KT Tunstall is in the midst of a mini-tour through Great Britain and I’ve been waiting for someone to post something about her new material. One of the UK papers wrote something yesterday saying it was dancier than her previous stuff, but they never said if it’s any good or not.
Comes now a YouTube video post of her performance in Edinburgh, last night. It’s said “Glamour Puss” is going to be her first single off the new record. Of course a YouTube video most often isn’t done with studio equipment and of course, this is a live performance, but I must say, after hearing it twice, it’s kinda catchy.
Not to mention how good it is that KT is actually back from her three-year holiday. The next question becomes when shall this darling of England make her way across the pond so we can see her over here? No word as yet.
A local photo group I’m a part of here in DFW is about to venture to the Gulf Coast to do some photo essays on the damage that’s happening because of the oil spill caused by BP. If I had the additional funds, I’d be headed down there with them. I’m sure it’d be a life-changing event to see, and obviously, something horrific as more and more oil washes ashore each day.
I’m by no means a far-left environmentalist, but the video and photo images I’m now seeing along the Gulf Coast are making me sick to watch.
When I worked in corporate PR on math and science projects for another oil company, one most environmentalists up until the past 44 days loved to hate the most, there was great frustration over how a company like BP could get away with the environmental disasters it’s caused and come across as a good guy.
When BP CEO Tony Hayward said this past weekend that he’d “just like his life back,” I think it’s safe to say that that’s never going to happen. The life he had before because of this incredible, Biblical-proportion disaster, won’t ever been what it was ever again. And not just for him. The video of his comments are in the clip below.
She posted today, revised BP logos that apparently had been offered to Greenpeace previously over BP wanting to extract oil in Canada.
No, they won’t ever adopt any of these, but it may change what you see in your mind’s eye next time you think about pulling into one of their gas stations or see one of those ads on TV talking about what great environmentalists they are–not.
As noted in this space many, many times, I’m a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk and his book Crush It! My copy of the book is covered in as much self-applied ink as what the publisher printed. As a man/dad blogger, I’ve really stepped up my social media presence in 2010 thanks to reading and re-reading Crush It! and other noted books, and the results are really beginning to show.
One of the primary points we’re trying to make to men/dad bloggers through the Modern Media Man Summit is that besides the great one like GaryVee, women and moms aren’t the only ones who can do social media and do it successfully. And wisely, in the blog world we’re beginning to see brands begin to better recognize that we men/dads are out here wanting to do good things with our social media presence and do something quid pro quo as well.
@SnickersIceCrm
Last Thursday morning before Mom and I headed out the door to go to on our adventure trip for the Taste of Creede, CO for the weekend, I stumbled upon the mouth-watering taste at the thought of Snicker’s Ice Cream brand’s Twitter account and sent them the following tweet:
@SnickersIceCrm: I’ll bet with lots of dry ice & some ingenuity I could sample some samples & tell the world how good your product is!
Their almost immediate response was simple and to the point:
Ha! How about I send you some coupons!
With a follow up DM of my mailing address, I smiled, told mom how cool that was and we walked out the door on our trip.
ONE WEEK LATER
Today, June 3, a week later, I received in the mail 6 coupons: Three for $1 off the Snicker’s Ice Cream product lines and three coupons for FREE boxes of their product lines.
Feast your mouth-watering eyes on this: The coupons are good for “Any one MULTI PACK: DOVEBAR Brand 3 Pack, DOVEBAR Miniatures, DOVE Brand Packaged Ice Cream, TWIX Ice Cream Bar 6 Pack, M&M’s Brand Cookie Ice Cream Cone 6 Pack, SNICKER’S Ice Cream Cone 6 Pack, SNICKER’S Ice Cream Bar 6 Pack, SNICKER’S Ice Cream Bar Miniatures.”
Until I just typed that, I didn’t know there was a Twix Ice Cream Bar, and to know that there are six of them in a pack, well, I’m all that about that. (Just don’t tell my EA SPORTS Active friends!)
You see, the other great thing about all this is that I did this as a man blogger/dad blogger! Yes, even with testosterone in my system, I’m able to reach out to brands, make contacts, offer to do something positive for their company, and reap incredible rewards because of it.
Hey, and now I also get to enjoy SIX TWIX Ice Cream Bars that I won’t be telling my DDs that I have! Sorry girls, I don’t know where they went…..
“YASEETIMMY”
If you ever watched the 1994 movie “Speechless” with Michael Keaton and Geena Davis, you will recall that Keaton said at the end of a good story, there’s a “YaSeeTimmy,” just like in Lassie when they always said, “You see Timmy ….” and passed on an important lesson from the episode.
The Ya See Tim,/Jim/Gary/Chuck/Don, of this lesson is two-fold:
Brands want to have relationships with men/dad bloggers. At the present, it’s sort of a challenge for them to find us. Without parsing any words, it’s been a Mom Blogger World for far too long. Moms do a lot of the buying in a household, but so do we men/dads. Reaching out to brands and connecting with them can be a positive experience. There needs to be a system for helping brands find dads. I know some peeps who are working on just that!
Men/Dads, we need to do a better job of reaching out to brands. They’re not going to come looking for us. Well, they’re kind of having to, but it makes it a challenge for them when they can find 500 mom bloggers at the click of an enter button on Google and they can’t do that when they go looking for us. We must step up our efforts to present ourselves to brands online, to build positive mutually-beneficial relationships with the brand managers, and then do honest and positive things to support that relationship.
There is an ever-increasing role in the blogosphere for men/dads. There are some great pioneers in this field–e.g. Gary Vaynerchuk, etc. but there are more of us still standing around on the shoulder of the information highway wishing we had the courage or knew the right way to stop a top brand coming down the expressway.
