1. No matter how much the little sign made by the owner gushes, there’s a reason why a liter of “Duggan’s Dew” blended scotch whiskey is only $15.95.

2. I don’t know whether it was the 95 degree heat or the recession but our tag sale was quite the buyer’s market. It didn’t matter that our starting prices were reasonable, everyone wanted to haggle. We had to inflate our prices to compensate for inevitable downdraft. Even a new $59 dress with the pricetag still on it, someone was like, “I’ll give you $2 for it.”

3. I was so impressed with Lowes. When we walked in the door, there were two pallet-loads of air conditioners right by the entrance. As I heard another customer to say, “When does that ever happen?” I was expecting that by the time we got there there would have only one sitting alone on a shelf. Then a floor associate undid all Lowe’s good. When when I asked him which model was the quietest, “Well, they’re all gonna make noise,” was all he had to say. Gee, no kidding, thanks for the insight.

4. This girl’s clothing store called Flirt had Polaroids of actual women wearing the shirts so you can see how the shirt look on a person in real life. Neat.

5. I met a guy who recently moved here from Niger. He said he expected Americans to be a lot richer.

6. If you don’t feel like lugging everything to the changing room, you can quickly see if a pair of jeans will fit you by wrapping half the waist part around your neck. If you can bring the two ends together without trouble, they’ll fit you.

7. MindManager is an awesome mind-mapping program. I’m going to use it to write all my big articles and powerpoint presentations from now on.

(Photo: Ben Popken)

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