Bunny Blog

Something tells me that you’d like to win a $100 Best Buy gift card from your friends at Psychic Bunny.

But, how!?

During the month of June, spread the word about the Psychic Bunny Newsletter! When your friends and associates sign up here, make sure they put your name in the referral field.  The person with the most referrals wins.

Why would my friends want to subscribe to the Psychic Bunny Newsletter?

Our newsletter is unconventional and fun.  AND one randomly drawn new June subscriber will WIN a $50 Best Buy gift card!  Aw, isn’t love grand?

Drawing by Andrew Chittenden

More details:

New subscribers must survive one email newsletter without unsubscribing.  You wouldn’t want to make Rick sad, would you?  You may sign up your friends, but not without their consent.  The minimum number of referrals required to be eligible to win is 10.  We will contact both winners and post their names on this very blog.  The contest ends at midnight Pacific Standard Time on June 30, 2010.

Hey wait, what if I’m not a subscriber…can I win both prizes?

Goodness, someone likes prizes.  Yes, you sure can!  The drawing for the $50 Best Buy gift card is random, so it is indeed possible.

Can I re-post this?

Yes please!

Do you like having imaginary conversations with yourself?

Ok, I think that I’ve answered quite enough questions for now.  If there are further questions you can email me at jazz [at] psychicbunny.com.

CSI NY and Director Eriq La Salle shut down 4th street between Spring and Main to film some St Patrick’s Day Parade footage.  Despite the photo evidence, Doug was not there.

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While I’ve tried to stay in recession denial as long as possible, it’s bound to set in at some point. My clothes just aren’t so special anymore and I’d love to buy new ones. But I have to be smart so I’ve gone back to thrift store shopping and bargain hunting. On top of that I got motivated and suggested doing a clothing swap with a friend. We each “shopped” through the clothing and shoes of the other and came out with a bag full of new-to-me items to borrow! Today I’m rockin’ a black and white plaid shirt that I would have never picked out myself because of my aversion to plaid (I feel like it will make me look like a farm girl). Now I’m excited to try out more plaid because I look classy. Tomorrow I have several exciting options that will put my shopping urge to rest and keep my dollars accumulating.

I was playing Halo 2 the other night before bed, and I awoke the next morning having had the most peculiar (but justified) dream.

In it, I was in what I can best describe as a souped up laser-tag-esque arena, only the other people were playing were “astronaut miners” who supposedly lived on the “station” we were in.  Sigourney Weaver was there as Ripley, but she died a couple of times and came back.  I was the only one with a gun, but the rounds I was firing were live.

Aliens (the ones from Alien, not Halo 2) were running around, as were several miniature Predators (from Predator…in case there was any confusion).  The Predators were running toward me at one point for (unexpectedly) help - which was good, because my gun was jammed when I was trying to fire on them.  They sounded like kids, were short, and had what looked like rubber masks on.

The dream never resolved itself, but it got me thinking.  Why was I dreaming about running around shooting Aliens?  Well, the Aliens were probably because I watching Alien the week prior, and the arena/shooting aspect was probably because I played Halo 2 just before bed.  I have absolutely no idea where the kid-Predators were from, especially since I haven’t seen either of the AVP movies.  

Occasionally a book I’m reading before bed will creep into my dreams, but this was a really vivid dream that had me running around worried and stressed (in the dream, not in my apartment).  

Maybe Mom was right.  Maybe I shouldn’t play video games before bed.  Maybe you shouldn’t either.

I’m probably not the first, but I just noticed the striking similarity between the Battlestar Galactica logo and that of our very own Consumer Product Safety Commission:

I’ve been harassed lately by several ads that show up in the ticker on my Gmail account.  And by “harassed” I mean the ads are terribly convenient.  Because, you know, they’re targeted.

I’ve sent maybe one or two emails with “Doctor Who” mentioned somewhere within the contents of the email, so of course I get ads for Doctor Who on DVD. Well, apparently there are a few sites that sell all four seasons of the relaunch for a measly $79.   Considering each season individually goes for that much, I’m DYING to order the complete set.   The problem is, most of those sites are shady as hell, and I’m sure that my identity and/or credit card information has been stolen just by looking at them.

