When I run, I like to listen to songs that get me pumped up. I can be dead tired, but if I hear one of my power songs, it makes getting through a tough run that much easier.

I generally use my iPod Shuffle for exercise, but was interested enough to try Sony’s new portable MP3 player NWZ-W252 because it’s wireless, lightweight….. and well because Sony gave me one to try out (what’s better than that).

The Good

It’s wireless. I can’t underscore how nice it is not to have to fiddle with wires. It’s just easier. No more running the wires under your shirt or untangling sweaty ear buds.

It’s lightweight. Wearing the NWZ-W252 is very easy. After a while I didn’t even notice I had them on. Continue reading »

In December, the good folks over at Blank Label invited me to try one of their custom men’s dress shirts.

Blank Label is a Boston-based startup that allows its customers to create their own custom dress shirts online.

I went ahead and used their online custom shirt creator and waited for my shirt in the mail. Now that I’ve worn the shirt a couple times now, here are my thoughts.

Overall, I’d say Blank-Label is really on to something here. They’ve created a nicely designed site which allows any Joe Shmo like me to easily create a custom dress shirt online. And I’ve got to hand it to them, the shirt fits almost perfect. It fits exactly the same if not better than the shirt I bought at Cafe Coton off the rack and had taken in at the local tailor. The difference though was that with Blank Label, I never left my apartment. Continue reading »

Do you want to learn how to build  a successful Internet business?

If your answer is “no,” then stop here, do not pass go, do not collect $200 (homage to Monopoly, one my favorite boardgames of all time).

If your answer is “yes,” then keep reading because the answer is quite simple, watch or listen to the interviews on Mixergy.com — all of them.

Want to learn how to start an Internet business, how to raise venture capital, how to build community, how to get links to your site, how to get people to pay for services, how to create compelling content?….there’s an interview for that!

Mixergy.com, “home of the ambitious upstart,” provides free video interviews (at least for now) with successful Internet entrepreneurs. The interviews are conducted by Andrew Warner, an accomplished Internet entrepreneur in his own right with his own fascinating roller coaster of a story where he took his company to $30+ million a year in sales.

Continue reading »

If you’ve ever had to sign a birthday card for a co-worker by passing around a “manila envelope”, then you know what a silly process it is. Most of the time the recipient knows it’s coming and it’s really just a formality.

This is why you’ll like GroupGreeting.com, a free service that allows you to create a digital group card that multiple people can sign and share from anywhere in the world.

By creating a group greeting card, you can have the whole office, team or group of friends sign a card for an individual without having to pass around a physical card. It’s very much like an ecard, but what makes it different is you can create one card and have everyone in the office sign it (even if they are in different locations). Continue reading »

I’ve never been a fan of games made in conjunction with a movie, but a few weeks ago I was tapped to review GI JOE The Rise of Cobra the game and couldn’t help but be excited.

You must understand though that I grew up in the eighties and so for me GI JOE represents not only countless childhood cartoon watching, but also it’s a chance for the powers that be (studio heads and game makers) to redeem themselves after having already thoroughly destroyed the Transformers franchise.

After 30 minutes of playing:

After watching the game intro, I already knew I was in trouble. The graphics were dull, blocky and showed lots of visible jagged staircasing (and this is on my 60″ Sony with full 1080p). Just for fun I loaded up COD 4 and Killzone to compare quality and it was night and day. The difference is so glaring, but again I remind myself that I am comparing apples to oranges and reset my sights accordingly. Continue reading »

Did you know?

“74% of girls agree that hair is one of the first things they notice about a guy.”

National Survey of 2,500 girls 18-24 conducted by StrategyOne June and July 2008.

AXE, the popular grooming line which you’ve come to know now has a line of AXE Hair care products aimed at giving you “girl-approved hair.” The line includes 5 new shampoos, a conditioner, and styling products that are designed to take your hair care to the next level.

Since we always like to give you the heads up on all things men, here’s the lowdown. Continue reading »

If you’re like most guys, you’ve got more than a dozen long sleeve button down shirts hanging in your closet. They’re all the usual suspects…JCrew, Banana Republic, Ralph Lauren, Guess, and hell maybe even thrown in a few Van Heusen outlet shirt specials you got a few birthdays ago.  Either way, we’ve all got our fair share of these button down sportshirts fighting for playing time.  And why not, they’re essential to every man’s wardrobe.

