The Punch Buggy Game dot Com

I love old VW Beetles- or Bugs as some call them. I have always wanted one, just because they are so unique. Whether you like the old school bugs...

...or the newer variety...

...you have most likely played The Punch Buggy Game.

A few years ago, I slapped The Punch Buggy Game together to have a place where people could go look at the rules of the game. I mostly did it to keep my kids from arguing while playing the game in the car. I just gave the site a make over and "re-launched" it.

Check out The Punch Buggy Game and settle your disputes while playing this classic travel game.

What food would you most like to banish from school cafeterias?

Every week, the Circle of Moms has a question they ask to folks in their group. Even though I am not a mom, I am married to one and I am big on the local 'mommy scene" as the "cool dad." This week, they asked the question "What food would you most like to banish from school cafeterias?"

To see my answer, Click here.

CBS Mystery Theater

I have about 600 channels on my cable TV. Last night, my wife and I were looking for something to watch and all we could agree on was the new episode of Pawn Stars. My wife is a reality TV junkie and I kind of like that show, so that's what we put on. You'd think we'd be able to find at least one other show or movie that appealed to both of us, but we couldn't.

We do have some rules on TV watching: Football gets precedence on the big screen when it is on, as does any game involving the Red Sox and Yankees. Movies or shows we have not seen are also watched on the big screen. The rest of our TV viewing is usually done in our bed room; the caveat is we both must agree on what to watch. UFC cage fighting is taboo in the boudoir- Mrs. HDM is not a fan. Any "paranormal" reality show is also verboten; an hour of people saying "what was that?" is not my idea of entertainment.

But we still have the conundrum of what to watch when the 600 or so channels offer us nothing compelling. Sometimes we will curl up and read in bed, but other times- particularly when it's been a long day- we just want to be entertained.

We are both big mystery fans so, much to our delight, we discovered a website called CBS Mystery Theater that has all 1,399 episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater from 1974-1982. I remember listening to these shows as a kid- well before cable TV or books on tape. We agreed to give some of these shows a listen- we can stream them or download them (we plan to burn a few copies for long car trips). It sure is a nice alternative to some crappy cable TV show.

A Coney Island at Zipity Do Dogs with Onion Crunch

Last week, I got this email from a guy named Nick Loeb:

"I would love to send you a samples to Blog about Onion Crunch, we are in 100’s of hot dog carts and restaurants around the country, all the Sabrett Hot Dog Carts and Angels Stadium as a Hot Dog topping

Let me know where I can send it"

Since Onion Crunch is a hot, new hot dog condiment, Nick wanted the expert opinion of the Hotdogman. Those who know me well know "if it's free, it's for me," so I sent Nick my address and in a few days I got this honkin 12 ounce container in the mail.

Nick grew up in Scandinavia- his dad was the US Ambassador to Denmark under President Reagan. While he lived there, he got addicted to a roasted onion topping the Danes put on their hot dogs. While visiting Denmark as an adult, he brought some home and his friends loved them.

Long story short, Nick figured out a way to make his Onion Crunch in the USA and a new company and hot dog topping were born.

I did a bit of research on Nick. The lucky dog is the longtime boyfriend of Sofia Vergara from the ABC TV show Modern Family.

He is also a former candidate for Florida's state senate (I won't hold that against him) and is a Managing Partner at Carbon Solutions America. Not exactly the resume for a hot dog condiment tycoon, but what the heck.

I decided to take my container of Onion Crunch down the road to Zipity Do Dog in Framingham. I thought Onion Crunch would taste good on a Coney Island dog and Mike down at Zipity's has the best Coney Island Sauce in the area.

I turns out Mike had some Onion Crunch too! He loaded up a Coney Island Dog for me, replacing the standard chopped onions with Onion Crunch. He was thinking of creating a specialty dog highlighting Onion Crunch as the central ingredient, but for now he's just using it as an additional condiment.

I CHOWED DOWN!

