Zazzle.com ... Assholes

i purchased a shirt for my son, dylan, from zazzle.com back in december ... the shirt was kinda expensive (it was merely a t-shirt) and i bought the "wrong" kind (according to dyl). the shirt was supposed to be a "black ops" shirt - from the video game. i bought a different "black ops" shirt; it was the kinda black ops that has nothing to do with the video game.

anyhoo, during checkout, i swear i unchecked the box to be on thier mailing list. first of all, i think it's kinda cheezy to have it marked by default to begin with (illegal in some states, if not all). yet, i rec'd spam/junk/crap/garbage marketing email from them anyway. i replied "unsubscribe" a bunch of times and also unsubscribed via the web.

oh yeah, on top of all that crap, this company had a coupon. just like i unmarked the box for subscribing to their shitty mailer, i entered the coupon code to expedite shipping for the same price as standard ($8ish bucks... for a freaking t-shirt). low and behold, i saw no evidence of the coupon on my confirmation. i quickly emailed the company after my order and the bastards didn't get back to me for two days. at that point, the order had shipped and their lame-ass response to applying the coupon was that they couldn't and that i should've in checkout (um, duh, i did).

do yourself a favor and NEVER go shopping there.

Drivers in Bethlehem Using Cell Phones While Driving Statistics

I take periodic smoke breaks at work and have a chance to people watch for about 5-10 minutes about 4 times a day ... not a lot considering it's during an 11 hour shift without a lunch break. I work in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by the intersection of Broad and Wood Street and the Post Office is across the street.

Today, I counted all of the vehicles that drove along on Broad Street (both directions) during each one of my breaks today that (a) had drivers talking on a cell phone, (b) were not gov't or work vehicles (except for one odd-ball worth noting) or (c) for other reasons. Here are the results:

9:00 a.m. - 9:05 a.m. ET: Out of 18, 6 were on a cell phone while driving

11:45 a.m. - 11:55 a.m. ET: Out of 50, 1 on a cell phone while driving and 3 with a nice layer of ice on the hood and roof; a cop car was in the area for the first 14 (cell law may have skewed result); 1 jaywalker; 2 nose-pickers

2:30 p.m. - 2:35 p.m. ET: Out of 33, 4 were on a cell phone while driving and vehicle and an additional 1 was on a cell phone while driving a bigger box truck (first and only one all day)

4:45 p.m. - 4:52 p.m. ET: Out of 71, 5 were on a cell phone while driving; 1 guy was tying his neck tie driving hands-free ... literally

All Times Above: Out of 172, 16 were on a cell phone while driving - not inc'ing the box truck driver; at least 1 was on a cell phone while driving each of the 4 time spans; many that were not on a cell phone while driving had passengers in the car or were older (guesstimating > 65); all that were on a cell phone while driving were solitary in the vehicle

Sad, considering Bethlehem banned cell phone usage while driving in August ... although, they are not enforcing it whatsoever and there are absolutely no signs for out-of-towners to heed instead of common sense.