“Should Big Brother be watching your weight or personal habits? Your government or employer may think so. Even as many employers trim back the amount of healthcare coverage they provide in attempts to cut costs, some believe they should have more say in their employees’ lifestyle choices — including whether they smoke, drink, or exercise, and even how much they weigh…”
“Three months after the death of a worker in an Annapolis crane accident, an advisory board of Maryland’s Occupational Safety and Health program has recommended sweeping changes be made to state rules for crane operations…” Continue reading
“According to a new study by professors Michael Morrisey and David Grabowski, the rate of traffic fatalities in the U.S. falls as gas prices rise…” Continue reading
“A study in the British Medical Journal shows that women trying to become pregnant who were given either of two popular fertility treatments demonstrated no higher conception rate than patients given no treatment at all…” Continue reading
So as anyone who was around back in the heady, halcyon days of the first internet gold rush can tell you, there used to be tons of nascent websites and services promising something for nothing. While this is a perennial favorite advertising technique, the newness of the online environment lowered many people’s otherwise acute bullshit defenses and people signed up left and right for a plethora of “get paid for surfing the web,” “get paid to read ads,” and “get paid for nothing at all, really, we swear” schemes. I was no exception — I distinctly recall running something like three adbar programs simultaneously at one time — but as we all found out, very few of these new ventures survived long enough to pay anyone for anything, assuming they’d ever intended to.
Yet somehow here we are well into the 21st century and somehow, MyPoints is still around. I’m not sure why they survived while all the others I signed up for back in the day have long since been forgotten, but they are. Better yet, they’ve stood the test of time and they’ve proven to me that unlike most online marketers they deliver on what they promise. Each week I get a certain number of MyPoints emails in my inbox, each usually delivering between 5 and 50 points into my account. Eventually, they pile up enough that I redeem them for something valuable or useful from the MyPoints selection of rewards — lately I’ve just been getting Wal-Mart gift cards, since I know I’ll inevitably have to go to Wal-Mart anyway (no matter how much I try to avoid it) it’s basically like getting money. No, it’s not like getting a ton of money, but it’s something for nothing, and it’s enough to be helpful and appreciated when it’s time to get toiletries or a microwave oven or whatever.
In order to give some sort of ballpark figure what to expect, I logged into my MyPoints account, which tells me I have redeemed 33050 points during my time with them. At current exchange rates (they used to be quite a bit lower, so this is a pretty conservative estimate) that would work out to 21 10$ Wal-Mart gift cards, or $210 bucks. Like I say, it’s not tons of free cash, but hey — that’s $210 bucks for doing basically nothing that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
One of the things that I think has helped contribute to the company’s survival is that they don’t have the kind of referral link system that encourages people to just spam referrals everywhere in hopes of profiting off of what’s essentially just a digital pyramid scheme. One can make referrals, but only on a one-on-one, personal direct email, and each member is limited to only five referrals per month in order to discourage spam. If you’d like to sign up for MyPoints as one of my referrals, send an email to apoehler@hotmail.com including your name and I’ll try to sign you up. (If I happen to have used up my referrals already for that month, I’ll put you in the next month’s queue. I promise.)
Despite the ubiquity of supposedly free offers online, it’s no secret that most are at best email address harvesters and at worst identity-theft scams. Over time I have tried many of these programs, and a few have filtered out of the pack that have actually paid off for me, so I figured I might as well document these for posterity, since genuine reviews and recommendations of such services online are so few and far between as to be basically nonexistent.
