Alexandra writes,

I recently grew tired of the daily Staples email I received. Somehow, hot discounted office supplies just weren't doing it for me anymore. I diligently followed the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, and was led to a page that immediately let me unsubscribe. Nice. Once unsubscribed I had the option of selecting why I no longer wanted to be pestered with daily deals on manila folders.

Hilariously, one of these options is "Staples emails are too relevant (feel watched)."

Guess which one I picked? I also wonder if they are gathering any usable statistics from this form. I'd think that it would all be skewed by what I assume (perhaps incorrectly) to be a joke.

(Photo: bdjsb7)

The plaintiff, Mohammad Kazemi, says he never authorized Payless to contact him via text message, but that at least 3 times between September 2008 and 2009 he received promotions from them on his phone.

From the SF Weekly:

Not only is this a pain in the ass, says Kazemi, a San Jose resident, but it's costing people money. Also, it forced Kazemi to read junk like this (repeatedly):

Psst ... Payless Insider, Ur the 1st to know BOGO starts today, 9/29! bUY 1get 1/2 off EVERYTHING 866 746 5923 or END3 to Opt-Out Txt fees apply Not @ Shopko

Complaint for damages and injunctive relief (pdf) [Courthouse News via SF Weekly] (Thanks to Sarah!)

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"Customer Gets Payless To Compensate Him For Text Message Spam"
(Photo: crschmidt)

Apparently, AT&T is quite concerned that less technically savvy potential customers will look at the maps and think AT&T doesn't work in Montana or something.

Verizon has already changed the commercial to include a disclaimer that voice and data are still available in the white space on AT&T's map, and have removed a reference to AT&T customers being "out of touch." This, however, was not enough for AT&T.

From their lawsuit:

By continuing to use a "3G" coverage map in its advertisements, Verizon is still conveying the message that AT&T has no coverage in the white or blank space included in the map, and thus AT&T customers cannot use their phones in large portions of the United States.

You can read the lawsuit here.

AT&T sues Verizon over 'there's a map for that' ads [Engadget]

If you're interested in the deal, here's how it works: You get 60-days to evaluate the car. If you don't like it, you can return it and get the purchase price and the sales tax back. You have to keep the car for at least 30 days, and if you do more than $200 worth of damage to it — or put more than 4,000 miles on it — you no longer qualify.

There are a few more limitations and whatnot — and in all it's pretty clear that returning a car is a hassle. You'll be stuck with the fees from licensing, titling or registration, insurance, dealer installed accessories, aftermarket products or add-on equipment (other than factory options ordered with the vehicle), dealer fees, ancillary products including extended warranties or service contracts, finance charges, etc, etc.

If you're sure you want to buy a GM and don't want this guarantee — you get a $500 cash incentive for opting out— which may just be a better deal than the return policy.

60 Day Satisfaction Guarantee FAQ [GM]
GM Extends Vehicle Refund Program Until January [NYT]

Even milk-covered desert cereals like Lucky Charms, Reese's Puffs, and Cookie Crisp have 3-4 health claims on their boxes, the report finds. And most of the cereals with the lowest nutritional content are still pimp themselves out as being "better-for you" or "Smart Choices."

The cereal companies typically "dual-market." From one side of their mouth, convince parents that it's a healthy and wholesome start to the day. Out the other, tell kids that cereal is a fun game.

Someone should tell these companies childhood obesity is no game. Parents need to make smart purchasing decisions, but regulators need to start taking on these bogus health claims.

Mixed Messages From Sugary Cereal Makers [The Atlantic]
Cereal FACTS:Evaluating the nutrition quality and marketing of children's cereals (PDF) (4-page summary (PDF))

The burger, which apparently has like 2 lbs of meat or something absurd, has been spotted in the wild in Japan and in the US.

Here is a video of a man with a beard eating one. When asked how it is, he replies: "It's delicious. It's like eating an elephant."

So there you have it. According to the YouTube description, the burger is supposed to be only available in Japan, but our hero printed an article about it from Gizmodo, brought it to the restaurant and BK was happy to make one for him. It cost $9.19 before tax.

The network apologized for serving up serving Adobe exploits CVE-2008-2992 and CVE-2009-0927 on its flagship blog by saying simply, "Sorry About That. Our ad sales team fell for a malware scam. Sorry if it crashed your computer." Silicon Valley Insider has the scoop, including the full email exchange between Gawker ad-sales guy James Del and the scammers.

