sacred bird » business and economy

like madoff but with a passion for the can

630 — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:31:16 +0000

travis wright, a money manager in utah, apparently believes in the idea of food in a can so much that he took his clients’ money that, which was suppose to have gone towards real estate investments, and put it toward his food in a can concept – peanut butter and jelly “candwich, bbq chicken”, pizza pocket and french toast. too bad his clients didn’t believe his idea enough to believe they would get the 24% return on investment he had promised on the real estate investments when they gave him the money. wright is currently being sued by the securities and exchange commission. mark kirkland, the president of mark one foods and the patent holder of the food in the can concept, still believes his idea will work. he already has a slogan “Quick & Tasty, Ready to Eat”, now he’ll just need to find another investor. frankly, i’m surprised canned sandwiches don’t already exist in the market already.

[nytimes]

you’ve got to be *&^% kidding me

180 — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:05:47 +0000

here’s one from jolly old england that most likely would have celebrity chef gordon ramsay of kitchen nightmares cursing up a storm and saying ‘you’ve got to be *&^% kidding me.’ a pub chain in england is adding menu items to their repertoire–for dogs. butcher’s pet care is teaming up with brakspear to offer delectable items that are designed to increase family bonding with their dogs. according to butcher’s pet care’s brand manager caroline coombs “We’ve built our business on feeding generations of family dogs and all our recipes are naturally nutritious and contain all of the vitamins and minerals your dog needs to keep him healthy, happy and fit as a Butcher’s dog…Now dog owners can sit down to lunch happy in the knowledge their dog is enjoying their meal as much as they are is adding a menu for dogs.” when the family sits down eat, fido can enjoy a bowl of liver and garden veg chunks in gravy and chicken and beef chunks in jelly.

cue the jokes about bad british food…..now.

[telegraph, photo via bbc]

now where’s that dingo?

180 — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:38:51 +0000

of course i’m referring to that movie with meryl streep where she proclaimed “the dingo ate my baby” in the movie a cry in the dark about missing baby azaria chamberlain. american tourist jean barnard would have been happy to have had a dingo to whisk away the toddler that she claimed screamed so loud in her ear that the three year old loud speaker made her ears bleed and caused permanent damage. according to the story in time magazine, barnard sued qantas for negligence and failing to protect passengers. of the incident, settled out of court, qantas said “Plaintiff’s injuries, if any, were caused by the arbitrary and volitional act of a three-year-old child. Flight attendants cannot predict when children aboard an aircraft are about to scream. There is no evidence that the child was screaming in the terminal, or on board the aircraft prior to the particular scream which allegedly caused the damage.”

barnard has no love for this kid, she said “The pain was so excruciating that I didn’t even know I was deaf” and in emails she is said to have written “I guess we are simply fortunate that my eardrum was exploding and I was swallowing blood…Had it not been for that, I would have dragged that kid out of his mother’s arms and stomped him to death.”

i’m sure she meant that in the nicest of ways.

[time, photo via djabonillojr.2008, azaria chamberlain story]

song name not to be changed

630 — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:43:04 +0000

the young men’s christian association, also known as the ymca, is going through a little rebranding. they’ve decided to drop the “mca” and just go with the Y, as they’ve been commonly called for years. said kate coleman, the chief marketing officer said “It’s a way of being warmer, more genuine, more welcoming, when you call yourself what everyone else calls you.”

it’ll be a sad thing 10 years down the line when the kids singing and dancing to the village people’s “ymca.” song don’t know where the song came from. but then again, I’m not sure it really matters the members of the group in their outfits – the cop, the cowboy, etc

[foxnews.com]

jessica simpson’s show won’t be sponsored by vaseline

180 — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:33:58 +0000

not sure if anyone watched it, but jessica simpson had a show on vh1 called the price of beauty, a show designed to “explore how different cultures define beauty and the extraordinary lengths that women will go to in order to achieve it”. the show is being retooled, and is rumored to be yet another makeover show. i’m pretty sure though, that this product won’t be on the market–a skin whitening product called ’skin white’ from vaseline.

the product got a little bit lot of bad publicity last week when facebook india debuted an app, also sponsored by vaseline designed to whiten skin. it features the effect of the product on indian actor and bollywood star shahid kapur’s face–he gets a few shades lighter. men are invited to try out the product using the application. not surprisingly, people were kind of appalled by the application and many protests came up. in response, vaseline said

Vaseline is committed to creating culturally relevant products that meet the needs of its consumers in markets around the world.Much like self-tanning products in North America and Europe, skin lightening products are culturally relevant in India. In India, men use these products to lighten and even out their natural skin tone and to reduce the appearance of spots while protecting their skin from the sun. The Facebook application was created for the Indian market as a culturally relevant and engaging way for Indian men to interact with this product.

i guess they were trying to show how relevant the product is in this print ad.

