YoGabbaGabbaOutfits.com is a new website that offers Yo Gabba Gabba clothing for kids and adults, toys, costumes, party supplies, backpacks, books and a whole lot more. If you or your kids are fans of Muno, Foofa, Toodee, Brobee, Plex and DJ Lance Rock, you’re sure to enjoy browsing their selection of Yo Gabba Gabba products.

Flutophone.com is a new website that offers everything imaginable related to flutophones. They have flutophones by Trophy, Grover-Trophy, Hohner and First Note. Because of they are relatively easy to play, flutophones are a great first instrument for kids to learn. They are perfect for playing at school, home or in a band. In addition to the flutophones themselves, Flutophone.com offers flutophone bags and flutophone method books.

Are you in the market to buy a tuba, harp or viola? Well, you’re in luck! Three new niche musical instrument websites have opened up to help you make your purchase. For Tuba players, TubaForSale.com has a wide selection of tubas from Miraphone, Vento, Meinl Weston, Wurzbach, Jinyin, Jupiter, Barrington, and Dynasty. For Harp pluckers, HarpForSale.com offers all kinds of harps including baby, heather, lap, melody, door, lily, pixie, lyre, parisian, reverie, caitlin and more from top brands including Harpsicle, Mid-East Manufacturing, Rees and Roosebeck. For Viola players, BuyViola.com has a huge selection of violas from Becker, Cecilio, Cremona, D’Luca, Franz Hoffman, Klaus Mueller, Knilling, Merano, Molinari and Star. TubaForSale.com, HarpForSale.com, and BuyViola.com also offer a wide selection of accessories to complement your instrument purchase.

I wrote a blog post on GriderMarketing.com about how bad the Fiat commercial featuring JLO is from a marketing perspective. If you haven’t seen the commericial, here it is:

Check out my post entitled From a marketing perspective, how bad is Fiat’s commercial with Jennifer Lopez (JLO)?

Here’s a little story about how we saved $30/month on our cell phone plan and get more featues too…

My wife and I had been with with Verizon for a number of years and have been relatively happy with them. We were paying $110/month for 700 shared minutes which was enough considering we did most of our calling didn’t cost us minutes (either to friends & family also on Verizon or on nights & weekends). The $110/month included the $30/month blackberry data plan. My wife didn’t have a data plan. When our 2-year contract was up, I really wanted to switch from the Blackberry phone which I wasn’t too happy with anymore. I wanted to get an Iphone, but wasn’t too happy that I’d have to fork over $200 or more to get one. For some reason, I really thought that they should give me one for a lot cheaper than that considering I was willing to sign up with them for another 2 years. Unfortunately, Verizon was not willing to give us any deals.

That’s when I decided to start looking at other options. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. were all priced about the same as Verizon. Just as I was about to give up hope, I discovered Virgin Mobile. All their plans are individual (no family plans), but they are awesome deals! I can get 1200 minutes (more than enough for just myself) plus unlimited text and data for only $40/month. My wife got the same deal and we are now only paying $80/month. That is a savings of $30/month ($360/year) and we get more minutes, more text, my wife now has an unlimited data plan, and we are not locked into a 2-year contract. A comparable plan with Verizon would be at least $150/month for 2 data plans, unlimited text and 2400 minutes. The cellular service is also great since Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint network which means they have the same coverage as you’d get if you have a Sprint phone.

The phones are not quite as good as you could get with a traditional carrier, but are certainly sufficient for at least 90% of people out there. We both ended up getting the LG Optimus V Android phone which is a great phone. Regular price of the phone is $199, but we got ours for $135 each.

As I was driving the other day a obscure song called “New York City” by The Jesus & Mary Chain started playing. The song is off their album called Hate Rock & Roll.

It made me start to think about all the great songs either about a city or with a city as the title of the song. Perhaps the most well known song about a city is “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra. My personal favorite is a song also called “New York, New York” by Ryan Adams off the Gold album.

