In an age where doing business online is becoming more and more common most have had their share of good experiences and bad. Normally I only take the time to cover the bad. Once in a blue moon I have an experience with a business that merits singing praise. Seldom ever do I see anyone bend over backwards to make a customer happy. Earlstees.com impressed me on so many fronts I felt compelled to share my story. After all an online company going above and beyond the call of duty is something of a rarity anymore.

My story starts with a simple item, a Handbanana T-shirt. I understand that not all people will understand who or what a "handbanana" is so I'll just say if you don't know you should give Aqua teen hunger force a try. It's a cartoon that I think is hilarious but some might find rather distasteful. When I saw the handbanana T-shirt, for me it was a must have.

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I was up watching The Godfather: Part III for the thousandth time (and giving thanks that Sofia Coppola is now directing and not acting) when I jumped outside to snap a quick shot of the lunar eclipse. Pretty cool.

There is a large portion of America's middle class that turns to investments as a means of retirement. A lot of people like to keep tabs on stock they have invested in, or receive as benefits. Some might receive shares of a stock as an incentive to take care of the company they work for insuring they and the company are profitable. Then one day the moment in the spotlight comes and the company goes public on the market. The glitter quickly fades to gloom as the company you and so many worked so hard for falls in value %15-%35 in the first month continuing the trend over the next year. Someone must be to blame but not who you might think.

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Recently I have been working on purchasing a house. As some of our clients know I just recently got married and the next step in my life is to purchase a house. While working on the financing though I found out I have a big pet peeve and its unprofessional letters in professional circumstances...

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and shaolin vs. lama could quite possibly be the best. I was turned on to this movie about two years ago by a friend after explaining my enjoyment in an occasional kung fu flick. He informed me that I must see "chicken fists" and looking back I would say he was right. Now I understand that kung fu movies are not for everyone but I have seen few people who actually sit and watched it who didn't agree it is one of the best movies ever. What makes it good? Well for starters bad acting, I mean after all bad acting didn't stop people from going to see transformers. I also think that a shaolin monk who eats red meat, drinks good wine and takes no students makes for a good plot line.

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I came across these a while back and can't quite get over the fact that magnetic force can do this

to a coin. Actually that was two Georgia quarters he is holding there (see the peach)! Granted it has some juice behind it but cool none the less. Of course if you don't feel like lugging around giant capacitors you can check it out here.

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I recently came across this and knew immediately it was too good not to share. We have all wasted at least a day (cumulative total) on the phone with robots, most likely far more. I know there has been many times that I have given up on phone system "stockyards". I use the term stockyard because it most certainly makes you feel like a cow being pushed through the series of gates to your death. Well, next time try the list out when applicable. It might not take 20 minutes to jump through the hoops to get a warm body on the other end.

"The List"

Disclaimer: You might still have to deal with rude customer service representatives who take pleasure putting you on hold while they do their nails. Also remember to make sure to get their name so you know who to give a hard time for dumping you back into number pad hell, rather than dealing with the problem.

A 14yr old kid in New Zealand just recently won my personal "Dumb of the Month" award. He was recently picked up for stealing an XBOX 360 after he tried to go online with it. The problem was that the previous owner had already registered it with Microsoft. After the boy ordered another power cable (since he forgot to steal it) they had his address. Wow... I am always amazed at people...

Anyway, it seems this has brought up all kinds of Privacy Policy Issues with Microsoft. It seems it took the police over 2 weeks to get the information out of Microsoft even though they knew something wasn't right with the whole thing. Now, there are two ways you can understand this. Your personal information is VERY secure and Microsoft will protect you no matter what or if your XBOX is stolen it might be kinda hard to get Microsoft to tell you where it is. But Microsoft holds that they were in the right and are very protective of their clients identities, but are always happy to assist the police.

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BTW on a side note:

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Well, as most patriotic Americans know Boston came under siege from terrorists this week. The perpetrators at large being the "mooninites". Some might ask is this some religious extremist group? It would be nice but unfortunately that is not the case, they are cartoon characters. Yes, cartoon characters instilled fear in the hearts of Bostonians. The portrayed "improvised explosive devices" were L.E.D. caricatures of these characters. Apparently a "concerned citizen" reported one of these suspicious boxes and the severity of the threat became apparent when more were found throughout the city. The only thing to do was shut Boston down. As stated in the norton post we happen to be fans of the cartoon. Is it for eveyone? Probably not but, humor is where you find it. Which cartoon it was is kind of irrelevant here, it could have been Tennessee Tuxedo for all I care. What is important is to consider that some people in advertising could be looking at 3-5 years! Instead of Boston owning up and saying "we all messed up, sorry for the scare" they decided that it would serve better to charge these advertising agents like they had intentions to do harm.

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We like to keep up with new trends and directions and this certainly merits a few moments. By now most people know about and make use of RSS feeds to keep up to date on breaking news or maybe just to keep up with one of your favorite blogs. If you don't know what RSS is about, check out this link to bring you up to speed. That being said most people know about subscribing to RSS and it does a good job providing raw information. If the you are the type that likes a little more flair, you would do well to check out mb3dengine.com. The mbd3engine user interface takes getting used to, but it provides quick access to a lot of information. Also just looking cool earns it a plus in my book. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to see more of this in the future!