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The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today announced its first quarter financial results and things are not looking good. In the first three months of the 2013 fiscal year USPS had a net loss of $1.3 billion. The first quarter includes holiday season shipping and mail, which generally makes it USPS’ most lucrative quarter.

The company cited shipping and package revenue growth and “increaced efficiency” as high points, but admitted that those revenues could not help offset continued declines in First-Class Mail volume and “costs that are beyond Postal Service management control.” USPS has been begging congress for Postal Service reform, but has not received it.

As a result of its dismal finances, USPS will begin “accelerated cost-cutting actions,” which include eliminating Saturday mail delivery. USPS believes cutting Saturday delivery would save it $2 billion each year.

“The encouraging results from our holiday mailing season cannot sustain us as we move deeper into the current fiscal year and face continuing financial challenges,” said Patrick Donahoe, U.S. postmaster general and CEO of USPS. “By moving forward with the accelerated cost-cutting actions directed by our Board of Governors, we will continue to become more efficient and come closer to achieving long-term financial stability. We urgently need Congress to do its part and pass legislation that allows us to better manage our costs and gives us the commercial flexibility needed to operate more like a business does. This will help ensure the future success of the Postal Service and the mailing industry it supports.”

Though the Postal Service is mandated to provide six-day mail delivery, the fiscal cliff impasse in congress had the side effect of delaying the yearly appropriations bill containing the mandate. If a new mandate is not passed by March 27, USPS will legally be able to cut Saturday mail delivery. The new delivery schedule would then begin the week of August 5.

The image you see below is of several Atlantic City firefighters swearing allegiance to Steve Jobs in order to be promoted to the ranks of Battalion Chief and Fire Captain.

No, not really. What you’re actually seeing is several Atlantic City firefighters swearing in on a bible iPad app in lieu of an actual bible because someone forgot to bring the actual bible to the ceremony.

Close enough, right?

[NBC40 via BuzzFeed]

It has been just over a week since we launched BlackBerry 10 on January 30th. The company has a new name, introduced two new products in the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10, and engaged eager fans all across the globe with six events being simultaneously held in New York City, Johannesburg, Toronto, Paris, London and Dubai. This was no easy feat, but it went off without a hitch.

For those of you who weren’t able to make it out to one of the events or watch the live feed of the BlackBerry 10 launch, we’ve gathered some of the best footage from each event to share with you. Have a look at the video below to see all the action.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Looking back on the global launch event, my favorite moment was getting the chance to meet and talk with all the people who were getting to see BlackBerry 10 for the first time. They were excited to get their hands on the BlackBerry Z10, and were impressed by many of the new features on the BlackBerry 10 platform. Their enthusiasm made all the hard work building up to launch worth it.

Our new name, BlackBerry, comes with a new vision, a new attitude and new energy. We’re putting it all to good use as we introduce the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 to new markets and hold events to meet with developers, business partners and customers all around the world. We’re not stopping now; January 30th was just the beginning.

Team BlackBerry, we’ve shared some of our favorite moments from the BlackBerry 10 launch – I’d love to see you do the same. Let us know what your favorite moments were and what you’re looking forward to with BlackBerry 10.

The Powerball jackpot is currently back at $40 million as a ticket in Virginia won the $217 prize in Wednesday’s drawing. The winning ticket was sold in Richmond, and represented the biggest single prize won since the record $588 million prize in Novmeber, which was split between two tickets.

The winning numbers for Wednesday’s drawing were: 5, 27, 36, 38, 41, Powerball: 12.

There was also a $2 million Match 5 Power Play winner in Rhode Island, and winners in Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky and New York for the $1 million Match 5 prize. There were a total of 1,150,522 winners on Wednesday. Non-jackpot prizes amounted to $15,648,360.

Odds of winning the jackpot, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, are 1 in 175,223,510.

The next drawing is scheduled for Saturday night.

And now for the classic Powerball Twitter buzz:

Ed. note: This was cross-posted from The Root.

Yesterday, on Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I had the pleasure of meeting with leaders who are doing outstanding work to prevent new HIV infections and improve health outcomes for African-Americans.  We shared stories and discussed the importance of engaging everyone in these efforts, including faith leaders, educators, athletes, entertainers, artists, scientists, healthcare providers as well as friends, families, and neighbors.

