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Let’s Play “What’s Wrong with this Business Model?”

16 Nov

November 16, 2010

Let’s Play “What’s Wrong with this Business Model?”

It continued:

“How dare you? How dare you! You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming in here and buying a dozen baguettes. And that dinner last week? Screw you! Who do you think you are, spending money in here like that?

Obviously, our closing is the consumer’s fault. You decided that you didn’t want to spend money in Don Otto’s. Who are you to make a decision about your money like that? We’re Don Otto’s, be-atches! This store deserves a better class of customer. Fuck you, South End!”

Shit. Now where am I going to get my $8 carton of eggs? ShopRite only sells the $2.19 carton of eggs. I suppose I could go to Balducci’s, but they only charge $3.09. Even the organic eggs don’t break the $4 mark. I guess I can go into the Village and get some free range organic vegetarian eggs from local farms, but even factoring the gas to get there I am only paying around $5. Maybe I can convince them to sell me only a 1/2 dozen eggs at the full dozen price and make it up on percentage? I really need those $8 eggs.

Of course, the real problem is that I just didn’t “understand that my purchases make a difference, and that by buying something that wasn’t exactly what I want, it gets me closer to what I want. It’s an investment.”

Today I went shopping. I wanted a pair of pants but I bought a skirt instead. When the store does a little better I’ll get those pants.  I needed a new comforter but all I saw were scratchy horse blankets. Sure, I could have gone next door to Sears, but like Don Otto’s, Petco needs loyal customers too. So instead of sleeping under a comfortable $20 Sears comforter, I sleep under a rough $55 horse blanket. It isn’t exactly what I wanted, but I see it as an investment.

I hope my dermatologist can help with all the abrasions I seem to have gotten lately.

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Lock your doors and hide the women and children! Thanksgiving is almost here!

11 Nov

November 11, 2010

I am taking this article in its entirety from the NY Daily News, where usually the only turkeys it writes about are Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council. I can vouch for its truthfulness, as I have seen these turkeys myself and gotten out alive.

Turkeys terrorize residents as they roam neighborhood

One slice of Staten Island isn’t giving thanks for its turkey this holiday season because the wild fowl are rampaging across the neighborhood.

The menacing flock is ruffling feathers in Ocean Breeze by tying up traffic, covering yards with excrement – even trapping one terrified woman in her car.

“It was straight out of ‘Cujo,'” said dental assistant Gina Guaragno, 23. “I’m sitting in my car Facebooking on my phone when turkeys jumped on my windshield.

“I screamed like I was being murdered. They just kept looking at me like it was their car. I felt trapped. I was so scared.”

Ocean Breeze’s turkey terror began at least a decade ago, when a local resident liberated her nine pet birds at nearby South Beach Psychiatric Center.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation said there are roughly 100 turkeys in the neighborhood, though locals think it might be in the thousands.

Packs of turkeys strut slowly along the tree-lined residential streets near Cromwell Ave. and Mason St. in a daily display that’s hardly mouth-watering.

“It’s disgusting. It’s horrible,” said Sarah Pellei, 82, who first noticed the invasion a decade ago.

“People think turkeys are a big joke. But when you have thousands of these filthy animals surrounding my house and pooping all over everything, it becomes a living nightmare.”

Standing 2 to 4 feet high, the brown-feathered fiends meander between houses and linger for hours outside some homes.

“The turkeys are terrible, terrible,” said Sarina Sanfelice, 82, who keeps a garden hose by her front door to drive them away.

“They come in droves by the hundreds and eat the figs off my fig tree and poop all over everything. I complain and complain, but no one will help us.”

The hose is the best weapon available because city law protects wild turkeys from hunters.

Nothing protects humans from turkeys, though. At Staten Island University Hospital, patients and staff routinely dodge the birds gathered outside the doors.

Some seniors are too terrified to leave their homes, City Councilman James Oddo said.

DEC spokesman Tom Panzone said the agency is surveying residents to determine what steps are needed. Options include capturing or “harvesting” – killing the turkeys and donating the food to the needy, he said.

Oddo hatched a plan two years ago to move the turkeys to an upstate farm, but conservation officials balked because they thought the weather would be too cold

“How are people supposed to have faith that their government can deal with problems like terrorism when we can’t even deal with turkeys?” Oddo asked.

Some residents have specific ideas on handling the problem.

“I have the perfect spot for these turkeys,” said Allan Barnhardt, 52. “Right between my mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.”

Click here for the video:  Turkey Terror

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