A long hiatus

Hey family and friends,

After a bit of a hiatus I'm back! Lots of things have been going on. For starters, I got hitched.

not to mention got a new job, a new house, and started my second year of my MBA program! Needless to say it's not that I don't love you all, but I've been pretty dang busy! A few updates outside of the major things. The lemoncello (see prior post) worked out so well that we made a huge jug of it that we are intending to give our for Xmas gifts to a few lucky folks, and on a not super important but fun note, I discovered a fun new shoe shopping site, ShoeDazzle!

The quality of the shoes you'll find at Shoe Dazzle aren't the absolute best by any means, but it's definitely not too bad, especially for the price. Every pair of shoes is $39.95, if you join via the link above (which is an invite from me) you'll get 20% off your first order. They also have lots of discount codes and coupons available online too. If you're looking for some fun and trendy shoes to wear, it's definitely a great way to go. You take a little style quiz online and they create a little showroom of shoes, and bags for you. You can subscribe and go in monthly and pick out something new. Look at these! and these! I recently just got the Minka over the knee boots in grey, which are pretty fun and definitely not something I'd want to pay a lot for. Treat yourself to a fun and trendy pair of shoes, you don't even have to feel that bad that they're not super practical!

Tom's Shoes vs. Sketcher's Bob's Shoes | Authentic brand vs. authentically pathetic attempt

The other day I was at Nordstrom Rack perusing the delights that await one in the shoe section when my eye spied a pair of Toms. I thought it very weird that Toms would end up at the rack since Nordstrom usually carries the classic colors, eliminating the need to send them there. I picked it up and noticed it was exactly like Tom's but called "Bob's" by Sketchers. I could barely believe that Sketchers would so blatantly copy Tom's Shoes so I began examining the shoe looking for proof of a differentiator of some sort, what I found was a tag that said if you buy a pair of Bob's, Sketchers will donate a pair to a child in need.

Really?

I think people should emulate the Tom's Shoes model, I think social entrepreneurship is good for society. But the foundation behind what creates a brand, particularly a socially responsible one should not be a compelling story. The founder of Tom's met lots of children who did not have shoes while traveling in South America and so he started Tom's to help them. Bob's on the other hand is strictly marketing, they saw the success and decided that rather than to create their own authentic brand centered around their own story, they would just copy everything Tom's has done. I think their latest thing is they'll donate two pairs of shoes. Wow revolutionary. Check out their product line. Same price points, same styles, same everything. It really is the textbook example of a lazy branding attempt blatantly grounded in marketing as opposed to authenticity. FAIL.

What to do with 15 Lemons

I've got to say, I'm not really a DIY person. I'm just not into jerry riggings things up with glue and yarn or whatever to look like something anybody other than my cat would find appealing. Although I really enjoy getting a good laugh at those who are also not DIY people but seem to think they are. If you are in the mood to laugh, check out Regretsy. Hilarious.

Limoncello is symbolic of the lifestyle I hope to one day live. Something about limoncello evokes sun drenched images of chic Italians in white linen reclining on terraces and living La Dolce Vita. Limoncello isn't expensive to buy, but it sure sounded like fun to make! It wasn't until we'd purchased a bottle of 100 proof Portland Vodka and zested 15 lemons, poured it into a bottle with some sugar and whatnot, stuck it in the pantry for a while, shook it a few times and voila, one day we had limoncello!

Here's how to make it

Aside from pouring yourself an ice cold glass of the stuff and hanging out on the porch on a sunny day, you can also make these marvelous cookies with it.

Why Google is probably safe from antitrust action...for now

So when I got on Google Chrome a few days ago I began to think about antitrust, wondering: "if Google hasn't tread into antitrust territory, they probably will soon... or will they?"

With the Microsoft antitrust case we learned that the government is primarily concerned not so much with what percentage of the market share you have, but the process with which consumers are using your product. Microsoft faced issues because all PCs purchased came pre-loaded with a copy of Windows. If you didn't want Windows, you actually had to pay extra. So consumers really didn't have a choice but to use Windows (unless they wanted to buy a Mac, which although increasingly more common is still not the dominant OS for many reasons. I could go on and on about why, but it's honestly pretty boring).

Consider this:
When you buy a brand new PC it's loaded with Windows, and MS Office, and Internet Explorer, and whatever else. You have to go out of your way to download Firefox and Chrome. Your homepage is conveniently set to MSN.com, and you have to manually set it to something else (in many cases it's Google search, Gmail, or Facebook). The search bar in your browser is oh-so conveniently defaulted to Bing, and you have to remember to drop down and select Google (or Yahoo or Ask, but honestly who even uses those search engines anymore? Might as well load up Lycos or AltaVista. Good luck with that.)

They try to helpfully get you assigned an oh-so convenient Hotmail account, and make it difficult to download drivers or updates from Microsoft unless you're using the IE browser. Ok so I get it, Microsoft had a sticky time fighting antitrust allegations.

Consumers go out of their way to use Google. If Microsoft is the free local paper that is conveniently hanging on your door every morning in your hotel room, Google is the news that's filtered for you and already loaded onto your iPad when you fire it up that morning. So while Microsoft is patiently waiting on the door for you to take off the plastic and read it, Google has beat them to the punch.

Google is probably safe from antitrust because 1) most of their services are free to consumers. 2) Not many of their services (save for Android) come pre-loaded onto devices or are made in a way that forces consumers to use them. The consumer is benefiting from Google, and not being exploited financially, they are also given a multitude of alternatives. People go out of their way to use Google. In fact, many of the established players do what they can to make it difficult for Google. (cough,cough, Apple). In exchange for the free-ness and convenience, we have happily shared our deepest, darkest and most personal keyword searches and handed over the keys to the internet (sorry Al Gore).

So play with Google+ happily folks, and please enjoy this charming nugget from someecards.


nothing like a snarky ecard to brighten your day.