Onion Crunch tastes just like you'd expect. It has a nice onion flavor, but it's crispy and crunchy. I called it "Crunyumchy." It is similar to the canned fried onions you may be familiar with, but it is a bit crunchier and not at all greasy like other brands I have encountered. According to Nick, Onion Crunch is catching on as a hot dog condiment nationwide. I can see why- it has a nice, almost smoky onion taste and the crunch adds nice texture to your hot dog; anyone who has ever put potato chips in a sandwich will love that. It's not bad as a little snack either.

Onion Crunch is available in Massachusetts at Price Chopper, Big Y and Costco. I imagine it will be available at other stores soon too. You can also buy Onion Crunch online in the 12 and 6 ounce size or by the case. It's only $5.79 for the 12 ounce size- about the same for a big old jug-o-mustard- and it really is great on a hot dog!

Even Sofia Vergara likes to

CHOW DOWN

on a dog with Onion Crunch on it. What a woman!

Just in time for the Spring doggin' season in the Northeast, Onion Crunch will come in some additional flavors: chipotle, Parmesan, bacon-flavored and barbecue.

Bring it on, Nick. Onion Crunch is Crunyumchy!

Check out the video of my visit to Zipity Do Dog with my container of Onion Crunch.

FREE WEBSITE for Mobile Food Vendors

You may be a mobile food industry veteran or a complete newbie. Either way, YOU NEED A WEBSITE for your business! It doesn't need to be fancy or have a lot of design graphics- in fact a simply laid out, easy to read site is best for this type of website. A typical food vendor website should have a home page with hours of operation and contact information and a picture of your operation. You should also have an "about me" page that just talks a bit about your business, a menu page, and a contact page. If you offer other services, like catering, that should have a page too. You might even want to have a page with photos, videos and such. You will also want your page linked to a facebook page for your biz and you'll want a twitter account so you can announce your daily whereabouts to twitter followers and facebook fans.

In today's marketplace, having a clean, easy to navigate, informative website that induces customers to TAKE ACTION is the single most powerful marketing tool any small business can have.

Consider these statistics:

75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis
56% of Americans use Search Engines every day
40% of all search engine searches are for local businesses and services
54% of Americans regularly use the internet instead of the phone book to find local services
92% of all local searches will eventually convert into a sale
Roughly 10 billion search queries made per day
Google’s share of search queries: 59.2%
Yahoo’s share of search queries: 22.2%
Bing's share of search queries: 13.6%
All others: 5%

Like I said, you NEED a website. You've been "meaning to get around to it," BUT....

The "buts" can be things like:

"I don't have the time or know how to set up my own site."

"It costs a lot of money to set up and maintain a website."

"I just don't know where to begin."

Well now, the Hotdogman can change all that for you. I am offering a FREE WEBSITE SET-UP for hot dog and mobile food vendors. Your site will include:

-Premium Wordpress Theme with custom colors and header graphics
-a Home Page
-an About Me page
-a MENU page
-an onsite blog (you can post as little or as often as you like, but remember, search engines LOVE blogs)
-a photo/video page
-an "in the news" page
-up to 5 additional pages you can title anything you want
-a walk through on your site's functionality (1 hour)

I will set the site up for you and show you how to easily use it and even include a link to your site from 3 of my highly ranked, hot dog related sites. I will even feature your site in a post-announcing it to the world!Your site will also be submitted to the major search engines and Google places.

I will also make sure you have links to your twitter and facebook accounts on your site. (If you don't have these-get them or I can set them up for a small fee).

So that's what I will do for you-FOR FREE!

You are probably wondering, what's the catch?

The catch is this- you will need to host your site and you will need a domain name. All I ask is that you buy your domain name from www.GoDaddy.com THROUGH THIS LINK and your hosting from HOSTGATOR THROUGH THIS LINK. NO MATTER WHO DESIGNS YOUR WEBSITE-YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY HOSTING AND A DOMAIN NAME. You won't pay a nickle more than if you went to these sites and bought them on your own, but I receive a commission on the sales bought through my links. That's how I can build your site for free. I am not marking up my services, I just want to make some sales for hosting and domain name purchases. It's a WIN-WIN situation! A Domain name will cost you $8-10 per year (only $5.99 if you use promo code CJC599V) and hosting will cost you $48-$84 per year (it's $3.96-$7.16 per month- the price goes down if you buy for multiple years).

