Not to be out done by J.J. Arbams' Cloverfeild, The Dark Knight folks have been busy building several related websites for the film due in July of 2008. Besides the Warner Brothers sub site, the team started with a pair of Harvey Dent political sites. One with the recently elected DA and the other looks like a Jokerish response. Highlight the page to see what I mean.
Then came the WhySoSerious? site which contained a jack-o-lantern that burnt out on Halloween to reveal a more in depth site with a scavenger hunt, personality profile, and safe cracking game. This site would lead you to 2 others, which feature user submitted joker pictures, called Rent-A-Clown and Rory's Death Kiss. On a side note, I can't believe how many people painted their face like the jokers and submitted pictures to these sites.
Lastly we have the local paper, The Gotham Times, which is full of local news. The paper then leads you to a site dedicated to a young girl who's life was taken too soon. Of course we couldn't have the news with the Joker's own daily edition.
Seriously, if they keep this up for the next 6 months people might begin to believe there is actually a city called Gotham somewhere here in the US.
Ever since Nike created the first Air Jordan's in 1985, many NBAers have put their name on a pair of shoes and put them on sale for $75 and up. All that could be changing... Introducing the $14.95 shoe from NBA star Stephan Marbury called the Starbury collection, available exclusively at Steve & Barry's.
After selling nearly 3 million pairs of these shoes since last April, Starbury has added Big Ben Wallace to the roster and his new shoes hit the store just in time for the Christmas season. Remember, limit 10 pairs per purchase.
Steve & Barry's also offers other exclusive brands such as Eleven by Venus Williams, Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker, Dear by Amanda Bynes and Bubba Golf by Bubba Watson. Looks like I need to make a trip to my local S & B's.
Alexander D. Smith, 31, of Augusta, Ga., was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery, when he was arrested after tryin to open a bank account with a 1 million dollar bill. Really the federal goverment doesn't print millions anymore???
Actually, a $100 bill is the largest denomination that is printed today. On July 14, 1969, the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System announced that currency notes in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 [which were the largest bills printed at the time] would be discontinued immediately due to lack of use. Although they were issued until 1969, they were last printed in 1945.
Well Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone as we are in the full swing of the Christmas shopping season and you maybe looking for some gift ideas. So here in the BOTB 2007 "interesting" gift ideas:
Crime Scene Bath Towel
Escape Key Wall Clock
Larry Craig Action Figure
USB Pole Dancer
2008 Butt Crack Wall Calender
Countdown Key Chain
Security Briefs with special coloring
Blond Tape Measure
Hillary Clinton Nutcracker
Thanks to stupid.com for all of these wonderful gift ideas!
My wife, more and more everyday My health, without it, you have nothing My family, yes all of my family My home, even the circa 1970's kitchen Our new kitchen plan, gonna be a crazy winter Neighbors, even those neighbors Our cars, especially with the top down My friends, whom I get by with a little help from School, someday I will have my Masters My job, not always perfect but always interesting Running, even if it's only 1 mile today Music, without it I couldn't run everyday Technology, DVR, MP3 player, and YouTube keep me entertained Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics, keep on rolling US Soldiers, keeping us safe Blogging, what an interesting outlet Delivering hot meals to Fred & Oralee and Patrica yesterday
We have all scene the MAC vs PC commercials but have you scene the one placed on the CNET Vista landing page? Pretty clever placement for an anti-Microsoft advertisement. Next we'll see a Microsoft Vista add on the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard landing page but of course they would get only about 12% of the overall traffic for their advertising money.
Mike Huckabee probably won't be our next president but you have to give him credit for a clever ad, using a little viral marketing and being Chuck Norris approved!
The Slap Bet clock has been counting down since September 24th and tonight, at approximately 8:25 [and 58 seconds], Barney will get his third slap from Marshall at Slaps - what for it - giving, Slapsgiving. The slap bet started when Robin refuses to go to the mall so Marshall and Barney propose a slap bet no why. [Marshall thinks it's because she's married, while Barney thinks she was in porn.]
