Colours by GROUPLOVE

I can’t say enough about this awesome new band that I recently discovered. Have a listen to hear their featured song ‘Colours’ on their recently released EP. They are set to release their first full album in September… CAN’T WAIT!

Fake Reviews Becoming A Big Problem: Can You Review It Rescue Us?

Blogging has become a big deal over the past several years initially as a way to express ones self to the world but more recently as a way to make a living. In fact blogging has become such a  big industry for those looking to get their share of the Internet advertising market that there are thousands and thousands of people who are making a perfectly comfortable income by just sitting at home and blogging about various things.

With the explosion of the blogging industry and the ability to make a buck off of your site visitors fake product reviews have become a HUGE problem. Sure, now more than ever you can find accurate and legitimate reviews of products from real users through platforms such as Amazon. But also now more than ever it is difficult to tell the real reviews from the fake ones. It’s easy if you go to a site like Amazon but what happens when you want reviews on products that aren’t sold at Amazon and you are forced to look toward the little guys site. More often than not you are forced to sift through a bunch of crap in the search results in order to find the real reviews, if you do find any at all.

You see with the incentive to make money off of site visitors there are many bloggers these days that write reviews of products without ever actually seeing the product in action or knowing whether it is of high quality or not. The idea for these bloggers is to write a glowing review and slap up some few affiliate links and most of your site visitors will believe your review, click through and eventually buy, thus making you money. These types of blog owners never intend to provide any real information about the product and are simply out to make a buck. What’s it to them anyway? They aren’t the one that is getting falsely deceived into thinking a crap product is good, they aren’t the ones blowing $50 on something that doesn’t work right.

Enter YouReviewIt.com, an all new reviews website where the site owners don’t ever review a product themselves. Yes, the site owners do have ads on the site and they do make money however they have left all the reviewing to users like you because they know there is a conflict of interest, and they also know that there is no possible way they can review thousands of products themselves. Instead of trying to piece together information from the web and pass it as a review, or worse, these guys have left all of the reviewing to real users just like you and me.

I’m not sure if this site will make it big or not but I felt they deserved a mention after I stumbled across their site and saw that they were doing the noble thing, the proper thing, the thing that will certainly make them less money, but just the sort of thing that we need. Now we can only hope more and more mega sites like this start popping up and perhaps we can save the Internet from greedy people who make their money at another’s expense. For more info check out the You Review It About Page.

A Vacation Guide to Fishing Blue Mesa & Gunnison, Colorado!

I thought I’d let a buddy of mine (pictured to the right) have some airtime today with a post about the place we both currently call home, Gunnison, Colorado. The Gunnison Country is a great place for many outdoor activities such as mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, fishing, and much much more.  It is especially known for it’s fishing which rivals the best in the  state of Colorado and around the world. I hope you enjoy and if you feel the urge come on out and see what Gunnison is all about.

Next time you are thinking about taking a vacation to Colorado, consider checking out the southwest corner of the state. More specifically, stay in Gunnison or Crested Butte, Colorado and take advantage of the many different activities available in this area! These activities include: white water rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking, shopping, kayaking, fly fishing, hiking, 4-wheeling, and fishing on Blue Mesa reservoir!

Blue Mesa, located fifteen minutes from Gunnison, Colorado, is the largest reservoir in the state and boasts some of the best kokanee salmon fishing in Colorado as well as the western U.S.! It also has trophy lake trout, brown trout, rainbow trout, perch, and the occasional pike. Blue Mesa holds a state record kokanee salmon and the state record lake trout, which exceeds 50 lbs! There are many great fishing opportunities at Blue Mesa reservoir and all of these opportunities are surrounded by the incredible scenery of the Dillion Pinnacles, West Elk Wilderness area, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison!

Kokanee salmon are a land-locked version of the sockeye salmon and are just as delicious! They make a fantastic mountain vacation dinner. These fish can be caught trolling or jigging from a boat and can put up quite a fight. A Blue Mesa fishing trip is a great addition to any summer or winter Gunnison or Crested Butte vacation and hiring a Blue Mesa fishing guide to get you into the fish is a great idea! One that comes highly recommended is Robby Richardson, owner and head guide of Sport Fish Colorado guide service. He has spent between 150 and 200+ days a year on the waters of Colorado over the last five years and Blue Mesa is his favorite place to fish! He will get you into the fish (And that’s no joke as you can see by the picture below), show you a fun time, and even fillet your fish up for dinner at the end of the day!

If you prefer to try a Blue Mesa fishing adventure on your own, all fishing equipment as well as a pontoon or aluminum fishing boat can be rented from Elk Creek or Lake Fork Marinas. You can also try fishing from the banks of Blue Mesa if you have your own equipment, but after the water warms in late spring, the fishing from shore can be a little tough. The Gunnison/Crested Butte area also has a lot of public access on rivers and streams in the area that can provide good fishing for rainbow and brown trout. Regardless of what type of fishing you prefer, give Blue Mesa and the Gunnison/Crested Butte area a try on your next Colorado vacation and hang on to that rod, you might be suprised at how good the action can be!

Little Giant Blueberries – A Must Read Before You Buy

Last year I was writing for another website of mine with my TV on a rather low volume in the background. While sitting there minding my own business out of nowhere my television got really loud and basically started screaming at me about a product called “little giant blueberries plants“. It really annoys me that these commercial people think that they have the right to decide what volume my TV is at and this is even more true when its a commercial about a product that is complete crap. Since I was so annoyed by the volume of this commercial and noticed its outrageous claims regarding its blueberry plants I decided to do a little bit of research myself and just let me say that the little giant blueberry company is gonna wish that they didn’t raise the roof on me.

