So, democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kuchinich is apparently seeing things. Or, I should say, he saw things like a UFO while visiting Shirley MacLaine a while ago. While I’m not going to weigh in on whether or not ET exisits (Graces movie of the moment by the way), I am going to go out on a limb and say that if you’re running for President, you probably shouldn’t tell anyone that you saw one. Much less someone who’s going to write a book and of course, talking about it during a televised Presidential Debate probably isn’t such a good idea either.
Of course, that was nothing compared to Clinton’s flipping on Spitzer’s (how cool of a last name is that?) plan to give all the illegal immigrants in New York (the state not the city) a state issued drivers license. Yea, why not make them legal. Clinton apparently thinks the plan is a good one and that it “makes a lot of sense” but she won’t come out and formally endorse it, even though thats what she’s done. The other candidates were quick to point out that she “never says what she means or means what she says” which is something a lot of people not blinded by the aura of Hillary already knew. It might be a little late for Edwards and Obama to start making that point though.
Last year, Neal Boortz and his listeners sent over 1200 christmas stockings to Marines stationed in Iraq. This year he’s poised to do the same except they’d like to give more. If you can, visit the page and contribute. Make someone’s holiday a holiday to remember.
Not sure how true their name is but these guys are fun to listen to. For the Halloween ASMW I decided to go with something really fun and up beat, hence The clumsy Lovers. Hear in your head a moment, the songs of BNL (Barenaked Ladies). One week, its all been done, brian wilson, if I had $1,000,000, now add a faster tempo and some bluegrass undertones to it and you have the amazing stylings of TCL. Their song Highland Skip is really fun and intertwines Bluegrass with a bit of a celtic feel to it making it one of the coolest cuts on the whole disc. But they’re all worth listening too.
Why Amie St. Wednesday? Music is in everyones lives. It surrounds us even when we don.t it. This is a way to discover new artist, and share the artist that you enjoy listening to on AmieStreet.com. If you enjoy the music please support the artist. Amie St. Music Wednesday has no affiliation with AmieStreet.com and the opinion about the music and/or artist is the that of the postie.
About a week ago, I had the idea to have a contest. The person with the most comments by November 1st is going to receive a $30 gift card to Amazon.com. Sabriena had been posting like crazy and was in the lead until Joana found out about the contest. Now she’s been burning up the keyboard (and my email damn email notifications) with comments. Who will take it? Does anyone care?
I will say this, I think I’ll do it again next month and this time maybe I’ll make it for $50!!
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Cheney was busy hunting over the weekend and the Rev. Al sharpton was busy trying to gain more air time and exposure lashing out at the VP for hunting at a “private” club where there may have been a Confederate flag hung on a wall in a garage on the property. If Dick wants to go hunting, thats up to him. I say more power to him if he can find anyone to accompany him after his accident a couple of years ago. If he wants to go some where with a confederate flag hanging in a garage, whatever.
I live in the south and I know that some people believe that the stars and bars represent
lynching, hate and murder to black people
As sharpton would have us believe. I also know that to some, its heritage and it represents their family roots. Again, whatever. I don’t have issue with the flag and I would bet that most of the population of the United States could care less either. What I do take issue with is the fact that the man can’t even go hunting with out someone finding fault with it. Maybe thats why no decent person would ever consider running for office.
We have three dogs. Two beagles we’ve had since they were puppies (they’re both eight now) and earlier this year we added a sheltie to the mix. Lumiere could be a good dog if he could not be such a spazz. If I let him out in the back yard, he runs in circles barking (don’t believe me watch the video).
We’ve taken him to training (we go every sunday morning) to see what we can do to break him of it. He just runs in circles and barks. Over. And Over. And Over again. Nothing I do can stop him. Our trainer has suggested Benedryl (or however its spelled). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know….
As far as the video goes, its my first attempt at videoing with the Olympus Stylus 770SW (which is cool because I can take photos up to 30 feet underwater). I promise I’ll get better at it.
