August 13th, 2011
Like everyone else I’ve seen the television ads for the Dyson fan and wondered how the thing works without fan blades. My cousin and I were recently discussing this very thing when we decided to do a little research on the topic.
After visiting a few customer reviews we discovered that there are in fact blades contained in the fan’s base. The air is simply channeled up through the round “air foil.” A couple of days later I examined a display model at my local Home Depot. The commercials have often described the noise generated by a conventional fan as unsettling. “The blades buffet the air creating a pulse, but the Dyson fan creates a constant stream of air…” or something along those lines. Sorry to say the noise level (if that bothers you), is about the same as a conventional, less sexy, general market fan. The air put out by the Dyson fan is not too bad, also about the same as her more average cousins. The Dyson fan is not a scam. For the most part it does what the manufacturer says it does. But nor is it, in my opinion, as cool as they imply either. There’s really no new method of moving air, as the design would seem to suggest. So what’s the draw? Well obviously its aesthetics. The Dyson fan looks like something you’d see sitting on Captain Picard’s desk, particularly the mat grey model with the blue air foil. But good looks are costly. The price on most models has come down to around three hundred dollars… yes down. So you’re looking at paying more than ten times the price of a more plain Jane Wal-Mart fan.
At the end of the day the Dyson fan is a cool product, however how much is your average consumer willing to pay for cool? As for me I’ll stick to my old school oscillating fan that I paid about twenty dollars for, even if it is unsettling.
Tags: Aesthetics, Air Foil, Captain Picard, Commercials, Conventional Fan, Couple Of Days, Cousin, Cousins, Customer Reviews, Desk, Display Model, Dyson, Fan Blades, Home Depot, Noise Level, Old School, Oscillating Fan, Plain Jane, Television Ads, Tyler Texas, wal-mart
Posted in Tyler Businesses | No Comments »
June 7th, 2011
Recently my cousin and I went looking around for a recliner, but it wasn’t exactly a hard target search. We were merely browsing a couple of furniture stores looking for any deals. As a single guy, I don’t invest much money in furniture. Aside from some pretty nice book cases I haven’t purchased much at all actually. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with quite a few relatively expensive pieces by both friends and family over the years. I bring this up in the interest of disclosing my own lack of knowledge of the furniture business. We visited two businesses: the much vaunted Southside Furniture, and Bassett.
Southside has been in the middle of a clearance sale. My understanding is that they’re in the process of going out of business. (I could be wrong on this point as I’ve heard a couple explanations for why they’re clearing their inventory, so if any readers know for sure, I’d welcome your comments). I do find it odd that they’d be closing as they only recently changed their name from Ashley’s back to Southside. At any rate, their selection was decent but even with the forty percent discount the prices seemed kind of high. I’m open to the possibility that it’s just my frugality, and the prices were in fact perfectly reasonable. I’m so accustomed to trying to do more with less that I don’t always perceive the great deal. They did have some really nice pieces but even some of the chairs that I personally found rather unattractive were up around four to five hundred dollars. The store itself was really nice by the way, very large and open.
I was less impressed with Bassett, but I’m completely sure why. First off I guess, because their selection of recliners (which happened to be what my cousin was in the market for), was quite a bit smaller. Their products overall were nice, but the store had a much more crowded feel. Both shops had some huge couches and chairs! I don’t know if this is the latest trend in couches or not but some of the bigger models had arm rests in the middle that included cup holders. Personally I’m not a fan of this feature. It brought back too many memories of riding in the back of my parent’s big Starcraft van. Just thinking about it brings on that old nauseous feeling.
At the end of the day neither shop had exactly what my cousin wanted, for what he was willing to pay. Both stops are worth a look see however. I saw a number of reviewers on line complaining about the customer service, but at least on this occasion that was not our experience. The staff at both places was perfectly friendly, offered to help, but let us look around without pestering us.
Tags: Ashley, Chairs, Clearance Sale, Couches, Cousin, Explanations, Friends And Family, Frugality, Furniture Business, Furniture in Tyler TX, Furniture Stores, Furniture Stores in Tyler Texas, Furniture Stores in Tyler TX, Going Out Of Business, Hard Target, Invest Money, Lack Of Knowledge, Recliner, Recliners, Single Guy, Southside, Target Search, Tyler Texas furniture stores, Tyler TX
Posted in Furniture | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2011
In places like Kenya African tribes where rubber bracelets to ward off evil spirits. The tribe medicine men will sell these bracelets to the members of the tribe and they are everywhere there.
