Saturday, August 15, 2009

Well, it was worth a shot

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/samsunglcd.jpg

It's 6am in the morning. You roll over to the nightstand to shut off the alarm on your Blackberry. While doing so you check your email. There's a message with the title Samsung 52" LCD $9.99. You wipe the cold from your eyes cuz obviously you're still in some kinda haze. You look again. It still says Samsung 52" LCD $9.99. That's nine dollars & ninety nine cents for a LCD that's easily 2 G's. You set the Blackberry down, grab your laptop and access your email from there. In the email there a link to Best Buy where the TV is being sold. You click the link and this is what you see.

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/bestbuy1.jpg

What do you do now??? I'll tell you what you do. You grab your credit card and you order that joint. That's what you do!!!!

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/bestbuy2.jpg

Once you get to the shopping cart you realize that this is indeed the case. Pick a delivery date and put the order through. Why wouldn't you?

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/bestbuy3.jpg

Once you get here the process has been completed. Within 3 minutes you receive an email confirming your order and the date of delivery. Now you have to sit back and wait.... and wait... and wait... and wait cuz you know that it's too good to be true. Then you think to yourself, why not share the deal with friends? So you log onto Facebook and post the link for all your folks. Get dressed and hit the office as usual. While at your PC in the office you decide to Google to see if anyone else has seen the deal. Bam!!! There's a ton of articles already on the Best Buy miscue. Welp, that pretty much seals up the fact that the order is going to be cancelled. It was just a matter of time. Around 3pm that afternoon, the email arrived.


http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/bestbuy4.jpg

Now, I'm no fool. I didn't honestly at any point in time think that Best Buy would honor this thing. Hell, they need to fire their web development team or whatever web master screwed that one up. I mean it wasn't even a decimal point off. The price of the Samsung LCD is $1,999.99, so someone was really asleep at the wheel.

I was one of thousands who ordered it and figured "What the heck, I'll give it a shot". I guess what shocked me was how long it took Best Buy to react to the mistake and to correct the issue. They're a major retail company and there's no excuse for why they couldn't have almost immediately discovered this and at least removed the item from the website completely and then taken time to address whatever technical bugs they had. All major retailer have some sort of Terms of Conditions that protect them from mistakes like this one. Anyone who really thought that they'd honor this is living in a dream world. Imagine what would happen to their profits. Think about the shareholders would be going ballistic about the snafu.

Right or wrong, mistake or not, they still left a really bad taste in the mouths of their customers. They received a ton of press coverage on this mistake. If anything it gave them a commercial that they didn't even have to pay for. Talk about a PR spin. You screw up on your website by offering a $2,000 LCD for ten bucks. You then revoke the deal from consumers because of an error and then you get on the news all day. I wonder if they planned this. Honestly though, Best Buy should do something for the folks who ordered the TV's. I'm not saying to give folks a TV for that ridiculous price. But they just outright canceled the orders via email and nothing else. How about giving your customers 10% off their next visit. Maybe a gift card of some denomination for the hassle. Anything to shine a brighter light on the image of a company that stood in the dark shadows that day. But hey, we see how they handle business. They're like every other company out here that doesn't really care whether they lose a customer or not. Business for them will be brisk especially since the departure of Circuit City from the competitive marketplace.

http://i28.tinypic.com/30bhjsp.jpg

To be honest, I'm not really a Best Buy customer anyway. It's not bitterness speaking honestly. I truly don't get my electronics from them. Those who know me are aware that I purchase high dollar items and tend to look at Best Buy as the 7-Eleven of electronics stores. It's a Mom & Pop joint. They have a little bit of everything and the best of nothing. I'm a Myer-Emco kinda guy. A cat who'll order from companies direct or through reps I know personally. So all in all, there's no loss. I mean, Best Buy sells HDMI cables for a hundred bucks, why would the TV be $10??? LOL!!! Just imagine how much the warranty would've been on that? Nevermind, that would've been dumb. You could've just ordered 10 more TV's. With shipping that would've been about $800 for 8 52" Samsung TV's.