Saturday was a sad day. Well, not really, but it made me feel a year older. Grace turned four. Its hard to believe that at 7:21pm on October 27th, 2003 I became a father. Even harder to believe is that since then we’ve had another child, added a dog, bought a house and I’ve changed jobs. Now, I’m greeted with “daddy, I’m four now, I can do it myself” when I offer some help with something that last week she needed me for. Its a little sad.
The party was fun and for us, relatively low key (I’ll post some photos later today). We had some of her friends over (less than 10) and they played outside and inside, ate pizza and cake and had fun (in the words of anna, “I like sugar!”). Grace made out good, her trip to Disney in November should be covered as far as her souvenirs go, she got some money for college, a bear and more princess stuff. Not to mention that she gets at least three more parties this week (a halloween party at school tomorrow, one at mary’s and then a birthday party at mary’s on Thursday…) the kid makes out pretty well.
Despite the fact that she’s “bigger” now, she’ll always be my little munchkin. They both will.
I’m in the process of starting a bi-monthly online tech magazine geared towards Operating Systems. I’m currently looking for people interested in contributing articles to the site. Contributors who have articles published will be compensated when their article is published on the site. For more information, please contact me.
I’ve recently decided that online contests are cool (we’re running one here if you haven’t heard…). There are blogs dedicated to contests. Some are blog related (make a post on your blog, win a prize) some are comment related and some are video contests. I haven’t gotten in to the realm of videos yet (at least not for making them and posting them on the blog). I’m not a fan of the way I sound on tape and I haven’t found a goon willing to be in the videos yet (maybe I could get grace to do it…) but when I do, I’ll have to check vidopp.com out for some things to enter.
The contests are good for several reasons, the biggest being the boon to traffic that they seem to bring. Vidopp scours the web and puts all the current video contests in one easy to find place which is nice (much like contestblogger or other contest related sites). Best of all, they do the hard work for you by reviewing the rules and small print on each contest and all you have to do is post your videos.
When I was in High School, I dressed up and went as President George HW Bush (the current president’s father). I had a pretty good imitation voice for him too. I ended up with a ton of candy. Since then, every president has had a mask made of them for halloween (after all, who wouldn’t want to dress as the man in charge?). Well, there was A Poll done over the weekend and Hillary won again.
This time though, she was voted Scariest Halloween Costume. How funny is that?? Also coming around, Colbert was campaigning in the only state he’s running in, South Carolina this weekend. He declared himself the Favorite son of SC (a title Edwards picked up in 04) and declared that
In the 19th century, South Carolina was the first to secede,” he said. “In the 21st we will the first to succeed. First to secede. First to succeed. I own the copyright on that phrase, if you use it you must pay me a royalty
Despite his Links to Doritos I would really like to see him an option in more states. I bet he’d win.
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It sat in the hallway. Nestled between a coat rack and a table full of trinkets my grandparents had collected through out the years. Every fifteen minutes its melodious notes would ring out reminding us that the time we had was slowly drifting away like a toy boat out on the current of the creek in our backyard. I don’t know where or how grandfather clocks came by their name, only that it seems every grandpa I know had one some where in their house that would ring out when it was time to go home.
Their melodies were never quite the same either yet whether it sounded the Westminster Chimes, the Whittington Chimes, or the Saint Michael’s Chimes each one had a soulful story it could tell in a matter of seconds. Reminding those listening of times spent in Church or on a town square. It always seemed reassuring as well, when I would stay at their house for a night or two, when those chimes would sound. Majestic, careworn and loved, my grandfather’s clock was a timeless treasure I’ll always remember.
In college we’d have a party every thursday night called Thirsty Thursday. It was a rockin time even though we were on a supposedly dry campus. Our RA would be busy that night and he’d keep the other ra’s off the floor for us (or let us know when they were making there rounds). It was a good time and one that we repeated as often as we could. Thursdays though, pale in comparison to the parties these five brave souls threw.
