Advertising on Rooftops

There's an idea I've had ever since I was in college and Google Earth came out, and I'm surprised it hasn't become more prevalent. That idea is advertising on rooftops. With the advent and recent explosion in usage of satellite maps (Google Maps, etc.), there's a huge new medium for advertising, and it's very cheap.

There are 2 ways you could put this idea in motion. First, if you're a big company with big buildings, throw your logo on your roof. Especially if you're in a major city or area that would have a lot of map searches. If you're in the middle of nowhere, not sure it would be as valuable, but Target obviously thinks it is worth it, as shown in the picture above. It would only cost the amount of money it would take to get someone up there to paint the logo. That's it. Then anytime someone searches that area using a satellite map, there it is.

Second way to put this idea in motion is to sell your rooftop as ad space. Similar to how businesses sell space on the walls of their buildings, why not sell the space on the top of the building? You have a huge roof, but you're some generic manufacturing plant and it would do you no good to have your logo on there. Sell it. Make some extra money, and you will never see it, people who drive by won't see it, only online satellite search traffic.

Now, a few pitfalls. I'm not sure what the sign laws say about rooftop advertising (nor am I interested in looking it up) but that could limit this option in certain cities / states. Also, you wouldn't capture the eyeballs you have in front of the store, only those looking at a computer screen, but that's why you have signs on the side of your building already, and that's why you should probably throw your website on the roof. Also, there are many buildings that aren't actually owned by the companies in them. But in that case, those companies should sell that space to those companies. But this is inexpensive enough, especially if you own the building (like most Wal-Marts and Targets, etc. do), that it just makes sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes more and more prevalent in the near future. I would be surprised, as a former marketing student, if it does not.

For real

This is an actual email I just got that somehow managed to make it through my spam filter and into my inbox. Are they serious? How can this method of spam ever pay off? Oh, right... idiots.

Hello


We've had the opportunity to review your resume, please consider the following information.

Down Town Services S.A. is a real estate company located in Russian Federation, Moscow. DTS S.A. offers a whole range of professional services such as scheme land acquisition, real estate properties as well as legal and financial consultation. The company already has current annual turnover of 120 million; with growing plans for international awareness.

At present time we are exploring and analyzing US market in order to be able to open up a local office. We plan to carry out our activity through the regional Customer Service Managers.

We're looking for right candidates who will be able to support the sales and administrative teams in the fastest and most efficient way possible. As an employee of DTS Global Inc., you will contribute to a dynamic team focused on growth and development of our company and deliver the very best service to our customers.

Responsibilities of Customer Service Manager include:

- Manage the preparation, distribution, and reporting processes for transactions
- Ensuring promptness of transactions
- Ensuring that payments and reports are disbursed timely and accurately
- Collecting information for monthly reports

Benefits:
- Commission rate of 5% from each customer's transfer
- Base salary of $2,000-3,000 dollars once your trial period is over.
- Reimbursement of all your banking, Money Gram and cell phone expenses.

If you feel as you are an ideal candidate for this position, kindly reply to this e-mail downtownrjob@gmail.com within next 2 business days with your contact information.
Once we receive your response, we will forward you employment application form that would have to be filled out. As soon as we receive the application back one of our recruiters will contact you via phone regarding your employment opportunity.
Please, do not hesitate to contact us at any time if you have additional questions, a toll free number along with office hours and contact information will be provided if you wish to speak with our representative directly.



Thank you.

Natalie Freedman
DTS Realty

Great Woot Ad

Check out this great ad Woot! runs with Google AdSense. It's in the sidebar.



Talk about perfect for the times. Woot! really knows how to reach out to its customer base...

[courtesy sandossu on flikr]

Britney Spears Did What?!

E-mail is a wonderful thing. However, you do inevitably have to deal with spam. There isn't a filter out there that can block all spam (and not catch some e-mails you actually want in the process), but they're working to make them as tight as possible. Most filters do a good job of getting rid of a lot of spam, but there are always those spammers who find ways to get through.

Enter: my spam folder



If I have to get spam, I think this might be the best kind. These are totally entertaining. My favorite is "Britney Spears' vagina attacks warder and escapes rehab". These are classic.

