Sunday Night Selections

I took a break from packing up my life into boxes and drawers to come entertain you guys. Only the best for my fans -- all 5 of you. I've got some fun (and somewhat new) cuts this week, so sit back and enjoy.

Rock
Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Am I looking forward to leaving Clemson a 2nd time? Socially, no. But in terms of the big picture, very much so. I'll miss my friends, both old and new, but leaving isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'll get to save some cash, get back in shape, and have some much-needed quiet time. And while I really don't want to move back in with my folks, doing so provides me with the luxury of not having to sign a new lease. Not having to break a lease or find a sub-leaser will make starting my new beginning, whatever it turns out to be, that much easier.
Watch The Video

Pop
Keke Palmer - "Bottoms Up"
There's many reasons this song should have never gotten radio airplay, but then there's just as many reasons as to why it should have. First off, it's a song called "Bottoms Up" that was sung by a 13 year old. But in all fairness, it's a 13 year old with some vocal chops. Sure, this song would fit in better in a strip club than it would on a Kids Bop CD, but for a pop song, it's pretty damn good. I mean, it ain't great, but it's light years better than anything Soulja Boy has ever put out. Miss Palmer has another album coming out later this year and hopefully her handlers won't make the same mistakes they did two years ago. Considering the former "Akeelah and The Bee" is now owned by Nickelodeon, I doubt that'll be a problem.
Listen Here

R&B
Rihanna - "Te Amo"
How good is this song? So good that upon hearing it I couldn't help myself from pretending to salsa dance around my apartment (resulting in a minor injury). Rihanna isn't very high on my list of artists whose music I enjoy, but I really enjoyed this song. Maybe it was the drum beats? Maybe it was the Spanish guitar? Maybe it was the forbidden lesbian love she sings about? Who knows? Either way, give it a listen. Try to keep your neck and hips under control.
Watch A Video

Latin Pop
Shakira - "She Wolf"
*scratcheshead* I feel like Shakira is about 30 years too late with this song. Her newest single has almost a disco/new wave type vibe about it. It's not bad, but it's definitely different. I'm not sure how well this song will be received by non-Shakira fans. No bother. The video premieres this Thursday. Something tells me that footage of Shakira on all fours will hide any flaws this song may have. BTW, kudos to Shakira for finding a way to rhyme "Lycanthropy." That took talent.
Watch A Video [The official video will premiere on MTV and MTV.com at 8pm EST on Thursday July 30th.]

Mark Sanford Doesn't Care About Sandlappers

I know that I've already said my peace on my Governor, but each week he finds a way to do something new to make my blood boil just a little bit more.

This week he announced that he's going on a two week European vacation with his family.

This announcement comes only a week after skipped out on some meetings take a five day weekend with his wife.

Nevermind the fact that both of those announcements came on the heels of his trip to Florida with his wife for the 4th of July weekend.

Oh, and let's not forget his six-day Father's Day weekend trip to The Appalachians Argentina that started this whole mess.

It's amazing how a man who has assured South Carolina that he's "focused on the issues" can take all of this vacation time.

"The governor has taken 10 of the last 24 business days off. He said the trip is designed to rebuild his relationship with his wife and four sons after announcing June 24 that he had engaged in a year-long extramarital affair with an Argentine woman. "

Who cares that South Carolina has the 4th highest unemployment level in the nation? Governor Sanford has more pressing issues to deal with. Like seeing The Louvre.

Must be nice.

A Letter To Nintendo's VP of Marketing

Before you guys jump into reading this post, let me provide a little background. The other day I sent this tweet out. At the time it directed to this post on LiLu's blog. I didn't think much of the tweet or the blog post as I've known about the event being talked about in her post for more than a year now and didn't really think they were a big deal. Apparently, some of my Twitter followers didn't feel the same way. Be it by tweet, direct message, or good ol' AIM, I listened to more than a few complaints about how Nintendo doesn't appreciate the "hardcore fan" anymore. I didn't necessarily agree with all of these sentiments, but as a Nintendo enthusiast, I understood them. But even with eight different people coming at me to complain about the same thing, I didn't bother to take it heart until someone said the following,

"Wow, that kind of sucks. Those broads got liquor and DSi systems for doing nothing while all your loyalty got you was a [expletive] hat."

Guess who got a little jealous upset at that fact? The same guy who spent 15 minutes writing an informal letter to Nintendo's VP of Marketing...