This approach also reflects the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which calls for a collective response to the ongoing domestic epidemic, and sets specific goals with regard to addressing HIV-related disparities among African-Americans. 

Our conversation was both sobering and inspiring. Sobering because of the challenges that remain in addressing the epidemic, including confronting the myths about HIV transmission and the virus itself. Inspiring because during our dialogue it became clear that these leaders are committed to breaking down barriers that impede our progress in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS.

Data highlight the urgency of this work. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.1 million people in the United States are living with HIV/AIDS and nearly 50,000 people become infected with HIV each year.  In 2010, African-Americans accounted for only 14% of the U.S. population, but 44% of new HIV infections. The majority (70%) of new HIV infections among African-Americans occur among black men, and are concentrated among gay men. In fact, young black gay and bisexual men who are the only group in the black community where new HIV infections are increasing.  Black women represent 30% of new infections among African-Americans. Transgender black women are also at risk for HIV with as many as one in three in some studies diagnosed with HIV. And only 21% of black Americans have a suppressed viral load, the key health marker for HIV treatment. 

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Look, I love Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises was probably my favorite movie of 2012, but Nolan’s “realistic” take on Batman meant that the fights couldn’t be as ridiculous as they sometimes are in the comics. That’s where WB Games and NetherRealm’s new fighter – Injustice: Gods Among Us – comes in.

WB Games have released two new “trailers” for Injustice today that shows a full fight between some of DC’s best. The first is a matchup between Batman and Bane, and the results are glorious. I don’t want to spoil too much, but let’s just say that the Watchtower is going to need some major repair after all of this.

Next up is a matchup between Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn. This one is a lot more interesting, mostly due to Quinn’s arsenal of guns and toys. The real highlight of this match, however, is when Quinn is knocked into a separate room of Arkham, and accidentally bumps into one of the prison’s more violent inmates.

These first two fights are part of a larger series of trailers called “Battle Arena” that will presumably be showing off fights between all the characters thus far confirmed for Injustice. I really hope one of these fights will match up Deathstroke and Cyborg.

Injustice: Gods Among Us launches on April 16 for PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.

As a young musician in Pakistan, TED Fellow Usman Riaz learned to play in the percussive guitar style by watching YouTube videos of Kaki King and her influences, including the founder of the technique, Preston Reed. Now, Riaz is among the artists and musicians calling for Pakistan to lift its seven-month-old ban on YouTube. Usman Riaz and Preston Reed: A young guitarist meets his heroTalking yesterday to the Express Tribune, Riaz said:

“Everything that I have learnt and achieved is a direct result of having a close connection to the online realm,” says Riaz. “YouTube [could] be the reason I became a TED Fellow. I would have never had a chance to speak on the TED stage or perform with Preston Reed — the man whose videos I used to watch on YouTube when I first picked up the guitar — if I didn’t have access to YouTube.”

Usman and friends have created a Facebook page called YouTube Aloud to gather information and fight the ban.

In September 2012, YouTube was banned in Pakistan during the furor over the film Innocence of Muslims, which many believed to be insulting to the prophet Mohammed. In early January, Pakistan’s government suggested it would lift the ban after installing filters, but the opening lasted about three hours before being shut again.

Riaz’s message: YouTube is too valuable for learning to be closed over one video. As he puts it in the Express Tribune: “Does it make sense to burn down an entire library just because you don’t agree with the contents of one of its books?”

TWITTR HAS JUS ADDD NEW LANGUAGE, AN IZ TEH LANGUAGE OV TEH LOLCATS.

LOOK:

Happeh Fridai! U can nao change ur language 2 lolcat in Settings. Hope u liek it. twitter.com/settings twitter.com/twitter/status…

— Twitter (@twitter) February 8, 2013

HEERS WUT IT LOOKZ LIEK IN DA SETTINGS:

[If none of this made sense, Twitter has added lolcat as a new language. It’s available in your language settings. That’s all]

It has been widely reported that Apple (AAPL) is interested in releasing a high-definition television that would potentially revolutionize the market. The so-called “iTV” is rumored to feature an aluminum build, Siri functionality, FaceTime video calling, and more. Although nothing has been confirmed, Apple’s most recent hire suggests that the company is at least toying with the idea of releasing an HDTV.

