A quick update about the Mystery Sale: Thank you to everyone who has participated! Your purchase helped a great deal to support the blog.
As many of you know, right after we announced the Mystery Sale yesterday, our servers crashed because of the traffic. While it was a painful experience, this elucidated a weakness in the way we set up the servers which I didn't realize before. We've taken steps to solve the problem (which, of course, involves more and more hardware).
Looking back, we've had many of these growing pains - Neato started on a shared hosting platform in 2005 (which cost a few bucks a month). Since then, we've had to move to ever larger, more complicated and thus more expensive hosting platforms. Instead of fretting over outages and meltdowns, I choose to view them as milestones in the growth of the blog (and the shop too, now).
All this is because and for you, dear Neatoramanauts! So from all of us here on Neatorama, thank you! We couldn't have made it this far without the blog's loyal readers (and hopefully, loyal customers - or soon-to-be one - of the Neatorama Online Shop). I hope you will help spread words about the blog by telling your friends and family about it.
Because of the interruption, I'm extending the Mystery Sale a little while longer - if you haven't gotten yours, there's still time. Don't miss out: Link [Update 5/6/09 - Time's Up! Thank you for all of you who participated in this Mystery Sale! For those who missed it, maybe next time!]
take 2 minutes and go re-read my very first comment in this thread.. you'll see my complaint wasn't that i got crap ... it's that everyone got the same crap ...
i get that it's a mystery box ... when I got my Mystery box 31 days after i paid for it .. it was no mystery that i got .. it was the same goddam straw that everyone else had gotten and posted about
Jay - As stated many times... it's a Mystery Sale! You knew that going in and now you're upset.
Take responsibility for your own actions. You knew there was a chance you were going to get the "Monty Hall Deal." If you didn't like it, learn from that and move on. Don't re-hash it again and again. Don't buy the mystery sale again.
And it's not a holier-than-thou attitude. I'm just tired of hearing people blaming others for their own ineptitude. And I'm quite sure I'm not alone in that sentiment. I say good day, Sir!
For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that your feedback, good or bad, are published on Neatorama without being censored. We will continue to improve the Mystery Sale as we do the blog and the online shop. In the meanwhile, your support is needed and is very much appreciated.