I got a $100 Best Buy gift card from a client around Christmas time. I didn't even use it until May. I walked around the store for like 90 minutes, no joke. I couldn't figure out what to get. Wanna know what I ended up getting? I'm glad you asked. I bought a very expensive toaster, ceramic stove cleaner, stainless steel wipes and the Stevie Wonder's Live at Last: A Wonder Summer's Night from London DVD. I groove to the Stevie Wonder joint. You gotta cop that. Guess Best Buy is good for something after all.... *shrugs*

http://i27.tinypic.com/xfakb9.jpg

Peace & Love...

G. Mo

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Mary & Barry = Marion Barry

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/marion.jpg

I decided to watch The Nine Lives of Marion Barry last night on HBO. The documentary overall was pretty good. But as I sat on the couch, I reflected back to the time when I was around 8 growing up in the DC area. I know I couldn't have been the only kid that thought Marion Barry was really Mary & Barry. I always tried to understand why they always showed Barry, and rarely showed Mary. It confused the hell out of me. When the mention of Marion Barry was on the news, I always looked for 2 people. Then later realized that Marion was his first name and Mary was really his wife Effi Barry. Duh!!!

*smacks self upside the head*

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/marion-effi.jpg

Just my abstract thought of the day...

Peace & Love...

G. Mo

Monday, August 10, 2009

Who cares about chicken fingers???

http://www.chocolatecityweb.com/BlogPics/Aug2009/chicknfingers.jpg

So I was asked about the Erykah Badu/Chuck Brown show at Merriweather Post Pavilion over the weekend. But I wasn't asked about the performance. A brotha was asked if the chicken tenders were any good. Were the chicken tenders any good!!!??? Are you serious??? Now, had it been a steak, slice of pie or fresh squeezed lemonade a critique could've been provided. But chicken fingers!!!!??? Who's a connoisseur of breaded chicken strips??? Does anyone walk around like "Those joints at Kings Dominion were slammin"??? I mean, I don't consider myself bourgeoise or nothin', but I sure as hell can't decipher between the good and the not so good chicken fillets. In actuality, I don't eat them that much to really care. Sure I've been to many sporting events, theme parks, movie theatres & food spots over the years and had them. But I never once in my mind said "Awwwww shucks, these right here are like that!!!".

Now, I'm not saying that anything is wrong if you're one of those folks who actually breakdown what's a good batch vs a bad batch. But it just seems weird to me. Lemme get a frozen bag from Costco or Murry's, throw those jokers in the oven and I'm straight. Get some good BBQ, honey mustard or sweet & sour sauce and I'm grubbing. Now that's something I can critique. A good sauce. I might even make my own from some Guinness, brown sugar, apricot preserves, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup & a few 'other' ingredients. But opinion on battered chicken feet? Nope....

If you've got a top 5 list of your favorite (or worst) breaded chicken spots, feel free to let a brotha know. I know somebody out there has a favorite chicken finger basket and fries spot. However, I'm on the outside looking in with this one.

Peace & Love..

G. Mo

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Flashback: The Jukebox Network

http://i28.tinypic.com/2liiipk.jpg

Awwwww maaaaaaaaaaan.. I remember sitting in front of the TV waiting for 2 Live Crew's "Move Something" video to come on. In fact, I used to roll to my man's house and request the video from there. My mom would've flipped when she got the bill if I had called from our house. His folks didn't care anyway. He stayed requesting videos off of there. I was listening to XM and some songs came on that made me flashback to some of my favorite vids... and or course the ones that were annoying as well. They showed a lot of videos that BET & MTV refused to play at that time Here's a few of them that I remember seeing a lot. I found a few on YouTube and uploaded some from my digital archives, but YouTube and their copyright mess is some nonsense. So I uploaded a few to Dailymotion. Guess we'll have to see if they remain up.

Probably the most requested video on The Jukebox Network back then...



This was my joint right here... I went out and bought the LP single on wax cuz of this video



These two videos right here used to get on my nerves!!!!!! The had to have played these joints at least once ere' 20 minutes back then...




LTrimm - Cars That Go Boom Music Video


Where the hell is MC Shy D these days??? LOL!!!!! This vid used to come on a lot too...



I guess if you really look at it, The Jukebox Network originated in Miami, so that explains the ton of vids from that area. Anyway... I may add videos as I remember them or if you comment with one that you used to vibe off of or hated, I'll add it.

Peace & Love...

G. Mo