The Impulsive Life

Why The Product Photos Are The Way They Are

marvo — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:07:42 +0000

When I started The Impulsive Buy, I made the decision to not have any background behind the product photos. I came to this decision because I wanted people coming from Google (or any search engine) to think they were coming to a professional, safe site, which I hoped disarmed them. With them thinking TIB was a wholesome website, I hoped they would be horrified when I started describing how phallic a product was or wrote boobies several times in a paragraph.

Sure, it’s gotten me a few angry emails over the nearly seven years The Impulsive Buy has been in existence, but those were just proof that my decision to knock out the background in photos was the right one.

Another Reply I Sent To A PR Person

marvo — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 02:45:35 +0000

I think I’m going to make this the template for all my PR replies to folks who want to send us a product to review:

Hi (name removed to protect the innocent),

Here at The Impulsive Buy we no longer accept free products for review because, to be perfectly honest, every time we’ve done so in the past, it felt like a part of our soul was ripped away from us and lost forever. The soul of The Impulsive Buy is being completely honest about a product and describing it like no other blog would. For example, off of the top of my head I might be able to logically compare Crystal Light Pure with pure cocaine. Now this doesn’t bother me, but it may bother you and I’m 99.9 percent sure it would bother Crystal Light. So by not accepting free products we’re not only letting us maintain whatever soul we have left, but we’re also protecting the nice PR folks who might get fired for mistakenly sending a blog like ours free products to review.

Thanks for the email.

Marvo
Editor-in-Chief
The Impulsive Buy

New Projects Ahead (And One Old Project Revisited)

marvo — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:47:11 +0000

Late last year, I started Grand Store Brand Land, a store brand review blog. What influenced me to start this blog was the amount of store brand products available and the quality of them. Growing up, I thought store brands were cheap knockoffs of popular products, and they were. However, today is a much different story. A lot of the Archer Farms stuff at Target is damn tasty, and the Safeway store brands are good as well. However, after four reviews in two weeks, I stopped posting. I think I stopped because I wasn’t sure about the voice of the blog. Should it be like The Impulsive Buy or should it be different? I pondered about this for a week, then a week turned into a month, a month turned into two months, and here we are today.

Last week, I posted a new review at Grand Store Brand Land, because I don’t want it to die, I think it’s a decent idea for a blog, and I buy a lot of Archer Farms products. Although, I’ll probably just review Target and Safeway stuff, since I mainly shop at those two stores. But if any of you want to contribute a review (for free), please feel free to contact me. As for the voice of the blog, I realize I shouldn’t focus on that, and I should just write.

As for the new projects, I started with a friend (Russel at Two Beer Queers) a parody online money making blog called Awesome Online Money Making Blog. We basically try to make fun of the thousands of slimy blogs that teach people how to make money online. The idea came to me by reading the Problogger blog. If you’ve never visited Problogger, it’s run by a guy in Australia who runs a number of blogs and makes a living from them. Problogger contains hints and tips to earn money online, and at first they were helpful, like where to place your Google Adsense ads, but then the posts slowly turned into posts about stuff he wanted to sell to his readers, like ebooks and online money making programs. And then there were guest posts from other online money making bloggers who were also selling ebooks and their own money making programs. At this point I thought it was absurd and decided to make fun of them in blog form.

Another new project I’m working on is a frozen food review blog called Freezer Aisle Files. I’m doing it because I miss the microwaveable meal review blog Heat Eat Review. It was a great source for microwaveable meals. Like Grand Store Brand Land and Awesome Online Money Making Blog, I hope to post something weekly. Also, if you’re interested in contributing frozen food reviews (again, for free), please let me know.

I also have an idea for a beverage review blog (and I even have a good name for it), but I’ll put that on hold until later.

Finally, I’m working on an ebook. No, it’s not about how to make money on the internet. It’s also not a book of reviews. I don’t want to go into specifics, but all I’m going to say is that it’s a how-to book. It’s going to involve a lot of research, so I hope to have a draft by the end of this year. Once I have a final draft of it, I’ll probably put it up for sale on the Amazon Kindle store.

