Men Who Won't Ask for Directions

Ladies, how many times have you wanted to smack your husband upside the head with a map when playing co-pilot on vacation? Or better yet, how many of you have driven around aimlessly for hours on end because your husband refused to stop for directions because, "We're not lost, I know where we are...."? Yep, I thought so.

A number of years ago, we got a rental car wiith a GPS unit while on vacation. The soothing sound of the strange, yet familiar woman's voice politely (no screaming or map-bashing involved) telling us to turn right in 200 feet had the most amazing calming effect on our travels. In a nutshell, we will never travel with out a GPS unit again. In fact, we've thrown caution to the wind and left our maps at home - who needs 'em when you know that the lady in your GPS will get you there, and you'll be calm and collected at that!

We sell a wide variety of GPS units from simple models, to models wiith more bells and whistles. The Garmin nuvi 660 is just one example of a great unit that will save your husband from map-bashing-related injuries!

Life Lessons for Kids

A review about this book in this week's Time Magazine caught my eye. The Essential 55: An award-winning educator's rules for discovering the successful student in every child, is based on the concept of teaching behavioral lessons first, to lay the foundation for academic success. Rules like: make eye contact when in conversation, and say thank you within three seconds of receiving something, intrigued me. I'm going to have my kids read this book.

Gameboy Advance SP is a Hit!

Grandma gave my son a Gameboy Advance SP unit about 2 weeks ago, and I'm pleased to say he gives the unit a thumbs up. The SP is small, compact and also very 'cool' looking. One thing that always bugged me about my son playing the other Gameboy models (and believe me, he has them all), is that the screen seemed so hard to see -- I worried about his eyesight getting damaged! The screen on the SP is fully backlighted and the quality of the display is fantastic. Don't ask me the techie stuff, but I think this has a more powerful display. Interestingly, you have to use a rechargeable battery instead of traditional batteries with this unit. I haven't decided whether that is a good thing or a bad thing yet. The charge lasts pretty long -- they claim from 10-18 hours, but it takes a full three hours to charge it up. I also understand these are currently hard to get -- if you want to really make your little gamer happy, pick up a Gameboy Advance SP for them!

High Expectations for Remote Control Airplane

This weekend, we went to the park to try out my son's Radio Control Air Surfers Plane. We've never had a remote control plane before, so the anticipation was high.

Assembly must have been pretty easy, because the kids did it themselves without asking for my help. The charger, powered by 'C' batteries, took an agonizing 25-30 minutes to fully charge the small battery for the plane. Actually, 25 minutes is pretty reasonable, but for the kids it seemed like forever.

Finally, charging finished and we made our way to the park to try it out. It took us a few attempts to figure out how to get the plane flying, but we eventually got the hang of it. The problem really was that, by the time my son started to get the hang of it -- the batteries were exhausted. This only took about 5 minutes!

It was pretty frustrating to only be able to fly for five minutes. Since we had brought the charger with it, we recharged for 25 minutes and then tried again. My son was able to fly for short distances, but always resulted in a fairly quick crash. This time the charge lasted a bit longer (maybe 7 minutes), but all in all, disappointly quickly.

To make matters worse, my son refused to let my daughter give the plane a spin until the batteries were almost exhausted, and this resulted in screaming fights between the two of them for most of the time that we were there.

Keep in mind that it's entirely possible that we just don't know what we are doing. Perhaps someone with more patience, or better yet -- skill -- could do better with this plane!

Ant Farm Demolition

My son got an Ant Farm for Christmas, and we finally got around to setting it up this week. The instructions explained that you could either send away to receive the ants in the mail, or catch your own. We decided to catch our own as we had a bad experience ordering tadpoles in the mail (they arrived dead as doornails, and on the second try, one lived but he ended up being deformed). After all, how hard could it be to catch ants?

We followed the instructions and put a jar with water and brown sugar outside. I assumed we would be swarmed with ants within 24 hours. Um, wrong! We waited for days, through torrential rains and sunshine, still no ants.

Finally, my son resorted to crawling around with tweezers and catching a lowly three ants by hand. While he was on the ant safari, I setup the farm by adding the wet sand. We finally got the ants inserted, and eagerly waited for them to get busy making tunnels and being ant-like.

Unfortunately, it appears that one ant got crushed by the tweezers because he kind of just laid flat on his back on the tunnel steps. Ant #2 seemed sluggish, and only Ant # 3 at least walked around a little. We gave up watching and, the next morning, ran to the Ant Farm to see how they were doing. Mysteriously, 2 ants were missing and only Ant #3 remained. What happened?? I could only imagine that Ant # 3 was a cannibal. By the morning of day 3, Ant #3 was also missing.