Anyway, like many manufacturers whose business depends heavily on brand loyalty (like, say, cigarette manufactures) the Coca-Cola company places codes on many of their products which can be redeemed for points at mycokerewards.com. Most people tend not to participate in such programs since entering the codes is remarkably tedious and to get anything decent usually requires purchasing said product in Costco-sized bulk quantities, any until recently I was among them as regards the mycokerewards program. However, despite regular admonishments from my dentists, I regularly drink quite a bit of Diet Coke in cans, and I got in the habit of saving the cardboard can boxes because I found they make great shipping protection for the books, CDs, comics and such that I sell periodically on ebay (though far less often since their last nonsensical set of feedback rule changes). As a result, my hall closet began to fill with the empty boxes. Eventually, I began staring at the pile and wondering just how many mycokerewards points the stack constituted — hundreds? Thousands? Having never before bothered with the program, I had no frame of reference, but I figured it might be worth my time to find out.
Turns out they limit the number of codes one can enter in a day to ten, so it took awhile to whittle down the pile. Still, this was far better than painstakingly doing it one at a time, and soon I found I had built up a grand total of 1400 points from my now-empty closet despite the fact that the mycokerewards site is absolutely awful, filled with pointless flash interstitials, illogical categorization of rewards, no basic ’show all rewards’ option, and unnecessary animation.
Like all such programs, mycokerewards offers a variety of rewards, but some are just ridiculously out of range. Probably the most practical and useful reward offered by mycokerewards is actually a full 20-piece set of Rachael Ray-endorsed cookware, but to get said reward one would need to redeem 14400 points, or the equivalent of 1440 12-can packs of Coca-Cola products — 17280 cans. So yeah, while I thought my year-plus pile of empty Coke cases was substantial, it wasn’t anywhere near Rachael Ray territory.
After browsing through the entire catalog of rewards, and realizing that the earbuds that came with my ipod were in fact impossibly shitty-sounding as well as ill-fitting, I settled on a pair of black Skullcandy “Smokin’ Earbuds” which “cost” me a mere 731 points. And lo and behold, yesterday sitting at my door when I got home (thanks, DHL) was a package containing these:
Unfortunately, a quick perusal of the mycokerewards catalog shows that it looks like they’ve removed these earbuds from the possible rewards, so I may have gotten in just under the line on that one. Still, depending on how many Coca-Cola products you drink on a weekly basis it may just end up being worth your while to tear off and save up the codes in a drawer somewhere and enter the codes in whenever you feel you’ve built up enough for it to be worthwhile and you have nothing better to do. I myself have 749 points remaining in my account there and none of the rewards within that range really catch my eye at the moment. Though if necessary I could burn off those points on movie tickets or promotional t-shirts, for now I’m content to let them sit until, perhaps in a year or so, I have built up enough to bother foraging through the mycokerewards site to pick out something else.
In these doldrums of summer, one really notices how slim and shallow the network’s offerings are; in the blush of publicity they’re great at making it appear something’s happening when nothing really is, but eventually one realizes it’s just new iterations of the same old tired soaps, game shows, overwrought “dramas”, and hacky sitcoms. Howard TV is something perhaps only Stern (or Oprah, his counterpart for the non-Y-chromosome segment of the population) could pull off, in that it’s essentially an entire channel devoted to the universe of Stern, his radio show, and the various characters that orbit within its gravity. Between the four-day-a-week Howard Stern morning radio show itself, the followup Wrap-Up Show, the behind-the-scenes activities of the Stern staffers, the ongoing circus that follows the show’s Wack Pack of hangers-on, and material drawn from the vault of videotapes originally shot during the time Stern was on the E! channel, there’s a near-constant flow of new, high-quality programming on Howard TV — I’d estimate there’s at least an average of around five hours of new content added per week.
