1. When gas was less than $2 a gallon

2. How to survive without a cell phone

3. Going to the drug store to pick up photos (that were developed by the store)

4. Learning the hard way why you should have taken the ferry instead of fording the river and losing all your BFFs to the plague (Oregon Trail reference)

5. Scrunchies

6. You owned several tie-dye shirts, biker shorts (which you thought were cool to wear under skirts and skorts) and neon-colored jelly shoes. Props if you ever wore all three together. I  know I did, because my mom sadly still has the photos.

7. Giving all your BFFs friendship or slap bracelets

8. Watching TRL after school

9. Y2K freakout

10. Getting excited to record your family’s answering machine message

11. Hearing “You’ve got mail” and actually getting excited over new emails.

12. How to create a mix-tape of songs (from the radio)

13. How to play video games on an Atari

14. The best part of your weekend was getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons in your pjs. (Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, etc.)

15. Creating your first website on Geocities

16. Learning science from Bill Nye The Science Guy

17. Getting injured on a Slip n Slide

18. The Babysitter’s Club, Goosebumps, Nancy Drew. Nuff’ said.

19. Asking your parents to buy you a “Chia pet” or a “clapper”

20. Having a Trapper Keeper and Lisa Frank school supplies was “the ultimate ‘cool’ status symbol”

21. When MTV actually played music videos

What are some additional signs you grew up in the 90s? Please leave them below in the comments section. 

1. Tie The Knot With a $10 Pizza Hut Dinner Box

Valentine’s Day has always been a big day for proposals. Yet, I can’t think of any girl on this Earth, whose dream proposal comes with Pizza Hut pizza. To be fair, it’s a $10,010 proposal package that includes a ruby red (Pizza Hut box colored) ring, a limo service, photographer, videographer, flowers, fireworks and yes a $10 dinner box of Pizza Hut’s subpar pizza, breadsticks and cinnamon twists.

2. Take your date to the Waffle House

Now, most of us have vivid memories of Waffle House meals. For me and a lot of my friends, it involved a 3 a.m. drunk fix for greasy eggs and waffles. For others, it was the perfect hang over cure.

It seems like Waffle House is looking to upgrade their image- at least for one night of the year. They are accepting Valentine’s Day reservations at a lot of their locations. (yes, you heard that right). According to a Georgia Waffle House Manager, “It will have tablecloths. It will have alcohol-free champagne. The lighting will be dimmer. It will be cloth napkins instead of paper. The atmosphere will be more of a five-star sit down and less fast-production Waffle House.”

3. Dunkin Donuts Heart-Shaped Donuts 

Dunkin Donuts is another brand, who seems a bit overzealous to get on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon. They have made special heart-shaped donuts. Because nothing screams, I love you” more than a greasy, sugary fried heart-shaped dough ball. Let’s just hope they are marketing this more to kids’ V-day parties. One can only hope.

4. Nothing Screams Romance Like $10 wings at Hooters 

I can’t think of one good reason why any guy would take their girlfriend or wife to Hooters on Valentine’s Day unless they really needed an excuse to file for a divorce. In that case, they are better off leaving their wife at home while they go awkwardly hit on Hooters’ girls.

5. V-Day Payday Loans

Short on cash this Valentine’s Day? Don’t fret. Cash Choice, a UK cash loans company, is offering Valentine’s Day specials. Because nothing screams the start of an amazing relationship than spending money you don’t have on expensive dinners and gifts.

1. First impressions matter.
First impressions matter a great deal. The best logos are the ones that are simple, easily recognizable, and keep true to the brand’s core culture and/or values.

The Apple Store, McDonalds, Starbucks, Nike, etc: What do these logos all have in common? They are highly recognizable. Everybody knows McDonald’s logo is a golden arch (that resembles a French fry). Or that the Apple logo is an apple with a bite in it. That’s what makes an iconic brand.

2. Brand association matters a lot.
Whether your target consumer is a 5 year old or 55 year old, they may not always know who your brand is. But, they probably will know someone who the brand associates or partners with. For instance in this video, the little girl associates the Pepsi logo with her favorite pizza place. And the BP logo with gas.

3. Don’t over-think it.
Some of the brands, which have more complex logos, were harder for the little kid to place. For instance, the little girl confused Puma, Greyhound and Jaguar. She thought all the logos were a cheetah. These companies couldn’t be more different, but yet all the logos look very similar. This can lead to a little confusion (in small cases) to a lack of brand identity (at its worst).

4. Make your brand memorable.
The logo doesn’t necessarily have to be amazing. But if a customer sees the logo every time they turn on the TV at their best friend’s house, they will pick up on it. That builds brand awareness. If they have enough positive memories, they will be more likely to buy that brand.

