Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug show. My name is Doug Cunnington. Today, we’re going to go over a couple random topics. It’s going to be maybe like two rants. Not specifically negative, but, um, I’ll try to just not complain. Although, I mean, Part of this is, is complaining, but I don’t want to complain the whole time.
So I’ll try to, I don’t know how I’m going to spin it into something positive, but I’ll, I’ll try to spin it into some sort of lesson that we can learn from. But let’s be honest, it’s just going to be me complaining for at least one of these and there’s another couple of things I’ll just let you know, like what I’ve been up to a little bit and finally, the.
The thing is like, it’s the week of Thanksgiving, right? So it’s black Friday timeframe and there’s all these deals and stuff. And the thing is like, it’s not just like black Friday deals. It’s like cyber week deals. It’s the whole fucking month. I started to get deals at the very end of Tober, which was a little bit surprising.
In fact, one company. They were like, I was potentially going to work with them. And they were like, Hey, we got our black Friday deal. I think they fucked up the months. Cause like the black Friday deal, it was like the last week of October. And I was like, I think they messed up and I haven’t followed up.
And now that I think about it, I think they messed up the months. They’re they’re not located in the U S so maybe they didn’t realize the calendar. Although. You know, just Google that pretty easy to figure out. Well, we’ll start in the more positive area. I’ve been doing a little, uh, freelance photography and videography as well.
So the videography thing I’ve been doing for a little while, I only, I only have one client, so one of my friends here in town, she was inquiring about someone that could do live streaming for, she’s at a choir and they perform, I think, three times a year. They have a concert three times a year. And you know, a few people, a few hundred people show up to, to watch the concert and some people can’t attend.
So they wanted to live stream it. This is a nonprofit and she had some questions and I was like, ah, I’m not the right person, but I have done a lot of live streaming. So if you have questions, I can answer some questions around it. Well, it turned out she. needed someone to do it, and they had already inquired with some more, quote, Professional companies out there, people that do live streaming to make a living and or videography, and they were charging somewhere around 1, 200 or so.
And this was in the, like before all the inflation hits, this must’ve been 2021 or so. And I was like, ah, you know what? This seems kind of interesting, a little bit challenging. I haven’t done it before. Let’s give it a shot. And I asked her what her budget was, and I was like, you know what, I’ll just come in under your budget.
I know you guys are a non profit. You’re not trying to like make money here. It’s, you know, people go and practice the, the choir performance and stuff. They practice together. They don’t get paid or anything. And then it’s a nonprofit. So anyway, it’s a good cause and all that kind of shit. So anyway, I was like, I’ll do it.
It was fine. The first couple of times that I did it, I actually went to their dress rehearsals to make sure like I knew what I needed to set up. So I was familiar with the performance so I could maybe, uh, switch cameras a little bit more easily. And at the end of the day, now that I’ve done this, uh, you know, Five, six, seven times.
I don’t remember how many times I’ve done it like for a few years here. So now I know exactly what to do. I know the audio guy. I know the feed that we need. I can just show up. It takes me about half hour to set up. And then the concerts are an hour and I, I charge, like I said, a little bit less than what their budget is.
And here recently I was like, Hey, I could do it again for you this year, but I’m going to, you know, Fucking everything’s more expensive. So I was like, I need to raise the price. So instead of like actual market value is about 1, 200 or so. I was, I was like, I’ll charge 400 and then I just stepped it up to 450.
So like I said, there’s a little drive time and stuff. So all in like including my drive and all that stuff, it’s about a little over a hundred bucks an hour, which is fine. Like I said, it’s for a good. Good nonprofit, nice people, good to work with and all that stuff. So that’s one thing that I’ve done.
And I’ve mentioned it before in the show. Like I like photography. I’ve been into photography since I was like teenager, basically back in the 35 millimeter days have had many cameras. I’m looking over at my shelf of lenses and over the years through the YouTube channel and you know, the money that I’ve earned, I’ve been able to.
Get nicer lenses over time, which I never thought I would have some of the lenses that I have just because they’re, they’re kind of expensive, but if you get them on the used market. Way, way cheaper and the other thing is just over the course of several years, you know, doing YouTube, having a reason to have good lenses.