UPDATE: I'm #1 on Google!

I just searched again today, and I'm back at #1 baby! I even have the screencap to prove it:

My (Potential) New Job

I am graduating in 3 weeks, so lately I have been on the hunt for a job. I went to the career fair last week, have been looking at online job postings, doing a lot of different things to try and find one. I have submitted my resume to who knows how many companies, and as of right now, have 2 solid leads. 1 at Verizon Wireless, which I am not too enthusiastic about, but don't want to discard just yet, and the other at Reynolds & Reynolds, a technology provider for car dealerships. I heard about them and applied for a position through Oregonlive.com's job search, and they contacted me when they looked at my resume.

I had a phone interview with R&R today, which consisted of a very short overview of my resume and some standard questions. Then I was e-mailed a bunch of (digital) paperwork to do, which took me all of 2 hours. Yeah, it was great. But I got that done, sent it all back, and should hear from them later on this week.

The position is titled "Solutions Specialist", and what that means is that I would be a sort of liaison between the company and its Northwest clients on how to best use the technology, be more efficient, increase profits, etc. It sounds like a lot of fun, something that I would be very interested in, and something I would think I would be good at. However, the slight hitch came when they told me about the training program.

It's a 6 month training course, 5 months of which are in Houston, TX. The last month would be in Omaha, NE. I would be paid a salary equal to what I will be making when the training is finished, and an apartment would be provided for me. That in itself makes the situation a whole lot more bearable. But, one thing that it still doesn't remedy: the fact that I would be away from family, friends, and everything I know, and thrust into a place I know nothing about. It's not that I couldn't handle it, it's just... what the hell would I do there?

So I was looking around today for stuff in Houston and the outlying areas, and came across a small museum nearby. Now, Hayley's dad, for those that don't know, is a history buff beyond the meaning of the term. So whenever I'm with him, he'll throw out these interesting facts about anything, quiz me about history, etc., and I'll be totally clueless. One of the things I didn't learn in school was history. But it still interests me a lot, and a buddy of mine is actually majoring in it, which makes me that much more interested. So naturally, in Houston, near the Texas - Mexico border, there's a lot of history.



The museum is called the Stark Museum of Art, and it's located in Orange, TX, not more than 2 hours from Houston. Just about as far as Eugene is from Portland actually. The museum is part of the Stark Foundation, whose mission is to improve the quality of life in Southeast Texas by encouraging, promoting and assisting education, the arts, etc. The museum explores the art of the American West. Now, I've taken a few art history classes, or what seemed to be even if they weren't titles as such, and it's cool to see art in other cultures. But this is America people! And I know nothing about it. How dare I! They have many different collections including Western Art, American Indian Art, Decorative Arts, and Rare Books and Manuscripts. Sounds like a place I could get my learning on.

So, if I do get the job, decide to accept, and assuming I don't make any friends in Houston, I'll probably make the trip to Orange, TX. Maybe you can come out and visit me? I'll buy the ticket if I really get desperate.

I'm #1 on Google!

Well, not really. But, I was #1 for a certain search phrase at the right time. It was kind of surprising too. Now, many websites live and die by their rank on Google for certain phrases. It drives a lot of traffic because it's the dominating search engine and performs billions of searches daily. I am not one of those sites, so I hadn't checked where I was ranked, besides searching for my name. I am signed up for Google Analytics, though, and was looking through it tonight ad nauseum, and noticed a few things:

• Over the almost 2 years I've been using Google Analytics, about 43% of my traffic comes from search engines, almost all from Google
  
• A substantial amount of this traffic visits only a few specific posts
• I am on the front page of Google searches for a lot of keyword strings; some general and common, many not so much
  
• Google Analytics is an amazing tool
  

Now, odds are if you search Google for exact titles of my posts, there will be many more top links, so that doesn't normally count. But this time was different, because my post title was kind of a common, almost generic keyword phrase.

I saw that my post about the Pabst casket was getting a lot of hits since I posted it, mostly from Google when the keyword phrase "pabst casket" was searched for. So, I figure I'm #9 or 10, and go check it out. When I searched for it, I was the top link! I didn't take a screenshot, unfortunately, and when I went back, I was #3.