I think number one is my absolute favorite, I’d love to have a punch bowl where people have to paddle around in a canoe to stir the drink and serve it. You know the kind where only a shot of Botox for migraines would cure the hangover (much like my bachelor party…). I couldn’t even imagine having Drunk elephants there. What was your wildest party like?
I was bummed when NBC didn’t pick up the sleeper of last season, Studio 60. I was a little more bummed when Fox dropped Standoff. I thought both of those shows were the stand outs from last season (I never understood the attraction to heros and I still don’t other than Hayden and now Kirsten Bell being on the show). I gotta say though, NBC has redeemed themselves a little with three of this seasons best new shows, Life, chuck and Bionic Woman.
These three shows have me tuning in every week (it helps that the CIA agent on Chuck and cruise’s partner on Life and Jamie on Bionic Woman are all HOT) to see what happens next. They are all well done, the actors are, from what I can tell, relatively unknown (Adam Baldwin on Chuck was on Firefly) and the stories are pretty compelling as well. The effects in Bionic Woman could have gone over the top, but have been kept fairly realistic and the story behind how she came to be bionic is compelling as well.
The most far fetched of the three is possibly chuck (who now holds all the NSA and CIA’s secrets in his head), but thats easily forgotten when you look at the action and how well everything ties together. My favorite and the one I will not miss every week is Life. I like the zenlike attitude that Charlie has adopted since being in Prison for a crime he didn’t commit and the fact that half of the force seems to be with him and half against makes for some good action too. All in all, while I miss the old, I like at least, three of the new…
Posted by mcangeli on October 26th, 2007 | 9 Comments » | TV
I’ve blogged a lot lately about the lack of rain (except for this week for some reason) in the Atlanta area due to the drought. The problems of the drought have pretty much caused my lawn and gardens to transform from something I could be a little happy with to brown and crackly messes that I just want to tear out and do all over again (but I won’t. At least, not yet). Most of it is caused by the restrictions on watering that have been imposed due to the drought which could have been avoided with a little bit of careful planing. For instance, earlier in the year, the sprinklers at the entrance to the hood would run even in the rain. wasting who knows how much water. Thats a common problem with many of the sprinkler systems, they lack a rain detector.
There’s a new player in the market though, that really really looks promising. The advances made in home automation have been great over the past couple of years. Cyber-Rain.com wants to take it a step farther by linking your sprinkler systems to your home PC for better automation and management and I think its a cool idea. We had an estimate done earlier in the summer for a new lawn and sprinkler system. We didn’t do it (the price was a little more than we were prepared for) but I may look again at a sprinkler system, especially if I can get cyber rain installed.
The coolest thing about this is that it automagically adjusts the watering schedule based on weather reports that it downloads from the net. HOW FREAKING AWESOME IS THAT?? Its a simple box that adds on to your sprinkler system, it connects to your network wirelessly via 802.11g protocol and you can control everything from your PC/mac/whatever. I think that is worth it in itself. The time, energy and water you could save with this system would pay for itself in the matter of months. Is anyone out there using a solution like this already? Have you seen any benefit from it??
Recently, there was a row in the UK over the Government requiring schools to show Gore’s farce of a movie about Global Warming. It actually went to court and a Judge in the UK found that it had at least nine falsehoods in it. There’s an interesting review of the movie at the Science and Public Policy Institute that found there are actually 35 Inconvenient Truths in the film.
I don’t care if you believe in Global Warming or not (for the record, I don’t). What I do care about is whether or not you believe what you hear or see with out doing the research yourself. It is far too easy to take what we hear for truth these days with out ever doing a bit of back checking to see if its any where near the ballpark (have you gotten that chain email about the Applebee’s Gift Cert?).
