Drunk shopping is how you end up with three bags of chips and a cheeseburger in your purse in the morning, or how you find yourself binging on the As Seen on TV rack at the Walgreens (I dont’ want the Pasta Boat. I NEED IT). Apparently, according to The Times today, drunk shopping could be getting more dangerous for your wallet. In its latest is-this-actually-a-trend? piece, reporter Stephanie Clifford says online retailers may be targeting your tipsy sensibilities to entice you to buy buy buy in between all that online crush stalking you do post-drinking. “Post-bar, inhibitions can be impacted, and that can cause shopping, and hopefully healthy impulse buying,” says Andy Page, the president of Gilt Groupe, which is starting more late-night sales to catch this proverbial fish in the whiskey barrel. Not that we didn’t know those flash sales were hazardous anyway.
That's a whole lotta ring for $28 on Gilt Groupe. Or is it?
In cased you missed it, the Times style section had a good piece comparing flash deal sites like Ideeli and Gilt to other retail discount sites — and guess what! — the flash sales aren’t always such a bargain. Reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom compared prices on a Kate Spade tote bag, a navy dress by Decode 1.8 and Bjorn leather flats and found that the items were actually cheaper elsewhere:
On Gilt.com, where shoppers vie for limited-time discounts on designer brands, a Kate Spade cabana-stripe medium tote bag was recently $169, plus $5.95 shipping. That same day, the bag was on KateSpade.com for $130 with free shipping — about $45 cheaper. Read the rest of this entry »
Paywall, shmay wall: despite the New York Times’ surprising yet very encouraging early success with its new system where you have to actually pay for the goods/services produced by its worldwide team of reporters and editors, some of you still aren’t subscribing. Which is fine, because this here is how they should have unveiled their paywall to begin with: Living Social is offering a deal that gives you 16 weeks of Sunday papers and free unlimited access to the site (plus all mobile apps) for just $30 — a 60 percent savings over the regular cost of $80! And you can app away your Sundays all you want, but nothing makes you feel the cumulative weight of knowledge your brain is about to ingest more than holding the thick bundle of Sunday Times in your lap. Support the Gray Lady before the deal ends today!
Isn’t that like asking if you want to buy premium tickets to a bum fight? The Times today is on the tip about boxed wine gaining in stature as an environmentally rad alternative to traditional bottles — even, finally, for Real Wine Snobs. Though an undulant pouch of vino may seem like the lowest class receptacle, the Times reassures that the bag and spout solve a problem of oxidation that vintners have been struggling with for millennia. So naturally, now that the Grey Lady has slapped the bag, you’ll see a run on it at liquor stores. But their best of the box runs up to $90. Yikes! If only there was some scrappy little blog that gave you a rundown of the best $20 boxes. Wait, we’re that blog! Check out our roundup of the real best of the (affordable) box. Wine snobs welcome too.
Joe Scarborough hails the iPad as 2010′s big story, but NBC’s Brian Williams has a different take in this hilarious video, in which he names The New York Times’ “discovery” of Brooklyn as last year’s number one news event. The anchor parodies the Times’ breathless awe over crossing the bridge and — *gasp* — discovering people here do and make things. “There are open air markets, like trading posts in the early Chippewa tribe, where you can make beads at home and then trade them for someone to come over and start a small fire in your apartment that you share with nine others,” Williams says as the others guffaw wildly. Did he exaggerate the Times’ fetishizing coverage for effect? To find out, we linked Williams’ transcript to the Times articles behind it: Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t had the chance to check out this totally rad New York Times map of Netflix queues by zip code, you must. Click on the map and it’ll take you to a Times page where you can find out the top 10 rentals in your neighborhood with a roll of your mouse. The fix seems to be in for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which claims the most #1 spots among BK zip codes, followed by Milk (Brooklyn Heights, Sunset Park and Fort Greene) and Rachel Getting Married (Red Hook, Park Slope); Twilight (Ditmas Park, Canarsie); and Tyler Perry, the Family that Prays (Brownsville, East Flatbush). There’s lots of overlap among the lists, but who knew Paul Blart: Mall Cop was such a blockbuster? (No. 7 in Bergen Beach; various cameos elsewhere). Anyway, we’re not even going to kid ourselves that you’re still reading this post anymore, so we’ll leave the rest to you and your mouse…
Everyone’s a-tizzy with rumors that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are moving to Park Slope with their growing brood. Yes, that would change… a lot of things. The new standard mom jeans will be Current/Elliot stovepipes instead of Lee Easyfit and everyone will be divided into haves and have nots. (My kids have played with hers, yours have not.) But if people are worried that the neighborhood is going to get even more uppercrusty… pshaw. Read the rest of this entry »
The Times’ Frugal Traveler Matt Gross (he of the best job in media) does a fun rundown this week of all the free food you can get with alcohol in NYC, including the fried chickpeas at Alchemy (left, Fifth and Bergen) and the Sunday morning bagels and bloodies special at The Brazen Head (Court and Atlantic), a Brokelyn intern fave.
Just as entertaining are the crabby comments following the post: “If you’re that broke that eating for free at these places is your only option, then alcohol isn’t something you should spend your money on,” Hannah scolds.
Open your pay stub, take a look at your hourly rate and then put yourself in some perspective: do you earn more than $9.50 an hour? If so, then you do better than the average retail worker in NYC, according to a new study reported in the New York Times today. The average for just Brooklyn is only $8.50, and the study is none too encouraging about the state and security of low-income jobs, with this cheery squib from reporter Steven Greenhouse: “Guaranteed work hours are no longer the normal and just ‘getting on the schedule’ has become the reward for job performance.” Yikes. So it’s MLK Day and maybe you’re a retail worker feeling particularly interesting in social justice issues, so, what the hell, if you’re game, tell us: what do you make? You can be anonymous in the comments if you want, but maybe we can rout out the better retail jobs? For anyone who’s never had a retail job in NYC, here’s a picture of a magic dog instead.
