A lawyer at one of the larger firms around here sent us a pretty funny email the other day that was definitely worth sharing. It’s about his experience at our local airport, RDU.

I just hit the men’s room at RDU before hopping on my flight tonight. Each urinal had a shoeboxed.com business card on top of it.

Don’t really have anything else to add, except that the guy at the urinal next to me took the card off his urinal. I didn’t stick around to see if you guys have someone nearby that runs in an replaces the cards. : )

Hope all’s well.

First of all, this is absolutely hysterical and a testament to our off-the-wall marketing team. Secondly, we may or may not have been passing out flyers at the airport. It is possible that there are some Shoeboxed fans roaming the terminal bathrooms at RDU leaving flyers in unsuspecting places. Who knows where they came from :).

With regard to the runners who come in and replace the cards: that’s one of the funniest mental images I’ve had in a while, so props to our lawyer friend who literally made me laugh out loud.

I wonder if the guy who picked the card up at the urinal ended up signing up. If you’re the guy and you can somehow prove it, we want to hear from you!

About a week ago, I got an email announcing that MTV’s The Real World would be casting in Durham today. After reading Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreak Work of Staggering Genius, in which he tells a tremendously entertaining account of his attempt to get on The Real World, I had always secretly wanted to try out.

I by no means fall into a specific stereotype that would be of any interest to MTV for this kind of show, but the casting was taking place literally across the street, so I decided to meander on over there and check it out.

Alex Klein, a Shoeboxed product development master, came with me to survey the scene and take some pictures. The process was kind of strange, but definitely worth it since it finally gave me the inside info on how Real World auditions work. I had to fill out a pretty generic form that asked questions like “What is your most embarassing moment?” and “What are you most passionate about?” but I managed to write Shoeboxed on it a few times, so hopefully it was worth it for marketing purposes at least. I hope some MTV intern looks at my application a month from now and then goes to Shoeboxed. That would definitely make my day.

Anyway, after filling out my application, I had a group interview with 9 other contestants and 2 casting directors. It was all very weird: they asked us about the upcoming presidential election and then encouraged us to tell us what we thought about cheating in a relationship. I was confused.

Needless to say, I’m not expecting a call back, but I’d be happy to be on the show! Hey MTV, want to come to the Shoeboxed office? We’d make a great story for ya!

So today is Cyber Monday, according to Shop.org. This is the biggest day of the year for online shopping. And as a platform that exists to help you in organizing your online and offline receipts, we’re obviously excited.

Well, actually, as much as we like online shopping, we are not necessarily fond of every holiday neologism that is being made up by the industry. I’m thinking back to an old episode of The Simpsons, where they create a new holiday called Love Day just to drive up sales of terrible merchandise.

The term “Cyber-Monday” was coined in 2005, when ComScore reported that online spending increased by 26% on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, compared to the year before.

There may be a lot of reasons for this (one for sure is that online spending is simply increasing by two-digit percent numbers every year, no matter what day it is) but the whole reason it was given such a moniker makes it seem like just another marketing stunt.

With things like Valentine’s or Mother’s day, which are also heavily pushed by businesses, we at least have something (or someone) to care for on these days. Yes Valentine’s Day is commercial but we’re willing to accept it because it’s also about love and family affection. Cyber Monday is different. It seems like it’s a cold, impersonal online shopping day. And there aren’t any holiday decorations.

Nevertheless, we love deals. And a lot of stores use this new holiday to bring you some of those. So, while keeping the criticism about useless marketing buzzwords up, we will happily enjoy getting a good bargain.

If you’re like us, you can get the best overview of what stores offer what kind of discount, here .

We hope you get a good deal and wish you a good week!

It’s a big day at shoeboxed.com. For once in our lives, we feel loved.

The team has been really impressed with the response we’ve been receiving from within the on and off-line communities. It’s not only great that so many people are traveling and returning to the site, but many are going out of the their way to find out more about shoeboxed.com. Some approach the situation rationally–choosing to write a polite email requesting to know more about our team, plan, and vision. Others, however, show clear signs of frustration. We have received several messages that have transgressed the boundaries of decency in a manner that shouldn’t be repeated in front of women or children– using foul language, making sweeping generalizations, and threatening the lives of the co-founders’ and their families. Okay, that last part totally didn’t happen, but I think it raises a good point. It’s hard to get excited about something that you know so little about.

And we know this. We know we’re being vague. We know at this point in time you may not be totally convinced that you should commit your life to the shoeboxed revolution. We know we’re asking you to put faith in something that you don’t fully understand. It’s hard to pay $8.50 for a movie when you don’t already know who’s in it. It’s not always easy to hop on the party bus when you don’t know what drinks they’re serving. It’s hard to sit on Santa’s lap when you don’t know if there’s a homeless alcoholic hiding under that long white beard.

But you do it anyway. Why? Because you tell yourself to have faith. To have faith in the people, the place, the system. Shoeboxed.com is no different. And seriously, take a second to see it from our perspective. We have a great idea. And then we have lawyers. As much as we hate them, we pay them a lot. And apparently, we would be violating some dealio if we told you something about our whatchamacallit. We’re not oblivious. We know how you feel. We may be optimistic in thinking that people could be as excited as we are, but we’re certainly not stupid. Just know that we want to tell you more about shoeboxed.com–and as soon as we can, we will.

So listen. Next time you go to a restaurant, order before you get a menu. Divorce your wife before you’ve got the next one lined up. And for gosh sakes, don’t be afraid to let yourself get excited about shoeboxed.com without knowing all the details! The party bus is leavin’ the station, now jump on.