I have a love/hate relationship with The Economist. I love the way it covers the world and gives me a non-US perspective; I love the witty writing; I love the culture and science sections; I love the year-end special issues. I hate to skip anything in the issue, and I hate the price ($249/year).
My subscription came up for renewal this week. I noticed that they have a discount for a three-year subscription ($629), so I tried to get that price. It’s easy if you’re not a subscriber yet, but if you are, you have to work through their customer service desk. I tried to do it last night through their Live Chat – I got disconnected three times and gave up.
This morning, the customer service phone line was open, so I called and started my way down the voice menu tree, when I heard “Press ‘1’ if you’re considering cancelling your subscription.” I wasn’t planning to cancel, but I pressed ‘1’ anyway and two minutes later, I had renewed for one year at half-price. It’s just like dealing with the cable company!
We took the Prius back to the mechanic and they put in another new coolant pump (under warranty, so all it cost us was time) – I hope this one is good.
I didn’t have much time to work on restoring the Mac mini; I’m in the middle of copying all of my data (it takes hours). I won’t have much time to deal with it tomorrow, either; we will be walking the Turkey Trot in the morning and joining friends for Thanksgiving dinner later on.