Archive - February, 2005

Red Sox In Philly

February 27, 2005 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Apparently I have underestimated the craziness of Red Sox fans. Perhaps that I thought that a trip to Philly to see the Sox take on the Phillies in June was something that only my friends and I thought of, and figured not many people would a) see this as a viable road trip and b) actually purchase tickets. I was way off. It seems as though those Southwest Airlines commercials that played between every pitch last season, have really worked. Everyone is going to Philly. There…there’s a lot of culture there. It’s like a baby New York. And oh yeah….cheese steak, and the Liberty Bell.

Since sometime before Christmas, my friends and I had targeted the weekend of June 24th as THE Sox road trip of the year. National league game, decent city, easy trip, and a three game, weekend series in June. All said and done, we thought we could make a trip down to the city of brotherly love for under $350 a piece, which is the approximate cost of seeing the Sox on any summer weeknight at Fenway. Not including parking or concessions.

Long story short, a ticket presale link that was sent to Phillies mailing list subscribers only, which allowed hard core Phillies fans to purchase tickets a day before the general sale opened was leaked out and made its way onto the Sons of Sam web site. This cause the entire series to sell out literally a full day before the tickets were to go on sale to the general public. I am not kidding. Luckily I got wind of this link through a friend and was able to scrounge 4 $20 bleacher seats for Friday night’s game, but that’s all. I am now without tickets for Saturday’s game and none to happy about it.

Now obviously it is easy to GET tickets to the Saturday game. As long as you don’t mind paying through the nose via a broker or a scalper (mind you the only difference between the two is that one has an uncle on the police force that got him/her a broker license)., but that kind of defeats the purpose here. If I wanted to pay $175 per ticket, I can do that here in Boston 81 times a year. Thanks though.

If anyone out there happens to have 4 tickets to the Sox/Phils game in Philly on June 25th and is looking to sell them at a reasonable rate. Shoot me an email. I will buy them.

The Wal-Mart Affiliate Program [DENIED]

February 25, 2005 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

In an effort to make some cash to pay for hosting and what-not, I belong to some affiliate programs that allow me to place ads on this site and hopefully make some spare change here and there. Recently, I applied to run some Wal-Mart ads on the site. I mean, who doesn’t love Wal-Mart right? Upon applying, I was told that my site would be reviewed and that I would be notified of my acceptance or rejection shortly. Standard procedure.

Twenty-four hours later I was denied. And received the following note:

Dear Andrew Teman,

Thank you for submitting your application to the Wal-Mart.com Affiliate Program. We appreciate your interest in our program.

Wal-Mart.com carefully reviews each application to our program. Unfortunately, we do not feel that your Web site meets the criteria we have established for acceptance. At this time Wal-Mart.com is looking for affiliates with high traffic sites that have the potential for high sales volume. In addition, Wal-Mart.com will not accept into its affiliate program sites that fit the following descriptions:

*Promote sexually explicit material
*Promote violence or hate toward any persons or groups
*Promote illegal activities
*Promote alcohol, tobacco, gambling/lottery in any way
*Promote the use of pyramid or similar investment schemes
*Include “walmart”, “wal-mart” or variations or misspellings thereof in their domain names
*Violate intellectual property rights of Wal-Mart.com, Wal-Mart Stores
*Disparage Walmart.com, Wal-Mart Stores or their suppliers
*Are under construction or not live at the time of application
*Require a username and password to access
*Are non-US based or are sites that primarily serve a non-US based audience
*Any other reason based on Wal-Mart’s sole judgment.

Sincerely,
The Wal-Mart.com Affiliate Team

Aside from being horribly disappointed, I was confused as to why Wal-Mart didn’t want my site in it’s network. As I read down the list, I seemed to not be in violation of what usually gets one rejected (sexual content, site down, illegal content, etc). Then it struck me. Disparage Walmart.com, Wal-Mart Stores or their suppliers. That’s the one. That’s the deal killer. Apparently they had actually visited the site and did not appreciate my appreciation for their “No Diggity” ad. Shame on them for not seeing past the sarcasm and realizing that it is actually one of my favorite ads. Hell, that was the ad that pushed me to pay for the download at Ad-Rag.

Oh well, at least Target took me…maybe because of the same posting.

Strange Search Terms

February 24, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

Looking at web logs is always entertaining. There seem to always be some odd search terms that people use to find your site, most of which are just from Google picking up pages with multiple articles. My friend Eric who runs More Diapers (a site about fatherhood) mentioned that he gets lots of search traffic for “men in diapers” which is both disturbing and funny, and may merit a whole separate post. Anyways, here are some gems from this week:

  • how can you tell that a guy wants to kiss you
  • shower curtain girls
  • where can you order shirts with h&r block logos on them
  • any ladies wants to fuck
  • andrew storyline on desperate housewives
  • mcdonalds guy funny

Colin Meloy And Jake Brennan At TT’s

February 22, 2005 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

So i got a chance to check out a show I had been looking forward to since sometime back in November when I first got the tickets. The show was scheduled for January, but was postponed by the giant blizzard we had. The show was Colin Meloy of the Decemberists playing solo, with an opening act of Jake Brennan (of Jake Brennan and the Confidence Men) also playing solo at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge.

Jake Brennan – I had heard a lot about this guy and figured since he was opening for one of my favorite artists, that he must be solid. Apparently he has a decent following in Boston, but you wouldn’t know it based on the crowd’s complete lack of interest during his set. He sang crappy love songs with trite lyrics while the crowd literally had full conversations amongst each other, ignoring him on stage for the most part. The only saving grace was a mandolin player named Jimmy that accompanied him and helped bring intolerably crappy songs to a moderately listen-able level. Brennan looked and sounded like Ray Pruitt (Jamie Walters) and seemed seconds away from bursting into “How Do You Talk to an Angel” or bringing Donna Martin out on stage just to smack her around a bit. At least that would have been somewhat entertaining.

Colin Meloy – Playing the yin to Brennan’s yang was not difficult here, and Meloy raised the game to a completely different level when he took the stage. Those who had previously seen him perform live, fully expected this unassuming Montana boy with the incredibly powerful voice to take total command the room and leave the audience mesmerized and silent, which he did. All eyes and ears were fixated on the stage, and each person became fully absorbed into each intricate lyric and wandering storyline stirring only to stomp along with the beat or to join in on some of the more infectious refrains. Being the last stop on the tour, Meloy belted out somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 songs over an hour and a half covering everything from Decembrists favorites to Morrissey covers and even some random folk tunes in between. The only disappointment was not being able to get my hands on the 6 song, tour-only, Morrissey cover disc that he was peddling at each stop. Only 1,000 were pressed and they were only available on tour stops….unless you want to shell out upwards of $60 on eBay.

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