I’ve accumulated a few. I like photography and I, you know, one of those things they say, like, don’t, don’t, don’t. Don’t turn your hobby into your profession because then you’ll hate your hobby because it feels like work But if I do things for You know for fun, then it’s not a big deal. So locally here.
There’s a There’s a Really? It’s like a bar Tap room. It’s called shoes and brew. So it’s a shoe store They’re very focused on running and then they have like one of the best tap rooms in town They have a small sort of like nano Brewery set up. I think match of an EC setup is actually like bigger than, than what shoes and brews could brew.
But shoes and brews has maybe like four or five beers of their own. And then they have like 16 other beers there from all over the world, basically. So they have a great selection. They have, I think, two races per year, a 5k once in the spring, once in the fall, and They run, they do the race, but then there’s sort of like a mini little beer fest out there.
So sometimes there’s multiple breweries out there. This last one, there were only a handful of, uh, different drinks that you can get, but it was, I think it was left hand and they had like. Eight different beers you can get. And then maybe there was a seltzer company and then there’s other vendors out there and stuff.
So they have in their parking lot. It’s pretty cool. I mean, probably over a thousand people show up or so. I think there’s there’s at least 600 people that run the race. If, if I have my numbers, right. And then All their friends come and party. So maybe there’s well over a thousand people at the event.
So anyway, they were looking for someone to take some photos out there, basically after the race. So just like the party aspect of it. And I actually had, I brought my camera a couple of years ago and took some pictures just of my friends that were out there and when they, when shoes and was looking for someone to do photography.
They, you know, they were like, Oh, we’re looking for photographers out there, which I don’t consider myself a photographer. I’m a photographer. I’m a hobbyist at best. But anyway, I was like, Hey, I’ll, I’ll do it. Like here’s some pictures that I took before Ashley, the you know, the person running it, the organizer there Perhaps lead marketer and operations person there.
She, she was like, Hey, I love the pictures that you took before. They look awesome. And yeah, you, you can come and shoot this. She’s, she said that she’d hired like a primary photographer, a guy named Nick Benson’s shout out to Nick, who was super nice, but anyway, she was like, yeah, you could do it. They, we, we bartered a little bit and ended up, you know, arriving at, she was going to be able to give me a pair of shoes, which was cool.
And then I would shoot shoot the, uh, the post race event. So that worked out great. I was a little intimidated. So I saw Nick out there and he was super nice. He was like, Hey, are you the other photographer? And we chatted for a second. And I was like, Immediately intimidated, even though he was like super nice.
He came up to me to chat, but I was like, I’m, I’m like taking snap snapshots. Like I barely know what I’m doing, that kind of thing. But he, as a, as a pro photographer who shoots like weddings and other events, and I think he said he works for Sigma. Luckily I had my Sigma lens, which I’m using right now, the 18 to 35.
So he, he saw it and he knew Immediately he’s like, oh, yeah, it looks like a nice lens there and he had a couple nice sigmas I think a couple new fresh ones are out. But anyway, he was super nice, but I was a little Intimidated and immediately was like self deprecating. I was like, Oh, Oh, you’re, you’re the real photographer.
I’m just kind of taking the snapshots. And he was like, Oh, I mean, you’re, you’re fine, man. Like, it looks like you got some nice gear there. I’ll be interested to see the shots that you got. And we chatted for a second just to make sure we would stay out of each other’s way, like more. Me staying out of his way.
I was very, very conscious of that, but he treated me like another pro photographer, even though I didn’t feel like one and I, once I got into it, what I did was, cause I knew Ashley wanted like snapshots of people having fun. So. I looked around a little bit and I was like, Oh, the beer line, people are standing in line.
They’re not really doing anything else. They’re looking for a little distraction and they got a few minutes or a minute or two before they’re going to get their beer. So I camped out there and took hundreds of photos and. It was awesome. I think it turned out well. I just sent the photos over to Ashley, which I think perhaps maybe by the time this comes out, the photos will be posted, but I got hundreds.
I think I took like 500 plus photos or so. And. They turned out great. I mean, you know, throw out 30 percent of them or something like that. Some of them, I was like, ah, these didn’t turn out great. And the thing is, once I figured out like to camp in front of the beer line, it turned out great. So it was just like, I could just keep taking them.
