You know you live in a small town when a building on fire passes as the social event of the season.

My mum and I were watching the local (Seattle) news when a report came in ("Breaking News!") that a building in downtown *where I live* was on fire. They had no other information except the address and said they were sending a van down, but it takes 2.5 hours to get from there to here, so we knew it would be a while for any update. We had to run to the grocery store which is very close to the fire's location, so we thought we'd just take a peek while we were there. Apparently, so did everyone else in the town.
Seriously, at 7PM-ish on a Tuesday night there was a traffic jam in *this town*. There hasn't been a traffic jam here in 100 years.
I got the groceries we needed, then discarded any pretences and drove closer to get a good look. There were so many cars and pedestrians (people were taking their children closer so they could see) that we had to drive around for a while. We parked at the library and walked down the street to find half the town standing around behind the police tape, filming with their phones and cameras, chatting, and generally having a time as good as you can have when there's a building on fire and it's bloody cold outside.

I will say (in case you're judging harshly) the building was a furniture store's warehouse; no one lived there, no one was inside at the time, and there are no adjoining buildings that would be in danger. Also, the building was very old and rickety, and could probably benefit from burning down. They have good insurance and other locations and the business itself will be fine.

We saw quite a few people that we hadn't seen in a while and chatted with them and with strangers. The coffee and ice cream shops down the block were probably busier than they've been since they opened. I noted as we walked toward the crowd that this seemed to be a bigger turnout than any of the summer events and fairs that we had here a few months ago.
To give some perspective; in Seattle (in Greenwood) there was a 3-alarm fire (the one here was called a "multiple-alarm", whatever that means) that was covered fairly heavily by the local news stations and even then, I only saw people related to the businesses in attendance. They have better things to do in the city.

I wish we did.

It's Blog Action Day!

This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Climate Change.

Personally, I can certainly attest to the CHANGES in the climate! This summer, in particular, was absolutely unbearable. If I'd been able to drive I would have tried to get to one of those cooling centres they have for pensioners. What I did instead was confiscate my mother's boyfriend's window-mounted air conditioning unit, put it in my library (which is the coolest room in my house) and moved in. I lived in the library for 4 months.

One thing that intrigued and angered me: I read in The Morning News' newsletter, the part with "What does this map represent?" It's (obviously, since I linked to the file from the article) a map of participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Green means ratified, yellow (I don't see any on the latest map) means ratification pending, grey means undecided, and RED means REFUSED TO RATIFY.
Notice the only ones who are red? The USA! (and Puerto Rico, which is part of the US.) This is disgraceful.
The Kyoto Protocol is basically a promise to cut emissions. The US is the largest producer of emissions and we won't even promise to try!? We're the ONLY ONES. This is not a place where standing alone is a statement against some great evil, or a Lone Ranger stand that says we can do it better on our own (... and wasn't that a major problem with the previous administration's stance on international relations?). Asinine.

On a positive note: Our own Mayor Greg Nickels (Seattle) started a campaign to get other mayors of cities around the country to ignore the fact that the upper-government wouldn't ratify it, and pledge to cut emissions in their cities on their own. It's been very successful (after a quick check on Wikipedia, even more successful than I knew before!).
Anyway, I don't know nearly enough about the Kyoto Protocol issue, but I intend to read up.

There are so many other issues related to climate change, not least the simple change in lingo to "climate change" from the less-descriptive and often-misleading "global warming" (just ask all the arseholes who say "Where's this "global warming" [with finger quotes] they've been promising *snicker*?" on a cold day).

For my part, I have gathered every appropriately-sized bag we had lying around the house, folded them, and put them in a slightly larger bag, and put that in the trunk of the car. Then I added a line --DON'T FORGET BAGS AND COUPONS-- to the top of my printable grocery list. The few times I forget my bags (or I've done a great big shop and used them all), I either say "No bag, please." and put the purchases in my handbag, or I buy another reusable bag wherever I am (I have actually had to use plastic bags, but only rarely). I must have at least 20 bags now, and I've spent a grand total of $3.98 for them: Two $1 each, huge, pretty bags from Ikea, one 99¢ pink breast cancer bag from Top Foods, and a 99¢ bag from Trader Joe's (though that doesn't count the souvenir bag I bought while travelling for $26-ish that I have conscripted to use as a grocery bag, since it wasn't purchased with that in mind) and the rest were free, mostly with-purchase from supermarkets. So you don't have to spend a ton of money on reusable grocery bags, and you don't have to only use bags that are meant to be reusable grocery bags.

