My Surmise

Top 5 Super Bowl XLIV Commercials

2010-02-08T05:20:00.007+00:00

My Favorite 5 commercials of Super Bowl 44:

1. Snickers - Betty White Plays Football (above)
2. Doritos - Kid Slaps Man
3. E*TRADE - Babies and the Ladies
4. CareerBuilder.com - Casual Fridays
5. Doritos - Tim's Locker

An honorable mention to KGB's Sumo Texting ad. It was very funny and I had trouble eliminating it.

Bud Light really disappointed me this year. For the last two years one of their ads had been my favorite, but this year they didn't even make the top 5.

I thought it was very interesting that Google placed an ad in this years super bowl. Not the funniest ad, but I though it was interesting and effective.

Something was definitely missing with Pepsi's decision to not run any ads and instead focus on their social media campaign. Hope they choose to advertise next year.

Had a wtf? moment when I saw the Sketchers Shape-Ups ad, which even aired twice. Those things look absolutely ridiculous! I also question how effective those can really be at getting you into shape.

Overall a good year for super bowl commercials, I had some trouble limiting my list down to just 5.

Create a Custom Voice on the Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS

2010-01-24T15:38:00.012+00:00

Garmin recently released Garmin Voice Studio, which allows you to record your own voice on your GPS. The problem is it is not compatible with my Nuvi 350. Fortunately, there is a free alternative, but unfortunately it is a lot more complicated and time consuming than Garmin's Voice Studio. Be warned, you will have to record about 110 sound clips. This took me over an hour. Also of note, this will only work with non-text to speech voices, so if you want to hear your own voice you will have to forgo hearing street names read to you. This guide assumes you are using a PC.

Plug your Nuvi 350 into your computer using a mini-usb cable. The drivers should be automatically installed. Once the drivers are successfully installed, your GPS will be mounted as a hard drive. Go to My Computer and open "Garmin nuvi." Navigate to {Drive}\Garmin\Voice folder. Copy the file, English_American_.vpm to any location on your computer. I suggest copying this file twice and keeping a second, unaltered copy somewhere safe.

Download the NonTTSVoiceEditor. Unzip the downloaded folder and open NonTTSVoiceEditor v1.40.exe. Select "Split the VPM file into WAV files and click next. Locate the VPM file you just downloaded to your computer. About 110 numbered wav files will be created in a subfolder of where the vpm file was stored.

Here's the tedious part. Download Audacity, an open source sound editor. One at a time, open each wav file in Audacity to determine what word or phrase corresponds to that file. Close the original file and record yourself repeating the word/phrase. Save the file to a new folder keeping the same file name. Some of these files will be non-voice sound effects, make sure you copy these files to the new folder as well.

When all sound clips are recorded. Fire up NonTTSVoiceEditor and select "Merege the WAV files into a VPM file." Decide whether you want to compress the audio files or not and then select the 000 numbered file of your recorded clips. A new vpm file will be created in the folder on your wav files. Rename this file English_American_.vpm and copy it to {Drive}\Garmin\Voice, replacing the original file.

To use this voice, on your Garmin unit, navigate to settings, locale and select the box next to the lips. Select American English not American English-Jack (TTS) or American English-Jill (TTS) and click OK.

That should be all.

Did this work for you? Please let me know in the comments if this guide helped you out!

I Hate Geico!

2009-04-02T18:55:00.022+00:00

On March 1st, a member of my family (who is a college student) was struck from behind by another driver. The other driver did not find it necessary to stop and just changed lanes and continued on their way. After stopping and calling the police, it was found that there was no damage to the car and no injuries. A police report was filed as a precaution, in case anyone became hurt or if damage to the car became evident later on. We also notified Geico, although we were not making any claim.

One month later on March 31st, we received a letter from Geico explaining that "as per our request" the vehicle involved in this accident was being moved to a new policy and the person driving when the accident occurred was being designated as the primary driver of this vehicle. Furthermore, the policy explains (incorrectly) that this vehicle is garaged out of state where the driver attends college. We did not contact Geico to make any such request and their changes to the primary driver and the location of the vehicle are both incorrect.

This change increases our premium by $2,600 per year!