But for one moment, I could defiantly say, I am #1 on Google!

(P.S. I am still #1 for "legs cut off roller-coaster" and I think I will stand undefeated for a while. That's a pretty specific string...)

Microsoft Surface, The Reality

This video really makes me want to invest in Microsoft Surface. Would you still be interested after this commercial?

Monitization Experiment Update

If you've been following this blog for a little while, you know that I've been experimenting with ways of monetizing on the internet. I am a marketing major, graduating this Spring, and am interested in advertising, technology, and how the two interact as the marketing landscape changes. Specifically, I am interested in how the internet is going to be monetized successfully. There is no generally accepted way of doing this yet, and many think, including me, that the current ad supported model is not going to end up the favorite, for many reasons.

Anyway, I have been experimenting with this blog over the past year, determining how different methods work, what might be most effective for different types of situations, and where there is opportunity for growth or expansion.

The latest method has been PayPerPost, which I explained in this post. What I have found is that, since that post, I have earned, and received, $38. I posted two sponsored posts, got them approved, and eventually got paid through PayPal. So, on the blogger side, for a smaller blog like mine, that doesn't get a particularly large amount of hits, but still (in my opinion of course) has decent content, this is more effective than AdSense or some other click-based ad system. It yields more money, yields it faster, and pays out per post. However, for the advertiser, I'm not sure it's as effective. Per dollar, how much are they making off my blog? There's no cost-per-click type structure, or at least not to my knowledge, so it's difficult to measure ROI.

So, I may stick with PPP, as it does offer a few bucks here and there, but I'm still in search of new methods to try out. Let me know if you have any suggestions. And one last thing, this post is NOT sponsored.

Oh, the Comedic Juxtoposition is Killing Me

Every Tuesday and Thursday, during my 2 hour break between classes, I come to the computer lab to kill time. The first thing I do is read the top stories on Digg from my iGoogle homepage. Today, The third story, with 2247 Diggs (as of this posting) was titled "Penis theft on the rise." That's a funny and ridiculous headline, but could it really be true? I had to check it out.

So I click the link (to Yahoo News) and read the original headline, "Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital." How hilarious, so I read the first paragraph:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Oh my God it got more funny and ridiculous. So I read a little bit more, laughed at the use of the term "penis snatching," and made my way down the page.

Then I noticed something. An ad on the page. For Hillary Clinton. I shit you not, this was the ad that popped up, I have the screencap to prove it:


So I sat back and admired this hilarious juxtaposition. A story about a penis snatchers witch hunt, and Hillary's face right there, with "Should Hillary Quit" on it.

So I ask you, good people of the Blogarrhea: Should Hillary quit snatching penises?

Shel Israel: The Puppet

Disclaimer: If you don't like tech, you should probably stop reading. You might get bored. Just sayin'.

Shel Israel is a figure in the tech community. Not very visible, per se, but a figure nonetheless. He's an author, a vlogger for fastcompany.tv, and maintains the blog "Global Neighbourhoods: Social Media's impact on business & culture." He is an actual person.

Shel Israel the puppet is not a real person. He is a puppet that vlogs for "Shel Israel: A parody of Social Media’s impact on business & culture."

Jason Calacanis is an internet entreprenuer, and currently the founder of Mahalo.com, a kind of Google/Wikipedia hybrid site. He's an occasional guest on TWiT, and it appears he's also got his hand in 1938 Media, which produces Shel Israel the puppet's vlog.

If you are still with me, then you are going to love this. So, Shel Israel, the real guy, has had a bunch of blogs over the years, but apparently never bought his own domain name, shelisrael.com. Or, at least it was available on March 31, because the guy who does the voice, or Calacanis or somebody, discovered this and bought it up, and is now totally exploiting it. Basically, it's Shel, the puppet, doing interviews in the vein of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, but about tech and the people in it. The guy who does Shel Israel is real funny. He references how dumb it is to not have your own domain name all the time. Classic.

So, head over to shelisrael.com, watch a few of the videos, get used to his shtick, and I will be surprised if you're not hooked. My favorite episode so far is "Shel Tours Mahalo." It had me laughing real hard at one point. Also, check out 1938media.com, which seems to be a bit more up to date.