The real downfall of Howard TV lies in its limited distribution. Thus far the material produced for On Demand remains solely available there, which is all well and good if you happen to be on one of the cable systems that carries In Demand Networks, but if not, well, you’re pretty much SOL. Especially now that Howard TV is branching out into producing more original programming (such as its two bowling shows and the Miss Howard Stern reality show), the service is perfect for Itunes video sales: it’s easy to imagine Stern fans loading up their ipods with the latest Howard TV content each morning for the subway ride into work, and the fact that this or another similar revenue stream isn’t being capitalized upon is ludicrous. It’s the problem Howard has (so far more-or-less successfully) been combating since leaving terrestrial radio for satellite: sure, the show is great, but do people know? If a person has neither satellite radio nor In Demand-enabled cable television (nor the proclivity towards filesharing), then chances are they don’t. But if they could get a taste of what’s going on at Sirius and Howard TV on Itunes, it could lead them into purchasing more, perhaps regularly, and maybe even signing up for a satellite radio subscription — you know, once all the Sirius/XM merger issues are settled. Without this additional avenue for revenue or exposure, the Stern circus will likely stay out sight and out of mind of most who don’t already number themselves among the converted.
So the San Diego Reader is reporting rumors that the House of Blues here is in trouble, and if they don’t start bringing in better numbers the venue may close within nine months or so; reportedly, the San Diego HOB has the worst attendance of any of the chain’s locations. I can’t say I’m terribly shocked, based upon my own experiences there seeing maybe four or five shows. It’s far from the worst place I’ve ever been, but I also wouldn’t really call the experience of being there enjoyable or pleasurable — it’s like seeing a band in an Applebee’s, and a very overpriced one at that. Drinks there are a complete ripoff (though comparably priced to many downtown venues), the food is okay but not great for what you pay, and between the cost of parking downtown and gas as evening at the HOB can easily run double the cost of a night at, say, the Casbah or the Belly Up, where I generally actually have fun and don’t get half as douchey a vibe.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t actively dislike the SD HOB, but I definitely don’t consider it a great place to see a show. Generally, when I see someone is playing there my reaction is similar to this: “Hey, Motorhead is coming to town…mmm, but it’s at the House of Blues…I don’t know, do I want to deal with that? Maybe I’ll hold off and see if they drop the tickets to half-price (which they very frequently do — apparently their lack of consistent attendance figures is not a new thing) and then I’ll go, but…” So while fewer performance venues in a city is never a positive thing in my book, I can’t say it seems likely I’ll really miss the San Diego House of Blues if and when it should happen to close.
It’s been an embarrassment of riches lately for fans of the Replacements what with the spurt of expanded reissues packed with outtakes and rare tracks, but despite issuing a couple of decent newly-recorded tracks on their “hits” collection the ‘Mats themselves haven’t made the obvious full-fledged reunion move since bassist Tommy Stinson seems firmly stuck in the solo band Axl Rose likes to call Guns ‘N’ Roses. Fortunately, in his absence, Paul Westerberg hasn’t just been sitting and biding his time. Here, Westerberg reinvents the album form as a single mp3 file the length of a single side of a cassette tape — despite the title, 49:00 comes in at 43:55 precisely — which is appealingly homebrewed and packed with tantalizing Guided By Voices-like snippets and fragments in between the more finished-sounding tunes, dropped on the listening public with little advance notice or fanfare suddenly last weekend. Westerberg’s rudimentary drumming continues to be the main downfall of his recent solo work, but he’s succeeded in recapturing a significant amount of the ragged spirit of fun that once seemed so effortless within the context of the Replacements but which drained quickly out of Westerberg’s major-label work. Even the Mats’ predilection for unrehearsed cover tunes is back in the form of brief clips of Westerized versions of tunes like “I Am A Rock”, “I’m Eighteen”, “Born To Be Wild”, “Rocket Man”, and “Hello Goodbye”. Word is Paul has been working on a mountain of new material, a rumor that seems far likelier to be true considering he’s selling this solid album-length chunk of new stuff for a mere 49 cents. No, this isn’t the world-shaking type of attention-grabbing gesture made by such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, nor should it be expected to be, but this only makes 49:00 even easier to like. I’m not gonna expect all of Paul’s future work to hit this price point, but as long as it all hits this level of quality I’ll be satisfied.
