The Forgotten Nestea

Posted by on September 5, 2013 No comments

It’s been many years since I left this brand behind.  It was a very sad parting and not of my choosing.  I grew up drinking Nestea Sugar Sweetened iced tea mix.  I drank so much of it, I had visions of being the first rock star that promoted a consumer brand on tour.  Nestea’s change ended up being a painful, prolonged, losing battle for me.

At some point in their genius, Nestle decided to make what they must have considered a trivial ingredient change.  And because the product was different, it was re-launched under a new name.  The product used to be called “sugar sweetened”, and then became “sweet tea mix”.  The tiny change was changing the ingredient fructose to sucralose.  The latter is an artificial sweetener, which I have a slight reaction to.

When it first happened, I knew something was wrong because my tea made my stomach hurt.  I eventually figured out the difference and began a desperate search for any remaining “sugar sweetened” product available.  At one point, I ordered a full case of giant tea cartons from an online seller, only to discover they used the wrong photo in their product description and I had to ship back a case of “sweet tea mix”.  It was something like 27 pounds.

Surely, my quest was futile and the supply inevitably ran out.  I called Nestea and asked for an explanation.  Amazingly, I got one.  The change was done because sucralose didn’t cake and clump as much as fructose.  So, I wrote a physical letter to Nestle expressing my dissatisfaction with their recent decision.  In return, I got coupons to try their new liquid tea mixes.

I drank Publix brand tea mix for a little while, but it was too caramel-ly.  I eventually had to grow to enjoy the taste of Lipton tea mix, which has served me well for the years since.  Every once in a while, I’d remember Nestea and sometimes would pick up a jug to confirm the ingredients were the same.  They were.  But yesterday, I was going to buy a new jug of Lipton and saw two things: one, a brand of tea mix called Te Bustelo.  It had no sucralose, so I picked it up on a whim and I’m rather enjoying it.  It’s a little stronger than Lipton, but not as strong as Publix.

The other thing I saw?  No Nestea on the shelves.  None.  Not that it was sold out; it was not even stocked.  I found this pretty shocking.  Could it be that the change affected that many people to lower sales that much?  Yeah, it took years to happen, but was that it?  I did a little research online and it seems that Coca Cola used to be partnered with Nestea and now that partnership has ended, with Coca Cola now selling a competing product – Fuze.

In some ways, I feel a bit vindicated.  In other ways, I feel like this didn’t have to happen.

But How?

Posted by on September 4, 2013 No comments

Here we go with another dining disaster story.  Let’s reiterate something.  I eat out almost all the time.  The percentage of times that a normal family eats out is the same percentage of times that I make something at home to eat.  For me, eating at home is the exception.  So I know what restaurant food is like, how it should be, and how service should be.  Because I am specifically mentioning service, that doesn’t make me a snob.  Because I eat out so much, I understand small mistakes and misunderstandings.  I don’t hold it against the server or the restaurant.  But this time was different.  This time I felt it was necessary to be mean to the waitress.  That is saying a lot.

So let’s set up here.  It’s a little late on a Sunday and the place is pretty empty.  We wait a little bit for the hostess, but the bartender acknowledged us quickly, so we’re fine.  We get seated and wait for a while for service.  A waitress finally comes over and says she thought someone else was helping us.  The waitress playing the blame game at this point doesn’t mean much right now, but it’s in memory, waiting to see if a pattern emerges… which it does.

Drinks and appetizer ordered.  One drink arrives without the requested lemon.  Oh well, not going to make a big deal out of that.  Appetizer arrives without Ranch dressing and without serving plates.  Annoyance is starting to settle in, but we’re going to bear with it.  Flag the waitress down and request the missing dressing.  By the time the Ranch arrives, there’s only two pieces of the appetizer left.  Keep in mind there’s only a couple other tables seated in the place.

Entrees arrive and I can immediately see that my steak is underdone.  Blood on the top means not well-done.  So I alert the waitress and she takes it back.  So now I have to watch my partner eat her meal alone.  It would have been ok if I had my soup that I ordered.  Yes, for you dining-aware persons, I ordered soup and it did not come before the entrée, nor did it come with the entrée.  Where is it??  At this point, annoyance is turning to anger.