Dear Denise,

I can call you Denise, no? Before I get into the meat of this letter, I want to commend you on the smashing job you've done in taking over for Perrin Kaplan. Those were big shoes to fill and so far, so good.

Moving along, I'm writing you today due my recent observations of Nintendo's various marketing campaigns. In the past few months you guys have really held firm to your "Blue Ocean" strategy and as such, reached out to groups who wouldn't be classified as "traditional" gamers. I've noticed campaigns geared towards senior citizens, pre-teen girls, and my personal favorite, African-Americans. Hey, I love the fact that there are commercials with people who look like me playing games that I play. Awesome.

But since I'm on the subject of campaigns targeted to demographics I happen to fall into, I want to talk about a recent campaign Nintendo is running targeting young, female bloggers. (Now, I'm not female, but I am young and a blogger, so the promotion caught my eye.) As part of this campaign, you guys have been holding a series of "A Girlfriend's Guide to Gaming" events across the country. From the outside looking in, these events appear to be pretty cool. You guys invite 20 to 30 ladies to a private party held at an art gallery or upscale nightclub, open up the bar, and provide a sample of Nintendo's 1st party offerings for everyone to enjoy. After everyone's had a good time on Nintendo's dime, you send them home with a complimentary Nintendo DSi and other goodies.

As a B-school kid, it's almost impossible for me to hate the brilliance of this move. In one fell swoop, you take "the bloggers with the most to say" and make them not only Nintendo fans but advocates as well. With little provocation, you now have an army of fashionistas, shopaholics, mommy-bloggers, businesswomen, and party girls who will all blog about how great Nintendo is and how much fun your games are. Easy publicity and social broadcasting at its finest. Assuming these events produce [measurable] results, they're not a bad investment at all, especially if they bring more female gamers to the fold.

But what about the core gamers? The ones Nintendo claims they haven't forgotten? The ones you said are never satisfied? The ones who were already talking about all things Nintendo? A lot of us are bloggers (and twitterers) as well. Where are our parties? Where is our booze? What do we get? Oh yeah, Club Nintendo. Thanks for the hat.

All jokes aside, we don't really want your parties. Most of us hold our own gaming parties with our friends and families already. Based on those Rock Band and Wii Sports nights, our livers don't need any more punishment. We just want something to let us know that you haven't completely forgotten about us. In talking to other gamers across the web, some suggestions were made on how to go about doing so:

• Periodic sales on Virtual Console, WiiWare, and DSiWare software. It happens on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam -- all services supported by "traditional" gamers. Why not on Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection as well?
• A bigger variety of demos in the DS Download Station on the Nintendo Channel. More "Contra 4" and "Rhythm Heaven," less "Personal Trainer: Cooking - Macaroni and Cheese."
• Make "Doc Louis's Punch-Out!!" the Gold Level gift in Club Nintendo and give it to both Gold and Platinum members. A free downloadable game is a lot better "thank you" than calendar.
• Bring back the "Cube Clubs" - re-branded for the Wii and DSi, of course.
  

There were other suggestions tossed out, but for the sake of not having this letter get any longer, I'll stop here.

So come on Denise, throw us a bone or two. We've supported Nintendo for years and from the looks of your newest Punch-Out!! commercial, you're well aware of this. Do right by us. Let us know that you're listening.

Sincerely,


TOPolk
Nintendo Fan since '87

Man, it's been a busy week of letter writing for me. First, I wrote Governor Sanford a letter about all of his "vacation time," now I'm writing letters to Nintendo about how they don't love us anymore. Man, complaining is hard work.

iHate

Macs. I hate Macs.

Actually, that's not true. I have no problem with Macs - other than that whole one button mouse thing. It's their owners that I hate. Maybe I missed the memo, but apparently becoming a Mac owner gives one the right to act like smug bastard who thinks their computer is part of the 2nd coming.

It's a computer guys, get over yourselves. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't make you any cooler or work great as a fashion accessory. It's a productivity tool and an entertainment device. Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh, I can hear some of you guys now getting ready to fire back at me. "But Terence, I haven't had any problems with my Macbook." "Macs 'just work.'" "My Macbook just does soooo much more than my old [Windows] laptop." Save your keystrokes. Unless you're a graphics person or do a heavy amount of video editing, there's no need to regurgitate Apple's marketing campaigns to me. Believe me, as a former member of Geek Squad, I've heard them all. Multiple times.

