The following is an awesome commercial, yet again, by Volkswagen.  It is simple, creative, and more importantly, memorable.  They seem to be enjoying the Star Wars theme in commercially lately, but it is definitely working for them.  A great way to take an unrelated product, license it, and make it relevant to sell their cars.  Pretty soon anytime you see Star Wars you will think of Volkswagen and vice versa. (Thanks to my sister for showing me this since I don’t watch TV much.)

A canine chorus barks a familiar tune. Keep an eye out for our 2012 Game Day commercial—it will all make sense. Love Star Wars and Volkswagen? Create an Intergalactic Invite to your Big Game party here: http://vw.com/star-wars-invite

What do you think about the commercial?  Will you remember Volkswagen?

If you don’t know about SOPA and PIPA, then I strongly suggest that use the internet and do some research on it.  It could change the way you use the web and destroy your freedom.  This is another bill that is left open for the government to shape and change it anyway they can.  We cannot let this happen.  We cannot stand for this.

I do not agree with copyright infringement – being a musician I know it sucks to have music illegally uploaded and downloaded.  However, this bill is not just about ridding the internet of piracy and copyright infringement.  It will allow them to control what you say, what you see, and what you hear.  We cannot let this happen.  We cannot stand for this.

From Google:

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Click here to learn more about SOPA and PIPA before it is too late.  We cannot let this happen.  We cannot stand for this.

END PIRACY, NOT LIBERTY – Sign the petition and call your local state department and let them know that you want them to vote NO on SOPA and PIPA.

If you haven’t heard of crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter, I don’t know where you have been.  If you have fans (and sometimes even if you don’t) crowdfunding is a great way to raise money for your next song, cd, tour, or whatever your plans are for the near future.  Keep in mind – and this is a very important detail people over look – crowdfunding means you give something in return for money and it doesn’t mean people just give you money.  Whether it be new music or merchandise or even a private acoustic show for your money-giving fans, you have to offer up some good rewards to get people to fund your project.  If you offer up the right things, people will give you money.  (Remember… the rewards have to be good and equivalent to the amount you are asking.)

Kickstarter helped raise over $19,000,00 in 2011 for musicians.  That is right, 19 million dollars.  Second to only what film producers got on the site.  Did you get a share of the 19 million?

Loyal fans are definitely willing to help your band out, but they want something in return.  

Make sure that you offer up a wide range of price-points and options within the ranges: small ($10-$100), medium ($150-$500), large ($600-$1,000) and extra-large ($1,000+).  And make your prizes equivalent.  Maybe an digital album download before the release for those who offer $10 or for $15 you can get this awesome band shirt that will normally sell for $20.  Be creative.  Get your fans involved.  Ask what they want via Twitter and Facebook and then deliver when possible.  Always, and I mean always, take time to recognize fans who help you out – whether it means sending them an email, giving them a call, or shouting out to them via Facebook or Twitter… it really is the little things that matter.

One important thing about crowdfunding is the fact that it is “fund raising” within a certain time frame.  You set a date and tell the world how much you need.  You tweet it, post it, newsletter it, and spread the word to raise the money.  If you do not raise the money by the date you set, you get nothing.  Which also means that your fan doesn’t pay up unless you reach the goal you set.  You might be able to cleverly leverage some reverse psychology here… if you want.  ;)

Kickstarter has showed no signs of slowing down.  Visit the site and take a look around at the popular fund raising campaigns.  Get some ideas for some stuff you can do and then start raising that money!

For more information on Kickstarter or to kick start your fund raising, check out Kickstarter.com.

Before I go into my little spill about writing a title, which won’t be long and I will write an actual post on it when I have time – one day, I just wanted to let you know what has been going on. Mostly, I haven’t been updating stuff as much as I would like to be, but I have been doing some other work on the site and I just acquired some photography stuff, kind of, and can start doing reviews on products and take pictures. Who knows, maybe I will even grace you with my horrible southern accent in a video someday soon. We can only hope… not.

So, basically, I just wanted to let you all know that I am lazy and haven’t felt like posting anything. Not really, I have just been doing a bunch of stuff with the band(s) and getting things ready for this site and I got some really, really cool projects coming up in the near future that I am excited about. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it too.