The problem I find is that I go through these shirts too quickly. When I first buy them, I think I’ve found my new favorite shirt, but after a few washes they just ain’t the same. So you cut their playing time and eventually relegate them to the end of your proverbial bench.

Enter Dunning Sportswear.  The Dunning Performance Sportshirt ($125) may look like a traditional shirt with a classic fit, but after deeper inspection, the threads reveal a non-traditional Coolmax poly-cotton blend which wicks away moisture . Continue reading »

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple years, you know that the American auto industry has seen better days. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from the venerable Ford Motor Company asking us to take a look at their 2009 Lincoln MKS.

I said yes to the test drive not because I happen to love American cars (I drive an older Acura CL myself), but because I wanted to see firsthand what type of car the American auto industry has to offer in these troubled times.

With the Lincoln MKS, Ford is competing directly with the likes of the Lexus GS350, Infiniti M35 and Cadillac STS among others. And out here in the Bay Area, where German and Japanese cars dominate the mid-luxury sedan space, it was refreshing to be driving something different.

After the car was dropped off, I asked a couple people in the office to come check out the MKS.  Both were impressed with the stance of the car. “It looks mean. Look at that grill, it’s a BEAST”, said one of them. The other said, “Wow, it’s not what I expected.” Read into those comments all you want, but I was equally impressed when I first saw the MKS.

When I think of a Lincoln, a quiet, tuxedo black Towncar with a comfy cloud-like ride comes to mind. These have become the defacto standard non-taxi work horses I see all around downtown San Francisco.

With the MKS, it’s a huge departure from what I have come to think about Lincoln. The lines and overall fit and finish of the MKS are very impressive.

The interior looks and feels like what I would expect for a $40k+ car. It doesn’t shout out luxury, but the leather and wood trim accents are very nice. On the center console, the knobs and dials were a tad too small. I did like that the center arm rest telescoped and extended out some (nice touch). I also liked how the seat belt height could be adjusted easily and was also hidden at the same time.  The interior is not as spacious as I would have guessed looking at the car from the outside, but in no way was it small. I had a friend who is 6′2″ sit in the back and he had no problems with the amount of head or leg room either. The gauges on the dash board looked a little budget. In particular, I didn’t like the fact that every MPH was displayed i.e. 40MPH, 50MPH, 60MPH (see image).  It felt a little cluttered and made it harder to read my actual speed.

Where I think the MKS really shines is in it’s technology enhancements. Rear view camera, Microsoft SYNC, keyless entry, push-button start, steering wheel controls, navigation, voice control and THX sound system were just some of the nice things I really enjoyed. Anyone looking for a car with these technology enhancements will not be disappointed. If you’ve ever seen the movie Flight of the Navigator, the MKS felt similar in terms of all the technology crammed into this car. While some of the voice commands took a little while to execute, the ease of use and increased functionality more than made up for it.

Another thing about the MKS that really stood out was the sheer size of the trunk.  It was Grand Canyon like. Holy shite, was it huge. You could fit at least a couple golf bags and at least a weeks worth of groceries in there. The only down side though was the lip or entrance into trunk felt a little tight, but you can’t have everything.

Once I got the car out on San Francisco roads, I was pleased. Although the MKS’s suspension feels a bit stiffer, it’s still similarly tuned to that of a Lexus over a BMW in terms of comfort. The steering is true, not overly sensitive and you get just the right amount of feedback to make driving it fun. There was noticeably more road noise in our test car, but that may be attributed to the stiffer suspension. Aside from that, the MKS handled very nicely. Whether on the street or on the freeway, the handling felt appropriate and the throttle responsive.

Overall, you can tell extra effort was put into making this car. Although I was skeptical in the beginning, I came away with a good impression of the Lincoln MKS. And in a way, it gives me hope that the American auto industry can turn it around. Now wouldn’t we all like that.

In the world of digital MP3 players, not many will argue the iPod as being the undisputed champion–and that’s why San Disk is trying a different approach with it’s new slotRadio Player ($99).

The slotRadio is different in that it comes with a card that is pre-loaded with 1,000 Billboard hits. Pause and take that in for a second and let me repeat. It comes pre-loaded with 1,000 songs. A little different huh? The downside is that someone chooses the music for you, but the upside is that you don’t have to download all that music in the first place (which for some is a huge pain). It’s very much like listening to Internet radio (without commercials), but with less customization.