A few minutes later my son found an ant (presumably Ant #3) crawling on the floor. Unfortunately, I then had no choice but to banish the Ant Farm from our home, as the thought of escaping ants was entirely unacceptable. My son begrudginly agreed and we dismantled the farm and sent it to pasture.

Write a book for your child - it's easy!

Looking for a way to make your child think you are cool? When my daughter was a toddler, I wrote her a personalized book. Really! Using the Illustory personalized book kit, it's easy.

You don't really have to have talent to do this -- goodness knows I didn't! I simply made up a 'story' in rhyme format that included real personal aspects from the daily aspect of my child. The kit provides blank pages and instructions for how to layout the pages. I then created a very simplistic character that kind of looked like my daughter, and went to town with magic markers.

You send the pages and the accompanying text, via mail to Illustory, and they typset and bind the book and send it back to you! My daughter absolutely loved her book, which was called 'Alex's Busy Day'. She loves swimming, so here's an excerpt....

Good morning, Alex!
It's time to play.
It's a bright and sunny
day today!

Alex went swimming
and saw some fish.
They said, "Splish, Splash,
Blurb, Blurb, Swish, Swish!"

Finding Rosie

I read a snippet in the paper this morning about Rosie O'Donnell suing some tabloid because they claimed she was breaking up with her partner, Kelli Carpenter. The article also noted that Kelli Carpenter recently had her name changed to Kelli O'Donnell.

I was and am a huge fan of Rosie, but Kelli changing her name seemed a bit odd to me since I had also read somewhere in the past that sometimes it was a struggle for her to maintain her own identity as the partner of such a high profile person. But I digress...

Reading this simply made me think of Rosie, and reflect on how she has absolutely and totally removed herself from (or has fallen from) the spotlight since she left her show. Thus, my thoughts of her reminded me of her interesting yet bizarre book, Find Me. How ironic the title is right now, as Rosie is nowhere to be found.

I won't give away the premise of the book, but I will say that my emotions once I reached the end of the book are hard to describe -- I was intrigued, yet stunned that Rosie was so open and yet so gullible about the strange relationship that she became entwined in.

As a fan, I hope that Rosie has found happiness.

Mattel says “ello” Empowers Girls

Interesting info from Mattel,

"Get ready to deconstruct the building toys of the past, and get ready to say, “hello” to “ello™.” ello is the first creation system for girls that inspires them to design and create whatever sparks their imagination....from people to places to jewelry, the possibilities are endless. The ello creation system extends beyond the linear play patterns historically associated with boys’ building toys and engages girls in a way relevant to them by incorporating social play with creativity and crafts. Unlike anything else on the market, ello not only provides the tools and inspiration for girls to build elaborate fantastical environments, but also includes pieces to create characters and decorative accessories."

My take on "ello" -- my daughter is 11 and it is tough to find 'toys' that she will play with anymore. She's a typical 'tween' and she focuses more on clothes, computer, and crafts than on toys. She got ello for Christmas and has played with it briefly once or twice. Interestingly, she's having a few girls sleep over tonight and told me that she was going to get out ello to play with them. I think ello has a certain 'cool' factor because of its funky, fun style.

Tivo turns me on to IO Pen

Every couple of days I will sit down in front of TIVO and 'catch up'. I'll scan for new shows from my huge wishlist (Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, Shirley Maclaine -- don't laugh), review the Showcase areas for new movies, and read new TIVO messages.

It's interesting to observe the interactive advertising TIVO presents. TIVO sent me a new message with an attached 3 minute video clip about a really cool new product called the Logitech IO Personal Digital Pen. I watched the video and immediately wanted this item. The pen has a digital processor inside, and when you write on the IO specially encoded paper, it records everything that you write. You can then upload it to your PC via a USB connection. The pen holds up to 40 pages of handwritten text. How cool is that? I immediately thought of my neice who will be heading off to college in the fall.

The pen runs around $189, but I think the turnoff is the cost of the paper that is required, which runs about $24 for 80 sheets. Apparently every pixel of the paper is somehow encoded and the pen records this as you write. Maybe if you write really, really small....?

The TIVO video got me really psyched because it provided a web address and indicated that TIVO was giving away these pens to TIVO subscribers. I rushed to my computer to snatch up my free pen, only to discover it was a contest, not a freebie for everyone. It also looks like we're out of stock on this item right now, but it was so Jetson-like I couldn't resist talking about it.

Customer reviews are mixed, but it's definitely a fun to have, interesting item for those 'ahead of the pack' technophiles.

Longing for a long lens

I'm into photography, and since I've gone digital, I take pictures constantly. Believe it or not, I was a freelance paparazzi for ten years. Now that I'm old, married and a mom, my photography is all kid-based.

As you may have guessed, I have a number of SLR and digital cameras. My Sony Mavica FD-95 was my first digital camera. It's a fantastic camera but definitely on the big (i.e. inconvenient) side. Since I got it three years ago, I haven't found any digital cameras on the market with a comparable zoom lens -- until lately.

