• Amazon is taking pre-orders for the iRobot Scooba, the floor-washing counterpart to the Roomba, for $400. We are unduly excited about this product, but we really recommend waiting until some reviews come out before dropping four bills. There is also some question as to whether or not a Scooba owner will be tied to purchasing only the Clorox-branded cleaning solution, or if something can be whipped up at home. But still, new robot! Coupon code JANCLEAR takes off $25.
shopping
Family Eats Roach Sandwiches at KFC
By 1.25.06
With all of the digits and genitalia being found in fast food lately, it’s an exciting time for us here at The Consumerist, but at this point, we’ve been left down so many times on the validity of these claims that we’re going to assume the Kentucky Fried Roachwich is another fake out.
Adult Diapers All The Rage Among Chinese Travellers
By 1.25.06
On the other hand, maybe the Chinese should be censored.
Alongside food and fire crackers, Chinese are adding a new item to their lunar New Year shopping: Adult diapers. Sales have soared ahead of the holiday as travelers prepare for long trips home aboard trains so crowded that even the toilets are jammed with people, newspapers said Tuesday.
Maybe Google’s actually got the right idea here. Do we really want to encourage the free exchange of ideas with a people who would find soiling themselves, then sitting around in their own filth for a twenty hour train ride, preferable to just going in front of someone else? Or, hell, just sticking their ass out the window? Can you imagine being one of the few passengers with pride on that cattle car, packed in the middle of a thousand peasants happily stewing in their own feces? Remind us to link this story next time we complain about Amtrak. God bless America, baby.
Best Buy Continues to Phase Out Mail-In Rebates
By 1.25.06
Best Buy is continuing to revamp their rebates process, according to this press release, providing ‘instant savings’ on notebook computers at the register, as well as rolling out a new online rebates tool that they claim shortens the rebate turn-around down to just over a week.
Morning Deals Round Up
By 1.25.06
• Purveyor of random crap Fingerhut has put up to a 50% discount off of its already-discounted clearance items. Get the Disney Princess Headboard cover for only $25!
Loompanics Going Out of Business Sale
By 1.24.06
Alternative bookseller and publisher Loompanics—and by ‘alternative,’ we mean titles like ‘ADVANCED TECHNIQUES OF CLANDESTINE PSYCHEDELIC AND AMPHETAMINE MANUFACTURE,’ ‘SATAN SPEAKS!’ and ‘HOW TO DATE YOUNG WOMEN’—is going out of business. They’ve put all their titles on sale for a flat 50% on a first-come, first-serve basis. With topic areas from ‘Anarchism and Egosim’ and ‘Head for the Hills’ to ‘Prison’ and ‘Rock and Roll,’ Loompanics provides a wide variety of information for those who seek to step outside the norms of society—or at least impress high school crushes on Girls Who Do.
Consumerist Research Team Assemble: Buying Cigarettes in New York
By 1.24.06
Since today is turning out to be one of those days where we lay out all our shortcomings and ask you to help us fix them, we’ll see our own bad credit and raise ourselves one addiction. It seems that Bloomberg is threatening to raise cigarette taxes again, which would bring the tax total to $3.50, or more than most people pay for cigarettes in their entirety in most states.
A Moment in Sucking Less: Spire Bags
By 1.24.06
We’re not always gloom and doom around here (although we will cop to occasionally getting lost in our flaming logo and pasting beveled song lyrics onto photoshopped self-portraits; in our defense, those lyrics are always from Phil Collins’ seminal understatement, But Seriously…). We know that sometimes companies do right by customers and we like to hear about it, especially when they are “anonymous” astroturfs sent like so much chalk to soak up our bile. Anyway, what we’re saying is, a company did something nice.
Morning Deals Round Up
By 1.24.06
Not only are we off to a late start this morning, but qksrv.net, which many deals sites use to handle affiliate links, is down, making the pickings especially slim today.
The Best Time of Year to Buy Item X
By 1.23.06
God bless this no-nonsense column over at CNNMoney that explains with a minimum of cruft when exactly is the best time to buy everything—if everything is airline tickets, televisions, houses, cars, videogames, and toys. Here’s the bit about airline tickets that you can put in your pocket right now for it is as simple as the organism sure to infect you on your next flight:
For all the seeming complexity that goes into the price of airfare, the answer to when some of the cheapest tickets can be found is surprisingly simple: Wednesday.
Victoria’s Secret to Customers: “Your Breasts Are Too Large To Shop Here”
By 1.23.06
This just in. Victoria’s Secret is launching a systematic attack of intimidation, isolation and humiliation… on women with enormous cans.
SoHo Fire Ruins Millions in Prada
By 1.23.06
A fire in 575 Broadway occurred over the weekend with no loss of life, but perhaps over $5 million worth of loss to the Prada store, according to Gothamist. Other stores in the building, including American Eagle, also are pretty much smoked, as well as office spaces above, home to the likes of companies like Take 2, of Grand Theft Auto infamy.
Morning Deals Round Up
By 1.20.06
• CondomMan.com’s Famous Valentine Day Sale is back, featuring 100 assorted condoms from brands including Durex, Trojan, Lifestyles, Okamoto, Viva, and Beyond Seven for just $20.
Europe On Track to Pay Too Much for American Imperialist Pap (Still)
By 1.19.06
Poor Europe. Our friends in the Old Countries are constantly being squeezed by American technology companies, with prices for items like electronics and software at a huge premium to their American equivalents.
Why We Gripe: Is Friendly Retail a Lost Cause?
By 1.19.06
Although the comments are full of the self-congratulatory jerking that we bloggers do so well, there are some interesting points raised in response to a post by Mike Sansone about a bad experience at CompUSA. Specifically, “Does complaining about an employee online do anything besides push down cloying training materials from the PR and sales departments of large retail operations?” (Actually, that’s our question.)
Morning Deals Round Up
By 1.19.06
• Get the Rogue Hawaiian Soprano Ukulele for just $26 shipped at Musicians’ Friend. Ukulele is the new Strat knock-off, hipsters. [via Dealnews]
Morning Deals Round-Up
By 1.18.06
• Buy a man’s poverty on eBay for a buck. And if it just takes a buck to get him out of poverty, you might be able to complain that you didn’t buy as much poverty as you were led to believe.
Consumers Speak: Overstock.com Rug Burns
By 1.17.06
Dean writes:
My wife and I ordered a large rug from Overstock.com on 10/31/05 and received it a week later. The rug was very nice, but not the color we ordered. We requested an exchange for the right color, but were told that due to “warehouse issues” they could not make an exchange, but they would give a refund once the rug was received and we could then purchase the correct rug. Since that time, we have spent over two months attempting to return the rug and receive a refund.
