If you live in bloggingland like I do, you have heard about the dinner ConAgra did for some food bloggers.  The New York times wrote a scathing article about it (however, I have yet to see one article in the New York Times that actually talks highly of bloggers).  Basically, in New York (I think the location was their first problem.  I can see this going over way better here in Chicago), ConAgra put a dinner on at a restaurant.  They said it was a night out with a celebrity chef.  For dinner, they had lasagna.  It ended up being a Marie Callender frozen lasagna.  Once told, some of the bloggers there were mad.  In a nutshell, that’s what happened.

ConAgra invited foodie bloggers (now, technically, I could be considered a foodie blogger due to my cooking blog.  However, foodies would actually turn their nose at somebody who recommends buying a can of pasta sauce for a casserole which I do all the time.).  That is #2 where they went wrong.  The bloggers they chose weren’t a good fit.  You’ve got a busy mom blogger who has a food blog — heck yeah I’m going for a dinner.  If I’m busy growing my own organic veggies, not so much a good fit.  They also opened this up elsewhere, because people got invited from all over.  Bloggers were able to bring people and/or give away tickets too (#3 of what they did wrong.  As a blogger, I would have been a little upset to have misled my readers.  They lost control of their invite list.)  I also didn’t hear if there was any swag given away either.  They also didn’t have an alternative menu for those who didn’t eat meat.  Lastly, I can’t tell if they ask if anybody had dietary restrictions.  (I add this because on of the posts I read complained about his wife being allergic to food dye and this could have been really bad).

Now, you may be wondering why I am an expert on this.  Well, I’ve been invited to one of these dinners myself.  Last year, I had dinner at Ben Pao that really was Wanchai Ferry.  Did I throw a hissy fit on Twitter for my 25,000 followers?  Heck, no.  I actually used the coupons in my swag bag and I’ve bought Wanchai Ferry since.  I thought it was a great idea and I didn’t mind having to drive to downtown Chicago (they covered the valet parking) and getting a free dinner with my husband.  If you click the link above, you’ll find that we thought it was funny and would happily do it again.  So ConAgra, I’ll happily have you send me some dinner

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

This giveaway is now over. The winner is Rosanne Morrison. Congrats!

Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling phenomenon, The Help is a provocative and inspiring look at what happens when a southern town’s unspoken code of rules and behavior is shattered by three courageous women who strike up an unlikely friendship. Here’s a little preview:

I know that I think the movie looks great. The Help will be opening nationwide August 10th. Since this looks like such a great movie, I have arranged for one of my lucky readers to get The Help Prize Pack. In it, you will find:

- THE HELP t-shirt in adult female sizes of S, M, L, XL
- THE HELP pocket jotter & pen
- THE HELP fan
- THE HELP nail file/mirror

Here’s what you need to do:

Leave me a comment telling me why you want to see The Help!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

1. Twitter about this contest. You can do this daily — just leave me a comment letting me know.

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3. Share this post on Facebook

4. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

5. Comment on another post on this blog. Let me know which one, so I can give you credit. The more posts you comment on, the more entries you get.

6. Add this contest of contest linkies (and let me know which ones please). Each Contest Linky gets you another entry.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

3. Add my badge to your sidebar:

4. Like My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings on Facebook!

Each of these will give you 10 additional entries:

1. Subscribe to my new Oak Lawn Deals site!

2. Subscribe to my new Lisa’s Mom Deals site!

This contest will end on August 18th at 11:59 pm CST! Good Luck!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

If you are a blogger, I know you are going “WHAT??!!??”  I know I was when I got my hands on this story.  I personally don’t care for the New York Times.  I’m sick and tired of them making mommy bloggers look like money grubbing idiots.  I have to admit that it is nice when the tables get turned on them.  I know you have to be asking “what happened”.

Here’s the deal.  Uwe Reinhardt is a Princeton economic professor.  He writes about health care for the New York Times’ Economix blog.  That part is all fine and dandy until you find out that he earns more than $500,000 a year working for a number of health care companies. He also holds more than $5 million worth of related stock.  The best part?  This actually breaks the New York Times rules, which ban anyone who writes for the paper from having any financial interest “in a company, enterprise or industry that figures or is likely to figure in coverage that he or she provides, edits, packages or supervises regularly.” Heck, you’d think in his bio that they would have at least mentioned some of this.  Nope.  What’s The New York Times reply to this all?

“Professor Reinhardt is a leading expert on the economics of health care, and has provided valuable and independent insights in his blog posts. He has mentioned his service on corporate boards in the blog, but we are reviewing how to more fully describe his activities for readers of Economix.”

The same New York Times that says the rest of us bloggers don’t disclose our relationships. Pot meet kettle.

Here’s the breakdown of what he owns, according to NYTPicker:

• Reinhardt either earns an income or stock options from the five different private health care companies for which he sits on the board of directors/serves as a trustee.
• He has sat on the board of health care company, Amerigroup, since 2003.  This tenure has resulted in Reinhardt’s accumulation of 144,558 shares in the company and $226,531 in cash-and-stock compensation.  These shares are currently valued around $4.8 million.
• Reinhardt also holds 75,625 shares of Boston Scientific (worth more than $500,000 in value) and earned $213,132 from the company in 2009. He has sat on the board of this medical device manufacturing company since 2005.
• Reinhardt serves as a trustee for H&Q Healthcare Investors and H&Q Life Science Investors.  His 2008 income from the companies included $43,000 in income and between $1 and $10,000 worth of securities.
• He also made $2.3 million from the 2007, $5.1 billion sale of Triad Hospitals to Community Health Systems.

What are your thoughts on this?

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Amazon, I’d still totally make out with you.  Seriously.  If you are a regular reader here, you may remember a post I wrote last year about Frustration Free Packaging.  Basically, they got rid of the annoying clamshells and twisty ties, and all you have to do is open a box.  Brilliant, isn’t it?  I thought so and wrote a post about it.  That lead to an interview with the New York Times.  That was pretty cool but not as cool as what I woke up to this morning.

That’s me!!!!!  So welcome new traffic!!!!  And well, I am super excited.  I think I need to write more posts about making out with my favorite companies (Hello Best Buy!  Hello Toy Companies!  LOL).

In all seriousness, I love Amazon.  I order from them a lot (umm like last week) and I still think this is a genius idea.  I love that they are watching what their customers are saying about them and that they linked to me!  Happy Monday!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.