Continue reading…

ESPN uploaded a video to YouTube today in which star Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson (known to many as “Megatron”) tries to catch eggs as Sportscenter’s Lindsay Czarniak throws them to (at?) him. He’s better at catching footballs, but he does feel he has also earned the nickname “Eggatron”.

Social magazine Flipboard hired eight new employees this week, including three former Hulu executives. That brings the company’s total head count to 77.

Eric Feng joins Flipboard as CTO, reporting to CEO Mike Cue. Feng was the founder of Erly, which let users create webpages for specific events. Before that, he was CTO at Hulu and a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which has been one of Flipboard’s largest investors.

Eugene Wei, who’d been VP of product at Erly and prior to that worked at Hulu and Amazon, and Eden Li, who’d been a software engineer at both Erly and Hulu, are heading to Flipboard along with Feng.

In addition to Feng, Wei and Li, Flipboard spokeswoman Christel van der Boom said the company also hired five other people in engineering and product this week, and is “looking to add more people as well.”

Flipboard, which is a little over two years old, had 20 million users as of September 2012. It has apps for iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire and Nook.

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With a few exceptions, the paywalls and subscription plans that have been erected by hundreds of newspapers and other publications over the past year share one quality — namely, they ask readers to pay a single amount for everything that is published, regardless of what those readers are interested in. What else could these publications do? Here’s one suggestion: Why not monetize individual writers? Doing do could build stronger relationships with readers that would create more long-term value, and possibly prevent some star writers from going the Andrew Sullivan route.

This might not be easy to do — especially since many media outlets seem to have their hearts (and wallets) set on paywalls as a solution — but the industry is in such dire straits at this point that almost any reasonable idea probably shouldn’t be ruled out. Some publications are betting on sponsored content, some are relying on real-world events and others are looking at affiliate links or “brand journalism.” Why not personal paywalls? (Note: We’re going to be talking about alternative monetization strategies at our paidContent Live conference in New York on April 17).

Why personal paywalls? Getting to know readers

I’ve tried to argue in the past that one of the biggest weaknesses of traditional paywalls or subscription plans is the undifferentiated quality they bring to a newspaper’s content: everyone hits the same wall and is asked to pay the same amount, regardless of their interests. This reinforces one of the overall weaknesses many traditional publishers have, which is that they know virtually nothing about their readers — or at least not enough to take advantage of that knowledge in any meaningful way. They are about as personalized as a street-corner newspaper box.

This is important because advertisers in particular are looking for personalized targeting, which is one of the reasons they are looking to new providers such as Facebook and Twitter for their business — those outlets can give them targeting based around an almost infinite number of variables, from income and geographic location to voting behavior. In other words, newspapers and other traditional outlets would benefit from getting to know their readers better in just about any way they possibly can.

One of those ways is to take advantage of the increasingly social nature of media in a digital age, and build monetization strategies around individuals rather than the artificial package of news and other content known as a newspaper. Many readers — particularly younger ones — consume media based not on corporate brands but on individual writers that they feel a connection to, and I would argue that is becoming the norm. We read the New York Times as much for Tom Friedman or Nick Kristof as we do because it is the NYT.

Five ways to create a personal paywall

Not all of these will apply to every writer at every publication, but many will. The overall idea is to take a lesson from the music industry in how to make money from content — the music business has spent a decade figuring out (painfully) that the songs themselves are not what people want to pay for. What they want to pay for is access to artists, both virtual and physical, and for ways of deepening that relationship. So here are some ways newspapers could take advantage of the same principle:

1) Allow readers to pay for an all-in-one package: If what readers identify with is Nick Kristof at the New York Times or Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal or Felix Salmon at Reuters, then give them a way to get that writer’s content — in whatever form — in one easy package. Maybe they blog, write news stories, do video interviews, post on Twitter, etc. Provide all of that for a fee, and make it as appealing as possible and as easy as possible for readers to find and consume it.

2) Create new forms of specialized content: Maybe your wine correspondent is the star attraction for many readers — so why not provide early access to their reviews for readers who sign up for a membership in a personal paywall plan? This is also a model that many musicians have used to their advantage, by providing early access to music (or to better quality files) for members of a fan club.

3) Host live events featuring your writers: Plenty of publications, including The Atlantic and the Texas Tribune, are looking to monetize their content by putting on events that appeal to readers. But not everything has to be a 500-person conference — why not have smaller events that cater to a more exclusive reader group, where they can listen to an interview with a prominent figure in a particular area, and then mix and mingle with other readers who share their interests?

