SWEET DEAL!!!! *FREE* Packets of Equal at Starbuck's B&M! NO MIR OR PM CRAP!

[TauNeutrino]

<<How many times have I seen free laxatives or pet food?! This is a friggin' tech forum! Or &quot;deals&quot; that run every week in every store everywhere, like % off at clothing or jewelery stores that never go a day without a fake &quot;sale&quot;. .>>


Amen, brother. My pet peeve? The Friday Sale at Amazon. Every single friday morning someone posts this thing. And none of this rationalization stuff, &quot;well...it's hot to ME.&quot; The Friday sale is weak. Period.

Here's a few headers from the past two months (I'll let you guess who posted them).

AMAZON's FRIDAY SALE is here again! Some good stuff!
AMAZON's FRIDAY SALE is here again! Lots of good stuff
Amazon Friday Sale - Some Good Deals UPDATE: Grill Back in Stock!!!
AMAZON's FRIDAY SALE is here! Some good stuff.
AMAZON's FRIDAY SALE is on right now! Lots of good stuff
The Friday Sale @ Amazon! Tons of HOT items on Sale up to 80% off + Coupons!!!

Enough already. A $40 Handspring Visor is a tech deal. 15% off a Calphalon Professional Hard Anodized 14-Inch Small Commercial Roaster (or whatever) is not. My two cents.


BTW - I like the thread. The sweetner thing is very funny.

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

*FREE* cigarettes!

Perfect for your nictoine addicted !!! Here's what you have to do:
1) Walk into your local restuarant or bar
2) Approach ashtrays
3) Grab a cigarette butts
4) Walk out nonchalantly
5) Sort throught them at home. You're certain to find many than have over 25% of the tobacco remaining. Some may have over *50%* remaining!!!
6) Relight and enjoy!

 

[HawkeyeNJ]

Is this spamming .....

 

[HawkeyeNJ]

Hmmmmm another 2 hrs this will b up for 10 amazing.......

 

[MikroMak]

ya'll never cease to amaze me.

 

[Tedtalker1]

This is called stealing guys.I'm sure this will be locked by the mods soon.

 

[z0ner]

Stealing? Not quite. Without a written rule or verbal explanation of the condiment policy they can be had for the taking. You'll have to deal with the morals and ethics yourself, however.

 

[HawkeyeNJ]

Hmmmm I don't know about that jarjarbinkssucks posted @ Sunday, June 03, 2001 3:09 PM. Got locked in less than 15 minutes. This has been going on for 11 hours.....

I am sitting back learning....

 

[HawkeyeNJ]

Another just got locked Where to get good and cheap laptop bateries??
Well wrong forum easy mistake....

 

[render]

Great deal.
I prefer brown surgar. I can pick up some for later use.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

I assumed that you raped you local B&amp;M...
that explains your sugar high.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

I assume that you raped you local B&amp;M...
that explains your sugar high.

 

[b0mbrman]

Is this deal good on the website too? Leaving my apartment would mean putting on pants...

 

[BossDog]

ok, first off, this is obviously a dumb hot deal. walking into a starbucks and taking a bunch of equal without buying anything is pretty much stealing. It is implied that those items are put out for the use of their patrons, not any schmo who just walks in off the street.

Second, quit whining about non-tech deals. I agree that the friday sale @amazon is not a hot deal, but I need more in life than just computers and electronic components. While anandtech primarily is concerned with computer hardware, the fact that this is the largest of all deal forums provides for a bit of latitude.

Hawkeye, I agree with you. I cant believe this thread has not been locked.

 

[normajean]

I agree this is a tech deals forum, If you want free hats or tshirts go to mycoupons or tons of other general freebie boards.
Valsalva-your humor is under appreciated. Be careful though you may get banned!
Reincarnation is cool though.

 

[irabufan]

there's a better deal!!! it's an old trick but it's better than free! (caution: i am not advising people to do this, but valsalva can try this in his own home with his own coffee)

walk into S**rb*c*s and order a cup of coffee ($2)
take it out and walk back into your car (nonchalantly, since this is the word to use in this forum), put it right between your legs
spill it a lot and pretend it hurts like a m****rf****r
go to the hospital just to have evidence that you were injured
file a lawsuit against S**rb*c*s, say that they made their coffee way too hot and their cup is too slippery, and the hot coffie just happened to injure your most important part of the body (assuming you're a male) so that you can't &quot;bring it&quot; like you used to
ask for millions of dollars in the lawsuit, prove that the tort law doesn't apply and your neglegence wasn't an issue
if you win, you'll be able to make millions off a $2 cup of coffee

that, i say, is a deal.....
no rebates or PM needed

p.s. only in america.........................

 

[khc200]

i like those Xando/Cosi sandwich napkins... nice thick and soft.

 

[limsandy]

El locko, damn it.

 

[BossDog]

Actually, I wonder what percentage of the people who read the hot deals forum check out the rest of anandtech? Im into both deals and computers, so I visit both. However, Im guessing that many only check out this forum.

In any event, I dont see how posting good non-tech deals hurts this forum. And, more to the point, Anand has no incentive to keep non-tech deals out. Anything which increases the number of unique visitors and total pages viewed just increases the amount of ad revenue the site receives.