The ad ran for "less than 5 days last week," Gawker's James Del told Threat Level. "This was a very malicious piece of code that seemingly took advantage of unpatched Adobe software, though we don't have details on how exactly that worked. It was not a ‘trick' ad, wherein users were prompted to install something … It simply strong armed it's way through a vulnerability and infected the computer."

Note that while Gawker still hosts us for the time being, they do not serve any ads to Consumerist readers.

Protect yourself while surfing from ads both dangerous or simply annoying by using Firefox with Adblock and Flashblock.

Gawker Scammed By Malware Crew Pretending To Be Suzuki [Silicon Valley Insider]

It's bizarre that Spade, a close pal of Farley's, went along with this. He and DirecTV must have miscalculated the ad as a tribute to a great movie moment rather than a disturbing, insensitive money grab.

Or maybe Comcast put together the ad as a way to drive people away from DirecTV.

DirecTV Profits Off the Dead [The Mep Report]
(Thanks, Russ!)

The problem with this product, of course, is that it's an unholy alliance of three things: preying on women's insecurities about their bodies, remarketing a mundane product for media attention, and advocating that people do something that is extremely unhealthy.

My tin of Linger looked a lot like one of those tins of mints that are given away at trade shows. And guess what? That's what it is. A little digging revealed that Linger is made/distributed by a company called Admints, which just happens to make trade show mints. And the Linger samples just happen to have have the exact same shape, taste, and ingredients as Admint's sample mints. So how does Linger manage to pass off breath mints as vaginal Tic Tacs in $7.99 packs? Despite the salacious creation story and testimonials on its site ("It gets a little warm as it starts to dissolve which took just under an hour. Then, it is SO good!!"), the mint is labeled "for novelty use only."

Of course, the problem with these mints is that it is an exceptionally bad and unhealthy idea to use them in the first place. Unlike many mints made with artificial sweeteners, Admints contains sugar. Sugar in one's lady parts can lead to catastrophic yeast infections, which is why flavored products that are actually designed for lady-parts use find other sweeteners to use.

Femimint Hygiene: Vagina Mints [Mother Jones]
Linger [Official Site]

(Photo: liangjinjian)

The campaign exists to promote the first U.S. Domo DVD.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, check out some shorts (many are—gasp!—Slurpee-related) at Domonation.com. Or just enjoy cute cartoon characters with your coffee. But remember, every time you caffeinate, God kills a kitten.

7-Eleven® Stores Face Total Domo-Nation [Press Release] (Thanks, Joe!)
Japan's Domo Invades 7-Eleven [Adweek]
Domo Nation [Official SIte]

You may notice that this bears a strong resemblance to that stupid Levi's viral video and that stupid Ray Bans video and that stupid Coor's Light video. With this quadtych, I hereby declare using fishing line to yank stuff and then running the film in reverse to make it look like it's thrown an official viral video format.

In a lawsuit filed Sept. 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Amber Duick claims she had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work during March and April of last year after she received e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew her and where she lived, and was coming to her home to hide from the police.

Along with messages from the fictitious man, Duick received a fake bill for damages to a hotel room where the man had stayed.

Toyota's lawyers say Duick agreed to the prank when she filled out an online personality test sponsored by the company, but her lawyer says the agreement she clicked didn't mention anything about the nature of the prank.

Tepper, Duick's attorney, said he discussed the campaign with Toyota's attorneys earlier this year, and they said the "opting in" Harp referred to was done when Duick's friend e-mailed her a "personality test" that contained a link to an "indecipherable" written statement that Toyota used as a form of consent from Duick.

Tepper, said that during those legal negotiations, Toyota's lawyers claimed Duick signed the written legal agreement, which they said amounts to "informed written consent."

"So if [Duick] signed something, she's informed that she's signing 'A,' but in fact she's signing something else," Duick's attorney said. "It's written and it is consent, but you're not informed about the thing that you're actually signing up for? "It didn't say someone was going to be stalking my client. It was premised upon keeping my client in the dark, upon fooling her that these e-mails were real."

Update: Our reader Michael Belisle posted a link to the Toyota Matrix marketing/prank website, where Toyota explains how the prank works.