Help Me Expand This List Of Review Blogs

marvo — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:20:09 +0000

For the Week in Reviews (which is currently Day in Reviews, we’ll see how long that lasts), I go through every single one of the review blogs below to pick out reviews. I’d like to expand this list and I’d like your help. If you know of any product review blogs I should follow, please let me know in the comments or on Twitter or TIB’s Facebook page.

Thank you.

Marvo
The Big Cheese
www.theimpulsivebuy.com

Food Blogs

http://www.grubgrade.com/

http://www.foodstufffinds.co.uk/

http://gigi-reviews.blogspot.com/

http://junkfoodbetty.com/

http://phoood.com/

http://www.yumyucky.com/

http://www.iateapie.net/

http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/

http://wouldibuyitagain.com/

http://foodette-reviews.blogspot.com/

http://approacheszero.wordpress.com/

http://animmovablefeast.blogspot.com/

http://probablyedible.wordpress.com/

http://www.rodzillareviews.com/

http://foodjunk.wordpress.com/

http://www.munchiesblog.com/

http://dihts.com/

http://www.epicportions.com/

http://www.onsecondscoop.com/

http://www.freezerburns.com/wordpress/

http://ebidebby.blogspot.com/

http://japanesesnackreviews.blogspot.com/

http://quirkspace.com/jsfr/

http://secondratesnacks.com/

http://fastfoodreviewed.com/

http://brandeating.blogspot.com/

http://www.bloglander.com/cheapeats/

http://foodirl.com/

Candy Blogs

http://obsessivesweets.blogspot.com/

http://www.candyyumyum.com/

http://www.chocablog.com/

http://www.gumalert.com/

http://exquisitecandy.wordpress.com/

http://www.sugarpressure.com/

http://www.candygurus.com/

http://www.chocolatereviews.co.uk/

http://zomgcandy.com/

http://www.thecandyenthusiast.com/

http://www.chocolatemission.net/

http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

http://jenkenskitkatblog.blogspot.com/

http://tastyjapan.blogspot.com/

http://candyaddict.com/blog/index.php

Beverage Blogs

http://www.caffeineaholic.net/

http://www.caffeinecritic.com/

http://cannedreviews.blogspot.com/

http://www.belchingmonkey.com/

http://www.bevreview.com/

http://www.thesodajerks.net/

http://www.possessedbycaffeine.com/

http://www.edjunkie.com/index.html

http://www.screamingenergy.com/

http://energyfiend.com/

http://www.teaviews.com/

http://nrgdrinkeuphoria.blogspot.com/

http://www.bandddesigns.com/energy/

http://energyheaven.blogspot.com/

http://addicted2energy.blogspot.com/

http://thirstrate.wordpress.com/

http://sodagiant.com/

http://www.drinkwhat.com/

http://caffeineking101.blogspot.com/

http://whatidrinkatwork.blogspot.com

http://www.twobeerqueers.com/

Others

http://www.we-rate-stuff.com/

http://everyview.com/

http://www.review-spew.com/

http://officesupplygeek.com/

http://thesurfingpizza.com/

Goal for 2011: Post 175 Reviews

marvo — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:35:33 +0000

Last year, TIB posted 130 reviews. I didn’t set a goal for the number of reviews posted in 2010, but I’m somewhat disappointed by the number because it’s significantly lower than the previous two years. There were also less posts overall in 2010 than there were in 2009. In 2010, there were 237 posts. In 2009, there were 303. The lower number of posts definitely contributed to the first drop in traffic TIB has ever had. But I expect 2011 to be a good year for TIB, now that it has a merry band of excellent writers.

I’ve never set goals for TIB, but this year I’m going to start. My goals this year for TIB are to post 175 reviews and 350 posts overall.

