Fry's sucks. (was: goin to CA soon, to be a CC tychoon

You guys are MUCH too easy on Fry's. Yes, they do suck rocks. Fry's does not have enough competence to "effectively steal". The Fry's staff has a much lower competence level than the MEDIAN of the general populace. It's where people go to work who can't pass the McDonald's written test. It helps if you speak multiple languages, because there are few employees who are really fluent in English. Yes, it is true that the majority of stuff that gets returned to a store isn't really broken. But putting it back on the shelves without testing it is inexcusable. They started off as a grocery store (part of the Fry's grocery chain), that added in a couple of aisles of electronics hobby stuff. Then they got rid of the stuff that hackers didn't want, like produce. In those days, they were great as a one-stop hackers' store - frozen food, candy, soda, aspirin, chips of both types, . . . Years ago, when they sold us dozens of sets of bad RAM for our 5150's, their "tech support" people "tested" them and declared them "good". We explained that they DID NOT WORK in real, genuine OEM IBM PC's. Their "tech support" people thought that OEM was a brand name. Eventually, after several letters of complaint, cc'ed to the editor of Microtimes (Mary Eisenstadt (sp?)), David? Fry himself came to us and replaced the bad RAM. It took my money and didn't give me my soda. But the staff were even less help than it. After more than 20 years as an industry "leader", it wasn't until about a year ago that they finally had enough in-house expertise to even HAVE a website! And don't forget the NOISE level! Try a Saturday afternoon. Do they really need to have a barker WITH AMPLIFICATION peddling washing machines? But we keep going back, because the prices are good, and it is a great experience for tourists. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com