Speaking of Geek Squad, that leads me to another common misconception -- "Mac's don't break" and its popular variation "Mac's don't get viruses." Trust me, stupid people will find a way to break things and they know no brand loyalty. Now to be fair, we did fix more Windows-based machines than we did Macs, but considering that my particular Best Buy store sold around 70 Windows computers for every Macbook sold, that would make sense. [Right here is where I could easily segue into how Apple tends to overprice their products, but why bother? Microsoft has already done a good job making that pretty evident.]

With everything I've said, I'm sure some of you have pegged me as being firmly rooted in the "I'm a PC" camp. Which OK as it's true. But know these things -- the first computer my family owned as a Macintosh Performa 410, I had an iMac before they became chic set pieces, and I know my way around OS X better than most Mac users do. I know Apple's offerings very well and generally speaking, they're no better (or worse) than Microsoft's offerings.

Which is why I don't understand where the elitist attitude comes from. There's no need to try to justify your purchase just by pointing out other products supposed shortcomings.

You don't see me pointing and laughing at people who own cars made by General Motors do you? OK, maybe you do, but at least I've got the leading market share to back up my meaningless opinion. At 9% of the market, Mac owners can't claim the same.

Terms of Use Violation

I get only one page into George Orwell's "1984," before I'm introduced to the idea of "Hate Week." Now if I'm not mistaken, Hate Week is the week where Big Brother promotes the hating of its enemies. I could be wrong, but if I am, chalk that up to me not reading "1984" since 9th grade. Anyways, between that mental reminder and this week's "National Art Hate Week," I felt like maybe a "Hate Week" would be a cool thing to run here. I mean, it's not like I'm talking about anything else of relevance, so why the hell not?

First up on things that get under my skin? Censorship. It drives me nuts, especially when it involves public figures. If something embarrassing happens to them, they get their publicists to remove any and all traces of it from the media. Beyonce falling down a set of stairs? LeBron getting dunked on by a college kid? "Pics or it didn't happen." Moves like that drive me absolutely bonkers.

So imagine how PO'ed I got when some of my own media got removed because one of Greenville's "public figures" didn't like it. Yes, the Upstate's favorite spastic dancer complained to YouTube about my videos portraying him in a "less than flattering" light. Funny, because the videos on his own website weren't doing him any favors (I'll let you guys look for them, I'm not even going to bother sending him the traffic). I guess someone didn't like the idea of his public performance being recorded and put on display in a public forum.

Oh wait. This isn't a video of him performing. It's a video of my roommate performing that he just happened to be in. Well in that case...



Now I know the chances of this video being pulled (again) are pretty high -- especially since the same company that owns Blogger owns YouTube -- but that's OK. That video was only the cherry on top my soapbox sundae anyways.

Sunday Night Selections: #MusicMonday

Oh look, it's Monday. I really need to find another name for this column as it very rarely gets posted on Sunday. That happens when life gets in the way. This week's excuse is that I went to go see wrestling on what was pretty much a whim. I knew the show was coming to town for weeks, but I never bothered to buy a ticket beforehand. Mostly because I'm broke and refused to pay Ticketmaster's outrageous "service fees." Anywhoo, I called the box office and buying a ticket in person only cost an extra $0.59 (as I was using my debit card) opposed to Ticketmaster's $10.63 in fees. Upon finding this out I high-tailed it to the Bi-Lo Center and enjoyed a solid night of wrestling.

The show was far from sold-out with only about 3,000 people in attendance, but that didn't dampen anyone's fun. (Hell, it actually made my night better as I was able to "upgrade" from my $16 nosebleed seats to ones a lot closer to the ring.) The action was good, the crowd was hot, and almost all of the major superstars from SmackDown! and ECW were there. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to see Rey Mysterio wrestle, but I did get to see Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat do his thing. Yes, THAT Ricky Steamboat. In the past year and a half I've seen both Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat wrestle. Amazing.

Pop
Murray Head - "One Night In Bangkok"
Because sometimes you take a wrong turn.
Watch The Video

Ballad
Rock Therapy (Queen + Paul Rodgers) - "Reaching Out"
Not everyone liked the collaboration between former Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers and Queen but I was quite the fan of it. The sound they created wasn't as rock heavy as Bad Company, but it wasn't as operatic as Queen during their Freddie Mercury days. I wasn't the only fan of this sound as Eminem sampled the song "Reaching Out" for his "Beautiful" track from his recent Relapse album. Em's album was pretty bad, but it's good to see that he did try to build it on a foundation of good music.
Watch A Video

Power Ballad
Bonnie Tyler - "Making Love Out of Nothing At All"
In the late 70s/early 80s, if you wanted a power ballad done right, you went to one of three sets of people -- Meat Loaf, Air Supply, or Bonnie Tyler. Probably because the same composer - Jim Steinman - wrote songs for all three of them. As Meat Loaf was one of the premier acts at the time, Steinman focused most of his energy on writing songs for him. As such, both "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" were originally written for the big man, but due to a contractual dispute, wound up going to Air Supply and Tyler instead.

