Kay Jewelers (Kay.com) Sucks
I’m not pleased with the level of service at Kay Jewelers after stopping in at their NYC location across from Macy’s on 34th street. Wendy and I went there to pick out a pair of rings, and settled on these two:
Color: HIJ, Clarity: I1-I2 – 14K White Gold 1/2 Carat t.w. Diamond Anniversary Band
Color: HIJ, Clarity: I1-I2 – 14K White Gold 1/4 Carat t.w. Diamond Band for Him
Not bad rings, not a terrible price. However, in the store once we purchased them, things got bad fast. First, they quoted the rings at the $699 price, but when I received the itemized receipt, the rings were billed at $599 (the correct online price, which we didn’t know at the time). Second, although we had declined their insurance option, there was magic insurance at $75 a piece. You can checkout an uploaded receipt image here, if you like. Tomorrow, I’ll be dropping by again to return both rings and receive a full refund.
Where my ire really gets irked is when I began to shop online for an alternative to the Kay rings (since I’m planning to return them). I took a look at Zales, and found a nearly identical ring, for the same price:
Color: H, Clarity VS1-VS2 1/2 CT. T.W. Diamond Five Stone Band in 14K White Gold
This Zales ring is the same price as the Kay’s Jewelry ring, but at a superior clarity. With free shipping and a $50 off coupon, the total price is $135 less than what Kay’s charged me. Yes, and that’s for a better ring! Zales even offers the Jewelry maintenance services as a free service, whereas Kay tries to tack them on as a $75 additional charge.
Some other red flags about Kay’s Jewelers:
- RetailMeNot doesn’t have any coupons for them. There’s a notice that reads, “Sorry for the inconvenience but this merchant has specifically requested to have all user contributed coupons removed from the RetailMeNot system.” That seems sketchy at best.
- Their Santa Certificates are only good if you spend in $300 increments, at which point you get $100 off. Although, there’s the possibility that at this point Kay’s will quote $100 of list, not advertised price.
I am pleased to see that they have a 2 star rating (out of 5) on RateItAll, a nice consumerist horror story, and something titled Kay Jewelers RUINED MY ENGAGEMENT RING!!!.
Color Me Mine – Pottery Painting in NYC
Thanks to a 50% off $50 coupon on Groupon I became aware of this cute little place downtown called Color me Mine, where you go to paint pottery. First, you pick your white, unbaked clay piece from a shelf with a large selection. Then, you choose your glazes and colors, and begin painting. When you’re done, your piece is sent to the kiln to be dipped in a clear protective coat and fired. About a week later, you can pick it up!
The reviews on Yelp are overwhelming fantastic–yuppies love this place:
Places that give me options allow me to customize, and they allow me to personalize the product to my tailored desire. When you walk in here, you’re not buying an ‘Off-the-Rack’ ceramic piece; you’re ‘Making it your way.’ This is a great place to create a gift for someone special.
Now, I want you to disregard all the reviews talking about how this is a great place to catch up with your girlfriends. Because painting pottery is manly all the way. So next time you’re going out to a sports bar with your buddies, step up. Be a MAN. Say: “Guys. Screw the game. Let’s go paint ceramic teapots.”
When you first come in, there’s a few tables for painting, and a wall of pottery to choose from on the left. I decided to paint a box and a 1L water jug.
Here’s the jug and my paints, fresh and ready to start. I wrapped some parts of the jug with tape so will be highlights in white!
Halfway through painting the jug. Green handle and bottom. White strips along the sides. Red on top / bottom, blue in the middle. Should come out like some kind of gradient!
Evil box. Black top. Red bottom inside, and the walls are dripping blood!
Update: Less than a week later I got the final results back. Here they are!
I think the jug turned out nicely!
And here’s the box…
Windows 7 Preorder Coupon Sale!
I just preordered Microsoft Windows 7 Home on Amazon, because right now it’s over 50% off. For just $49.99 (58% savings) you will get it delivered to your door on the official release date of October 22, 2009 (if you’re a PRIME member, which I am).
As fas as I can tell, the only difference between Home Premium and Professional is that you don’t get their virtualization for XP software support (which is probably like VMWare Fusion on the Mac), no automatic backup features, and it’s missing some enterprise Active Directory thing called “Domain Join” that I doubt I’d ever use. So I’m not paying any $ for that.
One advantage I’ll get out of this is the ability to (a) run DX10 for the latest games, and (b) 64bit support, so finally I can run all 4 GB of RAM properly without PAE and any other proprietary crap. Right now my 4GB only shows up as about 3.4 anyway. Also, SSD support is much better in Windows 7, from what I’ve read. So my Intel X25-M will continue to serve me well!
Update: If you missed this, but you are a student or know a student, you can get a super cheap deal ($10 cheaper!) by visiting the Windows 7 Student Discount Page. It’s $30 for Windows 7 Pro, and another $13 to get a physical DVD.