Not really happy with Sass and Class Flowers this Valentine's Day

When you spend $80 plus $10 for delivery for flowers, you expect to get what you order off the Internet. I saw this wonderful bouquet of flowers that I wanted to buy for my wife from Sass and Class, the flower shop on LaGrange Road. (Plus tax brought it to $97.)
I have to say how disappointed I am. The flowers I got were not near what the picture promised. It looked like they ran out of pink carnations which filled up the bouquet online. So they just gave me what they got. I did order them the day before Valentine's Day and maybe with the rush, Sass and Class couldn't handle the order.
But I don't think I'll order from them again.
Here's what the picture promised:

Here's what we got. You decide.
(By the way, this is the picture of the $50 to $75 bouquet. I ordered the $80 plus bouquet.)

I went out and ordered new flowers to make up for the ones we got. So embarrassing.

Sass and Class

-- Ray Hanania

www.TheMediaOasis.com

Liz Gorman: Reminder to register to vote -- Feb. 21 deadline

“Decisions are made by those who show up.”   Our right to vote is the most fundamental right we have as citizens. The right to elect those who will lead us and the right to remove those from office when they forget what they were sent to do should be viewed not only as a right but as a duty for good citizens.

Elections are the cornerstone of our freedoms and liberties.  In 2012 we will be electing people to serve us at every level of government – state representatives and senators, certain countywide officials, Members of Congress and the President of the United States.  Each of these have the potential to affect the most important issues facing each and every citizen this year such as the economy, health care, immigration and gun control, just to name a few.

In the primary of 2010 only 25% of those eligible voted in Suburban Cook County.  I realize many believe it is not important to vote in primaries.  But consider the fact that the few who vote in them determine who we have an opportunity to vote for in the general election.  The best person may not be on the ballot in November because 75% didn’t take the time to vote in the primary! 

Please seriously consider taking the time to vote in the Primary.  New laws have made it much easier to take part in the election process.  Early voting begins on February 27th and ends on March 15th and there are various locations to do so.  In addition, absentee ballots may be obtained, which will be mailed to your home and you can mail it back to the County Clerk.

If you are not yet registered you may still do so, but time is running short.  In order to vote in the March 20^th Primary, you must register by February 21st.  If you need information as to how and where to register or other important dates regarding voting in the Primary on March 20^th, please visit my website at www.lizgorman.com.

With all of the important issues facing our nation, our state, our county and our cities and villages, I strongly urge all of my fellow citizens to register to vote and then actually vote.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth “Liz” Doody Gorman

Cook County Commissioner, 17^th District

A Vehicle sticker with street gang symbols, or a bunch of government idiots?

Glad I don't live in Chicago
City Clerk Susana Mendoza is a nice lady. I've met her. She is sincere. She is genuine. But she's weak. And apparently, she is easily manipulated by outrageous stories in the newspapers and a campaign of stupidity that says a Heart is a symbol of a street gang members and hands rising up to support First Responders are "similar" to street gang hand signs.
Since when did we surrender the Heart to the street gangs? Since when did we surrender hands reaching out for support to police, firemen and others a symbol of street gang idiocy.
I have never seen a government overreact out of fear of public backlash and fear that if you don't do anything, you will look weak. Instead, the Street Gangs have won. They have defined for us what our society is all about. The street gangs have defined for us what we can use and what we can't use.
I most feel sorry for the young Hispanic child who drew the winning design that a majority of the members of the public voted online to support. The public didn't see the street gang menace in the design by a 15 year old boy with no history of gang ties.
But a popular police blog run by retired cops who see sinister images in everything wrote a story saying it looked like it was a street gang symbol and the president of the Chicago Crime Commission, and the former Chicago Police Supt. Jodi Weis agreed.
Maybe some people might ask how much the Chicago Police really know about street gangs since they are NOT very good at fighting them. Maybe they're not the most objective people. Maybe the real issue is the winning design was made by a Hispanic boy. And that this was an orchestrated racist act to take away that award from a Hispanic to give it to a girl who is of Irish heritage. Maybe it was an Irish Cop who didn't like the Hispanic boy winning the design contest over the Irish school girl who came in second with her design.
Those questions are just as equal to the claims that the Chicago Vehicle Sticker with the salute to our first responders was a street gang symbol.
Tragic. 
The mother of the artist said it so aptly in the Chicago Tribune:
"I am very upset. I feel very upset that something so positive could be so negative," Jessica Loor told reporters crammed inside a classroom at Lawrence Hall Youth Services, where the boy attends school. "I feel there's a lot of haters. They can make anything out of anything."
Here's the official statement of City Clerk Susana Mendoza.
This is a disgrace. A disgrace to the City Clerk Susana Mendoza. A disgrace to the police department and their race-driven fraternity. And its a disgrace for the people of Chicago who live under the thumbs of what street gang members now define as our culture. Apparently what Street Gang members say is more important to some people in political power.
Here's the old "Street Gang" design:
And here's the new design from high school senior Caitlin Henehan:

