Prepac King Sized Platform Storage Bed Model # BK-8400-3K Look, it’s a lovely bed; we built it, took us 6-8 hours, we only had a few minor injuries, none requiring the emergency room, and we slept in it and it’s wonderful. ... However ... the LOL claims she read online reviews, which must’ve been phony, because they contained no obscenities relating to the “slats” stage.... In “Step 21” page 14 in my manual, we are advised “This Step easiest with 2 People”. ... I would add, one of them better be Harry Potter! ... Like in one of those cartoons, where the magician makes all the dishes wash themselves, fly up in the air, and fling themselves into the pantry neatly stacked? ... There are twelve slats in step 21, and they each and every one must wind-up with the bottom in a metal channel on the bottom of the bed, and the top in another metal channel in the top of the bed. ... If you can perform this feat without foul language, no matter how many people you have helping ... well shame on you for lying.... The Inner Gables... Also, don’t believe it where the instructions say “Attach ’T’ spacers to ONE side of each inner gable” — p 8, step 6a. ... Or subsequent illustrations which don’t show gliders on both sides. ... There are supposed to be T-spacers and gliders on both sides — for both sides of each drawer to glide on! ... Stupid me, but the instructions do have that “ONE”; and I probably figured they were going to do it later for some reason or something. ... And we did do it later; when it was considerably more difficult. ... Oh Oh finally I see! There is a step 6c “Repeat steps 6a & 6b for the 2nd side” you idiotic dolt! ... Jeez it’s all so obvious!... The Magical JRN Nuts And while I’m here whining, I believe the JRN nuts first entered our lives with Step 4, page 6. The instructions say you’re supposed to insert them in the prepared holes in various parts of the bed. ... The trick is, they then immediately fall out.... We had to wait until we were actually going to screw the things, and then insert them, however inconvenient that might be. ... I found that using Funtak (chewing gum, etc.) was necessary in at least one case; i.e., I sort-of “stuck” it in with the Funtak, so it wouldn’t immediately fall out. ... Scotch tape, also.... — the bed makers Monday, August 3, 2009 4:25 pm

ASUS EEE PC 900 16 GB GOOD I must admit, I bought the Asus “netbook” in BestBuy without thinking about it much: it was so cute (tiny!), and only $250! ... I didn’t realize until I left the place it had a mere 16GB hard drive! ... But that’s flash memory, and the result is quite zippy and seems to work good. ... And I’m an old MSDOS kind-of guy; I wouldn’t use Word2009.7 without torture. ... And speaking of torture, of course the Asus is XP, no stinking Vista. ... So I stick with Word95 and other elderly programs, + OpenOffice 3 — less than half a gig! — and get along fine.... BestBuy on the other hand, was a typical American retailer, that is only a little short of openly-gangster thugs. The trick to buying things there, I found, is to not care — which, in this case, I didn’t really. ... I told a young man that I would buy the computer if he would sell it to me. He said he would try to get to me after dealing with his current customer. So we walked out of the store, gaily chatting, concerned with naught.... But then a mysterious adult came up the aisle behind us, asking loudly “Can I help you with something?” Eventually I inquired if he was talking to me — I was genuinely uncertain — and he said yes, and, realizing he must be “following-up” the mysteriously-busy youth, I explained how I told the young man I would buy the computer if they would sell it, and he said he had to deal with another customer, so I took that as a “no”. ... So the adult went into the “good cop” routine, about how terribly sorry he was, oh please wouldn’t I come back and try to get scammed again. ... Ever-cooperative, we returned and the adult deputized a young man to sell me the computer. ... But the young man had to find it “in stock”, and I had a sad feeling that wasn’t going to work out well and they’d have to sell me a more expensive but oh so much better laptop, so I assured him it was fine and if they didn’t have it, they shouldn’t sell it to me! — and by golly what do you know!? there it was all the time! ... After turning-down a genuinely-unintelligible add-on scam offer, probably the usual service contract? — I think the youth was rattled at this point — I paid and left. Lessons Learned I had never realized the “let me finish with this customer” shtick was a scam! Really! I just assumed it was average American “I can’t be bothered” incompetence! ... I am such an innocent. ... The idea, I realize now, is to create tension in the victim, so he wants wants wants to buy. ... The sales thugs are trained to try and draw him out with endless delays as far as it’ll go, which softens him up for the inevitable bait ’n’ switch attempt, so much harder to resist after an hour and a half of pointless delay. ... I should note my innocent midwestern appearance may arouse this behavior here on sunny Long Island — but who knows?... TOSHIBA SUX At least when they sold this Toshiba Satellite u205-S5057 laptop a while ago. It’s a short story: we were promised an XP “downgrade” — as it was still called in those days — and Toshiba reneged. It may have been that 4-1/2 hours on the help line would’ve gotten the upgrade, or it may have been just so sad that we didn’t order in time for the upgrade even ’though it said “XP” on the invoice, or it may have been that a Giant Monopolistic Software Company bribed rebated Toshiba to force Vista on the innocent public. I found one or two individuals on the web who claimed to have achieved XPness with this machine, but none would explain how. ... And life is so short.... The point being, not necessarily that you should never buy a Toshiba but that, if you were thinking of preferring them to Acer or Asus, say, because Toshiba is such an established reliable brand name — don’t bother. ... Pay the money, return the machine if it’s broken, and don’t expect anything else....