Fifty Years of Spreading the News ✭

Great story about Bobby Ellis who has spent 50 years walking the downtown streets selling copies of the Courier & Press.

March 3rd, 2010 By Justin Williams

Foursquare in Evansville 101

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If you’re a smartphone, you may have heard of the popular location-based game called Foursquare. The premise behind Foursquare is that you “check in” when you visit a bar, restaurant or other business establishment to earn points. You can also earn badges for reaching certain tasks such as going to the gym so many times a month or visiting too many trendy bars.

Foursquare is just starting to take off in the Evansville area, but it’s a bit like the wild west out there right now. In hopes of curbing such behavior, I thought I’d suggest some best practices when using Foursquare:

1. Your house is not a place to checkin at: Foursquare is about going out, so it makes little sense to checking when you are at home or visiting another persons house. Sure, you might get more points, but you are also clogging up the game for others. Foursquare is looking into implementing private venues, which may be a proper context for checking in at home, but until then it’s a no-no.
2. Use proper names and spelling: It’s appreciated when you create a new venue in town, but please take the extra few seconds to properly capitalize, punctuate and spell the venue name. As the creator, you have full control over that places information until a superuser is designated for town. Everytime I see “Ihop” rather than “IHOP” or “little cheers” instead of “Little Cheers” I die a little inside. As the creator of a venue, it’d also be nice if you could take the time to properly tag and address it when you are at home.
3. Friends and Foursquare don’t mix: I am personally pretty protective of who I follow and allow to follow me on Foursquare. Since I am giving out my specific location, I don’t accept anyone that I don’t personally know to see my whereabouts. Just because we may be Twitter buddies doesn’t mean we are Foursquare friends.
4. Foursquare is not a billboard…yet: Even though Foursquare is in its infancy in Evansville, I’ve already noticed a realtor in the Owensboro area creating venues for each of his open houses. This is wrong on so many levels. Foursquare encourages businesses to partner with them to offer specials and benefits for people who checkin using the application, but it’s most definitely not for listing real estate. If you do have a local restaurant or pub that would benefit from a Foursquare promotion, I’d recommend looking into it.
5. Have fun!: Above all else, Foursquare is supposed to be a fun game you can play with your friends. I love unlocking new badges and fighting for the mayorship of my favorite venues. Don’t take the service too seriously, but do do your part to make the game enjoyable for others that may happen upon your newly created venues.

Stan Levco Wants to Protect the Children From Moving Pictures ✭

Lydia X. McCoy in the Courier & Press:

Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stan Levco has warned area stores that have movie rental kiosks, such as redbox and moviecube, that he is considering prosecuting them if movies rated for mature audiences in the vending machines are accessible by minors.

I’m almost speechless. It’s good to know there are so few crimes worth of prosecution in Evansville that Levco can put his focus his stern eye on DVD rental kiosks.

Labor to March at Closing Whirlpool Plant Friday ✭

Whirlpool officials are obviously discouraging workers from participating. Jackasses.

Purdue’s Hummel Out for Year With Torn ACL ✭

Zach Langdon of the Purdue Exponent:

Purdue confirmed Thursday afternoon junior forward Robbie Hummel will miss the remainder of the season after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament Wednesday night.

Despite the setback, assuming they don’t lose to Michigan State and can hold up during the Big Ten tournament, expect a number one seed.

Custom Fit Personal Training ✭

My thanks to It’s Evansville’s sponsor, Custom Fit Personal Training. Custom Fit Personal Training is Evansville’s premier facility to reach your fitness goals in a one-on-one environment. Whether you go to the gym every week or couldn’t pinpoint one on a map, the trainers at Custom Fit can get you in fighting shape. I’ve been a longtime member and I can’t recommend them enough.

February 17th, 2010 By Justin Williams

Truck Dangles From Muncie Bridge

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At first I thought this was hanging over the Lloyd, but it looks to be up in Muncie. Michael Bay is jealous he didn’t cause this.

Woman Blames Drunkenness on ‘Fat Tuesday’ Party ✭

There were several strands of beads and decorative necklaces on the passenger seat.

Evansville Social Media Club ✭

Josh Breslow reporting for Fox 7:

The Social Media Club is geared towards helping businesses and organizations help gain from that growth…More than 30 people came out to the Social Media Club’s first meeting. So far, the group has more than 50 followers on Twitter and more than 100 on Facebook, but Piazza expects the popularity will grow faster than you can tweet your own name. The group will meet on the third Monday of each month at Ri Ra.

I can’t think of a better way to spend my Monday night than with people who claim a goal in life is to get more followers on Facebook or Twitter.

Local HD/Digital Channel Lists on Cable ✭

Jacob Newkirk, the local television columnist for the Evansville Courier & Press, has a comprehensive list of the HD channels available on basic cable services. It’s been invaluable to me over the past few days as I wait for my TiVo replacement to arrive.