It always irritates me when I see feedback that doesn’t really pertain to the quality of the product they are reviewing or the service they received, like, “I love these earrings. Great quality. However, these earrings are smaller than I would have liked, but they are true to size”. And then mark 3 stars out of 5 because the earrings were smaller than they would have liked, even though they knew the exact size before they purchased them. That’s really not the fault of the product, and I don’t think that they should mark a product down for something like that. If they didn’t like them that small, they should have paid attention, and purchased the larger size. There was nothing wrong with the product itself, as they noted.

PS. I bought a pair of earrings from Blue Nile. I like them.

I was contemplating buying this shirt from anthropolgie, because it looks like something I would wear. However, the political tendencies of the the owner, Richard Hayne, don’t agree with me. He also happens to own Urban Outfitters. He generally keeps his politics well hidden, and supports only safe causes through his companies, such as breast cancer research. From his clientele and offered merchandise, you might suspect that he was a left leaning, anti-establishment, liberal, hipster type. Instead, I found out that he was a rather conservative republican who obviously understands marketing to the disposable-income-masses. He hires hipsters to find the new trends and set the tone. He has donated around 12k to the infamous has-been senator Rick Santorum. Granted, if you compare this  to his yearly take, 12k looks like chump change. In case you don’t know Rick Santorum was a pennsylvanian senator, popularly known for his anti-abortion, anti-homosexual stances.

Many of the women in my orchestra are fluid and openly lesbian. It’s a great orchestra to be in, because everyone is so warm and welcoming. When we were in florida for the music gala, we happened to pass by an urban outfitters. I started to wonder- would you support a store if you new the founders/ mission statement did not align with yours? Or would you continue to buy stuff because you like the style, regardless of who runs the corporation? I feel like there are many queer/liberal/left leaning folk who shop and work at urban outfitters near my university. I wonder what they think? If they’re aware? And if they are aware, what their justifications are? Something to ponder…

“Unlike any of those computer-generated ‘guessimates’ that you get from the internet, we examine the value of your property accuretly.” (emphasis added)

Well… if they’re as good at property value as they are with spelling, I think I’ll use someone else.

Spelling and grammar on a blog are one thing, but on your business site? You should really have that checked, and rechecked. It makes you look terrible.

Jules and I are trying to take advantage of the internet without a phone line (dry-loop) service that ATT is being forced to offer now. Here are the steps so far:

January 16: Jules calls and switches the plan. They say the current phone/dsl service will be shut off on the 24th. Jules sets up an appointment for the 25th, Friday, for a technician to come by and activate the dry-loop service. Jules and Mike rearrange lives around appointment time.

January 23: Random technician calls Jules and essentially says he’s there to shut off the service. Jules happens to be at home by coincidence and man comes in and does something.

January 24: Internet goes away.

January 25: ATT is a no show. Jules calls and they said there was no appointment for and that the service should be on but there are apparently some phone lines down but they should be up by 4:30pm.

January 26: Mike calls ATT, talks to half a dozen people before he’s told that the tech department looks pretty backed up but they’ll call me (as in the cell phone number that I gave them) within 24 hrs.

January 26: While running errands Jules gets an automated call that says everything is just fine.

January 26: Get back from errands. No internet. Mike calls again, whines for a while. They attempt to transfer me to tech, but they’re closed… it’s 5:50pm.

January 27: Mike calls tech at 9am. They say automated test was a waste of time. We make an appointment for a tech to come out between 4:00-8:00pm on January 28. I am told that I don’t have to be there by 4:00pm. I can delay the appointment when the tech calls to when I’m home.

To be continued…

Update: ATT contractor came, internet restored, peace on earth.

Photo from cuteoverload.com

During “Operation Lucky Bag” the police left shopping bags, backpacks and purses scattered around the subway system. Then they sat back and watched the items. Anyone who took one of the items and then walked past the police officers without reporting it was arrested. These items were valued at a few hundred dollars, at the most and therefore the “crime” of picking them up was a misdemeanor.

Well that sucks. Although, with all the ‘look out for suspicious bags’ warnings around BART, I probably wouldn’t pick up a bag anyway. I might say… “LOOK OUT! SUSPICIOUS BAG!” And then there would be chaos. At the debriefing the chief would ask the officer, “So, why were you putting suspicious bags around the station again?”

Okay that wouldn’t happen. Oh well.

[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished In New York – Total Lawyers]