Posted by Jared Barden on Apr 30, 2008 in
Personal This past weekend our church hosted its first Seize the Rock concert, which featured Manafest and Fireflight.
Here’s a breakdown of how the weekend went…
- Friday night – go out to eat with Manafest and our friend Mara at the Dumping House in Wellsboro (more on that later)
- Later Friday night – play Rock Band with Mara for far too long
- Saturday morning – go up to church to help supervise Skate Park
- Saturday at 3:00 – go to a friend’s Little League game
- Saturday at 5:00 – back to the church to get ready for the concert
- Saturday at 6:30 – doors open
- Saturday at 7:30 – concert starts
- Saturday at 11:00 – get home
As you can see, Saturday was a fairly busy/hectic day, but it was a lot of fun.
One thing that really impressed me about Manafest (real name Chris) was how down to Earth he was. Granted, he’s not a superstar (yet), but he was really cool to hang out with and treated us like friends, instead of acting like a Prima Dona. He was even gracious enough to spend almost 2 hours skating with the kids Saturday afternoon before he had to perform that evening. I wish Chris and his wife all the best in their music and speaking ministry.
If you’re a fan of hip hop / rock music, give either of these bands a listen. They both put on a great show, and I would recommend either one of them.
Posted by Jared Barden on Apr 18, 2008 in
Search Engines Ever noticed that some companies like to tell you to, “search for us on Yahoo! and learn more…” ? That seems like a risky strategy to me, and here’s my reasons why.
1.) Why not just send the person right to your web site? If you’ve ever read Don’t Make Me Think , this will make sense. Basically, you want to decrease the number of steps for someone to accomplish the action you want them to take, and you want to make it as easy and “thoughtless” as possible. Sending them to a search engine, telling them to search, and then hoping they click the link you want them to, seems to not follow the “Don’t Make Me Think” mantra.
2.) You increase the risk of competition.
Case in point, Pontiac did an ad a year or two ago, where they told you to search on Google for them. Well, the competition got smart and bought Pay Per Click ads for that term and got some great branding and exposure out of Pontiac’s ad.
Also, what happens if someone gets their page to rank higher for the phrase you’ve suggested to the TV viewer? Then you’re kind of stuck.
Or what happens if someone decides to Google Bomb the phrase you’ve targeted in your ad? Granted, Google has gotten stricter on this practice, but you could still use your PPC ad to get negative press out their about the competition.
Just seems like it would be easier to send the person right to the page you want them to go to. However, lots of companies take this, “search for this and click the link” kind of approach, which just seems like one too many steps to me, but maybe I’m just lazy when it comes to my surfing behavior.
Posted by Jared Barden on Apr 18, 2008 in
Movies,
Politics We just returned from Williamsport, where we watched Ben Stein’s new documentary, Expelled, with our friend Mara.
I didn’t know too much about the movie, but I did know that it was supposedly in support of Intelligent Design, and I like Ben Stein, so I figured it would be a good time.
I was definitely not disappointed. Well, at least not totally. I was kind of hoping Ben would take more of a side/stand than he did, but that is his prerogative.
I won’t really get into the whole Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate, because for me there isn’t much of a debate. I believe in Intelligent Design, but I also further believe in Creationism. Do animals/species evolve over time? Sure they do. It would be silly to think otherwise, but did we all come from single-celled organism in some cosmic soup? Highly unlikely.
What I wanted to touch on were some of the explanations offered by prominent Evolutionists as to how life might have begun.
1.) Molecules attached themselves to inorganic crystals and somehow formed life.
Wow. That’s about all I can say on that one. I’m pretty sure that takes more faith than believing that God created life.
2.) There is a possibility of an Intelligent Designer out there, but it must have evolved from somewhere, and then evolved enough to create life in our own universe.
Another far-fetched one it seems. And this was mentioned by one of the world’s foremost Evolutionsts – Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. Frankly, that explanation seems a little delusional to me, but that’s just me.
No matter what you believe on this issue, I hope we can all agree that debate should not be stifled, as is apparently happening in academic institutions at all levels across this country. That is truly a shame. Voices from both sides of the aisle should be heard, and then people should be able to make their choices from there.
Posted by Jared Barden on Apr 12, 2008 in
Personal Something always puzzles me about the credit card scanners at our local Wal Mart. In fact I’m not even sure if that’s the correct term for them, but for the purpose of this post, it will suffice.
What always gets me is that the scanner knows when you’ve swiped a debit card, and it proceeds on accordingly. However, when you swipe a credit card, you are prompted to let the cashier know that you swiped a credit card.
I always hate saying, “hey that was a credit card.” I don’t know why. It just seems awkward and unnecessary to me. My goal in checking out is usually to check out as quickly as possible, and having to take that extra step, even though it seems small, seems unnecessary to me in 2008. Seems like we should be able to make a scanner that doesn’t require letting the cashier know that you just used a credit card.
I also learned a couple new things about credit card scanners this past week.
1.) Apparently they are a pain to use for left handed people. Never really thought about that before, being right handed and all.
2.) What happens to the copy of your signature that is entered into the system and shows up on your receipt? I would like to think that Wal Mart wouldn’t use my signature for nefarious purposes, but you never know.
Credit card scanners at Wal Mart – one of the great mysteries of my life.