P.S. I did figure that saliva was kidding around; however, everytime someone does one of this funny posts, there is inevitably some doof who takes it seriously.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

For those of you who were too dense to catch it, this post was satirical.

But a couple of people mentioned that taking packets of Equal from *$'s would be stealing.
Well, is it? If I order a coffee and dump a pack of aspartame in, does that constitute stealing? Not really. Well, what if I dumped 2 in? Well, what if I dumped 2 packets in and kept a few in my pocket? Is THAT stealing?? Legally, it is NOT. So just the act of taking packets of Equal isn't ALWAYS wrong.

Ethically, it might be prima facie morally wrong if you took several packets without buying anything from Starbuck's...with no intention of every buying anything there. And why is that? Simple: because Starbuck's lays out condiments on their condiment bar for people who buy drinks and want to add sugar, honey, cream, etc. They do this in good faith for their customers who patronize their establishment. So it seems morally (but not legally) wrong to jack a bunch of Equals if you have no intention of buying a drink.

COROLLARY: There are those of you who fill out surveys online to get free stuff -- and most of the time, the companies are offering free stuff to encourage interested parties to buy their stuf..it is provided in good faith and as a courtesy to potential customers, and is meant to help sell their stuff. When certain (not all) Anandtechers fill out these surveys with no intention of purchasing the company's product, fill out (usually) false information about the size of their business and what their business does, it is prima facie MORALLY WRONG, just as it is wrong to jack a bunch of Equals if you have no intention of buying a drink....only this time, the company gets skewed survey data and runs out of free stuff for the REAL customers.

Final note: Whether or not this is a hot deal is debatable...a while back, someone posted a link to get free samples of an aspartame-based sweetener...if you look at this in the context of other postings, such as the 5-6 notices of yet another Friday Amazon deal, you'll find that this IS a pretty sweet deal.

Valsalva

 

[skypix]

Threads a chuckle but Aspartame's no laugher at all: bad news stuff, I did a story for a magazine once on a pilot who lost his medical because of the stuff. When he stopped using it, his vision returned, vertigo vanished, and everything got straightened out.

When we ran the story, with corroboration of our sources, we still got a threatening phone call from the legal creeps who represent the makers of the stuff. They threatened to sue us unless we printed a retraction. We held our ground, they dropped their threat. They have teams of people scouring the media to try and stem the tide of bad publicity their bad news product deserves.

So if sugar's a problem, use the real stuff or get stevia root at a health food store. It's ten zillion times sweeter than sugar, is completely natural, you carry it around in a little bottle like a breath freshener, and it has zero calories. And it tastes a hell of a lot better than that aspartame crap or any of the other artificial sweetners.

 

[goodsunny]

good point, take it easy everybody.

 

[Deathgame]

Me want some sugar!!
Free sugar = yummy!!
Sugar good!! Food bad!!
LOL!!!

 

[BossDog]

Actually, I think I disagree with ya saliva. If you went and took the packets from the store with no purchase, it seems to me that that would be stealing from a legal perspective. For a defense, you would have to argue that a reasonable person would have believed that those equals were to be made available for anyone who wanted them, and not just those who bought something at the store.

On a side note, I wouldnt use terms like &quot;dense&quot; for those who thought you were serious. There was little in your original post that would lead one to believe it was in jest. I figured it was, but that was mostly because I didnt want to believe someone would seriously think that that was a hot deal.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

<< Actually, I think I disagree with ya saliva. If you went and took the packets from the store with no purchase, it seems to me that that would be stealing from a legal perspective. For a defense, you would have to argue that a reasonable person would have believed that those equals were to be made available for anyone who wanted them, and not just those who bought something at the store. >>



By the same argument, if I walked in and took a napkin from the condiment bar, that should be stealing too. If I walked in and used their &quot;customers only&quot; bathroom, that would also be &quot;stealing&quot; a service. Thus, your counterargument fails by parallel example.
Furthermore, you might think yourself witty by replacing &quot;Valsalva&quot; with &quot;saliva,&quot; but I am here to inform you that you are not.



<< On a side note, I wouldnt use terms like &quot;dense&quot; for those who thought you were serious. There was little in your original post that would lead one to believe it was in jest. I figured it was, but that was mostly because I didnt want to believe someone would seriously think that that was a hot deal. >>



Well most people figured out that I was being facetious - I am sorry you could not. Let's use our reading comprehension skills and analyze:
1) &quot;Perfect for your phenylketonuric friends!&quot; -- IRONY. People with PKU will die after ingesting enough aspartame (contains phenylalanine)
2) &quot;best of all, there's no waiting in line, and there's no need to wait for rebate checks that never come anyway&quot; -- SATIRE of rebates and going to B&amp;M stores on sale days
3) &quot;also looks just like crack when you put it in plastic ziplock bags&quot; -- FACETIOUS COMMENT. obviously, nobody is going to sell this as crack.
4) &quot;Grab your free Equal before Anandtechers kill yet another hot deal&quot; -- SATIRE or how anandtechers kill all the hot deals as soon as they come out.
5) &quot;Starbucks B&amp;M&quot; -- SATIRE. People mainly go to Starbucks for cups of coffee/espresso which you obviously can't get online...so the notion of B&amp;M is inane.
*) list goes on and on...but it's cool...people differ in their ability to analyze syntax/diction/figurative language...it's America's top-notch K-12 education system talking!

Valsalva