For some odd reason, I found myself reading the “Cooking Guide” label on my microwave oven. Here’s what appears in the list of foods that a few clever minds think you might want to cook: – Rice – Fresh vegetables – Frozen vegetables – Canned vegetables – Bacon Rice, vegetables and… bacon? Lately, bacon seems […]

Virtually every grocery store flyer includes the name, picture and price for each advertised product. Assuming you have the room and the inclination, does increasing the level of detail help to drive more sales of these products? Here are some of the things you might include in the flyer when pursuing such an approach: – […]

Phone and cable companies love to advertise ultra-low prices, only to raise rates considerably after the first 6 months or so. Apparently, some consumers are starting to catch on to these tricks, because I saw an AT&T commercial the other day that proclaimed their prices are “guaranteed for 12 months”. It’s nice that AT&T is […]

There are several elevator screens that I see on a regular basis, and these screens are mainly used to show upcoming meeting schedules, pictures from the local area, and such. Somewhere along the way, the people who control the content decided to include a weather forecast on there. However, instead of using a modern approach […]

While renewing a subscription for an online service, I came across a strange paradox. The service was configured for automatic renewal, but the provider sent an email saying that auto-renewal was turned off. Well, I checked the account and it showed that the feature was turned on and the credit card on file was correct. […]

Way back when, the prices for cell phone service varied a lot from state to state. If I recall correctly, Sprint was the first carrier to introduce nationwide pricing, which eventually caught on with all the cell phone providers. Today, you’d probably be hard pressed to find much difference between the calling plans offered from […]

I saw a store flyer the other day that featured a few products from a brand called “Freshlike”. Apparently, it’s a brand of frozen vegetables that are supposed to taste just like fresh ones. However, that’s definitely not what I associated with the product name when I first noticed it. Instead, I thought of things […]

During a recent trip, I stayed on what was supposed to be the 31st floor of a hotel. However, as I quickly found out, floor 31 doesn’t necessarily mean you’re 31 floors off the ground. To be fair, many buildings skip the 13th floor, so it’s no surprise if the actual floor varies a bit […]

While in the grocery store over the weekend, I thought about picking up a little container of jelly candies. I’ve never bought that product before, and it seemed innocuous enough: all natural, no preservatives, etc. But after I checked the ingredients list, I noticed that “corn syrup” was the second-largest ingredient. Thinking this was the […]

I recently had the misfortune of riding on a really old CTA train car. The model in question, which probably dates back to the 1960s, was designed with doors that open into the passenger area of the car. In contrast, the newer trains use sliding doors that don’t interfere with passenger space. The train I […]