“California-based Amgen announced Monday that its experimental drug denosumab reduced risks of osteoporosis and vertebral fractures in men being treated with prostate cancer medicines that can cause bone loss…”
“New Mexico State Police have closed their case on a Texas man’s death after determining he killed himself in a manner similar to that shown in an episode of CSI…”
“12 years after TWA Flight 800 exploded off Long Island, killing 230, the FAA has passed a rule intended to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future…”
“A new Florida law allowing employees to bring guns to work has come under fire from Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific…”
I forget sometimes how much random information is floating around out there. Pretty much every website that requires registration for anything has some sort of age verification system, even if that merely consists of entering a birthdate the user has just made up in order to fit the site’s requirements. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed by the number of undoubtedly heartfelt birthday wishes I’ve received in my email box from organizations as disparate as the prestigious Glenlivet Society and the Comic Book Resources forums, and no less than six identical (though I’m sure equally sincere) ecards exhorting me to “have a rockin’ good time” from someone named Keith Kehrer whom I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard of before. Rest assured each of these birthday wishes is appreciated by me, in proportions equivalent to the amount of thought and sentiment that was put into each message.
Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1& The Flash #242:Tom Peyer is one of those guys who guys like Mark Waid and Mark Millar or whoever always say is a great underrated writer who doesn’t get enough work, but man, he writes some bad comics. The Flash #242 is just awful in every way and demonstrates that the man just doesn’t get the series, the characters, or how to write an appealing story. Freddie Williams’ amazingly flat and static-looking art doesn’t help elevate the World’s Most Depressingest Comics Magazine, but there’s really no point getting too worked up as Peyer and Williams are just filling space as the Flash rejuvenation has gotten underway elsewhere, in books people are actually reading. Speaking of which, this week also brought us Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1, which is that recently elusive and rare item: a good Flash story! Of course, technically “the Flash” isn’t the star of Rogues’ Revenge, but outside of Librafrom Final Crisis every other character in this book is a Flash character. The best creative team of the Wally West Flash series steps right back into their roles as if they’d never left: Geoff Johns elegantly picks up some abandoned plot threads from his run on the book, explains away some of the idiocies of Countdown to Final Crisis and Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in a few panels, and reminds us why The Flash was where his writing was first widely hailed; I do wish Kolins had been forced to have his work properly inked, but he manages to evoke his previous work on the book quite well and his storytelling is stronger than ever here. I find it slightly odd that this was originally not planned as an official Final Crisis tie-in, because man, it’s hard to see how this could have much more to do with FC so far without having Metron and Anthro show up. Point blank, if you read and liked DC Universe #0 and Final Crisis #1 & 2, read Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge. And no matter who you are, skip The Flash #242 — and most likely, every issue of that series until such time as the changes currently occurring in the Final Crisis books filter into the regular monthly Flash series, whether that be the current volume, yet another new Flash #1, or The Flash v1 #351.
Mighty Avengers #16: This was kind of boring and lousy, actually. The Secret Invasion tie-in backstory of when Elektra was replaced by a Skrull turns out not to be that interesting or dramatic, at least to me. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.
Below you may input your name and email address to receive announcements when there are new developments on AaronPoehler.com. I vow not to deluge you with forwarded chain letters and tasteless jokes.
A new article written by me is up on Docshop.com now:
So as anyone who was around back in the heady, halcyon days of the first internet gold rush can tell you, there used to be tons of nascent websites and services promising something for nothing. While this is a perennial favorite advertising technique, the newness of the online environment lowered many people’s otherwise acute bullshit defenses and people signed up left and right for a plethora of “get paid for surfing the web,” “get paid to read ads,” and “get paid for nothing at all, really, we swear” schemes. I was no exception — I distinctly recall running something like three adbar programs simultaneously at one time — but as we all found out, very few of these new ventures survived long enough to pay anyone for anything, assuming they’d ever intended to.
Despite the ubiquity of supposedly free offers online, it’s no secret that most are at best email address harvesters and at worst identity-theft scams. Over time I have tried many of these programs, and a few have filtered out of the pack that have actually paid off for me, so I figured I might as well document these for posterity, since genuine reviews and recommendations of such services online are so few and far between as to be basically nonexistent.
In these doldrums of summer, one really notices how slim and shallow the network’s offerings are; in the blush of publicity they’re great at making it appear something’s happening when nothing really is, but eventually one realizes it’s just new iterations of the same old tired soaps, game shows, overwrought “dramas”, and hacky sitcoms. 
So the 
It’s been an embarrassment of riches lately for fans of the Replacements what with the spurt of expanded reissues packed with outtakes and rare tracks, but despite issuing a couple of decent newly-recorded tracks on their “hits” collection the ‘Mats themselves haven’t made the obvious full-fledged reunion move since bassist Tommy Stinson seems firmly stuck in the solo band Axl Rose likes to call Guns ‘N’ Roses. Fortunately, in his absence, Paul Westerberg hasn’t just been sitting and biding his time. Here, Westerberg reinvents the album form as a single mp3 file the length of a single side of a cassette tape — despite the title, 49:00 comes in at 43:55 precisely — which is appealingly homebrewed and packed with tantalizing Guided By Voices-like snippets and fragments in between the more finished-sounding tunes, dropped on the listening public with little advance notice or fanfare suddenly last weekend. Westerberg’s rudimentary drumming continues to be the main downfall of his recent solo work, but he’s succeeded in recapturing a significant amount of the ragged spirit of fun that once seemed so effortless within the context of the Replacements but which drained quickly out of Westerberg’s major-label work. Even the Mats’ predilection for unrehearsed cover tunes is back in the form of brief clips of Westerized versions of tunes like “I Am A Rock”, “I’m Eighteen”, “Born To Be Wild”, “Rocket Man”, and “Hello Goodbye”. Word is Paul has been working on a mountain of new material, a rumor that seems far likelier to be true considering he’s selling this solid album-length chunk of new stuff for a mere 49 cents. No, this isn’t the world-shaking type of attention-grabbing gesture made by such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, nor should it be expected to be, but this only makes 49:00 even easier to like. I’m not gonna expect all of Paul’s future work to hit this price point, but as long as it all hits this level of quality I’ll be satisfied.
Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1 & The Flash #242: Tom Peyer is one of those guys who guys like Mark Waid and Mark Millar or whoever always say is a great underrated writer who doesn’t get enough work, but man, he writes some bad comics. The Flash #242 is just awful in every way and demonstrates that the man just doesn’t get the series, the characters, or how to write an appealing story. Freddie Williams’ amazingly flat and static-looking art doesn’t help elevate the World’s Most Depressingest Comics Magazine, but there’s really no point getting too worked up as Peyer and Williams are just filling space as the Flash rejuvenation has gotten underway elsewhere, in books people are actually reading. Speaking of which, this week also brought us Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1, which is that recently elusive and rare item: a good Flash story! Of course, technically “the Flash” isn’t the star of Rogues’ Revenge, but outside of Libra from Final Crisis every other character in this book is a Flash character. The best creative team of the Wally West Flash series steps right back into their roles as if they’d never left: Geoff Johns elegantly picks up some abandoned plot threads from his run on the book, explains away some of the idiocies of Countdown to Final Crisis and Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in a few panels, and reminds us why The Flash was where his writing was first widely hailed; I do wish Kolins had been forced to have his work properly inked, but he manages to evoke his previous work on the book quite well and his storytelling is stronger than ever here. I find it slightly odd that this was originally not planned as an official Final Crisis tie-in, because man, it’s hard to see how this could have much more to do with FC so far without having Metron and Anthro show up. Point blank, if you read and liked DC Universe #0 and Final Crisis #1 & 2, read Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge. And no matter who you are, skip The Flash #242 — and most likely, every issue of that series until such time as the changes currently occurring in the Final Crisis books filter into the regular monthly Flash series, whether that be the current volume, yet another new Flash #1, or The Flash v1 #351.