I didn’t have to take multiples too often. Like at the beginning, I was like, I’ll take two or three shots of a group that way, if someone blinks or something, but. By the end, I was just like one, one shot is good enough. So that turned out great and it was pretty fun. I’ll probably do it again. I think I picked a reasonable lens.
Like I said, I have the 18 to 35. That’s the one that I brought and I’m using a crop sensor for the photographers out there. So it’s a 1. 6 multiple. So that equates to, I think it’s like a 38 millimeters to like 56 or so. So it’s like nice. Nicely positioned in that like normal, slightly wide, but not too wide, but great for portraits and a little bit more.
I think Nick was probably using a 24 to 72. 8. And so he was able to get just a little bit longer, but he was using a full frame camera. And I’m not sure. I have a couple other. Lenses that could have worked well. Specifically actually brought a 50 millimeter 1. 4, which would have been a little bit longer.
And I think it could have been helpful in certain situations, but like I said, once I figured out to stand next to the beer line, it just worked perfectly. And every. I mean, people were pulling me aside. Like, Hey, will you take a picture of me? Like after I was kind of lounging around after I got a few, few hundred pictures right there, I like felt more comfortable with the whole thing.
So, so that turned out well, and it’s kind of fun. Cause like, you know, number one, I don’t have to do any like heavy marketing. I’m not earning a living from it. It’s just kind of for fun. So I’m like under no obligation to like find more business or do more. It’s not critical. Like I do a. Portrait shoot every now and then for some friends, although this year I haven’t done any, but I was going to do a photo shoot for like some senior pictures for a friend’s daughter and their schedule changed, something like that, but that would have been totally fine.
And the thing is, maybe I cheapen the photography industry cause I’m not charging enough, but I’m like, ah, you could have the photos. All right. Like, I’m not, I’m not trying to sell you like five pictures. I’ll give you the couple hundred images that I took and you can do some, you know, Further editing, but I’ll just add it like 10.
So anyway, it’s a pretty fun gig and I have all the gear and it gives me a reason to like actually do a little bit more with the camera gear that I have. Hold on. I got to pause. So shout out to Shoes and Brews out there and Ashley will link up if you’re passing through the Longmont area, Shoes and Brews is one of the best tap rooms.
There’s awesome breweries in town and in the whole Boulder County region. But if you just go to a left hand, for example. You basically only get left hand beers, right? They might have the one off, uh, something in a can or whatever, but it’s like you go to a brewery, you’re just getting those beers. If you go to shoes and brews, they have stuff from, you know, I think it’s mostly Colorado, but occasionally they’ll have something from say Russian River.
They’ve had Pliny the Elder a couple times. They’ve had Blind Pig, a couple other things like that. So just some of the best breweries from all around, plus a few beers of their own. So I’ll link to a shoes and brews. I think Nick has a Instagram. So we’ll, we’ll link up to that too. Nick was super nice, a real professional, very, very kind to me, even though I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.
I was in over my head, which I mean, maybe that’s a lesson that we can take away here. I basically don’t know if I have the skills to, to do that thing, but I was very straightforward with Ashley. I was like, Hey, like I’m. Hobbyist and I showed her some of my work and she was like, that’s cool. That’s what I’m looking for.
And she also had a pro photographer. So I felt confident, like any, like more difficult shots or anything like that. He was hopefully going to be able to get and side note. It was a beautiful day, sunny blue skies. Super hard to take pictures because of the harsh sunlight. So very intense shadows. So people would wear a hat and they would have a shadow over their face, or they would be in direct sunlight.
If someone was in the sun and then another person was in the shade, it was like, you couldn’t see the person in the shade. So it was actually a little bit difficult to get some of the photos and Nick and I did talk about that. So anyway. Nick was very nice to me and I appreciate that. Right. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the financial independence and fire concepts out there.
So I I’m curious if people connected with that, do you want to hear more of that kind of content? More would be, you know, over at my other podcast, mile high five, or did it sound like it’s unrelatable? So just curious if you have a minute, shoot me an email feedback at Doug dot show. And the other part related is if you want to save some money, I recommend you check out Mint Mobile.
So I’m an affiliate for Mint Mobile nowadays. I use the product. So I was on AT& T for many years and I was a little bit nervous to switch over to one of the cheaper options. I think we’ve heard of cheaper options and stuff, but basically. At AT& T, I think we had a pretty good deal. We were on a corporate discount, but for my wife and I, it cost about, I think it was like 115 to 125 per month.
