So, I’m sitting here watching bad daytime TV and what do you know!  The Utah Pet Center is doing TV ads now! 

Learning to Ride a Long Board

Friday, I got a chance to learn how to ride an electric long board.  It is like a skateboard, only longer and it can go up to 20mph.  This is quick when you have nothing to hold on to (and for those of us that could never get the hang of a skateboard, it is down right scary).  It reminds me a lot of snowboarding and was really fun.  You hold a trigger, and you have to feather it slowly faster or else you will fall off.  You also have to feather it back the otherway to stop or else you will fall off.  I have a tendancy to fall off.   Left hand turns were super easy for me, right hand turns were not.  I had a great time, I hope you get a kick out of watching me make a fool out of myself on a longboard.

OK, so suppose you’re out with your buddies one night at a bar. You get into a verbal dispute with your meathead friends who seem to believe that Joan of Arc was executed in Orléans, when you know for a fact that it was indeed Rouen. The atmosphere is tense; fists are about to start flying. That’s when you turn to your trusty cell phone for the answer.

“What are you doing?” they exclaim, knowing that your phone is perfectly incapable of browsing the web for answers. Confidently you reply, “I’ll settle this dispute soon enough, after I ChaCha.” They all laugh at you as you hurriedly type the question “When and where was Joan of Arc executed?” and text it to 242-242. Before their mocking has reached its climax, your phone vibrates almost immediately in response. You look at your reply, which reads:

“She was placed on trial in Rouen, Convicted and executed on 30 May 1431 she was later declared innocent by an Inquisitorial court.”

Your friends respond with stunned silence, you stand a little taller for so quickly and efficiently partaking in the world’s age of information, but get beat up anyway for having such a crappy phone.

Today we’re talking about ChaCha kids, the newest way to ask the Universe all the questions you’re too lazy to look up yourself. Real people are paid $0.20 per answer, and use the Internet (surprise!) as their source. It doesn’t cost anything to you, the questioner, other than the price of the text. If you have an unlimited text plan, then you are set to question the Universe all you want. Here are some real questions and answers I have asked and received:

Question: Where was adolf Hitler born?
Answer: Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April in Braunau-am-Inn on the Austrian-German border.

Question: What is scribblevillage.com?
Answer: According to the website, it is “a random blog with equally random thoughts”.

Question: Do you believe in life after love?
Answer: Yes just remember life is short and you have one life. Live life to the fullest.

Question: “Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was a salted (assaulted).” Is that a funny joke?
Answer: It depends on your target audience but yes! I would say it is funny!

Question: Do these pants make me look fat?
Answer: Probably not. But if you’re worried, try on the next size up and compare. The size number doesn’t matter, only what looks good!

Question: How much wood would a wood chuck chuck?
Answer: If only a wood chuck could chuck wood!

Try it! Just text your question to 242-242 and see for yourself! Oh, and I also found the query that the person used who was answering the scribblevillage.com question. They used this site: http://akhost.chacha.com/resources/GuideTools.htm. Pretty sweet little lookup site!

Two months ago I was contacted by local writer Sam Vicchrilli who was writing a retrospective on the 49th Street Galleria/Utah Fun Dome. He had seen my posts on the subject and wanted to know if I would contribute. Below you’ll find his questions and the answers I had provided him for the interview.

I have also added Fun Dome-related images and documents I ended up keeping during my time as an employee. Mouse over each image for a brief description. Here is a link to the finished article: From Arcades to Animals: The 49th Street Galleria has undergone a slew of makeovers. By Sam Vicchrilli

What is your name and age?

My name is Pete, and I’m 29 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’ve been in a coma you know that we are currently winding up the Bejing Olympics.  We have seen some of the gymnastic events - the only event I like watching - which also means we’ve seen some of the swimming events because I guess they figured that was the only way to get people to watch people swim laps.  But even the beauty and skill of the gymnists and the world records being set in the pools cannot top my favorite Olympic moment.

The best Olypic moment came this weekend when my husband and I discovered that there is an Olympic Speedwalking event.  Watching the guys shimmy their hips around the track was no where near as entertaining as the overly enthusiastic commentators.  At one pont the woman commentator descibes the walking techniques as making “exciting television”.  This made me laugh outloud as we were still watching the guys walk the track - about as exciting as watching paint.  But not even that was the best moment.

The BEST MOMENT was a few minutes later when the male commentator (sorry, I didn’t catch either of their names to give them credit for their Olympic golds.) made the following comparrison.

“This can be compared to restrictor plate racing in NASCAR at Bristol.” 

He really compared men walking in short shorts to men in fire suits driving cars at 190 mph.  Regardless of your feelings on NASCAR, trying to compare it to speedwalking just funny. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my favorite Olympic moment of all times.

This mailer is huge; larger than any non-envelope mailer I’ve ever seen before. At 9″ x 13″ it’s sure to get the attention of its receipients. I really like that they have emphasized how they are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That sets them apart, and for some people it will be hard to argue away that convenience.

This has been a good advertising campaign thus far, as it seems to have accomplished its goal in raising awareness of the UPC. One thing they might want to consider for future campaigns is the glossy mailers that come with the magnets that you can punch out (examples here, here, and here). I think a nice-looking magnet with UPC contact information will go far in getting new customers. While the cost might be greater, it’s the difference between having your ad thrown in the trash and having it hanging on the refrigerator.

I recently become a fan of a radio show called Wiretap on Canada’s CBC One (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). The show’s format places the listener as eavesdropping on the personal phone conversations with the host Jonathan Goldstein. It’s not exactly a comedy, but it’s not always serious either. To borrow from Wikipedia’s definition:

“The show has possibly been best described as “a weekly half-hour of conversation, storytelling and introspection, culled from equal parts real-world experience and the warp of Goldstein’s imagination.”

It’s a show with quite a unique format that I find highly entertaining. As an example, the following is from Season 3 in an episode called “Soul Mate” that aired on January 28, 2007. Each episode is divided up into parts. Here’s a synopsis:

Part 1: Jonathan reads his angst-ridden essay about his trip across Canada with soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Joanne. He uses hilariously bad similies such as “In greasy spoon diners you ate my heart like a sweaty soft-shell tortilla.” Later, he speaks with Joanne on the phone, who seems to have a far different recollection of the events.

Read the rest of this entry »

I came across a site today that lets you add speech bubbles to pictures that you upload. It’s completely free, and you don’t even have to register. Once you’ve added the bubble and your clever text, you can choose to mark the image public or private, and you’re done. You can either download the image to your own computer or use one of the links they provide. It’s a handy little tool. Here’s an image I did in about 30 seconds:

The only downside that I have seen so far is that the “Safe” mode for images doesn’t seem to work that well, meaning that there were a few images of fully nude women that showed up in the gallery. There isn’t any way to flag images as NSFW, either.

Aside from that it’s a good little site, and quite entertaining to read how other people caption their pictures.

Speechable.com