Archive for the year 2007
Good News and Bad News
Posted on March 14, 2007 by Ching under Life, News, School.
The good news is that I got a 98 on my Accounting exam. I think I only missed one multiple choice question. They were worth two points each. After a brief exam post mortem with Chad, I really thought I messed up on the second problem. He is very studious so I take his opinion very seriously. Anyway, it turns out I actually did it right. So I’m guessing I got everything right except for one multiple choice question. I think I know which question it is, too. There was one question that I couldn’t decide between two of the choices. I was confident about all my other answers, though. So I’m pretty sure it was the question that I was uncertain about.
It’s a relief to know that I actually did well on the exam. I didn’t think I was completely prepared for it, specially since Brian helped me procrastinate over the weekend. I guess I was more prepared than I realized.
Now for the bad news. Are you ready for this? Sanjaya is still on Idol, therefore we’ll be subjected to more of his pitiful performances. Thank God for DVR! So at least we can fast forward through the more horrific parts. But what is the deal?
I felt sure that he might survive this elimination because the majority of Idol viewers clearly have no taste. I was so convinced that yet another undeserving person would be sent home that for the first time in my entire Idol-viewing history I actually felt compelled to vote. I tried to call but the lines were busy. After a few tries I just gave up.
Either Sanjaya has a really big family or the show is rigged. Brian is now completely convinced of the latter. The results tonight actually make me think of the movie American Dreamz where the terrorist actually wanted their representative to win so that he could assassinate the president. Maybe Sanjaya has been sent to assassinate Simon Cowell. He’s probably made one too many people mad. I usually agree with his critiques, though. I don’t understand why people subject themselves to the contest and are upset when they get honest feedback. Simon is just telling it like it is. Maybe this is punishment for all of us Americans who watch too much TV. Now we have to endure more of Sanjaya. LOL.
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A Wonderful Afternoon of Procrastination
Posted on March 10, 2007 by Ching under Flickr, Food and Drink, Movies, Reviews.
Brian drug me to see 300 today. Prior to actually watching the movie, I really had no idea what it was all about. Brian, being the comic book freak that is, had already read the graphic novel. He’d been eagerly awaiting the movie’s release and could hardly contain himself. Although, it was I who had to be shushed in the middle of the movie for vocalizing my awe and excitement.
I highly recommend seeing this movie. It is rated R because of the graphic battle scenes and occasional nudity. The gore is not gross, though. It is very beautifully done. In fact, the entire movie is beautifully done. Every scene is picture-perfect. Nay, painting-perfect. It is the best movie I have seen thus far in 2007. Granted, I have been too busy to do much movie watching, but I expect that it is the best movie that I’ll see this year.
Since Brian drug me to do his thing, I drug him to do my thing. So we went to Cocoa Dolce after our movie. Cocoa Dolce is this new (they’ve only been around for 15 months) gourmet chocolate shop on 37th and Rock. Master chocolatier and proprietor Beth Tully likes to call her shop a chocolate lounge because it’s like a cozy little coffee shop offering chocolate beverages and gelattos besides the vast offering of delectable chocolate confections.
We’d driven by the store many times going to Dillon’s and QuikTrip and other places in the area but we’d never really considered going in until after we saw Ms. Tully speak at WSU on Thursday. She is a very articulate, impressive, amazing woman. I suspect she could sell a refrigerator to an eskimo. Our curiosity was piqued and so we went.
At $52 per pound, she was quite accurate when she described her demographic. In decribing her niche target market, she described her product as a luxury item. Most of us don’t really think of chocolates in that way but she is absolutely right. Gourmet chocolates such as these probably wouldn’t appeal to the average person who is satisfied by your run of the mill grocery store candy. Although, for those with enough discretionary income to indulge, the delicious morsels are an indulgence worth every penny.
Brian and I don’t see ourselves going back every week, after all we are pretty pragmatic and frugal these days. However, we agreed that we could afford to splurge just this once. Or maybe a few more times in the coming weeks. We have already talked about returning to try some of the gelatto. One patron described it as putting even Coldstone Creamery (our favorite ice cream shop) ice cream to shame.
Oh, their sugar free chocolate selections are also worth mentioning because they don’t taste sugar free at all. You can buy some of their stuff through the Cocoa Dolce online store. I promise that you will not be disappointed. Brian and I give Cocoa Dolce our seal of approval.
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Chicken Poop, Chocolate Goop, Hair Gels and Can’t Sells.
Posted on March 9, 2007 by Brian under Life, School.
Last night my wife took me to a speaker panel for 4 of the most prominent entrepreneur’s in the city of Wichita. One was Craig Allen of “Craig Allen Salon’s” the other was the owner of “Coco Dulce” a chocolate boutique, the third was the Sister of the owner/creator of “Chicken Poop” lip balm and the last was a poor guy trying to get an over worked idea to work for him. Over all the speakers were very good and the information was interesting for those that were there to learn how to start your own business. I think most of the people that were there were only there to fulfill a class credit or something.