Other small steps:

• My family is trying to get away from unnecessary use of kitchen paper towels. 
• We've started buying natural vegetable cellulose sponges (available at Trader Joe's, for instance) instead of the "normal" ones in the supermarket because the natural ones are biodegradable and even compostable! I promise they work just the same. 
• I've also put small recycle bins in all the rooms, including the bathroom (all those tissue rolls), right next to the regular garbage cans, to make recycling easier and convenient. 
• I'm thinking about buying gerbils again. Yes, this is related. :) Gerbils, while tons of fun to watch and play with, are mad about chewing. They will take care of all of your paper towel and bathroom tissue rolls, as well as any other cardboard, Kleenex, scraps of paper, sensitive documents you want shredded, etc. Really, they will go through it all. And they're SO cute.
• I planted a garden, but it's all gone to seed. *FAIL*
• I have made a plan that instead of turning the heat up when I'm cold, or even getting a blanket, I'm going to hop on my exercise bike! It warms me up, it's good for me, and I'll be damned if I don't start losing some bloody weight!!
• I seriously think twice before buying anything that comes in a glass bottle/jar. We have recycling picked up with the garbage, but NOT GLASS. Supposedly it breaks in transit and clogs the sorting machine, or something, but still... We have to gather all the (heavy, sticky) glass and haul it to one of the glass recycling bins around town. Inconvenient.
• That's all I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure this post is long enough as it is. :)

Happy Blog Action Day,

Gem

P.S. - Back in the affluent '90s, when everything was disposable, we had bought a pallet of toilet tissue (or so it seemed) and gave our 4 gerbils a full roll in each tank (they were in two big cages connected by tubes). The next day we came in to find the tanks FULL to the brim of white fluff, and no gerbils in sight! They had chewed it all into smaller bits, then dug tunnels like ant farms! You could see them in their little tunnels, scurrying about. Hilarious!

B&N finally gave me the answer I was looking for.

"Thank you for your inquiry.

Barnes and Noble returns all expired and unsold magazines to the vendor."

So there we have it. That wasn't so bloody hard, was it?? I noted that this email was from someone other than the idiot I was emailing before, so hopefully it's just that one idiot, and not the whole company.

Now on to other companies... namely, the original: Staples.

Staples apparently doesn't have a universal corporate policy. They just let each store handle the expired magazines as they will, which usually means just throwing them in the locked Dumpster. I'm going to start with my local Staples, where I used to work. I hope they've changed their practices since I was there, but we'll see.

Not that anyone's reading this, but posts will continue to be sporadic, since I'm busy in real life. I'll be here on 15th October, though... it's Blog Action Day.

Toodleoo.

Wow. Just... wow.

B&N has the worst customer service reps. These people are morons. Finally got a(nother) reply, but instead of actually answering my question, which I've stated and restated and simplified and reworded to them so many times, they chose to ignore what I said and assume I was just looking to score some free magazines.

We regret we are unable to donate unsold editions of magazines from our
newsstands. However, many magazine publishers sell previous issues of
their magazines directly to the public. We recommend contacting the
publishers directly by the information available on their website or
through Books in Print.

We look forward to seeing you in our stores again soon.

I don't think they will.

That wasn't what I asked. I have STILL only asked them to tell me what they do with the expired magazines. That's it. I never indicated I wanted them, I just want to know where the old magazines go when they die.

OK, now I will admit that my reaction to this latest response could be considered a bit harsh (I didn't actually call them morons to their [email]face), and I probably wouldn't express such vitriol if this were the first response I'd had from them. But after all their dicking around, I hate them.

So, I sent them YET ANOTHER email, giving them a chance to get it right the... 5th time. I gave them the example of what Borders said, hoping this would give them an idea of what a correct response would look like.

More updates soon.

SUCCESS: An Answer!

Anyone from Barnes & Noble should listen up: Here's how Borders handled all this.

Last night (technically this morning, appr. 12.35AM [midnight-thirty]) I sent an email to Borders via their website's "Contact Customer Care" section. I said:

What do your stores do with the expired magazines when the new ones come in?

Today, at 10.19AM, they replied:

Thank you for contacting us about Borders.

When a magazine is taken off the shelves as expired, the covers are ripped off and mailed back to the publishers/distributors for a refund for the store, while the inside part of the magazine is sent off to recycling.

I hope this information was helpful. If you have any other questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Lois
Borders Customer Care

Holy crap that was so simple!! See, B&N? That's how it's done.

So, now we know that Borders is ensuring the old magazines get recycled. This is what I wanted to find out. Now let's see if B&N will EVER tell us what they're doing.

On a "Quite Interesting" Note

I don't know how many of you (you? nobody reads this yet, who am I talking to?) are familiar with the BBC programme QI [Quite Interesting], with Stephen Fry and Alan Davies. If you are not, I suggest you immediately go to YouTube and search for QI ... this link should (if I did that right) take you to Episode Adam (1) of Series A (also 1).