I think they were slowly raising the price. And whenever I would call up, I was like, Hey, is there some promo? Can you move me? I’ve been with you guys for a while. And they were like, Nope, you got a great deal. We can’t move you. Your grandfathered in. You can’t get a better deal than what you have. I moved over to Mint after hearing about it for many years.
And basically we’re getting the same data, the same service. And instead of paying what we were before, we’re paying roughly just a little bit over 3, 000. I think 15 per month per person. So with a couple extra fees, you know, cell phones are. Mint’s pretty good though. It’s only about 40 per month for both of us.
Now it’s so cheap. And you could actually get a better deal if you pay like annually. So last November in 2023, I tested Mint Mobile on my phone for about a week. It was a free to test out. I think they have a free trial situation. And the thing is that’s important to do to make sure where you live, your service works well.
Now for us, I mean, hell I’m in my basement and I still get a good signal down here. When I’m at home, I’m on like the wifi. Hi, I’m on the, the. Network. So I don’t actually need to have good cell phone service, like in my house or in my basement. In fact, it doesn’t even matter to me at all. I would leave my phone upstairs or whatever, but, but the point is mint is so much cheaper and you’re able to get essentially the same service.
So it runs on the T Mobile network. If I remember right T Mobile actually purchased mint, but it’s still a discount carrier out there. So highly recommend mint mobile, at least to check it out. I, I. Used to be scared to switch over because In my mind, it was so difficult to switch to a different carrier, but nowadays it’s so easy.
It took me like 10 minutes to set up. So you have to initiate it and they, they walk you through it. They’re, they make it very simple to switch over. And then you may have to like confirm via text a couple of times, but essentially it’s very easy to do. It takes no time at all. After I tested it, I checked with my wife and I was like, I’m moving you over to, it worked for me.
If you have any issues, we can move you back. So there’s no risk to check it out. So thanks a lot to Mint Mobile. Really appreciate it. And if you want to say, I mean, the thing is you immediately start saving money. While I did pay for a full year in advance. It was basically the same cost as two months.
It’s insane how much more those companies charge. And one of the reasons why it’s cause they have all those ads everywhere. So anyway, check out Mint Mobile. Let’s move on. I got an interesting, an interesting, I’ll do one of the rants now, by the way. So I got an interesting email. LinkedIn. So LinkedIn I don’t spend much time there.
There’s so much spam and people are just selling stuff. It’s, it’s a horrible place as far as I could tell. Also, I’m not in the sort of corporate and professional world, nor am I trying to sell and hawk a bunch of shit. So. Basically you know, LinkedIn, I go over there and I get pitches for stuff. I got yeah, just, there’s tons of pitches.
There’s all these paid messages that come my way and it looks like nonsense, but I got an email from someone over at LinkedIn and it looks like they’re trying to get video creators over there. So. I looked at it and I was like, is this a pitch or what? So basically it was someone who I think they helped bring video creators over and like, tell them how to perform over on LinkedIn.
So, I mean, the, the bottom line is that they want creators over there, especially video creators, because they want our content. So we’ll see how it goes. They, it appears to be a free Like onboarding meeting. And I’m not sure of like what, what it is. It sounded like it was invite only looks like a legit, uh, LinkedIn person.
It’s not like a subsidiary. It looks like someone that works at LinkedIn. It’s not an external company. Who’s like, Hey, we’ll train you on LinkedIn. And by the way, somehow I ended up on a YouTube channel and. It was someone who, I mean, it was a smaller ish channel, say under 5, 000 subscribers, the views weren’t that impressive either, but she was like, I have like a million followers on, on LinkedIn.
And I was like, She’s not that good. I don’t even, I think what she’s doing is telling people how to get followers on LinkedIn. It’s very recursive. It’s like the make money online industry where you, uh, you teach people how to sell more click funnels or whatever the fuck. So, so anyway, the LinkedIn person that I saw on YouTube, I was like, She’s not that good.