This hand-off gave Air Supply their 2nd big hit, with "Making Love..." peaking at #2 on the Billboard charts, topped by only Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." In an interesting set of coincidences, Bonnie Tyler wound up covering Air Supply's hit for her Free Spirit album, some 12 years after she kept them from reaching the top of the music charts. Unfortunately, Air Supply hasn't yet claimed revenge by covering "Total Eclipse of the Heart," much to my dismay.
Watch The Video

Hip-Hop
B.o.B. - "I'll Be In The Sky"
It's really hard for me to write anything about B.o.B. without making an obvious comparison, so I won't. I like this song, but his sound is a little too close to another ATL-based rapper for my liking.
Watch The Video

Pop-Rap
Cee-Lo ft Brendon Urie, Patrick Stump, Travis McCoy, & Janelle Monae - "Open Happiness"
Smile. :-)

Choose Your Own Adventure

Today is 2 for the price of 1 day...

Choose Your Destiny

For a light-hearted story detailing the randomness that occurs in my house, turn to

For a rare statement from me on what I look for in a woman, turn to

The Tension and The Terror

It's been a little over a month and a half since I last sat down and did one of these "How's life going" posts. Since I've got the time and nothing else pressing that I want to talk about, today is a good day to do another one.

On the job search front, things are getting better even though I don't necessarily acknowledge that they are. The genesis of my "Money For Nothing" post was actually a rant on how tired I was of looking for a job.

I think I'm finally getting to the point where I can no longer consider myself unemployed. No, I haven't found a job. It's just that I'm finally getting to the point of being discouraged. Hunting for a job, and not just the job I want but any job, seems like nothing more than an exercise in futility. It's the same routine, over and over and over again. I apply to jobs, I hear back from the ones I don't want and hear nothing from the ones I do. When I do hear back from someone, there's a 5-stage interview process to go through that ultimately leads nowhere. After six months of this, the idea of moving back home and just hiding my head in the sand doesn't seem so bad.

To an extent, some of that is still true. I am tired of looking for work and would love to pretend that this is all a bad dream, but that's not how life works. It's OK to bitch and moan (which is what that post was turning into), but it's not OK to quit. With that said, I'm still actively job searching. Maybe not as actively, but after seven months of looking, what do you expect? I get tired too.

In more positive news, I do have a couple of interviews lined up. One on Monday with a company who impressed me by how quickly they responded to my application. I applied to their job posting Monday night and I was on the phone with a recruiter Tuesday afternoon. My ego definitely needed that pick me up. Hopefully things work out well... I'll find out in a few days.

The other interview is with a company with an extremely long hiring process. I applied for a position in March, had my first interview in May, and don't have my second interview until the end of the month. Had things not changed, that would have worked out perfectly (my lease runs out at the end of the month). What changed you asked? The start date. The track I was looking to be hired into was scheduled to start in late July. Apparently that's now been pushed back to a January start date. When I found that out, it felt like someone had punched me in the gut. As I really want to start working ASAP, I almost considered not even bothering with the 2nd interview. "January is a really, really long time away! I'm not dealing with this!" Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and I went ahead and accepted their invitation. In a worst case scenario, this works out for the best. Let's say I ace the 2nd interview and get offered a position. Well, for starters, I'd have a job -- even if I did have to wait for it to start. During that wait I could do other things of interest. I could re-learn Spanish, take a computer programming course, or look for another job. And even if I didn't do any of those things, college football season is coming up and this job comes with a signing bonus. Knowing my friends, I won't have to spend too much time concerning myself with what to do with all of that "downtime."

For those of you wondering how my experiment from a few months ago turned out, to date, I've heard back from 8 employers. 8 out of 37 = 21.6% Slightly better than I predicted (16%) and right in line with the "talk" of [in this current economic downturn] only 20% of resume submissions getting a response.

