Veni Vidi Vici in Fresno

I went out last night to Veni Vidi Vici here in Fresno in the Tower District. I had never been to Veni's before, and it turned out to be a pretty cool hang out place. When you first walk in through the 10-12 foot doors, you enter a small, dimly lit room with some tables and a bar. The walls are exposed red brick and the top of the bar is cement.

Walking to the back through a small hallway you emerge outside in a fairly large patio with tables and another bar at the far end. Right in the middle of the patio is a large tree. Lights are hung throughout the patio as well as overhead fans to keep the air circulating.

It's a very chill place, and it's great for people watching, especially because it is in the Tower District, and there are a lot of interesting people that hang out there.

The place seems to really start getting busy around 11pm to 11:30pm.

Permission Marketing

There is a great conversation happening over on A Case of the Mundys about permission marketing and e-newsletters.

Go over there and let us know what you think about the topic by leaving the other Luke some comment love.

Edmonton, Festival City

As I had the awesome opportunity to spend this past weekend in my favorite city in the world, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, I was strongly reminded how much I love the city where I was born and grew up. It is only in part to the fact that I have a lot of friends and family that I love Edmonton so much. Here are a list of my favorite things about Edmonton.

• The River Valley (longest stretch of connected urban parkland in North America)
• Climate
• Culture (Including nightlife, festivals, and museums)
  
• Oilers/Eskimos
• Walkability of areas
• Architecture

Of course, I think I definitely learned to appreciate all this stuff much more since leaving Edmonton, and it makes me want to get back that much more. Here is a post I came across about a similar thought experiment.

If you were to leave your city/area what would you miss the most?

Weird News

Coming straight from this great city of Fresno is this extremely weird news story. I'm really not sure what to make of it, so I'll let you just read it.

Via @mikeoz

The Opposite of Helium

Everyone knows what happens when you inhale helium and then start talking, but did you know there is a gas that can cause the opposite to happen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XbjFn3aqE

Via BoingBoing

10 Things You Didn't Know About the Earth

Here is some interesting science mixed with math and a touch of fantasy.

Enjoy!

Via Kottke.org

FAA Regulations

I am just checking the FAA regulations for my upcoming flight today, so I can make sure I'm not taking anything illegal on the plane, and here are some excerpts of items allowed or not.

Box Cutters	No	Yes
Ice Axes/Ice Picks	No	Yes
Knives - except for plastic or round bladed butter knives	No	Yes
Meat Cleavers	No	Yes
Razor-Type Blades - such as box cutters, utility knives, razor blades not in a cartridge, but excluding safety razors.	No	Yes
Sabers	No	Yes
Scissors - metal with pointed tips and blades shorter than four inches	Yes	Yes
Swords	No	Yes

Baseball Bats	No	Yes
Bows and Arrows	No	Yes
Cricket Bats	No	Yes
Golf Clubs	No	Yes
Hockey Sticks	No	Yes
Lacrosse Sticks	No	Yes
Pool Cues	No	Yes
Ski Poles	No	Yes
Spear Guns	No	Yes

The first column of Yes/No is whether the item is allowed as carry-on, the second is whether it is allowed as checked luggage.

My favorites are meat cleavers, sabers, bows & arrows, and spear guns. Really? We have to tell people this?

Kid Energy

I love this article on Kid Energy from World Changing.

Kids have a lot of energy, so we really should try to harness it. It will also give kids a great opportunity to stay active, especially in this every increasing video game culture in which we live.

Hybrids

Please don't misinterpret this blog post. I am not necessarily against hybrids. I think they are doing their part to reduce oil consumption as well as greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

My issue comes when I read articles like this. Sure hybrids do all these great things, but they are much more of an interim step on our way to oil independence (no longer using oil/gas). In this article the Boston taxi fleet plans to have an all hybrid force by 2015. This may sound great, but that is 7 years off. In 7 years (I hope) hybrids are going to be old technology with relatively bad gas mileage, because other super-efficient and even no oil alternatives will exist, such as hydrogen, plug-in hybrids, and maybe even plug-in hydrogen hybrids.

I just think hybrids are short-sighted for what we really need to accomplish.

New Target Commercial

As is definitely expected, I pay a lot of attention to marketing from Target Corp.

This week they released a commercial that strays from their "normal" routine of advertising. A commercial first broadcast on Sunday uses price points in the advertisement. This is the first time Target has done that in quite some time.

Here is the commercial.

When I first heard this commercial would be coming out, and that Target would be using price points, I was a little worried. I am under the strong conviction that marketing on price alone is a bad idea. Seth Godin is a big believer in this, and it is one of the biggest lessons my Dad has given me over the years. The idea is that people will buy your product or service if it is the cheapest, however, theoretically someone will always be able to go cheaper, so there is little point in trying to market on that angle.

My first thoughts as to what this price point commercial advertising might entail looked something like this. I thought the commercial would be something where price would be the focus and they would be stepping away from the really artsy, fun commercials with good music we are used to.

Fortunately when I actually saw the commercial, I was pleasantly surprised. The commercials are quite similar to what they've been in the recent past, with scenes focusing on a certain product or two, the biggest difference is the specific price points for the items.

What is your take on this new commercial and new direction from Target?