4) Create a virtual community worth paying for: Plenty of newspapers have topic pages or even author pages, but they do little to develop a real feeling of community for readers that justifies an extra fee. This is about more than just content — it’s about providing user forums, or wiki pages about a topic that readers (who pay a membership fee) can contribute to, or a chance for a one-on-one discussion with the writer. In other words, a real community that the writer in question is a part of.

5) Provide access to your writers’ expertise: If you have a writer who has some specialized expertise, whether it’s financial analysis or political savvy or technological knowledge, why not let them provide some of their professional advice to paying customers? This would be similar to a service like Gerson Lehrman or a startup called Clarity, where people buy a specific amount of time to ask an expert questions. Some might see this as a conflict for journalists, but it doesn’t have to be if it’s handled properly.

Offer your core readers more, not less

The bottom line with all of these suggestions is to look at membership or a subscription as a way of offering your readers more than just the regular news and content that you publish — an approach similar to the “reverse paywall” model that Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor Raju Narisetti and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis have both suggested in the past. This bases the monetization on a relationship with readers that is focused on rewards, not just putting up a paywall that everyone runs into after a certain number of pageviews.

Will this prevent some star writers from doing what Andrew Sullivan did and going solo? That’s not guaranteed, but if a writer sees themselves as being in partnership with the newspaper or magazine they write for — something that might even include a share of the extra revenue from the personalized-rewards model — they might be less likely to consider setting up shop on their own, especially if they saw a benefit from the marketing muscle that mainstream publications can provide.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr users Mark Strozier and Christian Scholtz, and Shutterstock / Daniilantiq

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Last April, President Obama called on the public to help identify outstanding Americans for the 2012 Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor. After receiving more than 6,000 submissions from the public, the President has selected 18 outstanding Americans to receive the award for performing "exemplary deeds of service for their country and their fellow citizens." 

Each winner is called, and told that the President has personally selected them to receive the Citizens Medal: 

Watch this video on YouTube

On Friday, February 15, 2013, President Obama will welcome the recipients of the 2012 Citizens Medal to the White House for a special ceremony to recognize their efforts to serve their communities, and inspire others to do the same. 

Take a moment to read the incredible stories of this year’s Citizens Medal recipients. If you know someone like the recipients below, please take a moment to nominate him or her by Sunday, March 31, 2013. 

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I should say the big launch event planned for New York City. Can you say bad weather? In October Hurricane Sandy sandbagged (absolutely no pun intended) Google’s Nexus device unveiling, also in the Big Apple. The search giant announced products anyway. Likewise, Surface Pro sales will go on, in stores around Canada and the United States and online.

“Surface Pro launch activities in NYC have been cancelled due to weather; our best wishes for everyone impacted by the blizzard,” a Microsoft spokesperson tells BetaNews. Surely there’s a metaphor here somewhere. What Microsoft’s top brass must want — desperately hope for on knees with hands clasped high — is a blizzard of Surface Pro sales. A storm of people rushing into stores or pounding keys online to buy one of the two models, 64GB ($899) and 128GB ($999). If we were all characters in a novel, the blizzard would foreshadow future events — or so Microsofties can only hope.

In the Shakespearean tragedy version, however, the blizzard symbolizes the gods’ wrath. CEO Steve Ballmer’s flaw is ego, and he fires Windows 8 head honcho Steven Sinofsky only to have Surface go all to hell in the end sans his leadership. Ballmer is lost in a whiteout — having gone to the City for the launch event — and isn’t seen again until 2087, when construction unearths his remains.

In the real world, the product has a leader, Panos Panay, corporate vice president, who says that the “launch of Surface Pro marks a pivotal moment”. That’s an understatement, because Microsoft has so much hinging on the touchscreen tablet’s success. I agree with company executives whining about the lineup of Windows 8 PCs for the holidays. Few really excited (honestly, none for me).

Surface Pro is a new beast — a little of this and a little of that, tablet, laptop and sketchpad. The tablet could be the defining Windows 8 device, although I struggle to comprehend why cold, wet or snowy February is the right month to launch in this hemisphere.