What is your favorite song about a city?

How do I love thee Medialink Wireless-N Broadband Router? Let me count the ways…

It’s been a while since I got rid of my old and pathetic D-link DIR-625 router and replaced it with the Medialink Wireless N Router

As you may recall, i was having a lot of issues with the D-link router. It was kicking me offline at least once a day and I would have to unplug various cables and reboot the router in order to get my internet connection working again. Back in April, I bought the Medialink Wireless N Router from Amazon.com. It was super easy to setup and get working and it has not stopped working since. I’m happy to report that I have not had to reboot it or mess with any wires one time since I initially set it up. In the words of Tony the Tiger, it’s “Grrrrreeeeeaaaaatttttt!”

I hereby proclaim the Medialink Wireless N Router to be one of Andy’s Favorite Things of 2011.

Folgers coffee is famous for their slogan “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup”. Really? Folgers? That’s the best you can do? Not to say that there is anything wrong with Folgers… it’s just that there are obviously better coffees out there.

We recently bought a Keurig single-cup coffee maker and are loving it! The main reason why we love our Keurig so much is the convenience. It’s really easy for my wife and I to each make the type of coffee that we enjoy drinking. My wife can brew her own cup of flavored coffee (ick!) that she likes and and I can brew my own cup of a bold non-flavored coffee that I prefer. Plus, if we ever feel like coffee in the evening, we can pop in a Decaf K-cup and not have to worry about the caffeine.

The Kona K-cups and French Roast K-cups are my favorites at the moment. In addition, I really dig the Cafe Mocha K-cups, Chai Latte K-cups and Dark Hot Chocolate K-cups. We have also recently bought the French Vanilla Iced Coffee K-cups and Iced Tea K-cups and are anxious to give them a try. The only one I have not cared for is the Hot Apple Cider K-cups. It sounded good because I like hot apple cider, but I didn’t care for the taste.

Because we love the Keurig coffee maker so much, I have decided to name it as one of “Andy’s Favorite Things” of 2011. Oh, and if you really, really want Folgers coffee, you can buy Folgers K-cups.

Are you or your kids a fan of Mater, Lightning McQueen, Doc, Sally, Ramone and all the other cars from the Disney Pixar Cars and Cars 2 movies? I have found a great website where you can get your Cars toys online. Whether you are looking for diecast cars, Cars Toon toys, alarm clocks, sleeping bags, table & chair sets, umbrellas, GeoTrax toys, puzzles, books, dvds, blu-ray movies or something else, Cars-Toys.com is the one-stop shop for Cars toys!

Cars-Toys.com also has Cars flashlights, garages, lunch boxes, backpacks, ball pits, bath toys, pool toys, race-o-rama toys, video games, watches and more!

The other day I was walking down the candy aisle at my local Kroger grocery store and I decided to buy some Reese’s Fun-Size Peanut Butter Cups. I haven’t bought any in quite a while and I immediately noticed that they were now in a pack of 8 instead of a pack of 10 that I was used to. I’m not sure how long they have been packaged this way since it’s been a few years since I have bought any. In fact, it seemed that all the fun-size candy bars were now in a pack of 8. I think they were on sale for $1.25 or something like that.

After I got home and opened one up… oh who am i kidding??? While driving home, I opened one up and noticed that the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup was a lot smaller than i remembered. The wrapper was the same size that it used to be, but the candy was a lot smaller. Oh those tricky Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup makers!

To recap, they have reduced the size of the candy and reduced the number of candy bars from 10 to 8! Being a marketer myself, I understand that they are trying to keep the price point around $1.00 while still maintaining their same margins as their costs go up. How can they truthfully still market these as “fun-size” candy bars when they are smaller than the original “fun-size” candy bars? Because of this, I am hereby recommending that they change the name to “semi-fun-size” candy bars since they are no longer quite as “fun”. Now that would be truth in advertising!