Money isn't everything? Eff that! Money is the foundation for everything!

Holy snaps, people really like their gum! See below article from Brand Week.

Jesus, I just dropped a crap load of money on nuclear energy ... maybe I should have invested in freaking candy instead!

On the bright side, at least my old people stocks are doing well. Their broken hips and senility is making me a rich, rich girl! I'm looking into investing in more forms of energy, such as algae and carbon cell, but I feel nuclear energy is a good form to get in at the moment, even though any real profit won't be seen for another ten years or so.

I have a goal, one people scoff at but I know I can make it! - to be a millionaire by the time I am 30. You bet your sweet, sweet arse I'm going to do it.

Thank the bajesus I did that investments internship! Oh lordy lord!

______


May 27, 2008

By Mike Beirne

Wm. Wrigley Jr. and Cadbury Adams typically spend about $35 million on a new product introduction. Perfetti Van Melle USA will spend $41 million this year.

The new product—Mentos Gum—is the confectionery company's second attempt in five years to crack the U.S. gum market. The Erlanger, Ky.-based division of Italy's Perfetti Van Melle tried in 2003 with Mentos NewCharge. The mint gum has since been discontinued.

A big chunk of the Mentos gum budget will buy slots on such prime time shows as Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. A 30-second spot created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London, features a man sitting near an office water cooler chewing Mentos gum. A woman approaches and locks on with an open mouth kiss. She then wipes the water that trickled down her chin and departs. The camera zooms in on the man who resumes chewing gum as the tagline appears: "New Mentos gum. It's Mouthwatering."

The TV spot broke this month and is slated to run through April 2009. Other support includes radio spots on "American Top 40" with Ryan Seacrest, print, coupons and sampling. Mentos gum is available in Spearmint, Red Fruit and Peppermint flavors.

The gum launch is a major foray for a company with about $2 billion in annual global sales—less than half the size of its competitors. Worldwide sales for Wrigley, maker of Orbit, Extra and Eclipse, were $5.4 billion last year, and Cadbury's sales were $10.1 billion. Cadbury's Parsippany, N.J. unit, which handles Dentyne and Trident, has about a 34% share of the $3.2-billion U.S. gum market, compared to Wrigley's 60%, per Nielsen (the parent company of Brandweek).

On the chewy nonchocolate candy front, Perfetti Van Melle (a top player in the category) is bringing back the "Rock your mouth" campaign this August for back-to-school. Limited edition flavors like Flamin' Hot and Slammin' Sour will be supported with online and TV by BBH. The campaign is tied to a promotion where kids can enter a code from packaging on Airheads.com for a chance to win Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero III, iPod Shuffle and gift cards. Measured media spending for Airheads last year was $4.7 million, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Napple Shnapples!

The past four days can be summarized by two words: Napa Valley.

Vacation time resumed early Friday with my favorite LA attribute - traffic! What would LA be without it's impatient drivers, long lines over nothing, random sigalerts, etc? I don't know! I left two hours prior to flight (way too early, given that it was for Burbank) since it was Memorial Day weekend and started to rethink my timing around hour 1.5. I can only assume it was another LA freakout over slight drizzle. Yes, when it drizzles, it imaginary pours. Hey LA - get some water treading tires and freaking deal with it, already! I've driven through sheets of rain so thick you can't even see your own headlights. Heck there was probably some golfball sized hail and an F4 tornado thrown in the mix, but you didn't see ME freaking out, did you?

After my agonizing stint with traffic, 15 mins of invisible parking options, lines of checkout, lines of security (everbody's favorite - yes old wrinkled woman with decaying nails, please frisk me!), I've been notified that my plane is an hour delayed. Well, at least I wasn't going to miss my flight? One hour past originaly delayed time, two hours past original flight time, I finally start boarding. The next sentance summarizes the rest of my flight:

I was seated next to twenty 15 year old boys on a baseball trip. The end.

The rest of the vacation was spent being agonizingly pampered away at a spa resort in Napa Valley (oh don't you hate it), where I had to *begrudgingly* receive a fully body massage, facial, manicure, pedicure and other assorted spa-stuff. I'm not typically this high maintanence - but, man, it sure felt great! I walked out of there relaxed, but covered in so much oil and lube that a car could repair itself off of me.
After the resort we went down to Napa where we got to tour some wineries, learn about the process of wine making, ogle the rediculously gross couples on their honeymoon, and indulge in free wine (ok, I'm lame, I only sipped. I still don't drink. Lame.) I can't begin to tell you how beautiful Napa is. Oh wait, yeah I can, it's gorgeous. It reminded me of where I grew up as a child and made me slightly misty eyed. Then I realized I live in a city with ample opportunity, entertainment galore and miles of beaches ... then I got over myself. But, yeah, I definatly want to move back to that one day.

Round 2: the next few words summarize the rest of my trip: Banana Republic and Ann Taylor.

Back to the airport I go, to fly back to my lovely home in clean, perfect, crime free San Fernando Valley ... and I get stuck sitting next to freaking Chatty Kathy. It was a connecting flight from Tahoe ... and she stayed the whole time. Shoot me in the face, I prayed, oh lord ... shoot me in the face ...
Just kidding! It wasn't bad at all ... she was actually pretty nice and I found her life story pretty interesting.

Pictures can be found on my facebook album!

The rest of the Memorial Day was spent with friends and throwing shenanigans, coupled with one long phone call and a couple of really *interesting* text messages. Oh man ... my friend's going to love it in the morning ...

Bay to Breakers 2008

It's always an adventure going on vacation with me. This weekend's location of choice: my favorite city, San Francisco. I typically choose this city when I want to get away, but I don't want to spend that much or travel too far. It's such the perfect place to be; great weather, a lot of culture, you can walk everywhere, great food, much to do - and beautiful men!
I went up this weekend to support my mother as she ran Bay to Breakers. Many miles were walked, great food was eaten, naked men/women were gawked at, and an overall fantastict time was had. My cousin says I should do the race next year, but we'll see ... in all honesty I don't really know where I will be next year. The race was the most fun I've had in a long, long time and I didn't even run it! I just went to the morning festivities and walked around as all the costumed folk gathered. Tortillas and marshmallow throwing inhabited most of our time.

Followed by a clip with a man picking a wedgie (at the end of the clip):

Followed by a drunk guy happily parading from the California Raisens:

And a couple other boring videos that have shots of people in costume:

(Blogger, eff you. It won't let me show my youtube vids ... go to http://www.youtube.com/user/ChristinaJoBob ... vids are there)

I think my top three favorite costumes have to be: walk of shame, men dressed up as sperm implanting an emryo, and a bunch of loud, drunk frat dudes dressed up as viking pushing a ship.







There was music and food and drunk people everywhere - I can't wait to go back next year! God, I love this city ...

Psychos on the net!

It's no secret to many people who know me that I'm an online dater. I have a bit of trouble meeting dudes, so I typically walk the line of match.com and okcupid.com. The funny thing is that even though I'm paying for a dating service, I have yet to meet anybody off of match.com. Yes, I'm one of those people who actually pay for a dating account. Shoot me now. The free one (okcupid), however, I've met a few people off of ... and I happened to meet one very amazing guy (long story) there, but I find the selection is much, much better on match.

Let me think here ... last time I met a guy in person and went on a date? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh??? Let's just say it's been a while. They just don't like to talk to me for some reason - it's not that I'm cross or unattractive or let my halitosis disorder get out of hand (too often), it's just that, well ... they hate me. Therefore, virtual boys it is!

Wait a minute ... I've been on dates recently ... ok, I guess that one is thrown out the window. BUT, in argument, they were all online dudes.

First, I would like to start off by saying that I much prefer to meet somebody in real life over the internet, but that meeting people online is practical for people who have problems meeting others, like myself. Second, if by chance you're actually reading this (and you know who you are), I'd stop this whole internet tyraid all together for you. ANYWAYS. The newest adventures in online dating have gotten interesting. And by interesting I mean SCARY. Fudscicles scary.

So I log into match.com right, but I rarely spend more than a few minutes on the site. I log in, check the emails, occasionally browse through the 5000000000 winks received, then close my browser (often to not log out). I have yet to actually search for anybody. The interest to go out and find somebody just isn't there ... if they come to me I'll pay attention, but otherwise ... nope.
Recently I've had a slurry of emails from one gentleman in particular, who, not to be catty or wierd, looks like an effing pedophile in his profile picture. I'm not so much into men who like children. At first he says hi, how's it going ... I read the email but I'm not interested. On to the next email. I don't click on the "I'm not interested tab" because, to be honest, my attention span for this thing is quite short and when I'm done, I'm on to the next one. I guess he really dug my profile, because I kept getting email after email after email after email from this dude, eventually leading to the one that says "Why aren't you responding, do you hate me?" "I hate life!" etc. I even got an IM from him (match.com IM) with this huge transcript saying how I am being rude and he's reporting my profile and how he's going to end his life and whooooooooa nelly! I WASN'T ONLINE. That might be why I didn't respond to the IM? Talk about overkill! Seriously, he's getting really scary to me at this point. Telling a woman you have never met in life .. or even exchanged any sort of communication with ... that you hate life because she's not responding is a bit desperate. I understand how he feels and I am sympathetic, but it's just coming off scary to me and I'm not going to want to talk to somebody I feel threatened by. To ease his tension, I sent an email this morning apologizing that he feels that way and that I am not interested.

He's not the only one to do that. There's a second guy who has been mass emailing me on match.com as well ... he ALSO sent an IM with things along the lines of "Why aren't you talking to me" ... and I also had to send an email apologizing. Perhaps it's time to change my profile to say "If I don't get back to you within three days, I'm just not interested. No offense to you, I'm sure you're a nice guy."

Then ... there's Myspace. Here's the scary one. There's this guy who's been emailing me for quite a while now, with the emails getting scarier and scarier. From "Hey, what's up" to "Stop being such a bitch, just reply to my goddamn emails" to worse. I won't go into details, but my blocking and myspace reporting are doing jack squat. People are so freaking wierd.

On a related note, myspace ... not for dating. It's for socializing with friends and family. At least to me it is.

So there you have it, recent online dating adventures in a nutshell. 1) Scary dudes 2) Haven't met anybody off the internet in a long, long time 3) Match.com > OKcupid.

And you, yeah you again, I'd still stop it all if you asked me to. But I doubt you're reading this.