Elsewhere in my life, things are fairly pedestrian. Barring a miracle, I'll be moving back in with the folks at the end of the month. I'm cool with that. Sure, my social life will take a major hit but that's alright. Especially if it'll save me the trouble (and time...and money) of signing a new lease, then trying to break it/find a sub-leaser when I do get a job. I have no problem with exchanging short term pain for long term gain. But damn if I'm not looking forward to packing all of my stuff up. Moving sucks.

Since I don't really have a way of wrapping this post up, I'll close with one of my mom's favorite quotes.

"It's not as long as it has been."

She's been saying it ever since I was a little TOPolk and at times I think it's a little dumb -- but it works.

Platinum Status [Poll]

This morning, Nintendo sent out an email to its Club Nintendo "Elite Members" detailing their rewards for achieving elite status in Club Nintendo. Now before I go any further, I guess I should explain exactly what Club Nintendo is. In a nutshell, Club Nintendo is Nintendo's reward program. Purchasing Nintendo-produced items earn you points that can be redeemed for items in the Club Nintendo marketplace.

Like any other loyalty program, the value of the items you can redeem your points for leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the "exclusive" wares you can snag from the Club Nintendo marketplace include a Wii Remote holder, a Nintendo DS game case, and a set Animal Crossing playing cards. Exciting. But coming from the always frugal-minded Nintendo, this selection of trinkets isn't surprising. Even so, Nintendo does manage to do their hardcore fans a little bit better...

For the fans like myself who collected enough points to achieve Platinum Level status, Nintendo provides the option to choose a gift from two or more options, free of charge. In the past, the Japanese version of Club Nintendo gave out gifts that are still long sought after -- like the Super Famicom Classic Controller or Wii Remote TV Remote. With this knowledge in mind, one would expect Nintendo of America to provide something just as awesome for their initial platinum gift.

Not quite. Still free. Still cool. But lacking a bit on the "WOW" scale.

As I'm not really sure what gift I want (neither really jump out to me), I'm going to put it up to a vote here. I trust you guys -- for the most part.

Doc Louis's Punch Out!!

Pros:
- Free games are always cool. I'm a fan of things that I actually can play with.
- For the first time ever, Doc Louis steps into the ring! That's pretty cool. Right?

Cons:
- Call it an exclusive gift if you want, this is basically a demo for Punch-Out!!
- Something tells me that the chances of this being given out as DLC to the owners of Punch-Out!! is pretty high.
- It's download only. Meaning that if my Wii goes *poof*, so does my game.

Replica Mario Hat

Pros:
- It would a nice little piece of gaming swag to show off.
- Based on the dimensions of this thing, it would actually fit my head.
- Unlike "Doc Louis's Punch-Out!!," this is a tangible item. Which means that if push came to shove, I could get something for it on eBay.

Cons:
- I couldn't wear this in public. Nor would I really want to.
- My mom could probably sew one of these in about an hour.


The voting widget should be live in the top of the sidebar to your right, so slide on over and cast your vote. And if you're feeling especially active today, feel free to leave a comment explaining your vote. :)

Sunday Night Selections

Nothing musically really spoke to me this week, so I reached into the SnS Vault and pulled out two of my personal favorites.

Rock
The Killers - "Smile Like You Mean It"
This songs brings back semi-bad memories of sitting down in a dark room, worrying about everything, and being highly upset that my days were reduced to working in a meat plant for 13 hours a day -- all while downing four to five beers. Then somewhere along the line it became a song of motivation. I remember listening to this song when I decided I was going to pull myself up by the bootstraps and move on to something else. Anything else. Long story short, I'm a lot happier now and I'm back to smiling. Smiling like I mean it. Funny thing is, the actual lyrics have nothing to do with any of that.
Watch The Video

Gypsy Punk
DeVotchKa - "Til The End Of Time"
Following quickly in my footsteps on my post about indie movies, a friend and I sat down on my couch a few hours ago and watched "Little Miss Sunshine." The funny thing is we debated on going to the theater to see this movie a year ago, but she didn't think it was going to be good. *shrugs* Maybe it was best that we watched it on the couch as it's a movie that works much better as a evening time waster opposed to one you have to experience in the theaters (like say, "300" or "Transformers"). Anywhoo, this isn't a review of "Little Miss Sunshine," that may come later. What this is, is a quick write up of the what I guess would be called the "theme song" of the movie...and since I've already taken up enough space jibbering on, I'll just let you guys listen to it instead.
TOPolk Trivia: I'm not sure why, but whenever I read PostSecret, I always have this song playing in the background.
Watch The Video

No Words Needed

Update: If a picture tells a thousand words, then a video tells a million. Thanks ABC News for ruining the fun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbifTbJtgJA

Money For Nothing?