Stats can lie. Infographics can be very, very misleading. Percentages don’t always add up. The data could be plain wrong. Yet, most times we assume and read it at face value without questioning where the data came from. In this day and age, it’s more important than ever to be your own detective and uncover the good data from the bad. Here’s a five things to watch out for.

1. Check the source.
Who made this infographic? Who posted this study? Does the source have a bias or affiliated with a group that may have a bias? (Hint: Political organizations, brands and organizations are almost always going to have a bias or a motive for publishing that an infographic).

2. Who sponsored it?
Who sponsored the study? Are there any obvious biases?

3. What does the infographic really tell you?
Is it just mindless jibberjabber meant to sound and look impressive? Or, is there real meat behind the numbers? Does the statistic or infographic use any analogies? If so, are they comparing apples to apples or apples to textbooks?

4. Do the numbers and percentages add up?
Do the percentages add up to 100? Do all the numbers add up to the total? This seems like a no brainer, but faulty math and logic occur all the time.

5. How big is the sample size?
The golden rule. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate the data is. For instance, if a study only polled 150 people, the margin of error is quite high. If they polled 15,000 people, the margin of error should be much lower.

Then, I started thinking about it. Most of the lucky scenarios I thought about weren’t one-in-a-million things, like winning the lottery. That’s just chalked up to chance and probabilities. Instead, most of these scenarios, that I perceived as lucky, were really career and life achievements. They were things like landing my current job (which I love), getting an unexpected huge spike of traffic on one of my blog posts here, or even just having the guts to try something new and realized I succeeded.

That’s not luck. That’s hard work and pure sweat equity. I’ve probably been selling myself short a lot. Especially lately. How did I come to this conclusion recently? It’s because I’m notoriously known for being my own worst critic. If I don’t feel like I’m living up to my high expectations for myself- especially if someone else notices- I take it really hard. And probably not for the best, very personally.

Maybe instead of being so quick to chalk up my “big wins” to some element of luck, I should think about all that it took to achieve this milestone. It takes skills, knowing the “right people” and being at the right place at the right time. All of these factors matter a lot more.

WARNING: This post is coming at you with a whole lot of snark, attitude, and a whee bit of Dayquil-infused fluff. Maybe, I just get an extra bit snarky when I’m under the weather?  But, I can’t help but notice the sheer volume of posts about Pinterest lately.

In case you have been living under a rock, Pinterest is a site which lets you create boards where you can pin and share interesting photos. It’s clustered where you can easily discover users with similar boards/interests. Of course, you can acquire followers, get likes, and comment on others’ pins/boards. The site, which has been around for about a year, recently got a lot of attention in tech and social media blogs and sites. When that happens, every “social media blogger” hops on the Pinterest bandwagon and starts singing its praises on their respected blogs. Most of them with about as much credential to talk about it as the pins they are pinning.

To be clear, I have no problem with Pinterest. I think they have done a terrific job to get people on their platform, which is still invite-only. They have done an even better job to get tons of positive press coverage.

My problem is with how everyone is acting about it. People spend one day, one week or maybe one month on the site, and they are already calling it game-changing. Revolutionary even! Come on, people. Enough with all these buzzwords. We are better than this. Game-changing doesn’t happen when you have a site that has maybe five million users. And 60% of them are females in their 20s or 30s. No, game-changing is when you have a site with 600 million users. That’s truly global and impacts everyone. 

Stop trying to make these new shiny sites game-changing. Pinterest isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen. Let’s flashback almost a year ago to the day. Remember, Quora? Everyone thought that site was revolutionary and a Twitter and Linkedin killer. So far, it really hasn’t lived up to its grand expectations. That’s just one of many examples.

We are in such a hurry to find the “next game-changer.” That we so often forget about the present. We can’t control the future and what’s going to take off next. We can, however, control what we do in the present. Let’s plan and strategize for that. <end rant>

1. Make sure you fill a need- as ridiculous as it may be. 

The secret to a good infomercial product is that it must fill a need for your target audience. Now, this need could be as mundane as finding a better way to chop onions. But in some other cases, marketers are going to have to get creative. Take “Easy Feet” for example. Now, I’m pretty sure everyone, I think, wants to have squeaky clean feet. Most people just use a washcloth. I’m not sure how many people would automatically go out and buy what I can only describe as the world’s most awkward car wash for feet before this infomercial debuted.

2. Cater to people’s laziness. 

It never ceases to amaze me just how lazy we can be. Only in America would we have inventions like the Snuggie. The Snuggie is a ridiculous looking wearable blanket. Yet, it may be one of the most well-known infomercials out there. They have sold millions of them.

