“Sure, there are already yoga mats for babies, stainless steel stainless steel detectors (run on stainless steel batteries), bamboo plasma televisions, and cyborg dogs.” But What’s Grup? is the newest imagineered lifestyle store billed as “the ultimate shopping experience for you, your children, your big dog, your fixie and your moderately hot wife (she’ll warm up to anal soon).”
brooklyn
Smirnoff Marketing Team to Teach HipHop Classes
By 4.12.06
Street culture vulture Bucky Turco sent in a hot tip about the opening of the Smirnoff Movement Space opening in Brooklyn. As part of a customer service outreach program, Smirnoff is here, he writes, “In case you want to learn how to do graffiti or hip-hop dancing.”
DirecTV Loses Customer Over Hi-Def, Doesn’t Care
By 4.5.06
Chuck from Brooklyn, “one of the lemmings who bought a HD TV recently” writes that he’s “puzzled by the nonchalance with which [DirectTV] let me switch over to their mortal enemy [TimeWarner].”
The Kid From Brooklyn on The Rising Price of Sex, or “A Slow News Day”
By 3.16.06
It’s a slow news day. Prematurely celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, Ben is drunk. Meanwhile, Brownlee has discovered with a dawning sense of horror that after years of living in Ireland, he is incapable of getting drunk… the font that inks his pen, the mucus that lubricates his Muse. As the world and Boing Boing watches, we find ourselves abashed and silent.
“Stick It Up Your Ass, Starbucks”
By 3.15.06
re serving over there? Fuckin liquid gold? A fucking cup of coffee and a piece of pound cake, seven dollars? Stick it up your ass, fuckin Starbucks.”
Underworldly Camera Shop PriceRitePhoto is Back
By 3.13.06
In the immortal words of LL Cool J, “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.” Yes, our friends, PriceRite Photo, has returned to online commerce!
Graffiti Artists Buff The Man’s Billboards
By 2.28.06
Buffing is when graffiti artist’s work gets scrubbed over by The Man. Stieg point us to what happens when a street artist buffs The Man back, in this case, a billboard in the Red Hook borough of Brooklyn. The only tools required were a roller, paint and an a roller extension.
Brooklyn Cops ChitChat on Cellphones on the Job
By 2.20.06
Do your tax dollars pay for the cops’ cellphone minutes?
Brookyln Grandma Sued for $150,000 by MPAA.
By 2.14.06
63-year old Janice McBride is getting sued by Hollywood for pirating the Adam Sandler flick, The Longest Yard.
Tats Cru Sprays for Pay in Williamsburg Again
By 2.3.06
The ‘graffiti’ ad for the Hummer H3 by the Bronx-based ‘Tats Cru’ wasn’t well-received. While it started out relatively clean (and nice looking, if we had to be honest), but the residents of the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, quickly made their feelings about “STREET.ART” known. (Did you know that “Hummer = Death?” We learn from graffiti every day.)
Hipsters Speak: Stupid Rent!
By 1.27.06
basically i’m considering blowing off my rent for the last two months on my lease and saving the money on a new, nicer place. i’m just trying to cover the stupid broker fee that i would otherwise not be able to come up with in time.
Manhattan Eating: Delicious Discounts
By 1.19.06
While we doubt that we’re being given “inside information” as our source purports, the new ‘Delicious Discounts‘ program for Manhattan restaurants doesn’t seem half bad. The service aggregates over a thousand Manhattan (and soon Brooklyn) restaurants, searchable by proximity to your address. Each time you try a new restaurant—and we don’t yet know how Delicious Discounts can tell if it’s new to you—you “automatically receive 20-25% off your first order from that restaurant,” says our ‘source.’
‘Gloria Trembicky is a Bad Landlord’
By 1.18.06
This is a little New Yorkish, but we’re in the process of searching for a new apartment in Brooklyn and to stumble along a well-written story about a frightening hag of a landlady fills up our spine with cold water like it were an old radiator. ‘Gloria Trembicky is a Bad Landlord’ is the chronicle of one couple’s awful experience with a Park Slope apartment with little heat, occasional droughts of both hot and cold water, and a husband/fixit-monkey who was too cheap or stupid to realize that reusing bent screws might be a problem.
The Times on Price Rite Photo
By 1.11.06
At the nadir of every story comes the inevitable New York Times retrospective, and The Thomas Hawk Affair is no exception. It’s good to hear this about camera scam artists Price Rite Photo:
The last best address leads to a metallic gray warehouse by the waterfront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Trash haulers go about and there is a dull buzzing sound in the hallway. Graffiti gives information that white people are devils. [Duh! -Ed.]
Consumers Speak: Neighborhoodies Nebulous Replacement Policy
By 1.6.06
Eustacia W. writes:
I placed an order with Neighborhoodies on November 16 for a navy blue hoodie with white lettering, outlined in baby blue and a graphic of a regal lion on the front left. They sent me the sweatshirt about a week later and the lettering on the back looked great. But the front looked horrible. The regal lion was in black. On a navy blue sweatshirt. With white lettering. Now I realize that I failed to specifically state that the graphic was to be in white so that it would match the lettering. But I also most certainly did not ask that it be done in black so that it would virtually disappear on the shirt. I would think that any reasonable person would look at this and say, “Hmm, perhaps we should contact the consumer to make sure she gets what she wants and to save everybody some possible grief.” This did not happen.
PriceRitePhoto: Now ‘Barclay’s Photo’; Don Wiss Threatened
By 12.14.05
Thomas Hawk continues his investigation into PriceRitePhoto, telling us the scam photo seller has changed its name to ‘Barclay’s Photo.’
Thus far the names that seem to be tying together include PriceRitePhoto, Barclay’s Photo, Film4Less, Edigix, CP Industries, The Camera Zone, TheCameraMall, Film Shop, Film Shop Clipper USA.
Even worse, it would appear that Don Wiss, the guy who biked around Brooklyn taking pictures of the spaces the camera shops weren’t, has received a death threat—just like the call Lee Holmes got just a couple of months ago.
Brooklyn Camera Retailer Storefront Pictures
By 12.8.05
Even before The Thomas Hawk Affair with PriceRitePhoto, The Consumerist was preoccupied with the phenomenon of Brooklyn-based camera stores. For one, we live in Brooklyn. For two, we recently purchased a camera and did much comparison shopping beforehand.
