Hijinks Inc.

Author: Fred Smith

  • Off brand, name brand, and quality: Part II

    Last time I talked about the quality difference in bathroom vanities at different price levels. This time around I’ll address a question a receive quite a bit when people are shopping for bathroom vanities.

    Why are bathroom cabinets so much more expensive then kitchen cabinets??

    The price difference between kitchen and bathroom cabinets stems mainly from the assembly line vs. handmade manufacturing. Assembly line is always going to be cheaper then paying one guy to build it from scratch. But even then, the factory made bathroom vanity I talked about in my first post is still nearly twice the price of it’s kitchen counterpart. Why is this? Well, because stores buy more of them. My store stocks about the same total number of kitchen and bathroom cabinets, but while there is probably less then a dozen kitchen cabinet SKUs, my department has upwards of forty different styles and sizes bathroom vanities. The actual number of cabinets is the same, but our stock counts per cabinet are much lower.

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  • Smart people have PhDs…and play World of Warcraft.

    A couple days ago Neils Clark over at Gamasutra asked the question: is there life after Warcraft? It wasn’t so much the question that was interesting, but the people he posed the question to. He asked five bone fide academics to give their qualified opinion on the phenomenon that is World of Warcraft. If you are into intelligent commentary on virtual social trends, or if you just have some time to burn, it’s worth a read.

    Read: ‘The Academics Speak: Is There Life After World of Warcraft’

  • Off brand, name brand, and quality. (Part I)

    Being a young guy working as a plumbing and housewares salesman has it’s challenges. The biggest being that when I started working I had hardly any product knowledge whatsoever. I knew where I few things were in the store, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. After almost two years though, I have learned a thing or two about the stuff I sell, and now I’m passing it on to you. Since I do spend most of my time working with and selling plumbing products, that’s what I’ll be focusing on.

    I’ll start with a scenario: You are remodeling your master bathroom, on a budget mind you. You walk into a home improvement store to buy a vanity (bathroom cabinet), counter top, and fixtures (faucet, tub/shower).

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  • Excuse me while I whip this out.

    My Macbook that is.

    Yep, it finally came. After three days staring at the Fedex tracking page, hoping that it just might come a day early, I spent the day of it’s arrival staring hopefully down the lane waiting for that big van of Macbook goodness to drive up. I found out the hard way that Fedex drivers usually leave the rural neighborhoods last on their schedule. But arrive it did, in all it’s glossy white, shiny glory.
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  • Thygeson’s Punctate Keratitis

    Impressive sounding, isn’t it? And I have it. Have had it rather…it’s a chronic problem I’ve been dealing with for the past few years. Thygeson’s keratitis amounts to small scratches on the cornea of my eye. I found a few other definitions that sound far more impressive though. Such as:

    Thygeson’s disease is an eye condition named after Phillips Thygeson, an American physician born in 1903. It is now more commonly known as punctate epithelial keratitis or superficial punctate keratitis. It is a type of inflammation of the cornea.

    Epithelial?! I am going to make it my mission to use that word in a sentence this week… right after I find out what it means. Oh, but there’s more!

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