Mark Leslie's Blog

Remember those smiling little bubble soldiers from the Scrubbing Bubbles television commercials?

You know, the ones that work hard cleaning your bathtub and sink so that you don't have to? Well they're back with a new product that I checked out via BzzAgent.


I signed up to receive a free sample of the new Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner. We got it last week and have been using it for a while. God, why hadn't they invented these things when I was a bachelor? My apartment would have been sparkling clean. Well, at least my toilet bowl would have been sparkling clean.

Okay, yes, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see those smiling little Bubble Soldiers zip around the bowl and clean (yes, part of me hoped I'd see them smiling while they worked, occasionally looking up and winking at me and saying: "Don't worry, Mark, we're on the case. We'll have this toilet bowl spiffy clean in no time. Your presence and efforts are not needed here. You simply go back into the living room and sit down and relax with that book you've been itching to pick up and get back into."

But even though I didn't get to watch these fun cartoon characters in action . . . (as seen in the TV commercial clip below)




. . . I'm still rather impressed with the simplicity and ease of use with this product.

You simply install it on the side of your toilet bowl and slip in the refill canister (the process takes about 2 minutes). Then, twice a day you step on the little "gas pedal" for about a second to release the little smiling guys into your toilet bowl - the spray covers the entire interior of the bowl (but do be careful, if you stick your head down too low in an attempt to look closely and smile back at the little smiling bubbles you could get a face-full of the cleaner)

About the only disappointing thing about this new product is the fact that my seven year old son Alexander enjoys the simple process of stepping on the pedal and releasing the cleaner.

This means that, while I initially got to enjoy playing with this fun new product, I haven't had a chance recently. Alexander is hogging all the fun.

Yes, imagine this: My son and I are now fighting over who gets to clean the toilet. It's like a dream come true for my wife.

About the only time I'm into sports is towards the tail end of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But I admire the hype and build-up to things like the Super Bowl. The event goes far beyond the actual sport, and to the extreme of hoopla to such an extend that even non-sports fans like myself can enjoy and appreciate the excitement around it all.

I'm a BuzzAgent -- BuzzAgent is a word of mouth marketing network that allows me to sign up for campaigns for products and services that I might be interested in, with a chance to get samples for free and earn points towards other products.

I was recently given a chance to share some videos for Chevy Super Bowl commercials -- while most of them are fun and interesting (and man, but do I ever love Tim Allen's voice for commercials -- he does these as well as a radio series for Michegan outdoors, and has a fantastic narrator voice) I've got a few favourites from the batch that I'd like to share here.

This particular commercial, which refers to an upcoming Transformers movie, is a fun one . . . interesting to see it's an ad not just for Chevy, but also for an upcoming film.



However, I was most impressed with some of the social networking features being included in some of the new Chevrolet models. Very interesting to see.

Check out the Chevy App . . . ultimate in remote control . . .



And, of course, there's the ability to use OnStar to check your Facebook news feed . . .



See, there's something in Super Bowl for non-sports fans, too.

I have been enjoying listening to podcasts as well as the free books available from podiobooks.com for a couple of years now.

That's why I was quite intrigued to find Simply Audiobooks online. It works kind of the same way that Netflix does. You sign up for a very low monthly subscription and you can rental audio books that are shipped directly to your home.

Because Simply Audiobooks does not appear to be affiliated with one particular manufacturer they have a full and broad selection of audio books. I spent some time looking for books that I have always wanted to read but just didn't have the time for. Isn't that always the case with book lovers? You see at least half a dozen new books that you want to read every couple of days and yet you think about that giant pile of "books to read" that are sitting at home just waiting for you. With my mp3 player, I have at least been able to listen to some of the books I haven't had a chance to read yet while walking or driving to work.

Listening to the books has allowed me, on average, to expand my reading of novels and non-fiction books dramatically. Granted, when I had a daily 3.5 hour commute into work, I listened to quite a bit more of podcasts and books on CD -- but even in the short 10 minute drive to work and 10 minute walk from parking to my office, I'm able to get in a decent half an hour to 40 minutes worth of "audio reading" per day. Not bad at all.

While I'm not likely to use the "ship to me" feature on Simply Audiobooks, I am quite likely to check out their monthly download subscription service. For as low as $20 a month, you can download two audio books per month. That's quite a bit steeper, of course, than the free podiobooks.com (which is 100% free), but there is a much larger selection and it certainly is cheaper than buying the same products from a retail store.

I have also found that, over the past 10 years or so, the general quality of abridgment done to create an audio book has dramatically improved. (Books converted to audio format are often abridged - it's usually to keep the cost of the audio book down by shortening the running time - unabridged audio books tend to be as much as 10 CD's or more and can cost a lot more than the hardcover version of the book -- not a concern, of course, with a subscription service like Simply Audiobooks.) Good abridgment is done seamlessly -- so seamlessly that even if you've read the full length novel, you might have trouble figuring out what exactly was cut and from where. Good abridgment is like an excellent editing job.

I discovered Simply Audiobooks via my participation in frogpond, a BzzAgent community of folks who are invited to check out different websites and internet offerings, offer their opinion of them, and if they like what they see or the services they test out, they can invite their friends to check it out.