Random News Items

[blue_gold_84]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/david-vs-goliath-pirate-joe-s-shuts-down-following-legal-battle-with-trader-joe-s-1.4152270

Quote

Pirate Joe's, the Vancouver-based retailer known for reselling products from American chain Trader Joe's, abruptly shut its doors on Thursday, citing a costly legal battle with the large corporation.

For over five years Pirate Joe's owner Michael Hallatt has been operating what he described as a "David vs. Goliath" operation to bring beloved Trader Joe's products to Canada.

His operation involved conducting clandestine bulk shopping trips to Trader Joe's locations in Seattle, then bringing them over the border to resell them in his Vancouver store.

In 2013 Trader Joe's filed a lawsuit against Hallatt for trademark infringement and false advertising, a move he says ultimately shut his store down.

Hallat was known for his tongue-in-cheek humour and unique social media presence. At one point he dropped the "P" from his store's signage, leaving it at the "irate joe's" in protest of the lawsuit.

 

[The Unknown Poster]

Thats an interesting lawsuit.  I know with home video, the studios sued the rental companies over trademark infringement and the courts recognized "First sale doctrine" allowing someone who buys the product to then do with it as they please, to a certain degree.

I guess this goes a bit too far.

[bearpants]

On 6/8/2017 at 0:44 PM, Brandon said:

I often wonder why this is considered news?   

I think everyone is shocked that celebrities gave their kids normal names...

[The Unknown Poster]

Interesting (especially as im considering buying a new tv)

 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

32 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Interesting (especially as im considering buying a new tv)

 

It's like someone said if you didnt want this to happen you should not have sold out to lower-end company but hey this is the company that made yellow one of the 4 colours

[The Unknown Poster]

16 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

It's like someone said if you didnt want this to happen you should not have sold out to lower-end company but hey this is the company that made yellow one of the 4 colours

Thats the obvious take-away.  I don't know the details but from the comments Sharp was at risk of going under so the deal saved them.  I would assume there was some language in the licensing about quality so probably what is at issue is Sharp thinks Hisense is not maintaining the agreed upon standard while Hisense believes it is.

Its interesting because Sharp suing them publicly damages both of them.  Who on earth would buy a Sharp product in the US now knowing this?

Speaking of which, we discussed this last year but Im curious if anyone has bought a new TV in 2017... and what they bought, are they happy with it?

I was leaning towards an LG but the reviews are quite good but not spectacular and most reviews point people towards a Sony that is quite a bit more expensive but a better TV if one was going to spend a lot for a 4K screen...

[Brandon]

2 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Interesting (especially as im considering buying a new tv)

 

I bought my Sharp last year,   I believe the cheaper crappier TV's were made out of Mexico.... the one I had is ridiculously good still.   If you are to buy a Sharp research online to see where it was made...

[SpeedFlex27]

10 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

It's like someone said if you didnt want this to happen you should not have sold out to lower-end company but hey this is the company that made yellow one of the 4 colours

I bought a 32 inch Sharp tv from Best Buy 2 years ago. So far no problems. Nice picture.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

10 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I was leaning towards an LG but the reviews are quite good but not spectacular and most reviews point people towards a Sony that is quite a bit more expensive but a better TV if one was going to spend a lot for a 4K screen...

LG OLED.

[The Unknown Poster]

Flair Air bought New Leaf.  How it worked was, New Leaf marketed itself as an airline but was just a ticket seller and used Flair Air's planes.  Flair Air was solely a charter company.  But now that Flair has bought New Leaf, they are a "full service" airline, although with only 4 planes.

While reading about that, I saw a story I missed called "The Mexican Game".

Air Transat is a charter company that does a lot of all-inclusive sales between Canada and Mexico.  Two of my friends flew Air Transat last year and loved the experience.  But due to passenger loads, Air Transat contracted Flair Air to do some of the flights.  The only problem is Flair's planes did not have the ability to safely fly between Edmonton and Cancun under most conditions.  Two planes were outfitted with extra fuel tanks to make it to Cancun but could not make the return flight safely and would have to stop for re-fuelling.

But since Air Transat markets the flights as "direct" they lied to the public and aviation officials.  They even told Flair to file a direct flight plan from Cancun to Edmonton and once in the air, request a "technical stop" in New Orleans.  This pissed off passengers.  Flair then instructed its pilots not to inform passengers of the fuel stop until they were in flight.

