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I bought a new washing machine from Home Depot last week.

Side note: why is a dishwasher a dishwasher but a clotheswasher is just a washer? Aren’t they both washing machines? Likewise, a car wash is also a washing machine. It even goes one step farther, as it is a machine for washing machines. Anyway, I just wanted to remind people that a dishwasher is a washing machine too.

Now back to our regular content…

What I find half amusing-half annoying is that since then, Home Depot has sent me a few emails touting their washers and dryers and asking me to shop for those items.

I realize I fit the profile of someone who bought a washer but not a dryer therefore I should be in the market for a dryer, but that’s not what their email said. It was just “Hey, we have deals on washers and dryers!”

For what it’s worth, I’m not in the market for a dryer. (Specifically, a clothes dryer. I should have checked that they weren’t actually trying to sell me a hair dryer, or a paint dryer).

In case you were wondering, we had bought a GE washer about 2.5 years ago. And the GE warranty is only 1 year. It failed (motor wouldn’t run, so no spinning or agitating, just filling and draining – plus the basket was leaking from the middle, probably the water leaking onto the motor assembly is what caused the motor to fail). I estimated the replacement parts would have been close to $300. Add in the cost for a service call plus labor for someone to fix it, and that’s the price of a new clotheswasher.

So that’s why we bought a new washer.

And it’s a Maytag. They don’t have a 1-year warranty. They have a 10-year warranty on the motor and the basket – the two components that failed in the old machine.

I recently received this letter:

As you can guess, I did not want to disobey the instructions on the envelope.

So I discarded it on purpose.

I like to try different BBQ sauces. One of the habits that my wife puts up with is that when she sends me grocery shopping, I usually come home with a bottle of BBQ sauce.

Her: “I didn’t know we were out of sauce…”
Me: “We weren’t, I just thought this one looked good.”

My main criterion is that it can’t have high-fructose corn syrup. If I see that, I put it back on the shelf.

Bonus points for a glass bottle.

And in this particular case, bonus points for simple, clear directions.

‘Tis the season for flower catalogs. We’ve been getting a bunch of them lately, and most of them are in the traditional catalog format.

But one enterprising company decided to saved money on staples and binding work, and instead has mailed out loose pages.

Maybe some people like flower catalogs that fall apart when you open them, or that get scattered by the wind, but I find them annoying. These go promptly in the trash.

Wandering through a nearby Menard’s store, I saw some gloves that promised to be warm.

The problem with these is that my wife is allergic to cats, so having cat fur in the house (and on my hands) would not be good.

Normally, fur-lined gloves and hats and stuff are made of rabbit. Cat would be a new one, but there certainly is no shortage of cat-fur supply in this country.

My wife saw that the Harlem Globetrotters would be in our arena soon, and she thought it would be fun to take the kids. Tickets were about $20 apiece, so that seemed reasonable for a fun break from the winter weather.

My wife was looking at the tickets and picking out a good section, but I stopped her when I noticed it was through Ticketmaster. They were a major reason I left my last email address – could not get them to stop sending me email, so I abandoned that email address. They’re probably still spamming it. I wanted to setup a temporary email for this transaction, so we could delete it and be free from Ticketmaster spam after our event.

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I think the current Apple CEO should commission a microwave before he leaves the company, whenever that may be. There is a golden opportunity there.

For example, here is the control panel of a normal microwave.

And here is the control panel of an Apple microwave.

No, I did not change just the logo.

I have no suggestions right now as to what that first button would do, but it would be a way for Mr. Cook to cement his name to remain in the product after he’s gone.