Month: November 2008

A Thanksgiving Moment

Updated 11/29/08 (added Erector Sets)

First off, I would like to extend my best wishes for everyone on this Thanksgiving Day (for those US based readers out there).  May your travels be safe and uneventful.  I did notice where the flight reservations are way down this year.  I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that oil price per barrel is down yet some airlines are still trying to charge extra for baggage.  Last I recall, that was added to OFFSET the cost of jet fuel.  Funny how things go up instantly and tend to just drift down.

But today is about being thankful for things.  I decided that a recent discussion I had with a friend is a perfect topic for today.   So my thanks today goes to:  Not being killed by my childhood toys.  For some reason this topic came up one day and since my friend is roughly the same age, we were able to relate to the dangers we experienced as kids.  I say experienced because it really only comes into full perspective in retrospective or immediately after a significant injury.  I honestly think the danger is what made the toy so much fun.  I was looking through the Black Friday ads and was taking note of the new generation of toys out there.  My assessment is today’s kids must be extremely bored.  Everything has rounded edges, battery compartments attached by 10 or more screws, foam tipped and restricted power.  The liberals and soccer moms must be successful in their attempts to raise a pansy generation with unusually strong thumbs.  So here is a short list of the toys my friend and I decided were the most fun… translated, probably the most dangerous.

  • Jarts:  Sharpened steel tips with aerodynamic plastic wings to increase the accuracy and penetration depth.  These were at every single family outing I was ever at.  Kids of all ages whipping down to ground circles at the other end of the yard.  Which also happened to be where your teammates were standing making the whole event that much more entertaining.  Today they have stupid sand filled blunt ended enlarged badmiton shuttlecocks.  Total number of injuries experienced or witnessed in my childhood – ZERO
  • Water Pressure Rockets: These were just plain awesome. The task was to fill up a plastic rocket with water and then attach them to the end of a pump.  The attachment process was quite low tech with simply a piece of plastic that slid along the shaft and locked the end of the rocket onto a opening with a rubber seal.  This created an “L” shape with the long end having a plunger to pump air into the rocket creating as much pressure as you could muster.  I am sure it had some stupid line in the directions stating only x number of pumps.  Kudos to the toy engineers that could create a seal on the rocket capable of holding 10x pumps.  So now you basically have a pressurized rocket grenade.  The dangerous portion came with the fact you had to then pull back on the sliding piece of plastic to release the rocket.  However, a 10x load creates quite a lock so you had to really bear down and pull on the sleeve to release it.  For visuals, remember what you did the last time you had to open a stuck pickle jar.  My bet is you bent down a little bit and put the char at an angle to get the proper leverage.  Imagine now doing that with the water rocket.  How I never managed to blast one into my face is a miracle in itself.  Contrast that with the fact I absolutely loved that toy.  I think today’s version has a remote foot pedal pressurize and release system and I’m sure it is encased in a Nerf football.  Childhood injuries: only a pinched finger trying to pull that sleeve back.
  • Skateboards (with clay wheels): I have to needle my middle brother for this toy since he is the one who purchased it for me.  I am pretty sure he didn’t check with my parents beforehand and I am pretty sure he gave it to me when he was in college – I would have been 9 or so years younger.  I can’t remember a gift since then that surprised me more – not only was it the coolest gift I could have received at that time, but clearly he took a big risk with our parents.  For the most part it was pure joy as the wind whipped through my hair as I sailed down the hills balanced on a thin strip of wood.
    … follow the link for more
    Continue reading A Thanksgiving Moment

An Uncomfortable Wait

Yesterday I had the opportunity to read the packaging on numerous brands of condoms.  That’s right, I now know what the various sizes are (marketing genius made sure there were no extra small sizes, but an extra large to capture the bachelor party gag gift revenue), what the various textures are (ultra thin, extra sensitive, ribbed, something labeled twisted pleasure and a concerning offering that apparently pulsates – don’t ask me for details on that, I decided it was best not to know), quantity options, tip construction alternatives and a whole bevy of lube options including grape and strawberry flavor.

