I, apparantly, am everything wrong with this country!

[Shengirl]

I've noticed that they tend to give you coupons for brands other than the one you bought;
e.g., I've bought Hershey Kissables and gotten coupons for M&Ms.

Well, there are two ways to get coupons. Some things print out regardless of whether a not a person even has a card. For instance, Basic coupons when you buy Marlboro, M&Ms coupons when you buy chocolate, whatever. But then that pile of coupons that comes out when you ring your loyalty card is more geared to what you specifically tend to buy. And the ones they send to your house on that post card-like thing are just great.

[Rubystars]

One time when I worked at Kroger some guy asked if we had a magazine (I can't remember what magazine it was, but it didn't seem to be anything political when the guy mentioned it). When I said that we were sold out of it, then his face scewed up and he said "That damn government!"

His wife looked embarassed and tried to calm him down.

I was just confused, wondering what the heck the government had to do with his magazine being out of stock.

[edible_hat]

But what made things interesting...is that my father is selling off most of his hunting rifles, mainly because he doesn't hunt any more. So, he asked several people if they were interested, including the guy across the street. When I heard that, I was like "Dad, are you sure it's a good idea to supply him with *more* guns?"

He can only use 2 at a time maximum. Maybe 3 if he's got really dexterous toes.

I was just confused, wondering what the heck the government had to do with his magazine being out of stock.

It wasn't the government, it was me! Last night I bought the last copy of Australian Personal Computer magazine from my work, this morning somebody complained that we'd run out of it.

[Nutjob R/T]

He must have gone to the Andy Rooney School of Bitching About Every Insignificant Thing.

Do they give out free prosthetic eyebrows at graduation?

[Andara Bledin]

Yes, they partly use them for market research. But, they don't give a crap what you're buying. They just need to know what is selling and what isn't, so they don't run out of product that's in high demand or have a bunch of crap sitting on the shelves that no one is buying at all. Ads are also made based on trends of items being sold at various times, so it allows them to plan their sales around what they've found people generally buy at different weeks/months of the year.

They don't need loyalty cards to know market trends. That's what register records are for.

Loyalty cards are for tracking how an indivicual or family makes purchasing decisions. And in California, you can't be required to fill out any personal information to get one.

I don't care for the whole "invasion of privacy" angle, because on a mostly harmless level, it is, but it doesn't really matter because the people who you would least like having your info already have it.

^-.-^

[Broomjockey]

He can only use 2 at a time maximum. Maybe 3 if he's got really dexterous toes.

You obviously lack imagination. The absolute most basic example is action scenes like the lobby in The Matrix, and the town square scene in Hot Fuzz. Deck out in hardware, discard when empty, move to next weapon. Another example is "Heart of Gold" in Firefly, where Jayne wants to cycle through weapons. Then there's stuff like setting up booby traps, having stashes so you're never far from your guns, and being able to equip a militia in case of zombies.

[friendofjimmyk]

Isn't paranoia fun?

My ex-husband's father introduced me to some "friends" of his. The woman proceded to tell me that clouds weren't clouds, they were some type of spy plane for the gov't, and the reason the DMV offered to let you take your glasses off for a ID picture was because they were doing a retinal scan. I stayed real polite, and got the h*ll away from her and her hubby as fast as I could.

Okay, granted, the story I am going to tell is from my days as a VERY heavy meth user (I have been clean for nearly 3 years now)...so, I have ran into my fair share of paranoid, raving lunatics but this one takes the cake...

A tweaker I knew was sitting at my friends house watching tv. There were a few flies in her house buzzing around. He started to freak out on her about the flies. The guy also had a 30% hearing loss, so he was really hard to understand at times. She thought he was allergic to flies or something until he finally calmed down enough to tell her that the government now attaches cameras to flies to invade people's homes and that all these flies meant her house was bugged by the government and that her house will surely be raided soon.

Kids...don't do Meth. Meth is bad.

[Palsgraf]

So the government knows I prefer store-brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch over the name brand?

Now I'm depressed.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Sounds like the guy across the street from my parents. Nice enough guy, but some of his "theories" are a bit out there. He subscribed to hunting magazines, and some of the "soldier of fortune" type ones too. Did I mention he had guns?

But what made things interesting...is that my father is selling off most of his hunting rifles, mainly because he doesn't hunt any more. So, he asked several people if they were interested, including the guy across the street. When I heard that, I was like "Dad, are you sure it's a good idea to supply him with *more* guns?"

I would say that sounds like a fellow by the name of Fred "Fritz" Klenner Jr., but he died after blowing up his Chevy Blazer after a police chase/shootout right outside of Greensboro back in 1985.

Scary fellow from what I read . . . even pretended to be a CIA operative.

[Decker]

You obviously lack imagination. The absolute most basic example is action scenes like the lobby in The Matrix, and the town square scene in Hot Fuzz. Deck out in hardware, discard when empty, move to next weapon. Another example is "Heart of Gold" in Firefly, where Jayne wants to cycle through weapons. Then there's stuff like setting up booby traps, having stashes so you're never far from your guns, and being able to equip a militia in case of zombies.

How can you go through all those examples and NOT mention Il Duce from The Boondock Saints?

"There was a FIREFIGHT!"

[Broomjockey]

How can you go through all those examples and NOT mention Il Duce from The Boondock Saints?

"There was a FIREFIGHT!"

>_< D'oh.
Because it's been about 4 years since I've seen that one?

[Geek King]

<obscure reference>

Was this guy's name Tim Wilson?

</obscure reference>

Not for anyone familiar with The First Baptist Bar & Grill, its not.

[princess4life]

I once worked with some people who told me that the government was tracking all our purchases made by credit card so "big brother" could know everything we did and everywhere we went. This was due to the fact that the cash registers were computerized and the credit cards interacted with those computers now. These people claimed the new Visa debit cards were created so that the government could track people who might not have the credit needed for a standard credit card. They thought all discount cards that had to be scanned existed for the same purpose.

They also "collected" lots of guns.

This guy probably thinks like them.

I had a teacher in High School that insisted by 2010 we would no longer have cash money everything wouldbe on a card (similair to what you use on a cruise to track all our transactions) or a barcode in your hand. This way the goverment could track you and people wouldn't be able to go into dept

[Mark Healey]

Loyalty cards are for tracking how an indivicual or family makes purchasing decisions. And in California, you can't be required to fill out any personal information to get one.

Do you have a link to the actual law. I'd love to be able to cite it to people.

[Pedersen]

She thought he was allergic to flies or something until he finally calmed down enough to tell her that the government now attaches cameras to flies

Damnation. Again I look the part of the crackpot.

Yes, this is being done. Various government agencies are actively working on getting cameras down to that size. See these links (the first ones I could fine).

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/14/113631/47
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=...b=wn&scoring=n
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4808342.stm
http://www.theage.com.au/news/techno...696133271.html

Your specific friend was likely a loonball. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.