And on with something relevant to the world…

The worse part about writing a blog (I hate that term) paper, article, story, book, song, etc. is figuring out the title. Now, most of the time song titles are easy and there is a simple, effective method – most of the time. But what is hard for me, is titling articles, papers, and especially these blogs. The title is just as important as the content itself. Why? Because you have to catch the readers attention and make them interested in reading the “article” itself. If you have a crappy title, very few people will read it… if anyone. Like I said, I will one day write an actual post on this, but for now, I just want to mention what brought this about.

Yesterday, I was reading Yahoo news stories headlines (absolutely the worse news source online) because that is what I always do when I am bored. It is usually great because they have about 10 different articles and every week they spin them, give them a new title, and re-post them. It is kind of like a Nickelback song except the words are always the same.

Anyway, they had one title something along the lines of “The Healthy Nutritional Benefits of Beer.” I should have saved it so I could give you an exact title, but whatever. Of course, I read this because I found it humorous and was generally interested in it – because I don’t drink. That isn’t the point though. My sister brought up a thought about what people were going to take away from the article.

For one, they aren’t going to read anything but the title because Americans don’t read. (Well, most. ) Luckily, there were a few pictures associated with it – always a plus because then I have something to look at while I pretend to read the article.

This is what we decided people were going to take away from it. Most Americans will read the title, without reading what the article says, and take away “Beer is healthy. Let’s go drink some more beer and get smashed!” And if they are in the south like me, they would have read “Beer Good. Hell yeah!”

The article basically said beer, like wine, has some nutritional value when taken in moderation. What is moderation? According to the article, one pint of beer a day keeps the doctor away. Well, they said it could provide nutritional value. Point being, titles are very important when you are writing., but when you are reading, they are  the starting point – not the stopping point!

If you haven’t gotten a chance to see The Dark Knight Rises trailer yet, I have posted it below for your viewing pleasure. It looks good on the computer and great on the big screen at the theater. They may have made a movie that competes with the Dark Knight and Heath Ledger’s remember-able last performance. I am definitely looking forward to checking out this movie comes out this summer (2012).

Check out The Dark Knight Rises trailer:

What do you think about the trailer? Are you looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises?



If you haven’t already, be sure to pick up The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray and DVD today!  Click Here to check get it from Amazon.com for only $14.49.

It is profitable to be an internet market.  Although, most internet marketers are lying scum.  And since a “marketer” could be a broad term, I will tell you that I am referring to someone who tries to sell a product online and convince you how awesome product XYZ is and how it changed their life.  Did it change their life?  For a few, maybe so.  But I imagine it was the “selling” of the product that changed their life and not the actual product itself.

Did you know that you can make money on the internet?

Hard to believe?  While less that .01% of all the millions who try actually make life-altering money, it is possible to bring in a little extra income.  How so?  Well, you can do things such as make a website and sell ad “space,” you can use Google Adsense (See right below this paragraph, that link or two… I get paid when it is clicked and you can too!)and other Pay-Per-Click  tools, and you can do affiliate marketing among other things.  While I want go into any great detail about any of these right now, I am mainly referring to affiliate marketing in this post.

What is affiliate marketing?  Basically you can sign up with companies and they provide you links and tools to generate people to their website to buy their products.  Easy, right?  I mean, if someone is going to buy a song from iTunes and they do a search on “XYZ SONG REVIEW” and a website pops up that has that exact title and gives a review of the song, they are going to click on it.  And if they like the “100% honest” review, they will click an awesome link that says “CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD THIS AWESOME SONG!”  So, what now?  Well, person clicks and pays the $.99 for the song and buys it.  The person who provide the review website and put the link on it just got a payout for bringing in traffic, lets say 10% of the sale price.  If you owned the website with the review, you just made $.10.  I know, I know, what a waste of time setting all that up for $.10, but you have to look at the big picture!  If you had hundreds of reviews up and hundred of people buying songs through your reviews each day, you have the potential to make thousands of dollars over a month.  Note that I said “potential.”

