Ultimate Safeway Shopper Card

Slashdot had an article a few days ago on Budweiser’s internal sales tracking network. Some expressed concern about Anheuser-Busch’s tracking down to the 6-pack, but most posters wisely concluded that you shouldn’t have anything to worry about since there’s no reason to buy Budweiser in the first place ;).

In any case, the Slashdot discussion turned to customer tracking of other kinds, such as those supermarket cards. And, switcha pointed out Rob Cockerham’s Ultimate Shopper endeavor. In short, Rob took a digital photo of his Safeway card, cropped the image and then printed a bunch of replica barcodes onto labels with his inkjet. This way, you can use one of his stickers and become Rob. More importantly, your privacy remains intact since Safeway no longer tracks your identity.

I like the tongue-in-check character of the page, but I’m still not fond of these shopper cards. Sure, you can trade them with your friends or even apply for them with fake credentials, but you still have to carry around that silly card in your wallet (or even three or four, depending on the number of supermarkets in your area). So, these days, I’ve emptied my wallet of those cards and I just go to stores that offer sale prices without any strings attached.

AAA Discounts

The other day, AAA gave me a call to make sure that I was happy with the service (well, I suppose I was, since I didn’t need to make use of it yet).

They also asked me whether I was aware of all the discounts available. I knew about the various hotel and car-rental discounts, but apparently there’s much more than that.

The lady on the phone mentioned just a few, but I was unaware of most of them. For instance:

Ok, so some of them aren’t useful on an everyday-basis (I’m not sure when next I’ll use Amtrak, for instance). But, I’m especially stoked about the 30% off (!) at Papa John’s carry-out and $3 off at Wherehouse Music, as I can make use of those right away.

(Keep in mind that these discounts are from the AAA-Texas website, and might not be valid elsewhere.)

Putty World

Via the Ditherati quote-of-the-day mailing list, I read about Putty World in this Wired article.

Basically, they sell Silly-Putty-like goo, but in all kinds of crazy colors. Sure, there's the traditional pink and white, but there’s also shiny silver and even mistletoe. They typically sell it by the 1/4 lb tin, but they offer it by the pound as well.

I put in an order for a tin of Lustrous Bronze and a tin of Gunmetal Graphite. Whee!

Pillows?

Can anyone recommend a good store for pillows? I’m looking for the sleeping-kind (as opposed to the couch-kind, or other types of pillows). And, I’d rather not spend more than about $20, so that may narrow it down as well.

I’ve checked Target, and their selection isn’t bad. But, I’d like to compare several stores.

Self-foaming Soap

I’m a sucker for convenience-gadgets, and this self-foaming/self-lathering liquid soap sounds neat-o. I may just have to pick some up next time I run out of hand soap.

Have you tried Dial Complete handwashing soap yet?

It looks like just another liquid soap, except the container is pink and a little more squat-looking. But it's quite different — it foams itself.

That’s right, it comes out of the spout pre-lathered.

Now, how lazy do you have to be, that you can’t even lather up your own soap?

But the fact is, few people are really good at lathering. Glops of unlathered soap are always falling into the sink, completely wasted.

With Dial Complete, that doesn’t happen. Everything you get out of the bottle is usable. No waste. [...]

(Link passed along by my brother Adrian)