Giveaway Gimmicks

After four nights of getting down and dirty in the garden, I think my weed-pulling job is done. That is definitely the most painful and annoying chore and when I buy a house of my own I'm definitely hiring a gardener. I don't even know if I'd want my kids to pull weeds! Enough of that though. The news pipe today is drier than yesterday, but I ran into a rather intriguing article about how companies use iPods as incentives to get people to pay for their service (like a gym or a bank). Until I read that article I didn't realize how easy we are to be led on by the promise of something that you can usually afford yourself if you're paying for said service. One of the reasons my dad opening a new checking account for me at Compass Bank was a free DVD player even though we already have one. There was also free checking and free ATM anywhere and that stuff, but that kind of put it over the edge. I wonder what the next iPod would be? It's amazing the range of people that the iPod appeals to, and it's amazing that other companies are so behind in competing with Apple. Now that is market power.

The other tech news items are pretty short. EA is teaming up with Nesta Futurelab to investigate how video games can be used to help educate kids rather than suck up all their time. I think video games could be a powerful educational vehicle when made to be more fun than just those cheesy kids games on computers right now. Can you imagine checking out your vital signs right on your wrist? One company has designed such a device for truly at-risk patients and it just sounds pretty cool and it could be very impacting. Google has filed papers with the SEC to sell over 14 million more shares of their stocks to raise money for general corporate expenditures. There have been a lot of pet projects rumored for Google to be interested in so this could be the catalyst for those things. There's a lot of buzz around Intel's new chip line, but all we know for sure is that it will have multiple cores. Maybe that's why Apple switched. Lastly, keep your eyes peeled for RSS 3.0 Lite.

There's not a whole lot of movie news either. IGN scored a great interview with the director and a few cast members from The 40-Year-Old Virgin in anticipation of its release tomorrow. It's pretty light-hearted, but still a fun read. IGN also has some video featurettes from Red Eye if you're still interested in that movie for all your frightful needs. AICN has confirmation that Pierce Brosnan will not be Bond in the next film despite some rumors, but still no word on who will fill those shoes. They also admit that no one knows what the villains will be in Spider-man 3 and probably won't know until the official announcement. Sam Raimi and Avi Arad have done a great job of
keeping everyone tight-lipped.

Now for the 3x Thursday meme:

1. Do you wear glasses and/or contacts? How long?
I wear glasses all the freakin time. It blows. But I think the question means for how many years, and it's been since the second grade so it has been over ten years. I don't think my parents want to fork over the cash for contacts so I'll probably have to fund them myself next summer.

2. Do you have any other eye problems?
Nope. Just that pesky double astigmatism.

3. What do you think about eye (muscle) surgery for people who actually need it (as opposed to vision correction surgery)?
It's nice? What should I think about it? I hope it helps them out.

Bonus Question for Comments: If you have bad eyes and could afford it, would you get the laser corrective surgery? Why/why not?
Probably not just because I'm not sure how reliable it is and plus I think that with vision as bad as mine it would be too big a risk.