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As I noted at the Search Engine Roundtable, Google has a Flintstones logo for September 30th, tomorrow (but not today in New Zealand).
Tomorrow is The Flintstones 50th Birthday. A show I personally grew up watching...
Here is the Google logo:
How great is it?
I am offline tomorrow and the next for a Jewish holiday, so I wanted to mention this today. I also scheduled a post on this for SEL tomorrow AM.
I absolutely hate rebate offers where you get pre-paid debit cards.
As some of you know, I got a free Microcell and $20, which includes a $100 promotion card from AT&T for the Microcell rebate. Today, I got the rebate card.
They say businesses offer rebates because most people forget to fill them out. I fill them out 100% of the time.
But when it comes to get $15, $25, $100 rebate cards, they often will sit on my desk and I will forget to use them. I always think, hey - I can use it for gas, an online or in-store purchase, but I forget most the time and then they expire.
I also may use them, use up 75% of it and forget about the 25%.
I bet you that most people are worse than me when it comes to using the promotion/rebate debit cards.
Can't you just write me a check, like the old days?
On Wednesday, I received an email from Continental Airlines, soon to be United Airlines, that in about a year, the deal they have with American Express will no longer be in effect. They said:
Effective Oct. 1, 2011, Continental Airlines will no longer participate in the American Express Membership Rewards and Airport Club Access programs.American Express Cardmembers can continue to transfer Membership Rewards points to their OnePass accounts through Sept. 30, 2011.The Presidents Club will continue to accept valid Platinum and Centurion cards for admittance to lounges through Sept. 30, 2011.
Here are the details from Continental and here are the details from American Express.
The only reason I pay the $450 annual fee is for access to the Continental Lounges. Yes, I use the AMEX points for flights and other things, but I can do that with other cards.
Of course, I don't have to make any decision today. I will wait and see what happens when the United/Continental merger is complete, but I suspect it will mean no more AMEX needed for me.
I will likely switch all my business spending to the Continental Airlines Presidential Plus Card for Business. It offers pretty much the same perks plus more, especially for what is most important to me, flying on Continental. I'll get access to the airport lounges for both Continental and United. I'll get bag fees waived (I do anyway cause I have elite status), I'll get more miles and seems like I'll get EliteStatus without needing to fly so much.
AMEX is saying they are giving us other new options in exchange of losing Continental. That includes a $200 Airline Fee Credit, 20% Travel Bonus and an iPhone app. But honestly, there are conditions and I doubt I would ever meet those requirements.
So I suspect a month or so prior to the deadline, I will transfer my AMEX points to Continental miles and get the Continental card (if it is called that after the merger) and start accuring miles and points on that card.
It's too bad AMEX but flying on Continental is just that important to me.
I write about search a lot. But as a consumer of search, I often don't appreciate it as I should. Last night, I was really happy.
The other day I picked up a lulav and esrog for the Sukkots holiday that begins tonight.
Last night, I wanted to tie the lulav holder to the lulav. The thing is, this year, for the first time, I wasn't given lulav rings. Lulav rings are rings used to tie the lulav holder to the lulav, but it is made out of the lulav branches. With me? Anyway, I didn't know they were called lulav rings, so I searched for lulav tie on my iPhone using Google.
Up came a video result, which I clicked on, watched on YouTube and became an expert immediately on how to make lulav rings.
It was one of those experiences, like on The Matrix where they downloaded information into the person and they knew how to do a new task. Such as flying a plane or learning a form of karate in seconds. Making a Lulav ring isn't as complex as flying a plane, but you get my point.
Search is great!
Last year was the first year I built my own Sukkah. A Sukkah is a temporary home designed specifically to be used during the Jewish holiday of Succos. I've explained it in the past, if you don't know what these things are, check out Wikipedia or Google or Bing or Cuil (oh, Cuil is offline).
Last year, I had to go Sukkah Shopping. It ended up with me making some detailed Sukkah plans, which was off by two inches. Luckily, I got the replacement parts from the outstanding people at Esrog Headquarters (aff link) and the Sukkah really turned out great.
This year, I decided to build it in three stages. I believe total build time was about 1.5 - 2 hours. Most of the time was taking the Sukkah out of storage and onto my back deck. The three stages of development were:
(1) Frame: I had to snap together the frame. The first wall and corner is the hardest, but once you get those up, the rest is quick. Estimated time from when the frame pieces are on the deck? 30 minutes.
(2) Walls: A couple weeks after that, I put up the plastic/fabric walls. The velcro on by wrapping around the frames and onto each other. Most Sukkahs come where they roll around the frame. Mine velcro on as pieces, because I made my a bit more custom to fit most of my deck. Very easy job. Takes about 15 minutes once all the pieces are on.
(3) S'chach or roof: This is also pretty easy. I place down several wood poles across the top. They snap into the frame. I then lay the S'chach, which is a simple roll-out matt (I have three) across the top of the Sukkah, on top of the wood poles. This takes about 15 minutes as well.
There are a few more steps which adds more time, outside of transporting the materials from storage (my basement) to the deck. I have to install the lighting, which I use two commercial grade overhead florescent lights plugged into an outdoor timer. I also help hang some decorations, yes, customary to decorate the inside of the Sukkah. I personally put some non-customary signage in mine, including an exit sign and a no hunting or trespassing sign.
Finally, last year I wanted to become aquatinted with Google Sketchup and I built my Sukkah in Google Sketchup. Here it is again:
Here are some more pictures of my actual Sukkah, they are taken from last year:
Oh, the fruit is not real, obviously.
Tonight is Yom Kippur, one of the more holy Jewish holidays. For more info on it, read wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur.
In any event, I wanted to wish all those fasting a easy fast and ask them for forgiveness if I have done anything to upset you in any way.
I even posted a special white Yom Kippur color scheme for the Search Engine Roundtable:
G'mar Chatima Tova (aka may you be sealed in the book of life)
I was behind this car, if you call it that, this morning. Just look at the exhaust. It looked like a huge power plant of some sorts...
Note: The car was sitting at a red light. It was not revving the engine or anything:
Hate when I see traffic:
As many of you know, I was hoping to be on NBC Wednesday night at 6:30pm (EST). The show was the Nightly News with Brian Williams.
I drove to NBC's headquarters in NYC and they interviewed me for about 20 minutes on Google. I was actually being interviewed by someone in California, so I had to look at a wall, pretending someone was sitting in front of me and asking me questions. So between the two hours of driving and 20 minutes of interviewing, I came home to watch my national television debute.
I almost blinked and it was over. At the end of the segment, Picking the brains behind Google Instant, you will see me talk for about 5.9 seconds. I start at about 2 minutes and 45 seconds in and I complete at 2 minutes and 51 seconds.
Here it is:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Going offline soon till Saturday night. You know the rules... No breaking news, no writing about SEO, no talking about anything I would find interesting during the next three days. I want my RSS reader to show 1 item unread, that would be this item. Got it?
Happy & Healthy to all those celebrating!
I wasn't going to mention this until after it aired, but Danny Sullivan tweeted it to his 70,000+ followers this morning.
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams asked me to be interviewed today on the highly anticipated Google search announcement. The announcement is at 9:30 PST (12:30 EST) and my interview should be around 1pm (EST) at NBC's headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center.
I've never been on national television so this should be an excellent and exciting adventure.
For all I know, they may cut my interview completely. Which is why I didn't say anything. But maybe I'll get lucky and get some air time.
The show airs tonight on NBC (channel 4 in my area) at 6:30 EST (not sure when on other time zones). So make sure to set your TiVos and DVRs. If you don't get that channel, I assume it will be posted later on in the day on the Nightly News web site.
Personally, I go offline at 7pm for the next three-days, so I won't be able to comment about it all until Sunday, at the earliest.
Even better, I have no information on what Google will be announcing today. I have my assumptions and predictions, but none of it is confirmed. Personally, I rather not know, I like it better that way.
Update: Interview is over, I did it at their HQs, they interviewed me over the air via their Burbank office. Someone asked me questions and I heard them in an ear piece in my right ear. I had to pretend to look at someone to the right. Still don't know if it will be on tonight, but here is a picture:
Update: I posted a video of the 5 seconds of the 20 minutes of my interview over here.
I ordered a new Apple wired (not wireless) keyboard for the office and I got myself one of those new Magic Track Pads via the Apple Store online.
I am a big trackpad user on my laptop and I often find myself missing the features on my excellent but now somewhat limited Logitech MX mouse. So I caved and ordered the track pad, trust me, I'll let you know how I like it...
Anyway, I ordered it via Apple, they ship via Fedex home. Thing is, I shipped it to my office and I wasn't hear on Saturday. But I left one of those Fedex/Apple Pre-Sign Authorization forms on the door. Guess what? Fedex didn't even try to deliver it to the office.
I got the "exception" notice and was told my delivery would be delayed three days because a "delivery attempted." It wasn't attempted, if it was, they would have seen the sign.
Anyway - I'll get it tomorrow.
Most bloggers love shwag (schwag) and I am not exception to it. A week ago I blogged how I beat the Google Reader game. By that I meant, I was checking my Google Reader trends and noticed I read well over 300,000 items since using Google Reader. Google called it "beating the game" because they "stop counting for performance reasons."
So Google saw the post and mailed me some shwag for beating the game. It included a very cool t-shirt and iron on badge.
Here are pictures:
Iron on Badge, of course now I need to find an iron:
And the "Sort by Magic" Google Reader T-Shirt:
Front says sort by magic and the back as a little Google Reader logo at the top. Here is a full front view:
I'm now on Ping, you can find me by searching for me in iTunes 10+ under the Ping section or by clicking on over here.
That will open up iTunes and should take you to my profile.
Follow me there now! Now! I need Ping followers bad, really bad!
Why haven't you followed me yet?
Go here and follow me now!
Go!
Okay, you don't know what Ping is? It is Apple's social networking software for iTunes. More on that over at apple.com/itunes/ping.
This morning, on the way to work, the car in front of me stood out. It was an old car, but what was inside was what caught my eye. The rear window was completely covered by junk. Bags, shirts, just tons of stuff. Like the guy lived out of his car or something.
As some of you know, I keep the inside of my car very clean.
I wasn't able to take a picture of the car, but I found a neat one on Flickr. Click through to see it better.
Do you keep a clean or messy car?
Blogging My Life...