I am not a couponing expert. In fact, I have no flippin’ idea what I’m doing, to the point that I selected “clip all” from Coupons.com and watched in horror as it nom’d 80 sheets of paper. Whoops.

Well, today I needed laundry detergent. I decided now or never and checked the coupons I have. $5 off your first web pick-up order at Walgreens. Sounds good! But none of the coupons I had matched the detergent on sale at Walgreens. Booo.

Next stop, the circular. Arm & Hammer detergent is 50% off, and I managed to find a coupon for $1 off 3 bottles. I made up the difference on what I needed to get the $5 off by putting some Huggies diapers in the basket. Those were $2.50 off per pack, and I had a $3 off 2 coupon.

Total without sales/coupons: $44.95
Total after sales: $29.45
Total after coupons: $20.45
Total savings: $24.50

While I don’t expect to be on an episode of Extreme Couponing anytime soon, my initial adventure was a decent success, with a 55% savings. I’ll be trying to keep a more organized system and an eye on the fliers, as my next goal is to tackle Target’s gift card offer: purchase 2 large packages of diapers and receive a $10 gift card. Without any adjustments, that’s $60 out of pocket, so I’d like so see how low I can get it.

Here’s another one from Good Morning America.

I have an 8 year old. If she dared rip a piece of wood off the wall and threaten to kill her teacher with it, she’d get a whole hell of a lot worse than pepper spray. Not so in the world of fat-mom and fat-brat. In their world, all he does is OK, because, well, he doesn’t do it when mommy dearest is around. Gee, mom, wonder if that’s because she’s overindulgent?

A lot of bloggers/commentators/idiot liberals are blaming the cops, or the school, or the teachers, or Republicans, or Jesus. Of course, as per the usual fashion, very few are willing to blame the fucking parent. Repeat after me: her son is a shit head because she is an poor, overindulgent excuse for a parent.

I will bet this child runs the household. I will also bet his mother will swear he doesn’t. Before you think I’m being overly judgmental, ensure you didn’t miss these gems.

I think there is a problem, but it’s with school and Aidan. I don’t know what else there is for me to do when I’m not there at school to figure out what is causing the problems.

The medication just made him gain weight, didn’t affect his behavior at all, so we all decided it was better to take him off of it.

The medication made him gain weight because he isn’t broken in the head, he’s broken in the walking incubator. This woman is clearly not raising a functioning human being. Hell, she obviously isn’t a functioning human being, considering her views on cops as therapists.

You talk to him and you find out what it is that’s bothering him, as well. You don’t just walk in, ask him to stop and spray.

I’m more than slightly pissed off by all of this. These are the kids of fucktarded parents that are littered across the nation and send their maladjusted children to school – possibly, the school my children attend. While my kids are sitting back, minding their own business, not screaming I will kill you motherfuckers at teachers while brandishing a sharp stick, these kids are committing felonies on school property and possibly harming my kids.

And, guess what, the teachers can’t do jackshit about it, because worthless parents like this would call the cops on any teacher who dared lay a hand on her precious baby.

Oh, and yeah, all this shit about him being “only 8″ and “only 80 pounds” – until you’ve wrestled an 80-pound child to the floor during a temper tantrum, STFU. You will walk away injured. They can hurt you. And a closing thought for mom

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Rainstorms give me the best sleep ever. No, really. I sleep like a goddamn baby during rain storms. I needed some extra help getting to sleep last night, and began searching for rain storm MP3s. (And, no, this is not an advertisement for anything, although a link will follow shortly). To make a long story short, I found this one, downloaded it, spent 15 minutes listening peacefully, then woke up 8 hours later. It was a truly beautiful event.

You’ll need to do some kind of eMail list sign-up, but the 60 minutes of loopable relaxation is well worth it.

January 5, 2011

Dear Crosby Parents,

We are writing to inform you that we have had a confirmed case of MRSA at Crosby Elementary School. as soon as we were notified of this, students were removed from hte affected area. The affected area has been disinfected as recommended by the County Health Department. [Assholes, we got here because of your hyper-disinfecting of everything.] As of this writing, no student has been infected with MRSA [So who had the confirmed case?]

As you are aware, MRSA is a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics called beta-lactams. In the community, most MRSA infection are skin infections that may appear as pustules or boils which often are red, swollen, painful or have pus or other drainage. They often first look like spider bites or bumps that are red, swollen, and painful. These skin infections commonly occur at sites of visible skin trauma, such as cuts and abraisions, and areas of the body covered by hair.

The key to preventing MRSA infections is for everyone to practice good hygiene [You're full of shit.]

• Keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water or usung an alcohol-based hand rub.
• Keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage until healed.
• Avoid contact with other people’s wounds or bandages.
• Avoid sharing personal items such as towels of razors.