Surface Pro shouldn’t be confused with sibling RT, which price starts at $499. “Surface family, customers will be able to choose a combination of devices that best suit their needs: Surface Pro, which provides the power and performance of a laptop in a tablet package, or Surface RT, which offers the convenience of a tablet with some laptop capabilities so you can get things done”, Panay says.

The tablet coming February 9 competes with Windows ultrabooks and MacBook Air, and runs Windows 8 Pro on an Intel Core i5 processor. The other uses ARM architecture, starts at much lower price ($499) and competes with tablets like iPad and Nexus 10.

Americans and Canadians can buy Surface Pro from one of Microsoft’s nearly 70 permanent and pop-up company stores or Best Buy. Also: Future Shop north of the border and Staples south of it. Just in time to swoon sweethearts, Surface RT sales expand to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland on Valentine’s Day.

Three limited-edition Touch Covers go on sale as well, in cyan, magenta and red, for $129.99 each. A Surface wedge mouse sells for $69.95. Additionally, Microsoft adds a new Windows RT SKU, 64GB for $599 without keyboard cover.

If you haven’t read my Surface Pro first-impressions review, please do — and watch for a follow-up story today about who should (or shouldn’t) buy the tablet.

As for that pesky blizzard, I’ve seen several weathermen compare this one to the colossus of February 1978. I remember that one well. The university closed for the first time in seven years, for weather. Guys jumped out from my dorm’s second-story windows into snow banks. Buddy and I hitched rides on slow driving cars, hanging off back bumpers and sliding our shoes on the snowy road. I got a reprieve on two exams because of that storm.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox

Bing announced today that it has partnered with FOX News Channel and Foxnews.com to launch Bing Pulse, enabling users to give real-time feedback to President Obama’s State Of The Union address.

This is part of a new political destination site from Bing at Bing.com/Politics, playing off Bing’s Elections offering. The company describes it as “a non-partisan online destination designed to meet this growing need for up-to-the-minute political information and second-screen experiences.”

At this destination, users will be able to watch the speech live with commentary from FOX News pundits and “other political experts” via Twitter. They’ll also be able to participate in the Bing Pulse survey, filter news from left, center and right-leaning national and local news sources, according to Bing. Users will also be able to access original videos of Jimmy Carter and Newt Gingrich talking about the State of the Union address.

“The Bing Pulse will allow people to join the conversation by ‘voting’ every five seconds on their reactions to the President’s speech,” Mark Penn, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft. “Real time results of the Bing Pulse will be shown at Bing.com/Politics and on FOX News Channel. We think this will be the largest live online poll in history.”

Bing.com/Politics is also unveiling its “social sentiment tracker” called Bing Beat. This will analyze social sentiment on Twitter associated with the address – topics like immigration, gun control and the fiscal cliff.

The new Bing.com/Politics will launch on Saturday.

Epic Games today announced that it is shutting down Impossible Studios. No reason was give other than “it wasn’t working out for Epic.”

Impossible was formed only six months ago, on August 9, 2012. The employees at the company were largely from Big Huge Games, a developer that itself was shut down in the wake of the 38 Studios failure. Impossible’s studio director, Sean Dunn, was the former studio general manager at Big Huge and was once a creative director with THQ. As recently as January 29 Dunn had tweeted about how “awesome it is to be part of the Epic Games family.”

Impossible had been working on Infinity Blade: Dungeons, a prequel to the popular Infinity Blade games for iOS. The project has now been put on hold.

At the time it was founded, Impossible had 36 employees at its Hunt Valley, Maryland office. Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic, has stated that Impossible employees with be given three moths of severance pay. In addition, Epic is releasing its rights to the Impossible Studios name and logo so that the developers can make a go of things on their own.

Below is Sweeney’s statement, in full:

We’re closing Impossible Studios.

When former members of Big Huge Games approached Epic last year, we saw the opportunity to help a great group of people while putting them to work on a project that needed a team. It was a bold initiative and the Impossible folks made a gallant effort, but ultimately it wasn’t working out for Epic.

In addition to providing Impossible Studios employees with 3 months of severance pay, we’ll be giving the team the opportunity to form a new company with the Impossible Studios name and the awesome Impossibear logo.

This means that Infinity Blade: Dungeons is now on hold as we figure out the future of the project.