Shame.-- Ray Hananiawww.hanania.com

Del Galdo Law Group receives legal industry’s top honors

Del Galdo Law Group receives legal industry’s top honors

Berwyn/Il – Super Lawyers Magazine, one of the legal industry’s leading publications, recognized two members of the Del Galdo Law Group in their annual "Super Lawyers" honor which recognizes the State's top attorneys in their field.

The magazine named Del Galdo Law Group LLC principal Michael Del Galdo and James M. Vasselli as recipients of the  2012 “Rising Stars” distinction.

This is the third year Michael Del Galdo has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in the legal profession.  It is rare to have two members of the same law firm honored.

“I am very proud to again receive this recognition,” said Del Galdo who was also recognized by Super Lawyers in 2010 and 2011.

“My priority is to provide the highest quality of professional legal services for my clients and to contribute in a positive way towards the betterment of the cities in which I work.”

Each year, no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in any state receive this honor.  Super Lawyers Magazine, a Thomson Reuters business, selects lawyers for this distinction using a rigorous multi-phased process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area.

Del Galdo praised Jim Vasselli noting that the recognition by Super Lawyer Magazine reflects the high esteem that members of Illinois’ legal profession have for the award recipients.

"Mr. Vasselli's work at our firm and for our clients has always been internally recognized as of the highest caliber and I am proud that the legal community has also recognized this fact,” Del Galdo said.

Del Galdo is the founding attorney and managing member of Del Galdo Law Group, LLC and James Vasselli Chairs the Real Estate and Public Finance Practice Groups at the Firm.  Del Galdo Law Group, LLC is comprised of 16 attorneys concentrating in the governmental and public sector practice areas, including Municipal Law; School Law; Zoning & Land Use; Real Estate; Economic Development; Litigation; Transactional; and, Government Affairs.  The Firm's clients include some of the largest school districts and municipalities in Chicagoland.

A graduate of DePaul University College of Law, Del Galdo is also a frequent lecturer on municipal government.

Vasselli is a graduate of DePaul University College of Law and holds an MBA from The Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University.

