On the left: 16 ounces of Wonderful® pistachios, purchased at Whole Foods for $10.79.
On the right: 16 ounces of Wonderful® pistachios, purchased at H.E.B. for $8.49.
Same amount of nuts. The only differences are the price and the size of the bag.
I spent most of today planning a method to prevent my companyʼs web sites from going down in certain circumstances.
I feel ya, H.E.B.
Considering the state of the Randallʼs (Albertsonʼs) and Kroger stores in my neighborhood, Iʼm not surprised that H.E.B. canʼt keep up with demand.
Seriously, how is it possible that every time I go into Randallʼs, itʼs out of milk?
If a supermarket comes out with a new flavor of ice cream named after the sportsball club that plays a few blocks away, Iʼm required to eat it, right?
It turns out this is a quality product. Very pronounced flavor. And in what may be a first for store-brand anything, I think it might actually have too much going on inside.
Tech people know that search is hard. But itʼs not this hard.
A search for “Cheddar cheese” at H.E.B. shouldnʼt show me mascara.
Thing nobody asks at a store anymore:
“Paper or plastic?”
…Until today. Today I noticed that the check-out people at H.E.B. ask shoppers if they want paper or plastic bags. Itʼs like Iʼm in the 1980ʼs!
Itʼs nice that H.E.B. gives you a choice. If you have a pet and need poop bags, you can choose plastic, and re-use a plastic bag instead of buying new bags. Or, if you donʼt want to kill sea turtles, you can choose paper, since theyʼre made from trees, which we can make more of.
Itʼs possible to make moisture-resistant paper bags. Perhaps that should be the default so we can both bag pet nuggets and save the planet.
When H.E.B. says the grocery delivery person is 17 minutes away, thatʼs how I know he's standing outside my door unloading his cart. It's always exactly 17 minutes. I get the text message, look for the cat acting up, and can see the shadow of the delivery person outside my door.
Consistency is a good thing. And “consistently wrong” is a type of consistency, right?
An object can be both well done, and not good at the same time. To wit: “Holiday Stuffing” favor potato chips from H.E.B.
The San Antonio supermarket chain has leapfrogged pumpkin spice season and landed firmly in the fuzzy, nostalgic quagmire of Thanksmas season.
Opening the bag, I took my usual deep breath of snackmosphere to preview what was ahead, and I nearly gagged. It really does smell very much like Stove-Top stuffing. It also tastes more like stuffing than a lot of brandsʼ actual boxed stuffing does these days.
So H.E.B. gets an A+ for execution, because when someone said “make stuffing-flavored potato chips,” someone else made it happen. But as food goes, itʼs just not good, because when you eat it, you expect one thing and get another.
Iʼll still finish the bag, though. And let the “Holiday” term slide because stuffing is traditional for both Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I havenʼt lived in Texas long enough to consistently remember that some items in the supermarket are cheaper if theyʼre labeled in Spanish.
For example, here are two packages of bulk pumpkin seeds from H.E.B. The ones I bought on the 17th were the Spanish-labeled ones and cost $6.98 per pound.
A week later, I bought more pumpkin seeds, but accidentally got them from the English-labeled bin, so I ended up paying $7.98 a pound.
I initially noticed this while in the store because the two bins are near one another, which is why I picked the Spanish ones last time.
I suppose there are plenty of ways to get all angry and political about this, but Iʼm not. I find it amusing, and yet another one of the quirks of living Lone Star.
H.E.B. makes web developers sad.
If your local supermarket carries soda made from cacti, you might live in Texas.
If your local supermarket sells chicken feet labeled “Chicken paws,” you might live in Texas.
This is pretty much the most Texas thing Iʼve seen today.