Now, I am all for affiliate marketing.  I am all for any kind of marketing that brings in money to me. – almost.  The problem I have with most affiliate marketing is that I can go buy a domain from GoDaddy, let’s say BestHatReviews.com.  Then, I look up some of the most popular hats and decide I want to sell those.  And just say that I am an affiliate to a hat store that carries those hats.  Well, without ever having to try a hat on or know anything about hats, I can write a well worded, awesome review of the XYZ Brand Hat.  Post it on my site and then traffic starts coming to my site looking for XYZ Brand Hat reviews.  They buy it and I make a buck or two.  See the problem I have with this?  I lied.  I don’t know anything about the hat, but I told you it was awesome and you spent your money! (Please note that it isn’t really this basic, but for example purpose I tried to break it down in small easy bites.  Also, the GoDaddy link is an affiliate link.  See how I through that in and if someone goes and buys a domain name, I get money.  BTW… domains are $7.99 through that link.  )

I absolutely hate fake reviews.  Most people do Google searches to find information, but you don’t know which site is real and what isn’t.  If I want to make money, I am going to put an awesome site together that looks legit.  (But in reality, you can through a crappy site together and 80% of internet users won’t have a clue what is going on anyway.)  You buy something based off my opinion and hate it, but I don’t care – I got paid.  Even better, you don’t remember that I was the one who told you about it – probably.  Win for me and a loss for you.

I am all about real reviews.  If you really like something, tell everyone about it.  If you are going to spread the name of a great company, you mine as well get paid for your efforts.  (“Pure” Evangelism is good.  But, so is money.) That is when I like affiliate marketing – everybody wins.  Of course, there is always the possibility that I like this and you won’t, but at least I was honest.  I am sure that none of this make sense at the moment and I will explain every mentioned part of this in great detail later, but I just wanted to get out some frustration.  Don’t lie to make a buck.  You may make a few now, but I guarantee you will make a lot more over time if you are honest with people.

 

 

Tuesday use to be such a great day because I always looked forward to discovering the new music that was coming out.  But over the last few years, it uh, well hasn’t exactly been living up to par.  I cannot stand the new “party” rock and dance pop that has taken over the radio… and music in general.  Luckily, good rock still exist – however, it is pretty hard to find find. Don’t get me wrong, I congratulate all of those who “make it” even if their music sucks because they did something right… or had the right relative at least.

Anyway, I again was excited about Tuesday this week because I new that a new single Tattoo from Van Halen would be out.  After listening to it several times, I must say that I am kind of disappointed.  It sounds like a song that didn’t make the record before and they saved it til now thinking it would work.  And maybe it will, but it doesn’t for me.  I hope this isn’t there whole album.  It sounds like a bad, rejected Chickenfoot song.  But maybe it will grow on me after a while… most music does.

Judge for yourself.

PICK UP TATTOO BY VAN HALEN TODAY FOR ONLY $0.99!!

What do you think of the new Van Halen song Tattoo?  Will you be picking up the album?

Congratulations to Alabama who was victorious in the BCS Championship, 21-0, at the Superdome in New Orleans – and the game wasn’t even close! Despite a boring game (in my opinion) a win is a win, so congrats!

Be sure to pick up all you Alabama Championship gear now at FansEdge.com. They have a huge sale going on just for you Bama fans! You can also be sure to pick up your Bama Tervis Tumblers now!

ROLL TIDE!

Of all the “wonderful” fast food restaurants, Wendy’s has always been a favorite.  I don’t know why, I just think that their burgers are far superior over the competition… not that is really saying that much.  But lately, I have been eating a tiny bit healthier than normal and last night my sister and I were going to enjoy a Sunday dinner at Wendy’s.  So, I logged onto the interweb via my phone and checked out the nutritional value of the Wendy’s menu.

I was bound and determined to find something that would not kill me.

Unfortunately unless you get a salad, you are pretty much out of luck and even then, the salads are a horrible choice.  I guess if you leave off the dressing they wouldn’t be so bad.  But I would have to order about 5 of their salads just to even begin filling me up, so that wasn’t happening.  Some of their sandwiches were well over a 1000 calories… not that I have ever really cared before, but now I see that I was just one delicious Baconator bite away from clogged arteries and death.  I mean, I used to eat that with larges fries and a large coke.  (BTW… the nutritional value of a Baconator Double Value Meal large is…. ready…. 1800 Calories, 89 grams of fat, 197 grams of carbs, and 66 grams of protein.)

So anyway, after having a hard time navigating the menu through my phone, I established that I wasn’t going to find anything healthy.  I ended up getting a small chili and an Ultimate Chicken Sandwich.  Oh, and a free cup of water, of course.  (590 Calories, 16 grams of fat, 62 grams of carbs, and 50 grams of protein.)