http://www.dlglawgroup.com/

### 

The problem with digital photos

Digital photos look great. The problem is after years of taking them, they easily get lost and worse, even more easily destroyed.
Oh, they keep telling you how you can "save" the digital photos more easily. Sure. First we had reel to reel tape. Then we had 8 Track. Then we cassette tapes. Then mini cassette tapes. Then floppy discs in all sizes 8.5, then 5.5 and 3.5. Then we went to "tape" backup. Then CD. Then DVD. Now Blu Ray.
Do you ever get the felling that your just a cow that can speak?
They are breeding us to be pay-as-you-go consumers. They throw technology at us at lightening speed and then expect us to pay for it. And the technology doesn't really improve on what we already have. It does two things. First, it makes the technology we have obsolete. And then second, it forces us to go out and buy the new technology.
That was the world that Steve Jobs grew up in and why he turned out to be "Big Brother," seeking to control everything we did and taking the human quality of decision-making out of our abilities to choose. 
When I was a kid, my dad gave me a cardboard box that once held Kodak Film. We used it to store pictures that he had been given by his dad. It was great to look through the pictures -- which I still have and have survived in the same condition that they were in when I got them. I didn't have to spend $600 to by a computer to "view" the pictures. In fact, the only cost was to get them printed. And once they were printed, they could be shared.
Sure, it was the only copy, unless you went out of your way to make more. They said that was expensive but I would give up all the technology we have today if I could have that back, the minimal cost it took to duplicate a picture back then.
We look through the pictures. It is so much easier to hold them in your hand and look at them all at once and decide or look for what you wanted.
Nowadays, it ain't so easy folks. I have thousands and thousands of digital pictures on CDs and hard drive. And when a computer crashes -- and let me tell you the computer technicians and programmers and PC builders are not geniuses at all. Those computers break down fast. They don't last very long. And the software races past so even if you had a computer from 6 years ago, you probably couldn't use it for anything except a space-waster. When those computers crash and break, as they more often than not do, you have lost everything unless you have gone out of your way to keep up-copying. That's the process of moving your digital images from one antiquated system or storage device to another that is "more advanced."
Worse, the computer says it's hard to copy some files. They are "corrupted." No, what's corrupted in this technology system we've been forced-fed by greedy computer industry robber barons.
Feel the tug on that ring in your nose yet?
So here I am, with a pile of CDS that go back to 2005 wondering what the hell. I can't enjoy them. Hundreds and even thousands of images on CDS and it's a hassle to try and view them.
Worse, it's a hassle to try and make prints of them.
So as we speak, I have a One TerraByte Hard Drive attached to my laptop using a USB port. One day, we'll be laughing saying "One TerraByte?" That's not enough space to keep my bills! And I'm transferring them slowly (on a high speed laptop, Core i7 Windows 7) and it's taking forever.
I'll finally get off my ass and take them to Walgreens and use their machine (if they still have it) and select the pictures I like and print them out. Then, I'll sort the prints in a book so my daughter and son can one day enjoy them in the future.
I have about 6,000 pictures I have to sort through.
So in the end, even with all the money I have spent on computers, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, digital cameras of varying high resolution and other storage gadgets and jiggamabobs, I still have to pay through the nose to get them printed.
It would have been easier and cheaper if all I had was the roll of film and I was forced to take that one good picture instead of 20 lousy pictures just because I can. I would have had them all processed and printed long ago and instead of wasting my time copying them, I'd be sitting with my son and enjoying them.
But then, what would I be writing about on my "blog?"
-- Ray Hananiawww.theMediaOasis.com

Is Jewel Osco guilty of wasting natural resources like TREES?