As I've been job hunting for the past few months, I can usually sniff out something fishy a mile away. If it's an unsolicited referral from CareerBuilder or some other job board I've never heard of, 7 times out of 10, it's probably an opportunity that's not quite what it presents itself to be. However when I get contacted via LinkedIn, I usually trust the referral as being something on the up and up. I don't how they've done it, but LinkedIn has managed to keep itself from being bogged down with ads and posts for "not so real" jobs. Probably because more times than not, an actual person/company is attached to each posted position...

Yeah. That doesn't mean anything any more.

About a week ago, I was contacted on LinkedIn about a local e-Marketing opportunity...

Hey Terence,

I noticed your interest in business deals as well as your experience in business. My husband, [name redacted]*, and I have a business and are looking for 3 people in the Greenville area to help with e-marketing, utilizing social networks. We are part of a marketing team that has a system of helping major retailers expand their online markets and repeat business. They currently have contracts with companies such as Office Depot, Disney, Bass Pro Shops and more.
This is an opportunity to generate a strong part-time income, if this interests you, send me your contact information (# and email) and I can go over some additional details.

Have a great week,
[Name & Contact Info Redacted]

I'll admit, I was a little skeptical about responding back to this woman. The name-dropping of three seemingly unrelated companies was a concern, but that was canceled out by LinkedIn's transparency. I could see who this woman was, where she was from, and her work history. Whether it was legit or not, the attaching of a face and business to this message went a long way.

Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and contacted this woman. I spoke to her for a brief moment before she handed me off to her husband. Her husband and I exchanged pleasantries before he went into the spiel of who they were and what they were looking for. On the surface, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about the type of people they were looking for. Hard workers who were business oriented with a passion to succeed -- also known as the same stuff every business is looking for. What was odd was his description of what his company does -- or better put, what wasn't in his description. He talked for about four minutes without ever mentioning exactly what it was his company does. Strike #1.

To be fair, he did mention that his company was heavily involved in marketing via online social networks, but marketing involves a lot of things. Was it promotional marketing? Are we talking sales? Doling out surveys? At the end of the day what would I be doing? And what type of social networks would be used? Youtube? Facebook? Twitter? Blogger? So many questions, so little answeres. Actually, when pressed him about the social networks used, he told me that he had never heard of Twitter.** Seriously? My dad, the same man who is amazed by text messaging, knows what Twitter is. Strike #2.

Right around this point I went on the defensive. I'm asking questions that he has no answers to (or wouldn't answer) and our phone conversation is all but over. The only thing that prolonged it is that I decided I wanted more information. Of course he didn't have a website or anything that he could email me, but he did have a video that I could watch online. Joy.

Being polite and somewhat curious, I agreed to watch his video -- which wound up being as vague and uninformative as every other piece of information he presented to me. The only good that came out of watching the video is that it provided me with the name of his "parent company" - LTD Team (Leadership Development Team). One quick Google Search while "watching the video" allowed me to find all of the information I needed to conclude that this guy's "e-marketing opportunity" was something that I didn't want to partake in. Strike #3.

After listening to him ramble on a little more, I politely informed him that "this opportunity was not a good fit" and that we should go our separate ways. He heard me but he didn't quite listen as he continued to invite me to attend a seminar that they would be having in Greenville on Tuesday [today]. I thanked him for the invitation, but I declined his offer and politely ended our conversation.

Unfortunately, the fun doesn't end there. When I got in Sunday morning, I had an email from [name redacted] waiting for me...

Hey Terrance (sic),

Thanks for talking with me on the phone breifly (sic). Although we did not get together on business I would still like to meet you in person some time. We have a guest speaker in Greenville this Tuesday evening that I think you would really enjoy hearing. Jake Baker is a former Marine and very succesfull (sic) in business and speaks to audiences all over the world about attitude and success. This is not a sales pitch for the business opportunity, I just thought that at not (sic) cost to you this is a rare opportunity to hear from one of the top business minds in the county (sic) from 8-9 pm this Tuesday evening. It is going to be packed out standing room only out the door but if you contact me early I can get you a good seat. I gurantee (sic) you will not be sorry if you can take the time to come out and see this guy. He is awesome.
[Name & Contact Info redacted]

Being as polite as I could be at 4 in the morning, I passed on this offer once again.

While I appreciate your invitation to attend the seminar, I am going to have to respectfully decline.