You know what? Even those not into tech might enjoy it. So, if you're still reading, check it out anyways.

I'll Take 100 Shares of Obama

I have a very strong feeling that Barack Obama will win the Democratic Nomination. So much so that I should buy stock in it, and over at Intrade.com, I can do just that.

Intrade is a prediction market that works just like the stock market, but instead of betting on the price of wheat or gold going up or down, you bet on the Democratic nominee and whether or not Eliot Spitzer will be indicted on felony charges. Here's a screencap of the homepage:


(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, Obama's down 0.3 points from yesterday, so now's the perfect time to buy! People actually do invest real money into this, and it's basically treated just like buying and selling stock.

So, along with my Obama shares, I think I'll take a few shares on the prediction that Google's Lunar X Prize will be won before December 31, 2012. That's Google's $30m international competition to successfully land a robot on the surface of the moon, travel 500 meters, and send back pictures. Why not?

Oh, and one last thing: anybody want any Rudy Giuliani shares? They're a hell of a bargain right now.

My Sites: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site, very much like Facebook or Myspace, except it has a professional twist. Facebook and Myspace tend to focus on all the stuff that revolves around one's personal life, and not much on professional life. LinkedIn fills that gap. It's purpose, on the most basic level, is to facilitate the maintenance of professional relationships.

It allows users to enter professional information, including employment experience, both past and present, education details, and a lot of other information. It basically allows you to upload your resume. Then, the social networking portion kicks in. Based on where you worked, where you went to school, etc., it will link you to other professionals in that same position. But that's really only the beginning. Here's a screen cap of my public profile:

To see my entire public profile, go to linkedin.com/in/kregan.

Now, the beauty of this site is that it allows you to connect with business professionals from across the globe. The only requirement is that they have a LinkedIn account. And there are various ways you can find people to connect with. You can upload your email contacts and see if any of them have an account, you can search based on your past positions and workplaces and find colleagues, you can search for classmates that attended the same school when you were there, or you can just search them by name, email address, etc. Personally, I am only linked with 6 people (as you can see above), and while I have a few pending connection invitations, I plan to use this site liberally. By that I mean I'm not going to connect with people I don't know, like I sometimes have done on Facebook. (I don't have a Myspace, and don't even THINK about trying to talk me into it, I HATE Myspace). I plan to use this as a tool, which is how I think it was intended to be used, so having contacts I know and can communicate with will be valuable.

One of the great things about this site is that it's only open to college students and graduates. Hypothetically, you could sign up and falsely attribute yourself to a school or something, even if you didn't attend, but there is no value in that here. This is, and should be treated like, another way, in my opinion an easier way, to keep your business connections in order and potentially make new ones. I don't think this should be used as a tool to base hirings on, because it someone could just as easily lie about going to Harvard Law as they could about graduating with a major in underwater basket weaving from Kettering University. However, I think it is a very valuable personal tool for business professionals, and that is why I am using it.

I encourage all of my friends and others to sign up for this site if you haven't already. I think it can become, and is actually becoming, a very powerful tool. It may be new, but I think it would be foolish not to take advantage of the power of this tool, especially as it grows. If you are a member already, or sign up after reading this, I encourage you to seek me out and add me as a contact. If you're a reader of the Blogarrhea, you're a friend of mine, and I would love to be in contact with you.

My public address is http://www.linkedin.com/in/kregan, but you can also search for Kevin Regan and I believe I'm the first (and only) one that comes up. Hope you enjoyed the post, and I look forward to seeing you all on LinkedIn!

Complete List of 'The Dark Knight' Viral Sites

You should all know by now that the marketing for The Dark Knight has been heavily viral. They've done commercials and stuff too, and you kind of have to with a movie this big, but the way they've been going about the rest of it has really been interesting, not to mention elaborate. One of those ways is creating these websites, of which there are 19 27 now. I had no idea there were that many, but this list has been floating around the internet today, so I would like to present them here.