The Olympus Camedia C-730 has a huge zoom range -- and -- it's small! I've been wanting this for quite some time and one of these days I'm going to break down and get it. I've pored over the customer reviews and I get relatively good vibes from them, although of course there are a few unhappy campers (there's always at least one in any bunch).

When contemplating a purchase like this, I always get that nervous feeling that as soon as I buy it, a bigger, better, and of course cheaper model will come out. Of course if I keep waiting, the price will come down, but the technology will become outdated.

Maybe after tax time.

Does this vacuum suck (in a good way?)

I really hate vacuuming. I think it is mainly because our sweeper is this huge clunking thing that weighs like 50 pounds and dragging it up and down the steps is a nightmare. Thus, our house only gets swept when my husband does it (or I'm desperate because friends of MINE are coming over).

I have been saying for three years or more that I really wish "they" would make a full power cordless sweeper. I discovered this Shark Cordless Sweeper which looks to be the real deal - my dream come true. I discovered this item because it is the hottest selling item on Coolshopping.com. We have sold literally hundreds of these things! Apparently it also has its own informercial, which I've never seen.

My birthday was last week and I TOLD my husband to get me three of these (one for each floor, of course). I figured at $59 each if they ended up sucking (in a bad way) that it wasn't that big of a deal. I starting envisioning sweeping nirvana as the big b-day approached....

Too bad the hubby blew off birthday shopping until mid-afternoon on my actual birthday. Sweep on, dude.

Six Degrees Feet of Separation....

Too weird. They mentioned "Trading Spaces" on Six Feet Under (another of my obsessions) tonight. How cute is Kathy Bates in her guest starring role as the earthy shoplifter? It crossed my mind that she and Ruth may become more than just friends....

Spongebob is a drip

My kids have two goldfish that Santa brought them two years ago. I honestly never imagined that goldfish could live this long (especially with as little attention as they receive). Of course, *I* am responsible for their health and welfare -- feeding, cleaning, etc. Every morning the larger of the two seems to 'SCREAM' out of his tank at me -- shaking his body violently and desperately demanding to be fed.

Long story short, about a month ago their tank was so dirty I decided to just go out and buy a new tank instead of going through the torture of cleaning it. Um, yes, a pretty lazy move. Which brings me (finally) around to the point of this post -- the Spongebob Squarepants Aquarium.

It's definitely a cute item and a hit with my kids. However, it irks me because the stupid fish keep knocking over the Spongebob figure so he is constantly just laying face down on the aquarium floor. In addition, a few days ago it started dripping, slowly, from the lid area. Now I have a kitchen towel under the tank to soak up the drips.

Maybe I should have just cleaned the original tank in the first place.

Unhealthy obsession with "Trading Spaces"

I tend to be obsessive/compulsive about a lot of things, and the TLC TV show "Trading Spaces" is one of them. You know, the one where two couples trade houses and redecorate a room with the help of "interior decorators". I, of course, have fantasized about being a show participant -- and having Vern redo my room. Anyone but Hildy (she once stapled 6,000 silk flowers all over the bathroom walls of one home). Needless to say, I want this book!

Yeah baby, Opera Babes!

Perhaps it's due to my incessant and constant watching of MSNBC war coverage, but this morning I saw a portion of an infomercial that struck me as kind of bizarre -- for a CD called Opera Babes.

In looking at their website, it appears that either I live in a paper bag, or these gals are currently a British Phenom. According to Opera Babe Karen, "Why shouldn't people look good and do opera? We haven't tried to cultivate a sexy image, we are just being ourselves - normal girls."

Watch (and listen) for the Opera Babes media tour of the US in May.

Welcome to my blog...

Via this blog, I hope to find an interesting way to share my stream of consciousness and connect it to ecommerce and shopping related topics. Yes, folks, the ultimate mix of content and commerce!

For those who care, I consider myself an ecommerce veteran. I started creating ecommerce websites back in 1995. Back in them there days, I launched the "MegaMall", a directory of shopping sites. The MegaMall eventually morphed into Coolshopping.com.

I rode the wave of the Internet advertising boom and have been lucky enough to have great success over the years. I used to be a feature writer on ecomerce for Clickz, have had lots of great media coverage and online coverage, and even was interviewed by the infamous Stuart Cheifet for PBS' Computer Chronicles TV show.

I have a number of ecommerce ventures, including a great cat furniture retail site called CatsPlay.com (shameless plug). I'm a mix of highly technical (18 years in technology in banking) and highly creative (art, photography, graphics design, etc), and, most importantly a shopaholic.

Bottom line is I'll try to bring a humorous yet deeply informative view skewed towards ecommerce to a wide variety of topics.