As of now, this story ends here. I haven't heard from [name redacted] since and I doubt I will. So with no real payoff, why the blog post?

Information sharing. Nothing more, nothing less. There's not a lot of recent information on LTD Team available on the web, especially not any that tells about their recruiting tactics. And with some of their "agents" using LinkedIn now, I figured I'd use my blog as a way to get the word out. Google's bots enjoy my blog, so I'm sure that this post will be indexed within a couple hours. Hopefully that'll be enough time to provide a "heads-up" to anyone who was contemplating attending the LTD Seminar in Greenville, SC on July 7, 2009, where Jake Baker will be speaking...

Consider this one a freebie.


*Why the [name redacted]s? Because I'm a nice guy.
**@LTDHQ - Looks like someone doesn't know their own company.

Sunday Night Selections

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Mine was pretty solid, if not somewhat low key. I spent the day of the 4th with some friends at the Greenville Drive game and followed that up with a solid night out downtown. Sunday was a bit slower as just I sat on the couch and watched movies all day. When I did decide to finally move, it was only because I needed to cook dinner -- which was a miracle in and of itself.

OK...that should be enough filler. On to this week's musical selections.

New Wave
XTC - "Dear God"
Like most other groups of people different from me, I have no problem with Atheists. If they choose not to believe in God, that's their business. So, not too surprisingly, I don't have any problems with XTC's 1986 track, "Dear God." In a nutshell, it's an Atheist's letter to God, asking why he stands back doing "nothing" while people suffer and if He really exists. It's definitely not your normal Top 40 fare.
Bonus: Sarah McLachlan covered this song back in '95 for an XTC tribute album.
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Alternative
Sick Puppies - "You're Going Down"
I "first" heard this song a few nights ago while listening to 99x's online simulcast. For a metal song it was kinda upbeat and almost...danceable? It's fun -- in an aggressive, crazy sort of way. After a few more listens I realized where these thoughts came from. Call it brainwashing, call it subliminal advertising, whatever, but for about three weeks straight I heard this song every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Good job WWE marketing department, you snagged another up-and-coming track to be the official theme for one of your monthly extravaganzas.
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Ballad
Martika - "Toy Soldiers"
Writing a "good" song about sad subject matter is always tricky. Outside of a few notable exceptions, topics like suicide, accidental murder, and missing runaways generally don't make for songs that are accepted by the majority of the population. So how did Martika manage to take a ballad about her friend's drug addiction and turn it into a #1 hit? Easy. She jammed a bitchin' guitar riff into it. 1980s + Ballad + Guitar = Profit.
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Rap
Method Man & Redman - "Da Rockwilder"
Throwback. It's only a little over two minutes long, but what a good two minutes it is. Remember folks, quantity isn't always better than quality.
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Adult Contemporary
Sarah Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson - "Winter Song"
I just came across this song via a tweet from a friend. I thought it was pretty, so I added it here.

Random Guest Post: Mandy's Musings on Twitter

Twenty minutes later, the following post was sitting in my email inbox. She does good work on such short notice.

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way..." --Ted Turner

I have been on twitter for more than 6 months now, I think. I've had over 600 updates and I have a small, but eclectic following. Twitter has connected me with celebs and like-minded individuals, both of which are hard to find in and around South Carolina.

First of all, my last name starts with Mc...so my twitter name is Mc_Mandy b.c I think Mandy_Mc was taken. Apparently some people think I am an emcee--like a rapper...I have several DJs and up and coming rap artists following me. I hope that I have not disappointed them when they searched for MC's. [rapper or not you can follow me @Mc_Mandy, I don't bite.]

I follow a wide range of people, but I would say most of the people I follow are of the celebrity variety. My most favorite follow has to be Ice T. @finallevel has become not just a platform for Ice T to speak to his fans, but his followers have now officially become a Twitter Gang. Sometimes there are people who we have to bang on--don't mess with Ice or you'll get some serious FLTG [final level twitter game] @ hate messages. Also, Ice T does bubble tweets and live chats. I just think that it's really awesome to connect to a celebrity on that kind of a level. He's never @'d me, but I have faith that it will happen soon.