This doesnt appear to impact Winnipeg travel if you are unlucky enough to get the Flair planes.  In fact, one Cancun-Edmonton flight stopped in Winnipeg for re-fueling.  My friends really enjoyed Air Transat.  Said the plane was beautiful, service awesome etc.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/flair-newleaf-airtransat-aircanada-westjet-airlines-cancun-vacation-discount-airlines-1.4096090

Air Transat's manager of commercial operations was prepared for the planes not being able to make the northbound flight non-stop. In an email to Flair's director of flight operations, Mauricio Diaz gave the following instructions. 

"Due to Mexican authorities restrictions, we always need to file a direct flight (flight plans) CUN-YEG [from Cancun to Edmonton]," he wrote in a May 2016 email to Flair.

"Never file CUN-MSY-YEG [Cancun-New Orleans-Edmonton] because it will be refused by [the Mexican authorities]," the email continues. "When the flight is airborne from [Cancun], you can plan the technical stop in [New Orleans] and advise ATC [air traffic control]."

Not only were passengers being misled about being on a non-stop flight, Flair's pilots say they were uncomfortable filing two flight plans.

"Problem is, what if you're flying across the Gulf [of Mexico], and you have a communications problem, and you enter American air space, land in Kansas City and nobody knows about it, post 9/11?" one pilot told CBC News, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

"How do you think that is going to end?" he added, suggesting that he could be intercepted by U.S. fighter jets.

CBC News examined the Cancun-to-Kelowna flights made by Air Transat/Flair this past winter on Flight Stats, an online repository of historic flight data.

On 11 consecutive flights advertised as non-stop — from Jan. 28 to April 8 — all experienced stopovers: two of the flights landed in Winnipeg, eight of them landed in Regina, and one was diverted to Kansas City.

On two of southbound flights from Kelowna — on Jan. 21 and Feb. 18 — the jets stopped in Calgary to top up.

There are no penalties for filing flight plans an airline has no intention of following

As for the Mexican authorities, they told CBC News there was no reason to file false flight plans: It is not against Mexican regulations to make a technical stop in the U.S., so there was no reason to play the original "Mexican game."

 

[Atomic]

I've flown Air Transat direct to Cancun.  I found the experience to be pretty decent.  Certainly better than Sunwing.

[JCon]

14 minutes ago, Atomic said:

I've flown Air Transat direct to Cancun.  I found the experience to be pretty decent.  Certainly better than Sunwing.

Agreed. I always choose Air Transat over the others**. A far better experience than Sunwing or Sunquest.

**I have not flown AC or WJ to a sun destination to compare.

[The Unknown Poster]

I have only been to one Sun destination - Jamaica for a wedding.  We flew Sunwing.  And man, did I hear about it from people (and online reviews).  Sunwing plays a lot of games.  One of their favorites is, for example, if Edmonton-Cancun doesnt have enough passengers and there is room on Calgary-Cancun, they will cancel the Edmonton flight and claim technical issues and have the "direct" Calgary flight divert to Edmonton to pick up those passengers. (or vice versa).

The benefit to being in Winnipeg is that we dont have a close neighbor for them to do that with and most people in Manitoba are likely flying out of Winnipeg so the aircraft are likely fuller.  We also left first thing in the morning (again, full flight). 

Other than no seat back entertainment (they had TV's every few rows), the Sunwing experience was awesome.  Super nice people, nice planes, no problems (we left Jamaica late, that was it).  I upgraded to the larger seats just to be safe though.

[StevetheClub]

We flew Calgary to Cancun direct with WestJet Vacations in January and the experience, from booking to touching down, was our typical - i.e., very good - WestJet experience.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/claude-bisson-birchwood-chevrolet-1.4157363

 

[The Unknown Poster]

They should issue hand guns to all UPS employees so the next time several innocent people are shot, it won't be as easy....

 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/gene-simmons-seeks-register-trademark-iconic-rock-hand-gesture-1013378

[rebusrankin]

Gene Simmons is a ******. Not his gesture. Its from the late, great, Ronny James Dio.

[Rich]

Blimp catches fire 

 

[The Unknown Poster]

Oh the humanity!

 

Hopefully no one was hurt or I take back my remark.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/06/15/crtc-bans-cellphone-unlocking-fees

[FrostyWinnipeg]

http://www.tmz.com/2017/06/16/carrie-fisher-cause-of-death-sleep-apnea/

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Mistrial for Jello pudding pops.

[Jacquie]

On 2017-6-15 at 1:12 PM, The Unknown Poster said:

Oh the humanity!

 

Hopefully no one was hurt or I take back my remark.

Unfortunately he pilot was reported to be in serious condition with burns on his back. The story that people parachuted from the blimp turned out to be wrong. 

[Mr Dee]