The Haters Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog
 

Since y'all enjoyed 2013's so much, I figured I'd post the link to the 2014:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the...log-1667452305

Fun fact: the author of this, Drew Magary, is the one who wrote the interview article with the Duck Dynasty guys that created such a flap, pardon the pun. He also writes "Why Your Favorite Football Team Sucks" every fall, which I highly recommend, for fans and non-fans alike, as no team is spared.

how do companies that make useless, amazingly expensive crap stay in business?

As Chris Rock said, if the poor ever find out just how rich the rich really are, the poor are going to get very angry.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/11/tom-for...doesnt-matter/

Fantastic stocking stuffer! :D

I hear their peppermint bark is to die for.

I've heard that to- and even Drew agrees. From the article:

"Copy: "Artisan (Ed. note: Of course) candymakers layer creamy white chocolate over dark Guittard chocolate and then top it with crisp, homemade peppermint candy bits."

Drew Says: Those $30 tins of peppermint bark represent 90 percent of all W-S holiday sales, so it makes sense that they would do a Marvel-style rollout of sequels and spinoffs: Peppermint bark cups, and peppermint bark cookies, and peppermint bark cakelets, and peppermint bark-coated beef roasts, etc. Soon we'll have a peppermint bark origin story. Very dark. Very gritty. I worry about franchise dilution. It used to be about the BARK, man. Anyway, you can make peppermint bark at home with four ingredients, but why do that when you can have an ARTISAN CANDYMAKER do it instead? Let me tell you something: If my kid went through college and then told me he wanted to follow his dream of being an artisanal candymaker named Williamsburg Wonka, I would beat his *ss. No remorse. We don't need this many people trying to elevate candy.

But for real, I'd eat the f*ck out of all these items."

Their placemats and things like fruit bowls are really nice (and yes, the peppermint bark is good!)

i'm sure they are. and i'm sure you can get fruit bowls and placemats that are nice without that price! :)

it's like when i went to a charity auction, and someone had donated a $350 purse.
i would never spend that kind of money on a purse. mine i got on sale for about $12 fights gravity and holds my stuff in place just as well as that one!

I heard the same thing from a lady using a black hefty trash bag as carry-on luggage.

The ones that get me are the expensive ones that have the company's logo as part of the design. So, I am to pay you for the privilege of advertising your brand for you? No thanks.

:tro:

yeah, it should be the other way, right? lol
I'm just one of those people who will looks at necessities as just that, not something to break the bank on. I like something that looks decent, holds everything, and will last a bit. serviceable I think is the word. I buy name brand tennis shoes-but not the high end name brand shoes! and I love getting stuff on sale.
I'm...frugal. we own chevy and Hyundai, not Cadillac and lexus! that way, if I want to drive to cali for two weeks, I can. not be broke with a lexus in the driveway that I can't do a road trip in.

:tro:

He's is only worth $50 MM plus.......

I guess that is poverty...Ni%%er please.

Then I guess he knows what he is talking about

His whole interview with Frank Rich is pretty good:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris...versation.html

i saw the line before about obama getting elected not being black progress, but white progress. i'd imagine that's true.
what gets me most about race discussions....
well, we're all the same race. just different shades of color. and those shades are all due to evolution...

http://phys.org/news97857326.html

one of the uncomfortable truths i guess that makes some reject evolution as being a hoax, or untrue. hard to claim superiority when one finds out he shares the same genetic code as the 'different' guy he has decided to hate for no good reason.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/l...olution/where/

there was an article that discussed that chinese scientists thought that the chinese had come from a separate line of early humans. nope, we all share the same genetic markers, codes, we all came from a common ancestor.

One of the books I recorded on anthropology this year talked about that, too- it put the term "race" in quotes because anthropologists don't recognize "race" as an accurate way to classify. Ethnicity can be somewhat more useful as a term because then culture factors in and we're all products of culture. As the book put it, so, at what point does a skin tone go from being "white" to "black"? Humans come in every shade from very pale to very dark. Race certainly gets used as justification for social stratification, though.

Exactly !

yeah, i was talking to my dog about it on the way to work this morning. :D

no, seriously, i just looked at her and said 'why do humans insist on categorizing everything?'
she had no answer.
but yeah, everything i've read says we are all one 'race'. the human race.
tony and i went to concealed carry class Saturday. in the race box, i put 'h'.

on no.
i just realized, they'll think i'm hispanic. crap.
lol

:zz:

Seeing as how he grew up poor working class in Bed-Stuy, rather than inheriting millions from his family, he's in a pretty good position to speak from both sides of the issue.

He better not leave is Millions to his kids because they will have a lot explaining to do :D

no one is against people inheriting their parents money.
on the other hand, i have an issue with folks like mitt romney paying a far lower percentage of their income in taxes than i do on mine.

I checked my effective tax rate, it is 15%

Mitt's is 14.1 %.

Can't say it makes me want to go out and protest in the streets. If I dug for a few more deductions I could probably equal his but my risk tolerance is low. What I need is a high priced accountant - hey that might even be deductible SWEET!

I'd imagine tho the difference is in millions...but, good for you that you find that acceptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

Michels stressed several factors that underlie the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Darcy K. Leach summarized them briefly as: "Bureaucracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts.

Leaders control the information that flows down the channels of communication, censoring what they do not want the rank-and-file to know. Leaders will also dedicate significant resources to persuade the rank-and-file of the rightness of their views.[2] This is compatible with most societies: people are taught to obey those in positions of authority. Therefore the rank and file show little initiative, and wait for the leaders to exercise their judgment and issue directives to follow.

For this latter point he draws upon Aristotle who argued that a democratic polity was most likely where there was a large, stable middle class, and the extremes of wealth and poverty were not great.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...epublic-unive/

researchers compared 1,800 different U.S. policies that were put in place by politicians between 1981 and 2002 to the type of policies preferred by the average and wealthy American, or special interest groups.

Researchers then concluded that U.S. policies are formed more by special interest groups than by politicians properly representing the will of the general people, including the lower-income class.


in the new spending bill (oh thank god they passed it so the govt didn't shut down, right?), a big bank regulation was repealed, that lets swaps go on again. you know, cause we didn't learn anything the last time around when finance caused the biggest economic downturn since the great depression. but hey, bankers paid dearly for that, so they won't do it again. (hahahahahahaha)
i'd say the greatest thing the rich did for themselves is they managed to get a fair amount of americans to support all they've done. it's only made it easier to get laws tilted ever more in their favor, while us peons pay for all their shenanigans.