As soon as I received this letter, I called Geico to try to understand what was going on. They insisted that someone called them on 3/28 and changed the policy. After a few minutes they determined that one of their adjusters made this change.

After speaking with the adjuster she told us that Geico is assuming that we are lying about the location of the vehicle and the primary driver. They were making this change for us. Our only option to appeal is to complete a survey that they will be sending us. We haven't received this yet, but I will be sure to post an update when we do.

What terrible customer service! Nothing like their commercial about a rear end collision. When we received this new policy, there should have been a letter explaining why this change was being made, not falsely claiming that this was done per our request.

I'm now looking for insurance elsewhere.

Gecko image © GEICO

Top 5 Super Bowl XLIII Commercials

2009-02-02T03:13:00.008+00:00

My favorite 5 commercials of Super Bowl 43:
1. Bud Light - Budget Cuts (above)
2. Cash4Gold.com - Feat. Ed McMahon and MC Hammer
3. Careerbuilder.com - It May be Time
4. Coca-Cola - Brand Managers
5. Doritos - Crystal Ball

I really liked the commercials this year.

A Bud Light commercial topped my list for the second year in a row and as one of the first ads, it started the game off with a good laugh.

I was pleasantly surprised with the Cash4Gold commercial. I first read about it on The Consumerist and expected it to be a total train reck. It was actually very funny. Though, I wouldn't recommend sending them your gold.

I was really surprised to see some companies advertising this year. I did not expect to see ads from Hulu and Teleflora. I found their participation very interesting.

I was slightly impressed with the 3D ads. They were pretty cool, but nothing epic.

I should also mention that the game was excellent as well.

The Subway $5 Footlong Deal is a Rip Off

2008-04-09T00:41:00.006+00:00

Watch out when buying a Subway sub under the $5 footlong deal. The regular prices on most subs (at least in my local store) are no more than $5.50. $5.50 minus the $1 off coupons, which I almost always receive in the mail, equals a price better than this heavily promoted "deal." Buyer beware.

Photo by Flickr user jetalone

Top Super Bowl XLII Commercials

2008-02-10T00:52:00.003+00:00

As I have complained in the past, this years commercials were a disappointment. But, without further ado, my top 5:

1. Bud Light: Ability to Fly (above)
2. Dorits: Mouse Trap
3. Tide to Go: Interview
4. FedEx: Carrier Pigeons
5. Toyota: More Refined

Now for the complaints:
* Way too many "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" commercials.
* GoDaddy.com needs to find a new theme.
* Too many movie ads.

Bad Parking Job

2007-08-15T21:02:00.002+00:00

This guy's handicap is obviously blindness...

Yet Another New Google Search Results Layout

2007-06-11T02:04:00.002+00:00

Once again, Google has rolled out a new layout across all searches (pictured above).

The newest layout is actually a step backwards. Three weeks ago, Google revised its classic search layout by moving navigational links from above the search bar to the top left corner and by replacing the blue bar between the search bar and the results with a silver bar.

This new layout keeps the navigational links in the top left corner but removes the silver bar and reverts back to the classic blue bar.

I guess Google got a lot of negative feedback.

Image © Google. All rights reserved.

New Google Search Results Layout

2007-05-16T21:44:00.002+00:00

Over the past few weeks, Google has been relentlessly testing various new layouts for their search results. It began to appear that every new search brought a different layout. Well, finally, Google has rolled out a new uniform layout for all searches. I think this layout was an excellent choice. Its clean and web 2.0 like. Google gets my approval on this one.

[Via Google Operating System]

Why won't Google Desktop support OpenOffice.org?

2007-04-24T00:52:00.000+00:00

When I first started using Google Desktop I was still using Microsoft Word. My favorite feature of GD was its ability to search inside my DOCs. However, somewhere down the road I switched to OpenOffice.org and was disappointed to find that Google Desktop does not have native support for ODTs. I installed Larry's OpenOffice and StarOffice Indexer, but its behavior is less than desirable. Larry's plugin only works on the original system index and does not allow Google Desktop to index newly created ODT files, or at least thats how it behave for me. A few weeks ago I went to suggest ODT support on GD's suggestion page and gladly found this as a predefined feature to vote for. When I saw that Google released a new version of GD today, I thought for sure I would be able to use GD to its fullest extent once again. But I was disappointed. Native ODT support has still not been implemented. As a matter a fact, I am pretty surprised by this delay. Google is usually quick to support open source projects. For example Firefox was always natively supported by GD and Google Docs currently supports importing and exporting ODTs. I guess I will just have to wait for the next version :(.

