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24
Oct

When You Need An Update

categories Bella's Engagement Ring    

I want to apologize for the lack of communication that we are giving out relating to the rings.  For everyone that is looking for an update on your particular ring status, at this time the best thing to do is contact our customer service department directly about your particular order.

If you go to our Contact Us page, you will find all of the contact information you need to get a hold of us.  I’m sorry i couldn’t be more specific.  Let’s just say that we are experiencing our own levels of frustration.  This has been very difficult for us and we know that our reputation has suffered for it.  Thanks for your patience.

-Brian

23
Oct

No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Science

categories Dave Barry, Not Twilight Related, The Blog    

It’s funny how meeting one of your heroes can cause you to have the mental capacity of a turnip.

No, really, I am nearly 40 years old and I still feel like a fanboy teenager when I meet famous people I admire.  This held true when my wife and I recently went to meet Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson at a book signing.  In case you’re not aware, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson are both authors, and I had about 6 bazillion books for them to sign (some of the books were even theirs).  They were both at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ promoting their new book, Science Fair .

The presentation was a lot of fun to watch, and they gave us (the audience) a brief history of how the story came about.  I was particularly interested in the discussion of the important scientific experiments that happened in real life that were pertinent to the book, including the experiment that levitated a real, live frog.  They then proceeded to demonstrate, in real life, one of the experiments that happens in the book; the famous Mentos/Diet Coke Theorem of Showering Things With Sticky Soda.

This was particularly amusing, especially when Ridley became the unwitting subject of a soda shower.  Earlier that day, Dave and Ridley were demonstrating this exact theorem at a middle school gymnasium, which had a very tall ceiling.  They dropped 5 Mentos into the Diet Coke, and produced a fountain high enough to touch the ceiling.  Because of this, and the fact that the ceiling in the Poisoned Pen was only about 7.5 to 8 feet high, they decided to scale back the number of Mentos to just 2.

The fountain they produced was impressive…and managed to spray the ceiling anyway.  The containment field that they set up (a Glad garbage bag) was breeched, and the table, floor, and the first row of attendees were splattered with Diet Coke.  This would probably have been very troubling to the owner of the store, had she been there.  I do hope that these two guys are invited back again next year when they release their next Peter and the Starcatchers book.

The photo below is my wife and I with Dave Barry.


Key Scientific Quote Of The Evening: "I’m still dripping!" -Ridley Pearson

The evening was a lot of fun, and I’m very glad that my wife and I made the journey to meet these two very funny guys.  It was a great date for my wife and I, and we got a ton of new books to read to boot.  I highly recommend checking out their work.  Dave is famous for his humor and Ridley is famous for his particularly inventive ways of killing characters in his adult books.  How ironic it is that both of these guys happen to write really good fiction for young adults.  I highly recommend their Peter and the Starcatchers series as well as Ridley’s Steel Trapp: The Challenge book and The Kingdom Keepers series.

Incidentally, and yes I have to plug this, the shirt I’m wearing will be available soon on our web site in the coming week or so.  It is part of our new line of officially licensed Dave Barry t-shirts.  I’m very excited to be able to work with Dave on this endeavor.  And I’m pretty certain it will not result in anyone being splashed with Diet Coke.

-Brian 

 

21
Oct

Why Computers Don’t Play Sports – Part 1

categories Howard    

 

14
Oct

Attention All Units!

categories Bella's Engagement Ring, Shirts and stuff    

We are looking for one of our slogan contest winners.  We have yet to receive a response from the person who submitted the winning entry for Renesmee Cullen.  The winning entry slogan is "Go Hybrid" and the graphic to go along with it is that of a DNA strand.

In order to make sure that we get the right person, we will not be listing the name of the person, but we know who you are.  Please contact us immediately, as we have made three attempts now to get ahold of you at your e-mail address.  However, you have yet to respond, and we cannot send you your prize until we get your mailing address.

It’s entirely possible that our e-mails have been stuck in your spam filter.  We would ask you to check your spam filter and see if our messages are waiting there.

Please send your information directly to me, the webmaster for Twilight Teez.  My address is brian at twilightteez.com (replace the word "at" with the @ symbol).

If we do not hear from you by midnight on October 31, 2008 then we will forfeit your prize.

Leave comments here if you have questions.  No, we will not be giving this person’s prize to anyone else.

UPDATE:  We found our winner!  Thanks to everyone for helping us look!  I’m so glad that we won’t have to keep this ring to ourselves!