Another person I follow is @keyinfluencer. Eric [@ebigness] tweeted one night that he was in @keyinfluencer's tiny chat listening to him DJ. This past week I spent my Friday night in the tiny chat listening to key play some serious jams. I also got to chat with a lot of cool people in the DC and ATL areas. (I think that's where most of key's followers are from or something, b.c I do not know why DC and ATL would go together...) In this chat I got about 4 new follows/followers and something amazing happened...I realized that I was the only white kid in that chat room. No one cared and they still chose to follow me after being outed as a casper. Racial boundaries have been blurred thanks to twitter. (That is...until the #BET awards. I live tweeted this event and gained more followers and saw many of the topics I was tweeting on trend...apparently those trends were not well recieved and thus we have the site http://omgblackpeople.tumblr.com -- I think it's been removed though. The premise of the site was tweets from unhappy white folks that the interwebs had been intergrated.)

I've also been able to do something that @TOPolk has been doing for a while--actually CONNECTING with other bloggers. You read their stuff, but now you can talk to them in real time (or however quick tweet deck refreshes) and become non-IRL friends. Some shameless plugs for some of my new blog friends ---> http://sincerelyandy.tumblr.com/ Andy V's Tumblr (my friend from Tumblr who happens to have relatives in SC near our Dear Old Clemson) and Danny Denhard's Beta Labs http://blog.betalabs.co.uk/ (@betalabs...we were united by DJ White Shadow @djws on #ff) [Editor's note: #ff is short for #FollowFriday -- Each Friday many Twitter users suggest people of interest that they think their followers should follow as well.]

If you haven't begun to follow the trend and jump on the twitter boat, you're missing out. New Friends, Access to Celebs in a way we've never known, and ways to connect to people you may otherwise never meet--what's not to love? Also, if you're into that kind of thing, you can find porn spammers on twitter, too. Not my thing, but that's the last piece of advice I have on the subject of twitter.

xoxo,
M

Un Gobernador en Amor

I'm a little late in dropping my $0.02 about Governor Mark Sanford into the fountain, but that's OK. As I'm from South Carolina and this "scandal" will be on the front page of our newspapers from now until he a) resigns b) leaves office, this story is a long way away from reaching its expiration date.

In the sake of time, I'm presenting this post in Q&A format. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this subject, but I did want to touch on it briefly. It is kind of an important topic.

Well, at least for those of us south of Charlotte and north of Savannah.

Are you embarrassed by Governor Sanford's actions?
Nope, not really. I mean, it could have been worse. Just ask New York. Or New Jersey*. Sadly, we live in a day and age where political infidelity has become the norm instead of the exception. I didn't get all worked up when ol' BillyC got a blowjob in the Oval Office. I'm not going to get all hot and bothered about my own Governor having an Argentinian mistress. Shit happens.

Do you think he should resign from his position as Governor?
To be honest, it doesn't matter. As far as South Carolina politics are concerned, he was already in a lame duck position. The Dems don't like him and a fair amount of the Republicans don't either. Even before the affair, Gov. Sanford couldn't get anything done. Now it's just going to be a matter of him not not doing anything while the media drags his character through the mud. If he resigned, it would make him look like less of a hypocrite (as he called for the resignation of Pres. Clinton and Sen. Craig), but if he decided to stay I wouldn't be surprised. From his previous actions, Sanford seems like the type of guy who just likes to make everyone's life difficult.

Aren't you upset about him leaving the state - nay, the country - without leaving anyone in charge?
You haven't met our Lt. Governor, have you? Not leaving him in charge may have been one of the best things Sanford could have done. If I'm going to be legitimately upset about anything in this matter, it's the whisperings that Governor Sanford may have used state funding to finance his trips to Argentina and New York. If you're going to have an affair, that's your own business. Once I start paying for your affair, then it becomes my business. Pay for your own hook-ups Mark. [7/2 Update: Cool]

Is your Governor crazy?
Possibly. Maybe he's in love. Or maybe he just found the "right" girl. Considering his behavior over the last couple of weeks, it's hard to tell where his head is at.

What should the Governor do next?
Stop talking. I don't know if anyone's noticed, but no one's been asking him any questions. All of the information he's provided so far about the affair, the other women, finding his soul mate, etc. was all volunteered by him. That's fine and all, but sometimes you have to know when to keep things on the "hush hush." If not for you, but for your wife, children, and people you were elected to serve. You're not doing anyone any favors by continuing to run your mouth.

Here's a Protip for Governor Sanford: Don't say anything unless asked and if asked, just plead the Fifth. It's worked before...


*There's nothing wrong with a man having an affair with another man. Whatever floats your boat. But let's be realistic here -- if that would have happened in South Carolina, there would have been a "mediastorm" of epic proportions. Mass hysteria!