After a while, my steak is returned to me cooked properly and with it comes the soup.  Now we have a new dilemma.  She did not bring a steak knife with my plate.  So, I fight through cutting the steak with my table knife.  Then I turn to the soup.  There’s no spoon.  There’s no fucking spoon.  This is the point where my anger boils over.  I push the soup bowl out to the end of the table as a hint that something is wrong.  Surprisingly, the waitress makes another stop at the table to take my partner’s plate and asks nothing of the soup or if everything is ok.  She disappears.

Now I am fuming.  After I finish my steak, the waitress returns again and asks if we saved room for dessert.  I say “no, we’re more than well done” in a sarcastic tone that gets her attention.  She asks to take my plate and I say sure.  Then I say, “…and the soup… I never got to try it.”  She asks why and I say I just couldn’t try it.  She gives me a puzzled look and pushes the bowl towards me, saying, “try it.”  I lose my cool and yell at her, “How?!”

It takes a few seconds and I thought I was going to have to educate her on her fuckup.  Finally she looks around the table and says, “ohhhhhh… the spoon.”  And I sarcastically agree with her, “yeah.  The spoon.”  The meal is over.  She wants us gone and we want to be gone.  She brings us the check, takes my credit card and returns, quietly offering “have a nice evening.”  She gets a $2 tip on a $36 tab.

While she took the brunt of the anger, I know it wasn’t all her.  She messed up on timing, observance, and supplying plates and silverware, which is more than enough reason, but the cook messed up on cooking the steak and who knows who screwed up the soup.  But a huge blame also falls on the manager.  Whoever was managing that night had no idea this was going on.  And if a customer yells at a waitress and the manager doesn’t get involved ASAFP, there’s something wrong at a much greater level.

Triple Gunnars

Posted by on August 23, 2013 No comments

Ok, so now I have three pairs of Gunnar glasses.  I figure I have enough experience with them now to make a compare and contrast review if you are considering any of these models.

My first pair was the Groove model.  When I got it, I was somewhat disappointed by the rubber arms  – I was thinking they were metal from what I saw in the pictures.  The Groove has good-sized lenses and a decent wraparound design.  However, the Groove’s nosepads are not articulating.  If they don’t fit right, you need to bend them into a comfortable position.  I actually gave up on the Groove for an extended period because I could not get the nosepads to stop digging into my nose.  That is what led me to my second purchase.  But while waiting for shipment of my second pair, I was able to find a position that fit and felt excellent, and they became my standard work glasses.

The next set I purchased were the E11vens.  My primary reason for buying them was the hard plastic, fixed bridge.  I figured that would be better than the nosepads that were burrowing into my skin on the Groove.  When I got the E11vens, I was disappointed by the cheap black plastic.  Plastic doesn’t have to be cheap-sounding, but this is.  Very tinny and light sounding.  However, despite that,  the E11vens are lighter than the Groove and the bridge is comfortable.   Also, this model excels in an area that the others don’t.  It’s wraparound design is totally up on your face, like goggles.  Because of this, if you get dry eyes, these will keep the moisture in your eyes and you will praise them at the end of the day.  The other positive about the E11vens is they have the largest lenses of the models I own.  This means you can look all around without needing to move your head as much.  While I was using the Grooves at work and the E11vens at home, Woot had yet another Gunnar sale.  This time, they had a model I’d been watching and hoping for.

I purchased the Emissary model last week and just got them today.  The full name is Attache Emissary, to give you an idea of the image they are trying to convey.  And when I opened the box and pulled the glasses out, I was stunned.  They were beautiful.  Where I was disappointed with the materials used in the other two, I was highly impressed with the sturdy feel of the metal frames and their hinged arms.  The glasses felt feather-light, but they probably weigh about as much as the E11vens.  It’s probably just a perceptual trick because the Emissary frames are so thin and the E11vens are so bulky.   The lenses were tiny, unlike the other two.  The Emissary looked very similar to the Ray Ban prescription glasses I wear.  So from a stylistic perspective, there is no comparison.  If you want style, this is the one to have.  But that style comes at a price.  The lenses are very small, so you need to move your head more to keep the your vision through them.  Because they are small, they don’t have any of the wrap-around benefits like the E11vens, so your eyes may dry out quicker.