-Tim Sweeney, Founder, Epic Games

Emma Watson is one of Hollywood’s sweethearts; anyone who can come out of eight Harry Potter movies and avoid over-saturation while simultaneously getting a famously adorable haircut and still charm us to death deserves to be fawned over.

But the media isn’t used to Watson speaking out on behalf of other celebrities, especially on a topic that’s been so controversial and blown-up. So when she defended Kristen Stewart recently regarding the “Twilight” actress’s affair and subsequent relationship turmoil, everyone sat up to listen.

“Those who criticized her are the same people that think that being rich and famous is like being covered in some kind of magic powder that makes life perfect: Nothing can go wrong in your wonderful world,” she said. “For these people, Kristen deserves all the bad things that have been thrown at her because she had an amazing life and she ruined it. I don’t know how to explain it, but it sure isn’t perfect. I thought that the media picked on her in a very horrible way. Kristen is human, just like everybody else, and she’s so young. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone. It’s not fair to consider them matters of public interest. On one hand, I can understand why it happened: people felt really involved in her relationship with Robert Pattinson.
But it’s also true that they both have done everything in their power to keep their relationship as far from the public eye as possible.”

Stewart was thrust into the negative side of the Hollywood spotlight last year when paparazzi photos hit the web of her getting intimate with her “Snow White And The Huntsman” director, Rupert Sanders, who was married at the time. She and her boyfriend, “Twilight” co-star Robert Pattinson, broke up in the aftermath but have since reunited. She was on the receiving end of some pretty harsh backlash from the Twihards, who took to social media to label her a “Trampire”, and has also had former co-star Jodie Foster come to her defense.

Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Kick the Buddy: Second Kick ($0.99 Universal) is a stress-releasing game with an often silly and ultimately morbid twist. Acting out your aggressions on an insufferable rag doll locked in a empty room, you are provided an arsenal of weapons, tools and other assorted household objects.

The game doesn’t really start. There are no levels, and there is no beginning or end to a story. There is just a rag doll named Buddy that taunts you until you beat him dead. Once you eliminate Buddy, all is not lost, like the doll Chucky in the popular cult horror film classic Child’s Play, Buddy will shortly spring back to life only to taunt you some more. When it is just you and Buddy in the room, you can simply use your finger to grab Buddy and throw him around the room. The physics keeping Buddy’s body parts together and the fact that Buddy comments on the experience as he lives through it adds to the humorous aspects of the game. Tossing, spinning, throwing and beating up on a rag doll that always comes back for more. Each time with more insulting comments, jests and jeers.

It is not always just you and Buddy in the room. You can choose from a wide selection of weapons as well: handguns, grenades, flame throwers, knives, swords and crossbows. There are also hammers, saws, vice grips and meat cleavers. Just about every object you bring into the room can be used to beat, tear, burn and eventually annihilate buddy. You can even call on a zoo full of animals and weather from the gods to help in your quest.

As you learn new and more effective means of destroying Buddy, you earn bucks that are in turn used to purchase and unlock additional weapons and objects throughout the game. The achievements within the game, which earn you more and more bucks, are earned by simply using all of the different objects you acquire against Buddy, and bring him to a more sudden demise each time.  You can also earn more bucks by playing a slot machine with pulls you earn in the game.  Each pull can win a card; collect all the cards in the series to win prizes.

If you are not earning cash fast enough in the game, bucks and pulls of the slot machine are available via an in-app purchase. Also available as an in app purchase is gold. Gold is used to unlock certain exclusive content. It is important to note that gold is only available through in app purchases, gold cannot be earned.  So think of the items that can only be unlocked with gold as more of a pay-as-you-go option than a means of leveling up your weapon arsenal.

The room choice and attire that Buddy wears can be swapped out to accommodate a variety of settings as well. From ridiculous hats to outrageous costumes and flashy shoes. The modern day equivalent of placing a photo on a dart board, Kick the Buddy will let you swap out Buddy’s face with a picture from your own photo library: perhaps someone that has recently done you wrong. Buddy becomes your own personal voodoo doll — just don’t get too carried away, it is just a game after all.

When you are finally finished, you are able to take a photo of your accomplishment and share it online with your Twitter and Facebook friends. And this may be why the app has been branded with a Valentine’s Day theme just before the holiday. So practice this weekend and earn some bucks and you will be well-equipped to express your true feelings after that important someone forgets that you were meant to be their special Valentine this year.

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