YourOtherYou is a unique interactive experience enabling consumers to play extravagant pranks. Simply input a little info about a friend (phone, address, etc.) and we'll then use it, without their knowledge, to freak them out through a series of dynamically personalized phone calls, texts, emails and videos. First, one of five virtual lunatics will contact your friend. They will seem to know them intimately, and tell them that they are driving cross-country to visit. It all goes downhill from there. The Matrix integrates seamlessly into the experience and you can follow the progress of your prank in real-time online. Each piece of the campaign assures that the experience is as Google-proof as possible.

"Woman Sues Toyota Over 'Terrifying' Prank" [ABCNews] (Thanks to Steve!)
(Photo: Capture Queen ™)

"Looking at Life as One Big Subscription" [New York Times]
(Photo: Dominic)

We're not sure this will teach Ralph Lauren anything about the Streisand Effect, but it's still fun to see a company mangle its own heavy-handed intimidation tactics.

Update: Our original post said that Photoshop Disasters caved to the takedown notice, but that was incorrect according to several readers. A commenter below writes, "Photoshop Disasters didn't cave - Blogspot policy is to remove the offending post until the investigation is complete. PsD had a post up about it yesterday." We've changed the wording in the first paragraph to more accurately reflect what happened.

"The criticism that Ralph Lauren doesn't want you to see!" [Boingboing]

From the WSJ:

The Web site is just a week old but already has some 88,000 receipt downloads, according to Deacon Webster, chief creative officer at Walrus, the New York-based agency behind the campaign.

He added that the receipts, while remarkably authentic, are not intended to be passed off as the real thing. "If somebody's letting a receipt for $3,000 worth of cyan toner through their department, then we're the last people who'll get in trouble."

The WSJ also says that the restaurant, located near the offices of American Express, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, has replaced their bags with fake ones from cheaper restaurants so the free-spending bankers won't get caught with fancy food.

The restaurants, which were not mentioned by name in the article, have sent cease-and-desist orders.

[Expense-A-Steak]
Can ‘Expense-a-Steak' Save the Restaurant Industry? [WSJ]

"The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that "material connections" (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement."

"FTC to Fine Bloggers up to $11,000 for Not Disclosing Payments" [Mashable via mack005]
(Photo: stopnlook)

That one seems so blatantly horrible that we're sure it must've made it onto FAILblog or some similar site in the past, but there are plenty of undiscovered gems at Your Logo Makes Me Barf, like this disturbingly explicit "Women of H.O.P.E." design:

Or this restaurant sign, which we imagine is located near an intersection with a mysteriously high number of car accidents:

Abuse your eyes at Your Logo Makes Me Barf.

(Thanks to hobronto!)

"In my extensive retail career of 42 years, I have never experienced such difficult times. Tightened credit and economic uncertainty have created the perfect storm of of falling sales... We realize that we must act decisively to raise revenue in an effort to pay suppliers and secure our future."

Anderson says there's more, like promises to provide superior customer service, but we're just surprised that the retailer sent this out in the first place.

The readers at RetailWire are in the retail and/or marketing business and seem to mostly agree that it's not a good way to drum up business. But what do you think? Would you be moved by a "desperate times calls for desperate measures" letter like this?

"Dear Customer: Please Buy Something" [RetailWire] (registration required)
(Photo: feverblue)

"Well It Turns Out That Microsoft Ad WAS A Porno" [Oh Gizmo!]

Let's see, what have we got here? Something from Zappos, but we can't tell if it's a coupon or just an ad. There's a decent RedEnvelope coupon if you use that site. We always tend to ignore coupons for steak and coffee services, or any type of food membership club really. Same goes for flowers, so that rules out FTD. We're thinking the Johnson & Johnson coupon booklet might potentially be the one worth looking into here.

But really, did this pile of leaflets need a box? They could have at least thrown in some free samples. C'mon, UPS! Make with the cereal bars or razors!

Heyo if you help us learn more about you by filling out this quick survey, you get a free 30 day subscription to ConsumerReports.org. No credit card required.

Tell us what your thoughts about Consumerist and what kind of person you are. It's completely confidential and the info will only be used for research and helping Consumerist figure out how to inform and protect you better, not for marketing. So give it a shot and tell us what's on your mind!

(Photo: Lisa Brewster)

The last one on the list shows a mascara ad where the model's mascara weeps, which is a perfect time for me to link to this creepy New Zealand billboard safety campaign where children bleed from their faces when it rains. Please god don't let the hemorrhoid doctor find out about this technology.

