According to this article in the New York Times, Tower Records is no more. They have thrown in the towel. I see this as a big result of the popularity of online distribution of music. With iTunes making such a splash and the availability of CDs from so many sources online, the need for the traditional “record store” is all but over. People used to goto record stores to discover new musics and sample tunes, but now you can do all that on myspace or purevolume or practically all over the web. Just a sample of things to come in the world of purchasing media.

Looks like I don’t have to worry about sending in my battery OR having it blow up while on my lap. Turns out that I missed the recall by one digit! Woohoo! It is definitely making the news that over 4 million other batteries need to be send back to Dell according to the top story on news.com. It is reportedly the largest recall in consumer electronics history. Article here.

Now it’s off to bed. All this worrying I’ve been doing about my battery blowing up (which turned out to be for nothing) has really taken a toll on my sleep schedule =)

When I moved out here to Oregon, I had to find a new bank at which I could conduct transactions locally. I was referred to Key Bank, which happens to be a fairly large institution (not one I was familiar with before moving out West). If you’ll notice, the trend with most banks these days is to provide a free gift to you when you sign up for a new checking account. Good practice and something to brighten up your day. Now as with most banks, Key also provides an online banking solution, which is indeed very useful because I like to be able to check my balance at any time of day if need be.

Where this all comes together is when I signed up for my new checking account I received no gift, yes a handshake and a smile, which would usually suffice. However, now everytime I goto their website to login to my account to do a little online banking I get taunted by this huge banner stating “Open a checking account. Get a free Ipod nano!“. I signed up for my account at the end of May, (two and a half months ago) I’m not sure how long they’ve been running this promotion, but do you think the right thing to do would be to give me a nice little Ipod nano to say thanks for your patronage?

I will beg the question, how should a business handle a customer such as myself who raises this question? The only reason I bring the subject up is I have seen companies/businesses handle a customer’s request such as this differently in the past. I emailed them and we’ll see what they say…

[edit: This post was originally published 8/13/06 at 12:00 PM PST]

My buddy Casey hooked me up with a Detroit Bros. Custom Cycles hat for my birthday so now I can properly represent Detroit and that Midwest muscle out here on the West Coast! Had to post a picture! Of course I’m kickin’ it to the side cause that’s how you do it =) I don’t really know a whole lot about Detroit Bros. but they do make pretty smokin’ choppers!

This weekend has been pretty intense. I have been doing a lot of reading and researching on some things I’ve been looking at implementing on some projects. I also now officially have my first LinkedIn connection! I haven’t really spent much time on that site, but I plan to spend a little more time there in the future cause it looks to be a really good way to link up with people professionally. If you haven’t been to the site or signed up for an account there, go ahead and check it out and once you get a profile up, connect to me!

I also discovered this cool little site on MSN called Sympatico Music. It seems to be a Canadian themed portal. However, that band The Trews that I wrote about a few posts back happens to be Canadian and you can watch an entire concert of theirs here for free (Internet Explorer only folks). Definitely worth checking out!

I cannot believe that 5 days have gone by since I last blogged.  I’ve been so insanely self-absorbed with the multitude of things I’m working on creatively.  My mind is racing a few million miles a minute right now.  I have been doing an insane amount of reading/coding/rockin’ out the past week.  Let’s just say that all the things that are going on around me have me excited to no end!  I really can’t go into specifics of exactly what those things might be at this current point in time– but they are amazing.

Anyways, I am in the midst of troubleshooting a few things, so once I can get my head wrapped around ‘em I will hop back on here and deliver some real content!  Ciao!

After the jump is a great video of a guy who looks be down in out in a hot Street Fighter match but…. well you have to watch the video to find out. (more…)

Well, two posts ago I focused on the word ressurection, which is a good word. But now we are going for a revival, Billy Graham style. In the past, this .blog has focused on topics relating to the the web design, Internet marketing, and other technology related topics. While those topics will still make an appearance here and there I am going to be taking a more personal approach from here on out.

Now for a summary of what has happened in my life since my last post…

Oregon. Yes that’s right, the beautiful state of Oregon is now the place I call home. I moved out here in the middle of May to pursue an amazing opportunity, joining the web development team at GarageGames. For those of you who are unfamiliar with GarageGames, it is a company here in Eugene, Oregon founded to tear down those insane barriers to entry that most independent game developers face in entering the video game development industry. Along with producing amazing game development tools, GarageGames also has used those tools to make some really great games–the most popular of which being Marble Blast Ultra for the Xbox360 Live Arcade (if you have a 360, make sure you pick this up– best $10 you will ever spend).

Anyways, I have a lot of great plans in store for this site, as I am everyday expanding my arsenal of web-based languages and techniques I’m using in projects. My plan is to, as Rick puts it, “bling out” this site with some really cool interactivity and multimedia things to show off my skills =)

If you want to stick around and learn a little more about me and the West Coast, party on after the jump… (more…)

Many popular personal blogs and corporate blogs will provide podcasts to their readers as a alternate form of obtaining information on a highly specific topic. Being a large fan of audiobooks, I find podcasts to be rather cool in the respect that I can check em out on the go (say while I’m running to the post office, etc)

However, in a recent news entry on ClickZ, Kathy Kaye reports:

Though often perceived as early-adopters of new media forms, most blog readers don’t listen to them. In fact, 62 percent of music blog readers, 75 percent of political blog readers, 77 percent of mom blog readers and 80 percent of gossip blog readers said they never listen to podcasts.

Concerning the amount of time and resources it can take to throw together a weekly podcast and the amount of reach obtained with this medium, podcast may not be the most efficient use of those valuable resources!? Maybe that energy is better spent throwing together a new survey or some other proprietary content that you can use as a tool to draw interest and visitors to your organization’s message.

Well it’s been a solid month and a couple days since I’ve had a chance to write anything for sullisnack.com

My apologies to any loyal readers out there, just the way life goes. I have an amazing tidal wave of opportunities and projects going on in my life right now. Truly loving life and everything that is happening! Anyways, I will be soon writing again for the blog here so look for a real entry in days to come.

Oh and btw, concerning this entry about the Gillette Fusion, I apologize for being so speculative. The hype is true. I was at Wal-Mart today and picked one up. It was a great purchase. The best part of the model is I can use the little “precision trimmer” to even out my side-burns. Great product and a true home-run by Gillette. I, however, am not looking forward to buying 4 cartridges at $12 (versus the $7 the Mach-3 ones cost) but oh well, it’s worth it.

With the latest version of Internet Explorer in beta preview, Mozilla better watch its toes. A lot of the features that make Firefox great are in jeopardy of being compromoised in the latest version of Microsoft’s staple browser. IE7 boasts a built in RSS feed sidebar and tab browsing. I love my RSS plug-in called Sage that I use with Firefox. The tab-browsing is something that led me to Firefox and I could never use a browser without it.