But it didn’t end there.  I further enhanced my worldly knowledge by reading all of the personal lubrication gels and a suprisingly large number of pregnancy tests. On the lube front, there was the standard KY options but the most interesting was the His and Hers option which looked like the dual tube packaging for strong epoxies.  Chuckling to myself, I thought that it might be an abstinence conctraceptive based on welding something shut.  I must have read 10 E.P.T boxes trying to figure out the differences.  Admittedly, I couldn’t figure it out beyond possibly the wait cycles or method of displaying the results.  I wondered if the talking greeting card technology had made its way into this market giving us a recorded message based on the results displayed on the stick.  In fact, think of the whole opportunity for Hallmark –

  • “Congratulations, you’re a winner”
  • “You’re gonna need some new clothes”
  • “Another bullet dodged”
  • “Your Mom’s heart attack has been avoided”
  • For him: “Hurray for new boobies”
  • For him: “Sorry, quality control has experienced a failure”

Okay, cutting myself off because that was waaaay to much fun.  I will take any submissions from my readers.  If this idea takes hold, I want it to be known I thought of it first and I want royalties.

Any chance the question popped into your head as to why I was relishing in this particular aisle?  Your assumptions are most likely wrong.   The reality of it is I was waiting to get my prescription filled at the Walmart out on Allen Rd. in Peoria.  I hit a prompt care to get relief from a sinus infection and decided to pop over to Walmart Pharmacy (they wave the co-pay winning the choice over the closer CV).  The benches they have for people to wait are located straight out and perpendicular to the pharmacy counter.  This also places it directly in line with the store shelves which had the contents I discussed above.  I get bored very easy so tend to take in everything I can find and product packaging is a ripe distraction.  So, sorry to burst the image bubble, but I was just sitting in the aisle reading the shelves from about 5 feet away.  Have I mentioned lately how must I love my new eyes?

What this does mean is a complete lack of privacy for individuals that want to actually purchase these products.  Imagine at least four people (men, women, children) sitting there staring at you while you make your selection.  And if that is not enough, you have all the people standing in line to pay for their prescriptions at the pharmacy desk.  Someone in the store layout either has a sense of humor, insensitive to a generally private matter or possibly this is a very common shop lifted item that they feel needs to have an extra layer of free security protection (sometimes I crack myself up).   I actually don’t have an answer for which option really applies in this case.  I am not sure I want to discourage the use of contraceptives since the local state portion of my daily paper seems to indicate the abstinence approach to reducing unwed pregnancies is not that effective.  But I have to vote against the layout guy not knowing what he was doing since he had a logical order to the shelves – condoms, lubes and then the EPTs seems like a pretty smart grouping.

Yes, an individual did come to the aisle to make a purchase.  He was probably in his late 30s or early 40s and was very interested in the top shelves that held the lubes and the EPTs.  In contrast to what my comfort level if it was me, he was pretty much oblivious to me watching him the entire 15 minutes he spent there.  I couldn’t tell exactly what product he was analyzing because his back was to me, but he was very thorough in his assessment.   He even opened the box and began reading the detailed instructions.  Eventually, he repackaged the box and proceed to make the purchase at the pharmacy counter.  I still couldn’t see what he had, but based on the shelf gap, I’m guessing lube.  Nothing like an informed consumer.

Hopefully I did not offend anyone with today’s post.  I blog it as I see it and I didn’t want to waste a solid 30 minuts of field work and some definite business opportunities await.  Hmmm, clarification, business opportunities in the EPT market, not to imply any reference to my previous post on the Vegas women.

Diiiiirty Giiiirls In The City of Silicone

Since I am heading to Vegas in about 2 hours and the fact my brother is insinuating lack of content from his glass house I figured I would quickly post on my my favorite observations in Vegas.  Yes, I admit it, I like watching the prostitutes try and pick up their customers in the City That Never Sleeps.  Purely from a marketing perspective, mind you, because I do not get to see that much in my rather small town.  About 6 or 7 years ago was my first true observation of this.  I was waiting for the Luxor inclinator about 2:30 in the morning and I was literally surrounded by very well dressed and jeweled women in very suggestive clothing just milling around.  At that time, they had a security guard sitting at a small desk next to the inclinator and you had to show your room key before he would let you get on it.  Strangely enough, none of these women would make eye contact with him, but just kept pacing around.  Finally, the inclinator arrives and out pops a couple of guys.  The first one says his name and a girl came over and they left the area.  The other guy also says his name and two blondes made their way over and then proceeded to step back into the inclinator that I had just entered.  I hit a floor number below their destination and made the socially expected move of backing into the farthest possible corner.  For the duration of my ride I was subjected to what each of the women were going to do in the whirlpool along with their champagne, strawberries and chocolate.  I chuckled as I was exiting to my floor and was actually intrigued on how much that little event was going to cost him – and no, there is no way I was going to pursue that answer.