"50 Extraordinary and Attractive Billboards " [10Steps.SG via Very Short List]

Beyond the funny pictures and horrifying examples, I stressed the themes of transparency, integrity, responsiveness and humility. Most of all, respect for your customers. (You can watch a portion of my presentation here). To my surprise, it went over really well at the conference. The audience was engaged and enthused and laughing, even though I was slagging them left and right. I felt relieved and elated. I really seemed to be making an impact! Though, the first question afterwards was what were the site's demographics, which should have been my first sign that something wasn't sinking in quite right. Still I was on my little cloud and only grew more encouraged, cocksure, even, by the various conversations I had afterwards on the bus, boat ride, at the dinner, and in the drinking that followed.

Late into the evening, after everyone was thoroughly lubricated and sitting around one of those fancy hotel pools that line Ocean Drive, my new friends started to encourage me to sell my readers' data. Email addresses and tracking cookies and behaviors and so forth could get matched up to user records in one of those massive data places and chopped up and resold to companies for a tidy sum, I was told. They encouraged me to "grab a piece for myself" for all the hard work I had done. Say what? Hadn't they seen the whole series of slides about respecting user privacy and how opt-in was king? Didn't they see the one with the pickpocket and the one with the squirrel who didn't want his data peanuts stolen? Maybe they figured it was all just my "shtick." Maybe they were just so inside the machine that they couldn't fathom anything wrong with their proposition. Maybe they wanted to see how corruptible I was.

In any event, I said I wasn't interested. Some money costs too much. They replied with something like, you are from Mars and I thought, damn right, I'm proud to be a Martian.

RELATED: How Robots Are Killing Customer Service

Windows 7 is indeed launching soon, so we figured you'd want to see this now so you have time to stop by the Party Plus store and stock up on crepe paper—don't worry, you don't have to hang it up, just leave it on the corner of the table—and of course balloons.

Never install a new operating system without balloons.

We suspect that this promo was actually written, directed, and edited by a Songsmith-style software being developed in Microsoft's research division.

"Mainstream Press 'Cringes' At Win7 Launch Parties" [Slashdot]

Consumer Reports tested the "miracle" Heat Surge Roll-n-Glow Electric Fireplace back in March and found it performed the same as a normal electric heater.

The device is currently $349 online, or you can, as the Heat Surge VP told the NYT, get a space heater for $29.99 from a big box store. You can answer for yourself if you the fake fireplace and rollability features are enough of a "miracle invention" to be worth the extra few hundred bucks.

Note: purple scare-quotes photoshopped.

Here is a thread about the logo with 630 (and growing) replies. A few highlights:

"I don't like it."

"yuck"

"Hate it."

"Hate it, as if we aren't reminded enough around here already that Yahoo pays the bills. :/ "

Further along in the thread people started to get creative:

Apparently someone has even written a greasemonkey script to get rid of the logo.

Guess Yahoo! needs to work on its branding...

flickr, now from yahoo! [Flickr]
(Photo:so tacky)

Ian says:

I saw this today at the Shaw's Supermarket in Goffstown, NH. They must have a surplus of hand sanitizers and masks.

Encouraging good hygiene was never so profitable. We wonder how often they have to remove bacon from the display.

Everything from McDonald's burgers and fries to Pizza Hut dishes to candy and soda is sold in public schools, often in lunch rooms. While companies that market to children have adopted guidelines that ostensibly ban in-school food marketing to kids under 12, the rules are ambiguous, to say the least. The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative's Fact Sheet on the Elementary School Advertising Principles [pdf] allows for so many loopholes—marketing on vending machine exteriors, branded display racks, sponsored curricula—that the limits are mostly useless.

Want to support a bill to study food and food marketing in schools? If so, write your Representative using this handy form and ask him or her to support the National School Food Marketing Assessment Act.

Food Industry Seeks to Maintain Junk-Food Marketing in Schools [Center for Science in the Public Interest]

(Photo via The Gifted Photographer)

I recently had my 4th Red Ring of Death, specifically a 0020 Error. What that essentially means is that the internal components to my xbox have been warped to a point that the cheap soldering has broken, and the thermal paste inside the box isnt protecting the GPU enough. As Microsoft states, it's a general hardware failure, one that they refuse to officially identify.

That was the 4th xbox to RROD in my home.

I figured I would try to call Xbox support and see about getting a repair. Well, didn't work out as I planned. I've spent 5 days and 15 hours on the phone, most of them on hold. The first set of guys "Leon", "Mike", and "Vlad" a rep, "Supervisor" and "Manager" respectively, told me that they could not help me as my xbox was apparently out of warranty. I've not owned my 360 that long, I bought mine on Oct. 23rd, 2007. I tried to dispute this fact with them, but I was called a "Stupid American" and was given the brush-aside by being told I would receive a phone call in 24-48 hours to speak with an upper level manager.