The article at the SPPI goes in depth on 35 of the specific errors (such as the ice on Kilimanjaro melting or the pacific islands disappearing under water) and refutes the claims made in “an Inconvenient Truth” with actual science. Something that while not lacking in the movie is consistently one sided. The problem with the movie (as with anything done by Michael Moore as well) is that it takes data and uses it as the backers of the flick see fit. What it doesn’t tell you are the other sides to every issue brought up by the film.
Take a look at the article, let me know if you still take the film as the gospel truth on global warming…
A couple of days ago I mentioned in a post that Hillary was trying to ear mark some money ($1,000,000 to be exact) for a museum commemorating Woodstock. This week while she was Busy celebrating her birthday with fundrasing parties, Senator McCaine was busy celebrating the 40th anniversery of his capture by North Vietnamese forces.
He did have this to say about the museum:
A few days ago, Sen. Clinton tried to spend one million dollars on the Woodstock concert museum,” McCain said. “Now my friends, I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was, I was tied up at the time.
While I don’t think he has what it takes to be president, i wouldn’t mind seeing him in the VP position. I think a Huckabee/McCain ticket could work…
It looks like it could happen again. There’s an interesting article on Reuters today about the possibility of the Democrats being too confident. We saw it previously with Howard Dean. He was the sure thing and he imploded. Could Hillary and other Dems do the same? Maybe. A recent election in Mass. has republicans giddy with the thought that they could gain some ground. What I think is that people are tired of the same old politicians and would like a new breed (like we had in 1994) in office who might actually get something done for a while. I’d love to see term limits imposed on both senate and congressional members. Maybe then we could get something done.
Thirteen sites I visit EVERY day!! In no particular order…
LinuxTracker - One of the sites I run. I visit it for two reasons, one to make sure its still running and two, to see what cool linux distributions are being shared today.
UserFriendly I love this web comic more than any of the others. Mostly because I’ve been in their position when I was working at the Net.
CNN.com I know its an extremely liberal site, however, its also a good source of news.
Boortz Local radio talkshow host. He’s a libertarian, he’s opinionated and he occasionally has good ideas. I like reading his Neals Nuze to see what his take on the news is.
Digg - The best site around for figuring out whats hot and whats not these days. Everything from tech to politics. Digg is cool.
TechCrunch - I stop in here to see if there’s any tech news I missed on Digg.
PayPerPost Good way to make money posting on your blog. I check in constantly to see if there are any opps I can take. Yes, I’m a postwhore.
AmieStreet I’ve bought more music through amie street than I have through iTunes. good site with great prices and the music rocks too!
DealDotCom is THE w00t for webmasters. I check in here to see if there is a must have tool for the day that I must have. Really good prices on webmaster tools.
gettinggruntled A buddy’s website. I check in here once a day to see if he’s updated lately. Mostly he hasn’t.
Dave Barry’s Blog He still rules when it comes to writing. If I could write like him, I’d be set.
I want to know what sites you visit every day…
Links to other Thursday Thirteens are in the comments!
(leave your link in comments, I’m a dofollower!)
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
There’s a quote (I believe its from a Beatles song) that goes, “I get by with a little help from my friends”. Well, the Hispanic business community is getting a little help these days from a relatively new business networking site, Questamente. Questamente is a bi-lingual (spanish and english) networking site geared towards helping hispanic business owners find the help they need. The site offers a job board, blogs, business profile, help with business plans and other aspects of running a business but perhaps the most important aspect the site offers is the ability to locate other business owners that have things in common with you and your business.
Sites like this have been around a while for english only speaking business owners and I believe this is a valuable tool for the market place to have. A big plus is that its a bi-lingual site, allowing businesses seeking hispanic help the ability to post as well. Registration is free (which is another plus) and advertising on the site is currently kept to a minimum.