Looking at the Gunnar online store, The Groove isn’t available anymore, nor is the E11ven, and the color of Emissary I bought isn’t available.  That’s all fine.  Woot is a clearinghouse for older and discontinued stuff, and the glasses work just as well as the new models.  The model I have my eye on now is the Epoch, which is similar to the Emissary, but with thicker frame lines.  Go for four?  Why not?  I used to have a massive collection of sunglasses in my younger days.  I guess this is the adult computer geek version of that hobby.

Garbage Backup

Posted by on July 4, 2013 No comments

As I get older and my data grows along with me, I am slowly getting better at managing it all.  I’ve blogged before about losing data and it’s never pleasant when that happens.  But, I’m doing pretty good now, and I have one more step to go.  Right now I have weekly backups to an external drive.  The next step is to have a monthly backup stored offsite in a safety deposit box.  But anyway, that’s not the point of this post.

I have a 1TB external drive for my backups, which occur weekly.  They are differential backups, only backing up the changes.  That should allow me to get a lot more use out of the drive instead of doing full or incremental backups, and it also gives me change history.  But I want to get even more out of that drive.  Right now I’m down to about 30GB free.

One thing that Windows backup does is backup your user profile folder.  This includes your temp folders, yes, and your temporary internet files folder.  You probably see where I’m going already, so I’ll just explain what I ‘m doing to trim down the amount of useless data I’m backing up.

Windows has a Disk Cleanup utility and that utility has the capability to be automated, which is what I’m doing.  I run the utility just before the backup so that my hard drives are as clean as possible.  You can do this in a couple steps.

First, open a command prompt and enter cleanmgr.exe /sageset 1

This will open the disk cleanup utility and will prompt for what types of files you want to clean.  For me, I just chose everything, but you may want to be more selective.  Temp files and Temporary Internet Files are options.

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When you click ok, the options are saved as profile #1 (that’s what the 1 is for; you can choose another number if you want different profiles).

When you want to run this cleanup profile, just open a command prompt and run cleanmgr.exe /sagerun 1

You can also put that in a shortcut or put it in the Task Scheduler.

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Enjoy your smaller backups and your extra drive space!

Let Me Tell You About This Meal I Had…

Posted by on June 14, 2013 No comments

It’s never good if I have a story to tell after a meal.  This is one of those meals.  This is one of those long-ass stories, too.  Tonight, I was deep in my usual gyrations over what the hell I was going to eat.  Running through the mental list of eating places wasn’t triggering anything.  I went on UrbanSpoon and listed everything in my area.  Nothing did it.  I started to get a bit sentimental over places in PA that I used to love eating at and couldn’t get to anymore.  I remembered some of the non-chain restaurants that I enjoyed and wished I had something like that here that I could rely on.  Unfortunately, despite searching, I have yet to find a good mom-and-pop.

But, a light came on.  There was one place I could try.  It was an Italian restaurant that had replaced a sports bar I used to go to.  I’d been there once before and was sorely disappointed.  At the time, they had just opened up.  I think I went within the few couple weeks of their opening.  My impression of the staff was that they were clueless.  The waitress acted like she didn’t know what a waitress was supposed to do, like checking on tables.  The kitchen was backed up beyond comprehension.  I think I heard “an hour” mentioned.  At least one table walked out during the time I was there.  I was on the verge of leaving, myself.

But I got my drink order in (I’m stuck now!) and then after a while, my waitress was ready and able to take my order: spaghetti with meat sauce – nothing amazing.  Yet another extended while after that, the waitress comes back and says they don’t have any meat sauce, would I like marinara?  No, I wouldn’t.  This is an Italian restaurant.  How do you not have meat sauce?  I ended up getting my drink and salad for free, and I left a $5 tip on the table and walked out.

