Lazy Man and Money

  • Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • What I’m Doing Now
  • Consumer Protection
    • Is Le-vel Thrive a Scam?
    • Is Jusuru a Scam?
    • Is Beachbody’s Shakeology a Scam?
    • Is “It Works” a Scam?
    • Is Neora (Nerium) a Scam?
    • Youngevity Scam?
    • Are DoTERRA Essential Oils a Scam?
    • Is Plexus a Scam?
    • Is Jeunesse a Scam?
    • Is Kangen Water a Scam?
    • ViSalus Scam Exposed!
    • Is AdvoCare a Scam?
  • Contact
  • Archive

Military: Free Applebee’s Tonight… Maybe…

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 9 Comments

UPDATE: I want to take a minute and thank Patrick Lenow, Executive Director, Communications of DineEquity, Inc. (parent company of Applebee’s), for commenting and setting the record straight about this promotion being a trial. This post probably reflected some portion of my feeling that the sour grapes of seeing one city having 3 restaurants to choose from and my region having no option in a 250 mile radius. The other part of it was seeing the excitement generated by an e-mail chain forwarded around an the office where no one could take advantage of it.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, Applebee’s is giving back to military active duty and veterans. Tonight you can go to Applebee’s and pick up a House Sirloin, hearty Riblet Basket, Fiesta Lime Chicken®, a Quesadilla Burger or Oriental Chicken Salad with sides for free.

Mike Archer, President, Applebee’s Services, Inc. said, “It’s an honor to host an event that helps the neighborhood come together and say thanks to our veterans and active servicemen and women.”

So why do I have the word “maybe” in the title?

Applebee’s is having this promotion in select locations only. There are 164 locations, but only about 12 states are represented and more than half of the participating restaurants are in Virginia or Wisconsin. My entire state of California has one participating restaurant… about 300 miles away from where I live. However, if you live in Yuma, Arizona you can take your pick of three participating Applebee’s (the only ones in the state).

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this promotion seems a little crazy. Is Applebee’s saying that some neighborhoods are not worth getting people together? Are they saying that it’s only worth honoring some of the military? This promotion is getting spread like wildfire through email. I bet thousands of families miss the fine print and show up at their Applebee’s only to find out that their location isn’t participating. I’m betting some of the families will end up eating there because they promised it to their children and families. I’m pretty sure it’s not Applebee’s plan, but I wonder if they make as much on these new customers to offset the free food they are giving away.

I just hope it doesn’t backfire on them, because if I had gone to my local one and found that they weren’t participating, I’d be a pretty upset customer.

(Let me head off one comment right away… I realize that Applebee’s is a franchise and each one may be owned by individual people. Each one can run their business how they like. That doesn’t make the end result any better. If Applebee’s can get every restaurant to agree on their 2 for $20 deal, they should be able to pull this off for one night.)

Filed Under: Random thoughts Tagged With: active duty, applebee, fiesta, free food, gift horse in the mouth, lime chicken, mike archer, oriental chicken salad, participating restaurants, quesadilla burger, state of california, veteran, wildfire, yuma arizona

The Worst Gifts We Have Ever Gotten

October 9, 2008 by Lazy Man 34 Comments

Sometimes I have an idea for a particular article and I have think twice, before broaching the topic. Today, I thought about it four times. What kind of ungrateful turd I must be to talk about getting bad gifts! I firmly believe in not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Still, we have gotten a collection of gifts over time that have lead to more stress than if we hadn’t gotten the gift at all. With Christmas coming before you know it, I thought I’d share with you these gift-giving traps and the lesson I’ve learned for the gifts I give out.

Before we get started, you should know that my wife comes from an Irish Catholic family. Apparently there’s some kind of tradition that says you must display every gift you’ve ever gotten. If the gift-giver comes by to visit and doesn’t see you using, displaying, wearing the gift you might as well attacked their mother with a tire iron.