She seems like she has a lot of followers and it seems like she’s just telling people how to grow their following on LinkedIn again, seems very recursive. And I, I don’t know, like I said, it wasn’t impressed. So anyway, I’m going to check it out. The reason why I’m bringing all this up is I went to LinkedIn because when I signed up for their little zoom onboarding meeting, they, uh, they, they wanted my LinkedIn profile.
So it was like, ah, let me go grab that link. So. Like all social media, if you just have to do one little thing, they suck you in. Right? So I’m scrolling a little bit and I, the weird thing is I have people that I’m connected with from the old corporate world from 15, 20 years ago, but also from my online world from the last few years.
So I was reading from Someone that I met, man, maybe like a decade ago. It’s a good, it’s a good person overall. They, I don’t think they ever spent time in the corporate world. And while I don’t like the corporate world and I don’t think I could work in that sort of situation again, you learn a lot of things, especially with my project management background and.
Some of the management skills and other, I mean, I worked in the industry for like 10 years. So I, I did build up some skills, even though I often downplay them and talk bad about them. And I don’t like the corporate world when I read his post, which was somewhat interesting. They’re, you know, they’re good copywriters and, or a chat GPT can make like copywriting a little bit more attractive and readable and catchy I read they, they, they describe a struggle.
So that’s what they’re telling a story. Right. So it’s a story and like 150 words or something like that. And it’s like, here’s a problem here. Here’s what happened. And it was my fault and here’s why, and here’s what I need to do. And at the end of the day several, I read like two or three, they were just kind of interesting and they’re trying to build a following.
Right. It was just a little bit interesting, but I was like. This is like an obvious fucking prob like, you were only thinking about One to two steps ahead. You had no contingency plans. And you didn’t communicate with your team. Like, obviously this is not going to work. Did you think to ever get feedback from the people that you’re working with?
Like, what’s the communication channel here? Like, you’re just like barking out orders. And I mean, here’s the thing, like I said, I worked in the corporate world. I think it’s shitty. However, like you do learn specific skills, like some one Oh one type stuff. Or maybe it’s because I was in a consulting capacity.
So it is us management consultants. We think a lot of ourselves. So, I mean, that’s a thing too. They actually, I mean, they train you in orientation to be able to Assess a situation, like look at the product, like talk to people, have good communication skills and like, make sure that you are looking at the sort of full situation.
Additionally, there’s like some peer review things that happen. I mean, that’s even something that. Like any company could, could start doing is like, have some peer review stuff because you have your own blind spots, especially a project that you’ve been looking at for a while. So anyway, when I read it, I was like, what the fuck?
Like people don’t think ahead. That’s my post it note here. People don’t think ahead. And I was shocked. From this, I was chatting with, I can’t remember if it was at FinCon or not, but I was talking to someone who they were working on a project with a partner or two, and they did something that I did when I worked with a couple of people in the past, you spend, and you should spend a lot of time talking about the contingencies plans of what happens if this doesn’t work out, what happens if one person has a, Some life change in the family.
It’s like not even their thing, but like maybe a parent relative gets sick and they can no longer spend time on the project. How do they get out of the situation? Do you, does, do they have to buy their way out? Or does someone have to buy them out? Can they just leave? Like what happens to the equity or whatever the situation is?
The point is you, you think ahead and it is interesting again, you know, Looking at the online world where you can do a lot of stuff. You can have like a pretty big business and accidentally not think very far ahead and make bad decisions and essentially just have your head up your ass. So anyway, look out for that and it’s easy to miss it in yourself.
And sometimes I have to think about that too. I’m in an interesting place. With my business, especially, you know, when I’m chatting with other either peers or folks that are ahead of me or behind me, they’re like, Oh, where are you earning money right now? Like, what do you, what do you do on your channel?
And I’m in a transition period a little bit. I’m trying to figure it out. People like to hear stories of like challenges and problems that need to be solved. And at times I’m just telling some stories here now. The good part is I haven’t listened to a lot of the shows from, you know, the first 200 Doug show episodes, but I think I would show up and I would tell stories sometimes there would not really be a point sometimes you have to drag a point out of there, but, uh, sometimes it’s just a story.
There’s no fucking point. So, okay. So that, that was one of the rants. The other thing I’ll talk about is the black Friday deal. So. It is black Friday. I think I will set up a page because I have some friends that are promoting some stuff and I’m like, you know what, I’ll set up a page and just have those deals on there.
