From the Los Angeles Times via MediaPost:
At 50 years old, Barbie gets tattoos — and a megastore in China

Barbie turns 50 this month, and to shake off a midlife crisis she’s getting tattooed and opening the doors to her first megastore in China..

I did a little research on percentage of American’s with tattoos and it was higher than I expected. I’m surprised the LA Times article didn’t reference any statistics, because tattoos are becoming the norm.

Tattoo Facts & Statistics

Emerging from their often unsavoury reputation of the recent past, tattoos have gained increasing prominence in the past decade. Life magazine estimated in 1936 that 10 million Americans, or approximately 6% of the population had at least one tattoo. A Harris Poll, done in 2003, nearly triples those numbers and estimates that 16% of Americans now have one or more tattoos.

I haven’t validated all of the research numbers at the site referenced above, but it also references a Fall 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center:

Thirty-six percent of those ages 18 to 25, and 40 percent of those ages 26 to 40, have at least one tattoo.

In an article on microtrends, Newsweek states that about 1/3 of Americans between the ages of 25-29 now sports body ink, so the research above (which varies slightly by source) is pretty consistent: there are a lot of people with tattoos.

So, for people that are upset about this product, I’d like to understand why. I think it’s just Mattel getting with the times and I applaud them for taking a risk. If you don’t like the doll, don’t buy it.

I apologize for the 15 sec commercial preceding the video. It’s from the LA Times, not me.

Technorati Tags: Barbie, Mattel, tattoo, ink, trends

New research suggests that as well as possessing extraordinary musical talent, drummers may also be natural intellectuals. By asking volunteers to keep time with a drumstick prior to taking an intelligence test, scientists found those with the best rhythm scored the highest in mental assessments, as there is a strong link between intelligence, good timing and problem-solving. So despite the wealth of musicians’ drummer jokes out there, it seems drummers are definitely playing all the right notes when it comes to brain power. [source]

Did I mention I was a drummer and got a perfect score at a competition in high school with an original drum set solo piece I wrote? I sold all of my equipment a few years ago, but once we have more space, I’m sure I’ll get back into it.

Technorati Tags: drummer, drum, intelligent, intellect, music, zildjian, tama, yamaha

One of the best was a joke a few years back that was played on a co-worker, whereby he thought he won tickets to the final four, complete with a contest website with a domain registered to what appeared to be a legit organization, email and a notification phone call from the prize fulfillment organization. Nicely done indeed.

Office Prank: Tin Foil

How To Play the Aluminum Foil Prank on a Coworker

Office Prank: Balloons

How To Play the Buried Cubicle Prank on a Coworker

And, from our office last year (post April Fools’ day):
3800 post-it notes, 15 people and 2 hours later..

Technorati Tags: office prank, April Fools’ Day, joke

I’ve been absent from posting for a week as I waited for my domain registrar transfer to complete. I was previously using the wordpress.com hosting service to host my blog (with my own domain).

I outgrew their hosting platform that constrains what you can do with the site in regards to functionality (no direct code or database access), so I have been wanting to move my site for quite a while. I have been happy with the WordPress blog platform, so I’m sticking with them, just moving to a new server.

To make a long story short, I updated my DNS settings to point to my new web host (mediatemple.net) while the registrar transfer was in process from the old host (1and1.com). The DNS change was supposed to be processed before the registrar transfer was initiated.

But, as it turned out, since I initiated the registrar transfer before the DNS change had been processed by the system (apparently a 24 hour period), the existing DNS was frozen until the transfer to the new registrar was completed.

My site was still up and running through the change, so I didn’t suffer any downtime, although it was definitely an annoyance.

Yes, I realize I could have posted on both the old site and new and uploaded the new posts when the transfer was complete, but I was trying some new widgets and other things on the new site so I didn’t want to go through the process.

For the readers that have no idea what the previous few sentences were about, you can:

a) read up on domain name registrars and DNS at Wikipedia

b) take my word that there will be more posts in the future

c) disregard both and purchase a Cellar Rat Wine gift card as an early Christmas present to keep me moving through the holidays and keep the posts coming.

Look for new functionality, content and promotions very soon.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, mediatemple, dns, domain registrar, widget, blog

In the Atlanta Journal article, one of many articles that reference the survey, there is a chart of lost productivity, what they call “Starbucks Effect” for employees running out to get coffee (which takes an average of 14 minutes).

Atlanta is the home to 105 Starbucks stores, where as the density can reach upwards of 170 in places like Manhattan and different areas in London. This data was from 2005 and doesn’t factor in all of the other chain and independent shops, which would easily raise the total to 4 or more times that amount. When you factor in the quick service restaurants and every other place that offers coffee, its pretty amazing.

There was an article in the Nov 19th Brandweek (subscription required) about some new drinks from FRS that are supposed to be a healthy alternative to other energy drinks.

And in case you were wondering, the article states there are about 2,000 energy drinks currently on the market, so the market is pretty crowded, but this one sounds interesting enough to check out, if I can find it.