Well, it's been several days since that happened. I don't believe xbox is doing the consumer right, so I decided I wanted to find out exactly what was going on around campus. I intend to poll about 1000 people, personally, pertaining to individual xbox 360 failures. With this data, I intend to prove my thesis: It is not a matter of "if," it is a matter of "when." So far, I have about 200 respondants, and of them, I am sitting on a 71% failure rate. 14 students have worked with 3 xboxs, with 4 of them (including myself) working on their 4th box.

My aim is to show that through personal interview, I can get a better understanding of exactly what is going on with xboxs around the country (we are a university after all.)

I'd love to ask more people about their experiences, and when I feel that I have enough data, I plan on working with the Math department to get a good model on three variables "pass/fail test", "length of ownership", and "hours played per week."

If you are an Xbox owner and would like to help Ben with his project, email your name, phone number and a convenient time for a short interview to BenStrauss {at} sinsandsaints dot org.

RELATED: Xbox 360 Failure Rate is 54.2 Percent, Game Informer Finds
(Photo: tubbynj)

"A Campaign With an Edge" [UglyDoggy via AgencySpy]

According to 9News, VisitDemark initially defended the stunt, calling it "a good and sweet story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibility of her actions."

There's that. But then there's also the message, "Come to Denmark, where you can impregnate beautiful women and disappear the next morning!" It's the Denmark-as-Vegas model, but "What happens here stays here" was already taken.

Naturally, there's already a parody video (and, actually, it's pretty funny).

Denmark sorry for 'one-night stand' hoax [9News via Brandfreak]

The post is pretty much a cavalcade of scientists talking smack about the program:

-Involving the food industry in the program is "a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center. The Chicago Tribune reports that Katz led the development of the NuVal system, one of the few impartial food-labeling programs.

-Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health, explained that including sugary and processed foods in the program make for "horrible choices," further explaining to the New York Times that "it's a blatant failure of this system and it makes it, I'm afraid, not credible."

Don't you just love it when scientists get snippy? If you want to join in the fray, you can sign this petition attacking the program.

The depressing reveal is, once and for all, Froot Loops aren't health food. Oh well.

Ten Reasons Why the Smart Choices Food Labeling Scheme is Outrageous [Sustainable Food] (Thanks, Mike!) (Photo: brockzilla)

At the public-facing site launched by Faberge's new owners, gone are such bourgeois trappings like buttons, prices, adding items to your cart, or really the ability to do much of anything. For the hoi polloi, that is.

To see the catalog, you have to schedule a time to speak with a Faberge rep. Only at the end of that conversation are you issued a client login to the rest of the site. You arrange a chat by clicking around the site until "Discover More" pops up on the right, which you then click upon. Indeed, Faberge.com slips on that fine line in user interface design between the intriguing and the annoying. It's also entirely Flash-base. How gauche.

After online perusal, jewel-toting employees can whisk to your abode for an in-person showing. Home delivery, and the company's flagship Geneva store, will comprise the entirety of the company's retail operations. Is this streamlined approach to pushing encrusted baubles a viable way for a luxury brand to survive in our new, deadly, economic climate? We'll see. Just don't expect them to add Paypal any time soon. Faberge [Official Site] Faberge Asks Rich to Surf Web for $7 Million Brooches [Bloomberg]

How the World's Biggest Corporations, From Starbucks to Wal-Mart to Barnes & Noble, Claim to Be 'Local' [Alternet]

(Original photo by pierofix; altered)

The offer is best suited for companies looking to spread word about themselves on the cheap via social media. Reuters reports:

"Facebook is an extremely effective marketing tool," Leon Hill, uSocial CEO, said in a statement.

"The simple fact is that with a large following on Facebook, you have an instant and targeted group of people you can contact and promote whatever it is you want to promote," he added.

"The only problem is that it can be extremely difficult to achieve such a following, which is where we come in.

Understandably, Facebook is miffed. Its rules prohibit using personal profiles to promote personal gain, so we'll see how long this business model lasts, assuming the bought friends are uSocial contractors. CNN is hoping Twitter doesn't ban uSocial before it can buy its way back into competition with Ashton Kutcher.