They are really interesting, especially from a marketing perspective, and they've almost taken on a life of their own. One in particular to pay attention to in Clown Travel Agency. It has a departure date listed as 4-01, which is tomorrow, so the Joker must be planning a little April Fools Day joke for us all. Nobody is sure what is going to happen, but that's really the fun of these sites.

Anyways, here are all 19 27, with links to each. Enjoy.

1. I Believe in Harvey Dent
2. Concerned Citizens for a Better Gotham
3. Clown Travel Agency
4. The HaHaHa Times
5. The Gotham Times
6. Maiden Avenue Report
7. Gotham Cable News
8. Dana Worthington
9. Citizens for Batman
10. Saints Withuns Church
11. GVA Foundation
12. Gotham Police Department Internal Affairs Division
13. Gotham Cab
14. I Believe in Harvey Dent Too
15. Joseph Candoloro
16. Gotham City Clerk
17. Gotham Election Board
18. Why So Serious
        -Why So Serious Personality Profile
        -Why So Serious Mausoleum
19. Rory's Death Kiss

UPDATE:
20: Trust Garcetti
21: Remembering Gina
22: Gotham Police
23: Gotham Unified School District
24: Gotham City Rail
25: Gotham National Bank
26: We Are The Answer
27: ACME Security Systems
        -ACME DELOS Security Site

I had never seen a lot of these, I [really] can't believe how many there are. Some are pretty awesome, and some are just okay, but together they are pretty impressive. Any I missed?

[via] [via] [via]

Firefox vs. Safari: In Response

I just read Bryan's post about which browser he uses and why, and then also read Kenton's post about the same topic that inspired Bryan's post. So that, in turn, inspired me to write about my thoughts on the matter.

I am a PC user, have been for my whole life, and that means I've been a Windows user for just as long. I don't want to get into the whole Mac vs. PC argument, but that's just how it's been for me. I have also, like the other two, been using Firefox for a substantial amount of time, and have grown to absolutely love it. I have tried other browsers in the past, but nothing has compared to the usability and functionality of Firefox.

There was a time, however, when I did seriously look around for another browser because Firefox was just becoming this ridiculous memory hog. It was almost as bad as iTunes. With the additional memory usage did not come any noticeable performance increases, so it was time to change.

Right around that time, Safari released a version for Windows, so I decided to check that out. It was a very light program, which initially satisfied my (only) requirement, so I started using it primarily. Now, Safari touts its speed vs. every other browser, which I noticed on a few pages, but not with everything. Some things actually seemed to take longer to load. Safari is much better with colors than all other browsers, but that's not really a priority of mine. Colors all look different on different monitors anyway. Another thing I didn't like was the lack of optional password saving that I utilized so much with Firefox. It may be the Windows version, or I may just be an idiot, but it didn't seem to have that feature. Maybe because Safari is so security focused, but I rely on that feature to remember passwords so I don't have to. The last major factor that irked me was the way Safari displayed some web pages. Some looked odd because they were clearly built on other browsers, and others had some compatibility issues, but that's an old complaint.

I have installed all the updates since its release and still have it on my computer, but rarely use it. I actually opened it today, and it seemed a lot slower than I was used to.

So, Firefox is still my main browser. I have Firefox 3 Beta and like it very much. It's a lot less of a memory hog (actually less than Safari, as I'll show in a second), has all the features I need when browsing, and is improvable with any number of add-ons I may want (which do bog it down, but really, for things like Lifehacker's go-to Greasemonkey, it's normally worth it for the functionality).

So, like I said, I opened Safari today with Firefox already open, and they ran side by side for a while. Then, when going to write this post, I checked the memory usage, and found something I didn't expect. First is a picture of my screen with both of them running side by side (with my task manager also), and the second is of the energy usage of each from the task manager's processes pane:

So, as you'll notice, Safari has only one window open (my blog, which is quite the hog itself), and Firefox has 4 windows open, including my blog and my blog editor, and Firefox is still running on less CPU power. This was a single screen shot, and it fluctuated, but Safari was generally using more energy.