Now take a look at these balance bracelets in America. The bracelets use carefully crafted language to explain that you may see a promotion of enhanced balance, relaxation, and well being.
They will not outright claim anything as scientific fact as they can simply wait on the thousands of people who buy these bracelets to offer positive testimonials.
An interesting aspect to these testimonials is that many of them follow a very similar sales pitch type structure.
The comment starts off by saying they are skeptics themselves and are by nature a skeptical person. They go on to offer an impressive credential or two like that they are a doctor or engineer.
The testimonial is setup with offering the idea that the person is a skeptic to let those reading it put their guard down that maybe this comment is for real.
The person offers a good credential like that they are a doctor, scientist, engineer and then they begin on how they tried the balance bracelet and it fixed their back, or their balance or any number of ailments.
These fake testimonial comments are peppered throughout the Internet on many blogs and sites to give a higher percentage of positive comments than negative.
If it weren’t for these fake comments you would likely see a much higher percentage of negative comments as opposed to positive ones.
On the other end of this you do in fact have several real comments from people who are believers in balance bracelets.
I have a cousin who uses the EFX balance bracelet and he is a smart guy. Both him and his wife swear that it has releaved both back pain and headaches for them.
All I can say is that the bracelets work very well as placebos but do the bracelets actually do something scientific to cause my cousin to stop having a headache beyond placebo? No!
So are balance bracelets scams? The placebo effect works but that being said the bracelets are indeed scams there is simply no other way around it.
Tags: African Tribes, Ailments, Back Pain, Balance Bracelet, Balance bracelet EFX, Bracelets, Cousin, EFX balance bracelet, efx balanec bracelet scams, Evil Spirits, Hea, Headaches, Medicine Men, Negative Comments, Pitch Type, Placebos, Relaxation, Sales Pitch, Skeptic, Skeptics, Smart Guy, Testimonial Comments, Type Structure, Voodoo
Posted in Scams | No Comments »
June 2nd, 2010
As the owner of a small house with a couple extra rooms, I have often made a habit of trying to keep a boarder or two to help pay for expenses. Mine is a bookish house, ok that just sounds snobby… I have too many books! Now I’ll never be featured on TLC’s Buried Alive or anything, I’m at least neat, but there are books in just about every room save the restroom. Periodically I go through and prune but it doesn’t take long before I’ve replaced what I cut. Ok so I digress. It was probably about five summers ago when I and my cousin, who was living with me at the time, went looking for a new book case. It was June or July and we were dressed appropriately for the summer heat i.e. shorts and t-shirts. We stopped off at a local and well known furniture store, and were greeted by an elegantly dressed, attractive, youngish woman, with an attitude that was anything but. As we entered the establishment the woman looked us over and inquired rudely, “What are YOU looking for today?” “Just looking for book cases,” I replied sheepishly and a bit sarcastically. She told us with mock disappointment the store didn’t carry bookcases. We chose to take her at her word even though we could see they had several on the sales floor.
Furniture stores are funny that way. There’s often a great deal of pretention that goes along with selling furnishings. “I don’t think we sell that sort of thing here… We sell exclusively Carl Farbman’s designs. Did he ever design book cases?” Well I found a furniture store with incredible merchandise and without all the snobbery. Western Heritage Interiors is located on highway thirty one, just off the west loop. The products they carry are all western themed and highly unique. The merchandise is all beautifully crafted, and while it is rustic in appearance, it is unlikely that you’ll find too many examples of this kind of quality in an old bunk house. And Western Heritage carries much more than just furniture. The store is filled with all manner of art, from paintings, to sculptures and everything in between. Ok, so lamps and tables made of elk racks, deer antlers or steer horns are a bit too rustic for me. But many people appreciate that sort of oddity. Overall this is a great store where patrons are sure to find all sorts of conversation pieces.
At the time of my visit I was accompanied by a two year old, and had no intention making a purchase, I was simply there for the purpose of writing this review, a fact I didn’t mention by the way. But the gentleman I spoke with was gracious and seemed unconcerned by the presence of a child in his store. Try that at another furniture store in Tyler. I should also mention that the store is locally owned and operated, so most of what is spent there, stays home in Tyler. Western Heritage also has a website, but it appears to be under construction because it doesn’t scratch the surface of the inventory the actually carry in store. I suggest visiting in person for a more realistic look at what they offer. Their web address is www.westernheritageinteriors.com. To reach them by phone, call 903-592-9803.
