My Second Economic Stimulus Package

Thanks to the return of the Microsoft Live Cashback/eBay promotion, I pulled the trigger on a few pricey tech gadgets:

• A Samsung SyncMaster 22" monitor for Mrs. Turtle
• Also for the Mrs., a Dell Inspiron 530s slim desktop PC
• Two Western Digital WD10EACS 1TB hard drives (for my Drobo)

As an aside, I'm going to pick up my Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (from my first stimulus) tonight from UPS will-call. Can't wait!

Miracle Fruit Tablets - Unboxing Photos

Well, Christmas came early this year: One of the things on my wish list was the Miracle Fruit Tablets that I blogged about last month. My wife read the entry and promptly scoured the internet for them. She was so excited that she couldn't save them for a stocking stuffer and gave them to me straight away.

I haven't tried them yet (need to stock up on sour stuff), but I'm very much looking forward to this product from SEN YUH FARM SCIENCE CO., LTD. (SAINT-FRUIT FARM) and TAIWAN PANBIOTIC LABORATORIES CO., LTD. If you're interested in getting some Miracle Fruit Tablets of your own, you can pick them up at ThinkGeek or on eBay.

Enjoy these unboxing photos:

A low tech wish

Ran across this "digital message tape" and it's another thing to add to my wishlist. Reminds me of those convenience store signs that work on the same principle.

Sure, I could use a magic marker and write on the side of a box---that would be faster and cheaper. Or use the Brother P-Touch labeler I've used for years. But what's the fun in that?

How hard is it to send an e-mail?

A big pet peeve of mine is when internet stores cancel orders without sending you an e-mail. There are few things more frustrating than expecting to get something in the mail, wondering why it still hasn't come, and then checking the order status and seeing "Cancelled." It shouldn't be difficult to trigger a "we're sorry, but your order has be cancelled" message, should it?

That happened to me a few days ago, for the Seagate portable drive I bought from their online store on closeout. It was a fantastic price...obviously too fantastic or too much demand. After seeing that it was cancelled, I thought, "oh, well." That is, until I got an e-mail from Seagate with the subject "Seagate Followup Offer" that began with, "As a follow up to the original communication regarding your canceled order at Seagate.com and as a valued customer, we are offering you the following special program on one of our most attractive new products."

While it's nice they were willing to send what amounts to a 20% discount on a product I'm not interested in, I'm somwhat annoyed that they said that they told me my earlier order was cancelled. I even went through my spam folder to see if it had gotten tagged as spam. Nothing from Seagate.

It just seems like good customer service to drop a line, even in the case of a price mistake or out of stock situation. At least I wouldn't have to wonder whether the order was coming or not.

PixelJunk Eden

Not that the PS3 needs more eye candy, but a title that has that and more is PixelJunk Eden. A download title from the PlayStation Store, it's a gorgeous puzzle platformer with a great techno/chillout soundtrack. It's kind of hard to describe but IGN and 1Up have done a good job explaining the premise of the game.

I've downloaded the demo, and as soon as I get my PS3's hard drive upgraded, it will be the first downloadable title that I'll buy. Even the wife was fascinated by Eden, and she's not really into console or action games. Check out a video of the action to get an idea why it is such a unique title--and a bargain at $10.

My Economic Stimulus

It's been an expensive week for me, but happily, on discretionary purchases. Among them:

• Seagate 120GB Freeagent Go (2.5" USB 2.0 external drive) [EDIT: Seagate cancelled the order--must have been a price mistake or out of clearance stock]
• Hitachi TravelStar 2.5" 320GB SATA internal drive (to upgrade my PS3's hard drive)
• Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook, in red
• A few A/V cables from my trusty cable source, Monoprice
• Some overpriced photos from my cousin's wedding ($6 for a 4x6!)

I'll probably have buyer's remorse once I get my credit card statement, but I'm a sucker for a good deal, wedding photos not withstanding. And there's still one more day left in the week, and it comes with newspaper ad circulars...stay tuned.

Battle of the Cola Points Programs

As a graduating senior in college, I loaded up on "easy A" classes, and one of them was a marketing course taught by a former Coca-Cola executive. Aside from being an easy A, it was pretty interesting to see the psychology of advertising and how much it drives our lives.

I mean, look at rewards/points programs. Ever since we were seven years old and figured out that it cost our folks 50 times more to pay for those skee-ball tickets than it would have been to buy those stuffed animals and plastic spider rings, we knew that they're a way to get our compulsive sides to make other people lots of money.

But knowing that, I still collect the codes for the Coke and Pepsi rewards points--to the point that I'll dig through the recycling bin if my wife doesn't save them. And although you have to drink a hell of a lot of soda (or collect the codes from someone who does), I have gotten a couple of decent things from the Coke program: free product coupons and a nice NCAA basketball.

I'm relatively new to collecting the Pepsi points, but since the Mrs. prefers the anti-Coke, I'm stuck.

The biggest thing that annoys me with the Coke program is that it's built on Flash. Not only is the site always slow, it's a 10-min. affair to enter codes when I'm on a terminal connection. Plus, it sucks being bombarded with product, sweepstakes, and survey pop-ups. The designers there should be fired.

I like how the Pepsi Stuff program partnered with Amazon. Not only does it use a common sign-on with Amazon, but it's painless and quick to enter codes. I can actually use a Flash blocker and still enter them. Kudos for the DRM-free MP3's and DVD movie rewards. Yet, if I stop to think about it, I have flashbacks to the Chuck E. Cheese prize counter, considering the sheer volume of Pepsi I'd have to buy to get just one.

Got to go...it's time to dig through the recycling bin...and my neighbors...