Here's a quick recap of how it mostly happened:
At the end of the episode we find out that Robin avoids the mall because she was a teenage pop star in Canada as Robin Sparkles and had to perform her song Let's Go To The Mall in malls all over Canada. Here's her very 80's music video "released" in the mid 90's [note the 80's didn't get to Canada until the 90's]:
"I'm gonna rock yo body til' Canada Day!" - Classic
Lily gives Barney the option of either getting 10 times in succession or 5 times for all of eternity. Barney chooses the latter and he gets one slap that night. Marshall doses out a second one at the end of Barney's one man show called Suck It Lily and tonight he is going to get his third. Can't wait to see Barney take another open-handed slap in one of the best running themes in a current sitcom.
After finishing the Chicago Marathon last year, I thought I would never do it again but the allure of my local race, which happens to start just 5.8 miles from my house, is too great and I am planning on running the 112th this April. To qualify, I would have to run another marathon in under 3 hours and 15 minutes which is not something I can realistically do. I don't mind paying to enter the race, as I did in Chicago, and while I truly commend the Boston Marathon Charity Program for raising so much money each year I will be working hard enough just to finish the race [and go to school and remodel the kitchen] on what some consider one of the toughest courses in the country. So I am looking for a sponsor, a corporate sponsor to be exact.
If you, your cousin, a neighbor, your oldest high school friend or your best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend have access to a number that I can use, I would be forever grateful for the opportunity to run from Hopkinton to Boston this spring. Feel free to email me if you have any questions or, god willing, you can help me with a number.
On Monday nights Journeyman, our hero Dan Vasser travels back in time to August 8, 1972. As Dan enters a wife swapping party, the song The Lady by the Isley Brothers can be heard in the background. For a moment I expected Ron Burgundy and Company to walk through the background of the scene since this is the same song used at the party sequence at the beginning of the film Anchorman. It would have been such an awesome easter egg to see a guy in an orange bathrobe walk behind the show's main character as a nod to the best 70's era movie of all time [featuring newscasters].
Let's call it... research. Yeah that's the ticket.
A doctor specializing in infectious diseases at a local Worcester MA hospital said he was just “gathering information” when he was arrested by police this weekend for allegedly offering to pay for sex from an undercover officer posing as a prostitute. The doctor, who is also a professor at a local medical school, allegedly pulled up to the undercover officer in the area of Tainter Street in the Main South section of the city Saturday afternoon and offered to pay the woman $40 for sex, according to police reports.
Now I'm no medical expert, but don't hospitals and colleges have lab facilities for research? And if they are going to do field work, isn't there forms and criteria to be met to be considered true medical research? Also aren't participates and subjects paid for there time by check and not in cash?
Well, like I said, I'm not expert in this field but I would like to see his expense report for his "information gathering". Mostly because I am curious if either the hospital or college does reimbursement for this kind of personal field research.
The Boston Globe published poll results yesterday which showed that Clinton and Romney are the leading candidates for their respective parties for the NH Primary, which will occur on February 1st next year. The Globe, in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, surveyed 400 likely primary voters and found that 35 and 32% respectively support the leading candidates. However does their poll numbers truly reflect their support or do these numbers lie?
When you look at the next question on the poll, if the potential voter has decided on a candidate, you see the following results:
Democrat:
Decided: 24% Leaning: 28% Still Deciding: 48%
Republican:
Decided: 16% Leaning: 24% Still Deciding: 60%
This looks like that half or more than half of the people asked still have no idea of who they want to vote for and about 75% of all people polled could vote for any candidate. This means, to me at least, that Obama, Edwards, Giuliani and McCain also all have more than a legitimate shot at winning in New Hampshire next year.
The survey also asked a series of questions on how voters feel about the relative strength of each candidate with the following set of questions:
Which candidate do you think is the strongest leader? Which candidate do you think is the most trustworthy? Which candidate do you think has the most experience? Which candidate is best able to deal with terrorism?
For Democrats, Clinton was tops in each question except trustworthiness, which went to Obama while on thee Republican side, Romney is trustworthy and has experience but Giuliani is a better leader and McCain is your terror fighter.
What does it all mean? Well for Democrats is seems like if they forget that they don't trust Clinton, she should win while the Republicans still need to sort out who their best man is. Let the races begin...
and the only prescription is a More Cowbell Soundboard! You can even play the entire song (Don't Fear) The Reaper from the top of the board and sprinkle in some Bruce Dikinson quotes along the way. Also try playing cowbell along with the song by clicking Gene Frenkle. I gotta have more cowbell!