Jewel Osco's "Wish Big Win Big Holiday Giveaway" was less about "winning" and more about wasting. They should have called it the "Waste Big Holiday not-Giveaway." Wish as in I WISH I never played the stupid game!
Companies use these gimmicks to attract customers knowing that good, innocent and morale people like me tend to be suckered into stupid waste-of-time games like the "Wish Big, Win Big" giveaway they sponsored that just ended Feb. 1. (You have until Feb. 15 to turn in winning prize boards -- right!
The point of these giveaway contests is to make the customer feel good and give them a pleasant experience and even give them little coupons so the customer will return to the store.
But I have to say the experience was so ugly and disappointing that I decided that I am going to try to avoid going to Jewel from now and and use other grocery stores from now on. That's how upset I am with this scam giveaway "game."
It's not a game, really. It was a scam. Yes, a few people won but when the odds are so outrageously stacked against the public, all Jewel did was waste a lot of trees. All the paper I threw away -- not even recycling will accept them -- must have accounted for about a million trees that were destroyed just so Jewel can sucker more customers into a false sense of enjoyment. It wasn't enjoyable, Miss Jewel. It was excruciatingly painful in fact to come home with a pocket full of green tri-folded tabs that were difficult to open and left bits and pieces of paper dust everywhere on my desk.
I ended up with a lot of worthless coupons, too, for junk I would never buy. There wasn't a coupon that I thought, wow, I hope I get this coupon again to save a measly 25 cents on my next purchase. They were all things I wouldn't buy.
I figure Jewel paid some big consultants the millions to come up with this trickery, money that should have been more easily won by players. The trickery was simple: They created a "game" that pushed crappy products and gave the player very little odds of even winning a measly $2.
Yes, I am going to associate the word "measly" from now in when I think of Jewel because of this game. Measly. (I had to look the word up to double check the spelling it is so rarely used but will now become my adjective to describe Jewel. Measly. Measly. Measly!)
The "game" wasn't a game at all. It was torture. The "Win Big" Jewel game was to customers what water boarding is to alleged terrorists. Except in this case, the customers were treated more badly.
Had I won the top prize of $250,000, maybe I'd be writing a different story. But I wonder how many customers actually won the big prizes?
And Jewel has a "drawing" for schlubs who played the game and won nothing -- they can turn in the game boards if they have 1 and 2 collected which everyone does. That's about 10 million entries that will be submitted.
Just what I need, more misery.
In every game, there are certain numbers missing. Maybe they make 2 of them in the entire country.
Here's the break down of the numbers that most people who lost are missing:
For the big prizes, they made sure that people would NOT get two of the required number tickets on their game card, just in case you got one of the rare numbers, you would still have to get. Here are the "rare" ones. 
04 and 05; 08 and 10; 12 and 15; 18 and 19; 22 and 26; 27 and 31; 33 and 35; 39 and 41.
Then there were the worthless stupid prizes just to keep the schlubs happy.
Those harder to get numbers were 44; 46; 50; 54; 59; 62; 68; 73; 76; 79; and 83.
For example, if you had 04 and 05, you would have won $250,000 (collecting SJ 01-06).
In the lower prize area, if you got 44 you would have completed the numbers needed 42 through 45, you would have won "$1,000.
I worked at Jewel when I was a kid in Chicago on Stony Island Avenue where Muhammed Ali (Casius Clay) would come and have me carry his bags out to his Lincoln Mark I car -- I was the darkest kid working there in the 1960s. And I worked at the Dominicks on 87th and Cicero in Oak Lawn when I got in to high school and I CAN SAY FOR A FACT THEY TREATED ME BETTER ... calm down, Ray. Calm down.
Breath. Breath. Breath!
-- Ray Hananiawww.hanania.com

New Classified section offers FREE job postings

A day doesn't go by that I don't get at least one call from friends and acquaintances who are desperately in need of a job. Full-time or part-time.
This is the worst economy we have seen in decades. The worst in my generation, for sure. So many good people are suffering and their families are suffering because they are unable to find a job to put food on the table.
What can we do? I've helped friends as best as I could. If I hear of a job opening, I try to pass along the information to my friends and their friends.
But I felt I needed to do more.
This week I launched a new online Classified Ad web site.

The web site allows businesses and organizations to post Jobs and Employment opportunities FREE of CHARGE. They don't have to pay to post the jobs available or employment available notices.
Last Fall, I had a garage sale in my yard and sold several of my household items. Not so much because I needed the money but because I wanted to get rid of the excess items that cluttered my home and garage. So many people in dire financial need came to the garage sale to buy basic things that I had taken for granted. In one case, I gave a piece of furniture away just because the man and his wife and three kids needed it -- they came in a pickup truck -- and partly because I just wanted the space.
but I realized, so many people in the Orland and Tinley park area are looking for good deals that Garage Sales offer. And I thought maybe this Cheap Classifieds web site I have launched can help make it easier not only for you to sell your items but to also do it in an inexpensive way.
Some of the categories are free. All of the Job related postings are free -- Jobs available AND Jobs Wanted. Some of the classified categories cost a modest $10 fee to post an item for 30 days.
I hope it helps.
Any profits I do make will be used to help me cover the costs of my new radio show, which I hope you will listen to on Sunday mornings at 8 am (until 11 am) on WSBC AM 1240. Listen online at www.RadioChicagoland.com. 
-- Ray Hananiawww.SuburbanClassifieds.com