Why would I want to go back to that?  Well, it’s been at least two years since that first experience and the place is still around, so surely they’ve got it figured out, right?  So I revisited the restaurant with elevated hopes.  And I don’t have any desire to go back again.

I show up in the front of the shop and walk up to the counter.  I say I’m dining in and I don’t know whether to order here, be seated, or seat myself.  Right off the bat, this is something that shouldn’t happen.  The waitress says, “You’re dining in?  You can go to the back room.  It’s much nicer back there.”  So, now your employees are saying that the restaurant has a nice section and a shitty section.  They’re still freaking clueless.

I seat myself and place my (same) order.  I’m kind of excited because their house dressing is a homemade creamy Italian – that’s hard to find.  But when the salad arrives, it seems weird.  Lettuce, onion, carrots, and… a hot pepper and chickpeas?  Odd, but no hassle.  I eat the lettuce and the carrots, but the house dressing is not to my liking.  Flavor-wise, it’s super sweet.  Makes me think of eating Vidalia onions.  Second, it’s warm.  That doesn’t sit so well with me.

My opinion is wavering at this point when my entrée comes out.  It’s soup!  I’m not saying that the meat sauce is runny, just that it’s a bowl full of sauce.  Like I can’t see the noodles, full.  And the sauce is really dark.  The first thing I think is, “Did they burn this sauce?”  Then I smell it and think, “Did they burn this sauce?”  Then I taste it and it’s… different.  Probably burnt.  Seasoned, yes, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.  Doesn’t really matter what it is because I just. don’t. like it.  Then the breadsticks came out.  I didn’t think you could screw up bread, but these sticks were completely tasteless.  They had parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and butter and/or oil poured on them.  It looked like oil, but darker.  I didn’t watch to touch it.  What the hell is up with this place?

I eat what noodles I could fish out from the depths of the sauce pit and at one point in my search mission, I found a leaf.  Yeah, a full leaf.  I think it’s the kind they use for seasoning, but I also think they’re supposed to be finely chopped?

Has the service redeemed itself after the “get out of the slums and go to the back room” direction?  No, not really.  My entrée was brought out by a different waitress that again didn’t understand the finer points of service.  She asked if I had spaghetti with meat sauce, which I confirmed, and she left it with me and bolted.  Waitresses with experience will first ask if everything’s ok and handle common requests, like cheese, napkins, or refills.  My main waitress that brought the breadsticks asked about cheese, but had to take care of multiple things before actually getting around to it.  Even then, she had a lot of trouble finding the cheese. (Who moved my cheese?)  Fascinatingly, although my salad dressing was warm, the cheese shaker was refrigerated .  Also, since I had the table next to the open kitchen, I was able to deduce that the cook didn’t seem to know how to be a cook.  I heard a shout at one point and I heard an exchange where he had to scramble because he forgot to make an appetizer.  Bad night?  Or just another night?

Finally – the weirdest part to me – the owner made his way around asking everyone if their food was ok.  I go to other “real” Italian places, and I know the owners do this. They love chatting you up in their heavy Italian accents.  This guy, no accent.  Didn’t look Italian at all.  Didn’t even look like an owner.  He could have been just another patron, I don’t know.  I lied and said the food was good.  Had he pressed harder and asked if it was “good” or “great” or “amazing”, he might have gotten the truth out of me.  But he seemed satisfied.

In summary, there wasn’t one redeeming piece of my entire meal experience.  As crazy as it sounds, this place is a sports bar that serves Italian food, with bar-quality food and service.  And that’s speaking badly of bar food.  It’s usually really good, I just can’t handle the atmosphere.

Responsive and Slow

Posted by on June 13, 2013 No comments

A recent discussion with a co-worker resulted in the phrase “responsive, and slow.”  This came about from using Microsoft Office 2013.  Office 2013 is some kind of a pinnacle of where software development seems to be going, and it seems that’s just a bit too far.