@GMTexas
I can’t give a better current example of the benefits of a quid pro quo men/dad blogger exchange than my relationship with Donna M. from @GMTexas. Our connectivity began through her own Twitter account and then through the corporate account.
I’ve been invited to three events with GM now in the past two months and been in town to enjoy two of them. While I was savoring the thought of eating the Snicker’s Ice Cream bars, I received a phone call on behalf of GM. From roughly noon June 21, 2010 to noon June 28, 2010, I’ll be the driver of a 2010 Chevy Traverse LTZ, complete with OnStar, XM Radio and free to go anywhere I want to with it during those seven days.
The girls and I are planning an adventure for that week. As a matter of fact, you already can go to TRAVERSEADVENTURES.com and find yourself right back here at www.DaddyClaxton.com. Just wait, in a few days, there will be a specific page set up just so you can find out great things about this new product from GM.
And that, my friends, makes all this even better than the convertible roadster Keaton was driving Davis around in Speechless.
There’s just nothing like the sensation of mechanical tingling up and down your nerves.
Over the past two and a half months, I’ve really enjoyed daily use of two very special vibrating products and I keep both of them in my bedroom. Well, they’re kept up in my bathroom. One of them I keep put up in the cupboard. It’s not that I’d be embarrassed for anyone to see these two products. But you know, there’s just an element of privacy that I’d like to keep. And what if it fell into the wrong hands? One of the products penetrates deeply when vibrating.
During the day, when I need to feel better about myself, I just go in there and turn one of them on and in a few seconds, I start to get that wonderful sensation that only vibrating can bring. You know, it just a comfortable feeling; Just a soothing, special feeling.
Okay, now that all of you have your heads in the gutter and your hands reaching for something that vibrates in your own homes, it’s time to come clean.
After my trip two weeks ago to New York City on behalf of Proctor and Gamble and Gillette, I went out and bought a new razor. I got the Gillette Fusion Power and it really has a batter powered vibrator built into it that one uses while shaving. One of the guys asked about this feature in the up coming Gillette Fusion ProGlide, which is supposed to arrive here from New York any day now, and they said it was part of the science of shaving.
And I have to say, having used this razor for about a week now, the cuts, nicks and outright pain of shaving has gone away. Once something I dreaded, I now feel better about a good shave. I’d been using a two-blade disposable off and on for the past few years, but I’m really happy with what is now happening with my vibrating product. The shave definitely is closer because the razor has five blades and it has ergonomic rubber handles on it that are designed for the different ways I hold it while I’m shaving.
The vibrating also makes it more comfortable while shaving. I don’t mash my face as hard with it when it’s vibrating like I would have with a disposable razor and like I said, it’s been a much less bloody affair.
Soon after moving out of the house, I began to wonder where my toothbrush might have been put or used for before I left for safer environs, so I decided I needed to get a new one.
According to Oral-B, Pulsar has soft vibrating bristles that help break up plaque between teeth. Just turn it on and brush as you would with a regular manual brush. Plus, Pulsar’s pressure-sensitive split head adjusts to the contours of your teeth to clean hard-to-reach places while moderating the amount of pressure applied to teeth and gums.
The result is an effective clean and an outstanding sensory experience.
Penetrates deep between teeth
Sweeps away food and plaque from the tooth surface
Adjusts to the contours of your teeth
Moderates the amount of pressure applied to your teeth and gums
I’ve really enjoyed using this toothbrush and it does provide a comforting sensation while in use.
Toothbrush Express says says it’s good practice to replace your toothbrush:
At least every three months
When bristles begins to show wear
After an illness such as a cold or flu
And now after knowing you can vibrate your face and teeth, makes me wonder what else out there would be good for vibrating….
For the past 15 years I’ve typed “Web site” to refer to what the Associate Press Stylebook now is referencing as the acceptable use of “website.”
Ugh. For those of you who try to follow AP Stylebook rules like Mrs. Blair Gaines or Dr. Barbara Nixon still were going to give you an F if you put three to five of them in a writing piece, I have a feeling you know what I mean by that “ugh.”
All together now: Ugh.
But apparently there are enough people out there who have not been following the guides to make them turn mainstream. Otherwise, I think it’d still be “Web site.”
According to the AP, “‘Web’ remains a capitalized proper noun when used as a shortened form of World Wide Web, and e-mail, with the hyphen, remains unchanged for electronic mail, along the lines of similar phrases such as e-book, e-reader and A-list.”
Other changes include:
The distinction between Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the corporate name of the discount retailer, and Walmart, for the stores themselves.
New entries recognize significant developments in world events: Great Recession, referring to the 2007-08 economic downturn that was the worst recession since the Great Depression, and tea party, for the conservative political movement.
Other new entries cover Alcoholics Anonymous, Bluetooth, Blu-ray, bondholder, Breathalyzer, flu-like, GED, International Space Station, mic as the shortened form for microphone, hard line, high-five, Taser, thumbs-up and Ultimate Fighting.
There are ultimately 42 changes included in the new edition.
I’m happy to see that mic is now acceptable. The spell check didn’t even object to just leaving it hanging out there with not “rophone” on it.
Such is the evolution of words and an interesting perspective on how online social media is having an impact on the communications world.
And one has to wonder if Alcoholics Anonymous made the list from those of us who still use the AP Stylebook and sleep with it under our pillows out of fear of Mrs. Gaines or Dr. Nixon and their favorite red pens!
I still want to use Web site. Hopefully, neither of them can find any additional violations in this piece.
Editor’s Note: Blair Gaines was my newspaper adviser when I was the Aumnibus editor my final year at Auburn University at Montgomery. Barbara Nixon, Ph.D, is a graduate of Auburn main campus who now teaches at Georgia Southern. I highly respect both of them.
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