Believe it or Not!! Gitmo Guard and Detainee Voluntarily Reunited

Gitmo continues to become more and more surreal. I thought ethnic Uighurs in Bermuda was weird. How about this bit?

Gitmo Guard and Detainee Bury Differences on Facebook

Image from Jeff Overs, via NYT, and Gawker.

Convenience Is the Not So New Handling

Don't you just love it when you go to buy two $25 concert tickets, and somehow the total is $80? Not even considering why they charge you for the transaction/shipping/handling when you print out your own fricking tickets from automated software, why do they charge you for a "convenience" fee?

We are supposed to pay an extra $8 a ticket for the convenience of buying them online? I thought that online purchases were supposed to make prices come down because it was more convenient for the supplier since they no longer had to depend on brick and mortar businesses to have employees to sell the actual paper tickets.

Maybe I just misread all of those econ textbooks, scholarly articles, newspaper and magazine articles. For like, years.

I bet these fees are only going to get more "convenient" now that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are going to merge. It only makes sense, now that the concert promoters are merging with the ticket sellers. Unless the DOJ comes in to save us from this incredible convenience (please?).

As long as we're on the subject, I never understood what the hell "handling" was anyway. "Shipping" I get. It costs money to send things, and shipping could depend on where the purchaser is located. But "handling"? Is that like the cost of picking the Slap Chop up and putting it in a box? That's not covered by "shipping"? Maybe I should shut it, otherwise they might start charging us for pre-purchase storage, dusting, and cigarettes for warehouse employees. Maybe next will be a "looking" charge, because they need to see the product before they can "handle" it and then "ship" it.

Fuckers.

Oh yeah, Happy belated Holidays all.