Puppies, Idiots and Best Buy

Well, the puppies are doing good. One of them started opening it's eyes yesterday, so I expect they'll be running around the house within a week or less. Time to puppy proof the place - oh joy. I'll be posting some pics of them on here soon.

Stupidity seems to be the word of the week. Dumb kids shooting and holding hostages in a California high school, Crazy woman chasing hispanic children in Denver with a sword. I don't even want to guess what's next in the news.

OK, here's something that really iritates me. BEST BUY(tm) has lost my business and I think they'll be going down the tubes soon. Why? I went into one of their stores last week to by a CD-RW drive. I've bought all kind of electronics from them in the past and liked to go there first to get a good deal.

I looked down the aisle where they had "CD-RW drives" listed and couldn't find one. All they had was DVD burning drives. Wasn't what I was looking for. I already have one of them, and it's because that drive has a problem with making music CD's that I went to look for the CD-RW. I approached one of the store employees that worked in the computer department and asked him if they were out of them. I had to wait ten minutes for him to notice me as he was busy chatting it up with the cute brunette he works with. I was told they don't carry those anymore because DVD drives do the same thing. Actually they do most of the same thing, but inherently they are more prone to problems due to differing formats. He looked at me like I was an Idiot for wanting one. I build computers for a hobby so I know what I'm doing (most of the time).

So I went looking for some other items I wanted. I was not impressed with thier selections. First of all, they only had one brand of hard drives? Then I looked around some more and noticed that they stopped carrying a lot of the items that I like to use in my computers. Seems to me like they've gone and made deals with certain manufacturers to only carry their brands. Piss poor way to do business if you ask me.

People like variety. Don't give them that variety and you'll lose their business. Don't think becuase you're a franchise that you can all of a sudden start holding items away from the consumer. If you start thinking that you can give the people what YOU want, not what THEY want, you'll find yourselves going the way of Montgomery Wards and other failed franchises. Sure, you've got a lot of top of the line items, but sometimes, people don't want that. Sometimes they want something that will do the same job at a lower price, or they want a product that is more specialized. Top of the line isn't always the best product on the market.

I will admit I was impressed with the items I saw in the store, but they've gone and taken out the consumer's right of choice for products. Again, they had all the top of the line stuff - all they stuff you see in the high priced comercials anyway. But I want SeaGate not Maxtor for a hard drive. I want AMD not INTEL. And I sure as hell want a customer service rep that treats me like my opinion matters, not some snot nosed punk that probably has no clue about computer components except where to stick the latest gaming program he wants to play.

So instead of going to Best Buy for my computer purchases from now on, I'll be going to COMPUSA (tm). At least they have people that are knowledgable and are willing to assist. They also haven't removed the products that people want. I'll be going to other stores for the rest of my non computer related purchases from now on as well.

Enough said for now.