I'm a little saddened today as I watch every single website and big box retailer sell out of their HP Touchpads at $99 a pop. I'm even more sad- and a tad angry, because it means that the tablet wars are going in the same direction as the cell phone wars have- leading to a big war between Apple and Android. Not that we couldn't see that coming from 50 miles away, but I like to root for the underdog- especially when the underdog has a great product that's overshadowed by the "majority rules" thinking by those who think they know the tech world. Seriously, when's the last time you've seen a retailer give a non Android/Apple device decent floor space, or even the last time one of them has talked up a Windows or WebOS phone? But I digress.

Long story short, HP's decision to ax the Touchpad after 49 days was a bad one. Here are a few things they could have done differently.

1: Back To School Tie In

With school just around the corner, HP should have taken advantage of the buzz around tablets and colleges and taken a page from Apple's book. For years, Apple offered an iPod with the purchase of a computer during Back To School season. While making a $500 tablet a free tie in would be stupid, HP should have turned it into a way to reduce the price and get the tablet some much needed word-of-mouth publicity. If a student buys a laptop whose base price is $XXX or more, they can throw in a Touchpad for just a mere $200 or $300. College students are impressionable, and for each student that has something, they're bound to run into 100 students who at least give it a second glance.

2. What About The Phone?

HP's WebOS platform was actually cool. Although their phones were too small for me, some of the things they could do were pretty awesome. Like Blackberry phones and tablets, HP's mobile front had the ability to communicate, something that iOS and Android haven't done (or at least marketed) effectively. WebOS tablets, like Blackberry's, could notify you when your phone was ringing, but WebOS could also share things between the phone and tablet by placing the phone on top of the tablet. For example, if you have a webpage pulled up on your tablet and need to leave it behind, you could place the phone on the tablet, and it would pull up the website on the phone. Pretty neat stuff. iPads sell because their commercials show what the product can really do; I wish they had based their commercials off some of the tablet's cooler technology rather than have Lea Michele and Russell Brand hawk the basic features that come on every tablet.

3. Sell it at $99 initially

Yes, I typed that right. Bear with me here. Companies are incredibly focused on the bottom line nowadays, but you really can't do that when you're entering a brand new market with stiff competition. For example, when 2K Sports geared up to put out NFL 2K5, they notices that they were losing market share to Madden. So what did they do? They one upped Madden on just about every possible facet of the game, including an ESPN license and a cool camera perspective where gamers could control a player by only seeing what the players see- through the facemask. But the biggest thing they did? The game was only $20, compared to Madden's $50. Dropping an Andrew Jackson on the game was a far smaller investment, and it got 2K Sports some publicity and exposure, which is what you need more than anything when entering a new market. Those first couple of years, the bottom line should not be so important. 2K Sports got out of the game, however, when EA Sports went and got the exclusive NFL license, making them the only show in town, not because of sales. If HP sold the Touchpad at an introductory price of $99, or even at $199, they would have gotten some serious publicity. All the "deals" sites would have carried the ad, and even if buyers were late coming to the party, the word of mouth from the initial sale would have been monstrous.

Fire selling their tablet at $99, HP has only confirmed that the tablet wars are about to seriously change. Android tablets aren't selling that hot, and they may have to undercut themselves to boost sales. We'll see what happens soon, but HP's decision to kill off their tablet (and their phones, for that matter) was, for lack of a better word, stupid.

Deep Fried Kool Aid? OH YEAAAAH!

So my family came into town for the State Fair this week, and we had a blast. I always enjoy hanging with my cousin Ryan, since we never really sit around doing nothing. No, ever since we both began driving, we have left the confines of home for larger adventures. But today is not a day for one of those stories. Today we went to the fair, and ate some pretty awesome food- not much, but still all awesome.

Now I had never been to a state fair before- even when I was down in Mississippi, I really had no desire to ever go. However, with the state fair being 15 minutes from my school, and my family coming into town, how could I NOT go? So let's go!

I'm tired even as I write this. I drove back and forth from my place to the fair to Sherman, where my mom and two of her sisters were staying. It was a really nice bed and breakfast, but man did it cut into our travel time.

Actually, 15 minutes was an optimistic time of arrival from my place to the fair, to say the least. With very little parking, and many home and business owners out along the front of the fairground entrance, I didn't have much choice. But with so many lots to choose from, there was a lot of price cutting. We only paid $5, which was a steal.

