Comments for The things you carry

Comment on Lolcats, Heath Ledger, WWE by Paul Dailing

Paul Dailing — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:58:19 +0000

First of all, I forgot this blog existed. It moved to a different URL in about March 2008, so thanks for the reminder that it was still up. Don’t worry; I google myself too.

I can’t speak to this year’s numbers, as this post was written on Jan. 28, 2008. It’s a year old and came out long before the numbers came out.

I didn’t have last year’s numbers, but the point is that NEITHER DID YOU. And you were the one offering tips to news editors based on the people who coined the lie the first time.

You cited the NRF as the people saying it was coming true. You cited Shop.org as the people who coined the term. You never identified that Shop.org is the online wing of the NRF.

Here’s a link to the article. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=133268

I suggest you read it and ask yourself why you never identified the National Retail Federation and Shop.org as the same people.

And as to your last point, I cut-and-pasted a paragraph from the post above. You seemed to have missed it, but it’s above. In the post. That you just read.

“Granted, back in real life, the International Council of Shopping Centers routinely reports that the busiest shopping day of the year is actually the Saturday before Christmas.”

Comment on Lolcats, Heath Ledger, WWE by al tompkins

al tompkins — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:31:37 +0000

Despite your suggestion–http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/the-official-cyber-monday-bits-post/

…On Wednesday, comScore reported that e-commerce spending on Cyber Monday was $846 million, up 15 percent from a year ago. For the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday spending jumped 13 percent.

That’s a marked contrast to online spending for the entire holiday season so far, which is down 2 percent to $12.03 billion, according to comScore.

The fact is many online retailers did, in fact pump up sales and promotions, as I wrote they were going to do.

It also could be noted that I point out the retailers created the cyber Monday tag. No “falling for it” here I’m afraid.

On the flip side, you have it wrong that Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. Usually that falls in the week or two before Christmas. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/shopping.asp

Comment on Norm Abrams is totally punk by Christine LaPado

Christine LaPado — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:26:57 +0000

interesting response, but fyi, gruk members themselves named their approach to life “DIY.” i just wrote what they told me… c*

Comment on Robble robble by Oh no, I’m only an 87.9 « The things you carry

Oh no, I’m only an 87.9 « The things you carry — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:08:34 +0000

[...] been told I might be offering too much commentary, for example, when I told the state of Kansas to screw itself. So here’s an open call to readers. How do you feel about the Consumer Confidence Index? Is [...]

Comment on Robble robble by maudestandish

maudestandish — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:21:49 +0000

Wow. Yeah screw Kansas! How is it possible that this could be true? Is there no national standard?

Comment on HA! by The rest of the world « The things you carry

The rest of the world « The things you carry — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:36:51 +0000

[...] comparing that to the $2.5 trillion American debt Money-Zine calculated and I discussed in this blog entry. However, not being sure about any difference in calculation methods TFN and Money-Zine used (for [...]

Comment on Norm Abrams is totally punk by pdailing

pdailing — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:13:46 +0000

Eh. They’re fine. Wish they would just call themselves “dumpster divers” like they used to, but I’ve got no beef with them.

Comment on Norm Abrams is totally punk by Cathy

Cathy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:07:31 +0000

How about “freegans”?

Comment on I like Spam by andibee

andibee — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:12:36 +0000

I love all the layers of irony in the bigboxreuse project. In the suburb of Milwaukee I call home (which was, incidentally, nowhere near the bottom of Money’s list), there’s an abandoned K-Mart with “For Sale” signs hanging in the window. I always wonder what brilliant investor will come up with a plan to turn K-Mart into anything other than K-Mart, you know? I’ve seen a Barnes and Noble become a Flanner’s, and a Loehmann’s become a Guitar World, but it seems that as the building’s blueprint gets bigger and bigger, the pool of possible rehabbers gets smaller and smaller.

By the way, I love your writing style!

Comment on It’s a wonderful life by Finally, the interview « The things you carry

Finally, the interview « The things you carry — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:54:11 +0000

[...] now, after all this silliness, I finally have my interview with Brandon McCormick, director of Consumerism! The Musical, the first anticonsumer satire I’ve seen in years that hasn’t made me want to slap the [...]