[vaseline app for facebook, price of beauty, print ad via copyranter]

another jobs report

180 — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:47:19 +0000

here’s the list of the 8 lowest paying jobs in the u.sa. according to data collected about national averages . interesting, the list of jobs used to be summer jobs for youngins but the article says that the jobs are now “are survival jobs for midcareer folks who have been downsized.” courtney cox probably got paid more per hour to be in bruce’s video the back in 1980 when the video was made. next time you’re doing anything that involves entertainment, your house, or putting something in your mouth, remember this.

food preparation and service (includes fast food): $8.71/hour

dishwashers: $8.81/hour

cashiers: $9.15/hour

hosts and hostesses: $9.23/hour

amusement park attendants: $9.57/hour

movie ushers and ticket takers: $9.43/hour

farm workers: $9.51/hour

personal and home care workers: $9.75/hour

[msnbc]

they pulled a ‘john kerry’

180 — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:51:56 +0000

remember back in 2004 when john kerry said he was “for the war before he was against it?”. well, consumer reports has pulled a “kerry” and is now against the iphone, even though about a month ago they were for it. the trusted consumer organization confirmed that the iphone 4 has a reception problem (we told you about this last week). the statement on their electronics blog reads “When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.” they go on to say that they tested the phones using some super hardcore frequency chamber and that their findings call into question, apples kinda lame excuse about the reception calculator is flawed.

the fix for the problem? they say put some masking tape over the problem area. i think it looks much better with the livestrong band.

[john kerry flip flop, consumer reports update]

they’ve got a logo and everything

630 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:32:59 +0000

if you’re milling about with nothing to do this summer, you might want to check out new online learning venture, beck university. exclusive content available only with the insider extreme subscription to glenn beck’s website, “professors” for the university include david barton of wall builders, a “pro-family organization”, david l. buckner, the president of a consulting and training company and james r. stoner, jr a political science profession at Louisiana state university. “Through captivating lectures and interactive online discussions, these experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.” first session, faith 101 starts today.

[glennbeck.com]

sir lancelot saves a damsel in distress (a.k.a. the iphone)

180 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:37:12 +0000

lots of people have been complaining about the reception problems associated with the iphone 4’s reception. seems as though people have isolated the problem to the nifty new antenna design that sits in strips within the stainless steal phone border. steve jobs seems to have taken the lead of bumbling bp chief tony hayward because he told people to merely “hold the phone differently” to solve the problem. if that doesn’t work, the company recommended that iphone owners spend an extra $29 (plus $4 shipping and handling) for a bumper designed to protect the antennae. after dropping the $300 plus on the phone, people aren’t so keen on that idea so, they’ve have been searching for low-cost solutions (a different kind of cottage industry for the new toy). one solution was found by lance armstrong. recently he tweeted that people have found a $1 solution that will fix the problem and fight cancer and the same time. yup, the famous livestrong yellow bracelet can be fashioned into a low-cost bumper.

is there anything lance armstrong can’t do?

[business week]

they must have been thinking of ‘the nutcracker’

180 — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:55:47 +0000

thanks to a tip from my buddy and love anderson cooper, i learned about the bp’s blog from the gulf today. in every way possible, the blog’s reporters take a glass half full reporting approach. my favorite example of this was from a report filed on may 28. in the blog post titled ballet at sea reporter paula komar describes the cleanup effort using flowery language like this: “triangles, circles, v-angles: precision shapes at sea executed by shrimping vessels and choreographed by skimming perfectionists to stop any oil from potentially getting close to Alabama’s coast.”

here are a few tidbits from komar and her colleague tom seslar’s other reports:

in working together – “On Mothers Day, BP provided a rose boutonnière for each mom and a wonderful Alabama police office bought hundreds of roses and handed a single rose to every mom and lots of daughters. Though the work never stopped, there were a lot of smiling faces and a few tears, reminding everyone that this spill response is only a very small part of what’s important.”
in i saw the oil spill today – “Seeing it real-time, up close, eyes-on is, oddly, an inspiration to shake off the weariness, to look ahead, not behind, to dig in and focus with vigour on the task at hand.”
in flying higher to get closer to the oil spill – “My appreciation for the enormity of the oil industry as an economic contributor in the Gulf of Mexico climbed sharply within minutes after I hitched a ride aboard a helicopter that BP had chartered for a couple of oil hunters.”

[bp's blogs from the gulf, image street giant]