Archive for August, 2007

I stole wi-fi service today

Okay officially I don’t think this is criminal.  Because Panera Bread makes their wi-fi publicly available.  But today I surfed on Panera’s wi-fi from the McDonald’s across the street.  So in a way I did steal the service since I wasn’t buying anything from Panera.
See last week I was at Panera and noticed that I […]

The Courier-Journal is not worth 75 cents

I noticed that our local newspaper, the Courier-Journal, just upped their newsstand price to 75 cents.  That just seems pretty steep for what you get out of the C-J.  I don’t think they’re worth a 75 cent price.
And the Sunday price also went up a quarter, it’s now $1.75.  I subscribe to the Sunday paper, I […]

Food wrapped in McDonald’s packaging tastes better to preschoolers

Wow, this is the power of marketing at work.  In a study of preschoolers, researchers showed that identical food tasted better to the kids when wrapped in McDonald’s packaging.  Even healthy foods like carrots were rated better-tasting by the kids if it came in a McDonald’s wrapper.
That is a remarkable, if scary, achievment for McDonald’s.  […]

The heat is definitely on

Oh boy, I just checked out the forecast for next week.  We could hit 100 by Wednesday.  It is not going to be pleasant around here for a few weeks at least, unless you’re a fan of the triple-digit temperatures.
I’ve been dragging my bike onto the bus and then riding it on the river trail […]

90% layoff at American Home Mortgage

It had been clear all week that American Home Mortgage was in trouble, just how deep the trouble was revealed late yesterday. Apparently they could not find a way out of the mortgage mire, nobody to fund or buy them up.  So they’re laying off 90% of the employees, essentially everybody involved in their mortgage-writing business. They’re […]

I feel so bad for people caught in the mortgage collapse

The collapse this week of American Home Mortgage has me just feeling sick for all the home-buyers caught up in its demise.  The company couldn’t fund $300 million in mortgages on Monday, and another $450 million on Tuesday.  Meaning some three-quarters of a billion dollars in mortgages went up in smoke on just those two days.
Those […]