Knishes Conniptions
These knishes are, without a doubt, the most vile, disgusting thing I have consumed in my recent memory.
Category Archives: Consumer activism
Vote NO on Massachusetts Question 1
I recommend a vote of NO on Massachusetts 2012 Question 1, the “Right to Repair” initiative. Its purported goal is to ensure that independent automobile repair facilities have access to the same diagnostic information as car dealerships, so that consumers can have their cars maintained and repaired by whomever they want. This is a laudable… Read More »
Have you enabled do-not-track?
For a while now, the web browser vendors and major purveyors of targeted internet advertising have been working on a proposal for allowing users to prevent web sites from tracking their online activity and using it to “customize their web browsing experience,” a.k.a., displaying targeted advertisements which are, theoretically, tailored to the person viewing them.… Read More »
Liberty Mutual: horrendously awful auto claim handling
On Friday night, October 19, our minivan was flooded during a severe rain storm when our street’s storm drains clogged with leaves and the street flooded. At its worst, the water was about 2½ feet deep near the storm drains, which is unfortunately where our van was parked. We discovered the damage Saturday night, and… Read More »
Unwelcome at Stoddard’s Pub, Boston
To: Jamie Walsh, Manager, Stoddard’s Pub Subject: Poor experience at Stoddard’s Dear Jamie, I dined at Stoddard’s last night with six of my coworkers. It was not a positive experience. Our outing to Stoddard’s was one of our regular team dinners, which are about much more than just eating and drinking. They are about solidifying… Read More »
News update on Larry Hoffheimer, Parkinson Research Foundation, Macular Degeneration Association
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune recently ran this article by Barbara Peters Smith about Parkinson Research Foundation (PRF), its founder Larry Hoffheimer, and another, far more reputable charity with which PRF is competing in Sarasota. The article also briefly mentioned Hoffheimer’s other “charity”, the Macular Degeneration Association (MDA). Readers of my blog know that I have written… Read More »
PayPal adding mandatory arbitration to user agreement, but you can (and should!) opt out
UPDATE: The Consumerist has posted a template you can use for your opt-out letter. Furthermore, the Consumerist article says that eBay just did the same thing as PayPal, and you need to send a letter to opt out of that one as well. There’s a link in the article to a template for the eBay… Read More »
How not to apologize for a service outage
I have several domains on Go Daddy, including my blog and my primary email domain. As a result, both my blog and my email were nonfunctional for much of the day on September 10, due to the Go Daddy outage you’ve probably already heard about. For the record, I first started using Go Daddy simply… Read More »
Continental (now United) up to its old tricks, losing children and not caring until the media gets wind of it
Bob Sutton writes about how earlier this summer, United Airlines (which is the merger of the old United and Continental) lost a 10-year-old girl. Aside from the exact details of how they lost her, the story is surprisingly similar to what happened to my daughter in 2009. It is depressing, but not surprising, to learn… Read More »
What’s the Macular Degeneration Association up to nowadays?
In 2008, I wrote about the Macular Degeneration Association (MDA), a questionable charity whose actual mission seemed to be more about lining the pockets of its founder and his cronies than about supporting macular degeneration research or people suffering with the disease. The charity doesn’t look any better now than it did then. Here’s an… Read More »