WTF ----seriously?

Best Buy is wishing Muslims a happy holiday this year, but this is the same company that won't mention Merry Cristmas in its advertising even though it makes most of its money off of people buying christmas gifts? 

Immediately below is the best Buy quote regarding their xmas policy from an AP article in 2006.  And then below that is an article about the controversial ads.  My guess is they are going to lose some business near term given the amount of controversy.

AP article Nov 9, 2006

“We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them,” said Dawn Bryant, a spokeswoman at Best Buy Co. Inc., whose advertising omits any reference to Christmas.

 

Best Buy Wishes Muslims Happy Eid al-Adha

Nov 23, 2009

- Todd Wasserman

Best Buy stands by its decision to wish U.S. Muslims a Happy Eid Al-Adha, a rep for the company said, and though some Best Buy customers took offense, a Muslim advocacy group praised the move.

The retailer got some flak this week for including, along with its circular advertising Thanksgiving Day sales, a note saying "Happy Eid Al-Adha," which refers to a holiday of sacrifice for followers of Islam on Nov. 27 this year. After

TechCrunch

ran an item about the circular, some claimed offense and said they'd take their business elsewhere. "I spent about $3,000 with . . . your store. I will be shopping somewhere else," one consumer

wrote on Best Buy's Web forum

. "BB has the Muslims covered with the 'Happy Eid,' but what about the rest of us Americans?" wrote another. "Do we get a 'Happy Thanksgiving'?"

(The American Family Association, a Christian advocacy group,

has singled out  Best Buy

for using "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Best Buy rep Lisa Svac Hawks, however, didn't agree with the claim, saying: "You will see more of Christmas in our holiday messaging. Christmas will be included in our insert and online. We have 'Merry Christmas' on our gift cards, too. In addition. we have developed the Christmas Morning simulator as an online interactive game.")

Not everyone was dismissive. "Stop with the hatin' and happy Eid," wrote one TechCrunch commentor. "For every anti-BB post, I'm going to spend $1 there," wrote another.

Hawks explained the thought behind the greeting: "Best Buy's customers and employees around the world represent a variety

of faiths and denominations. We respect that diversity and choose to greet our customers and employees in ways that reflect their traditions," she said.

Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he could not recall when any American retailer mentioned the holiday in its ads. "It makes perfect business sense to acknowledge and celebrate a holiday that one out of four people celebrate," Rehab said.

Best Buy's not the only retailer to be criticized for its holiday advertising this year. The

AFA is calling for a boycott

of Gap because the company has downplayed the word "Christmas" with a campaign that states: "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice," and beckons consumers to "86 the rules."

 

 

 

 

Posted by takadud1 @ 8:41 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Boston timmies take it to a new level

His alleged attackers are six boys age 11 to 14; most were on championship sports teams, and one is an immigrant himself, from West Africa, the Globe has confirmed.

 

See rest of article here - www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/11/attack_on_immigrant_raises_concerns_in_lynn/

 

PS  If someone can tell me how to get the NSFW label off this that would be appreciated.  I didnt click the button.

Posted by takadud1 @ 9:44 am EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Thank you, XBox Live?

Normally, you never hear nice things about MSFT or XBL, but I have a happy story so i thought I would share.

Yesterday my 12.5 y.o. son was going over to a friends house to do a bunch of stuff including playing xbox (surprise).  He wanted to bring his profile with him, so he went to move it from the harddrive to the memory card.  Instead of moving it, he deleted it!  As you might imagine, he lost it - he is so proud of his H3 achievements etc. - I wasn't there at the time, but apparently the howling and wailing and despair was unbelieveable.  Making it even worse, it was the last day of schoool, so he was loving life since summer vacation had just started.  Talk about a tough day.  To his credit, he did pull himself together in about an hour and was ok with it (more mature than I would have been for sure). 

One of the things that is tough about the xbox is that you can't back it up like you would a pc.  So I thought for sure he was SOL.  Anyway, I quickly started doing some research and it turns out, XBL has a very handy gamertag recovery function built in.  They actually do backup your profile althoughy they do not tell you they are.  So when I got home and after a few easy steps, he was back on-line as himself happily playing H3 and screaming away like any good timmie should.

Thanks XBL you made one customer very happy and helped out this dad a ton.

As an aside, never try to explain this kind of situation to a non-gamer (like I tried to do with my wife yesterday) - it takes too long, they will never understand it and have no idea what such a loss would mean to an achievement whore.

 

 

 

Posted by takadud1 @ 11:19 am EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Random Ravings

I think I am going to start posting some stuff that makes me shake my head and question the sanity of those running the world.  Following is one of the first examples.

There is some crazy shit going on with the government butting into a lot of places.  Here is a great example of how big brother continues to look out for us here in MA.  They want to weigh kids in school and then send home a report to the parents telling them when kids are overweight.   Now, there are lots of concerns about this including govt meedling where not needed, impact on kid self esteem (and potential to drive eating disorders) and an unfunded mandate with questionable impact during a time of increasingly limited resources.  Just to name a few.  My daughter is 10, pretty much median in height and weight and she already thinks that she is fat.  Imagine what having school focusing on weight and BMIs for kids floating around would do to the focus on this for her and her friends.

But the thing that really gets me is that someone out there thinks that this will make a difference.  Parents should know whether their children are reasonably healthy;  the bigger issue is whether they care enough to do anything about it.  People make their own choices regarding their weight and health and then also pass along their values and choices to their kids (just like with anything).  Will sending home a BMI rating change the way people raise their kids (probably not) and more important should a govt mandate force it (definitely not)? 

 

 

Public schools to send home weight reports

State board targets childhood obesity

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff  |  April 9, 2009

Starting in the fall, public schools across Massachusetts will send reports home to parents alerting them if their child weighs too much or too little - the centerpiece of a campaign to shrink bulging waistlines and halt obesity-related diseases once rare in children.

The childhood screenings, modeled after initiatives in Arkansas and New York City, won unanimous approval yesterday from the state's Public Health Council, an appointed board of doctors, academics, and service providers.

Students in the first, fourth, seventh, and 10th grades will be measured and weighed so school health officials can calculate their body mass index score, a standard measurement used to gauge the appropriateness of someone's weight.

See rest of article here....

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/09/public_schools_to_send_home_weight_reports/

 

Posted by takadud1 @ 1:34 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Good news all around

The wife had her one week checkup from her elbow surgery.  Everything a-ok.  Next appt in 4 weeks.  Starts PT pretty soon.  Awesome news. Bad news is she caught the norovirus and has been as sick as a dog the last couple days.  So certainly makes recuperating harder.  Such a trooper.

My son received his black belt in jujitsu.  He is very psyched and we are all very proud of him.  The (bad?) news is he is becoming a gamer.  Loves Halo3 and Left 4 Dead right now.  What have I created?  However, he is very good at it and did help me "almost" get the akimbo assasin achievement on L4D (finish campaign with only pistols) but I got myself killed right before we were rescued.  He already has it of course.

Golf courses are starting to open up around here which is awesome news.  My challenge is how do I stay up to the wee hours playing GOW2 etc and then get up for an early morning tee time?  Ah - choices, choices.

The GOW2 DLC drops tomorrow!  Nuff said.

Off to catch up on some sleep - gonna need it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by takadud1 @ 8:14 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments