I’m not good at judging crowd size. Today, San Antonio held their Tea Party rally at the Alamo. It was crowded, but not as crowded as a Fiesta Event. I’d guess 10 thousand people were there. Funny, even after the event, local coverage hasn’t given an official number.

I went because, I wanted to see what was happening at the Alamo. There was a largely pro-American, patriotic and “don’t tax me without representation” crowd.  Everyone was as friendly as if they were at a family reunion.

For some reason, our legislators are bound and determined to reward failure (i.e. bailout money for crooks, liars and bad decision making), but the Tea Party events, held around the country are a sign of solidarity, against such idiocy. Choosing April 15th (Tax Day) wasn’t a bad idea either.

The events I stayed for were (in order of appearance): Glenn Beck, Live Music, Pledge of Allegiance, Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, “God Bless America” (sung), Story of the Alamo, Katharine Moreno (an excellent immigrant story. I hope someone puts it on youtube) and Ted Nugent played the National Anthem.

Contrary to all the rumblings of Acorn being on the prowl, they weren’t there.

The many signs I saw were excellent, to the point and very creative. “Don’t Tread On Me”, “This is Texas, not Tax-us” and so on.

Here are a couple of pictures and a video to boot.

Alamo Plaza Closed Down for the Day

Texas flag on top of high building
Multiple American flags on Stage
Alamo in the Background

Short but powerful, uniquely Texan- Youtube Video (here)

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Yep, my grandfather is one cool dude. Got his whole team off Makin Island during WWII using 2 D batteries in a flashlight, by climing up a coconut tree and using morse code to signal the submarines. Then, to top it all off, he got to send the first message across a military network from Japan.

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I’ve had a link on my other site to the “Kerry Beary” store for about a year now. I was just checking my links to her store today and realized there was some new material there.

If you’ve ever wanted to own something cool and original, you might be interested in getting one of these signed, and limited edition pieces of art. There are small pieces and large pieces. I especially like the space cat since my sister goes by “Kat” and sometimes has her head in the clouds.

I am including a few small clips of art here, but if you go to her store, you will need to scroll down a little to get to the picture gallery once you land on the page.

Did I mention “They’re signed”? Yes of course. One day you might be able to claim that you have an original “Kerry Beary” hanging on your wall worth millions.

Kerry Beary

Kerry Beary

Kerry Beary – Visit Store (here)

The prices are very reasonable. BTW, I do believe I just picked up the last penguin painting (shown above). My son loves penguins.

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Motorola Musical Instrument. Not sure why they call it that. I don’t see that mentioned in ad copy, other than the headline. Maybe someone knows?

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Finally, an online music service that I thoroughly enjoy. I don’t like installing software (iTunes, Rapsody etc…) to obtain or keep my music.  I want my music to come to me through flash streams and non-installed (embeddable) widgets.

If you have followed this blog for any stretch of time, you will notice that I have NEVER embedded a widget into my posts. If it is a youtube video that I reference, I always link to the content and do not embed it. Same goes for Flickr pictures. There is a partial reason for that. My work BLOCKS those sites and when viewing my blog from work, there is a big error or blank screen where the content should go.

Tonight, I am breaking that trend (as a test) I am going to explain the benefits of “Lala.com”. My first impression? = WOW.

Download an entire album for 0.10 cents per song. So an album with 14 songs on it costs a grand total of $1.40. Every song in their collection can be listented to 1x online before you have to “buy” the song for a dime. Every song purchased for a dime can be listened to online 1,000,000 times and you never have to pay another cent.

Do you want the song to be transferred to your iPod? This means actually downloading the physical MP3, you have to pay 0.89 cents. But the point is, if you have computer access, you can listen to your entire online library for free, forever.

Lala doesn’t require a credit card, just an email address for your first 50 songs. After that, once you are hooked on the service, you can grab your CC and snag some MP3s to burn or put on your portable Mp3 player.

What is also nice is their seemingly endless supply of content. My most obscure favorites can all be found on lala.

Take a test drive and see what you think. I like it.

Now for the embedded content (if it doesn’t work, be patient, I am working on the embedding process)

Does this work for you? It does for me and it is all FREE

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Today while riding in my friend’s car, we were using his newly installed Garmin navigation system. Once the novelty wore off, I started commenting about how (if it was “my” navigation system – no I wasn’t jealous, I was just observing) I would pick a more robotic voice. Apparently, just I want a computer interface to “sound” like a computer interface.

I got into the discussion of the “Uncanny Valley” effect. I am not sure if this is a perfect example of it, but since I like “vocoders” and other “walkie-talkie” effects in regular music, hearing a crystal clear voice of a woman telling us where to turn was pulling me into the “uncanny valley”. I want my car to talk like a cylon, not a human.

