Today, upon receiving an invoice from Digikey, one of my parts venues, I was slapped with a lovely surprise: Sales Tax.  I had not ordered from them in a while, but got smacked with a nice 7 dollar sales tax on my latest parts order from them! (I am used to this when ordering from Mouser, out of Ft. Worth here in Texas, and expect it).  I’m not sure what arbitrary number they were using for their calculation, but it sure wasn’t Texas sales tax!

I called their sales office, and they stated that they have started doing that for all orders, internet and otherwise.  I didn’t go into it with the sales representative, but it would seem to me that this violates a very clear cut clause in the U.S. Constitution,  the so called “Commerce Clause”, Article I, Section 8, Clause3, which states:

“The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;”

To my knowledge, Digikey has no offices or corporate entities outside of Thief River Falls, Minnesota.  Also, I don’t believe that there were any Congressional Bill’s written into Law in the last year either, and certainly no Constitutional Amendment’s reversing the above stated.

This leads to a very important question: How can Digikey justify charging me Minnesota sales tax when I am a Texas resident not even close to Minnesota when my order is placed?  How about my Canadian readers?  Do they charge sales tax for you too?  I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

Tax was the only thing keeping more of my orders going to Mouser, and if this is the case, I may have to start using them more, since the only toss-up I will have then is speed of shipping.  That being the case, I really can’t argue with getting it next-day from Ft. Worth, Texas, even at Ground rates!

Like everyone else, I have been roped into looking at Circuit City’s liquidation deals (or the lack thereof).  I walked in there with a basic need of finding a good deal on a Canon Rebel XSi for the upcoming storm chasing year.  Even with 30 percent off, it’s still what I can get it for online.  Oh well.  Those who know me will definitely remember that I am always looking for the deals and hardly ever pay close to retail for anything.  What can I say, if I wore corduroy pants I would start a fire.

What I did come across that made the trip worthwhile was their “fixture” table.  This is where they were selling off bags of screws, hardware, and the likewise from their car audio installation shop, and other general odds and ends from around the office.  For a total of ten dollars, I bought roughly a 500 count of screws in a bag used for mounting speakers in boxes ($4), a bag of 4 speaker terminals ($5, maybe that was a little high in retrospect), and an HP Jetdirect 175x with no power supply for $1.

Immediately after returning home, I opened the bag containing the print server.  To much dismay, there was a special DC input that none of the 100’s of power supply bricks in my designated cardboard box would fit.  Perhaps I would have to break down and buy a replacement…..

All prices for replacements were in the neighborhood of $27 dollars after price and shipping.  Still better than a brand new unit at $129, but you all know I wasn’t about to go out like that either!  I remembered the Jetdirect print server I took out of service a few years ago (I don’t throw anything away, and don’t think I payed one red cent for this print server, either).  It worked well, but I no longer had printers with parallel ports so it ceased to be of use.  Whatdya know….years of production apart, and a quick Google search confirms the power supply part numbers match!  Only I could be so lucky……

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Now I have a functioning USB print server, for $1.

By the way, for those of you looking to eventually take advantage of Circuit City’s liquidation prices, they change them every Thursday morning.  I’m not sure whether they make them higher or lower at this point, but I thought I would relay that piece of knowledge nonetheless.

Today, while looking through the “As seen on TV” isle at Walgreens, my wife and I purchased one of those PediPaws nail trimmers for our dogs.  Her cordless Dremel tool had gave up the magic smoke a few months ago and she had been using my variable speed model to sand the dog’s claws down after they were trimmed.  The product, as advertised, claimed to trim the nails without needing to clip them first, which caused splinters.  I was a little leary, but was $19.95, and took two C cell batteries, so we gave it a try.  In short, I am taking it back because it is one of the biggest pieces of crap I have ever seen.

Alex doesn’t like it either:

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Taking it out of the box, I quickly noticed that it’s a cheap knock off of the Dremel rotary tool with a bigger sanding disk attachment and a plastic “guard”, or “gauge” that the nail to be trimmed slides in to.  I also quickly realized that it’s a cheap plastic case with the kind of DC motor you find in really bottom end toy cars at Radio Shack.

Moving on, I put a fresh set of C cell batteries in it and turned it on.  Seemed to be working.  We tried it on one of Alex’s nails and the tool immediately pulled his nail in between the guard and the rotating sander, stopping the motor.  Can you see where this might cause harm to a  small dog, especially if it rips a nail off altogether?  We thought maybe it was because he was so small, that he may not have been the target audience for the tool, so we tried it on Teddy, who is a 20 pound Lhasa Aapso.  Teddy had recently had a bath, and had his nails cut, but they still hadn’t been filed down because of the non working Dremel tool.  As soon as we put one of his nails in, the motor completely bogged down.  If this was the case just trying to sand the edge off of a nail, I seriously doubt it would be up to the job of completely trimming a dogs toe nail.  Now before you say anything, my wife has groomed dogs professionally for ten years, and I seriously don’t think this is a case of us not knowing what we are doing.  In fact, I would definitely call her an expert.

Save yourself some trouble for both you and your pets and pass this inferior tool by.  The appealing price does not outweigh it’s uselessness, nor does it make your pet getting hurt a justifiable alternative.  Get a dremel tool with a sanding disk, or, have the vet trim them.  I think I will exchange this for one of those “Pro Caulk” tools and see if that is worth it!

Addition:  I just found out that Amazon sells an actual Dremel “Pet Nail Grooming Rotary Tool” for $21.84 with Super Saver (Free) shipping.  That seems like a deal to me.