I have seen a lot of web packages that cost anywhere from $500 on up to $5,000! You can buy a hot dog cart for that kind of dough!

If you have been meaning to get a website going for your mobile food biz, NOW IS THE TIME. Once Spring rolls around, you'll be too busy and you will let another year go by without having one. I will probably withdraw this offer then as I get busy in the Spring as well. For less than $100 you can be up and live in a week.

If you would like more information, email me hotdogman@thehotdogtruck.com

Keep on Doggin'
-Rob

Comment Spam on Wordpress

The Hot Dog Truck is a Blogger blog and it will probably always be; there are just too many posts and too much history to migrate it. One of my other sites, Hot Dog Stories, is a Wordpress site. I really wish I had put the Hot Dog Truck on Wordpress from the start, but there you are.

Wordpress offers a lot more in the way of SEO and site customization, but it has one downfall: Wordpress sites (particularly high PR ones) are a haven for comment spammers. There are plugins that prevent spam, but I just set my site for administrative review and periodically purge spam comments.

There are so many software programs that auto comment on Wordpress and I really don't see how spammers get the value out of it. If they want backlinks, they'd be far better off spending a few hours a week actually engaging in content on various sites. A good comment can even be spun into a post. By engaging other bloggers and site owners on a regular basis, you have the opportunity to not only create a quality backlink, but a solid business or social relationship as well.

I have collected a few of the more ridiculous spam comments, all of which included links or multiple links, and I share them with you here- with my editorial comments.

"My kids have never been good sleepers and they are both quite wakefull through out the night so they usually sleep until 8am." That's great commenter- but what does that have to do with a hot dog cart in Maine?

"Great stuff! Seriously. click here" Seriously? That's the best you can do?

"Negligence the truly amazing Flatlands which uses up north Tx or even the Panhandle is known as our prime Flatlands." OK, I think we need some lessons in basic thought construction.

"If you want to make $10-$150/hour and up to $3500/month of your free time working at
home part-time then this is the most important message you’re ever
going to read. Here’s why: 'Businesses need ME! They’re paying me money – CASH – to a
36-year-old work-at-home mother to get my opinion.'” If I wanted to make that kind of money, why the hell would I sign up for a program that needs automated blog spam to spread the word?

"Yes, that’s right. We’ll pay you $25 when you sign up with us today!
We have an instant $25 market research survey you can take as soon as you join." I'll drop everything and get right on that....

"Since it was a public holiday in China the embassy decided to take a day of, so I went up to Tokyo for nothing." Sad story, but isn't Tokyo in Japan?

"upon coming into the world at 3 14 am he made his presence known he took in a deep gulp of air, filled his lungs to the brim and wailed." So we're putting sentence fragments from your crappy short story in blog comments now?

"I know that there are countless plug-ins designed to make the comments do-follow, but I’m looking for something that will make the links in the blog-posts themselves do-follow. Please include a link or detailed instructions on how to do this. Thanks!. Do you have any examples of themes that you know for a fact have do-follow links in the posts? I’m having a hard time finding good information about this by searching." Have you looked at the site, knucklehead? Does it look like it was designed by a savvy web stylist?

"justing bieber naked with his girl selnea gomez about to make a baby" OK, so now I will start posting links to sketchy celebrity porn sites- my readers will LOVE that.

"hello i found your blog today and I have read some good articles over here. I just wanna thanks you for posting sex dating it so we all can learn about it!" Not the best use of subliminal language there, pal.

"Niemniej nalezy idealnie poczytac o tym, ze lepiej farba wybierac wylacznie farby dobrych firm, jakie stosuja wysokiej klasy firmy budowlane. Owszem sa to troche kosztowne produkty, farby niemniej jednak ma sie wowczas pewnosc, iz przez sporo najblizszych lat nie musimy kolejny raz pokrywac farba calego wnetrza. Ponadtowszelkie nowoczesne kolory farby posiadaja w sobie takie cechy, iz bez klopotu da sie z nich za pomoca wody jak rowniez gabka pozbyc sie kazdego zanieczyszczenia. farby" To be fair, this might be a really well thought out, poignant comment, but I doubt it.

