Wanna give me a gift card? Gimme cash instead you thoughtless jerk!

I dislike the concept of the gift card as a primary source of gift giving, because frankly, it screams "I didn't bother to get you a thoughtful gift, so I'm basically giving you money. Except I decided where you're gonna spend that money." As a former Best Buy employee, I can assure you its a win/win situation for the retailer, and not quite so for the customer/recipient of said cards.

The concept is simple, you spend money on this card, which holds that money as credit at the store, and it works just like money. Except, no other retailer will accept it as such. Nor will anyone else for that matter (Unless you're scalping gift cards. Stranger things do happen...) So now you are obligated to spend money at this store, even if they don't carry/have in stock what you want.

What if you want a refund? No such thing for gift cards. What if you lose that card? Guess you lost money. What if the store you have credit at goes bankrupt? SOL sucka.

Which is exactly what's happening as San Francisco-based retailer Sharper Image files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. An estimated $25 million in gift card debt is owed to customers who will possibly never receive either money nor goods, as the retailer is no longer accepting the cards as payment at its stores or online as of this writing. Company reps say "never say never again" as they try to salvage their no-longer-so-sharp image by hinting that maybe, just maybe they will be taking the cards as payment once again sometime in the undefined future. Jesus, I don't have time to wait for you idiots to settle your bad finances. I have enough with my own.

Some retailers, like Brookstone (never heard of it, don't really care...) are offering a 25% discount to those surrendering their Sharper Image gift cards while purchasing goods at their retail stores. Cool, that $50 gift card is now a 25% off coupon. Somewhere else.

Please folks, if you're gonna give anyone anything as "convenient as money," just give them the money. At least that still holds some value until the Euro completely destroys the Dollar. But that's another rant for another day.