why god hates me

You know you’ve got a national infrastructure to be proud of when one of the country’s largest cities is pretty much out of gas. From the Tennessean:

East Tennessee and Middle Tennessee both primarily receive fuel supplies through spurs of the Colonial pipeline, which carries refined gasoline from the Texas Gulf Coast to the Northeast. [Hurricane] Ike damaged and knocked out power to many of those refineries, cutting the amount of gasoline fed into the pipeline.

The shortage should be remedied by next week, the paper reports:

The state is scheduled to receive 1.42 million barrels of gasoline over the next week, roughly matching its typical demand of 1.44 million barrels, Heidt said.

“Gas prices remain higher in Middle Tennessee” [The Tennessean] (Thanks to Jessica!)
(Photo: Pat Hawks)

Dale couldn’t redeem his “free 6 inch sub” coupon at his local Subway. Was it because of a particularly lazy employee, poor management, or dire financial straits? Maybe it was all three, considering the string of completely unrelated excuses Dale was given over just a few minutes.

I was reading your article about how some Subways were instituting a $0.75 refill policy when I remembered that I had a Scrabble peice that said I had won a free ‘Any Reg. 6″ Fresh Fit OR Reg. 6″ Sub.’

So, I decided to head down to the Subway in Kansas City, MO (it’s walking distance away from me) and tried to redeem my coupon.

Upon walking in, the Zombie-Employee told me that they were out of half of their ingredients. I found this odd, seeing as it was 6:30 at night on a Friday, but none of the items listed were what I was going to get on my sandwich anyways. I ordered a 6″ Meatball sub (considered a “Reg. Sub”, I’m assuming) and a Sweet Onion Terriaki 6″ (that way, I get a footlong for about half the price).

I went to check out and showed my coupon. She replied “Um, sorry, this only works for your next order.” This struck me as odd, seeing as the last time I ordered and got the coupon was over a week ago.

I informed the employee politely and she responded with “Well, we still can’t take it. It only works certain times of the day.” I pointed out to her that the coupon read “GOOD ON NEXT ORDER. NO SUBSTITUTES. MAY NOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFERS. EXPIRES 10/13/08″ and wanted her to point on where on that tiny piece of paper that it says it has to be certain times of the day.

The lady gave up, and confessed that she can’t redeem it because there has to be a manager there to redeem their own coupon.

I didn’t want to argue with her anymore so I walked off paying twice what I wanted to. I mean, I know it’s only like $4, but it still irks me that they aren’t able to redeem their coupons at anytime. I just wanted to put the word out that these things are pretty much useless since they aren’t honoring them. First the refill and now this? Things must be going rough for them, eh?

(Photo: Mags D)

What sort of ad do you run next to a full-page PSA that says, “My sister accidentally killed herself”? Probably not this one. [FAIL Blog] (Thanks to theblackdog!)

Please, do not ever buy this 2,300 calorie shake from Baskin Robbins, which contains approximately half a pound of sugar. As Consumerist reader Doug points out,

Last time I checked, an adult male should consume 2,500 calories a day, and this shake nearly meets that requirement! The saturated fat present in that shake is over 3 times the RDA of 20 grams, which will put you on the fast track for heart disease. Of course, that’s if the Type 2 diabetes caused by all 266 grams of that sugar doesn’t get you first.

While I believe that people should be held responsible for what they consume, I think corporations need to share just a little responsibility too, and not sell piles of liquid sugar and fat like this. I’d be surprised if even 1 in 100 of the folks that consume that shake know just how bad it is.

On the plus side, it does provide 120% of the RDA for calcium. Oh, and about 1600% of the RDA for Heath candy bars.

(Our tipster, Doug, came up with “death shake.”)

The ease with which a student was able to reset Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email password highlights a vulnerability of so-called “challenge questions” designed to verify your identity: if the questions are about personal details from your life, there’s a risk that somewhere out there on the web, that info is visible to the public. That might be a realistic risk only for public figures, but it’s also possible that friends or family members could answer your questions with a little guesswork. If you want better security, make up fake answers that you’ll remember.

