Well, now you can watch When you buy from Bloomex, do you get your money’s worth? It’s a video from CBC’s Marketplace and it’s well done, professional quality. They even put in actual orders and had experts evaluate what Bloomex delivered. And their verdict is …

Now we’ve come across Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a financial scholar and former securities trader, and his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The Black Swan refers to a rare event. Taleb argues that economists’ current financial risk models are completely inadequate for dealing with the world’s interconnected economy in case a black swan comes along.

In an op-ed piece for FT.com, Taleb notes that the “Nobel Prize for Economics” is actually mislabeled. It was started and is funded by the Swedish central bank, and is officially the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”. But it’s not one of the awards Alfred Nobel originally created. Those Swedish bankers are a clever bunch.

Taleb also has a few choice things to say about the “science” of economics, like:

• Modern portfolio management “has the empirical and scientific validity of astrology”
• The environment in financial economics is “reminiscent of medieval medicine”
• “The (Nobel economics) prize is … an insult to science”

Gee, what do you suppose he really thinks? You can find out more at Nassim Nicholas Taleb’ home page, which is aptly named fooledbyrandomness.com.

Under the terms of the settlement, FTD must also permanently end the practice of providing consumers’ billing information to companies that market discount clubs online. FTD’s $640,000 will go into a fund that will pay for consumer education, refunds, and the costs of the investigation.

FTD (a.k.a. “Florists’ Transworld Delivery”), headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, is one of the biggest players in the floral wire service business in North America. Two other big florist “order gatherer” companies, 1-800-Flowers and Pro Flowers, as well as many other well-known retailers, are also involved in what has been referred to as a “billion dollar web scam”.

According to the Attorney General, the scheme “tricked hundreds of thousands of New York consumers”. But New York is just one state – there are another 49 to go. The precedent may accelerate settlements in other jurisdictions.

The official press release is here. See our January 2010 blog post on FTD and 1-800-Flowers in Scam Probe for more background.

Silk flowers and plants make great permanent decor items. They are almost zero maintenance and can last for years. Display them in your home to create a welcoming ambiance and that touch of nature. Silks are also ideal for the office, to brighten up a reception area or to spruce up a boardroom. And you don’t have to water them, ever.

Our silk flowers and plants also make a great gift. They are distinctive works of floral art that will be appreciated for a long time.

See them all here at MoonFlower Silks. But hurry, there’s only one of each, once they’re gone, they’re gone!

Here’s one of our new corsages on the left, featuring beautiful and exotic mokara orchids.  It comes with a copper bracelet, and can be worn on your wrist or arm.

And you guys out there, don’t feel left out, because there’s a matching boutonniere too. In fact, MoonFlower Florist has several sets of matching corsages and boutonnieres.

You can see it all in the “Contemporary” category on our website in Formal and Event Flowers.

It’s probably the busiest day of the year for florists, and there’s only so much delivery capacity available. If you’re going to get her flowers, it’s a really good idea to get your order in early to avoid disappointment. Now would be a good time to have a look at MoonFlower Florist’s selection of Mother’s Day flowers.

And if you’re a Dad, don’t forget the mother of your children! You may want to choose something from our flowers for love and romance collection.

By the way, MoonFlower Florist will be open on Mother’s Day Sunday from 9 am to 4 pm,  but only for phone order pick-up and personal shopping.

No, we don’t what it means either. But it looks neat and it kind of looks like flowers which is at least appropriate!

The colours stand for different types of HTML tags. Black is the HTML tag for the root node, which we suppose means the “start” (it’s a lone dot close to the top, right of centre). Blue shows links (the A tag). Red is for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags). Green denotes the DIV tag. Violet is for images (the IMG tag). Yellow is for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags). Orange denotes linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags). And Gray is for all other tags.  Hmm…

But the good news is that you can actually watch a video of the graph creating itself and even do your own. Click here: MoonFlower Blog Graph, The Movie! This will open in a new page. If you miss the start, just refresh the page and it will begin again.

That’s about it! Have a great Easter! Watch those chocolate bunnies!

Of course, quality silk flower arrangements do cost more than real flowers. But they can last for years and years. And another great thing about them: zero maintenance.

All of our new silk flower decor pieces are original MoonFlower designs. Some are quite large, up to 4 feet wide by over 4 feet tall. They can fill up an empty space in a hurry, while making a really “wow” impression.

So have a look at Silk Flowers & Decor Pieces at MoonFlower.ca. Even if these are not for you, there’s a high eye candy factor!

We’ll be open on Valentine’s Day, Sunday February 14, from 10 am to 4 pm. This will be for personal shopping and pre-order pick-up only.

We expect that our delivery schedule will be full on Valentine’s Day. If you do need delivery, please order by phone to confirm delivery availability. A good option is to order ahead and then just come in and quickly pick-up your flowers at the shop.

Valentine’s Day is one of our very busiest times. Be sure to order early to avoid disappointment!