AutoAdjust and AdjustTunes -- Automatic Volume Leveling

2007-03-18T22:02:00.000+00:00

I recently followed Lifehacker's guide to leveling the volume of my MP3 collection. After running all of my files through MP3Gain, I realized that this process will be a real hassle to complete every time I want to add a new MP3 to my library. To solve this problem I developed AutoAdjust, which automates the process of leveling an MP3's volume. I also developed AdjustTunes, which levels an MP3's volume and then adds it to iTunes. In order to run AutoAdjust you must have MP3Gain (free) installed in its default locations. For AdjustTunes, you only will also need iTunes (free) installed in its default location. To use this program, you simply drag and drop an MP3 (one at a time) over AdjustTunes.exe/AutoAdjust.exe and your MP3's volume will automatically be leveled (and then added to iTunes if using AdjustTunes). During certain processes, user input through the mouse and keyboard is blocked. If at any point this program stalls and you would like to regain control, simply press ctrl+alt+delete and you will again be able to control the mouse/keyboard. Both program are released under the terms of the GNU GPL license. The source files are included in the downloads below. Download AutoAdjust (Volume leveling only) Download AdjustTunes (Volume leveling and addition of file to iTunes) Please post any problems in the comments and I will upload a fix as soon as possible. Photo by Flickr user gak. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

Caution: Hula Hooping Pedestrians Ahead

2007-03-04T02:33:00.000+00:00

I spotted this while driving through a parking lot and I just had to stop for a picture. Sadly though, this isn't actually a sign for hula hooping pedestrians; the "hula hoop" is a sticker. Update: Apparently this is sign is not the only of its kind. I found a whole flickr pool devoted to these signs. I tried to look into these stickers a bit more and I found that they used to be given away at "The String Cheese Incident" concerts. Interestingly though, I cannot seem to find a place to buy these stickers nor can I find very in depth info about them. Update 2: Aha! I found them on eBay

Top 5 Super Bowl XLI Commercials

2007-02-05T19:51:00.000+00:00

I didn't really get into the game last night, but I thought the commercials were pretty good or at least better than last year's. Behold, my favorite 5: 1. FedEx: Don't Judge (above) 2. Bud Light: Slapping 3. Bud Light: Hitchhiker 4. Nationwide: K-Fed Rollin' VIP 5. Bud Light: Rock Paper Scissors I want to make an honorable mention to Jack in the Box: Just Like Dad. I came across it on iFilm but since I didn't see it on TV, I didn't feel it qualified for the list, however had it aired in my neck of the woods, it would certainly have made the cut. I noticed that FedEx and Bud Light both made the list again, but I was a bit disapointed that there were no Ameriquest ads, as their ads last year were great. Now for my complaints: I was again surprised that some companies chose not to air new commercials. At $2.6 million per 30 second spot, you really need to produce something new and funny. I was further surprised by the number of Movie previews shown. How could this possible be worth it for a movie? I can understand this cost being worth it for a company, as they are around all year long and their ad will potentially have an continual effect on you. But I cannot understand how this can be cost effective for a movie which is only in theaters for a month or so. Lastly, there were way too many CBS commercials and at that they certainly weren't super bowl worthy. These ads surely did not persuade me to watch their shows. But don't get me wrong, the commercials this year were good stuff. I actually had trouble eliminating commercials from this list. I recall last year's list being a breeze to compile.

Skull Shirt No Longer on Wal-Mart's Shelves (kind of)

2007-02-03T19:30:00.000+00:00

As of 2/2/07, almost 12 weeks after Wal-Mart vowed to remove these shirts from their shelves, they are no longer present. However I suspect that this is by the action of customers rather than the action of Wal-Mart's employees. The display for this shirt is still present, although there are no shirts under it. This leads me to believe that these shirts were gradually removed by customers who attempted to purchase them, but could not. I would think that if an employee took the time to take the shirts away, they would have also taken away the display. Who knows, perhaps Wal-Mart will actually restock this display.