A few years later in Vegas, I got a call from a buddy of mine that went out there with us.  Again, about 2 am, he calls my cell to inform me he was just propositioned by a prostitute and thought it was pretty funny.  This is the first time someone I new well was asked for this type of employment in Vegas.  Of course, still thinking about my unanswered question I asked him if he inquired as to the cost – FOR RESEARCH ONLY.  He didn’t ask and actually before I got done asking the question I was hoping he didn’t because I think that would represent a transaction which could have been a whole lot more fun to blog on.

Then came last time I was in Vegas about 3 or so months back.  Sure enough, around 2 am (something tells me I should start watching where I go at those hours) My nephew-in-law and I were heading out of Hooters (how appropriate) and all of sudden a lady at the bar reaches out into our path and asks us how we were doing that night.  From an observation perspective, I am guessing significant less bills would be required to complete any type of transaction as opposed to the shelf quality of the previous Luxor setting.  For the record, this may have just been a very friendly lady who likes to reach out and greet people.  However, said we were fine and continued walking out the door and headed to the crossover between the Tropicana and the MGM.  On our approach, we see two more ladies quite frankly the more traditional prostitute garb just pacing back and forth in front of the escalator.  I must admit, the general quality (assuredly from an appearance perspective only) is significantly higher in Vegas and augmentation is either very cheap elective surgery or the business setting there is very lucrative – or the longevity of the showgirl career isn’t very long.  We responded with disinterest and proceeded back to the Luxor where we were staying.  The following night I stayed up all night so I didn’t have to bother waking up to leave for the airport at 5:30am.  The same friend that gave me the call about his proposition met me about 1 am to play some video poker.  After a couple of hours of that, he headed back to the MGM where he was staying.  Sure enough, he shows up again about 15 minutes later and asks me if I saw a particular lady prowling around the outer slot machine banks.  I had not seen that particular girl.  Apparently she came up  to him and asked if he was winning or not.  I am not sure that is the best opening line that early in the morning – is anyone going to tell someone they have been windfalling it all night and basically beg to be rolled?  There was some banter back and forth and I am not sure of the exact line, but basically asked if he was interested.  He said no and that he was heading back to his wife at another hotel.  Disappointed she then asked optimistically, “Does she like women?”  Now that is a savvy business woman and probably could use those talents in a legitimate profession.  First distract, next engage, then make the offer, sidestep rejection and take another angle.  There are a lot of people I meet in business trying to sell me something that could learn a lot by watching those in the oldest profession.  Oh, by the way in case you are wondering he told her no.

As I was checking my comps at 4:30am I spotted a lady with the same description hanging on some dudes arm.  As they passed me she commented that letting him spank her was going to cost him more.  Yes, Information Technology technical marketers, the concept of Services Oriented pricing is not a new concept, it has been around for a long, long time.  Oh, and before anyone comments, I know that Silicone is been replaced but some of these women are pretty darn old.

Yikes, late for the airport – I’ll correct the typos later…. VEGAS HERE I COME

Design Failure or Insurance Liability

I like looking at everyday things and pondering if there are engineering improvements that can be made.  There appears to be a point in which the specific item becomes a commodity and it moves into a maintenance mode.  Apparently this means that there very little changes from year to year and those are generally in the attempt to make it cheaper, not consumer improved.  This of course is the business model of commodity since I am guessing the profit margins are based almost entirely on the volume.  Disruption events are the only driver for change or rather a shift back to design to win consumers back.  Sometimes, someone comes out with a better functioning widget (think ESATA over USB) or a sleeker hipper look (think IPhone) and the market is stood on end and we actually see creativity back into that market… but only until it the competition dies out and the mundane takes over.  I do recall one of my economics professors telling us that it is always better to actually disrupt your own products before your competitor does.  Apparently this has not happened in the walker business.

