January, 6, 2011 archives

the only thing I knew about pepsi’s refresh promotion is that the charitable foundation wing of a trade organization of which we are a member was bombarding us with emails about it. it comes as little surprise to read that the online voting is being gamed by shady organizations. so thanks to pepsi, various non-profits have been fueling a contest that is probably just a couple of steps removed from the folks operating botnets and doing all sorts of ugly stuff.

without much attention from me, blog-la-sphere turned four years old last september. traffic has nearly doubled since the last time that i checked. i don’t think the ads on it have paid out in a long time. but i still find the site useful, so on it chugs.

saeed farkhondehpour, developer of the medallion at 4th and main in downtown los angeles, plans to challenge the downtown women’s center’s plans to open a second-hand store because he thinks “a lot of people will not want to come shop near secondhand stores.”

so the toy district, where you can find blocks of stores selling nearly the exact same items, would somehow be tarnished by a second-hand store run by a non-profit organization in a space that is currently just a building behind an iron fence.

yeah, i don’t buy it.