3. Make sure your product can be parodied.  

Youtube. It can be the best way to get a late night infomercial tons of exposure. There’s only so many people, who are going to stay up and watch the Forever Lazy infomercial (a spin-off of the Snuggie) at 2 a.m. But, put it on Youtube. You are bound to get dozens and dozens of parodies and spin-offs. Many of them are very funny, and a lot of them are NSFW.

4. Go for the WTF Factor.

If all else fails, go for the WTF factor. Make sure that your product is either so absurd or can be used for such an absurd task that it becomes memorable. Take “furniture fix,” which is supposed to fix sagging couches.  To illustrate their point, they showed two SUMO wrestlers — weighing more than 1,000 pounds– sitting on the couch. Yeah, just a little bit extreme right?

So, let’s have a little fun now. What’s the worst infomercial you have seen? Share in the comments section below.

1. Evernote

Evernote is my go-to app. It goes far beyond the ordinary reminder apps. It’s great for note-taking, creating to-do lists, taking/saving photos, recording notes/items, bookmarking websites to read later, etc. It’s set up in a way where you can easily categorize “notes” into separate notebooks and folders. It also syncs between all iOS devices.

2. Google Voice

Google Voice is probably one of the most underrated tools in my opinion. I’m notoriously bad about checking my voicemails. Google Voice makes it a bit easier by automatically transcribing all my voicemails and sending it directly to my email.

 3. Feedly

Feedly is my blog RSS reader of choice. It has a great mobile user interface design. One of the best features is the ability to save posts for later (to read offline).

4. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great tool, if you have to manage multiple social media accounts. Whether you are on a desktop computer, tablet or smartphone, all your accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) are right there. It’s also the easiest app to schedule posts and assign tasks to other people.

5. Mint

Mint allows you to see where you spend your money. You can set budgets, and categorize spending into separate sections (ala rent/mortgage, groceries, entertainment, medical, etc.). It can also be used to track expenses and create expense reports.

What are your favorite productivity apps? Please share them below in the comment section. 

1. Puppy Christmas
You can really never go wrong with cute puppies and Christmas music, but this video is especially too cute.

2. A Dubstep Christmas house
This may be the sickest Christmas light display I’ve ever seen. I’m sure this family’s utility company loves this crazy lights display more than anyone else. This has to be an absolute fortune to run every night.

3. University of Minnesota Holiday Flash Mob
Flash mobs are becoming a tiny bit cliche. They seem to happen all the time these days. But this one is still pretty unique and neat.

4. Jewish Rock of Ages
Now being a Jew, I felt like I had to share at least one Chanukkah video. This Rock of Ages parody is pretty fantastic. So to all my fellow Jews out there, enjoy!

5. Sailors Dub All I Want For Christmas
I’m saving the best for last. Singing Sailors, yes please? If this doesn’t put a smile on your face and get you in the holiday spirit, then I’m pretty sure nothing will.

I have a small confession. My New Year’s resolution isn’t new at all. In fact, it was my resolution in 2010 and 2011. It’s not something that I can track per se or set milestones to monitor my progress. Instead, it’s a resolution- or more precisely a promise to myself- that will only help me to be happier and maintain my sanity.

My resolution is to continue cutting ties with the consistently negative and hurtful people in my life, who are always trying to bring me down to their level. 

Up until the last two and half years, I prided myself on being nice and trying to be friends with everyone. It worked for awhile, until I realized I was naive and completely in denial. It took some of the most gut-wrenchingly nasty situations, including witnessing my parents’ uber-hostile divorce, with “friends” and “family members” before I realized I was being treated like complete crap by some of the people, who I called family and BFFs. This may be the suckiest epiphany I ever had. Because, there’s nothing good about shattering ties with family members (including my own father and grandmother) and some at the time close friends, who I had invested countless amounts of energy and time on.

It sucked then. It still sucks now, more than two years later. Majorly sucks at times. (And yes, I have my moments where I second guess these decisions). But maybe, it took being so brutally beat down (by a whole host of situations playing out at the same time) to realize that most of my unhappiness was brought on by myself and the people I associated with. I was choosing to be in these circumstances, because I was willingly associating myself with these friends and family members, who continued to hurt me.

Now more than 2 years later, It’s surprising how much happier I am.

Looking back, there was something almost therapeutic about shattering the burdens and shackles I was carrying around with me.

I became more independent.
I became more resilient.
I became more productive.
I even began to find my true self.

This may be the hardest post I’ve ever written. But, I’m doing it to keep myself accountable and to keep taking the steps needed in my personal life, so that I don’t fall back into the depression and downward spiral that consumed me in 2009.