Google Knows Paris Hilton
I found this on a celebrity-themed blog and it made me chuckle. I know. I know. It’s like I’m 12.
Posts from July 2005
Circuit City = Suckit City
I bought my mom some headphones for Christmas last year from CircuitCity.com. It’s the first time I’ve ever purchased anything from a Circuit City, online or offline. As I always do when I register with a site, I opted out of any marketing emails circuitcity.com might send me. So you can imagine my surprise when I received the following email from circuitcity.com last week (emphasis is mine):
Dear None,
We would like to invite you to join our growing list of customers who receive occasional e-mails from us about sales, special promotions, and information about new technology.
We won’t bury you in e-mails, and if you don’t think they are worthwhile you can easily opt out of future mailings at any time. Our goal is to keep you posted on things that you’d like to know about. Sometimes it’s a new product or technology we’re excited about; other times it’s a sale that can save you real money.
Also, we’re very proud of the fact that circuitcity.com is able to offer you things other sites can’t.
* Shop online and pick it up at your local Circuit City store, or have it delivered to your home.
* Return purchases at any Circuit City store nationwide.
* Make informed buying decisions with side-by-side product comparisons.
* Shop with confidence knowing you’re protected by secure online ordering.
* We now offer over 300,000 movies, music, and game titles.
If you would like to hear from us when we have something interesting to tell you, we’d appreciate the chance to keep you informed. If you’d rather not receive e-mail messages from us, simply send an email from your email address to
mkt_unsubscribe@circuitcity.com
and your email address will be removed from our list as quickly as possible.
Whether you choose to receive messages from us or not, we appreciate your business and look forward to being able to serve you again soon.
Sincerely,
The Staff of Circuit City
I just sent Circuit City this email in response to their “invitation”.
Dear Circuit City,
First of all, I’d like to thank you for rewarding my purchase with you this past Christmas by spamming me, especially after I asked you not to. Of course, you might not have realized that you were spamming me since you seem to have forgotten my name. Hint: it’s not “None”, geniuses.
While we’re clearing things up, why don’t we review the meaning of the word “invite”. Dictionary.com lists the definition as “To ASK for the presence or participation of”. Just so we’re clear, you are not asking me to join your email list. You are TELLING me that I have been put on your email list and that if I want off of it is up to me to do something about it.
I already told you back in December that I didn’t want you to contact me, yet you chose to ignore me. Consider this e-mail my second invitation for you to take me off of your spam list. And when I say “invitation” I mean your style of invitation, not the one the rest of the English-speaking world uses. I’m telling you to do it. Take me off. Now, not “as quickly as possible”.
My $140 purchase last Christmas was my first from CircuitCity.com, and thanks to this “invitation” from you it will be my last. Though you’ve lost a customer, I hope you have gained some knowledge about how people like to be treated. I am a real live person who trusted your business with my personal information and asked you to respect my privacy wishes, not some database record with a null first name value that you had the e-commerce guys export into an Excel table so you marketing gurus could feed it to your spam software.
Maybe one day big stupid companies like yours will learn to stop taking your customers for granted and actually listen to us when we tell you something. It’s a two-way street these days, you know. I’d tell you more about it, but I’m too busy conversing with your competitors right now. They actually listen. They actually know my first name.
Sincerely,
None
Circuit City sucks. Circuit City lies. Pass it on.
Juicy Fruit v. Fruit Stripe
Is there a more pointless chewing gum ever than Juicy Fruit?
I’m not really down with fruit-flavored gum in the first place - though I’ve never been known to turn down a piece of Grape Hubba Bubba or some Wild Cherry Big League Chew - but can Juicy Fruit even be considered fruit-flavored? What fruit is it? What fruit do you know of that’s pasty tannish-gray and tastes like a Fruit Roll-Up and a dog turd had a baby? I haven’t seen this in the produce aisle lately, have you?
Juicy Fruit looks nasty, tastes nasty… it even smells nasty. I don’t understand how anyone could suddenly perk up and say, “Damn, I wish I had a stick of Juicy Fruit. Thirty seconds of semi-sweet barf flavor followed by thirty minutes of chalky aftertaste sure would hit the spot right now.” Disgusting.
JT argues that Fruit Stripe is a more pointless gum, mostly because the flavor only lasts for about 3 seconds in your mouth before you’re chewing on what amounts to a squishy Bic pen cap. I would disagree. What Fruit Stripe lacks in flavor longevity it makes up for in character and pluck. At least Fruit Stripe has some colors to it that resemble the colors of actual fruit, unlike the aforementioned cardboard berry that Juicy Fruit seems to be going for.
Fruit Stripe is also rocking the trippy zebra, Yipes, that has the freaky colored stripes. Fruit Stripe realizes that if you can’t have flavor that lasts a long time, the least you can do is have a mascot with some LSD overtones. Did I mentioned the zebra’s name is Yipes? Good times.
So to summarize: Juicy Fruit sucks. Fruit Stripe has character, and that counts for something.
Now that we have that cleared up, I need to go buy some Wild Cherry Big League Chew.
Joel’s 30th
Since I’m not posting much these days, I figure the least I can do is catch up on my photoblogging. Here are some shots from Joel’s birthday back in May.
Asheville Trip
Since I’m not posting much these days, I figure the least I can do is catch up on my photoblogging. Here are some shots from our trip to Asheville back in May.
Jeff’s 30th
Since I’m not posting much these days, I figure the least I can do is catch up on my photoblogging. Here are some shots from Jeff Day’s 30th over the past 4th of July weekend.
Jamie’s Secret
Not sure how I got on this list. Oh well, having them sent to me will be much less awkward than trying them on at the store. 