Your student’s health and safety is our first concern [Really, cause the school lunch menu convinced me it wasn't.]. Please call either of us if you have any question or concerns.

Thank you! [No, thank YOU modern school system.]

There’s a super bug wandering around the halls of my kids school. These fuck wads seem to think that disinfecting one, single area that is inhabited by 30+ little plague rats on a daily basis is going to contain the risk of contamination. And, on top of it, they want us to use MORE antibacterial garbage – the exact same non-sense that got us super bugs in the first place.

And we wonder why our children are failing academically. The people who are teaching them are complete and total morons.

The first issue to come up in the non-nutrition spectrum was chemicals. Chemicals, chemicals everywhere. Face scrub, shampoo, conditioner, soap, make-up (ok, I haven’t given up my mascara). The first thing that really got me was my son’s baby wash, which had a laundry list of items that I couldn’t identify, let alone pronounce.

Creepy.

On the sideline, in my quest to figure out why aspartame gives me such terrible migraines, I joined the Facebook group for Millions Against Monsanto. Here I was inundated with even more information on why GMO-foods are bad, if not lethal.

And anyone who knows me also knows I’ve been losing weight on a low-carbohydrate diet. The only logical next step is Paleo living.

As stated by almost all Paleo bloggers of note, it’s a guide, not a religion. We aren’t Paleoliths anymore – haven’t been for quite some time – so it’s not reasonable or even feasible to live as they did. But, we can get close and use the information we had on them to, hopefully, live a healthier life than the status quo. The status quo being quite abysmal, as it is.

I’ll still be posting on WordPress, Android/Chrome and the other goodies I’ve rambled about in the past, of course. The Paleo info will just make the site truer to its name. =)

Although it reminded me of one of my dad’s memories of his childhood in Palatine (where the ‘works got rain and three explosive techs ended up dying) I trusted in modern technology and thoroughly enjoyed the warm rain con explosions. We half expected the kids to start complaining, but they had just as much fun.

Another weird turn of events this year came in a 4 square foot triangle. Amidst hundreds of people, a lone warbler sat, well, warbling over its nest. People took pictures, gawked and generally stood confused around its marked off home until the show began.

There weren’t any flaming-blanket incidents from falling shrapnel (probably from the rain) but the explosive techs got a bit ballsier. The ropes were closer and the explosions were lower. The crowd responded, too. I don’t think we’ve been this vocal yet.

The only downside was the walk back. Unless you plan on tailgating, there’s no parking at Emrickson. So we parked waaaay down on Dean and hoofed it. The kids weren’t so into it at 9:45 but they made it.

A lot of sales people mistakenly assume they’re also marketers. After all, marketing is just another form of sales, right?

Wrong. Here’s a quick rule of thumb for marketers vs salesmen.

- A marketer is the giant chicken break dancing on the side of the road.
- A salesman is the cute teenage girl who convinces you to buy a larger drink.

I spent several years in electronics sales and, like most sales people, thought Marketing will be easy! I didn’t realize how much psychology goes into priming someone to be receptive for the final pitch. That’s what marketers do. They don’t convince you to buy it. They convince you the product or service looks neat enough to consider. Salesmen meet you at the door, gently guide you to the amazing product and throw in a subtle But wait! There’s more!

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the catastrophic marketing mistake I’d made until it was too late. I had my site running for over a year, trying to “sell” it via ads and Internet posts. I had modest success, but nothing like my competitors. Why?

I spent too much time selling my product.

As a salesman, my job was to explain, demonstrate and pimp the hell out of every feature of the product. I had to turn the Wow, this is cool into Wow, this does something for me. That doesn’t work for web marketing. On the net, your website (or eBook or super nifty plug-in or unique service) is your storefront. Sure, some people are going to waltz on in because they’re looking for it, but

Any salesman will tell you the best sales come from Wows.

One of my favorite customers – and I have a lot of them – was a guy going on a plane trip. Just a trip across the country, no more than 5 hours all told. His laptop battery wouldn’t last the whole way, he didn’t want to be bored and he wanted a portable DVD player. The company had just run a huge marketing push for our awesome new DVD players, complete with idyllic images of children sitting serenely in the backseat of a luxury minivan, watching Disney movies while lush, green country sped by. He saw the ad somewhere and thought Wow, that looks cool. I need that on my plane trip. If it could shut up a bunch of grade schoolers for a few hours, surely it could keep him entertained.

The DVD players are a little on the large side, similar to an 8″ netbook. Between his behemoth laptop, a cellphone and assorted other carry-on swag, his Wow was starting to waver as the actual size set in. Did he really need something that big just for the plane trip? I had to reup his wow.

Lead with a Wow, but not your best one.

For some customers, the marketing is enough and the salesman simply needs to reaffirm whatever the marketing campaign promised. For others, like mine, the salesman needs to step it up a notch. You always need to be able to move up for these customers, like Mr. Customer and the iPod Video. (Remember when those were new? Ah…the old days of 2006.)

