Happy Martin Luther King Day!!
Let’s remember the REAL reason we have OFF today. 
Preparing the stage for the 2009 Holiday Party…
open source video, online video platform, video solution
Posted 9 months, 1 week ago at 1:02 am. 3 comments
Before You Set Your Alarms for Black Friday…
you should know that the odds are stacked against you of actually making a great deal.
I remember when Jonathan was about 7 years old…he was really into those damn Pokémon toys. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving and it was a monsoon – rain every which-a-way. Exhausted from hosting a gathering the day before, I set out at 5am to get these limited edition Pokémon paraphernalia at Toys ‘R’ Us in that freezing rain. I have never shopped on Black Friday in my life (we end up doing the craziest things for our kids, don’t we?) I get there and there’s a damn line under the canopy leading to the store’s entrance. If I were to count, I would say that I was number 88 in line. Well, like everyone else, I waited until 6am when the doors were to open. When they did, I quickly scooted inside (I may have cut 10 people who were walking way too slow for me) and headed for the Pokémon aisle. I get there and see what appears to be a manager arguing with like 20 patrons. All I heard was, “What the hell do you mean the store only carried 5 items???” I quickly looked at my circular and in very fine print way in the corner it states *MINIMUM 5 PER LOCATION. Holy crap – they got me!
Place close attention to those circulars – It will either say “While supplies last,” “Minimum 2 per store,” or “All items are available in limited quantities.”Popular items such as plasma and HDTVs and popular brands of home appliances such as a washer-dryer pair will usually be ONE per store location.
Should you feel cheated? You bet your sweet-ass you should!!
“It’s a sleazy practice,” said Craig Johnson, retailing expert and president of retail consulting group Customer Growth Partners. Advertising a Black Friday deal as “limited quantities” is bogus, said Johnson. “I am old school,” said Johnson. “If a retailer is advertising a juicy deal and they are not prepared to have in sufficient quantity, don’t advertise it. Or give consumers a raincheck.”
That’s another thing that you should look for in these circulars – “No Rainchecks.” So, if they run out (and you know they will with like what, a minimum of a couple of items per store?) you feel like you HAVE to get something to justify your early morning hike to the store, and that’s exactly what they are bargaining for you to do. Even if you are offered a raincheck, it doesn’t guarantee that you will eventually get that elusive Black Friday deal. Consumers can go weeks waiting and hoping, and the retailer may never get more of the product shipped to its stores.
Case in point: Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) has not officially revealed ALL its Black Friday sales. However, the company confirmed that its Thanksgiving deal includes a Samsung 40-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $599.99, “Only while quantities last, minimum three per store, no rainchecks.” AArrgghhhhhh!!!
Such short supply on deals is not only annoying but can also be dangerous to Black Friday shoppers.
Remember that Black Friday Stampede at Wal-Mart that ended with an employee’s death? That happened because so many of the deals were advertised as” limited supply.”
Some retailers are claiming that they plan to handle Black Friday in a better way – better for whom, the consumer or the company? Some say that they are more-savvy this year about their advertisements which means they found new ways into fooling us.
When it comes to electronics, watch out for the “derivatives.” Some of the holiday electronics with those low sale prices are exactly that – derivatives, models that have a few less features than a standard model in that product line. The difference can be subtle. For instance, the image contrast ratio might be 20,000 in a derivative model versus 30,000 in a standard model. What’s worse, most consumers (us) probably won’t even notice the difference.
A report earlier this month in Consumer Reports called attention to HDTV models from Samsung and Sony advertised in Black Friday deals that appear to be “derivatives.” There’s no way the average consumer will know that the TV model they are buying is not the standard one unless they compare their model numbers – who the hell is going to do that in a stampede at 6am?
Don’t get sucked into the line, “You can get that product with the same deal ONLINE.” Big mistake! Manufacturers can’t ramp up production fast enough for online deals. According to Consumer Reports, some customers wait months before their orders are even shipped – some up to 6 months! Others were sold substitute products that were “comparable” of some products but not the ones they were expecting. Since retailers don’t have a live inventory online you run the risk of getting an e-mail weeks later that your order had been delayed or worse, cancelled, because the product is out of stock.
So, before you head out and plan for your Black Friday Wars, know that you may have already lost the battle before you even step a single foot in the store. Evaluate the true meaning of Holiday gift-giving and ask yourself is all this shopping (and spending) is really worth it.
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago at 3:26 am. 1 comment
Do you REALLY know why you are “off” on Memorial Day?
Following the end of the Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. Some of the places creating an early memorial day include Sharpsburg, Maryland, located near Antietam Battlefield; Charleston, South Carolina; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; Carbondale, Illinois; Columbus, Mississippi; many communities in Vermont; and some two dozen other cities and towns. These observances coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Union dead, and the several Confederate Memorial Days.
According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic Washington Race Course (today the location of Hampton Park) in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died in captivity. The freed slaves re interred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to individual graves, fenced in the graveyard and built an entry arch declaring it a Union graveyard. This was a daring action for them to take in the South shortly after the North’s victory. On May 30, 1868, the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they had picked from the countryside and decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the first Decoration Day. A parade by thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers from the area was followed by patriotic individuals.
Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army and also because there were relatively few veterans of the Union Army who were buried in the South. A notable exception was Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866 at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.
The alternative name of “Memorial Day” was first used in 1882. It did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The holidays included Washington’s Birthday, now celebrated as Presidents’ Day; Veterans Day, and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.
After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all fifty states adopted the measure within a few years. Veterans Day was eventually changed back to its traditional date. Ironically, most corporate businesses no longer close on Veterans Day, Columbus Day, or President’s Day, with the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and/or New Year’s Eve often substituted as more convenient “holidays” for their employees. Memorial Day endures as a holiday which most businesses observe because it marks the beginning of the “summer vacation season.”
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 3:00 pm. Add a comment
A New Meaning for President’s Day!
Today, we should honor and do pay tribute to George, Abe, Teddy, and Jack (Bill too) and a couple of more president’s from our young, history’s past (although the day is earmarked for Washington & Lincoln only.) But let’s be honest: President’s Day marked that bonus holiday Monday, that most of us get off from work. It was that extra hotel stay on vacation, that day of shopping, or that day that we caught up on all the movies we wanted to see.
However, President’s Day has a new meaning today, doesn’t it? Now, it’s that day that we all look at each-other and say,
“Barack Obama is our President, can you believe it? In our lifetime? We have someone in that White House!”
(Maaaaaaaaaan, that’s too much…now let’s go to the movies, for reals!)
