Potpourri For $200, Alex

A few points to make during this post, since I have been away from here for a few days. First off, Mr. Whipple passed away at age 91.

Mr. Whipple was actually a fine actor named Dick Wilson, who appeared in tons of television guest shots over the years, usually in sitcoms playing either a fussy man or a drunk. I grew up with Mr. Whipple, and I think I was off to college by the time he stopped squeezing the damn Charmin in commercials. The story goes that Charmin gave Wilson a lifetime supply of toilet paper, and for all he did to brand that company and make its name in the public eye, he surely deserved it.

For some reason, the Washington Post did a fairly lengthy article on MANNIX, the fine private-eye series that debuted on CBS in 1967--forty years ago. I didn't realize MANNIX had such a rabid fanbase, though I watched it religiously on TV Land back in the '90s. It's a terrific show that needs a DVD release. Since CBS/Paramount seems to be having success with its MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE season sets (Season 3 is out this week), perhaps they'll put MANNIX out there too.

Waiting on my front porch today was a large box filled with more trashy mens' adventure paperbacks. Including postage, the books were 50 cents apiece--80 for $40--so how could I say no? I'm running out of places to stack them. Yikes. I'll have another review up soon. I actually read John Whitlatch's THE JUDAS GOATS, but I decided not to review it. Coming up is the first of six Dirty Harry novels I own. Yep, Warner Books released a dozen or so Dirty Harry novels in the early 1980s, just before SUDDEN IMPACT came out.

I'm having bad luck with my new leather jacket. I bought it online from Casual Male XL, but it was a size too big. So I took it back to the store here in Champaign for an exchange. They didn't have any in stock, so I had to turn the jacket in for a refund, then go home and reorder the jacket in a smaller size on the Web site. I don't know why I couldn't order a new one at the store, but anyway. The real problem is that they "couldn't" refund my money right away, even though I used a debit card to pay for it. It seems as though it would be easy to replace the money in my account within a day or so, but, no, it takes two "billing cycles," which means it could be up to a month before I get my refund.

So I have now paid for two leather jackets. However, Friday night, the damn zipper got all jammed up, so I had to take the second jacket back too. For some reason, they told me at the store that they would take the jacket back, and Casual Male XL would mail me a new one in two days time--actually Friday, because of the Thanksgiving holiday. If they could take back a damaged jacket and send a replacement right away, why couldn't they do the same with a jacket that was the wrong size? At least that one, they could have resold right there--hung it up on the rack--because there's nothing wrong with it.

Time to watch CHUCK.