YouVert

Guy Makes Freaky and Amazing One Of A Kind Watches

Haruo Suekichi is amazing. He creates one of a kind watches out of just about anything. they are all so unique and beautiful at the same time. What I love is that every watch is unique, it has a name, almost a TimeSoul. Not sure how it relates to this blog except this guy spends all of his time, making things he likes and other people have come to love. I look at that as the inspiration behind CGM.

Anyway, read about him.

LINK: Suekichi

Via Gibson

What is the next great Apple Product?

Worth1000 has an interesting photoshop contest where they asked people to design the next great apple product. Interesting ideas abound!

I will take an iBoard please!

LINK: Worth1000

iPhone As A Delicious Beverage

The gracious folks at BlendTec have answered the hours old question of whether or not an iPhone will blend?

Question answered.

Thanks GeekyHoward for the link!

iPhone Gives Adults Orgasms

In this spoof commercial from GeekSugar we see some adults playing the role of those annoying kids from the N64 commercial. iPhone YESS YESS YESSSSSSSSS!

How long before the apple brand police offer up the cease and desist?

I even find this one annoying.

Originally seen at Boing2

Best Buy Doesn't Care If Their Employees Steal

So get this story. I am astounded at how bad this customer experience was with Best Buy corporate and it really makes me wonder how companies that are supposedly in the customer service business completely fair at it.

At my company we have a company credit card. We use it for a variety of stuff, and being that we do a lot of events that require technology often we run out to the Best Buy across the street from the office. I would estimate that we have easily spent over 50k with them in the last year or so, so we are not a small consumer to a brand like that.  To continue, we were going over our credit card statements and noticed that there was a charge from May for 2 airline flights. We did not recognize the names of the travelers and the flights were each over $500 so we did a little more digging. Luckily, my credit card statement lists the names of the travelers. So I put one of them into good ole Google and the results came up. The name came back as some woman who lives in Minnesota and lists Best Buy Inc as her employer (note: the flights both originated in MN to Vail and back, also note that BB's headquarters are in MN).  So I says to myself I says, hey! we have a corp account and also charge a lot on our corp card with Best Buy and one of the names of the passengers on this bogus trip works at Best Buy!
Of course, we call the CC company and the airline to dispute, but I say to myself, let me also call BB and let them know that one of their employees might be stealing credit card #'s. It seems the right thing to do. So I call Best Buy corporate to report this. I tell the receptionist the gist and she says hold. She then transfers me to CUSTOMER SERVICE as if I want to place an order. After waiting 6 minutes on hold, someone picks up and I proceed to tell her the story, she says, "I don't have a screen for that", please hold. I hold another 5 minutes and she gets on the line to tell me that her supervisor said to dispute the charges with my CC company and the airline. I said that we are doing that, but I wanted to report that someone in the organization may be stealing.
...pause
...pause
She finally comes back on the line to say "Sir, what would you like me to do with that information?" I say that I think Best Buy would like to know if someone is stealing credit card numbers (yes, i know allegedly) and she pauses again and says "Ok, I can put it in the notes here" and then pauses. I ask her if she wants the name and she says "OK." I give her the name and she asks if there is anything else she can do and I say no thank you.
I call back to the corporate number and ask if there is someone in Human Resources I can call to report a complaint about a BB employee. I am transfered to a crisis consultant who happens to be someone who only deals with BB employees so after I tell him the story he says, "Sorry I wish I could be more helpful but they do not give us a number for that."
I try one more time and ask the receptionist who I should talk to in this regard? She says Consumer Relations. I speak to a woman and relate the story one more time. Her initial response "Oh my gosh!", she tells me that she has not experienced this and needs to talk to her supervisor. Another 5 minutes on hold (we are up to over an hour at this point) and the woman (who of all I have spoken to seems the most interested) does take the name and will ask someone higher up to get in touch with and again encourages me to call the bank to dispute the charges. I ask when I should expect someone to get back to me and she simply says that she will try and let someone know how important it is.

So who knows if I will get my 1K+ back, whether the CC's insurance will handle, the airline or hopefully Best Buy. As for me, I would like to see said person thrown in the gallows, but that would mean BB actually taking interest in making their customer service experience better, which, at least from this wasted afternoon, it does not seem they really want to do.

Oh yeah, this is a site about user video so here is another guy pissed at BestBuy

Consumer Generated.............Art On Toast?

In the third installment of things that I want and yet have no need for, I bring you Zuse.

A toaster that lets you draw 8 bit art on the bread itself via different levels of burn.  Yum.
LINK: ZUSE

Via Eyebeam

One Voice Can Save The World!

Well, maybe not, but it can vote on if Spiderman can beat the piss out of Batman. Using the classic game of 'what if x fought y - who would win' our esteemed partner and sometimes contributor XvsY brings us the new version of the popular party game. Drum roll please...... X VERSUS Y!!!!!!!!     .com

So whether it is Paris vs. Joe Francis or Funyuns vs Potato Sticks, you now have a voice, you now have an opinion, you now can control the media with the power of competition.

ok, just go vote already.

LINK: XversusY

Mario Rides The Line

See the entire level one of Mario Brothers as performed by Line Rider. Ya know you want to. 473,483 other people have, isn't it time you do?

I wish i had this kind of time on my hands.

Longing For The Cola Wars

Gizmodo has a very interesting piece on the coming i-video wars. They make the claim (and I agree) that Blu-Ray and HD DVD will probably be the last big consumer physical video pushes. That after them, it will all be on-line and who will own that is totally up in the air at this time.  It is back to the video wild west all over again. I long for the days when our minds and hearts were taken by the simple things like the cola wars.

LINK: THE INFINITE VIDEO FORMAT WAR IS COMING

For $2000 You Too Can Make Anything You Ever Wanted

I introduce you to the DIY machine of the future.

Remember in the old school Star Trek when you could just go up to a machine and say 'Almond non-fat 170 degree half caf latte please' and it would pop out a minute later? Granted it would look like a colored piece of styrofoam, but to continue.

The future, is beginning to be the now.  Check out this post on the Mass-Customization blog about the Fab@home. An open source machine that can 'make anything, even itself.'  While initially thought to make components, the basic idea of what this machine will do is to do short run fabrication of almost anything you could possibly think of. What happens to brands when you can simply design and make it in your basement? And you have the whole developer community behind you making both the machine and the designs better.

As they mention in the post, this could be what the laser printer was 20 years ago. Will the Fab@home ever get a wonton soup from Wo-Hop exactly right? We will have to see, but I for one and pretty impressed!

LINK: Mass Customization