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Good news, bad news on the consumer front

BAD NEWS! Scooter, the Roomba Scheduler with intelli-bin that mom and dad got me for Christmas, is sick and/or dead. It started making a loud grinding noise and the main roller brush stopped working consistently.

GOOD NEWS! I got in touch with iRobot (the robot company, not the Will Smith movie) and they diagnosed the problem as a problem. They say they'll be sending a new robot and that I should just throw the old one in the garbage after stripping it for parts. Wow! That's customer service! And the Hammacher-Schlemmer warranty may even extend past the iRobot warranty.

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GOOD NEWS! Steak-umms are back! Thinly sliced sandwich steaks that go from frozen to in-your-belly in minutes! TV ads even promote Steak-umm burgers!

BAD NEWS! The ads are American.

GOOD NEWS! I contacted the Steak-umm company (at www.steakumm.com) with an urgent request for information on Canadian availability of Steak-umms. Company e-mail responder Jena Evans responds enthusiastically:

We are pleased to inform you that Sobey's stores, as well as their affiliates IGA, Foodland and Price Chopper stores, are now carrying the Steak-Umm Sliced Steaks in Ontario Canada.

BAD NEWS! I don't live in Ontario. Crap. I miss Steak-umms. I mean, I love it here, but we don't have Steak-umms.

GOOD NEWS! We have donairs. Screw you, the rest of Canada.

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BAD NEWS! My Western Digital My Book 500 GB external USB hard drive failed. I was using it for backups, file transfers and extra storage for the PVR. The WD drive diagnostics thingy craps out at various points, suggesting to me that either the cable is faulty (lies!) or some read element is broken (possibly true!). And from the comments at amazon.com, it looks like I'm not the only one with problems.

GOOD NEWS! I bought it a little more than a year ago from Future Shop. I contacted Western Digital to see if my warranty is still good and they can send me a new drive. That was weeks ago and they haven't replied. Wait, that's not good at all. That's BAD NEWS!
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Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 13, 2008 at 9:35 AM

    I tried frozen "Steak-umm Burgers with Sweet Onions" here in the states. Horrendous! I pan fried the heck out of them but they still tasted like rubbery Salisbury steak, with the brown sauce rinsed off. There's also plain and cheese-filled versions, though I won't be trying them. -- dominic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2013 at 9:47 PM

    Who cares,I want some steak umms.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2013 at 9:48 PM

    Who cares,I want some steak umms.

    ReplyDelete

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