Yesterday I was flipping through the computer books section at my local Barnes and Noble. I found a book on J2ME that looked interesting,(1) picked up a technical magazine and headed to the counter. The sales clerk rang up my order and I walked away.
Something was troubling me, however. The final price just seemed a little too high. Maybe the magazine was one of those absurdly expensive magazines, but I didn't think so. So I compared the price on the book to the price I was charged and so that there was a $5 discrepancy.(2) It took a few minutes but they finally cleared things up and issued me a refund.
This wasn't the first time I have been overcharged recently. On my way home from work on Friday, I picked up some poster frames(3) and a CD from Sam Goody. The cash register overcharged each item by $2. At least in this case there were big red stickers with the correct price on them, so the cashier immediately noticed the problem and corrected it on the spot.
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(1)Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications. I'm hoping this book will give me some insights on using J2ME in some more social network type situations. I have another two J2ME game programming books, which aren't of much help for learning how to deal with XML parsing of RSS feeds, for example. My first impressions remain good. It presents a number of design patterns based solutions but also cautions users to consider simpler alternatives that are less taxing on limited CPU devices.
(2)Actually, now that I check Amazon, they list the higher list price as well. Maybe I picked up an older edition of the book, before the price was raised. Or maybe the data feed from the vendor was in error. In any event, I'm keeping my $5.
(3)Watch for more details on the poster frames in an upcoming post. To find out what I was framing, you can check the comments buried deep in an entry on the forthcoming sister site to 43 Things and 43 Places. Sorry, it's not open to the public yet. I hope you will forget to look for it when the site is finally opened up to a wider audience.