People often cite the movie “Polar Express” of bringing them to the uncanny valley. Well, since you are reading this, if you don’t know… here is the description from wikipedia

as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels

Complete Article on the “Uncanny Valley” effect – Wikipedia (here)

The graph above is chopped off, but as the interface (i.e. computer or robot) approaches a more humanlike interface, the attraction and affection of the observer with it drops off significantly.

This effect is also seen with the use of human-like “artificial limbs” or prosthetics used by amputees. Would you rather see a “robotic” arm on a person with an artificial limb, or one painted to look (and with latex rubber) feel similar to a real arm? At first, the limb seems real, but on 2nd and 3rd glance, you realize you are looking at a fake representation of the real thing. Visually, it gives you the sensation of discovering something “unreal”.

The concept is interesting. Many robots coming out of Japan seem to want to replicate an actual human and when the videos come out on youtube (for example), they sometimes seem — nice word warning ahead [creepy]…. sorry about that.

I want my robots to look like the sci-fi helpers of the 1950’s when they looked like what they were supposed to be. Helpers of humanity, but not replacements for. My unscientific guess is that, in a desperate situation, you would rather shoot at something like this? (see below) Or something that looks or sounds human. Buried deep into our subconscious is something that doesn’t bubble up to our brain with clarity, but only with gut-feeling or intuition. Right now, you have no problem turning off your PC. What if it begged you not to turn it off? Would you still turn it off?

Would you shoot this if it threatened you?

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This website will let you know if your username is being used at other popular sites. It isn’t hard and I suppose if someone used my site name, they could just jump into the “non-taken” sites and use my common screen name there. Oh well… At least all the sites that I use are already registered to me (minus a few which I didn’t create).

Do you use a common screen name for multiple sites? You can use this handy website to check automatically for you. It’s fun and informative. You have to try it to appreciate it’s efficency.

Check your username (here)

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Today has been a programmer’s dream. In order to collect your free Dr. Pepper, you have to divulge your email address, zip code, first name, last name, date of birth etc… Wouldn’t you rather pay the $1.29 and just skip the hassle? Well, I took the time to document the process.

Fine, I’m in the business of UI design, cross site promotion and programming. I decided to play along and see what I could uncover. It isn’t pretty. [disclaimer: If you aren't a developer / programmer, this will mean nothing to you. Continue reading if you wish].

Late last night, I watched the “countdown” page for the new Guns and Roses and discovered this little flaw. By changing the URL from:
Original
http://cache.umusic.com/web_assets/gunsnroses/site/player2.swf
to this altered one (I changed the player2.swf to player1.swf)
http://cache.umusic.com/web_assets/gunsnroses/site/player1.swf

We can deduce this bit of information.
1) Cache.umusic.com is a part of the Geffen company.
2) There is an error screen that appears if you change the *.swf file path.
3) They are using IIS (Microsoft) and have not accounted for an error happening.
4) They are using a control named Sdk:ads (which in this instance could not be found)

That was the Guns and Roses site.

Ok. So how is the Free Dr. Pepper promotion holding out?

Here’s what I can deduce:
1) They have a flash countdown timer (no problem there)
2) The information page forces you to register (shady territory perhaps)
3) Their site is being hit so many times that I get this error.

After many attempts, (this is well into an hour of refreshing and attempting to login. I get this beautiful splash page:

So I have 5 hours to go before the promotion ends….I entered my information and this is what I got. Another error page, this time exposing the path and names of their directories and their programming language.

Hours later I went back to the site and did a little more investigating.
By taking a look at the spash pages source code, I found a similarity between the GnR site and the Dr. Pepper site.

SiteCatalyst code version: H.13. Copyright 1997-2007 Omniture, Inc. More info available at http://www.omniture.com
End SiteCatalyst code version: H.13.

They both used Omniture…. hmmm…. The connection is becoming clearer. By the way, you can visit Omniture for your future web promotion by clicking the link under the picture below.

Visit Omniture for your future web promotion (here)

By visiting their website, you will find them in good company:
Walmart, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Discovery, Blockbuster, Paypal, Sears, Atlantic Records, Puma, Jet Blue, Novell and the New York Times (+ others) apparently use them in some form or another.

So how is my free Dr. Pepper coming along? Not so good. There is a new spash page with the following information posted.

If you are having trouble submitting your information, please contact our consumer relations line at 1-800-696-5891.

I called, (more than once). I have never gotten through. It’s been busy. Oh well. At least I learned something from the process. I just added wp-cache to my wordpress install in case I get hit.

Overall, I see a psychological, but irrational need to obtain something that is “Free”. Standing in line for 5 minutes to get a refill at a theme park is one thing, but stading in line for an hour to get a “free refill” is something else.

Why do we do it? Not sure, but it seems like spending the $1.29 to get a Dr. Pepper at the corner store without giving away your address, zip, age and email address makes a lot more sense to me.

[UPDATE...]

I thought I was through with this post, until I tried to login to the Dr. Pepper site using my password. Since I forgot it, I used the password recovery feature. But Oh no…Not again. Yep. More high dollar useful info.

click picture above for full error.

