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What’s the best month to buy computers? Comforters? Cars? Every month is a different time where various goods can usually be found their best price. January, it seems, is the right month for bedding, TVs, winter clothing, and toys. [Frugal For Life]
Don’t Believe The Hypebeast gives a mock tutorial on how to become a “brand strategist,” basically some white douche who figures out how to make brands and products appeal to that fabled white unicorn, youth culture endowed with ungodly amounts of disposable income.
1. To be an influential and successful youth culture brand strategist, you’re going to need to be a White male, preferably with an affluent upbringing, but with a penchant for rap music and 80’s punk. Don’t have that particular penchant? Wikipedia that shit!
Hit the link for the next five easy steps to siphon monies from big brands wanting to get jiggy with it, whatever it is.
The Blogger free blogging system is owned by Google and they usually like their customers to talk to robots, but if you have an extreme issue, like all of a sudden your blogs were deleted (this has happened to at least a couple Consumerist readers), here are some executive honchos you can talk to get you fixed up:
A 5-year-old boy was detained as “security risk” because he had the same name of someone on the TSA “No-Fly” list. The TSA had to conduct a full search of their persons and belongings. When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dillinger hadn’t passed anything dangerous weapons or materials to his mother when she hugged him. Pretty insane. If you’re ever mistakenly on the No-Fly list, here’s how to get off it.
Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV star, wrote an editorial describing privacy activism as “palaver,” and just to prove how safe we all are, included his bank account number. Soon afterwards someone snagged £500 from the Top Gear host’s account. “I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake,” the presenter later told reporters. Needless to say, you should never share your bank account information with anyone who doesn’t need it, for instance, millions of faceless readers.
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If you have problems getting an exit seat from Midwest Airlines ticket agent Ramone at LGA, it’s possible he will tell Roger to go up to you on the flight and boom, “I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS SEAT AND WANT OFF THIS FLIGHT.” [Click Here Technology Columns]
Baby Toolkit has a great method for silencing people who keep calling your cellphone and can never seem to get it into their head that there is no “Maria” at this number and there never will be. Create a contact called “Wrong Number” and change its ring settings so the ringer is silenced. Whenever a wrong number calls, add it to the contact. Boom, saves you cellphone minutes, aggravation, and the time it takes to dig through everything to find the phone only to find out it’s for Maria, again.
Yahoo Personals surprised technology guru Russell Shaw with a charge for $74.95 when he signed up for Yahoo Voice. Russell had let his subscription to Yahoo Personals lapse last February and ignored Yahoo’s repeated entreaties to renew his membership. He assumed his account was cancelled, told his credit card company not to authorize any new charges, and did not inform Yahoo when he lost his credit card last May.
Nathalie Martin’s elderly cousin had her social security check garnished straight from her bank account by a collections agency. Apparently, most banks skip over the section of federal law that protects social security and other public benefits from creditors. Good thing Nathalie is a bankruptcy scholar and knows how to fight the sleazy debt collectors.
Credit Slips’ Adam Levitin takes a look into the possibly even grimmer future of the housing market. We’ll let him explain it because he’s smart:
…this graph from Credit Suisse is the most sobering thing I’ve seen in a while. Mortgage_rate_resets It shows that most of the interest rate resets ahead aren’t subprime, but are instead Alt-A and option-ARMs…
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How many people here had weight loss as one of their New Year’s resolutions? Here’s a guide to losing weight without the hype or spending a bunch of money on stuff that doesn’t work. [ACalorieCounter]
Not content with having some of retail’s worst customer service, Sears has decided to wring out more dollars from its customers by jumping into the spyware game. Sears recently sent out an email inviting customers to join “My SHC Community” where they will have a chance to earn fabulous prizes and journal their online shopping experience. All you gotta do is provide your address and install a little ComScore program that monitors your every single step on the internet, from Sears to Myspace to your online banking, to your email headers.
io9 is Gawker’s newest blog and it’s obsessed with the world(s) of science fiction. Site lead Annalee Newitz tells us what it’s all about:
Are you an unrepentant neophile? Do you sometimes think post-apocalyptic futures and alien invasions are pretty cool? Want to know what’s going to happen next to the climate, the shape of skyscrapers, the contents of your genome, or your favorite scifi TV show? Then come to io9.com.
Sounds fun. Incidentally, legions of customer service drones rising up to overthrow their corporate overlords would make for a good sci-fi scenario.
Looking for tickets but worried you’ll get stuck with fakes? Washington’s Attorney General has a few tips to make sure the tickets you buy are more than expensive wallet ornaments.
Hate that stationary bike your hint-dropping friend got you for Christmas? Want to return it so you can buy something useful like a cook book or ten pounds of fudge? Well Mouseprint rounded up return policies for fifteen major retailers to help you offload all those gifts you never wanted. Retailers readily accept returns if you have a receipt and the original packaging with price tags. Most stores charge a 15% restocking fee and want their merchandise back within a few weeks. Happy returning!
One of the dangers to watch out for when buying a home are the various kinds of fees that can crop up, and comparison shopping these fees is not always easy. Now there’s a new site that gives you a reasonable baseline you can expect, specific to your area and property deal. Input your transaction, property and occupancy type, purchase price, and zipcode, and FeeDisclosure.com will tell what various fees you can expect in getting your mortgage. Much-needed transparency for a notoriously murky and shark-infested industry.
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