At least twice a week, I see an elderly person traversing a parking lot with the aid of a traditional walker.   This is usually a little sad seeing the definite discomfort of the individual, but there are always bright sides to any situation and at least they are still able to get out of the house and get some exercise.  The piece of the picture that always catches my attention is the bottom of the front two legs on the walker.  Probably 4 out of 5 times the owner has placed tennis balls over the ends.  This is an amazing ratio to me, 80% of the market is modifying your product.  There is a definite deficiency viewed by the consumer and there is a common solution that a majority of those customers are using to solve the problem.  I also smiled at the fact Answers.com actually put this use in their definition of a Tennis Ball.  What is preventing the producer of these walkers from improving the design?  Does it cost to much to modify the caps on the front bars so they slide better?  Have they studied what is causing the market to take this action?  I can only come up with five possible answers

  1. There is no competition in that market and therefore the producer has absolutely no monetary incentive to improve the design.  This to me appears to be a ripe market for a disruption and therefore profit
  2. There is a legal implication that trumps the design decision.  For example, the addition of smoother sliding front legs would result in the possible fall of 1 and say a million users, but that single lawsuit by ambulance chasing snakes (I mean lawyers) is too much risk to the business.  This seemed like a viable explanation, but read further in the post to see why I do not believe this.
  3. Profit margins by the company are being compensated via accessories.  If this is the case, I am not sure they have a successful market since the largest majority of users are taking a competitor product (although not actually designed for that use) over your accessory.
  4. The tennis ball lobby has somehow contacted AARP and have a side deal with kickbacks if they keep their names (and thus advertisement) prominent in retail parking lots.  Note, apparently the Penn Lobby is alive and well based on their prominent spot on Wikipedia. I had to laugh at that entry because it actually had a picture of new Penn ball and a picture of a used Penn ball side by side so you can see the difference.

To be honest, there was an event that prompted this particular post.  A disruption appeared in the marketplace.  Last week I was heading into a Walmart and saw a walker modification and it was not tennis balls.  Basically, it was just a small piece of plastic in the shape of a ski.  Something I had not seen before and it caught me off guard – hence the definition of disruption in the marketplace.  I was actually so stunned I went into the store to see if this item had actually made it to the market or whether this was an extremely crafty person.  Sure enough, there it was on the display next to the walkers.  Unfortunately, I forgot to notice if this was the same manufacture of the actual walkers they had (and thus falls in the accessory profit), or whether it was a different enterprising company.  There was actually another package next to it which had a production version of the tennis ball concept which had precut balls and a clever attachment mechanism that screwed into the bottom of the walker legs – that part was actually fuzzy yellow as well so it made it look exactly like they just slapped a tennis ball on the end.. but it was far more secure.  It took me about 10 seconds to get over the cleverness of that package and then put it in the category of stupidity since there was absolutely NO reason to make a better version that looked exactly like a hack in the first place.  This is no different than a programmer making an address storage program that looks and functions like a rolodex.  These options did convince me that option 2 above was not valid.  If it really was a legal issue, these products would not exist because they would have the same fear as the original manufactures of the walker. Therefore, I categorize this as a DESIGN FAILURE

Apparently I have additional field research to do in order to tell if the new skiis will overtake the tried and true slotted tennis ball.  I’ll keep you posted since I am now sure you are as fascinated by this as I am.. okay, maybe a little interested… try to deny it, but I know you will take extra time to check the legs of the next walker you see.

Hallmark Wins

Sorry for the long delay.  I have been fighting a stupid cold for about 4 days now and it is not showing any signs of letting up.  In general  I rarely come down with colds, but when I do they tend to be the nastiest strains on the continent.  Since I don’t take any medications unless I absolutely have to, I resort to the bombardment of Vitamin C.  The guess at this point is I sunk it in pretty deep by running 4 miles during the early stages.  This may have weakened my immune system enough for it to take a stranglehold.  Don’t worry, I’ll make it through.

Fortunately, I identified blog material during that run.  Since treadmill running is an immense bore,  I always have the TV or stereo going to keep my mind off the fact I’m at most moving back and forth about 6 inches for 30+ minutes at a time.  This is probably one of the few times I am actually exposed to commercials beyond when I am getting ready for work in the mornings.  Similar to when I was forced to watch 7 minutes of Obama’s infomercial because it came on before completing my mileage for the day, I caught my first Christmas commercial of the season.  Yes, on Friday Nov 7th, Hallmark ran a Christmas add for some kind of talking giftbag.  Thanksgiving is all but irrelevant these days and my guess every year they will push the Christmas season even further ahead.  I already see Christmas decorations start hitting the retail shelves before Halloween is over.  I’ve decided to honor my favorite pumpkin holiday and commit to not purchasing any Christmas themed item before Thanksgiving.  Mind you, this does not apply to purchasing gifts ahead of time.  My wife likes to get that out of the way as soon as possible in contrast to my theory that the best deals are on December 23rd – Chia Pets for everyone!

