Read the full story here: http://www.geeksugar.com/New-Barbie-Comes-Built--Video-Camera-7415767

This is just perfect.

Who says being engaged is all that? The biggest upside is being left alone, once people spot a ring on your left hand. Whether you're trying to dodge dodgy dudes at the bar, heading to a reunion or visiting your nagging grandmother, slip on your Ms.Taken ring and act as if. It says committed, without the commitment.

Check out MsTaken.com otherwise known as Ms. Taken. I saw this site and just had to share it. Great for a good giggle.

This what happens when you put a tag cloud on your Customer Support page. Major fail.

Read About It Here: http://consumerist.com/2009/12/what-happens-when-you-put-a-tag-cloud-on-your-...

(Photo: wot nxt)

There's a new Consumer Reports survey out that ranks cellphone companies by customer satisfaction, and to pretty much no one's surprise, AT&T comes in last in all 19 cities surveyed. (Verizon came in first.) As AllThingsD notes, the survey "suggests that AT&T’s shortcomings are more widespread than the carrier would have us believe and not simply the product of a high concentration of iPhones in the country’s larger cities."

With low marks for several key indicators of customer satisfaction-including service availability, circuit capacity, dropped-call frequency and voice service-across 73 percent of the markets Consumer Reports surveyed, it’s pretty clear that AT&T has become overextended by the popularity of the iPhone.

Well surely this will serve as a wake-up call to AT&T, right? Nope. They responded to AllThingsD with the most awful marketing speak you can imagine, saying they appreciate the feedback but that it's from a self-selected group of respondents and purely anecdotal. Even more important, they note, "Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent." Interesting, because I thought putting everyone into contract was responsible for reducing churn.

"AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports’ Best Cellphone Service Survey" [AllThingsD via MocoNews]

More About:

• customer satisfaction,
• surveys,
• consumer reports,
• cellphones,
• wireless,
• carriers,
• cellular,
• att,
• verizon,
• iphone,
• apple

The Consumerist brought you this article as well. Read the full thing here. http://consumerist.com/2009/12/its-official-everybody-hates-att.html

P.S. I have AT&T and I don't hate them, but I don't love them either. They are in the same category as lentil soup and sit ups on a bouncy ball. It's just ehhhh.

Ok, this article is pretty ridiculous. The Sun Times reports that a woman was arrested for filming her sister's birthday party. Her sister happened to be standing in front of the new Twilight Sequel New Moon during the video. The woman was arrested and could face three years in prison. Oh, brilliant.

Check out the full story at Consumerist.com or http://consumerist.com/2009/12/charged-with-felony-after-taping-4-minutes-of-...

It may be seem so last year, but I still love this song. It always puts me in the mood for a new year and the holidays. I hope you all enjoy it as well!

Winter Song performed by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

Ok, so I just found The Next Web and I'm addicted. I was an avid reader of TechGeist and was sad to see its main writer leave, but The Next Web is just as good.

Check it out! http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2009/12/02/reasons-feel-bad-downloading-musi...(The+Next+Web)&utm_content=Bloglines

This site is ridiculous. People write the most personal and downright stupid things as Facebook status updates. Just check out some of these and you'll find out why some people are just LAME. hahaha.

Check out the site here: http://www.lamebook.com/

I'm so addicted to any Mario game - to imagine Mario with my favorite board game is just too enticing! Talk about amazing!

Check it out at Geek Sugar: http://www.geeksugar.com/6453932
Retails $35 (Hint, hint - Christmas Gift Idea!) ;)

Ok, so The Consumerist always has me giggling. I know I share a lot of their content, it's because they are so hilarious. I urge you to add them to your RSS feed reader! Seriously, you won't be sad you did!

http://consumerist.com/2009/12/yay-i-havent-been-crushed-to-death-by-bargains...

-->After the death of a relative, Mike put together a photo tribute for the funeral, in order to "remember the good times," he says. Only a Walmart cashier put a stop to his purchase. Here's what happened. Do you think Walmart was in the right?

“

My father-in-law passed away last week after a long, drawn out few months of mental illness. Very traumatic time and a very difficult situation.

In an attempt to try and remember the happier times of this man's existence, I collected a hundred or so pictures from times throughout his life. Some were pics that I scanned, some were from my digital camera. The plan was to put them in the visitation area so that people could remember the good times.

So my grieving wife and I go to Walmart the morning of the funeral to print them out. Normally we wouldn't go to Walmart for this, but the funeral is in a small town and time is limited. Everything goes well with the printing, and I'm kind of amazed at the convenience and quality of the output. "Who says technology is cold and heartless?" I think to myself. It really came through in our time of need.

Then we get to the counter to check out, and the warmth of humanity kicks in.

"I'm sorry, I can't sell you some of these" the lady says. She then proceeds to go through the stack, pulling out every school picture and talking about copyright.

"Even the ones from 1956?!?" I asked.

"Yes, copyright is permanent" she replies. She also pulls out a several other pictures, because apparently if they even look professionally done, that's all the criteria they need to cite copyright. If it just looks copyrighted, this lady wasn't going to let us have them.

Meanwhile, my wife is sitting there looking on solemnly as pictures of her smiling, deceased father stack up to head to the shredder. I can see her tearing up and her lip quivering a bit. She quietly says "we're headed to a funeral".

"I know", replies the woman (not un-politely) "But I don't want to lose my job". I decided not to escalate an argument given the situation.

