Have you ever been influenced by marketing and promotions? It's easy to say that you are annoyed by marketing and promotions and ask why they matter, when they do not seem to affect you. Or do they? Commercials, movie trailers, celebrity guest appearances, sponsors, a song in a soundtrack, coupons, politicial ads, etc.. are just some examples of marketing and promotions that's bound to get your attention.

A commercial for a deal at a fast food place could have influenced you to buy a meal. Movie trailers can get you to spend money on a movie ticket. Celebrity guest appearances might have gotten you to look up any one of their projects, that might involve you purchasing something down the line. A sponsor of an event may expose you to a particular product. Hearing a song you liked on the radio or a TV show might get you to possibly buy some music. Coupons may get you to purchase something that you would probably never have bought, if it was at it's regular price. When I know someone who was clearly influenced by a promotion, I usually joke and say "the marketing department must be proud."

There are some cases were the marketing or promotion simply aren't meant to affect you. An example would be video gamers, who see an advertisement for a game that is supposedly a "must have" purchase already. That gamer knows a lot of people who are already planning to buy the game, and then asks himself "why are they constantly advertising about something that doesn't need advertising?" Simple answer to that is that if a product has already proven successful to a certain number of people, then the additional marketing might be able to draw in the people who aren't familiar with the game. Then the gamer will ask "gasp, who wouldn't be familiar with that game?" Which makes me point out to him that not everybody are gamers and knows these things (the gamer's ego could be another blog topic altogether).

All the marketing and promotions that is rampant in our everyday lives have a habit of subconsciously influencing us, whether we realize it or not. Just think about what you may have purchased recently, and try to remember if it was marketing or a promotion that got you to buy it in the first place. I got to say though that with the economy the way it is at the moment, the marketing department has their work cut out for them to convince people to spend spend spend.

Is There a Random Ghost

Head Over Heels: Literal Video Version (video)

eskimo cops (video)

Metaphor-Free Radio (video)

Who Put this Dick on My Back?! (video)

POV: Failing a Test - NSFW language (video)

Pat Sajak Sucks at Wheel of Fortune (video)

Little Bill O'Reilly (video)

Pumpkin dropped on car montage (video)

can I touch em lobsters? (video)

Microsoft TGS 2008 keynote (video)

It's been a week now since we fostered the little black and white dog, and she's really gotten used to her new surroundings, the other dogs, me and my wife. In fact, I think it's already got to the point where she's grown attached to us, which could be a problem when the time comes for us to give her away. How is that going to work with her? Hopefully she doesn't get more abandonment issues.

She can be a handful though, and I sometimes call her ninja dog, because she has a habit of sneaking up on us very quickly and quietly, as well as slip through the doors when we try to close it on her. I do think her previous owner didn't really teach her much in terms of commands (sit, stay, etc...), although she has already been potty trained. We have been attempting to train her, and she's responsive half of the times, while she's just a little hellion the other half. At one time, I was trying to teach her to sit, and she wouldn't, but funnily enough my white dog was sitting right behind her and paws her butt so she would sit (she did). The dynamics between the three dogs are very entertaining to watch, plus our brown dog has completely proven to be the alpha dog of the pack, so the new dog submits to her will.

Things are going pretty well with the new dog; or as my wife calls her "probie," and I'm still at the point of thinking on how it wouldn't be so bad if we permanently keep her.

I remember a time when a cellphone was just something I use for calling people, but times have changed. With the LG eNV phone I currently have, I've really started abusing using the notepad, the calendar, the web browser, and ofcourse text messaging, and it's because the phone has a real QWERTY keyboard to use. I never really bothered using any programs in my previous phones that required text inputs before, because I've never been a big fan of typing using the T9 method (text on 9 keys). So although I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to use my cellphone for, it's honestly not quite perfect for me yet. The web browser doesn't use true HTML, I can't really efficiently transfer notepad and calendar data to my PC, and the eNV has the habit of turning off on it's own for some reason I'm not sure of.

So these past months, I've pretty much been looking for what my next
cellphone is going to be, since I'm due for an upgrade very soon. Since the eNV is only sort of like a smartphone (as is the LG Voyager and the LG Dare), I think it's time I really go the next step and get a "true" smartphone. The iPhone would have been the obvious upgrade, but I'm not willing to go to AT&T since I'm a Verizon subscriber. So what does that really leave me with? Verizon has a good line of Blackberry phones, but they've never really appealed to me. Looks like that's changing though, because pretty soon their true "iPhone-type" cellphone will be released, and that's the "Blackberry Storm." Final details (like price) hasn't been released yet as of my writing this, but I'm starting to get pretty excited about this upcoming new smartphone. It's looking like a strong possibility that I'm going to end up with that thing they call a "crack-berry" in a few months from now.

