Bass Pro

Friday Feb. 27 marks the official beginning of my fishing season. I'm not actually going fishing yet as late Feb. in Ohio is still rather chilly. No my friends it is Bass Pro Shops Spring Classic. That means the fishermans paradise has its biggest sale of the year. They have pros come in all weekend to meet and greet customers as well as do demonstrations in the stores enormous tank. The store is packed with men carrying around those little baskets and pushing carts causing my mother to giggle and make fun, but it's fine. I mark this sale as the beginning of my fishing season every year because I take my list I make every winter and go refill my tackle box. Its kind of sad but thats what us fishermen in these cold weather climates must do. In Ohio its only cold enough to ice fish for a few weeks a winter and the season starts late usually into May.

Insomnia?

Ok so here's an interesting post, Dr. Kleine I hope you get a kick out of this one... Its currently 2:24 am on Tuesday morning of finals week here at ONU. I am currently sitting at my computer with headphones on wishing that I could fall asleep. For some reason over the past three or four days my body just does not want to relax and fall asleep. The funny thing is that I have no true finals, two online finals and the memo for ecommerce. I have spent the last three hours trying to fall asleep but to no avail. Instead I'm sitting here aimlessly searching the internet and trying how to figure out how to convert my Brand Me! website into a version that will actually work on the internet. I created it in Microsoft publisher and was unaware of the fact that you have to buy a domain name to post it. I started with google pages and that was awful so I tried weebly which was better, but still extremely frustrating. So anyways I gave up. I am sitting here currently listening to America's greatest rock band, Brand New. If you've never heard them I suggest you go pick up their second album, Deja Entendu immediately and while you're at it go ahead and pick up the third one, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. The first one, Your Favorite Weapon... not so good. I mean good, but nothing compared to the next to. Anyways I am rambling and exhausted and just wish I could sleep. This is awful.

Jackets... Playoff Bound?

So I'm kind of struggling on thinking of things to blog about and since I've over-done the video game thing, I'll write about my true true love. More than anything, I love sports... competition really. I especially obsess over Ohio sports teams, the Browns, Cavs, Indians, and Bluejackets. Right now the Cavs are doing unbelieveably well so its almost kind of boring watching them. The Bluejackets however are for the first time, in the thick of the NHL's Western Conference playoff race. The franchise is less than a decade old and has never really even been close to the playoffs. Right now the Jackets are the sixth seed in the playoff picture (top eight making it) and have been proving the experts wrong all year. They are led by a slew of young talent most notably their rookie goalie, Steve Mason. A former third round pick, Mason is the favorite for the hallowed Vezina Trophy awarded to the leagues top goalie. The Jackets also feature one of the leagues top young stars, the captain, Rick Nash. He leads the team in goals and assists and is the teams only perrenial all-stars. With approximately twenty games remaining the Jackets need to bring their "A" games every night in order to fend off some of the more talented teams nipping at their heels. You can bet that I will be in front of my TV for every minute of those remaining twenty games, cheering the Jackets to their first playoff berth.

COD: Modern Warfare II

OHHHH BOY... So I was surfing the internet earlier today and stumbled across a release date for the Xbox 360 game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The Call of Duty series has been a ridiculously popular series for game designer Activision and and a tremendous seller for Xbox. Modern Warfare 2 will be the series' 6th title and is possibly their most highly anticipated game. I am blogging about this today because as you can tell from some previous blogs I am somewhat of a gamer. Last year I became hooked on IGN's game of the year, Call of Duty 4. The game offers online play through Xbox live which enables a person the ability to play online with people from all over the world. Personally I play with the same five guys on a team of six almost daily. The newest game to come out this past November is Call of Duty: World at War. The game is a throwback into WWII times and has since stolen my fixation. Again myself and some of my best buddies from here at ONU get on and "kill some people". The newest game, Modern Warfare 2, is set to come out this fall. Not many details have been released yet about the specifics but it will certainly be a tough task of beating the first. Hopefully even though I will be graduated, I will be playing this game.

New Favorite Show

So talking with my group tonight in the lab in Dicke, and I found out that none of them were really blogging about ecommerce or technology so I've decided to switch mine up here in week ten. I have always enjoyed watching shows with tv personality/world class chef/writer Anthony Bourdain but I have really taken a liking to his hit show on the Travel Channel, No Reservations. I had seen the show a few times before but this past weekend I sat down one afternoon in the middle of a No Reservations marathon. The show focuses on a particular country or city which Bourdain tours by food. He usually meets up with a native that knows the ins and outs of a given food culture and they explore. After watching the episode about the Philippines I was intrigued to check out Bourdain's blog. (http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/read/hierarchy-of-pork) As you can see the Philippines episode had a lot to do with pork, one of my personal favorite foods and Bourdain explains how the pig roast experienced in the Philippines was the best pig he had ever eaten. After watching the show and drooling for nearly an hour, I found myself almost depressed as I am two months into a strict diet and could never enjoy half of what he was tasting. Anyways I guess I'm just trying to say that I love Anthony Bourdain and No Reservations and if you have never seen it or don't know what time its on: Travel Channel, 10pm Monday Nights, don't miss it.