The site itself is laid out in an easy to follow layout and users will have no trouble finding the job board or the “coffee shop” which appears to be filled with articles to help business owners. The only issue with the site is that there isn’t a defining container around the main content. The colored tabs ride on the black background, leading to a missing feeling of togetherness in the site. Over all though, Questamente appears to be a solid tool for both Spanish and English speaking entrepreneurs.
w00t! The Guys at gmail announced on the Gmail Blog that they’re in the process of rolling out Imap support to all gmail users. FREE (as in beer!) This is cool if you use multiple devices to check your mail. Now you can have it look the same across everything.
In the words of David Murray (an assistant product manager with a fetish for Xena: Warrior Princess):
I can:
read an email in Gmail, then
move it to the “Starred” folder on my iPhone, then
archive it by moving it to “All Mail” in Thunderbird, then
see all of those changes on my Blackberry (or any of the above devices for that matter).
For those of us with smartphones, this is a good step. Actually for any user who checks their gmail from an outside email client this is a good step. It’ll be interesting to see how well it works with labels though. As for me, I’ll continue to use outlook to sync my gmail with my exchange server.
Anyone who’s familiar with PayPerPost knows that they have a big convention coming up in Vegas with in the next two weeks. The PPP crew is piling in to an RV and making a trip out starting next week and they’ve already got a large group of posties going out there for the convention. Its one of those things I’d love to go to, however, I’m afraid I’d spend more time away from the convention then I should. On another note, I want to know if anyone going is staying at the Orleans hotel Las Vegas. If you are, let me know how it is. I’m looking to plan a trip out there for Amy and I and I’m looking for a place to stay.
My father decided to do something fun with the remainder of the estate from my grandfather and we’re all going to Disney World for thanks giving. 5 days in the magic kingdom with the family. Should be a good time. The girls (grace more than emma) will love it. We have a whole series of princess meals lined up and even a trip to the castle beauty parlor for Grace to have a “makeover” in to the princess of her dreams. Its bound to be a fun time for all.
Not to mention that this is my first of what I hope will be many Orlando vacations. My parents have been to disney world before. My wife has been, but Eric, Brian and I have never made it to the Magic Kingdom. I’m looking forward to it (not necessarily to the 5 hour drive). I’ve seen it before on TV and the place looks awesome. The fact that I have a four year old who’s going to go crazy just makes it even better (I’ve found that things like that are better with a little one around). I might even bring you back a Disney snow Globe
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I like Fred Thompson. Seriously I do. I think he’s a good actor, he was a good senator and I think he would have made a hell of a president 15 years ago. However, I think he’s too old (look at the photo… another year or two he could stand in for Emperor Paliptine from Starwars) to run for president. Its almost as silly as Marylin Manson standing in line for Garth Brooks tickets ( bet he’s a closet fan of Garth’s).
It was nice to see that he’s Back on the campaign trail where he started in S. Carolina, but I have to wonder if its really enough. He hasn’t come out with any breathtaking ideas for reform, he hasn’t said much other then “I’m not them” when it comes to his stances on current issues. If Thompson (or any of the other GOP candidates really) want to be taken seriously, they need to do something drastic, like come up with an original idea. As for Fred, I like the guy, and he makes one hell of a DA on Law and Order but the next Regan he is not.
With out a doubt, Wordpress is one of the most popular blogging platforms around. Its free. Its fairly easy to use and customize and there are a ton of plugins for use with it. Now, going one step farther, there’s a book for those of us who are less than technically inclined. WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) seeks to take the guess work out of setting up a blog and it cover such topics as:
Personalize WordPress Settings
Understand common template tags
Manage and moderate comments
Deal with comment and trackback spam
Troubleshoot common problems
Sign up for, set up and use a hosted blog at WordPress.com
Download, install, set up and use WordPress on your own web hosting account
Find, download, install and manage WordPress plugins
Learn and understand the “Loop”
Learn the ins and outs of simple template tags and theme creation
Download, install, configure, set up and use the WordPress MU software to create your own blog community/network
….and MORE
The book is due out next week and should be on shelves shortly after. Or you can order it at Amazon.com and get it when it comes out.
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With out a doubt, 