Here is a picture of this delicious sounding meal.

Trust me, it was about as tasty as it looks.  For some reason, the food looks a lot better in their pictures.  I guess that is why the a have food picture taking experts come in and take the pictures, so they don’t look this bad and unappealing.

Now, I said I always preferred Wendy’s, but the one we were at (unfortunately I didn’t get the store number… sad face…) was not on it’s game.  The food took forever to make – and they weren’t busy.  So, it was your typical fast food experience these days around here – long lines, 1 cashier, and 47 employees standing around in the back talking.  There were two other people seated in the whole place and about 10 people behind us and trust me, Wendy’s employees weren’t in any rush.   And, to top it off, they got half of the order wrong – go figure.

Anyway, I need to find a new local Wendy’s the food was bad and the service was terrible – not to mention rude.  Whoever is managing that place, doesn’t have a clue what they are doing.

Well now that I got that out of my system, if you have an awesome Wendy’s that doesn’t suck (Good luck!) you should check out this Nutritional Calculator that they have.  It really can be an eye opener for how much you are really eating!  (Not that we care, “We’re American!”)

If you didn’t know, there are certain times of the year to buy certain things to get the best deals. No, I am not talking about just Black Friday or Cyber Monday and all of the mess that those bring to retail world. Well, the best time to buy some things happens to be in January and I am going to tell you what some of the deals are that you should scoop up now, if you are planning to buy. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend buying something just because it is a great deal right now, but if you are looking for it anyway, you mine as well get it cheap. And remember, there is always exceptions to the rule.

Obviously, after the Christmas holiday season is the best time to stock up on your holiday decorations and wrapping paper and January is a great time to do that. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff goes fairly quickly after Christmas, but you still might walk into some good deals. And if not, there is always next year for decoration and tree shopping.

Electronics

Luckily, seasonal items aren’t the only thing that you can pick up for cheap in January. The CES (Consumer Electronics Show) falls in January and all of the latest and greatest electronics are up for show. What does this mean? Well, getting ready for the onslaught of new products stores have to get rid of their old products which means you can find the best deals of the year in January on electronics. Things such as cameras and televisions are at their lowest selling point usually in January – even lower than they are on Black Friday. (Which it still amazes me that someone will sit outside for 3 days to get $100 off a TV. I mean, I could easily work and earn two to three times that much in those three days and come out on top – but whatever.)

Of course, electronics are pretty much the only thing that interest me on the list, so I should stop here. Unfortunately, I know that not all of you care so deeply about electronics and would feel left out if I didn’t mention any of the other wonderful things that you can get for cheap.

Recreational Vehicles

So close to summer you can almost taste it! Maybe you are looking for a new boat and gearing up for the lake this upcoming summer. Now would be a great time to pick up that boat! But wait, there’s more… it is also a good time to get a motorcycle or even maybe a convertible. Get creative and you will find yourself a deal and be begging your spouse for forgiveness about your new purchase.

Outdoor Gear

This one should be another obvious one and fits nicely with the last set of items. Maybe you need a new camping tent – get it now. Most all camping and travel gear is on sale right now and some is up to 50% off!

Home Improvement and Existing Houses

Many home improvement products such as flooring are currently on sale during the off season. It is also a good time to start getting quotes from contractors if you are looking for someone else to do the work for you. They will be looking to pick up cheap materials right now as well.

They have always said home sales were extremely slow in January making it a great time to buy, but I wouldn’t agree this time around. I expect the house market to continue falling, at least through most of this year before houses hit their lowest point. Banks are backed up four years on foreclosures and have no way of getting footing in the right direction at the moment. I would hold out on the house despite the “usual” trend.

Well that about does it for this awesome list of things you can buy in January. I wanted to bring up EBates for I finishing this up. If you are shopping online, maybe for some great January deals, then I would look to EBates before purchasing anything. EBates is simple – you sign up, go to their site and find the store you want to shop, click it, shop, and get cash back – anywhere form 1% to 50%… cash back on items you were going to buy anyway. It takes 2 minutes to sign up. No spam and no annoying daily emails. It is just something a little extra to help you save some money. Two percent may not be much, but if you are buying something anyway, why not get paid for it from the convenience of your home. Oh, and later I will show you an awesome trick for using EBates and WalMart together to avoid the hassle of WalMart – even if you need the item that day!

Check out EBATES today and save!