iPhone and iTouch Apps... Amazing

http://www.apple.com/webapps/

I know that we've all seen those catchy Apple commercials with the fun music and all of those crazy applications you can buy for your phone. I never really saw the need for an iPhone or wanted one until I saw those commercials, particularly the newest ones with the level (just in case a picture in my room is crooked), but ever since I have all I want is an iPhone. Unfortunately I live in Ada, OH were unless you've got Verizon, Sprint, or Alltell you're out of luck. Anyways I was thinking about what to blog about this week and I figured I would tease myself some more by looking into the incredible amount of applications that can be downloaded directly to your phone. As you go to the Apple homepage and look up apps., the first thing you see is a new program that allows customers to find out where kids eat free. This is one of the more logical tools on the list, but still, something you can definitely live without (though I find myself wanting it). From games, to ifan profiles, to search tools Apple has created an application for almost anything you could think of. When I started to search through these it made me think about how this pertains to ecommerce. If you think about it, Apple has created a brand new market off of these applications. Before other than downloading ring tones, no one really put stuff like this on there phones. It is just another example of how Apple's innovation puts them a step ahead of everyone else in the technology world. If only we could put some of Apple's mind power into the American auto industry.

USPS Delivery Changes Could Hurt Industry

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/USPS-5-Day-Delivery-Week-Could-Hurt-E-Commerce-66022.html

Something my generation never really thinks about is the problems technology makes for the way our country is used to doing things. Email has completely changed the way American's communicate, using the process for everything from formal letters to simple chit chat. This change in communication has seriously affected the United States Postal Service and the number of employees needed to handle the reduced amount of paper mail. This reduction in employees has the Postal Service contemplating cutting the delivery week to five days due to the reduction of traffic and the bleak economic conditions. The way that this effects ecommerce is that with a reduced delivery schedule, online retailers may be forced to use higher priced delivery channels such as FedEx and UPS, increasing shipping costs for consumers. The news of the possible shorter delivery week has unaffected industry giants such as eBay and Amazon, however the change in schedule could hurt a lot smaller players in the industry. Such a major issue for these companies has begun simply because of the communications shift, from paper mail to email. This is something I would have never really thought would effect such a large industry. Email and the continued technological shift is something I just have taken for granted and never thought about the consequences.

Fight Night Round 4: Coming Soon

The article I chose to talk about this week again has to do with Microsoft's Xbox gaming system. Again I would consider myself to be somewhat of a "gamer and one thing I look forward to is the release of new games. One of Electronic Arts' flagship games and really a huge title for Xbox since the system came out has been a boxing simulation titled "Fight Night". Fans of this game have been waiting for a new release since 2005 and this summer the game is set to debut. This article is a question and answer session with some of the creators of the game discussing new features and expectations. One thing that every boxing/video game fan has been looking for since Nintendo's Punch Out game is Mike Tyson's character being included. Finally, Fight Night Round 4 features the pre-delinquent Iron Mike, one of the more feared and respected boxers of all-time. The game promises to contain a much more realistic and in depth career mode, where players create themselves and can fight their way through selected weight classes in route to a title belt. Other features being promoted are a larger roster of boxers from current stars to all of the greats. The game promises to be the most realistic boxing simulation of all-time, making players use stategy to win, rather than stand toe to toe and unrealistically slug it out. Just looking at the promo video at the start of the website has garnered some excitement from me and I am excitedly awaiting its release this summer. Xbox and EA continue to push the boundaries with their games and excite fellow gamers.

A New Dawn in Home Entertainment

This article, found on the Microsoft Xbox homepage discusses the transformation that the gaming network, Xbox Live has recently undertaken. As a person who uses this network on a daily basis, and who would consider himself somewhat of a "gamer", I would consider this important news to me. This monumental change for online gaming has introduced tons of new capabilities that continue the trend of more products and services being offered through new channels. The Xbox Live features your own avatar, who you get to dress and stylize. The new "Live" also teams with Netflix, allowing users to stream movies straight to their home televisions. This new version of Xbox Live also offers users the ability to buy add on's for current games, and demo's for unreleased games. Another unique feature of the system offers is a personal gameroom. Here you can purchase or play for classic games for free. For instance, last weekend, my girlfriend and I were bored so we downloaded the card game "UNO" through Xbox Live and played that for awhile. I enjoy old school games like UNO as well as PacMan, both of which are examples of the games found in 'Live's" personal gameroom. This new version of Xbox Live debuted in November, however almost everyday, new features are added and advertised. These new features are another example of the way companies are finding new ways to get in touch with customers and offer new products and services through the advancement of technology.