-Brian

10
Oct

Another Update

categories Bella's Engagement Ring    

Things have been royally busy over here at Twilight Teez, and I simply haven’t had time to update the blog.  In fact, I don’t even have enough time to give details here.  But I can say that we have received a new shipment of rings and we are busy processing them right now as I write this.  I don’t know at the moment which rings have come in, but I hope to be able to update you on that information a little bit later.  Just keep your eyes open for an e-mail from us that will let you know your order is on its way.

We recommend that you add info@twilightteez.com to your list of allowed incoming e-mail addresses so that our e-mails don’t get caught up in your spam filters.  If you don’t receive this message from us, check your spam folders to ensure the message isn’t waiting in there.

-Brian

7
Oct

Store Upgrade Is Operational

categories The Store    

As you probably have noticed by now, our new site software is finally operational.  We are excited as to what the new software will be able to do for us and for you, our customers.  I’m not going to offer up a whole lot of detail right now because I am operating on negative sleep right now, but here’s a list of some of the improvements that we expect to see with this new upgrade:

 

Some things that we expect to offer up soon.

One thing that you will need to do on the new site is create a new account.  There is a highly detailed, very technical reason for this, but I will spare you the details except to say that it involves lots of computer technical jargon.  Suffice it to say that the two systems are not compatible with each other, and it would have taken lots of time and money to hire a specialist to do the conversion.  The easiest method was to simply keep the old site operational for a while, and require that you create new accounts on the new site.

We look forward to the new capabilities and service offerings that this new site will offer all of us.  As always, if you have any questions, just send me a note.

 

-Brian

6
Oct

A Note About Rings On eBay

categories Bella's Engagement Ring, Twilight Books    

Many of you have no doubt noticed that Signature Editions of Bella’s Engagement Ring are appearing on eBay.  While there is nothing that we can do to stop people from selling the ring on eBay, there are some things that you should know about buying the rings outside of Twilight Teez. 

First of all, we want to warn people about the possibility of fraud.  We have had some requests for new Certificates of Authenticity due to claims that these certificates have not been sent with the original rings.  However, we have noticed that some of these requests are coming from people who have posted their rings for sale on eBay, with pictures showing the actual Certificate of Authenticity.  Please be aware that it is possible that some of these rings may not be actual Signature Edition rings, but are classic editions that have been altered after being purchased from us.  I am not making any accusations, just putting out a warning.

Second, and this may be the more important of the two cautions, is that Twilight Teez will not honor the warranty of the rings that are not purchased through us.  The warranty that comes with the rings is offered to the original purchaser only.  We have records of those who have purchased from us.  Some of the rings that are being offered on eBay indicate that the rings can be resized.  But for some of the rings, doing so will void the warranty and these auctions are failing to mention that.

As always, you are more than welcome to contact us if you have any questions.  I will even go as far as inviting you to confirm and verify the authenticity of a particular numbered ring.  I just wanted to put out the information, though.

-Brian

1
Oct

The Story Of Our Lives

categories Not Twilight Related, The Store    

I have worked in the Information Technology business for over 15 years.  I started as a computer technician working for a medical imaging company, installing computers in hospitals around the nation.  I worked my way up from there to computer support for an architecture and engineering firm, then moved into computer network support for a public education school district.  I’ve worked as a network administrator, software developer and even worked for several major government contractors before I finally formed Twilight Teez with my wife.  And in all of those years, it has been my experience that computers behave perfectly and precisely as programmed…in SchadeWorld.  Which is an entirely fictitious world existing only in my imagination and has nothing in common with reality.  For example, in SchadeWorld, I’m the lead singer and guitar player for a rock band, as well as the band’s sax player, drummer, and bass player.  I do not know how I play all of those instruments at the same time.  I’m also buff, have a rapier wit, and own several flying vehicles built upon technology that does not yet exist.  I like SchadeWorld.

In Real Life (RL for you gamers), computers rarely ever do what they are supposed to do when you really need them to.  They work perfectly in all sorts of test environments and give you precisely the results you’re looking for.  They will continue to perform with exacting precision the way they are supposed to all the way up until the moment you need them to actually perform the thing they are designed to do in real life.

Thus is the situation we now face here at Twilight Teez.  Today was supposed to be the day to launch our new store software (aka Shopping Cart).  But thanks to the wonderful world of Real LIfe, that of course couldn’t happen.  I’ll spare you the details.  At the moment, it’s pretty late and we intend to go home and get some sleep.  We will be delaying our shopping cart release for at least 24 hours until we can get this sorted out and fixed.  Until then, you can continue to enjoy our wonderful old software for at least another day.

Well, that’s about it for now.  If anyone’s interested in knowing technical details, I’d be happy to give them.  Until then, I need to fly off in my CTX130 Hercules starcruiser and play a gig in Las Vegas.

-Brian