"Didn’t know the forum rules allowed such bilrilant posts." It's not a forum, it's a blog. Check those Xrumer settings buddy.

"Life is short, and this artlice saved valuable time on this Earth." This is actually quite a nice comment, except it was posted on a post that was just a PICTURE.

"Wheover edits and publishes these articles really knows what they’re doing." Aside from the spelling mistake, I agree with this commenter. Too bad the rest of the comment was laced with dodgy links to MLM sites.

"I had got a desire to begin my organization, however I didn’t have enough of cash to do this. Thank goodness my close friend proposed to take the mortgage loans. Thus I received the collateral loan and made real my desire." This is what happens when you outsource your keyword SEO linkbuilding to non native English speakers.

"There are a few interesting closing dates outlined in this article having said that i don?ft know if I see these folks center to heart." Uhm, OK....

As you can plainly see, this is NOT the way to comment on a blog. Barely understandable, irrelevant to the subject matter comments littered with links never pass my sniff test. Save your money and time, spammers. The Hotdogman don't play that game. One of these days, I might actually take all those IP addresses that Wordpress stores for me and spam YOU!

Hey Now Hot Dogs

Meet John Traub, owner and operator of Hey Now Hot Dogs located on the corner of Irby and Palmetto Streets in Florence, SC.

Find out more about Hey Now Hot Dogs at heynowhotdogs.com

Find out more about the Hot Dog Business here.

Pink's Las Vegas Redux

Last year when I was in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2011, I stopped at Pink's Hot Dogs, located in the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino.

I stopped in again this year, this time with my video camera and Ron Opher- the Philly Phanatic.

We were greeted by Dave Shapin, the General Manager of Pink's Las Vegas. Dave's a food industry veteran of 25 years and has been running the Las Vegas shop for the two and a half years it's been open. He gave us a little Pink's history and set us up on the nickle tour of the joint.

The menu offers a plethora of options.

The Las Vegas version of Pink's Wall of Fame is growing. The original Pink's in LA is located near the movie studios and has had tons of famous actors visit and leave photos for the wall of fame. The Vegas wall has some catching up to do, but it's nice to see the tradition carrying on.

Pink's won another Best of Las Vegas in 2010. It was voted Best New Restaurant in 2009.

Line cook, Darrel, gave us the run down on kitchen operations.

He was very friendly, but he couldn't be persuaded to give up Pink's chili recipe!

Ron got a Planet Hollywood- a polish sausage with grilled mushrooms and onions, bacon and mustard. He also got the chili fries so he could experience Pink's famous chili sauce.

Pink's uses Hoffy Franks, "Hollywood’s Original Hot Dog Stand Beef Frankfurter," as their hot dog of choice. I got the classic Pink's Chili Dog- what many folks would call a Coney Island Dog- topped with chili, onions and mustard. I also went for some onion rings and a diet coke.

We found a seat in the dining room and then it was time to....

CHOW DOWN!!

Pinks serves excellent hot dogs and the chili is the tops. Even though the joint is only a few years old, its ties to the 73 year old Hollywood Landmark give it that iconic feel. Definitely

TWO THUMBS UP!

Dave bid us a warm goodbye and we were on our way.

When you're on the Vegas strip and you're looking for a good, quick meal, head on over to Pink's and make sure you tell them "the Hotdogman sent me."

Check out the video of our visit to Pink's Las Vegas on Hot Dog Stories.

The Hotdogman on JohnChowdotCom

The Hotdogman still has a ton of video to edit from ASW 2012. Unfortunately, the Hotdogman has a hernia too! After two days of poking and prodding, surgery is scheduled a couple weeks from today. I'll be back at the computer tomorrow, but for now enjoy this video- featuring yours truly- on JohnChowDotCom.