If you tend to like popular Top 40’s type music, then for $99, the slotRadio player provides solid value. And if you had purchased all of the tracks individually on iTunes, that amounts to $1,000 of music.

Things we liked:

• It’s a time saver since there is no need to download any music or subscribe to any music sites. You don’t even need a computer.
• The pre-loaded music is actually pretty good. That is of course if you already like Billboard Top 40 music. You can get additional slotRadio cards pre-loaded with 1,000 more songs from many popular artists in specific genres including Rock, Country, Oldies and Hip Hop/R&B. The one we demo’d came with a mix card which had nice variety of artists and songs (albums go for $14.99 or additional 1,000 song cards are $49.99).
• No frills and easy-to-use. Took it out of the box and began playing music right away.
• Solid battery with 13 hours of playback.  We got about 12 hours 30 mins on the model we tested.
• Comes with a FM radio (score!).

Things we didn’t like:

• You can’t rewind songs.
• Black and white display didn’t add much value, but at $99 even having a display is nice so we’re not complaining too much.
• Because there is no internal memory, you can’t add songs from your PC, but you can get around that by loading the songs onto another microSD card.

The slotRadio is no iPod, but then again, it’s not trying to be. It makes a great gift for the busy person who doesn’t have time to download, doesn’t already have a large digital music library, but still wants a no-frills MP3 player to get their Taylor Swift or Foo Fighters on every once in a while. We were a bit skeptical at first with the pre-loaded music, but there’s just something about not having to fuss/manage with music files that makes this player a winner in our book.

You can buy the slotRadio directly from their website now and it will be in Radio Shacks nationwide soon.

This past week at work sucked for me. This is why this past weekend I was excited to try out the Nintendo Wii’s latest boxing title, Ready to Rumble Revolution (by Atari). It would allow me to relieve some stress and have some fun punching somebody’s lights out.

With the latest incarnation by Atari, Ready to Rumble Revolution makes its way onto the Nintendo Wii console. If you were a fan of Midway’s original Ready to Rumble Boxing, or the follow up Ready to Rumble Round 2, there is definitely a striking resemblance. Both those previous games had a sizable following and accounted for countless hours of button mashing good times.

Here are my quick thoughts on the game.

Continue reading »

In celebration of Canadian Club’s 150th anniversary late last year, they released a limited edition 30-year reserve Whisky ($200, only 3,000 bottles distributed). Since their Classic is already aged 12-years, you can only imagine what 30-years of aging will taste like.

Known to many as “CC”, Canadian Club is also the drink of choice of Mad Men character Donald Draper. As readers of this site know, I am a huge fan of the show Mad Men. So when I heard CC was releasing this reserve I really wanted to give it a whirl in the glass.

Having sampled the Canadian Club whisky, you can see the fruits of the 30-year aging process results in a nice luscious oak character with subtle hints of fruit and some cinnamon spice. The first few sips hit me right in the face, but after the initial turbulence it was very very smooth. The color was rich and antique and there was a velvety texture which complemented its warm finish to the last sip.

The bottle itself was presented in a stylish black satin-lined box with gold etching. And the bottle had a wax dipped cork which added a very impressive touch.

If you’re interested, be sure to check out more about Canadian Club’s history which actually started in the United States (go figure).

And for all of you out there who haven’t drank much whisky, here are some great tips from Canadian Club’s main whisky man Dan Tullio.

Continue reading »

While everyone is talking about “Love,” I’d like to talk about another “L” word and that’s leadership.

Whether you are a retail manager with 6 sales associates, a coach of a basketball team, or a father with children, leadership plays a big part in our lives. And understanding how to get the best out of your team is crucial for success in many of our endeavors.

One of readers (Rob K. in Oregon) recently sent me a link to a great site that I think you should check out.

The site is a blog that former NBA coach Eric Musselman has penned since 2007 and deals with “Notes, observations, and commentary on basketball and coaching.”

For any of you readers out there who love basketball, you’ll be in for a treat. The site is chock full of leadership insight as well as player/coach stories from around the NBA and college ranks.

Check out Eric Musselman’s Blog.

Next Page »