Have you learned anything yet? I have. Thanks to Dr. Pepper and Guns-n-Roses for making us learn something from the mistakes made here. Let’s hope we make our applications more scalable and bug free in the future. Sometimes you don’t know how something works until it breaks.

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Tonight I had to create a new category for my Wordpress engine called “Just Weird”. Follow me here, because it is an odd story. A long time ago, someone at Dr. Pepper (the company) said they would give everyone in the United States free Dr. Pepper, if Guns and Roses released a new album in 2008.

In a unique marketing strategy, Dr Pepper has reportedly entered a dare of sorts between themselves and Guns N’ Roses front man Axl Rose. They have stated that if Axl Rose manages to release his new album, Chinese Democracy, in 2008, they will give everyone in America a free Dr Pepper except for former Guns N’ Roses guitarists Slash and Buckethead. Chinese Democracy, which has been in the works for seventeen years, has since been dated for November 23, 2008. They will keep up their end of the bargain by offering coupons on their website for 24 hours on the date of release.

Does this make any sense? Why would anyone at Dr. Pepper complain or care if Guns and Roses (who hasn’t made an album in 17 years) be concerned if they released a followup album in 2008? The companies have no connection, one isn’t the parent of the other or anything, nor is snapple a sponsor of the album. It is totally random.

Let’s continue…. Since it looks like Guns and Roses will meet their deadline, Dr. Pepper had to create a site where you can get your free soda (here). However, there is a catch. You have one day (tomorrow i.e Sunday) to download your coupon for a free Dr. Pepper and the coupon expires on Feb 28.

You can go to wikipedia (here) and read about the history of Dr. Pepper and find out that it is the official drink of Texas. Even though I live in Texas, I had no idea Texas had an official drink. You mean it’s not “Beer”? OK….

I also found out that there is a Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, TX.  Just three hours up the road. How is this all connected? I am slowly getting to the point so bear with me.

Guess what? Today is my Mom’s Birthday.

Her maiden name is “Pepper”. That means, my Grandmother’s name was “Pepper” and my Grandfather’s name was “Pepper”.  Now, today (of all days), I find this article about this promotion on my mom’s birthday. Even the picture below says “There’s more to it”.

View 1970’s Dr Pepper Commercial – Youtube (video)

Since my Grandfather died in 1972, he left no more Peppers to carry on his name (that I know of), then in 1976-78, a commerical came out asking everyone if they would like to be a pepper too. All you had to do was drink Dr. Pepper. “Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper Too?” Maybe I am one quarter pepper?

But wait… there’s more, and it gets better! While searching for the video above, I found a different version of the commercial with different lyrics. My paternal grandfather (who is still alive) has been called by a funny name since we could talk. We call him “Popeye” – We don’t know why, but we do, and always have.

So, check out this alternate version of the original commercial and pay close attention to the end when the singers are on the boat.

Alternate Dr. Pepper Commercial – Youtube (video)

But Wait… there’s more… I found this little snippet from a Canadian website referencing the original press release.

“Dr. Pepper supports Axl, and fully understands that sometimes you have to make it through the jungle before you get it right,” says a press release from the Plano, Tex.-based company.

Adds Jaxie Alt, director of marketing for Dr Pepper: “We completely understand and empathize with Axl’s quest for perfection — for something more than the average album. We know once it’s released, people will refer to it as “Dr Pepper for the ears” because it will be such a refreshing blend of rich, bold sounds — an instant classic.  (original article here)”

Did you catch that? Plano, TX is the headquarters for Dr. Pepper.

Guess where my mom has lived for the past 10 years?
Happy Birthday Mom!

With that, I think I will go get an RC Cola.

Why? well, because,

Mr. Claud Hatcher, Founder, Established the “Union Bottling Works” in Columbus, Georgia in the basement of the wholesale grocery business of his family. (see here)

I was born in Columbus, Ga.

Thanks again mom!

—————-
But what’s up with the soft drinks?

+

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Good grief…I’ve known about this for weeks and it keeps popping up everywhere I look. Tonight this story appeared on Digg, so I guess it is important enough to note. Below you will find a picture of some pink lights that appeared over London.

Drudge did not carry it. MSNBC did not carry it. Fox News did not carry it. So, I guess I will have to link to the source and show all the glorious pictures of the pink lights over London. At least you would expect “Art Bell” to post these pictures on his website, but no dice.

Is there a conspiracy? Comments from the article indicate a promotion for a breast cancer awareness campaign. (Yeah right). The fact that these pictures were taken by a person on the ground, with the images over a church could be synchronicity in action (or not). But the official explanation of these lights are the reflection of a standard city night seem dubious at best. Grafitti artists? (more probable)

Anyway, since you won’t see this anywhere else, click the link below to see the full article and more pictures.

Pink Lights over London – Website (here)

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