Pitch

Last month I attended the BlogHer Voices of the Year Gala and Art show that was held one night of the BlogHer conference. The art work (a photo by Karen Walrond also known as Chookooloonks ) that was paired with my writing is here and up for auction here.

While I was at the conference I walked the expo floor, checking out all the various vendors who were there in an effort to pitch their products to bloggers. There is some debate throughout the blogosphere regarding bloggers and companies working together in an advertising/reviewer type of capacity, pay vs. no pay, adv-itorial vs. actual review, good pitches vs. bad pitches. It gets so screwy that the FCC is involved.

All of the companies that had booths at BlogHer, as far as I see, support the medium of blogging. They paid for their booth space, which in turns supports BlogHer, which in turn supports the individual blogger. In an effort to show my good faith to those companies that support the medium of blogging I decided to review a couple of the items I received while at the conference.
I have not been compensated financially in any way. I just feel compelled to support those that try to support bloggers.

Playskool and their PR people did an excellent job of showcasing their PlayDoh, Mr. Potato and Tonka lines but the coolest thing I saw at their booth was their line of Weebles. I loved Weebles when I was a kid and I totally forgot how fun they can be until I saw them at the conference. I told the Playskool people that my son, Maxfield, had just built a "weeble" using PVC piping and weights while he was at a day camp. The people at the Playskool booth were nice enough to give me a two-pack of Weebles for me to bring home to show Max what a real Weeble looked like. My kids loved them. They still love them. Jackson, being 19 months old, is the perfect age for Weebles. They fit his hands perfectly and he enjoys the fact that they don't fall down. He also enjoys throwing them across the room at his older brothers.

The great and deep thinker Jack Handy once wrote, "I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.”

That right there pretty much sums up my thoughts on the whole Green Movement. I am all for doing what is right by the environment. I recycle. I believe that people should use renewable/sustainable products but whenever I see something that is supposedly better for the environment I can't help but be somewhat skeptical. The people of Scotch-Brite were handing out samples of their new line of "Greener Clean" scrub sponges. Looking at their website they use the description "a new line of effective cleaning products." By using the word effective it says to me that other people are also skeptical. I have no idea on what kind impact the scrub sponge will have on the environment but I will tell you that it works just as good as their other non-earth friendly scrub sponges. I have used it only a few times so I have no idea whether it will last just as long as a normal sponge. My only criticism is that it would not fit in my ears to dampen the sound of a four-year screaming that he will "NOT eat my DINNER no matter WHAT", over and over again, while I tried to do the dishes.

I appreciate the fact that both Playskool and Scotch-Brite support the medium of blogging.

I now plan to teach Jackson how to throw the sponge instead of the Weeble.