Everyone who is anyone must already own a DROID RAZR. Otherwise Verizon Wireless wouldn’t have to market the phone to Id10Ts like this mother and daughter:
Category Archives: Business
Tuesday Twaddle: the Mommy Wars
Timothy Geithner is just the latest Administration mouthpiece to try to convince American voters that the number of women laid off during Mr. Obama’s stewardship of the recession is a ridiculous, meaningless number.
Pfui.
Statisticians know the figures show that George W. Bush likes women while Barack Obama prefers men because all the men were laid off under Mr. Bush; under Mr. Obama, only 7.7 percent of those who lost their jobs were men.
Of course, statisticians also know that fewer workers of any gender would have lost jobs had Obamanation actions not lengthened the recession.
Say Cheese
A short collection of whine.
I needed to replace my clock radio because the buttons have stopped working. The radio plays, the clock tells time, and the alarms sound at the appointed hour but the snooze and the alarm set and the time set buttons all do no more than make satisfying mechanical clicks. They don’t change or set anything.
For Sale: good clock radio for someone on a rigidly fixed schedule who likes to listen to 94.3 FM. Click the Paypal button. ==>
The most amazing online store offered an RCA RC40R Dual Wake Clock Radio with Large Green LED Display by RCA with all the features I want:
Product Features
- Auto time set for seven different time zones, six more than I live in.
- SmartSnooze converts all top buttons as snooze button when alarm has been activated to confuse me when I want to turn the radio back on.
- Dual wake features two different alarm settings for two different users: radio or buzzer and turns off one when the other activates.
- Programmable snooze; Programmable sleep
- Graduwake ramp-up alarm makes waking from a deep sleep easier and annoys the neighbors until you do.
- AM/FM clock radio with a large LED 1.4″ display for clear viewing
- Graduwake Ramp-up alarm eases your awakening
- Programmable Sleep feature plays the radio for up to 2 hours before automatically turning off the radio, allowing you to gently fall asleep to music while your neighbors enjoy techno.
- Programmable snooze feature turns off the alarm or radio for an extra 9 minutes of sleep or for 1-30 minutes
35 customer reviews gave it 3.4 out of 5 stars. Not bad for $19.99. Did I mention it’s an RCA? And that it has a Graduwake ramp-up alarm?
I was about to click the Buy Now button when the most amazing online store piped up that
There is a newer model of this item:
The RCA RC141 Dual Wake Clock Radio costs just $20.89 and is also In Stock.
Product Features
- Automatic time set
- Large 1.4-inch LED display
- FM radio with digital frequency readout
- SmartSnooze – multi-button snooze activation
- Wake to radio or alarm
I’ve seen this marketing technique before in the ice cream wars put less of the juicy stuff in the tub and charge more for it. And the airlines deciding to charge for the overhead compartment space where babies could previously sleep free. Now we’re going to suffer with squalling babies down in the rows with the rest of us.
The optometrist ordered me a new set of specs on my VSP vision plan. It’s a lousy plan but, as he says, “it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
The new replacement glasses arrived a few days after I left so Anne had to mail them to me. They look nice. They don’t look through nice, though.
The optometrist had to send the first set he received back to the vision plan to correct an unspecified error. I don’t know what was wrong with the originals but I do hope the replacements have someone else’s prescription because I can’t see through them. Either the new Rx was ground incorrectly, the pupillary distance is wrong, or the optometrist got the wrong numbers from the refraction.
I’m wearing last year’s glasses as I write this and hoping that the Aviator sunglasses I ordered at the same time are correct. They should be in the mail any day now.
Speaking of shipments, !@#$%^ Comcast has done it again.I spent more than half an hour on the phone with !@#$%^ Comcast because I got back here to find no cable TV. We had a little power outage. Not unusual. Both cable boxes dropped out. I hope that’s unusual. One required reset from their end, necessitating a call all by itself. One would not power back on, necessitating a replacement.
There’s no excuse for that. I told the customer service rep (she offered to send a tech out but said it would cost me $30 to FIX THEIR EQUIPMENT) that I’d better not have to call them every time the power goes out. She didn’t care.
