paper, so thank goodness I was very specific in listing the brands and the regular prices. Forget finding an employee to ask. Everyone I saw working was behind a cash register.

At Target #1, I went to the vacuum cleaner aisle and found the shelf tags with sale and regular prices, but they didn’t have any on the shelf. Fortunately I was able to find an employee there who checked the promotional end cap, the shelf, and the stockroom to make sure they didn’t have one somewhere else. That was around 10pm, an hour after the sale started. I arrived at the second store probably around 3am and found two of the sale model on the shelf, but they didn’t have any signage for the sale price. I freaked out a little, thinking that it was for a limited time; I even skipped looking through the DVDs there in my rush to get to a register and verify that I could still get the Dyson on sale. (By the way, I love my Dyson! More on that in a future post.)

At Belk, I was upstairs waiting in an interminable line when an associate or manager walked over and told some of us near the end that we could check out anywhere. He specifically mentioned the Bobbie Brown/Lancôme area. The other lady and I started off in the direction he waved toward. Turns out, he meant downstairs, not at all in the direction he was pointing. I spotted an elevator and got downstairs and was looking around, wondering if I would have been better off just staying in the line, when I saw a short line in jewelry. I stepped up behind the couple that was being helped. Another older lady walked up and asked if she could show me something. I said, no, I need to check out. She said, “We’re too busy to help anyone other than fine jewelry customers.” I was livid. I told her that a man upstairs told me that I could check out anywhere, and she repeated the same line. At that point, I spotted cosmetics and went over there where the girl was very quick and very apologetic about all my problems (jewelry bitch, long slow upstairs line, lack of signs, lack of staff to assist with shopping). She was really sweet.

Kmart seemed to be in the process of changing their sale signs while my mom and I were in the store around 11am. She picked out three turtleneck shirts on sale for $5 each. We looked carefully at the sign but it didn’t indicate that the sale ended at a certain time. By the time we looked through the rest of the store, the shirts rang up at 7-something each, and of course at that point, I couldn’t find the page in the circular, which I had taken in with me. Mom passed on the shirts, but I went back to the section and looked, and the sign had been changed to say “40% off” instead of a dollar price. Of course, the employee I spoke with didn’t care, but I would say that’s one of the reasons the Kmart chain is going under (well, that and the over-inflated prices when compared with any other mass merchandiser).

On Sunday, I went to Joann’s with a 60% off coupon from their sale paper. I wanted to get a cupcake/muffin pan. I had noticed some other Wilton products in their ad, but the cake pans weren’t advertised. The signs on the shelf indicated regular prices. I got to the register only to have the cashier tell me that I couldn’t use the coupon because it was already on sale. I didn’t ask what the sale price was, because I had a feeling it wasn’t anywhere close to 60% off. I just said, I can’t buy it without the coupon, and I walked away leaving the coupon, the pan, and a set of dollar knit gloves behind. In hindsight, I could have gotten the dollar gloves for 40-cents, provided they’d honor the coupon for that. It seems like every time I try to use a coupon at Joann’s, they have some excuse why I can’t. It’s really frustrating.

Walmart started a new sale at 5:00 a.m., and my second and third store visits of the day were to get some of the 96-cent DVDs. They had two different assortments. One set was mostly older TV shows packaged in blister packs. The other included some more recent movies in regular DVD packaging. “Jonah Hex” was pictured in the ad. I passed it up for $1.96 at Best Buy, but in hindsight, that would have been a better option, since I spent so much time going from store to store that I missed one of the items I wanted from Penney’s. At store #1, an electronics person was able to direct me to the box with all the blister-packed DVDs, but no one knew anything about the others. At store #2, one of the cashiers up front (about the fourth person I’d asked) tried to help me by locating a planogram, but it only pictured the “big ticket” items. Despite the fact that a dozen cashiers were standing around, a customer walked up to this girl’s register, so she stopped helping me to check him out. Another cashier told me she thought there were some movies “over on that side” which was the one area I hadn’t been in. So, I walked in a circle around the entire store looking for a sign or a large display marked “96¢ DVDs” but didn’t see anything. So, I asked yet another person who looked like management, and he said that they didn’t know what they were getting, what they had, or where it was. He started walking around with me, and he suddenly pointed out “Jonah Hex” in a small tray on top of another carton of promotional DVDs. I had not seen it before, but admittedly I was looking for a larger display. I didn’t notice whether it was even marked with the price, because I was in a hurry to get out of there.  I wonder if it had been unwrapped at 5:00 a.m. or earlier. I mean, if no one knew what it was or where it was, then how did they know when to open it up for sales?

Ultimately, I got most of the items I was after. I didn’t get the 40″ Toshiba TV from Best Buy, but since I didn’t camp out for three days, I expected to miss that one. I walked up to the $5 scarf table at Penney’s just in time to see someone grab the last one (blue – the color I wanted, too!) – and I blame Walmart’s incompetence for making me late to the store for that one.

I was at Best Buy at midnight, then went to Belk. After that, the stores were very quiet until I hit the Penney’s opening at 6am.

My observations and suggestions:

• Quit doing the early openings on Thanksgiving Day. Stick to midnight and later on Friday.
• Don’t spread your staff so thin, and maybe they’ll be better able to help people.
• Make sure you have highly visible signs up indicating the sale items. If the sale ends at a certain time, the sign should reflect that.
• Every register should be open to every customer, no matter what they’re buying.
• Provide maps of where every sale item is located, not just the expensive items. Make sure every store employee has access to a list of what’s on sale and where it is in the store.

It’s fun to go out early to get special prices on things. It shouldn’t be a chore. It shouldn’t create bad feelings that will linger in people’s minds and hearts far after Black Friday. Employees shouldn’t be forced to work 12-15 hour shifts on Thanksgiving Day.

Some of the actors in “Star Wars” say that George Lucas had one standard direction for them: “Faster and more intense.” Since 1977, the world has continued to get faster and more intense every year. That has spilled over from movies to holiday shopping. Get people in the stores, keep them there or make them come back over and over. Promise them great items cheap, but only provide 10 per store. Allow the first four people in line to buy them all, if they want. Expect fights to break out.

Is it worth it?