It’s small. It’s light. It holds a whole lot of video. It’s really cool, because you don’t need to bring your DVDs with you. I can’t tell you exactly how many it will hold, but…well, here, just flip through mine. I’ve got a couple seasons of my favorite TV shows, movies for my kids and a bunch of music. Just click here to open that folder. I’ve got a cable over here that lets you hook it up to a TV…

Your marketing will suck if your sales isn’t into it.

Long story short, he bought the damn iPod (and a case, a portable charger, a car charger/transmitter, a TV cable and awesome headphones). He probably went home and bought the software, too.

The entire exchange wouldn’t have gone nearly so well if either of the key factors were missing.

• He thought Wow, that DVD player is cool.
• I thought Wow, this iPod will do something for this guy.

Marketing gets people motivated and interested.

Just like these centered, bold subheadings compel you to read whatever I put here. It really doesn’t matter what they say as long as they grab your attention. They could say something insanely, bizarrely random like Cute, fuzzy penguins love marketing. Sometimes – and that’s a big sometimes – insanely, bizarrely random is just what your company needs. Like this one from McDonald’s, featured on The Wondrous blog.

This ad works on pure shock value. It gets people thinking about it, maybe angry, maybe happy (Damn right you shouldn’t hire those Poles!). Either way, people feel something and are urged to learn more.

And here’s where I failed with my site. I didn’t try to convince people it was cool. I didn’t try to draw people in. I tried to sell to them before they had a chance to be interested in the project. Had I known better, I would have picked the most appealing part, played it up and remembered

Sales gets people to want it.

Interest leads to impulsive clicks but very rarely an impulsive sale. Your sales page should confirm that their interest was right and they should look no further. Even if they don’t buy today, your sales needs to reinforce whatever cool thing your marketing promised so they continue to think about it.

And, when you’ve done all this…

For the love of God,

ask for the damn sale.

I could (and probably will) write an entire series on how important it is to ask for the sale. For now, just remember that people expect prompts. Think about the last uncomfortable exchange you had at a store or restaurant. They usually go something like this.

Salesperson: Welcome to Our Place. How are you?

You: Hi. Good and yourself?

Salesperson: Great! …

You: …

Salesperson: …So…What can I help you with?

You: Oh, yeah…I’m looking for the widget I saw in your catalog.

Until you ask for the sale, your customer will hang in uncomfortable silence limbo, deciding what to do. Market, sell, ask them to buy.

Image Credits

1. Collection Business 1 by arte_ram

2. Hammock Lady standing on Beach by shwizle

3. Brocante 2 by manuruch

4. Gorilla Marketing by GlennPeb

At this exact moment, I’m in or near a town named “Mishawaka”. I stopped here for their wonderful Holiday Inn Express [read: I was tired of driving]. It is a pretty nice hotel, though. It’s a sizable room, with a sizable bed and it’s smoking-permitted. We’ll add the allowance of smoking to the “the things I love about Indiana” list. It was also on the cheap, considering the amenities. Internet, cable, toiletries, coffee/tea/coffee maker, breakfast, microwave, refrigerator, blow dryer, iron/ironing board and there’s supposedly a pool somewhere. I can go with this.

Back to Indiana. I’ve learned a few things about the state so far, some of which piss me off to no end and others that I adore. I’ll start with the negatives, so we can end on a good note.

1. They are morally opposed to giving warning. I drove 8 miles on a highway without a single speed limit sign and the roads weren’t marked ahead of time and didn’t have lights to illuminate the marker.
2. I drove down some pretty crazy streets. Headless horseman kind of creepy, overgrown with trees and completely dark.
3. It’s more desolate than northwest McHenry county, and that’s hard to do. Anytime you see a sign that says “next rest stop in 55 miles” you know you’re in trouble.
4. My phone (and therefore GPS) don’t work for miles and miles.
5. The toll booth system makes no sense and has no explanation. This ties in with #1.

On the positive side

1. I passed a dozen or so discount cigar stores. That’s just cool.
2. It’s quiet and quaint. I passed through a town with a giant steer on a restaurant sign.
3. There’s a grocery store whose name is written in Halloween style spooky letter. Martin’s? I can’t remember.
4. The rest stops provided useful information, like maps that are readable by non-Navy seals.
5. The toll booth attendants were nice. They said “hello” and “good-bye” and “thanks for visiting Indiana”.
6. Gas is cheap.
7. There’s non-commercial things to see. I have a half-dozen brochures on Mennonites and Amish and farmer’s markets and nature preserves. This ties in with #4.
8. Their on-ramp off-ramp system makes a whole lot more sense than Illinois’. On and off. No crazy loops that end up on the same highway going the other way.