She ordered one shipped. It didn’t come overnight so I was out of service but it did get here. In two boxes. Two very large boxes.
I don’t have a DVR in South Puffin so to “time shift” requires setting up both the VCR and tuning the newly replaced digital box. For a reason I don’t understand I got the Special Audio Program on both Criminal Minds and CSI. The voiceover kept saying this was for blind peeps and I could turn it off except there is no SAP setting on the recorder I used and I don’t get SAP from any live broadcast, either from Dish or Cable on the TV. Both VCRs played it back on the tape though.
I’m thinking it was !@#$%^ Comcast. Good I didn’t order the special X-Ray vision glasses they were advertising, too.
Tuesday Twaddle
H&R Block in Kansas City, Missouri, visited the widely known and vastly respected No Puffin Perspective on Sunday, about a year after I disclosed my findings in a mildly critical report of the operation of their tax program.
Corporate vanity surfing is becoming more common as companies seek to capitalize on (and protect) their brands. I wonder if the H&R Block visitor was an accountant, a webmaster, or simply someone in the office with time on his or her own hands.
They stayed only a moment and apparently had just one page view, so I’m thinking they may not have learned anything. On the other hand, the H&R Block Newsletter – March Tax Tips arrived by email this morning.
<sigh>
A Crane Point Zip Line?
At first glance this is a perfect project! 1.1 million dollars of Other People’s Money! Tourists screaming down a wire behind the galloping spiders and raccoons! 21 new full time jobs!
But wait. There’s more.
“A zip-line (also known as a flying fox, foofie slide, zip wire, aerial runway, aerial ropeslide, death slide, or tyrolean crossing) consists of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline… Zip-lines come in many forms, most often used as a means of entertainment. Longer and higher rides are often used as a means of accessing remote areas, such as a rainforest canopy. Zip-line tours are becoming popular vacation activities, found at outdoor adventure camps or upscale resorts…” 1
The Florida Keys Land Trust’s mission is to save the tropical woodlands called “hardwood hammocks” in the Florida Keys. The Trust purchased 63 acres at Crane Point to save the unique homestead from development, about five years after we moved to the Keys. I don’t think the two events were related. The tropical forest there is home to rare and endangered species, a series of unique archaeological and historical finds, as well as a large thatch palm hammock, a hardwood hammock, a mangrove forest, tidal lagoons, wetland ponds, and the associated animal life.
Unfortunately, money is tight and conservation doesn’t grow on trees.
The Crane Point board wants to install six zip lines starting at the Cracker House and passing over the historic Adderley House and the Crane family’s 1959 home. Riders would zing over the butterfly meadows, the mangroves, and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Board asked the City of Marathon for a $735,000 state Community Development Block Grant and an additional $85,000 Tourist Development Council grant from the County.
The Monroe County Commission last week found a “significant cost discrepancy and heard residents’ concerns” so they tabled the Tourist Development Council grant.
I’m in the “Let’s not zip over the Hammock” category but I’m also in the “Let’s Bring in Some More Visitor Dollars” category.
I reckon that zip lines do indeed fall outside the Crane Point mission of preserving one little sparkling piece of the natural Keys. And there is that nagging little question of scaring the spiders.
If Crane Point wants zip lines, let’s install them over to Survivor Island instead. We could start from 20th Street (which ends at the now defunct Boot Key bridge) or from Sombrero Country Club. Maybe both, to go downhill out to Boot Key from 20th Street, then back to the golf course. I could see zip lines criss-crossing Boot Key itself and then making the long run up the verdant length of the golf course to cross the Overseas Highway and terminate at the Crane Point parking lot. I volunteer to take the first ride!
Let the Land and Sea Trust install and run the thing as a profit center for Crane Point.
We’ll just need to be careful of the dangly bits going over Boot Key Harbor.
See, a saltwater crocodile jumped a Key Largo dock to snatch a 65-pound dog named Roxie last week. The owners heard Roxie bark once. Then they heard a splash. Witnesses who included Florida FWCC officers, estimated the saltwater croc to be at least 10 feet long. It sprang at least four feet out of the water to snatch the mutt headfirst off the seawall.
Oops.