For years now, asynchronous programming has been shoved down developers’ throats.  “It must be done this way! It’s how you achieve a responsive UI!”  Seems like desktop applications have always had background work being done.  The original idea was to do processing in the background, so you could cancel the work if you needed to and so you could display a progress bar.  This is fine. 

Then there’s the case of background loading tasks.  Lets say a dropdown list needs filled, so the dropdown list is disabled while the data is being loaded in the background.  Meanwhile, you have your mouse hovering over it waiting for it to finish and become enabled.  Now we’re starting to see the effects of async programming. 

Now, take everything and make it load async.  Your application opens and nothing is there, then things start magically appearing all over the place as they finish loading.  This is how Office 2013 feels, although that’s not literally what happens.  The best example is marking emails read in Outlook and there is a significant delay in updating the unread message count.

As long as I’m griping about Office 2013, I find the new Lync 2013 client to be ridiculous.  I keep my conversation windows on the left side of my monitor, which Lync is great about remembering.  The problem is, the new message notification shows up in the lower right of the screen, so I have to click there, then the chat window does a wicked-smooth slide all the way across my screen to where I keep them, then it does a fade in.  So, in addition to having to move my mouse the full width of my screen, I have to wait for the animations to finish.

But anyway, back to asynchronous coding.  It’s all supposed to be in the name of responsiveness, so the UI doesn’t get blocked by anything.  The problem is, maybe the UI isn’t ready for use yet!  Have you seen a UI with 20 “loading…” placeholders all over?  if you haven’t yet, you will soon.  T-Mobile’s account management section does it.   This is stupid.  How can computers be so fast and yet so slow?

Thought Followers

Posted by on June 7, 2013 No comments

I got an email from LinkedIn with a title that struck a nerve with me: “Don’t miss out on updates from thought leaders” and it went on to list a bunch of successful businesspeople and a link at the bottom that said: “See more thought leaders".  This newly-coined term, “thought leader” infuriates me.  What does that title mean?  Who designates these people?  Why should we even care?

The title “thought leader” can be taken a couple different ways.  The way that initially perceived it was condescending and elitist, as in “you can’t even think at the level of these people.  You need to listen to them.”  Screw that.  Like I want anything to have to do with Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington.  You could also take the term to mean that these people have ideas that shape the entirety of industry, finance, and technology.  That’s a bunch of crap, too.  Everyone has ideas.  These people are just in a much better position to execute them because of their money, power and influence.  I just did a search on “thought leader” and discovered this is a “thing", going back to at least 2010.  Another Dilbert-world industry buzzterm so we can discover that this is what we must aspire to and buy books and seminars.

From a website: “To be a thought leader, you need to immerse yourself in your professional domain and search for new things to say that add value to your organization’s objectives.”  Search for new things to say…  All you have to do is say shit.  Sorry, this is not sufficient.  It seems to me that you can’t get anything done by having a bunch of “thought leaders” in a conference room coming up with new things to say.  Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of awesome people keeping their mouths shut and getting things done.

Here’s the other issue with this idea.  In our polarized, black-and-white world we live in today, you are a leader or you are a follower.  If you’re not a thought leader, all you are is following someone else.  And that’s exactly what LinkedIn is suggesting I do.  I need to follow these “leaders”.  I need to do what they say, because my thoughts are not at their level.  Obviously, because I’m not a multi-billionaire.  You know what the real thought leaders say (and have said in the past)? “Don’t listen to me.  Think for yourself.”

English, Motherfucker, Do You Write?

Posted by on June 7, 2013 No comments

Ok, you idiots.  You want a job?  Do you know how to get a job?  You have to present yourself well.  No, you have to present yourself as perfect as you can be.  There’s a lot of conflicting advice as to whether you have to answer questions 100% perfect in an interview or whether you should just be yourself.  The answer is both.  Be yourself and be 100% perfect.  If you’re good, this should be easy for you.