Since upgrading to Firefox 3 Beta, I have noticed a performance increase, and then recently I installed Vista Service Pack 1, and noticed an overall system speed increase. It wasn't much of a service pack relative to others (like both XP's), but it said it may increase performance, which it has. It seems to have made all the bulky Vista system operations that normally bog the OS down run smoothly and unobtrusively, which means a faster computer for me. Thankfully I now have an OS that runs like it should, or at least moved in that direction. And I can look forward to the final release of Ff3.

So, after a long post that most of you probably don't care about, I will conclude by saying, on the Windows side, Firefox is still my #1 browser, and until Safari either develops a stronger browser for Windows or Firefox starts sucking again, it looks like it's going to stay that way. At least, as long as I'm still a Windows user...

Someone better have been fired for this

This is video game for Nintendo DS called Imagine Babies that is essentially like one of those little baby dolls that you have to take care of, but a video game version. So, there you see the cover. Apparently Ubisoft made it, which is quite an offshoot from their primarily action based/killing games library.

Anyway, Ubisoft is a French company with revenues of just over $1 billion American [via Wikipedia]. Why is that relevant? Well, notice anything a little off with that cover?

I'll give you a hint:













You've got to be kidding me. They stole that picture from iStockphoto! I can plainly see the watermark. There's another one on the picture in the top left too. They just stole the preview pictures instead of paying for the real ones.

How much would it cost to pay for this picture, seriously? And for that matter, why couldn't they take their own damn pictures? I found this hilarious. A huge company like Ubisoft ripping pictures from iStockphoto. Wow.

[via]

Another shot at this monetization thing: PayPerPost

Many of you have probably read about how I've been experimenting in ways of monetizing this blog. My goal has never been to actually make a good amount of money through my blog, although that would be nice, but rather just to find out how it's done in order to better understand it.

For my next trick, I'm using PayPerPost. For those of you who don't know what PPP is, it's a company that lets advertisers make bids for people to write about them or a certain product on their sites. Basically, paying people for word of mouth advertising. Now, immediately in this whole thing you should be questioning the ethics of this company. I did when I first heard about them. But they try to make it known that certain blog posts using PPP are sponsored by an advertiser by using little disclosure badges saying "This post sponsored by: ____". You can check out their explanation of that on their word of mouth ethics page. I think that, if the reader knows this post is sponsored, then it's fine. They can choose to take every word with a fat grain of salt.

Personally, while I'm using it, I'm going to write about stuff only if I can express my honest opinions about it. You can still take my words with a grain of salt, but I just want to make that point known.

Anyways, I heard about PayPerPost through a blog that, ironically, was discussing the ethics of it. I investigated a little bit, and found that, while the ethical issues are relevant, I thought this was a really inventive business model. It connects marketers with customers through a new avenue. Well, word of mouth advertising existed before this, and may have been even less ethical. You remember that person in that bar the other night that offered you a free shot of some vodka after she gave you a big schpeal about it? Or when that same sort of thing happened in the coffee shop? Yeah, that person might have been paid to do that.

Anyways, I am new at this whole monetization thing, so now I'm trying PPP and will see if it works. I'm beginning to find that there are a lot of experimental ways of doing this right now, mainly because people don't yet understand it, so a lot of them don't really work. Hopefully I can find one that does work, but hey, it's an experiment right? If I make any decent money on it, I'll let you guys know, and maybe buy you a beer. Hey, have you tried this new kind of beer...?

Applying Google Earth to Solve Real Business Problems (Courtesy of Mr. Feely)

Hey Bry, just want to let you know that I'm kind of stealing your post. I read it and thought about writing the same one, but decided to just give you credit for doing it better anyways. Hopefully you don't mind the (potential) extra traffic.

This term, in my business school capstone class, we worked on projects for actual companies. The one my group worked for was YOLO colorhouse, a high quality, no-VOC paint company. Our project was essentially to identify new markets that they should expand into on the West Coast. We decided to use Google Earth, which had many awesome implications, including Bryan being asked to talk to the head of the business school about it.

This is where I throw you to his post to read about how we did it and why it was so awesome. Thanks Bry. Check out his post over at FeelyWorks, "Google Earth as an Analytical Tool", then come back and tell me what you think.

Dark Knight Website Honors Heath Ledger

The official website of The Dark Knight has posted a memorial for Heath Ledger recently. A true gesture of respect and class from the studio to honor him like this. He will be missed.