  • The Gift That Keeps on Taking – We once got a very nice print of a place that is near and dear to our hearts. Sadly, we already had an extremely similar print from a slightly different angle. I give the gift-giver a pass on knowing that we already had the similar print – I can’t remember if we had it displayed at the time. Two hundred dollars in framing cost later, we had something that was very much what we had before. A $50 gift ended up costing us $200.
  • The Gift That Can’t be Returned – Our friend actually received this gift. It was an engraved picture frame. Whether it suits your sense of style or not, you are going to have that forever. You can’t put it on Ebay. At least the picture frame is timeless. Woe be the person who receives an engraved iPod. If you want to sell the old one and upgrade in a few years, you’ve got a bit of a problem.
  • The Figurine Or Anything from the Hallmark Store – Someday, you’ll read about an arson at a Hallmark store, and you’ll wonder where my wife was at the time. As a Patriots fan, I’d like to build a time machine and go back to stop Archie Manning from procreating… well, she’d take the time machine and stop the Hallmark store from ever existing. The biggest complaint we have here is that the items perform no function. They may look cute, but we’d rather have a minimalist design. After awhile you just get to a point where you have too many things to display.
  • Assuming That You Like Something – I don’t know how to explain this other than to tell a story of a grade school friend of mine. He got a Garfield stuffed animal when he was little. Someone else saw it, said, “He must like Garfield. I’ll get him a poster.” Now he had a poster and a stuffed animal. Fast forward two years and he’s go at least 15 Garfield things around his room. I said to John, “I can’t believe I didn’t know you liked Garfield this much.” He replied, “I don’t.” Similar thing happened to me when I made an off-hand comment about how ridiculous it is that Bananas in Pyjamas is making someone rich. One joke gift lead to 4 people getting me Bananas in Pyjamas in a quick two years.
  • The Misplaced Gift – This is a rare one and I wondered if we are one of the few people who suffer it until I heard a friend mention it the other day. We have relative who got us this beautiful set of stoneware dishes. Awesome, we love them. The relative had the company ship it to her home in Massachusetts and she gave them to us when we were there. The problem is that we live in California. It costs almost as much ship the item as it cost to buy to the first place. Wouldn’t you have just shipped the gift to the person’s house? In this case, I guess not.

I really don’t mean to bitch here. I know how that’s how it’s going to come out. However, if it really is the thought that counts, it would be nice if people put a little more thought first. That said, here are a few more tips:

  • Use Registries – If someone has a registry set up use it. My mother-in-law would sooner punch a baby in the face that use a registry because she feels it’s impersonal. It’s why the gift giver goes through the work of creating one. It’s better than the alternative.
  • Use Gift Cards – I’ve mentioned before that there’s a reason why I buy people gift cards. This is one of them. Yes, they have their drawback from good old cash, but they are still better than risking any of the mishaps above. The only exception is getting a gift card to the Hallmark store – it’s just asking to be re-gifted. Consider Amazon gift cards. If your giftee can’t find something to buy from Amazon, that person is plain weird.
  • Give Something Consumable – I think some of the best gifts we’ve gotten are wine, dinner gift certificates, tickets, etc. I like to call these, “experience gifts”, though they must have a better name. You have fun, create a memory, don’t have to display something in your home. It’s fantastic all around.

What do you think? Please share your own bad gift story in the comments so I don’t look like the biggest excrement tunnel in the world.

Filed Under: Dumb Purchases Tagged With: bananas in pyjamas, garfield, gift horse in the mouth, gifts, hallmark store, irish catholic family

As Seen In…

Join and Follow

RSS Feed
RSS Feed

Follow Me on Pinterest

Search The Site

Recent Comments

  • Joe on The Kids Are Doomed!
  • Joe on Summer Vacation 2023: “Rhode” Trip to Pennsylvania
  • Lazy Man on Running Out of Life
  • Dividend Daddy on Running Out of Life
  • Lazy Man on Summer Vacation 2023: “Rhode” Trip to Pennsylvania

Please note that we may have a financial relationship with the companies mentioned on this site. We frequently review products or services that we have been given access to for free. However, we do not accept compensation in any form in exchange for positive reviews, and the reviews found on this site represent the opinions of the author.


© Copyright 2006-2023 · Perfect Plan Publishing, Inc. · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · A Narrow Bridge Media Design