How I Choose The Reviews For The Week In Reviews Posts

marvo — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:05:33 +0000

When I’m ready to write the Week In Reviews post, I open up 68 review blogs in my web browser at one time, each occupying their own tab. Since this takes a few minutes, I go and make myself a cup of tea and/or do something that involves hygiene. When I come back, all 68 blogs are ready to be looked over and I can enjoy them while sipping tea with my hairless knuckles.

When I go through those dozens of blogs, I look over every single review that was posted within the past week, and along the way I copy and paste the URLs of the reviews that catch my eye. What catches my eye is not really based on whether the product is new or unusual. My review selection is based on whether or not I feel I can write something funny about it. While I’m selecting them, I don’t know what I’m going to write, I just feel like there’s a potential joke that I can write along with each review.

After I look through all 68 blogs, I end up with 15-20 reviews, and from there I whittle them down to five. How I whittle them down involves me rereading each review and then seeing if I can write something funny. I’ll go down the list and if I can’t think of anything, I’ll go to the next review. If I go through the entire list and I don’t have my five lines for the Week in Reviews post, I’ll start again from the top of the list and go through it again. Usually, I have to go through the list two or three times before I get all five reviews/lines for the post.

And that’s how a Week In Reviews post gets made.

PR REPLIES: QuickReceipts

marvo — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:20:08 +0000

HAWAII FOODS: Teddy’s Bigger Burger Bacado Burger

marvo — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:44:04 +0000

If you’re ever in Hawaii and hankerin’ for a burger, Teddy’s Bigger Burger is the place to go. So far, it’s my favorite burger place, behind In-N-Out. Some will say Kua ‘Aina is better, but I have to disagree. And I will fight those people to the death. Or I will kill them by clogging their arteries with Kua ‘Aina burgers and their crappy fries.

The picture above is Teddy’s Bacado Burger, which, I think, is a limited time burger. In between the potato bun are a medium cooked 9-ounce hamburger patty with lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, avocado and Teddy’s special sauce. The 9-ounce patty is huge, but there are smaller sizes for those who have smaller carnivore hungers. Thanks to the sauce, the burger does get messy, so I’d recommend napkins. But I think they put packaged sanitation wipes in the bag. The only part I didn’t like about the burger was the lack of flavor from the avocados, but still a really good burger.

PR People Are Funny

marvo — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:23:39 +0000

Recently, a PR person representing Haagen Dazs emailed me asking if I would be interested in trying some of their limited edition new flavors and two of their new Five flavors. Since I already reviewed their Limited Edition Banana Foster and didn’t plan on reviewing anymore flavors, I replied to her by saying, “Thank you very much for the offer, but we will pass.”

She replies by telling me she’s going to send me some gift certificates and asks for my mailing address. When I received her reply, I obviously was confused. I went back to my email and made sure I declined the offer, which I did. I think there are two explanations for this:

She was tired when she read my reply.
She thought I accepted because everyone else she offered free pints of ice cream to probably accepted the offer. Because, seriously, who can say no to free pints of decadent Haagen Dazs ice cream.

Yes, I declined free pints of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Actually, TIB no longer accepts free products from companies. It’s a rule I’ve had on and off over the years, but it’s permanent this time and it has been for the past few months.

Pringles Can Lids Make Decent Coasters

marvo — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:15:06 +0000

Okay, observant readers will notice the plastic lid in the picture is from a Lay's Stax can, but I haven't eaten Pringles in awhile and I threw away all the coasters from those Pringles cans, so I had grab the lid from the Lay's Stax can sitting in my recycling bin.

Before using Pringles can lids, I used blank CD-Rs as coasters, because I felt they’re a dying form of data storage, but stopped because I was afraid the ink under CD-Rs would stain my desk.

Actually, I don’t even know why I use coasters. My computer desk is an unstable hand-me-down from a friend. So I’m not sure why I’m worrying about desk stains and water rings forming on the top. I guess it makes me feel a little civilized or I’m upset that I can’t recycle the damn things since it’s a #4 plastic.