Not that I pay attention to thtis stuff…but I noticed my Alexa ranking today is 1,044,445. I only need to catch 44,445 sites to make the top Million. I don’t know why exactly that seems interesting.
Category Archives: Personal
Quick Rant – Frisbee Ballet
<rant>
I’m trying to enjoy a beautiful sunny work day by transferring the home office down to Peet’s on Green Lake. I have my laptop, iPod, a table, an iced mocha and a great view of the fields and the lake. Life is grand.
Then these 4 characters get in my sightline and start performing frisbee ballet tricks. While there are some activities that are ignorable, this is just flat out weird. Dude is doing piroutettes before catching the disc. Is there music playing that I’m not hearing? I don’t get it.
Now to be clear, I’m not knocking Ultimate – I’ve seen people play that and it looks like real athletic work. I think I played once and nealry passed out from exhaustion from doing nothing but running 60 yard dashes and throwing passes that travel at about a 270 degree angle. But this frisbee ballet thing is just – bizarre. I hope I don’t offend any of my friends with this post….
</rant>
Succumbing to the Grocery Store Promo
It’s easy to reach me at the grocery store. Just have the best discount. I admit it – I’m cheap about commodity items like frozen dinners, toothpaste, shampoo, soup, pasta sauce, etc….if you drop your price for a special, I’ll buy it.
And so I was surprised at myself when I ran across the latest Doritos promo, and how I immediately put a bag in my cart.
First off, I don’t buy chips. I’m big enough – no reason to make it easy for the fat cells to win this battle.
If you look around the grocery store, you see thousands of packages that have been meticulously designed, researched, surveyed, evaluated, tested, focus grouped and rewritten so that every word, even the small print, succinctly and accurately explains the attributes of the products in the clearest way possible. Marketing folks around the country – folks not unlike me – make a living figuring out EXACTLY what should be on that package. They want the consumer to know what they are buying and why they want it so badly.
And then —– here’s Doritos with a bag that says, "Um, we’re not going to tell you what it is. Eat it and tell us what you think it tastes like."
GENIUS! I MUST HAVE A BAG NOW!
I don’t know what it is, but I am now all a twitter about the surprise I have just bought myself for $2.50. It could taste like an old shoe, but the simple fact that I’m driving home from the grocery store wondering what I bought makes me WAY more than $2.50 worth of happy.
I think they could have charged me $10 for this, and I’d have said, "Sure. I want, no I NEED, to try that black bag of X-13D’s."
So here I am on a Friday afternoon. My bag of chips in front of me. And I seriously think this may be the most exciting moment of my week. What will they taste like? Do you know?
Ok, opening the bag now…. it smells less pungent than your normal bag. Does this mean less taste? I hope not.
The chip has a lighter color than a normal one. I’m now worried. Is X13-D shorthand for "X-13 flavor, Defective"? Are these the chips that didn’t get enough Doritos sauce in the first batch? Am I about to eat a reject?
Time to taste…
Ah ha….no this is not a reject. It is unlike a chip I have had before. I think it has mustard in it. And I usually hate mustard so I never would have bought these. But I am oddly intrigued…..It’s mustard and…..something. I can’t place it. But I bet I eat this whole damn bag in the next 3 or 4 days trying to figure it out.
So, Mr or Ms Doritos Marketing person – I salute you and your mystery campaign. You are zagging when other people zigged. Nice work.
Overachiever….
Not sure how I missed this last week. And I’m not sure if this makes me feel inadeqaute or just dumbfounded. According to sources, including FoxSports, Lil Romeo, the youth rapper and son of Hip-hop mogul Master P, is now going to play basketball for USC.
The kid is 17. His life to date includes the following accomplishments:
– The son of a record mogul worth $225 million
– A young hip-hop artist with several CD’s and concert tours
– And now, he’ll be a guard on a top 25 college basketball team.
Hello perfect life.
Plus, I give him a huge amount of credit because you never see his name listed next to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie.
Can we look 30 years ahead and predict that this kid is going to either be the President of the U.S. or the guy backing the President? Legacy, music, sports – with what is sure to be a future in film, TV and more. This kid is obviously no dummy, and his father has certainly proved himself to be highly intelligent.
What an exciting future this guy has in front of him.
Is this the New Onion?
Am I about 12 months behind the humor curve? Who are these guys?
What $20k gets you at Amazon.com
Looking for that special brithday gift? Looks like Amazon.com has exactly what you’re looking for. According to the description: 
"The JL421 Badonkadonk is a completely unique, extremely rare land vehicle and battle tank. Designed with versatility in mind, the Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions. The interior is fully carpeted and cozy, with accent lighting and room for up to five people."
In case you’re curious, people who bought this item also bought:
Roger von Oech’s Ball of Whacks: A Creativity Tool for Innovators by Roger Von Oech
America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn
Unfortunately, it doesn’t qualify for free shipping under Amazon Prime – but you CAN add it to your wedding registry….
Congrats to UW VCIC Winners
I was fortunate enough to spend this weekend as an observer at the UW Intramural round of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC). The team of Rahber Thariani,Thomas Moore, Lauren Witt, Bradley Roberts, and Stephen Hawdley ran away with it and now look to competing at the regional in California.
This is a great University event, and one the UW has done quite well in, winning Nationals twice in the last 3 years. Good luck Rahber et all!
I’m always glad to see Congress working hard
It’s not often you see news from the U.S. Capitol on ESPN.com without the words “steroids” and “baseball” somewhere in the lead. But while some hard decisions – like Iraq – were being tabled to later in the month, our reps did manage to agree – nearly unanimously – to commend the Florida Gators for winning the NCAA Championship. Now, according to the ESPN Story:
Congressman Jack Kingston (R-Ga.)…who has represented District 1 in southeast Georgia since 1993, was the only member of Congress to oppose House Resolution 39, which commended “the University of Florida Gators for their victory in the 2006 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and for winning the national college football championship.”
The House bill passed by a vote of 414-1. Eight other congressmen from Georgia voted yes to the proposal, two voted present and two others didn’t vote at all. The bill was sponsored by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and 19 other representatives from Florida.
I don’t know which part I find the funniest. There’s a lot to choose from.
1) Congress takes time (granted probably about 5 minutes) to pass a resolution commending a college football team.
2) That one Congressman from Georgia chose to give the Gators the finger just for spite.
3) Or that 4 Congresspeople chose to neither support or oppose the resolution! How worried are you about public opinion that you can’t take a stance on whether or not to support a meaningless , non-binding resolution about college football? Can you imagine the staff meeting of those 4 Georgia reps:
“John, how should we vote on this Florida Gators thing?”
“Well, we don’t want to look like we are anti-Georgia.”
“But won’t a no vote look mean and spiteful? I thought we were trying to shed that image.”
“Maybe supporting another state would show true bi-partisanship and a willingness to work together.”
“Ted, that was Augusta National. They’re threatening to pull all of our golf privileges if we support the measure.”
“Mary just called with the polling data. 94% hate the Gators, but 54% of those are glad at least the SEC won. “
“Maybe we could tack on a rider that says we support the resolution, but think the school should be investigated.”
“Damn those Florida Gators. I just don’t know what we should do.”