AlumNit

Dear Google,

Who are you to tell me how I should write my name?

You could have managed than one swiftly. You didn't. You got feedback, you answered with worse policy. Your policy is so bad that it won't even be enforceable fairly, as you still have you own employees with fake profile, or exempt celebrities.

You created some great product and in that case you f***ed it up real hard.

You disable my profile, goodbye^[1].

PS: Get a clue: read My name is me

PPS: even people using their real names get rejected - language warning over there.

Notes

[1] as of now I'm still on notice. Not changing it

(hub at August 18, 2011 20:58 UTC)

If you bring a toy that sqweek at the Boston Terrier meetup, you are sure to get a herd of these little daemons. Hadden Park, Kitsilano, Vancouver, BC - July 18th 2010

(hub at August 14, 2011 15:03 UTC)

Headband Flower

We're going to a little half-birthday celebration tomorrow for another wee lass, so I wanted to take along a small prezzie. The idea for making a headband occurred to me and I found a simple pattern on Ravelry. I love how fast crochet whips together; I spent at most an hour making this (and that includes ripping part of the flower out when I realised that I had made a silly mistake). I can see myself making the flower again for other purposes too. It does seem rather large around, but I stuck with the 6-9 month size because better too big than too small.

For more details, see the project on ravelry.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Shoppers Drug Mart, a large pharmacy retail chain here in Canada. My complain was solely that they sell cigarettes (in British Columbia). Yes you read it right a pharmacy sell cigarettes. Does that shock you? It does shock me.

I was expecting either no reply at all, or some boiler plate reply, but I think they really exceeded my expectations in term of BullC.

Here is the reply, verbatim:

Hello Hubert,

Thank you for writing to us. The entire philosophy of our company is based on the understanding of care and concern for all of our customers. Our promise is to provide superior customer satisfaction beyond expectation. Shoppers Drug Mart receives a tremendous amount of advice from a wide spectrum of advocates, each with their own value systems, about the many products that a drug store sells. Their assumption is that consumers need to be protected from themselves. Shoppers Drug Mart's position is that it will not allow itself to become the cultural or moral censor for any legal product. The fact that we sell a product does not constitute any endorsement on our part of that product.

One of the great underlying perils of merchandising and retailing, regardless of diligent testing for possible hidden, offensive, or unintended messages, it may be interpreted that a product is unsuitable for the general public. To refuse to sell a product that one takes issue with would clearly be a form of censorship on our part which is a position we will not take.

Tobacco is typically displayed behind the counter, so it is not accessible to children. We hope that you can appreciate our position as a responsible retailer, which is to offer a wide variety of products and services to the many customers we serve.

Thank you for your feedback. We will continue to monitor your concern and make any necessary adjustments.

Regards, Amber Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix Customer Service

That's right, you read it well. They consider banning the sale of cigarettes a form of censorship, and they hide themselves behind the legality of the product. At least I would have taken "we do it for the money" as a valid reason. But censorship?

(hub at August 8, 2011 12:53 UTC)