Kmart Actually Removes Offensive T-Shirt

2007-01-27T19:44:00.000+00:00

Back in December, a group of activists began protesting Kmart's sale of a shirt (pictured above) that they felt promoted domestic violence. Initially, Kmart stated that, "We respect the opinions of our customers, however, we believe these attitude Ts are meant to be light-hearted in nature." Roughly translated: We're not taking it down, get a life. On January 22, Kmart changed their minds, releasing a statement that "We've heard and respect the opinions of our customers and the item is no longer available at Kmart. And we have no plans to reorder it." After hearing that they promised to remove the shirt, I was all too much reminded of the Wal-Mart skull t-shirt fiasco, where they promised to remove an offensive t-shirt but failed to do so for well over a month. I took a trip to Kmart to verify that they have removed the shirt and to my surprise they had! Props to Kmart for taking a lesson from Wal-Mart's mistake. T-shirt image © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers and therefore not released under a creative commons license.

TiVo's Fast Forward Ads Are Back

2007-01-15T03:52:00.006+00:00

While not quite as bad as their original design, the fast forward ads are back. I was fast forwarding through the commercials of tonights episode of 24 and I noticed a still image applied over one of the commercials. This ad (pictured above) was for the "all-new BMW X5" and the ad only appeared while I fast forwarded through a commercial for the same car. When this commercial ended, the image disappeared, If I pressed play the still image also disappeared, but it gets worse. When I played the commercial at regular speed, there was a flashing green thumbs up with the message "for more..." (pictured below). It is indicating that you can press the thumbs up key for more information (another, longer commercial, FUN!). Something similar used to be done for commercials of TV programs. During their ads you were prompted to press the thumbs up key to record that episode. That was a useful and welcome feature, this is an obtrusion. Granted, I prefer the new fast forward ads to the old, as they only appear briefly and only during an ad for the corresponding product. The old version was far worse, as it was displayed through the entire commercial break. Still I question if I would have spent $300 on this device, had I know that I would be bombarded with these and other annoying ads. Where does it end?

New Annoying TiVo Ads

2007-01-07T02:04:00.000+00:00

When I finished watching this weeks episode of Scrubs, I was prompted by a rather annoying TiVo message. "Are you done with this program?" But this was not the regular TiVo deletion prompt. I am usually given two options, "Delete now" or "Keep this recording", this time I was given a third, "Get your BK Xbox games today!" followed by the Burger King logo. The regular TiVo ads do not bother me. These usually consist of a small message at the bottom of my "TiVo Central". This is because they small and unobtrusive. These new ads are rather large and annoying. Although not quite as intrusive, it reminds me very much of TiVo's attempted fast forward ads back in 2005. I would like to point out that I currently own a combo TiVo/DVD player which provides me with free "TiVo Basic" service. So it is possible that these ads are only being shown on the free service. If I were forking over $20 per month to TiVo, I would certainly be far more angry, but none the less, I am not happy. Picture and text released under a CC BY-NC License Update: An anonymous commenter confirms that these ads are being served for paying users as well.

Nazi Skull Shirt Still at Wal-Mart

2007-01-06T19:17:00.000+00:00

With my last post I promised to end my coverage of the Nazi skull shirt on sale at Wal-Mart, well I lied. I visited Wal-Mart on 1/3/07 and found two of these shirts on the shelves. Although you cannot buy them, Wal-Mart promised to remove them from the shelves 56 days ago. At this point, I have run out of any insightful or interesting comments to this fiasco.

Thank you Wal-Mart!