Hitman Ignites the Spidey Senses

Last night I started out watching Sweeney Todd with my wife.  It is rare when we get to actually watch a movie together and there was actually something on HBO we had not already seen.  I must admit, I did not do any research on this particular movie, but I had heard it received some fairly good reviews.  5 minutes into it we realized it was a musical and take a guess on what genre I typically dislike.  Shows about Music (Rock Star, Spinal Tap…) no problem.  Shows delivered in music format (Sweeney Todd, Hairspray…) suckage.  After about 15 more minutes we decided it was not worth wasting our together time on so we switched over to WALL-E.  Again, no research on the movie and caught a little off guard by the fact there were only mechanical sounds until near the end.  This was not the best I’ve seen out of the Dreamworks studios.  It had its cute moments, but didn’t hold our attention very strong.  We stuck this one out, but I’ll definitely do a little more Googling before the next movie night.

I decided to go check out the latest news stories on the web and ended up turning the TV on to have some background noise.  Hitman came on HBO and even though I had already seen it previously, I kept it on mainly because I was too lazy to find the controller and hunt for something better.  Again, I would not put this in the “good” category, but it has its moments if you like some action and blood on your screen.  What I did think was stunning was the formula damsel in distress.  When I saw it the first time, I was intrigued by her face tattoo.  I also distinctly remembered something about that tattoo bothering me on first viewing.  I made a mental note to pay closer attention when her scenes came on to see if I could figure it out.  Often times my brain will pick out something odd, but it takes me awhile to clarify what it is.  I think made a comment on this before, but I tend to take mental snapshots over time and if two snapshots don’t correlate well, the spider senses initiate.

Part way through the movie she shows up for the first time:

hitman

Kind of a cute tattoo don’t you think?  Subtle image yet striking since it takes commitment to place it on such a noticeable location (unlike Tyson who is just an idiot).

Here are a couple of other snaps so you get the feel for the placement and lack of symmetry on the other side.

hitman

hitman

Our hero (holding the gun in the previous picture) kidnaps the woman and hauls her off to interrogate her.  The scene cuts away and returns with the lady sitting in the middle of a dark room.

hitman

hitman

Spider senses ignite instantly, but it passed the screen pretty quickly.  She continues to respond to the main character’s questioning who eventually passes in front of her.  As soon as he walks by, we are left with this shot

hitman

There it is.  The two contiguous snapshots didn’t line up.  Do you see the difference?  Guessing you did since I framed it for you, but yes, the tattoo switched sides.  My brain didn’t like this one bit.  I decided to spend a little time tracking down an explanation.  As it turns out, there is a mirror in the room which would produce the same effect if the camera chose to shoot through the mirror instead.  I strongly doubt this since on closer inspection, the mirror is way to dirty to get those shots.

hitman

From that point on, it stays on the expected side

hitman

So, thanks to the director intentionally or accidentally putting this into the film, I wasted 1.5 hrs figuring out why I was so bothered after the first viewing.  Okay, maybe not wasted since I did get blog material out of it, but none the less, I could have been playing Rock Band 2 or reading some materials that have been building up lately.  I would have to think the actress would notice something like this if they had tried painting it on the wrong side of the face since it is such a stunning style element… and even if it got through that litmus test, someone should have caught it during production.  Of course, there are others things that make it through the splicing process that somehow make it out (see Lethal Weapon Movie Goof on this page).

Spider senses under control now, issue successfully identified

Saturday Night Dead

It appears we need to brace ourselves for supposed Change.  As a result, I’m going on PROMISE WATCH, which basically means I sit back for 4 years and see if a single election promise materializes when one is actually held accountable for actions.  I had to chuckle yesterday as I read about “Obama Girl” demanding favors for her efforts to her candidate elected.  Then the automakers jumped up from the table and started demanding the money they were promised ahead of the vote.  This is definitely going to be interesting, however, I have to send my condolences to the writers at Saturday Night Live.  I honestly have no idea how they are going to survive without having a republican to make fun of every week – although that horse has pretty much been dead for the last 3 years.  And since they’ll never poke fun at “one of their own”, they will simply be left with “smelling cat butt” (Ironically done by Kelsey Grammer a die hard Republican).   Time to change I guess… that being the TV channel off of NBC.

Congratulations and best of luck.