Random Capri

Sarah Palin as President (flash)

McCain is McFast & McFurious (video)

10 People 1 Electric Fence (video)

Wedding Ring Oopsie (video)

beaten by a girl (video)

Slow Motion Dog Drinking (video)

Cat Annoys Sleeper All Night Long (video)

Kitten Can't Climb Into Basket (video)

fake pool (video)

kid scares the crap out of sleeping uncle (video)

Is it bizarre that video games are now capable of becoming the next source for finding and playing songs? Vinyl, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3s, and now Rock Band (or Guitar Hero). People nowadays are actually discovering music artists that they've never heard of before; past or present, because of their exposure of being in either Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Having a song in one of these "rhythm games" even gets people to actually purchase CDs or MP3s of that music artist. Music artists are now also able to sell their songs to you via downloadable content, specifically to play in games like Rock Band or Guitar Hero. People today don't only get to listen to a song, they get to actively participate in recreating it through a video game. Imagine that. It's almost like a slick way of the music industry to get us to spend money on music again, and honestly in this case I really don't mind.

Right now I'm focusing on Rock Band 2, as my choice of rhythm game. The game comes with 84 songs on disc, 54 songs that I got from the first Rock Band, and at the moment I have 165 songs I acquired through DLC. If you add up the total of those songs together, I got myself 303 songs playable on a video game. That's a lot of songs for a rhythm game. It's unbelievable to me to have spent all that money for DLC songs, when I don't even normally purchase MP3s, nor do I have an iPod or anything like that, and yet a video game sucks me in. This is the sign of the times folks. In the future, interactivity with music is going to be a necessary thing to have. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have opened up the possibilities for what the future of the music industry may bring.

These past weeks I've been listening to talk/news radio a lot more than I normally ever did. It's got to the point that one of my friends was shocked at how much talk/news radio I was listening to and said that I was "getting old" by doing so. Really? Is that really a sign that I'm getting old because I would rather listen to talk/news radio than the usual music stations (which I do still listen to). I'm an avid listener to the Kevin & Bean show, which is a mix of talk and music, and it's just an entertaining show altogether. I would say that show in itself proves that I'm not exactly becoming an old man just yet, because of the stuff they talk about.

Speaking of radio stations, there was this one talk radio that used to host the Howard Stern show. Ever since he left for satellite radio, that talk radio station changed it's name from simply "FM TALK" to "FREE FM." Personally I thought that was really obnoxious of them to do that, as if we have to be reminded on how "free" radio is compared to satellite. For years they've been rubbing it in our noses on how it's FREE FM this and FREE FM that, that I started to get turned off by their station. Lately though, they've gone back to just saying that they are "FM TALK", and I guess they realized how much we didn't care on how FREE they were.

Tied Down Random

7-11's coffee cup poll : Obama or McCain? (link)

the cost to drive somewhere (link)

Take On Me: Literal Video Version (video)

Fifty Impressions in 50 Seconds (video)

Man Argues Traffic Ticket (video)

if all movies had cell phones (video)

Digital Conversion PSA (video)

kitten punch (video)

Guy Pisses On Electric Fence (video)

Every Google Homepage In Reverse (video)

My wife was contacted by an animal rescue group, concerning a 2-3 years old black/white female dog that was surrendered to a shelter, and was going to be put down because it was having problems socializing with people. This dog apparently also arrived there with a sister, but that one was more sociable than this one is. My wife and I volunteered to rescue the dog by fostering it, to give it a chance for survival. We would then allow the dog to get used to socializing with people, by being around me, my wife, and my dogs.

This past day, we picked up the dog already, and sure enough it really was apprehensive and shy around us, our friends, and our dogs. Our white male dog did not seem to care less about her presence, but our brown female dog seems to either be intimidating her or she just wants to play (they would growl at each other). In our yard, she would hide behind one of our trash cans, and would occasionally growl at us if we approached her. She attempted to bite me twice already as it is, when I made a wrong sudden hand movement to pet her. After several hours though, she started opening up to me, my wife, and my friends. She was willing to approach us, get petted, get walked, etc... We even brought her in our house to see how she would react, and she seems to like it. She mostly gravitated towards seating underneath one of my "director's chair" though, which we found amusing.

It's going to be another learning experience having a third dog in the household. Right now we are just happy that she's more open to our presence, although I'm concerned about whether she can get along with our female brown dog. In a few months though, we are hoping that she will be completely sociable to people and dogs, and we already have at least one prospective owner that will take her in afterward. This is our first time rescuing and fostering a dog, so we're hopeful that this will be a success.