Drunk shopping is how you end up with three bags of chips and a cheeseburger in your purse in the morning, or how you find yourself binging on the As Seen on TV rack at the Walgreens (I dont’ want the Pasta Boat. I NEED IT). Apparently, according to The Times today, drunk shopping could be getting more dangerous for your wallet. In its latest is-this-actually-a-trend? piece, reporter Stephanie Clifford says online retailers may be targeting your tipsy sensibilities to entice you to buy buy buy in between all that online crush stalking you do post-drinking. “Post-bar, inhibitions can be impacted, and that can cause shopping, and hopefully healthy impulse buying,” says Andy Page, the president of Gilt Groupe, which is starting more late-night sales to catch this proverbial fish in the whiskey barrel. Not that we didn’t know those flash sales were hazardous anyway.
That's a whole lotta ring for $28 on Gilt Groupe. Or is it?
In cased you missed it, the Times style section had a good piece comparing flash deal sites like Ideeli and Gilt to other retail discount sites — and guess what! — the flash sales aren’t always such a bargain. Reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom compared prices on a Kate Spade tote bag, a navy dress by Decode 1.8 and Bjorn leather flats and found that the items were actually cheaper elsewhere:
On Gilt.com, where shoppers vie for limited-time discounts on designer brands, a Kate Spade cabana-stripe medium tote bag was recently $169, plus $5.95 shipping. That same day, the bag was on KateSpade.com for $130 with free shipping — about $45 cheaper. Read the rest of this entry »
Paywall, shmay wall: despite the New York Times’ surprising yet very encouraging early success with its new system where you have to actually pay for the goods/services produced by its worldwide team of reporters and editors, some of you still aren’t subscribing. Which is fine, because this here is how they should have unveiled their paywall to begin with: Living Social is offering a deal that gives you 16 weeks of Sunday papers and free unlimited access to the site (plus all mobile apps) for just $30 — a 60 percent savings over the regular cost of $80! And you can app away your Sundays all you want, but nothing makes you feel the cumulative weight of knowledge your brain is about to ingest more than holding the thick bundle of Sunday Times in your lap. Support the Gray Lady before the deal ends today!
Isn’t that like asking if you want to buy premium tickets to a bum fight? The Times today is on the tip about boxed wine gaining in stature as an environmentally rad alternative to traditional bottles — even, finally, for Real Wine Snobs. Though an undulant pouch of vino may seem like the lowest class receptacle, the Times reassures that the bag and spout solve a problem of oxidation that vintners have been struggling with for millennia. So naturally, now that the Grey Lady has slapped the bag, you’ll see a run on it at liquor stores. But their best of the box runs up to $90. Yikes! If only there was some scrappy little blog that gave you a rundown of the best $20 boxes. Wait, we’re that blog! Check out our roundup of the real best of the (affordable) box. Wine snobs welcome too.
Joe Scarborough hails the iPad as 2010′s big story, but NBC’s Brian Williams has a different take in this hilarious video, in which he names The New York Times’ “discovery” of Brooklyn as last year’s number one news event. The anchor parodies the Times’ breathless awe over crossing the bridge and — *gasp* — discovering people here do and make things. “There are open air markets, like trading posts in the early Chippewa tribe, where you can make beads at home and then trade them for someone to come over and start a small fire in your apartment that you share with nine others,” Williams says as the others guffaw wildly. Did he exaggerate the Times’ fetishizing coverage for effect? To find out, we linked Williams’ transcript to the Times articles behind it: Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t had the chance to check out this totally rad New York Times map of Netflix queues by zip code, you must. Click on the map and it’ll take you to a Times page where you can find out the top 10 rentals in your neighborhood with a roll of your mouse. The fix seems to be in for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which claims the most #1 spots among BK zip codes, followed by Milk (Brooklyn Heights, Sunset Park and Fort Greene) and Rachel Getting Married (Red Hook, Park Slope); Twilight (Ditmas Park, Canarsie); and Tyler Perry, the Family that Prays (Brownsville, East Flatbush). There’s lots of overlap among the lists, but who knew Paul Blart: Mall Cop was such a blockbuster? (No. 7 in Bergen Beach; various cameos elsewhere). Anyway, we’re not even going to kid ourselves that you’re still reading this post anymore, so we’ll leave the rest to you and your mouse…
Everyone’s a-tizzy with rumors that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are moving to Park Slope with their growing brood. Yes, that would change… a lot of things. The new standard mom jeans will be Current/Elliot stovepipes instead of Lee Easyfit and everyone will be divided into haves and have nots. (My kids have played with hers, yours have not.) But if people are worried that the neighborhood is going to get even more uppercrusty… pshaw. Read the rest of this entry »
The Times’ Frugal Traveler Matt Gross (he of the best job in media) does a fun rundown this week of all the free food you can get with alcohol in NYC, including the fried chickpeas at Alchemy (left, Fifth and Bergen) and the Sunday morning bagels and bloodies special at The Brazen Head (Court and Atlantic), a Brokelyn intern fave.
Just as entertaining are the crabby comments following the post: “If you’re that broke that eating for free at these places is your only option, then alcohol isn’t something you should spend your money on,” Hannah scolds.
Everyone’s a-tizzy with rumors that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick 
The Times’ Frugal Traveler Matt Gross (he of the best job in media) does a fun rundown this week of all the free food you can get with alcohol in NYC, including the fried chickpeas at 