Not enough Facebook friends? Buy them [Reuters]
(Thanks, Michael and Kim!)

The company is accused of aggressively marketing four drugs to doctors for "off-label" uses, or prescribing a medicine for a use for which it hasn't been explicitly tested and approved by the FDA. And by "aggressively marketing" we mean "taking doctors on vacations and feeding lavish meals while handing over huge metaphorical sacks of cash."

In financial filings in January, the company had indicated that it would pay $2.3 billion over allegations it had marketed the pain reliever Bextra and possibly other drugs for medical conditions different than their approved use. The civil settlement announced Wednesday also covered Pfizer's promotions of three other drugs: blockbuster nerve pain and epilepsy treatment Lyrica, schizophrenia medicine Geodon, antibiotic Zyvox and nine other medicines. Pfizer said the agreement with the Justice Department resolves the investigation into promotion of all those drugs, plus several related whistleblower lawsuits.

Under terms of the settlement, Pfizer must pay $1 billion to compensate Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health care programs. Some of that money will be shared among the states: New York, for example, will receive $66 million, according to the state's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

There's nothing wrong with off-label use of medicines, but there's plenty wrong with aggressively marketing medicines to physicians for off-label use.

Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty over promotions [Boston]
Pfizer settlement: Be wary of off-label drug use [Consumer Reports Health]

(Photo: wadem)

The first is that the FDA doesn't require Lexapro's makers to statistically back up their claim that Lexapro is more effective than Celexa, which is basically Lexapro's parent. (Forest Laboratories changed the molecular structure of Celexa, which was about to lose its patent protection, in order to create Lexapro in 2002.) In fact, Forest has even used this near-interchangeability to its financial advantage:

The F.D.A. views the two medicines as so interchangeable that the agency recently approved Lexapro's use in depressed adolescents based in part on the results of a study Forest conducted using Celexa.

The second is that sales of Lexapro are on the wane, and correspondingly Forest "has been recently raising the price." But, "Many doctors say they believe that Lexapro is the best antidepressant, so they prescribe the drug despite its cost."

"Document Details Plan to Promote Costly Drug" [New York Times]
(Photo: mandiberg)

A very pissed off consumer writes:

I get these direct mail pieces from Verizon several times a week. I know...everyone hates junk mail, but here's the thing: Verizon doesn't provide FiOS TV at my address (the address they sent this piece of mail to). Furthermore, they will not offer the same deal on their non-premium [read: inferior] services.

In other words, there is no way - none whatsoever - to get TV, internet, and phone from verizon for $79.99 per month (for the first 6 months) - and yet these ads have been clogging my mailbox in the month since I moved here. When I went online to look into this deal, the first thing the website prompted me to do was to enter my address (the address printed on the other side of that piece of mail). Based upon that information, the website was able to tell me that I could not take advantage of this deal. Does Verizon not have an internet connection? Couldn't they do this themselves before wasting paper, ink, and another previous piece of my sanity?

This is unacceptable, not only from the perspective of the consumer, but for environmental reasons as well. How many thousands (millions?) of these heavy card-stock, two-page brochures are being sent to households where Verizon cannot provide this service? Get your sh*t together, Verizon. All you've managed to do is alienate me so that I will no longer consider FiOS...if it is ever available to me.

You know, I doubt this was the effect Verizon was going for.

"Use Firefox to Fix the Web's Biggest Annoyances" [Lifehacker]

Now Dallas residents can substitute "schools" with "Tony Romo's next signing bonus" and "big, stupid, punt-blocking scoreboards." The gambling-averse NFL has buckled to economic pressures and allowed teams to sell their own state lottery scratch-off tickets, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The Cowboys hope to make $4.2 million from the tie-in, and the Houston Texans could pull in $1.45 million, the Dallas Morning News reports:

These scratch-off games were made possible after the NFL decided in May to drop its ban on such sponsorships. The NFL and major sports leagues have typically shied away from associations with any type of gambling.

The recession, however, has put a squeeze on even the nation's most lucrative franchises. In the Cowboys' case, despite having the NFL's most expensive stadium and one of the biggest names in sports, the team has been unable to land a naming-rights deal this year.

At least the money going to worthy causes. Terrell Owens' contract buyout isn't going to pay itself off, so it's nice that poor people with delusions of quick, easy wealth will be chipping in.

Cowboys cashing in on Texas Lottery scratch-off tickets [Dallas Morning News]
(Photo: blue_j)