Young Abe Lincoln greets you at the fairground entrance.
He's got an axe, so I wouldn't piss him off.

So the fair looked exactly as I thought it would...lots of carnival rides, people trying to sell you homemade trinkets, and a lot of food. Oh, the food was plentiful...and expensive. But I guess that if I were to compare its prices to the Taste of Chicago, I'd consider them about the same. So the first booth we came across was called Fried What!, and it sold just about anything you could imagine in fried form.

 Ryan and I chose to try the Fried Kool Aid. For $5, we got these three balls about the size of hush puppies. From what I saw behind the cashier, it looked like packaged Kool Aid mix was added to a special batter and scooped into little balls to be deep fried.

Powdered sugar- one of the four food groups of a state fair.

The fried Kool Aid was surprisingly good- think of a warm cherry Pop Tart in hush puppy form- that's the taste and texture I got from it. Anyway, the three balls were enough for me- I needed to make room for more food anyway!

 After walking for a while, Ryan and I found this stand selling these incredibly long mozzarella sticks. We split an order, and let me tell you- those were the best mozzarella sticks I have ever had in my life. EVER. The breading was light and airy- kinda like the breading Chili's uses for their chicken tenders. The cheese was fresh, too- I have been looking to see if I could find the seller online, with no luck. If you know where to find him, drop me a line!

 And, of course, we had to finish with the mandatory Elephant Ear/Funnel Cake purchase. this one was pretty darn big. If you know how big my hand is, you can tell how big this elephant ear was. It wasn't the best one I have ever had, but it was far from disappointing.

 I drank a lot of lemonade that night, too. Lots of money went to those lemonade stands from my wallet, but it didn't bother me any- I was helping independent vendors, and the lemonade was fresh, so everybody wins!

All in all, it was a great time. We hit the Lincoln Museum the next day, and it was time for my family to go. If you're not from the Springfield area, believe me when I say you should hit up the fair. Everybody will have a great time.

So Sick of Being Sick

This is my first post of August, and let me tell you something- if my life so far this month was a person running the 110m hurdles, I would have tripped out of the blocks and a few hurdles as well. I've been sick and sleepy for the better part of a week now, and I would like some sort of magic pill to make me feel better. Either that, or a week's paid vacation with a live-in butler and a large LCD TV.

Things always work out though; I'll be fine. In the meantime, stick your head out soon as I'll be posting more content before you know it. Later days!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Farrrr From The Tarrrrget

So I have new employee orientation today. One awesome thing about being in government orientation is that I get a 75 minute lunch; on normal days I get just 30. Springfield has a lot of food options available, but one that caught my eye was Long John Silver's. I haven't eaten there in about six years, so I decided to give it a go. Two things you should know about me before I tell you about my food: One, I love to cook; Two, I love to pan sear fish. It's simple, heathy, and if you luck up, affordable as well.

So I happily place my order- two pieces of fish, fries, and hush puppies. It took longer than I expected to get my meal, but I knew it would be worth the wait.

So it came in this really neat little box- this was very cool and compact....except my food was hopping around in the box. Take a look.

Now just about everything in this box was fried, so it didn't mean a whole lot to me for it to come like this from a "my food can't touch" standpoint. But are you serious? Just about all of the meals at Long John Silver's are the same; there couldn't be a compartment for fish, one for fries, and one for the hush puppies? I know fast food isn't all about presentation so much as it is about selling the product, but this is kinda bad. I barely got any fries, the ones I got were soft, and if you look closely, there's a bunch of deep fry crumbs in my box. It's like someone said, "Hey! You know what I think you need? More minuscule crunchy pieces!"

So I delved into the meal, hungry as a bear. Everything would have been incredibly tasty except for one small problem: Everything was WAAAAAAAY too salty. The fish was salty, the hush puppies were salty, and by the time I started eating the fries, my taste buds were devoid of registering anything less than super salty. It's a real shame too, because everything except for the fries had a great texture. The hush puppies had this nice hint of garlic, and the fish was crunchy on the outside and hot and flaky on the inside. It's almost like they were trying to mask flavors with salt. Fast food isn't very healthy to begin with, but I'm kinda scared to see the nutritional value for that meal, just because the sodium level has to be extremely high.

Just as a word to the good people who run this company: I'm no professional cook, but I'm pretty sure fish doesn't need a whole lot of salting before it's deemed "too salty". Now I see why I hadn't eaten here in so long. Disappointing, to say the least.