“Who needs hackers? Palin e-mail hack reveals obvious vulnerability” [BetaNews]

Morgan Stanley might sell a 49% share of itself to a Chinese government controlled fund, says Bloomberg. [Bloomberg]

US Airways says that their decision to start charging for water, coffee and soft drinks is working — because no one is buying them.

The attendants, who initially opposed the program, would “riot” if the airline tried to return to the old system of free nonalcoholic beverages, President Scott Kirby said Thursday at a Calyon Securities conference in New York.

“Logjams in the aisles, significant trash collection, lines at the restrooms — all those things are largely gone on US Airways because fewer people are buying and drinking sodas,” he said. “We spend less money, we generate a little revenue, and those problems are largely gone.”

The spokesperson for the flight attendants in question thinks Scott Kirby is full of you know what:

“Kirby’s comment that we would riot is just his way of telling himself they made the right decision,” said Mike Flores, president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA at US Airways.

“This is the very tip of the iceberg on what they’re going to want us to sell,” Flores said. “It’s going to be everything from pillows and blankets to cellphone chargers.”

Fun.

US Airways sees benefits of charging for drinks [LA Times]
(Photo: Jenna Belle )

Here are five special photos that readers added to The Consumerist Flickr Pool this week, chosen because they’re both neat and could possibly be used in a Consumerist post. Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers go and upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right, and start hitting “send to group” on your individual photos you want to add to the pool.

By: j.buck

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Title: “Electric Car”
By: Artnchicken

Title: “Jack Colker Union 76″
By: nailmaker

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Title: “13 sept cooling tower”
Caption: “it swallows all those fossil fuels, sends light through all its wires;
metabolized, digested, gone, exhausts to heaven, then expires.”
By: Wayne Gunn

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Title: 1987
By: Rushup Edge

Add your shots to The Consumerist Flickr pool, and perhaps they’ll get featured in a future story, or even highlighted in a Friday Consumerist Flickr Pool Finds post. See previous winners of the Friday Consumerist Flickr Pool finds here.

United Airlines is just super crappy at fuel hedging, says Wired. Now that oil is trading at less then $100 a barrel, it turns out that United is paying more than that — and more than other airlines:

The company has 51-percent of its 2008 fuel hedged at $111. Per-barrel prices closed at under $98 yesterday. Looking forward to 2009, the airline’s fuel hedges are based on per-barrel prices of $118.

Hedging is a big roll of the dice, and no one has played it better than Southwest Airlines. It has consistently hedged more fuel than its competitors. As of this summer, Southwest has 70-percent of its 2008 fuel hedged at $51 a barrel. Compare that with American Airlines, which has 34-percent hedged hedged at $82 a barrel.

Industry analysts estimate that since 1998 Southwest has paid $3.5 billion less for fuel than its competitors. That’s equal to 83-percent of its profits over the last nine years. It’s a big part of the reason the airline continues reporting profits while the rest of the industry bleeds.

They’re going to need to sell a lot of snack boxes to make up for that…

Airlines Hurt By Dropping Oil Prices. Huh?!! [Wired]
(Photo: FlyGuy92586 )

The SEC has temporarily banned short selling of 799 financial stocks, and the Treasury Department has said that it would guarantee (temporarily?) money market funds up to the amount of $50 billion. The New York Times called this move “startling” because money market funds have long been considered one of the safest investments — about as safe as a savings account.

From the NYT:

“We have acted on a case-by-case basis in recent weeks, addressing problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, working with market participants to prepare for the failure of Lehman Brothers, and lending to A.I.G. so it can sell some of its assets in an orderly manner,” Mr. Paulson said.

“Despite these steps, more is needed,” he said. “We must now take further, decisive action to fundamentally and comprehensively address the root cause of our financial system’s stresses.”

President Bush admitted that taxpayer money was funding these “decisive actions,” but did add that he expected the money to be paid back:
“These measures will require us to put a significant amount of taxpayer dollars on the line,” Bush said in a statement, “But we expect that this money will eventually be paid back.”

Stocks Surge as U.S. Acts to Shore Up Money Funds and Limits Short Selling [NYT]