The Verizon Voyager, my new TV, and Call of Duty 4

This post is going to be kind of a mash-up of 3 things: my feelings about the Verizon Voyager after about a month of having it, my new HDTV, and the game Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360.

First, the Voyager. I got this phone for Christmas after having the bottom of the barrel Verizon phones before that so, needless to say, it was a big upgrade. You can see it there in my grubby little paw. After I took it out of the box, I immediately loved it. The touch screen, the full QWERTY keyboard, the sleek black look, everything was great. But really, I didn't know any better. Now that I have had it for a month, I have used it and gotten to know it and have a better overall impression of the phone, so I think I can accurately assess it.

I still love it, for all the reasons I mentioned and more, but I also have some gripes. But first, the good stuff. I really like the touch screen. It's surprisingly sensitive and responsive, and while it's not quite as good (or big) as the iPhone, it can get away with it because of the full keyboard. On the iPhone, the touch screen is the only interface you have, but on the Voyager you can use either the touch screen or the buttons on the inside. The features are great in general, as well as intuitive, and easy to access through multiple pathways. There is a lot of customization features to make the phone work the way you want it, so I like that to. I also like the size. It's big enough for me to be able to handle it easily, but small enough to be in my pocket and not bother me. The camera is great too, for the most part. Text messaging is great and easy, both from the front or inside, and the full web browser is really cool. I access that at least once a day.

The gripes: I don't like that you can't customize the icons on your home screen on the touch screen. There are some icons I use tons, and some I never use, and I would like to be able to pick and choose what I wanted on there. I hate that I can't upload music to use as ringtones. I understand why from a rights management standpoint, but I'm pretty sure the VX9900 could make its own ringtones, so I don't understand why this one can't (it's the VX10000). Cell phones are so locked down it's ridiculous. I also wish that, when I'm talking on the phone, the keypad would come up on the touch screen so that I didn't have to go through a bunch of menus to find it if I need it. That's really the only thing I need while on the phone, so that would be nice. The last thing is that the camera doesn't have a flash, so it sucks in the dark, but I can get over that. I have a camera.

This thing has been with me pretty much 24/7 since I got it, and I try to keep it in really good shape, but I've already dropped it once. Only once, but that was enough to scratch up the front and a little bit of the screen border. It's only cosmetic damage, and it's minor, but still, it sucks.

Now, on to the new TV. After the infamous break-in, I found that I was fully covered under my dad's home insurance, so I would be getting reimbursed for the stolen items. I decided that, instead of replacing all 225 CDs taken that I didn't much listen to anyway, I would treat myself to a new TV. I got a 42" 1080p TV that I absolutely love and have no regrets about. Well, except that I don't do anything besides watch it now. I don't consider that a problem.

But really, it's only a TV. What matters isn't the TV, it's the content that will look good on the TV. So, aside from the Comcast HD box I have hooked up to it (that doesn't have an HDMI port and only broadcasts in 1080i), I have my Xbox 360. Now, the 360 was pretty much built for HD. It has an HDMI port as well as an HD-DVD add-on player and a big catalog of games that play in full 1080p. So, I have it hooked up with the HDMI cable, I have the HD-DVD player, and Call of Duty 4 is one of those games in 1080p. And my GOD does it look incredible! Holy shit you have to see it, it is a whole different type of gaming when it looks this clear and crisp. Not to mention the game is great.

The single player game in Call of Duty 4 might be the most enjoyable I've ever played. Other games are good, and in some cases not so good but still revered (Halo 3), but this one is amazing. The amount of depth of each mission, the variance in missions, the accuracy, the playability, all top notch. My favorite level was the ghillie suit level. I think it was the most fun I've had in a level of a video game. It was awesome. I'll probably play it again, and again. Then more.

The only thing I didn't like about the game was the length. It was a very short game, and when I just sit for hours and play it, that really shows. I haven't tried multi-player, and might not as Halo 3 is king of multi-player, but I assume it's good.

So there you go, that's my rant on that crap. Hope y'all liked it. Now call me and come over to play Call of Duty with me on my new TV.