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2011 The Year Of The Backtracker
Tuesday, 3 January 2012 01:32We Meant To Do It This Way From The Start
As I pointed out in the post on the White Coke can (DW), there was a news report that the can would be coming out with a red background. And just before Christmas, we ended up getting a 24-pack with the new style.
Frankly the polar bear graphic looks a lot better with the higher contrast of the red can versus the white on silver. And they said, like New Coke/Classic Coke, that this was part of the plan? Puh-lease.
There Was A Lot Of That in 2011
In the weak but not dying economy, there seemed to be a lot of missteps and recalculations. Bank of America wanted to impose this $5 fee and next thing you know they got spanked by their customers and changed their mind. Of course they'll probably try it again in a different way in 2012, but for the moment, no fee. Verizon tried to pull something similar by adding a charge for using a credit card to make single payments. Now legitimately, credit cards do cost them, but the argument that they wanted access to people's checking accounts and have automatic payments engaged? Not a bloody chance.
Back in the spring they said that we'd have four dollar plus gas all summer (DW). Worse were the pundits which talked of five dollar gasoline, which usually means that carte blanche has been issued to the oil companies and So It Is Written, So It Shall Be Made So. But actually gas prices spent most of the rest of the year bouncing from high to mid to low three dollars -- not four. Somewhere around Mother's Day or maybe it was the Memorial Day price jump that didn't happen the madness subsided. In fact, some gas prices dropped right around the major summer driving holidays, which put people on the road in greater numbers, much to the relief of the tourist and travel industries. Not sure why the drop, but I just read where the average price for gas in all of 2011 was higher than in 2010, so we really did fork over more of our treasure to get to the same destinations.
The other year the airlines were all about the small 50-seat regional jets, and service expanded to many small cities. This year? Regional jets cost too much so they're being cut and routes are being cuts and sections of the country may lose all their service.
And an awful lot of politicians found themselves saying that they didn't mean that or reversing themselves. Or facing recall efforts, some of which are still going on. Or ballot proposals to negate some stupid-headed power grab that had nothing to do with any "crisis".
I'm still waiting for LiveJournal to rollback Release 88 (DW), but they don't yet seem to have gotten the memo -- or read the thousands and thousands of angry complaints.
I don't think this is going to end in 2012...
Dr. Phil
As I pointed out in the post on the White Coke can (DW), there was a news report that the can would be coming out with a red background. And just before Christmas, we ended up getting a 24-pack with the new style.
Frankly the polar bear graphic looks a lot better with the higher contrast of the red can versus the white on silver. And they said, like New Coke/Classic Coke, that this was part of the plan? Puh-lease.
There Was A Lot Of That in 2011
In the weak but not dying economy, there seemed to be a lot of missteps and recalculations. Bank of America wanted to impose this $5 fee and next thing you know they got spanked by their customers and changed their mind. Of course they'll probably try it again in a different way in 2012, but for the moment, no fee. Verizon tried to pull something similar by adding a charge for using a credit card to make single payments. Now legitimately, credit cards do cost them, but the argument that they wanted access to people's checking accounts and have automatic payments engaged? Not a bloody chance.
Back in the spring they said that we'd have four dollar plus gas all summer (DW). Worse were the pundits which talked of five dollar gasoline, which usually means that carte blanche has been issued to the oil companies and So It Is Written, So It Shall Be Made So. But actually gas prices spent most of the rest of the year bouncing from high to mid to low three dollars -- not four. Somewhere around Mother's Day or maybe it was the Memorial Day price jump that didn't happen the madness subsided. In fact, some gas prices dropped right around the major summer driving holidays, which put people on the road in greater numbers, much to the relief of the tourist and travel industries. Not sure why the drop, but I just read where the average price for gas in all of 2011 was higher than in 2010, so we really did fork over more of our treasure to get to the same destinations.
The other year the airlines were all about the small 50-seat regional jets, and service expanded to many small cities. This year? Regional jets cost too much so they're being cut and routes are being cuts and sections of the country may lose all their service.
And an awful lot of politicians found themselves saying that they didn't mean that or reversing themselves. Or facing recall efforts, some of which are still going on. Or ballot proposals to negate some stupid-headed power grab that had nothing to do with any "crisis".
I'm still waiting for LiveJournal to rollback Release 88 (DW), but they don't yet seem to have gotten the memo -- or read the thousands and thousands of angry complaints.
I don't think this is going to end in 2012...
Dr. Phil