Tags: Appearance, Attitude, Boarder, Book Case, Bookcases, Carl Farbman, Cousin, Disappointment, Funny That Way, furniture store, Furniture Stores, Habit, Pretention, Restroom, Snobbery, Summer Heat, Tlc, Tyler Texas Interiors, Tyler TX, West Loop, Western Heritage, Western Heritage Interiors, Western Heritage Tyler Texas
Posted in Construction | No Comments »
January 16th, 2010
Do you tip at Sonic? That’s a discussion I’ve had with several people recently after discovering that the workers who bring you your food actually expect tips. Should I feel like a jerk for my ignorance in not knowing this already? In my defense, I usually use the drive through, but when I don’t, I usually don’t tip.
I know, they don’t expect a lot but the thought of tipping at a fast food restaurant just seems weird to me. When you go through a drive through somewhere, and they ask you to pull up because your food isn’t ready yet, do you tip the person that finally does bring it?
If I have about 50 cents or so left, I may let them keep the change but I’m not going to go out of my way to give an extra something. No offense, but unless you’re coming by and refilling my drinks, I just don’t see it as being necessary. Not to mention, if you expect a tip, you need to make that an option for people paying with a debit card. One point that’s been made to me is the fact that the workers usually get paid minimum wage. They’re not actual waiters and waitresses here.
Almost every time I have this conversation with someone, I’m reminded of something that happened to me. A couple days or so after my cousin and I had gone to Sonic on the Loop and 64 in Tyler, I was cleaning out my car which required me to pick take out the Sonic bag from just nights before. In it, I found some ketchup packets. On one of those packets was written a girls name and phone number.
This had us puzzled. Was it intended for me, or him, which one? Or was it not intended for either of us. Perhaps someone had written a name and number on several packets and threw them in there and we happened to be one of the (not so) “lucky” ones. Regardless, the possibilities were endless.
That night at Sonic, there was no flirtatious Sonic employee. There was no drop dead gorgeous woman for whom either of us would consider buying a Rout 44 strawberry limeade. We simply came to the conclusion if the number actually belonged to a girl worth calling, we would have remembered it and therefore, we decided to let it remain a mystery. Who knows, maybe she was just trying to get a tip.
Tags: 50 Cents, Conversation With Someone, Couple Days, Cousin, Debit Card, Drinks, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Fast Food Restaurant, Girls Name, Gorgeous Woman, Jerk, Ketchup Packets, Lucky Ones, Minimum Wage, Possibilities, Rout, Sonic, Sonic Drive-In, Sonic Tyler Texas, Strawberry, Tyler Sonic Drive-In, Tyler Texas, Waiters, Waitresses
Posted in Fast Food | No Comments »
Voodoo Bracelets in Africa the equivalent to balance bracelets in America
January 3rd, 2011Now take a look at these balance bracelets in America. The bracelets use carefully crafted language to explain that you may see a promotion of enhanced balance, relaxation, and well being.
An interesting aspect to these testimonials is that many of them follow a very similar sales pitch type structure.
The comment starts off by saying they are skeptics themselves and are by nature a skeptical person. They go on to offer an impressive credential or two like that they are a doctor or engineer.
The testimonial is setup with offering the idea that the person is a skeptic to let those reading it put their guard down that maybe this comment is for real.
The person offers a good credential like that they are a doctor, scientist, engineer and then they begin on how they tried the balance bracelet and it fixed their back, or their balance or any number of ailments.
These fake testimonial comments are peppered throughout the Internet on many blogs and sites to give a higher percentage of positive comments than negative.
If it weren’t for these fake comments you would likely see a much higher percentage of negative comments as opposed to positive ones.
On the other end of this you do in fact have several real comments from people who are believers in balance bracelets.
I have a cousin who uses the EFX balance bracelet and he is a smart guy. Both him and his wife swear that it has releaved both back pain and headaches for them.
All I can say is that the bracelets work very well as placebos but do the bracelets actually do something scientific to cause my cousin to stop having a headache beyond placebo? No!
So are balance bracelets scams? The placebo effect works but that being said the bracelets are indeed scams there is simply no other way around it.
Tags: African Tribes, Ailments, Back Pain, Balance Bracelet, Balance bracelet EFX, Bracelets, Cousin, EFX balance bracelet, efx balanec bracelet scams, Evil Spirits, Hea, Headaches, Medicine Men, Negative Comments, Pitch Type, Placebos, Relaxation, Sales Pitch, Skeptic, Skeptics, Smart Guy, Testimonial Comments, Type Structure, Voodoo
Posted in Scams | No Comments »