The British firm Web Sheriff is sending out orders to fans to remove content that may be a violation of copyright and threatening to sue for damages on behalf of the artist. Several of the largest web communities dedicated to the artist have received notices to cease and desist all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to Prince's likeness. Prince's representatives have requested that the fansites provide them with "substantive details of the means by which you [the fansites] propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Enterprises, NPG Records and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG)] for damages." This is a very counter-intuitive marketing move for an artist in a struggling industry. However, when has Prince ever done things in a conventional way.
Prince Fans Unite: The owners of the three largest fansites supporting Prince: housequake.com, princefams.com and prince.org supporting Prince have come together to fight back to what amounts to an injustice to the fansites and the very fans who have supported Prince's career, many since the very beginning nearly thirty years ago. While the owners of these sites acknowledge that, while Prince is entitled to control of his copyrights, it should be within the law. The law clearly provides for displaying of images of a celebrity's likeness for newsworthy events or matters which are considered to be public interest. All three websites feel that the photographs and/or likeness displayed on their websites clearly fall within the public interest category. Interesting take on copyright law.
Maybe Prince can give the site owners a free copy of Planet Earth and a The Mail on Sunday newspaper in exchange for removing all of his content. Or maybe he could give them each something personal and unique to add to their respective sites for being loyal fans all these years. Either way, Prince is again in the news even though he has not had a top 10 us single in over 13 years and is more than 20 years removed from his heyday of Purple Rain and Sign o' the Times.
Toner, copier, sledgehammer, over the table, bubble wrap, phones, extinguisher, keyboards, flying monitors and a laptop. Those guys really had a bad day.
PS: If the guy with the sledgehammer has any more energy, I know a guy who needs a tile floor broken up.
Last month I commented that Radiohead's pay what-you-think-it's-worth approach it's 7th studio album could give the record industry "some insight into buyers habits, preferences and true sense of the value of a digital album." While the band has yet to release details of how their experiment has fared, the company comScore has published a study with their own findings. The company monitors computer users' online behavior of people who are voluntarily part of their massive 2 million user database. The study reports that between Oct. 1 and Oct. 29, about 1.2 million people visited the Web site the band set up for fans to download the album. Their analysis reports:
- 62 percent of the people paid nothing for the album - The remaining 38 percent paid an average of $6 - 40 percent U.S. residents paid an average of $8.05 - 36 percent of the fans outside the U.S. paid an average of $4.64
What does it all mean? Well first this data shows that digital consumers would still rather pay nothing than anything at all - of course we don't need some fancy monitoring system to know that. Second this definitely shows that if the industry is interested in album sales, not singles, than the 10 bucks that is currently being charged for an entire album might be a bit high. Last we see that US music fans are more willing to pay for an album and willing pay almost twice as much as people in other countries. No margin of error was giving for the above data, so take it all with a grain of salt, but one thing is for sure - it can't be ignored.
We all get marketing emails from companies we like doing business with offers and reminders and promotions and everything else they want you to know about. The questions is when is too many email offerings too many? I like getting my photo's [and photo related products] printed online by Kodak Gallery [formerly known as ofoto.com]. They produce excellent prints at reasonable prices and they offer other products like calenders, photo books, mugs, mouse pads, puzzles and just about anything else you can imagine printing a photo on.
Recently I have begun to notice many more emails being sent as part of their normal business. They used to email me about every 30 to 45 days with their offer of the month sort of thing. Over the summer they ramped up their messaging to a few times a week with photography articles, tips and contests. Now they are back to dropping just email specials in my inbox but instead of monthly, it is now 2, 3 or 4 times a week - with different offers. I know the Christmas season is coming [and don't get me started on the fact I saw Christmas decorations at a local store in early October] and cards and gifts are probably a big part of their year round business, but do they really have to send me so many emails?
I have begun to ignore them, which is most likely the complete opposite reaction they are expecting from a loyal customer. Maybe they could just have a specials page online, which I can review when I log in. Or maybe they could have a single weekly email with all of their current offers? If more companies head toward this type of emarketing, our inboxes will begin to swell and their messages will be lost in a sea of emails or even worse, a empty waste land known as the deleted items folder.
