A vegetable in a bag of candy

When I first heard about Ann Curry leaving the Today show for maybe unfavorable reasons, I was pissed. She's a great veteran journalist. Racism, sexism, Matt Lauer, etc. were all running through my head as possible reasons for her leaving. 

But then I watched this video of an interview of Curry with Forbes last year. I get it. She is sad to leave the show because she thought she could make a difference. She thought that she could make news about NEWS again. That she could give the viewers a few light segments on cooking and fashion and then sneak in the necessary, healthy bits about Darfur or women's rights. With Today Show ratings slipping, NBC decided to make a change. Morning news is a little more bubblegum and trix without her.

She was a vegetable in a bag of candy. 


I hope she does still reach people in her new role. I know I'd be happy to watch her.

Remember, folks: its all about the ratings. We vote with our money, our time and our attention. If you believe in reality TV shows that feature hidden cameras and obstacle courses, sure, vote for that. But if you believe in educating the public, keeping politicians transparent and making a difference for the underprivileged or underrepresented, make sure your attention, your time and your money reflect that. 


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Oh My WORD!


Less than 2 minutes after I clicked "post", I saw this:

via, originally seen here

"Carbon dioxide emissions are not just warming up our atmosphere, they're also changing the chemistry of our oceans. This phenomenon is known as ocean acidification, or sometimes as global warming's "evil twin" or the "osteoporosis of the sea." Scientists have warned that it poses a serious threat to ocean life. Yet major American news outlets covered the Kardashians over 40 times more often than ocean acidification over the past year and a half."

Sweetjesuswearedoomed.

Flip-It Friday: Public Postal, Private Postal?

When I go to the local post office near my work, I usually shuffle at the door to find all of my letters, addresses and rehearse in my head what I want ("signature required; no there's nothing liquid, flamable or potentially hazardous in this box; have it arrive by Saturday"). I need to be prepared when I get to the front of the line cause I get one shot to make this go smoothly.

I've seen men storm out of line, frustrated, and women raise up their hands in disgust.

Customer Lady: So you're telling me that I can't ship this because you're out of the priority boxes?
Sassy Postal Lady: You can ship it, but you'd need to buy one our out boxes.
CL: But I already reserved one of your priority boxes online. You are supposed to have it. I paid for it.
SPL: But we're out.
CL: What is your back-up plan then?
SPL: Ma'am you can buy one of the boxes that we do have or you can have a box shipped to you from usps.com and then bring your materials back in another time.
CL: You're telling me I'd have to go home and have the shipping materials SHIPPED to me?!
SPL: Yee-ah.
CL: Can I talk to your manager?!
SPL: They're not in.
CL: What's your name then, cause I'll be calling in to report this lack of service.
SPL: You can read can't you? My name's on my name tag!

So you can see that I must not mess up when I get to the head of the line. There are only two old, hardened black women working at this branch at any time - and only one when the other's on lunch - and they don't take shit from anyone. They actually don't take anything from anyone. I'm scared to buy stamps.

Too bad you can't get the right size priority boxes at a branch... ever.

So, why is the government in charge of the post office? I can understand why vital records, the DMV and other heinously bad customer service offices are under the government umbrella, but why the mail?! It becoming obsolete and although I love sending mail (and getting it!), I hate the post office.

If the free market were allowed into first class mail, what would happen? Would it deteriorate or would it gain some competition and would customer service improve?

Help me predict the future:

What would happen if we privatize the USPS?

Common Sense Wednesday: Don't Get Taken

If you do get taken by some international thugs, let Liam Neeson help you, cause I certainly can't.

What I can help you with is this: being "taken" by some seemingly good deals that aren't. Learn from my pain.

1) Select Comfort Sleep Number beds. It's an air mattress! My roommate (yes, mom, we're still married, but I don't like the term "husband") and I got a king-sized sleep number bed when we got married. We were looking forward to all of the space and were capitalizing on a good deal they were running. The bed was big and cheap(er) - if you count a $3,000 bed cheap :( Compared to the normal pricing and financing, it was cheaper. What it was not, however, was comfortable. The thing had chambers of air to allow for each side of the bed to have different firmness. This meant that we were sleeping on two separate air mattresses pushed together under one foam mattress pad. Think the 50's a la Lucky and Ricky.


via

Not only were we separated by ballooning mattress bladders (that's what they called them too, bladders), but there was a foam ring around the bed to support all of the air displacement and try and make you feel like you weren't at summer camp or a sleep over.

The icing on the cake? The fact that Sleep Number made you keep this awful mattress a full 30 days before scheduling a return, but a return had to be processed within 45 days. They give you a 15 day window to return in, in which they are hoping your forget or slit your wrists on a sleepless bender.

The cherry on the cake? They charge you to return it. My. Word. You can look into shipping it back to them yourselves, but it's a laborious task and costs just as much as their fee. (Deep breaths. I am getting re-heated over this...)

The roommate/husband and I had them haul this thing away and we bought ourselves a proper king sized bed - a premium one too - for less than we paid on this joke.

2) Blooms Rewards. When I started writing these unsolicited reviews, I was only mildly pissed at Blooms Rewards. Now that a day has past and more of their unscrupulous deeds have surface, I'm ashamed to have bought my mother's birthday flowers through this company. (Sorry mom, love you!)

Anyway, Blooms Rewards is a flower website where you can order a variety of bouquets under the assumption of getting a really good deal through a coupon code. Coups are so in right now, so I thought "why not?" Well, the reason "why not" lies in the fine print.


Via their damn website that I will not put a link to here. So there. Take that.

Whether the fine print was there or not, I did not see it. I ended up signing up for a membership that charges my credit card monthly (legit and understandable) and also being signed up for an identity theft service (ironic!?) that I didn't know about (not legit and should be illegal). We ended up canceling that credit card number and getting a new one from the provider instead.

I'm about 30% embarrassed that I fell to a scam, 20% mad that scams like this exist and 30% mad that didn't read the reviews before entering my credit card info. (What? That's only 80%? Well then, I'm also 20% hungry.)

Moral of the story? Read the fine print. Or, if you are too lazy/busy/like everyone else, then read reviews online. Chances are, we could have avoided these two scams (in our opinion, Sleep Number beds are a scam) by seeing what other consumers thought.