Now, the reason for this bitching is because I’m doing interviews now.  These are interviews for decent jobs.  I don’t actually know the pay scale, but 50-80k is not out of line.  The jobs are for computer programming, so a level of precision is somewhat expected.  Why then, of the last four resumes, do I see spelling and grammatical errors?  Why, you stupid people? 

The two resumes I got today each had at least five mistakes in them, and I even purposely ignored punctuation and poor sentence structure.  How can this happen?  The one resume was five pages long – which is ridiculous to begin with.  Apparently, all the technical terms were generating spell-check warnings, so spell-checking was probably turned off for the document.  Stupid.  Are you in some kind of hurry?  Do you not understand proofreading?

You’re not solely to blame, either.  Your resumes are being submitted by recruiting firms.  They missed the errors as well!  Do you realize you are literally giving money to people who are doing nothing but sitting between you and an employer?  This recruiter is doing nothing for you.  They copy your resume text into their template and call it a day.  In one of the two resumes from today, the document formatting changed midway through.  The recruiter’s standards are just as low as yours.

It gets better.  The first interview for today has cancelled.  You don’t cancel an interview unless you got a great offer.  Someone out there looked at the resume, either didn’t notice the mistakes or didn’t care about them, interviewed this guy and hired him.  This is what we’ve come to.  We’ve had candidates come in wearing business casual clothes instead of a suit.  We have resumes submitted with multiple mistakes.  We have to accept these shortcomings from candidates because if we don’t someone else will snatch them up?  Screw that.

But I’ve been instructed to not point out these problems in the interview.  So go ahead, fools, see how low you can take the standard.

On Advertising

Posted by on June 6, 2013 No comments

I got into a conversation about email and spam, which led me to think about advertising in general.  I don’t like unsolicited sales pitches – at all.  To me, the amount of effort you put into selling your product or service is directly related to its worthlessness.  Obviously, if something is completely useful, all you should have to do is show it or briefly explain it and it should sell itself.

But on the other hand, I don’t particularly hate advertising.  I actually appreciate and enjoy clever, well-crafted messages.  This difference of opinion made me think of three different types of advertising.

  • Hard Sell – This is the worst kind of advertising, done via phone call, street selling, mall kiosks, or even direct mail.  The ads that urge to to buy and sometimes warn, scare, or threaten you if you don’t.  There is always a consequence to not taking action.  Think about it.  Why would you ever want to attach a negative image to your product or service, even if it’s true?  Some people can’t afford the product or service or may not be in a position to buy it at all.  Now all your advertising has done is made them feel miserable.
  • Informational – This type covers a wide range.  There’s a fine line between Informational and Hard Sell and it usually depends on how much negativity or fear the ad generates.  However, in the median of this range, the primary intent is to simply inform the recipient that your company exists at all.  This type of ad combats the “I would’ve called, but I didn’t know such a place existed!” problem.  This is why I enjoy browsing random shops, because it’s good to know what’s out there.
  • Reminder – This type of ad is for well-established brands, like Coke, McDonalds, and most beers.  All the ad does is make you think of them.  These brands will also use Informational types of ads when they introduce new products, but lots of times, it’s just to evoke a mood or make you consider buying their product again.

The one that I was most interested in was the balance between Hard Sell and Informational.  When you are starting a business, you have to get your name out – Informational.  But at what point does it seem like desperation and start entering into Hard Sell territory?  The exact example I am thinking of is a former co-worker, who fell hard for real estate.  His focus within the broad scope of real estate is kind of in the scummy part: “We buy homes for cash!” “Invest with me and get a great return on your money!”  So, because his business focus is questionable, he’s going to have to push harder and yell louder for anyone to hear him.  This just moves his messages into the Hard Sell, where they are naturally resisted.

Although I do some work on the side, I don’t advertise anything.  In fact, I rarely even bring it up in conversation.  But somehow, whenever I am needed, an opportunity arises.