When doing my research of the little giant blueberries I found almost exclusively negative comments and reviews regarding them. The only time I found anything even remotely positive was when I happened to stumble upon a website that was promoting them with the hopes of getting affiliate sales. This is particularly disturbing because usually when a product is halfway decent you will find at least some comments that talk about it in a positive manner.

My first complaint regarding the little giant blueberries is their confusing checkout system. When you purchase the little giant blueberries they do not give you an order total until you have already completed your purchase. And let me tell you, this isn’t a coincidence. Little giant blueberries are marketed on the fact that they are extremely cheap and its easy for people to commit to a purchase of $10 but before they know it they are often stuck with an order that was over 5 times as much. Now people are to blame for this problem too, because they aren’t taking the time to read the fine print but if the company was really concerned about the customer they wouldn’t have forgone customer satisfaction in an attempt get more sales.

The confusion seems to happen because people don’t understand that for every single plant they order they have to pay $4.95 shipping. So if they get the special of three plants for $10 then they are actually billed $24.85. Now it gets really dicey when consumers are going through the checkout and the company begins offering all sorts of different plants… always in three’s for just $10. People figure shipping won’t go up for a couple more small plants but they are oh so wrong. For every plant in your order you are charged $4.95. No matter the fact that they shipping everything together in a tiny tiny package for just a couple bucks. This isn’t anything new either, As Seen On TV Companies have long made their profits by over charging on shipping. It’s simple, offer a cheap product, sell it at break even point, and then all of the shipping charges are 100% pure profit. This isn’t necessarily wrong either, assuming you aren’t confusing customers with how much their order total is.

My second beef with the company has to do with their 30 day money back guarantee. I like the fact that they offer this guarantee but some buyers have complained that it took them over 30 days to get their plants and the company offers the guarantee from the date of purchase, so for those unlucky individuals they essentially have no guarantee.  Now for those that do request a refund within the 30 day window they still are getting screwed. The reason for this that when they request a refund they don’t get any shipping charges refunded. I understand this idea for those that just decided they didn’t want the plants, that’s their problem. But what about the people that receive plants that died during shipping due to a delay in delivery. Is it really fair for those customers to get a $10 refund and still be out $14.85? Shouldn’t it be the company’s responsibility to get the plants to their customers in good condition?

The third concern with this company is their misrepresentation of what you can expect from the plants. Sure, you may be able to get a ton of  blueberries from these plants after they are mature but they send you very small plants that you probably shouldn’t expect but 2-3 berries from in the plants first year and still not very many the second year either. The company preys on consumers by emphasizing that you can get bowls full per week and they make you think you are gonna get them right away. They should state in the commercial how it will take a few years but instead this information in only found little giant blueberries FAQ subpage.

Finally, my last complaint is in regards to these plants being a special type cultivated by expert scientist. I don’t buy this and if it were true they why isn’t everybody selling and growing these ‘special’ blueberry plants? Sure these plants may produce better sized blueberries than some other plants but there are quite a few different types of blueberry plants that produce varying sized blueberries. In fact, their FAQ page says that they are Vaccinium Corymbosum or highbush blueberries, which is one of the most common types of blueberries around these days.

It’s not that I don’t think that it would be a great idea to grow your own blueberries because I actually do think it would be awesome. I love blueberries but they are always expensive and I can’t convince myself that tiny package of them is really worth $5. Just because growing them yourself is a good idea that doesn’t mean you should buy them from whoever. Instead you should take this wonderful idea that blueberry giant has given you and run to your local Home Depot or Lowe’s as I’ve heard that they sell them and sure, they will be a little bit more expensive but you will also get larger more hearty plants and a good return policy in case they die right away. Another option is to search on the Internet for full scale blueberry farms, as they often offer plants for sale.

The bottom line however is that you shouldn’t buy from these things guys, at best you will get plants that take a few years to produce but any real amount of blueberries and at worst you will get overcharged to the tune of $50 or more only to have your plants arrive dead.

Echo Of Love By An Epic No Less

This band is truly amazing. I love this song. Check out their video below. They are gonna be big in a matter of time. Check their website out at http://www.anepicnoless.com/

You Really Should Try The MagicJack Plus Phone

Update: magicJack has now released an updated version of its product, called the MagicJack plus. This new device is exactly the same as its predecessor except that works by hooking directly into an ethernet port on a modem or router and therefore bypasses the need for a computer. Bypassing a computer should eliminate most of the issues that people were having with the old magicJack that were related to differences in computers.

For some time now I have had an link in my blogroll for a really cheap phone service that I have been using. I’m sure a lot of you have been wondering what that is all about since its so off topic and I wanted to take the time to explain it since I think a lot of you could benefit from it.

The phone service and device that I started using a few months back is called the magic Jack. It is a small device that looks like a USB memory stick and it costed me just $40. $40 may sound like a lot but this $40 got me the device and a full year of unlimited phone calls. At it’s not just local calls, it includes long distance calls too. This phone service doesn’t use traditional telephone lines but instead using something that is referred to as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) which simply means that your call is transmitted over the internet rather than through telephone lines.

The reason I love my magic Jack so much is because it only cost $40 for a year of service and as far as I can tell it works exactly the same as my old landline phone. All I had to do was get the magic Jack up and running and then hook the other end of it up to one of my phone. Then it worked instantly with my phone cordless phone system that use. Another great thing is that I was told I can renew for future years for only $20. The only thing that I don’t like about the magic Jack is the fact that my computer has to be on 24/7 in order for calls to ring through, if not  then they will be routed straight to my MJ voicemail.

I don’t wanna bore you with a ton of details so if you have any more questions about my super cool new phone gadget just leave a comment and I’ll try to answer your questions. Of course I just use it, I’m not an expert, so you may have to seek out other sites if you have a bunch of questions.