So the other night, I went to the Grocery store and ended up spending about $10 more than I was supposed to because of these gawd awful Club Cards. — I don’t understand why these things exist.

(#rantalert)

It’s like joining an imaginary ‘club’ that anybody can get into. Why do ‘they’ even call it a ‘club?’ It doesn’t require anything from you, and you don’t really get anything exclusive for being in the ‘club.’ Yes, they have their ‘Club Card’/reduces prices, but if anyone can get the Club Card, and there aren’t any real requirements for getting a card, then the reduced prices should just be the regular prices for everybody, right!? I say there’s no ‘real’ requirements because every time a store asks me to to fill out an ‘application’ for their ‘Club,’ I put in a fake address and a fake phone number — I’m sure other people do the same thing to avoid unwanted sales pitches. It’s really a club full of fraudulent cheap-skates who have no problem telling lies(white) to save a buck or two — what a horrible club. I get that they want your mailing address so they can mail you promotions, ads and other non-environmental-friendly stuff. I have a good feeling that they mail you the same ads that they already have available in the entrances of every store. On top of that, the sales in the ads are useless if you don’t have a Club Card anyway — what a complete waste.

Actually, let’s look at how much gets wasted just to give us a ‘deal’ that we should already be getting.

1. Plastic Non-Biodegradable Plastic Card (and don’t forget about the knock-out plastic that’s left behind when you get one of these.
2. Paper Application form (sometimes printed in color too).
3. Paper Snail-Mail Advertisements.
4. Time is wasted when people are filling out the form in line while other folks are waiting behind them.

Solutions:

1. 1st, fire the guy/gal who came up with idea in the first place. 2nd, get rid of the ‘Club Card’ system all together & recycle the plastic.
2. Consolidate. As a last resort, companies who use these things should combine powers and issue 1 card that works in all stores.

Of course there are bigger fish to fry on this issue:

1. Who has access to the database of addresses and phone numbers?
2. Are they monitoring what folks are buying at Pharmacies, Grocery Stores etc?

But the cards themselves really bother me. They’re completely inconvenient! I only have one wallet, but I’m supposed to walk around with all of those cards crammed in there just to make a quick grocery store run? Makes me think of that Seinfeld episode with George Costanza’s exploding wallet. Even the mini key-chain cards are inconvenient. Who has room on their key-chain for 10 little annoying pieces of plastic? — Not I.

Again, why do these things exist? Am I missing something?

Comments?

(RANT WARNING)

I’m really getting tired of all of these Hybrid kicks that seem to drop like every other day. Every sneaker name is something like “Nike Air Max 95 x Air Max 360” or some other odd mash-up. NIKE can’t come up with anything new/better? Don’t get me wrong , I know NIKE is still making new designs for their their other markets, like Performance Basketball, Track, etc. so I’m mainly referring to their casual/Sport Culture markets. I have to admit that I really would like to get back into the sneaker game, but nothing but crap has been coming out for the last 10+ months. Just look at how wack some of these joints are:

Even Jordans are coming out with Hybrids of its sneakers for instance the Jordan 14.5 which is a medium of the 14’s and the 15’s. GARBAGE. And even the Kanye’s (whch I love) seem to have the sole from the Jordan 3’s.

I don’t know if its just NIKE getting lazy or if they are really just trying to capitalize on the culture, but either way this seems like they’re running out of ideas. I guess it started with the retro movement of the early 2000s. All of those shoes that we had back in the 80s / 90s came back and people really dug in and loved it. But now it’s like their vault is almost empty and instead of creating new classics(oxymoron) they’re creating bastardizations of their original classics. I mean, 10 years from now (which seems to be the retro cycle) who’s really going to be wearing a Nike Air Retro x Retro x Retro sneaker. Not I. So I’m really hoping that NIKE puts on their thinking caps soon — this is really getting ridiculous.

Actually, I will probably just grow out of the sneaker game in 10 years which makes this post totally useless. Dah well — a rant is a rant.

Also, I hate that nike.com is all Flash.