But I’ll tell you when I first started in 2013 or so, I started around this time of year, maybe a couple weeks. Before Black Friday of 2013, and I was just amazed that anyone read my blog or that signed up for my email list or whatever. And I had offers from Whatever, uh, software companies from other, other things out there that were maybe were services and stuff like that.
And basically I was like, this is such a rare opportunity. I’m gonna, I’m gonna do the best I can. I’m gonna market, I’m gonna use their email copy that they give me and use these sales tactics and try to push the Black Friday stuff. And it was kind of, I mean, it was kind of exciting. I earned you know, I don’t remember how much hundreds of dollars, right?
So I earned like hundreds of dollars promoting a couple of these products, but it was really cool because a few months before that I had no email list. No one knew who I was and sounded impossible to like, send out a, an email with a promotion and actually earn some money. So the fact that I was able to do it was pretty cool.
Each year, all these companies are, are sending out more deals. They’re starting earlier and earlier. In the last couple of years, I have either sent out, uh, one or two emails or zero. There was a you know, a few couple of years ago. I don’t remember exactly which year I was like, you know what, this is a fucking hassle, like everyone, all these companies have like different time limits or like we’re opening, we’re opening it up on Monday and then we’re closing it on like Friday afternoon and then others are like no deals until Friday and others are like.
Wake up first thing on Thursday, Thanksgiving day. And like, that’s when the cheapest deals are. And then others do it the whole fucking month. So anyway, I’m in a spot now where I’m like, you know, I don’t want to like put the time limit and it’s confusing for the people on the other side of it. So I think I’m just going to set up a page and.
Sort of treat it like you could take it or leave it if, if you need, and actually this is a, this is a message message for you out there don’t buy stuff that you don’t need, right? So if you need the product right then. Go ahead and buy the product. If you, if you don’t need it, don’t fucking buy it. If you think you might need it in six months, don’t buy it.
If you think you need it in a year, don’t buy it. I remember there was a dude I was in sort of a light mastermind group with this dude and man, he, he knew all the stuff, but he didn’t execute, execute on anything, but he listened to. All the good podcasts. He took all the courses and that motherfucker would buy like all these app sumo deals.
So he would have lifetime deals to like all these products and he didn’t, he didn’t do shit with it. Any of them, he was just like in love with the process of thinking about doing something, talking about doing something and being, he was, he was the biggest know it all in the group. This is several years past.
So like, I feel. Apparently I feel comfortable talking about this dude, but he, he was the only one that wasn’t doing anything, but he had more products than anyone. It was hilarious. And he was like, well, I got, I got it. Cause I’m probably going to be doing webinars one day. And I’m like, man, you’re not going to be doing fucking webinars.
Like we all know you’re not going to do webinars. You know, it, everyone in the group knows it. Eventually. I mean, in a mastermind group, you are supposed to call people out. So eventually I was just like, okay. Man, you’re saying this stuff, you’re not doing anything like at least do like, at least say a thing that you’re going to do by the next week, even if it’s simple, like reduce the number of things that you’re saying you’re going to do on your list.
So anyway, black Friday deals, I may send out an email or two. I may, uh, send out an, uh, more likely I’ll send out an email that says like, Don’t buy shit. You don’t need, cause that’s the real message here. Like me promoting some of the other products from my friends. That’s cool. Like if you need like I know Linkify has a pretty awesome deal.
And I think I can’t remember some of the others, but yeah, if you need the software, do it if you don’t. You know, you don’t need to do it. All right. As a wrapping up here, I’m glad we, um, we talked about some more positive stuff and then that little rant, that was kind of fun, but I’m going to call, I’m going to call out a company here, which I don’t regularly do.
It’s not in our industry and I’d be shocked if they figured anything out. But. This is all true stuff. So I have no issue telling you about the true things that happened earlier this morning. I was buying a gift for someone. It doesn’t matter who was buying a pair of shoes from New Balance. And I went to New Balance.
I’d get it directly from the company in this case, very specific, had specific instructions to order this. So I sent him for their email list. Cause it was like, Oh, save 20 percent on selected things. And I was like, I bet I won’t be able to use that 20%. So I signed up for the list. And when I go to click, it says, you have to follow the link to get the deal of 20 percent off selected shoes.