Technorati Tags: coffee, caffeine, Starbucks

The biggest reason has been because I have been busy getting ready for the baby, which should grace us with her little presence at any moment now (October 16th was the due date).

That being said, Lora and I are launching a new blog that will serve as a platform for keeping our families and friends overwhelmed with pictures, stories and video.

So, stop by when you have a chance and check out the life of new parents. There’s not much up there now, but there will be shortly, so go ahead and subscribe via RSS.

I’ll be announcing the arrival very soon.

And feel free to forward over any tidbits of wisdom. Now, whether we use them or not, well, is yet to be seen.

Technorati Tags: Dustin, Lora, Jacobsen, family, baby, blog

In case you almost missed it, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. In the days of lawsuits and political correctness, we all need to take a day just to be silly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cKCkbWDGwE]

Be sure to check out the latest updates on the event at the 2007 event page.

A few highlights so far today:

• National Public Radio’s Morning Edition hosts talked like pirates in a tribute to the day, and interviewed George Choundas, author of The Pirate Primer.
• Flickr, the Yahoo-based photo-sharing site (and home of theTLAPD photo gallery), added a pirate flag icon to its masthead on Sept. 19, and featured only pirate-themed photos in its “Explore” page. See their blog entry.
• Weatherbug, the Web weather site, featured meteorologist Rachel Peterson doin’ her best to talk like a pirate.

Technorati Tags: pirate, event, TLAPD, Talk Like A Pirate Day

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about alcohol and energy drinks, I wanted to point out that the amount of caffeine in energy drinks is no more potent than our good old friend mr. espresso.

via CNN: Energy drinks’ caffeine in line with coffee

Outside of the sugar, which I usually try for sugar free if available a la Diet Rockstar, I consume a lot more coffee than I do energy drinks.

But don’t kid yourself, caffeine is a drug. Sure, its a legal stimulant that has the effect of “temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness”, but a drug none the less. And, “90% of adults consume caffeine daily” (in North America), so its probably the most common drug.

Technorati Tags: energy drink, coffee, espresso, caffeine

Ok, so my tires on my Jeep don’t look that bad, but it is time to get some new treads, and I’m taking my Jeep in to have some other service done to it, so now is as good of time as ever. Unfortunately its going to set me back about $850 for a set of 4.

How does a technology guy go about looking for new tires? Where else but the internet via a Google search.

I’ve been happy with my existing tires from Michelin, so I wanted to stay in the same general category. Also, Michelin was the award recipient of the 2006 JD Power OE Tire Study, so that reinforced my decision to stick with the brand.

I first stumbled upon a site called Consumer Search: Reviewing the Reviews, and found a link for tires.

I followed the Tire Rack link to read the reviews. I must say I was really impressed with the sheer amount of reviews on the site. The tire in particular I was looking at, the Michelin Cross Terrain SUV, had over 35 million miles of use reported, and one of the top tires in my category and tire size. The information is user reported, but with so many reports, it is likely to be as close as you can get to real usage of the product.

Epinions had generally good things to say about the tire as well.

For general product reviews and price comparison, I use PriceGrabber.com quite a bit, especially for electronics. Of course, the reviews at sites like Amazon.com are always good.

eMarketer points out how product reviews helps increase search traffic, conversion rate and average order size. Consumer electronics in particular is a big category for reviews, and the reviewing site typically only gets 1/2 the sales with many people researching online and buying locally.

Do you use review and comparison sites when completing product research? How much of an impact do the sites have on your purchase decision?

Technorati Tags: community, Michelin, tires, review, comparison

I enjoy Jenne’s blog and I was reading her post about her bull running experience and I was reminded how seldom we step out of our safe zone. Jenne, you get the guts award for this one!

I was also inspired by a quote that Andrew posted:
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
–Albert Einstein

Although I’ve been to Europe, I haven’t made it to Spain to brave the bull running. The closest I’ve gotten is canyoning in Interlaken, Switzerland, which was fun.

I’m as guilty as the next person in trying to solve problems just as much as the next person with existing solutions that just plainly don’t fit without some sort of innovation.

Stepping out of our comfort box doesn’t have to be something dramatic and can start with baby steps. Maybe trying a new food that you’ve been too scared to sample. Or trying a new approach to a project when you keep beating your head against the wall.

For me, blogging alone has made the list of stepping outside my comfort zone. As would contributing to the Age of Conversation book, which I’m happy to say holds the #2 (Hardcover), #4 (Paperback) and #8 (e-Book) spots on Lulu, which we used to publish the book. All profits are going to charity and it has been a great experience where I have met a bunch of great people.

As I continue to become more involved in the Web 2.0 universe, I look forward to what’s next.

As some people look over my work history scattered with startups during the hot dot com days, they wonder why I took the risks.

My answer: with risks comes reward.

So yes, several of the companies I worked for tanked, but I came out of those situations learning more than I would have from any job. And yes, getting downsized hits the ego, even if the company drops from 600 people to 125 and your division is closed.

Risky? Yes. Rewarding? Without a doubt.

What have you done to step outside the lines?

Technorati Tags: startup, Jenne, Einstein, running with the bulls, pamplona