Stop and Shop has been trying some new wireless technology in some of their stores and this past weekend I got my first chance to try the Shopping Buddy in action. The Shopping Buddy is [in our local store] is a handheld barcode reader that the shopper can use while placing items in your cart. Once finished shopping, the Buddy connects to a self-checkout line for payment. Here is a BOTB breakdown on the experience:
PROS:
The Buddy keeps running tally of purchases as you shop. This is quite handy for those on a budget however I am wondering if they could be creating a situation where they would ultimately make less money since the consumer knows how much they are spending and might hold back from that extra item which they might have purchased in the past.
The Buddy alerts you to sale items as you walk the isles. Very cool feature and could be the end of the "sales circular" as we know it. If they could just get the customers to convert from paper to email alerts they could stop printing them altogether.
Although I didn't get to try it, the Buddy can order your deli meats for pickup before you leave the store. Not having to wait in line for a 1/4 pound of cheese would be a great advantage [plus it has a barcode]. Next time I will have to try this out.
CONS:
To use the Buddy in the produce section is a real pain. Pick your apples and place in plastic bag. Bring them to 1 of the 2 special scales. Find the item in the digital inventory and then print a barcode. Now you scan your item into the Buddy. Won't use the Buddy again like that. I would recommend checking produce out at the register which can be done after all of your virtual purchases are downloaded to the register.
The device it self it pretty small however where do you keep it? Pocket? Child area of the cart? They need to have a holder, like they have for coffee cups, on the cart so you can shop [or bag] while you are shopping. Note: I believe some of their other stores have cart mounted devices.
The representative who gave us this device stated we could bag as we shop which would save time at the checkout. At first glance that seemed to make sense however execution is something completely different. We use Reusable Shopping Bags which have a rigid bottom so it wasn't too bad but I would never be able to bag in a plastic bag with the current cart design. They now will need a cart with built it bags to they hang open. Plus I felt a bit in the way since reading the barcode and trying to bag my groceries in the middle of the narrow isles takes a lot longer then just plucking items from the shelf and moving on.
The download of the data from the handle device to the register did work as expected but it was much slower then I imagined. I thought it would be a simple data dump and the register would just pop over to payment however it appeared the download was 1 item at a time since I watched them scroll down the register's screen.
You must use the same customer card to start and stop the device. This may seem like common sense however we started our order with my wife's card and ended with mine and the system couldn't figure it out. Note to S&S, we are a family, connect our cards!
Using this new technology was frustrating at times, but all new things are and at times had me wondering what's it in for me. I did all the bagging and ringing but I didn't really feel like I gained a shorter shopping trip or an easier experience. While I think they are heading in the right direction, the current system needs a little more work to make it a viable solution [and pleasurable experience] for the shopper.
Barry Bonds declared yesterday that if the Baseball Hall of Fame accepts and displays his record breaking home run ball marked with an asterisk he's not coming to Cooperstown, ever. When asked about his potential induction ceremony, he said "I won't go. I won't be part of it. You can call me, but I won't be there."
The ball Bonds hit for home run No. 756, was bought by Fashion designer Marc Ecko. After buying the ball, Ecko put it's fate to an online vote and after more than 10 million votes it is going to be branded with an asterisk and sent to the Hall of Fame.
Of course Bonds then followed with the quasi-political flip-flop of "That's my emotions now. That's how I feel now. When I decide to retire five years from now, we'll see where they are at that moment. We'll see where they are at that time, and maybe I'll reconsider. But it's their position and where their position will be will be the determination of what my decision will be at that time."
My guess is when the Hall comes calling, Bonds will not be able to stay away for his potentially last baseball moment of his long record breaking and sometime turbulent career*.
Not to be out done by J.J. Arbams' Cloverfeild, The Dark Knight folks have been busy building several related websites for the film due in July of 2008. Besides the Warner Brothers sub site, the team started with a pair of Harvey Dent political sites. One with the recently elected DA and the other looks like a Jokerish response. Highlight the page to see what I mean. 
and the only prescription is a 
Pats Win!
Barry Bonds declared yesterday that if the Baseball Hall of Fame accepts and displays his record breaking home run ball marked with an asterisk he's not coming to Cooperstown, ever. When asked about his potential induction ceremony, he said "I won't go. I won't be part of it. You can call me, but I won't be there."