So, for all you web-sales entrepreneurs out there, here’s where these guys are going wrong:

Let me start by saying that these companies might be completely reputable.   Unfortunately, none appear as such, which is why, against my better judgement (or in conjunction with it, now that I think about it), I will never order from any of these sites.

Most appear to be internationally based, which is fine.  Most of the best board games are only available internationally these days, and I’ve ordered safely internationally in the past.  I won’t hold this against any of these sites.

They offer free shipping to the U.S., which is part of the appeal (because who ever wants to pay for shipping - especially internationally?).

One of the sites appears to have launched in November, another in September, which, again, I can deal with.  You have to start your business sometime, right?

The fact they’re advertising on Google is a check mark in the “legit” column.  If you’re not a legit business, you’re not going to advertise.  Or is a fake business creating a mirage of legit business through advertising?  It’s easy to get paranoid when your identity is on the line.

Here’s where things get shady.  The one site has a contact email that is Gmail-based, and not the company’s domain.  If you’re going to go to the trouble of creating a fake website to lure people in to buy your fake goods, at least take the half-step more of using an email address with the same domain name.

The fonts are nearly illegible, which is also shady.  Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Amazon, but I like the sites I order from to at least look presentable.  My Geocities page looked more well designed, and that was over a decade ago.

When you click the “Locator” link on the one site, it says “We are located on the web at [their URL].”  Really?  Do you think?  At least make up a fake physical address, instead of just looking lazy.

Both sites have typos galore.  Again, shady.

The one site actually says they get their DVDs from China “releases.”  Considering that I can’t find a legit site that carries the supposed “Complete Season 1-4 DVD Boxset,” I’m guessing that these are bootlegs.  The fact they are Region 0 doesn’t help the case at all.

I guess what pisses me off the most is that I’m wasting my time trying to prove these sites aren’t legit, but whoever is running these “businesses” aren’t even trying to pretend to be legit in the first place. At least try to look professional.  That’s all I’m asking.  I want to give you my credit card and my identity in exchange for a cheap DVD boxset.  You just have to work to get it.

That’s right, a whole month where my inane observations have not fallen upon the eyes and ears this blog calls precious, and I haven’t received even a single “thank you!”

So tell me, what have you been doing in the month that you haven’t been constantly checking this blog?

Tubemogul, the awesome uploading & tracking tool that allows us to upload our videos to ten different websites (youtube, yahoo video, revver, stupidvideos, etc.) with the click of a button (instead of the painful and tedious uploading to ten sites, writing 10 different sets of tags and video descriptions), now has even more features.  And I just so happen to love them.

 The Boast Feature:

Looks like this! That’s how many views our spoof of the movie “P2″ has gotten across all the websites we’ve uploaded it to. No longer do you have to worry about only ushering people to one place because “the only views that count are on YouTube” or because “Revver is the only web portal that pays.” Now you can point people to wherever the hell you want, because now with Tubemogul you can show how all the views are adding up.  Now, granted, of that 124,000 views (as of this post) 122,000 are from youtube, but every so often a video gets featured on Yahoo or Revver or Stupidvideos, and don’t you want those to count, too?

The New Link Feature

Basically, they give you automatic code to generate these links to your videos all over the web:

YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, Google, Revver, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Veoh, Crackle and Stupid Videos

No, I didn’t have to copy and paste 11 links, I just copied one block of code, and it felt just like slipping into silk pajamas. Actually, come to think of it, I can’t imagine the usefulness of that one, unless somehow giving web viewers the choice over which of the 11 websites to watch your video is somehow incredibly desirable. Maybe it is?

 There is also a tool which lets you embed the latest Youtube comments into your own webpage, which is awesome, but I can’t seem to get it to work in this blog, so that’ll have to wait till I figure it out.

Hello! We have a blog now, and you are looking at it! We are a Web 2.0 company! No, bigger than that. Web 2.3, at least!

Out here on the untested fringe miracle universe of Web 2.3, there are bound to be some growing pains and unexpected issues, so if you notice any bugs or glitches or just want to comment on how the whole thing is working, please, do so! If you’ve never seen a website before, please, breathe deeply and type slowly.

We’ve cheated a little bit by pre-loading the blog with all of our past Media of the Month installments, which we hope readers old and new will enjoy!

In the meantime, stay tuned and we’ll see what we can make of this thing.