In our Guys’ Guide to Flowers for Her, we said:

• Always go for quality when getting flowers for her. Even if all you can afford is one single rose, make sure it’s a really good one.

Now we’re backing up that advice with the Sweetheart Rose Solitaire. It’s the lowest priced item in our catalogue, but it still looks great. Sometimes good things do come in small packages.

By the way, did you notice the two rhinestone hearts in the picture? To view a large image and for ordering info, see Sweetheart Rose Solitaire, or check out our complete Valentine’s Day Flowers selection.

FTD and 1-800-Flowers were summoned before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee to explain their involvement with these so-called “post-transaction marketing” schemes. Many consumer complaints have also been lodged against another major flower seller, Pro Flowers, over the same issue. These companies sold out their customers to various loyalty marketing firms, including Affinion, Ezsaver, Webloyalty, and Vertrue.

It’s not just limited to the flower business. Other companies cited as making money from the scheme include Buy.com, Priceline, Travelocity, Avon, eHarmony, Hertz, Pizza Hut, Victoria’s Secret, and others.

Here are links to more information, which in turn have further references.

• Online Florists: Whither the ethics?, Real Florist Blog at flowerchat.com
• Feds: Top e-tailers profit from billion-dollar Web scam, by Greg Sandoval, cnet.com
• Lawmakers Slam Deceptive Web Marketers, by Thomas Claburn, Information Week

Note that MoonFlower Florist is a member of the Teleflora network, which is not involved in these nefarious goings-on. In any event, since we have our own website, MoonFlower.ca, we have complete control over our own database. We absolutely do not sell or pass on any website visitor or customer information to anyone. At MoonFlower Florist, we truly value and appreciate your business.

Technically, meaning in the economists’ definition, a recession is a least two consecutive quarters of decline in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is also known as “negative growth”, although an increase is never called “positive shrinkage”, but that’s another story. Thereafter, as soon as a quarter comes along with GDP growth at or above 0%, the recession is declared to be over. In Canada, that happened in the third quarter of 2009, when GDP growth was 0.3%. That’s not a whole lot, but it’s a positive number nevertheless.

The trouble here is that real GDP growth in Canada over the last 10 years averaged about 3.1%. The Q3 2009 gain of a mere 0.3% is positive, but still way below average. If you’re used to 3.1%, 0.3% just doesn’t cut it.

What’s worse is that it’s difficult to see when things will get back to normal, namely, something like the good old average that we’re used to. For one thing, all those government economic stimulus and bailout programs won’t be around in 2010. Governments have also run up big deficits because of those programs, which taxpayers will eventually have to pay for. Plus, unemployment remains high, so there’s fewer income earners to foot the bill.

So here’s a proposition for economists. Instead of saying “the recession is over” when GDP just limps into positive territory, change the decision point to when GDP growth returns to the 10 year average, or even gets within 50% of the 10 year average for that matter. This is a much more realistic way of describing what’s going on. It would be good for your PR, especially after having so utterly missed calling the recession in the first place.

Merry Christmas!

• First there is a “Compressed Version for the Impatient“.

• Let’s get to the bottom-line: Flowers = Romance. There’s more to it of course, but first you have to know why flowers work.

• By the way, if you don’t have a clue about flowers, guess what? It’s no problem!

• Make sure you avoid the biggest mistake many men make, and that you understand why quality is critical.

• Never forget the big 5 occasions, but also take advantage of the power of the surprise.

• Oh no, not red roses again – they’re nice, but show some imagination. Also, a relationship goes through many stages, so be sure to keep it appropriate.

• Flowers say a lot by themselves, but if you include the right message, you can tone things up or down. Speaking of messages, what about an apology? Flowers can really help you get out of the doghouse.

• Some finer points — learn how to conquer the corsage and master the boutonniere. And don’t forget the other ladies in your life.

• And last but not least, a couple of notes for the women out there.

Get the full story at MoonFlower Florist’s Guys Guide to Flowers for Her.

Well that’s what the MoonFlower Photo Gallery is for of course. And we just did an update, so have a look!

Where do these unique flower arrangements come from? Often it’s a customer who has something specific on his or her mind, and we always do our best to accommodate special – and even unusual – requests. At other times, it’s someone who may not know much about flowers, but they do know what message they want to send, and that they want to do it with style. At MoonFlower, we come through.

Another factor is that some flowers are only available at certain times of the year, or we’re able to get our hands on something rare or unusual. We always have some “different” flowers on hand which we use in our custom bouquets.

Less common flower varieties however  may only be around for a short time, so you won’t see them as a “regular item” on our website. The only way to find out about these is to come in or call us, and ask what’s new and different.

As an example, the arrangement of roses at top right is clean and classy. But their outstanding feature is that they are an unusual cinnamon color. It might be hard to tell depending on your monitor, resolution, and so on, but live and in-person, these cinnamon roses are absolutely gorgeous and strikingly different.

For more, take the tour of the newly renovated MoonFlower Photo Gallery!