Gunnars

Posted by on May 30, 2013 No comments

I’ve been a Woot buyer for a while, from back when Woot was cool.  But even now, you can still get some good deals.  Anyway, that aside, it was a few months ago that I saw one of my co-workers wearing these yellow glasses.  He said he got them on Woot.  I recognized them as Gunnars and was curious as to whether they were worth the money.  He said he noticed the difference.  I tried them on and because of the slight magnification of the lens, I took them right off and said “no way.”

Weeks go by and my co-worker is wearing his Gunnars every day.  Every once in a while I ask, “they’re working ok?” and he says they’re great.  The joke in our department is that they are future glasses and when wearing them you can “see future.”  On a more practical level, if the glasses didn’t work, he would’ve stopped using them.  So, the next time Gunnars showed up on Woot, I went for it.

I purchased the Groove model.  When I got them, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The arms were simple rubber and the nose pads were stationary and tiny.  But I got over that and wore them to work.  After an extended time, the nose pads started really hurting me.  I adjusted them over and over but couldn’t find a good position.  So I ended up wearing the glasses less and less and eventually they just ended up in a drawer.

Another Woot sale came along and I decided to purchase another pair, one with a different bridge.  I decided on the e11vens, since they had a solid plastic bridge.  When I got the glasses, again, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The whole frame was a glossy black plastic and felt a little on the cheap side.  But the glasses look like something Tony Stark would wear, so there’s that, anyway.  At the time I ordered the e11vens, I played around with my Groove’s one more time and found a very comfortable nose pad position.  With that modification, I started wearing the Groove’s consistently.  Now I had a pair for work and one for home.

The real question is, do they work?  Yes, they do.  You’ll see a lot of reviews saying that Gunnar’s are overhyped, overpriced, and pointless.  After using them, I have to disagree.  I’ll admit, when I first researched Gunnars, I was totally put off by the hyper-aggressive, buzzword-laden marketing they used.  Since that time, the company seems to have toned the hyperbole down and the message is a lot more palatable.  I read some quotes from their founder and they made a lot of practical sense.  Basically, Gunnars are safety eyewear, and that’s not sexy.  It wouldn’t be very cool to be wearing “safety glasses” at work, and who would ever buy them with that label?  So I understand why they did what they needed to.  Now, with some real testimonials and word-of-mouth behind them, they can afford to be more realistic and practical with their message.

Now, some of the arguments against Gunnars say that that all they are is tinted glasses and all you need to do is go out and buy blu-blockers from the dollar store to get the same effect.  That’s fairly untrue.  Some of the features that Gunnars profess (and probably way over-hyped) are actually beneficial.  I’m not going to look up what their special marketing words are when discussing the features, because they don’t matter.

One feature -  I ‘m pretty sure they call this “microclimate” – is the wraparound style of the lenses.  It doesn’t need a buzzword to be effective.  I know this works because my eyes don’t dry out throughout the day.  You may think it’s a placebo effect, but physical proof that my eyes aren’t drying out is that I get “sleep” in my eyes at the end of the day, which means my eyes are tearing more than sufficiently.

Another feature is the slight magnification, the part that freaked me out when I first put the Gunnars on.  This magnification is optimized for up to about a 3 foot distance.  Don’t wear Gunnars for driving or even for walking around, they don’t work for far distances and you’ll get a headache. 

Gunnars hype the optically pure lens material and anti-glare coating.  Eh, I would hope glasses would be clear and anti-glare, especially at that price.  And the tinting, it’s not sunglass tint, it’s like shooting glasses.

So, can you use blu-blockers?  Sure, but you won’t get a wraparound fit, so your eyes will dry out.  The tinting will be darker and more pronounced, which I can’t see that doing any good.  You could use shooting glasses, but you won’t get the near-range magnification.  Cheap sunglasses probably aren’t as optically pure as specialized glasses, so maybe there would be a bit of distortion.  And, purely for vanity’s sake, in an office environment, wearing Gunnars may be considered edgy, but wearing actual sunglasses would be either tacky or plain weird.

The other real question is, are they worth it?  For $100, I wouldn’t think so.  Luckily, they are a Woot recurring item, so you shouldn’t have to pay that much.  At Woot prices, they are definitely worth the money.