This poor guy that had the web idea (a social place like MySpace but for sports) was one of the people that i feel will not make it as far as getting his business off the ground. The whole MySpace thing is a done deal. It was nice when it was new and at the moment there are so many social sites available that one more is just a drop in the bucket. I felt for this guy because he says he works a full time job, comes home to his kids and then programs till 2 in the morning. I told my wife that he just needs to come up with something more origional. The “Craig Allen” guy is another that I think wont last past 5 years. This is a novel concept, a salon geared solely towards men, but its a changing world. Guys are no longer moving towards $55.00 haircuts, reguardless of the environment. He stated that he is looking to expand his business in other states. I told my wife, “He may be able to get this idea to last in like California, Dallas, New York or maybe even Florida. However, here in Wichita its not going to last, the people here are just to frugal. They will try a concept for a while but when the novelty wears off the business eventually fizzles out and dies”. I think the people that will be in business for a long time are the Chicken Poop people and the Chocolate person. These are 2 concepts that we dont currently have in Wichita. Chicken Poop has gone nationwide thanks to Walgreens and is running neck in neck with Burt’s Bees, another natural’s creator. I told my wife that this is an idea that will be around for a while. Create a product out of natural ingreadents, give it a catchy name and package it to appeal to the customers eye. They have done all of this and its paid off for them in major ways. The chocolate place it great because they are appealing to not only the upper middle class house wife, but the corperate person that is looking for that “Something Special” for there end customers, bosses, CEO’s or whatever that they are wanting. This is a great concept that will be around for a while.
All-in-all this was a great speech sessions and i was glad that my wife drug me too it. Originally i did not want to go but i broke down (i can never tell my wife no, i may put up a good fight but in the end…i love her to much to deny her anything) and finally went. I took away some good knowledge if i wanted to start my own business and I think in the future if I do want to start my own business, i know who in town to turn to for advise.
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Blogging for Dollars
Posted on March 8, 2007 by Ching under Web.
So I’m still waiting for my first check from AdBrite.. How exciting! For the first time in years (and I must say years because I have been doing this online thing for over a decade now) my web site is actually generating some revenue. Cool, huh?
There are actually several ways to make money using your web site. You can sell goods or services. Basically you just follow the web catalog revenue model. Almost every web site that you buy merchandise from online falls under this category.
Then there’s the digital content revenue model. Examples of firms using this model are Lexis.com and ProQuest.
Then there are the web sites riddled with ads (like this one; heh heh). This is what you call the advertising-supported revenue model.
Then there are web portals like AOL and Yahoo! and there’s the subscription model or sometimes also implemented as an advertising-subscription mixed revenue model.
Then there’s the fee-for-transaction and fee-for-service revenue models. There are many other revenue models and firms often transition from one model to another if revenues aren’t sustained or sometimes the transitions are driven by their growth strategies.
For blogs the prevalent revenue model is the advertising-supported. There are people who do the pay-per-post thing which I have never really succeeded at—I tried it a couple of times but my blog entries never could make the cut. So I just gave up.
I pretty much have stuck to advertising. So I put ads all over the page hoping that some kind, generous soul will click on them and help me make some money.
I use several. Among them, LinkShare is the best. They usually only send me a couple of bucks now and then. However, the last check they sent was for $37. It came as a pleasant surprise to both Brian and I. It is the biggest one I have received so far.
AdBrite isn’t too bad. But I’m still waiting to get paid. =P
Google’s AdSense is great because it is the most customizable—but it is taking me a while to earn my first check. 🙁 Hopefully, I’ll reach the $100 mark soon so they can finally send me my very first payment.
Amazon Associates is okay, but it doesn’t seem like I’ll ever get a check from them. I’m hardly earning anything. You guys need to click on my Amazon ads and maybe buy some stuff from my store. =P
I can’t complain overall. I never thought of this web site as a means for generating revenue. I dreamt that someday it would, but I didn’t really think it would happen. I’m really pleased that I’m making a little bit of money out of it. So far the site is well on its way to paying for itself, which is very, very nice. Hopefully, I won’t jinx myself by blogging this. 😉 Remember to click on these ads!
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Bonefish Grill Rocks
Posted on March 5, 2007 by Ching under Flickr, Food and Drink.
Brian and I finally got a chance to redeem the $45 gift certificate we received from Bonefish nearly a month ago. I love Mondays because it’s my pretty much my free night these days. Free night meaning no school, no poker, no nothing. Only Heroes, one of our favorite shows. So we can pretty much go out to dinner and have a nice evening.
Anyway, I decided to try their sangria this time. I didn’t get a chance to try it last time because we didn’t want to get carried away. However, since our meal was pretty much free I thought I would get a drink so we’d have some sort of check to pay (alcoholic beverages were excluded from our certificate/coupon thing).
The one thing I noticed about their sangria was that it was more wine-y than fruity. I typically prefer fruity-tasting sangria since I’m not much of a wine fan. After a couple of gulps, however, the sangria started tasting pretty good. It wasn’t the best sangria I’ve ever had, but it’s possibly one of the strongest. By the middle of our meal I was feeling pretty good (and borderline obnoxious). Brian actually wanted to go walk around Best Buy after dinner, but we canceled that idea after my sangria. LOL. I really can’t drink anymore.
This time we had the Bang Bang Shrimp, Imperial Mahi Mahi (one of the specials), Sirloin and Creme Brulee. I skipped the best corn chower ever because the last time I had it, I got too full to eat my meal. If you go to Bonefish, however, I highly recomend it. Because it is simply the best corn chowder ever. It has big hunks of crab meat in it.
The Bang Bang Shrimp did not disappoint, though. Lance recommend it because he and Lisa had it the last time they were there and he said it was spectacular. Naturally, we had to try it. He was absolutely right. The Bang Bang Shrimp was delicious. Brian even loved it. He said it’s the best shrimp he’s had. His salad and our bread came shortly so we didn’t get a chance to finish the shrimp, but I had a few more of course. It was really good stuff.
My mahi mahi was good, but I didn’t get a chance to eat much of it as I got full from the shrimp. This always seems to happen. Anyway, Brian said that his sirloin was outstanding. He said it was still juicy despite being well-done. It was possibly the best sirloin he’s ever had. Although, his angel hair marinara (the side item he chose) was not very good. It was watery and didn’t have enough marinara sauce, I thought. Then again, pasta really isn’t their specialty. But then, they ought to try to make everything good so I would suggest improving this dish. (more…)
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