I did manage to claim one victory...his medical school graduation picture which I believe was done privately since I saw some other pictures along with it. After some insistence on my part, the lady let me sign a form and keep that one.

Fortunately I was able to use a digital LCD picture frame to include the complete set at the funeral. But the prints from Walmart were thoroughly parsed for any infringing material. I'm sure the photographers of the 50's and 80's can sleep safe knowing that their income was protected by the Walmart photo department.

”

First, a quibble: this employee is misinformed. As much as companies like Disney would like this not to be the case, copyright is not "forever." The copyright term that would apply to a professional photograph taken in 1955 would be 120 years. That's a long time, and may seem like "forever" compared to a human lifespan, but it's not.

If this couple had come in to reproduce photos a professional photographer had recently taken of their child, or to print out copyrighted pictures downloaded off the Internet, should Walmart put a stop to it? Yes.

But does the man's family have a reasonable chance of finding the original photographer of school pictures taken 50 years ago? Even if they could, is it likely that that photographer is both still alive and has retained all of his negatives?

What do you think?

(Photo: John Northrup)

(Thanks to MostlyHarmless for the first tag!)

More About:

• Be a F%&ing Person,
• walmart,
• photography,
• photos,
• copyright,
• copyright infringement,
• funerals,
• family,
• walmart is your god now,
• walmart is your lawyer now,
• top

This is just when Copyright Law is in the wrong. C'mon, now. This is just ridiculous.

http://consumerist.com/2009/11/walmart-wont-let-family-print-photos-of-dead-r...

-->Should you be required by law to pay a gratuity if you don't think the restaurant's service was worth it? The police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania think so, and they arrested two college students for refusing to pay a $16.35 tip over what they claim was poor service. Update 11/23/09: the charges will be dropped.

“

"You can't give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip," said Pope, a 22-year-old Moravian College senior who's a Pottsville native, according to the Lehigh Valley Express-Times.

They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10.

The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.

”

"College students arrested for not paying tip" [Philly.com] (Thanks to WinShape!)
(Photo: BLW Photography)

More About:

• it's not really a tip, then, is it?,
• gratuities,
• tips,
• arrests,
• waitstaff,
• restaurants,
• bars,
• pubs,
• poor service,
• theft,
• police

Read it at the Consumerist: http://consumerist.com/2009/11/college-students-arrested-for-refusing-to-pay-...

Just plaint ridiculous. Tips are for good service - it's not my job to pay restaurant's employees, it's theirs. Just my 2 cents.

I don't know half of these characters. But Carrie Bradshaw & Lane Kim-definitely

6

Great little list of classic characters from our favorite TV shows who definitely would have been bloggers! From Geek Sugar

Read here: http://www.geeksugar.com/2879044

"How would you like to be sitting in property class at Iowa College of Law, and realizing that you are in the same section as this guy? The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports:

An Iowa City man is accused of physically and verbally abusing his live-in girlfriend on Sunday.

According to Iowa City police, Alvin K. Seals, 35, choked the woman after an argument and caused her to hit a wall with her elbow. The woman scraped her elbow and also cut her finger during the struggle, police said."

Read more here from Above the Law: http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/iowa_law_student_accused_of_peeing.php

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/if_you_got_married_in_texas_in.php

Read the article at the link above. Texas may have accidentally banned marriage in 2005, instead of banning gay marriage. Wow, Texas, shameful - on two counts.

By Phil Villarreal, 10:32 AM on Tue Nov 10 2009, 4,660 views

Chinese police have shut down a factory that used underage workers to crank out unsafe and unsterile condoms. The cops did the right thing, but they wish they'd been a bit quicker about it, because 2 million of these condoms have already gotten into the wild, ABC News reports:

The condoms were made in a factory in Hunan province and are believed to have been sold nationwide under a variety of names, including those of well-known makers such as Jissbon and Durex, the China Youth Daily said.

Police have detained suspect manufacturer Li Anping, who allegedly bought condoms wholesale, added an unknown lubricant and crudely packaged them without sterilizing the product, the report said.

So happy hunting, everyone! The condoms are just like Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets, only there's 2 million of them and they spread STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

Hunt on for two million unsafe condoms [ABC News]
(Photo: bnilsen)
(Thanks, LadySiren!)

From the Consumerist: always making me laugh. http://consumerist.com/5401169/you-may-want-to-check-your-condoms-for-a-made-...

By Ben Popken, 11:59 AM on Mon Nov 9 2009, 8,467 views

Following 12 reports of accidental finger amputation, stroller company Maclaren is recalling 1 million strollers. Every single Maclaren stroller sold since 1999 is included in the recall.

The safety concern arises over the side hinge that expands and contracts when the stroller is opened and closed. The company plans on sending safety covers to stroller owners.

There hasn't been an official one but the CPSC is expected to make one tomorrow.

It's important to make sure that children are a safe distance away from the stroller when you're opening and closing it. And to, you know, stop opening or closing it if you hear a high-pitch screaming.

Want a stroller that's cheaper and higher rated than a Maclaren, and hasn't been recalled for finger amputation? Check out Consumer Reports latest stroller reviews and ratings (subscription required).

Stroller maker Maclaren to recall 1 million strollers on concerns children can cut fingers off [New York Daily News via Consumer Reports Safety Blog]

Just great. Read here: http://consumerist.com/5400472/1-million-maclaren-strollers-recalled-after-12...

11 year old girl has baby during wedding ceremony. Yes, wedding ceremony. Read the whole article here. http://www.lilsugar.com/6008239

So sad.