If you are familiar, I think you might be interested to know that I've politely asked the BBC to release the series on Region 1 DVDs.

I called Netflix to ask if they had any plans to acquire these DVDs and they said that they only exist as Region 2, but if Region 1 were to be released, they would indeed snap them up. The fella I talked to knew exactly what show I was talking about (I expected to have to describe it a bit, but no!) and intimated that he, too, would love to have these shows available on Region 1 DVD.

In my QI-related internet excursions, I did find evidence that many US networks, including BBCAmerica, have attempted to option these shows for airing in North America, but the albatross in the works is all the media within each episode. The images behind the guests, the snippets of dialogue or music; all must be licensed and paid for. This makes airing the show cost-prohibitive. That's pretty much the only reason you haven't seen it on BBCAmerica, PBS, or any other networks that have pursued it.

As for why it hasn't been released on Region 1 DVD, it seems to be the consensus that the BBC doesn't think there's a market for it. I can understand not hearing about the other networks interest, but I'm baffled as to how they could be unaware of BBCAmerica's intent.

If you want to join me in asking the BBC nicely to release Region 1 DVDs, here's the link I used. (Then choose Enquiry > TV > BBC1 > and the full programme title is QI: Quite Interesting, but QI will suffice).

Wild Goose Chase

B&N is NOT making any friends here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, B&N's customer service rep referred me to M2MediaGroup regarding their expired magazines.

Fine.

Seemed logical enough with what I had heard from places like Home Depot and their third-party magazine distributors. M2MediaGroup, however, is bloody clueless and tells me to contact B&N! I reply saying that B&N told me to talk to M2 and I get a terse reponse from someone called Tirza saying

We do not have expired magazines as we do not have a retail store. If you wish to contact a store regarding your inquiry you will need to so.

I'm not happy about this. I don't shop at Barnes & Noble frequently because their books are overpriced, but this is very close to guaranteeing I never go in another Barnes & Noble again. Why would they have such ridiculously inept customer service for such a SIMPLE QUESTION??

Also, if you don't have a retail store all rules of time and space are lifted and magazines never expire, apparently. ;)

Initial Contact

Some information: It seems even everyone, even Barnes & Noble, uses third parties to stock and handle the magazines they offer in store.

I asked a lady who worked at Home Depot what they do with their expired magazines and she said somebody comes in and deals with them (as in, it's not some employee of Home Depot). She said she thinks it involves something about ripping off the back cover and then disposing of the magazine, but she didn't know how or where.

B&N finally got back to me and said that M2MediaGroup handles their stuff and to contact them. So I shall.

I guess it's a little silly to not name the company I worked for but I'm naming every other company I'm talking about. I actually don't know why people "censor" company names in this context. So I won't.

I worked at Staples. I haven't worked there for ... must be about 4 or 5 years, now. Maybe more.

The Paper Problem

I used to work for a national office supply chain that does not have the word 'office' in it's name. All the time I was there we sold magazines (mostly business/computer titles) and when the new issues came in it was corporate policy that the old, unsold magazines all be thrown away.

Thrown Away.

Not recycled. Not donated to employees, doctor's offices, schools, or charitable organisations. Just thrown away (in a locked bin). This was a few years ago, but with the glacier-speed that corporations catch up with the times, I'm concerned this is still going on.

I'll tell you what prompted this:

I went to Barnes & Noble to buy a couple of specific magazines, since they're the only store nearby that sells a nice selection. They must have thousands. I highly doubt every magazine (or even a few) sell out every month, therefore disposal is an issue. I didn't see any industrial-size recycle bins outside (then again, I didn't look that hard) and I'm sure if they donated magazines I would have heard (lots of my family & friends work in hospitals, doctor's offices and schools; the likely targets).

OK, my point:

I intend to contact B&N, Borders, office supply stores, grocery stores with magazine racks and other places that I think of and find out what they do with the old magazines. I might try to get in touch with a couple of publishers as well. If they are still regularly putting these forests-worth of paper in the landfill, I intend to raise a stink.

It's all well and good for you and your neighbours to recycle, but if giant corporations don't play their part...

To reiterate: I don't KNOW what these companies do yet. I'm going to find out. And then post it here. I hope they all recycle. Or something.

INTRODUCTION

"We'll get there eventually" is a phrase I've learned to employ when the people around me are unnecessarily freaking out about

1. Being late

2. Being lost

3. Being alone

4. Being unemployed

5. Being unsuccessful

6. Et cetera.

It illustrates my attitude toward the small stressors in life.

... At least some of them...

There are PLENTY of things that make me go crazy and you'll likely hear about them here.