A neighbor brought mother some food using a brown paper bag from Central Market. I like the bag so I thought I’d share. This is printed on the side in large lettering.

I am a brown paper bag. More than likely, I’ll end up under your kitchen sink with a few of my  friends. I might get cut up and wrapped around an old textbook, or just stuck under something messy. It would be nice if someone made me into a kite. I’d like to be a kite. But whatever happens, I will never forget the day I carried groceries home from Central Market.

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Slate magazine has unusual articles. This one, http://www.slate.com/id/2203103, discusses a new video ad by HSBC bank. Watch the video before reading the article. Then you tell me. Is this one of the most unusual bank ads you’ve ever seen? What do you think it means?

(Depending on your browser security settings, may need to click twice to start the video. If you are receiving this via email, or want to open the video separately, just go here: lessig.org/blog/2008/09/barackbook_fact_check.html)

Lawrence Lessig is one of my favorite authors and commentators. This commentary struck me as one great example of how isolated snippets can be easily used to justify the wrong information.

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

I read Robert X. Cringley’s columns. That said, I don’t forward or refer many of them. So this is an exception.

July 4, 2008
Independence Day: Because we’re so much more than just consumers.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080704_005191.html

Are you tired of being broke? Are you tired of email spam asking if you are tired of being broke? Are you tired of everyone trying to make money by trying to sell you a way to make money?

Then check out this parody.

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I’d barely finished my post about my favorite computer store (MicroCenter, www.myephemerae.com/my-regular-computer-store). I’d explained why it’s my favorite: the staff knows their stuff.

Then, I discover this InformationWeek article titled Clueless Circuit City Scrooges Itself Out Of Christmas Sales (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/ 2008/01/clueless_circui_1.html).

In summary, last March, Circuit City decided to fire 3,400 people who worked there and knew what they were doing and replace them with cheaper, and much less knowledgable, sales clerks.

Sorry, but when you are trying to make a wazillion dollars selling stuff that consumers don’t really understand, like PCs, cameras, and televisions, you need staff that knows their stuff.

What happened? Well, their 3rd quarter and Christmas sales tanked.

In contrast, their competitor, BestBuy, trained its staff on their high tech products so they could actually help customers and what do you know … BestBuy’s 3rd quarter profit went up 54%.

Seems I’m not the only one who values staff who know their stuff.

Having posted about a New Computer Store (www.myephemerae.com/a-new-computer-store) it only seemed appropriate to mention my regular store as well.

I live less than one mile from the Dallas location of MicroCenter (www.MicroCenter.com).

I love this store for one huge reason … the sales staff know their stuff. Not only do they know where stuff is (which is a huge accomplishment in many retail stores today), they understand me when I don’t use the right words, and know what I should have asked for when I make a mistake.

(My personal computer is a PowerSpec (their house brand) and I’ve been very pleased.)

While visiting the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog (www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/get_a_life_blog) I visited the Blogads blog (weblog.blogads.com) where I saw this recent post …

After seeing a $25 price-tag for a simple USB cable at Staples, I went around the corner to Intrex and bought a longer cable for $4. Hope I’m sufficiently scarred to never again buy anything wired from Staples.

That intrigued me enough to visit Intrex and check it out. I’m impressed.

A recent edition of Roy William’s Monday Morning Memo discusses the ads for the Mac. You know the one. It features the Mac and the PC in a conversation.

The article links to a clever picture of what that ad would have looked like 11 years ago.

No, that’s not my personal philosophy.

It is (was) the text on a large outdoor sign put up in Chicago by lawyers Corri Fetman and Kelly Garland.

According to the AP (Toronto Sun) the sign came down, not because it caused an uproar (which it did) but for technical reasons.

Apparently they didn’t have a permit.

Imagine that. Lawyers failing to get a permit.

Apparently it worked, though. “Since it went up last week, the two lawyers said calls to their law firm have gone up dramatically.”