So I clicked the link goes to a four Oh four. So that. It’s fucked up. So it goes to a 404. I don’t know what the problem was. So that’s fucked up number one and I was like, you know what? I can’t even use this because I don’t think it’ll work on the shoes and sure enough when I when I went to the specific Product page the the shoes say, you know, like no deals like this is the price.
There’s no deals So I went to the email to unsubscribe because I don’t want fucking emails from the shoe store So I click unsubscribe 404 again, so probably their email service provider, but you know what? I don’t know that. And it’s not my responsibility to know that. So I mark it as spam. I unsubscribe from it and like, fuck them.
Right. So then I go to make the purchase for the shoes, which I think it’s like, they’re like 200 shoes. It’s like the New Balance 993s. Right. It’s a cult classic made in the USA, all that kind of shit. I used to wear it back in the day too. So anyway, I’m going through the checkout and it fails. Like it, it, it’s telling me to like click the capture thing.
And it’s like, are you a robot? Are you a human? All that stuff. So I’m clicking and I’m waiting. Cause I know sometimes they’re like, if you click four times, it’s going to charge you like four times. So I click and I wait and nothing. Nothing happens. And then it disappears. It says, Oh, you may have to do this a couple of times.
I’m like, what the fuck kind of user experience is this? This is crazy. And they charge like, uh, like if you, I think you can get free shipping, which is what I got, but the other shipping prices are insane. It’s like 20 and 25, which I don’t know that it would cost that much to ship. So there are, they’re like upcharging on that on some premium ass price shoes.
So anyway, I wasn’t sure if it went through because it gave me no confirmation message. And I was like, well, their, their technology seems to be horrible and it’s a terrible user experience. So I did go to my email to see if I got like a confirmation. So I waited for a little while, check that nothing came.
So I did try to, eventually I figured it out. I’ll stop ranting here. Eventually I figured it out, but. When the order finally went through, I did get the confirmation and they put the little survey thing up like, Oh, how was your experience? Would you recommend new balance? And I’m telling you, no, I wouldn’t.
And I told them, no, I wouldn’t recommend new balance. Their email list is either. It’s bait and switch, or their email list is messed up, or their ESP has some, some issue going on. It wouldn’t let me unsubscribe, which is another big no no. I mean, that, I think that’s against the law. So, I suspect there’s some issue with it.
But again, it’s not my responsibility to know what the issue is or to solve it. So anyway, I wouldn’t recommend New Balance, especially through their website. And all that stuff is true that I just told you. It was very frustrating. And, uh, I, I hope the gift recipient will be happy with the shoes. I think so.
I got the exact, you know, specific thing that he was asking for. And I feel like I should end on a more positive note. So I will, uh, I’ll describe this shirt that I’m wearing for the listeners out there. If you’re on YouTube, you could see this. This is my dog Georgie right here. She’s actually sleeping. Right behind me on the bed.
You can’t see it very well. She has a very cute picture on here and it has sort of a, I don’t know, it’s like a classic sun or it’s a, it’s a round shape with the different horizontal lines on it and it says her name, Georgie, right here. So it’s kind of cool. It’s a fun, very bright, vibrant shirt. Always get smiles out there, especially if I’m walking Georgie around.
Now, the coolest part is this was a gift for my wife and she, Also got a shirt for Georgie, which has my picture. It’s the same logo and stuff. It has my picture and it’s on her little, it’s on her back and it says Doug on there. So when I put that shirt on her, she doesn’t love it. It’s a little, it’s a little snug on her.
She’s, she’s a strong dog. So she, she has muscles. Anyway, we look ridiculous when we’re going around with our matching shirts on, but it’s absolutely hilarious. And yeah, it’s just, it’s so funny. It’s so funny. These are great shirts. So this is one, uh, some side hustle of like folks to get into, right? This is like a print on demand kind of thing.
And I’ve actually purchased a couple of shirts and I’ve seen people in shirts similar to this. And I think my wife got the logo maybe from someone on Etsy. Not a hundred percent sure. So anyway, check out Mint Mobile, save a few bucks on your, your mobile. If you’re not signed up to the email list, please hop over.
You can follow the link in the description and shout out to Nick. Benson photo shoes and bruises, a couple of things. Check out the links in the show notes there, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.