Review: FedEx Kinko's

Can't leave a good thing well enough alone, can you FedEx? Kinko's is the premiere copy and office-supplies-away-from-your-office store. Or at least it was.

My wife is graduating this May and she wanted graduation announcements printed up a little bit nicer than our clunkly, broken inkjet could do it, so... we whipped up a formal looking design in Microsoft Word, and I, being somewhat techo-savvy kinda guy, saved it as a PDF and threw it on a USB drive to take to Kinko's.

First Visit: Aubrey and I walked into the store and there were two associates and two customers. They all had their heads down looking at, what I assume to be, product designs for Kinko's to print. Okay, we'll wait for someone to get done, I guess. A minute goes by, and we haven't been greeted. Two minutes goes by and no one has looked up. As an aside, I once was an associate for a certain Shack that sells Radios, and we were ALWAYS to greet the customer within 90 seconds of them entering the store. Well, 5 minutes rolls around and Aubrey and I are getting tired of standing around like bumps on the log. Did we leave? No. We looked around at some of the merchandise, card stock, picture frames, sniffed rubber cement, whatever. And then...one of the customers is done!! Before we could close in on the associate, he makes a beeline to the back of the store! And STAYS there for at least the next 5 minutes before we left. Yah...15 minutes of merely existing in the store and no hello or anything. So we left.

Second Visit: Being as how we needed the announcements made pretty quick, we persisted in choosing FedEx Kinko's for our copy needs. An associate actually greets us this time and we explain what we want. A simple card style grad announcement made from a PDF that I have ALREADY CREATED. The response was "Sir, we can't do PDFs". My jaw had to have hit the floor. The PDF is the de facto standard of digital typesetting! We were told that it had to be Microsoft Office Word format. We left, frustrated.

Third Visit: Color us stupid, but yes, we went back, MS Word format in hand. They finally agreed to print up what I made. The first draft was off center and crooked as it sat on the paper. I showed them these obvious flaws and with a grunt, the associate set off again to fix it. I was a stickler about it and finally got the draft I liked and ordered the set. They tried to pull "All these drafts are going to be extra" on us. We called them on that one, saying the drafts should be part of the customer satisfaction. Anyway, we got the prints that night at 10:30pm when they closed. For some reason they could shoot out 5 draft sheets in 15 minutes, but it took 4 hours to do our 20 copies.

My take? They should re-name FedEx Kinko's to Barnum and Bailey's Kinko's.

RATING: *

Review: Oklahoma State University Theatre's Sweet Charity

Based on a book by Neil Simon, the 1966 Broadway show is being produced by my school, so I went. Honestly, I had no idea what it was about except for the blurb in the school newspaper. I knew that this girl gets stuck in an elevator with an introverted accountant and they fall in love, but that was it. The play has a huge amount of energy and humor, but also a fair share of risque and suggestive poses/lyrics/costumes.

It starts off with the main character, Charity, entering Central Park in New York City and having an imaginary conversation with her silent, preening "boyfriend". She falls into the lake, thanks to her boyfriend who steals her money and runs, and she is rescued by half the city. Later we find out that Charity is a dance hall hostess, which seems to me a step short of a call girl.
I didn't realize that the popular song "Hey Big Spender" came from this play and found myself humming it when the play was over. Anyway, all the hostesses launch into "Hey Big Spender" and soon afterward, Charity and some of the other hostesses decide to branch out in life and we find Charity stuck in an elevator with an accountant. (They were both going to a support group of some kind). The second act meanders the same exuberant way the first act does, but ends in kind of head-scratcher. The production quality is good, given the amateur nature of a university play. The dance numbers were well done, especially "Rich Man's Frug" which was extremely stylistic and well choreographed.

The play is $12 for general admission and $10 for students which is a bit steeper than some of the other plays OSU has done this year. Also, if you can withstand the constant barrage of innuendo and a bit more flesh than is allowed on primetime TV, then you can make a fun night out of this play. Overall, however the play loses a star on it's 2.5+ hour run time, as some things could have been cut. Some racy dialogue could have been spared as well. As is, the play is somewhere between PG-13 and R, so... PG-16 maybe.

Rating: ***

Review: Hall's Lemon-Honey Cough Drops

Living with someone usually mean you share a lot of things. Including illness. My wife came down with a sore throat and plugged up ears and nose on Tuesday. Within 24 hours I had caught the "crud" as our family doctor calls it, as well. It seemed to be just a head cold with a sore throat. To remedy the discomfort, we turned to Hall's Cough Drops.

Hall's could afford to scale back on the menthol taste, but I know that's what provides instant relief. My nagging cough actually decreased in frequency once I had the logenze in my mouth, but I noticed that it worked only as long as it's in there. After about 15 minutes, the menthol taste started to gag me so I threw it out.

I recommend Hall's cough drops, but be prepared for that super menthol blast. Next time I think I'll try the Breezes, which are supposed to be a bit sweeter.

The bag was $1.29 for 20 drops. Generic was $0.99.

Rating: ***1/2