Up North (& Out There doing it)

One of many 1sts -- all in one move

An astonishing number of firsts, as I'm opening up my WiThings scale, in an attempt to liven up and continue the progress 23 lbs less of me initiative. (let's be honest -- weight loss and dieting is a real snoooooooooooooooooooooooooooze). 

So I bought this little number, and to be honest, it was a little bit of a stretch, spending $150 on a scale, but let's talk about the firsts, first.

First 1st -- Twitter-sourced purchase.  @Dens was tweeting about giving this to his sister for Christmas and said that @Jack gave him the idea.

Second 1st -- This, at the time of purchase, almost felt like a purchase for technology's sake. (Never a good move, but I've been accused of that before).

Right out of the box, its presentation is Apple-esque and very beautiful (quite shocking for a scale. Fired it up, and what I loved about it immediately was it was an electronic scale that gave you an immediate reading.

We've had two other scales in our house since Aug 4th. The 1st was an electronic scale that worked great, but I hated waiting, waiting, waiting only to get an 'Errrr' in the morning. Weighing yourself in the AM is rough enough without having to deal with that.

That scale was replaced by the old school 'normal' scale, but while that gave an immediate reading, I was never convinced that it was giving good readings and since little curious fingers could adjust the zeroing out -- didn't feel confident in it and sometimes went to check in on the old electronic scale.

If you do stick around on this new scale, it tries to calculate your BMI.

All of this (and here's the ringer on why I got this thing) is uploaded directly over your wireless network to your own personal tracking website.  The scale is quick enough to recognize different people and all of that.

My only disappointment is that I didn't have this on Aug 4th, when I started this whole weight loss insanity stuff.

Here's to a healthy waist line in all of 2010.  If I get real brave, maybe I'll even let you all take a peek.

Who gets to Green Light these?

Ann Taylor is a pretty classy brand in my opinion. Its just classic stuff that can go from the sharp dresses business executive to the motherly type. So I was kind of surprised to find their Madison Avenue store windows full of these for the holidays.

Nipplequins. You know you've all seen them. Mannequins with the most pronounced nipples you've ever seen. Everyone knows that sex sells, but who is shopping at Ann Taylor and then dressing like this? And can you imagine the corporate meeting that must have gone on back over the summer.

Bill: "This is the year folks, we must do the Nipplequins."
Jerry: "Are you nuts? That's not what our brand represents. We can't afford the bad PR."
Bill: "Bad PR, are you kidding? This is a home run. 'How Ann Taylor got its groove back!'"
Jerry: "Have you been watching too much Mad Men? Our women are not to be objectified."
Sarah (the big boss): "Gentlemen, its time to take a risk. I'm green lighting this one and I'll be the one defending or championing this one come early ‘09."

Poor Sarah, how did she know that the economy was going to go into the tank. The Nipplequins are the least of her worries. At least you would think, being a brand that knows how to dress, they could get these poor mannequins a couple of bras.

Its a little early

But Lord & Taylor does look pretty festive.

It's what's wrong with America

(pic)Went to Target and picked up some fireplace tools. Pretty simple, not that elegant, but good enough and for $30, you can't complain.

So I was shocked to find a couple of nuts to put the thing to together came with a crescent wrench in the package. What's wrong here? Crescent wrenches are pretty common tools -- not that outlandish to expect a consumer to own one, and yet here is a cheap one included in the box.

Are you kidding? That's ridiculous. This item was already pretty cheap, but now they've got to throw in a tool too? Come on people, everyone's house should have some basics. Now if it was some proprietary fitting or some strange hex wrench (again, perhaps a stretch, but I'll give it to you) thanks for including it... but a crescent wrench -- so not needed. Put that extra cost back into the actual product that I'm buying.

And the worst part -- after all of that? The Crescent wrench didn't fit the nuts that it came with to screw in. Unbelievable.

Parking lot hell

Holy crap. I'm over this parking situation. We're just trying to go to Target and Home Depot (that's all) and (un)fortunately they are built into the same building together and so the TRAFFIC IS UNREAL!!! I have never seen anything like this. This mega mall that we went to had every single store you can imagine in it:

Old Navy
Snotery Barn
The Gap
Johnny Rocket's

And the list goes, on and on and on and on.

But the traffic was really mind numbing. After driving around for what seemed like 20 minutes, we nearly abandoned going to Target all together. Just not worth it.