Aron 2 Blue

worldwebpages.net scammed me. I hate that they scammed me, because I think I'm pretty good at resisting telemarketing techniques. Here's what happened. Beware. Around August 27th, 2007, they called our small business with the pretense that they were updating a directory at the request of our phone company, Verizon. Then they asked if I had the authority to make billing decisions. I said yes, because I thought I would save my boss some time. I was assured that I had to go through a recorded voice-mail session to be out of their database so they wouldn't call anymore. The recorded script said that I was signing up for a service, some kind of web site or web listing, which was free for the first month, but there-after cost $9.95 to set up and $34.95/month, charged to our phone bill! The first time through I said "no, I don't authorize this", and then hung up when the marketer tried to convince me I should complete it. He called back, and assured me that I was not...

I'm a fan of Freakonomics , and I found Tyler Cowen's blog, Marginal Revolution , through them. Tyler's latest book, 'Discover your Inner Economist', is significantly different than Freakonomics. It takes some of the quirks of economics as a given, like the inadequacy of the 'perfectly rational consumer' model of a person. It has short sections that are easy to read, but each caused me to examine myself or the behavior of others around me in a new light. I changed where I went with a friend to lunch yesterday based on this book, and I had a brand-new dish in a Korean Barbecue restaurant that was delicious, even though I was in a strip mall next to a tire outlet. A small thing, but positive and worthwhile. I found this book filled with other examples like this. Highly recommended.