2006-12-06T23:29:00.000+00:00

Today I confirmed Consumerist's report that although Wal-Mart may still have the SS Nazi skull t-shirts on their shelves, you will not be able to purchase them. I picked up a shirt from the rack and did a few tests. First I scanned it on a price check machine. I received a white screen which read "Please see an associate for help". I then handed the shirt to a cashier, she scanned it and the small led screen read "SELL NOT ALLOWED" (pictured below). The cashier quickly told me "Sorry I cannot sell you this shirt" I asked why not and she replied that it was recalled. I feel kind of stupid that I did not try purchasing the shirt before. It would make sense that the corporate office blocked the sale of this shirt. It looks like we will never know how quickly Wal-Mart took this action, which is a shame. I give credit to Wal-Mart for placing it on block, they go back up a couple of points in my book, although there is still no excuse for the shirts to still be on display. With this good news I will finally be ending my seemingly endless coverage of this shirt. Its a good think because I was getting a bit tired of going into Wal-Mart. Picture and text released under a CC BY-NC License

Called Wal-Mart Corporate Today

2006-12-04T21:40:00.000+00:00

I just got off the phone with a customer relations representative at Wal-Mart corporate (800-925-6278) in order to discuss their Skull t-shirt. I was a bit surprised that this representative did not have any knowledge of this issue. She needed me to describe the shirt a number of times and asked me what the image symbolized. She said that she would send this to "higher management" but I can't imagine this call will have accomplished anything.

Nazi Skull Shirt Still On Shelves, 11/30

2006-11-30T22:57:00.000+00:00

Nineteen days after Wal-Mart's PR firm promised to remove this shirt from the shelves and six days after my phone call with a Wal-Mart apparel department manager, who also promised to remove the shirt, the Nazi SS Skull shirt REMAINS ON WAL-MART'S SHELVES!!! On a visit to my local store today (11/30), the shirt was still on display and in good supply. I counted 5 shirts, which seemed to be their average supply as most of the other shirts had no more than 5 on the rack. I will continue to follow this story until the shirt is finally removed. Perhaps a call is due to Wal-Mart's corporate office... Picture from today (released under a CC BY-NC License): Past Posts: Wal-Mart is STILL Selling Nazi SS Skull T-Shirts Wed. 11/22, Nazi Skull Shirt Still On Sale

Best Buy Spells iPod, "I-pod"

2006-11-25T03:23:00.000+00:00

This photo was taken at my local Best Buy on Black Friday. Being an electronics store, they really should know how to correctly spell iPod. Tisk Tisk. The photo in this post is hereby released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

Wed. 11/22, Nazi Skull Shirt Still On Sale

2006-11-23T03:58:00.001+00:00

After my visit on Saturday, I called Wal-Mart and spoke with a manager about the shirt. She assured me that she would immediately look into this issue. Well, I payed Wal-Mart a visit today (11/22) and the shirt is still there, with a decent supply. I plan to call tomorrow and inquire again about why the shirt remains on the shelf. I apologize for not providing the location of this store, but I am withholding this information in order to retain my anonymity. Bellow are some more pictures of the shirt which I took today. I took one picture of the shirt with today's New York Times in an effort to prove it was taken today. The two photos in this post are hereby released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

Wal-Mart is STILL Selling Nazi SS Skull T-Shirts

2006-11-18T22:16:00.000+00:00

Update below photos Today (11/18) I visited my local Wal-Mart in search of some new jeans. While I was there I figured that I would check to see if Wal-Mart has yet to remove the Nazi SS Skull t-shirts, which they promised to remove from their shelves one week ago (11/11). Well, as I expected, the shirt was still proudly displayed. The apology letter from Wal-Mart stated: "...Wal-Mart is now removing the t-shirts from its stores. Obviously, with a company as big as Wal-Mart, that may take a day or two." I think were beyond the day or to time period at this point. Wal-Mart has no excuse to still be selling these shirts. My photos of the shirt below: Update: According to Consumerist.com , my local Wal-Mart is not alone in still having these shirts out. Ben Popken reports that he has yet to heard of any store that has removed the shirts, however some of the commenters reported that stores near them have removed the t-shirts. This is truly appalling. It is bad enough that the shirt was put on the racks in the first place, but its a whole lot worse that Wal-Mart did not follow through on their promise to have the shirts removed. Wal-Mart takes a big step down in my book. Update 2: T-Shirt still on sale as of 11/22

Horribly Translated Instructions

2006-11-04T02:39:00.000+00:00

Today I purchased a flexible keyboard for my computer. Although I have no complaints about the keyboard itself, the manufacturer needs to take more care in writing its instructions. "It cannot be contacted the sharp object" and my personal favorite: "...the keyboard has no poisonous and evil smell..." Below is an image of the instructions: