Happy Halloween!

I'm not posting much today, because its also my anniversary.

My wife and I have been married 13 years today!

My grandmother just told me this joke and I wanted to share it.

Telephone rings and a little boy answers the phone.

Little boy whispers, "hellooo"

Adult on the other end, "Good evening, Can I speak with your mother?"

Little boy whispers back, "noo, she can't come to the phone right now, she's busy."

Adult on the other end, "Can I speak with your father?"

Little boy whispers back, "noo, he can't come to the phone right now either, he's busy."

Adult on the other end grinning through the phone, "Are there any other adults there?"

Little boy whispers back, "yes, the policeman is here."

Adult on the other end slightly concerned now, "Can I speak with the policeman?"

Little boy whispers back, "noo, he can't come to the phone right now either, he's busy."

Adult on the other end a little more concerned, "Are there any other adults there?"

Little boy whispers back, "yes, the fireman is here."

Adult on the other end even more concerned now, "Can I speak with the fireman?"

Little boy whispers back, "noo, he can't come to the phone right now either, he's busy."

Adult on the other end sounding very concerned, "Why are they all busy?"

Little boy whispers back with an all knowing phone grin, "They're looking for me!"

Singingfool is kind of like YouTube for music videos.  There are thousands of music videos that you can watch or stream or download or grab the code and post it off to your blog (like the Green Day video Wake Me Up When September Ends which seems kind of appropriate today as September is over and the election is next week).

So that's SingingFool.  Anyway, Moby is releasing a new video on Singingfool tonight (October 30th)  The song is titled New York New York and it feature Debbie Harry, whom I had the privledge of seeing in concert back in 1990.  :)

I've never seen Moby live, but would definitely like to experience his music live. 

So don't miss this debut tonight in the US, and don't neglect Singinfool either as they provide some great service for us bloggers!  See the US premiere of Moby's "New York, New York" feat. Debbie Harry (Blondie).

here's the Green Day Video - Go Vote Next Week! If you want to know my political affilliation, its simple. I don't vote for any incumbents of any party. Re-election Corrupts!

We went looking for homes today and came across this fixer upper. 

It only has about 2500 sq feet of finished (finished is a loose word) of livable space with about the same amount of unfinished space in the basement. 

This little 5,000 sq foot home is basically a fixer upper, but it seems to have a little potential.  It would only need to be floored, and the basement completely finished and the landscaping completely done including lake work and drive ways. 

The downside is that the currently finished portion has terrible bathrooms and closets! 

Did I mention the lake?

Its got close to 4 acres and 250 feet of water front.  This is a view from the dock.  This is a cove that opens up onto a very large lake that runs between the Carolina's.

 

Tomorrow is Halloween! 

Have you ever asked yourself if it would be fun to change your eyes?  I hear on too many occasions that I look a bit like Nicholas Cage.  I've got brown eyes and Mr. Cage is unfortunate enough to have blue eyes so the dissimilarities start there.

However, whenever I visit Las Vegas, I consider that I could shuck everything and take up a career as an impersonator (my ego is probably a little too big to actually do it, but it might be better than going to skid row if things got rough).  I think all I would need is some colored contact lenses.

Now, I no longer wear contact lenses myself after getting my eyes lasered about 5 years ago, however, for a cosmetic thing or a temporary stint or even a party just to throw people a bit, I'm all for a little prank or joke or something.

When you start thinking like that its a natural or un-natural leap of logic to considering whether or not you would consider wearing theatrical contacts to really get your weird on.

I've been going through a bit of a guru phase lately for reasons I cannot entirely fathom, but I think it has something to do with my recent career change into consulting and writing.

So for Halloween, I think I would consider playing to theme maybe and trying out some of these spiral patterned contacts.  To give that evil hypnotherapist Freud gone wrong (wasn't he wrong anyway?) type of look.

Seems like every movie or DVD that comes out has some peculiar new type of lens to get under our skin.  I even saw an entire gang of people on CSI a couple weeks back that were wearing the lenses as a kind of stupid TV gang thing.  Whatever happened to the good ol' days when people kept their theatrical lenses simple and just wanted to look like cats and scifi monsters?

 

I got away this weekend and wanted to share my office away from office.

While I'm running the numbers on spread sheets my children were fishing for blue gill.

I am in the policy of drafting disclosure policies for all of my blogs to plainly and simply describe the guidelines of my intentions for writing blogs.  This includes the material I write about and the sources of income that I generate from writing.

Let me state first, that I enjoy writing very much and that is my primary purpose for writing multiple blogs.  Even more than writing, I especially enjoy capturing my thoughts for myself, for my children and for posterity.

I have no idea if my thoughts will be worth anything for any of those groups, but I am an optimist and hope that it does.

I do place advertising on my blogs.  This comes in many forms from contextual ads from Google, to affiliate ads from various sources, to sponsors that sponsor both my entire blog for short periods of time even to sponsors that sponsor me to consider individual topics for which I sit in my chair, or couch or floor and Ponder and ponder some more until I come up with what is hopefully a clever way to combine my knowledge related to this subject with a unique perspective and insight into the subject.

Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail and sometimes things fall in between. 

Anywhooo I write first to be honest with myself, and hopefully this integrity provides my readers from the outside world to consider my thoughts and agree, disagree, dismiss, embrace, comment, correct or anything else they might want to do with it.  I'm providing my thoughts to the world for free to do with those thoughts what they will as long as they respect my copyright.

If you would like to get started or get the ball rolling with a disclosure policy for your blog, please consider checking out Disclosure Policy Generator. Its a free web service that requires no sign up or anything. It takes about six steps to create a policy and you can fine tune it after you get the draft. I recommend this service because I use it.

They are also one of the sponsors of my blog, which from my perspective is neither here nor there.

Best Regards,

Brett

This policy is valid from 29 October 2006 until such time as the I see fit to remove, amend or replace this Policy.


This blog is a personal blog written and edited by myself, Brett Bumeter. For questions about this blog, please contact brettbum at yahoo single dot com.


This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. This blog will not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, paid insertion or other form of compensation that I find may cause undo physical harm on other people. I am not all seeing nor all knowing and so this will be a goal of this blog to avoid those items to the best of my ability. I will gladly accept comments or emails that might illuminate myself and my readers to potential for harm that I have not previously been made aware.

The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest. We are employed by or consult with: Softduit Partners. We are active in a political party which influences our blog: NoMoreIncumbents. We blog about people to whom we are related. The most interesting such people are: those people that are identified within this blog. We have a financial interest in the following that are relevant to our blogging: Continued Peace and Prosperity of the living entities on this planet.

So last month at the Podcast Expo, I met a lot of very interesting people.  I met two guys that specialize in doing voice overs.

They've worked in radio for years and have these natural sounding voices that just kind of resonate in your head.

Now, I'm working on putting together my own Podcast show (not live yet!), but I'm going to seriously look at using professional talent to do my voice overs to give the show that full production value feel.

There's lots of ways to find voice over talent and voice actors even audio book actors and more.  Voices.com is one a place where voice actors and podcasters can find and be found by others that need to source some great talent.

All it takes is about 90 seconds to setup an account, which includes a personalize custom web page in a subdomain, which is a not free perk no matter what!

Then with their simple tools you can search and find voice talent or be found.

Here I am as I am today!

(well 8 hours ago before I went jogging and finally got the picture loaded up into my machine and my blog). 

Summer time replaces the jeans with running shorts.

Winter time replaces the t-shirts with sweaters.

Normally, the Pepsi One is replace with Coke Zero, but the price at Kroger for Coke Zero was $4.19 a 12 pack so I went with Pepsi instead.

Meetings replaces everything with a suit or jacket.

Lucky I shaved today . . .

The artwork in the background was painted by my wife, Becky Perkins.  She's a painter and photographer and teacher. 

Thanksgiving is almost upon us and that's got a lot of people and a few birds thinking "Turkey Run!"

The Turkey Run is an annual event held in Daytona Beach every year for auto enthusiasts, which I always thought was kind of a geeky way of saying people that like cars and usually muscle cars.  Its kind of like calling the Jesse James a two wheeled motor bike enthusiast or something.

No this is a Hot Rod / Muscle Car Show its a Swap Meet with thousands of cars and this year it will be the 33rd Turkey Run.

Its held in the Daytona International Speedway and expands out around the city and onto the beach.

Since its almost Halloween, here are a few pictures for the current season to consider in case you want to head to the beach and check out the show.

And lets not forget, this is Florida and it is Daytona Beach we're talking about so there are bound to be a few Ladies around to make the cars look even better . . . ;)

 So check it out and have a little fun in Daytona!

Alternative Title,

 Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-eater,

had a wife and couldn't keep her;

he put her in a pumpkin shell,

And there he kept her very well.

I've refinanced mortgages 3 times.  I've bailed from mortgage refinancing another 3 times.  Its not always easy to identify when you are getting a good refinancing deal.

I attempted to refinance through Quicken Loans.  I had used Intuit products for years and I thought I'd take the relationship to the next level by letting Intuit by my house for me.  I paid a $350 deposit to them and we kicked off the process.

They had locked me into a rate of 3.5% at the time, fixed no less.  We went through the process and they called me about 20 days in to tell me that they would have to change a few things in the loan.  Long story short, they couldn't loan me the money the way they had assured me that they could (after running my credit, sending the loan paperwork which I had executed and sent bakc, and several other steps that should have sealed the deal).  No they could only complete the loan with the structure that I'd requested and they had approved if they raised the interest rate  by 2%.

All of a sudden 3.5% turned into 5.5% and that was not attractive at all(back then).  So I used their change in rates, to bail out of the mortgage and I refinanced with my original mortgage company, Wells Fargo.  I got my $350 back after disputing the charge and providing the written evidence to my credit card company.  The refund took about 90 days, no thanks to the credit card company, but I did get it back.

Bottom Line

There are many things that borrowers have to investigate when it comes time for mortgage refinancing.  Mine is only one story, there are many like it and many other pitfalls to avoid.  One resource with lots of advice and forums on this topic is www.personalhomeloanmortgages.com.  You can never research enough, and the lesson I learned is that the deal is not done until you sign the closing paperwork.  Even if I had lost my deposit, I would have saved a great deal of money by backing out of the Quicken Loans fiasco!

Damien Mulley posted a complaint about Thinkhouse PR to the Data Commissioner in Ireland. He complained about receiving Spam from Thinkhouse. He eventually rose up the search ranking results until he was 3rd in Google and Yahoo and number 1 in MSN.

Then Google seems to have banned his post and it disappeared from the search rankings.

So now bloggers are linking to his original post (see complaint link above) to help continue the promotion. In the meantime, the Data Commissioner of Ireland has returned a decision, but Damien does not yet have permission to publish the decision on the internet.

Hot Tamale at PayPerPost (paid to blog) needs to feel the love. The best way anyone can feel the love is with a raise!

Give TAMALE A RAISE!

The girl is working her but off and according to her not literally!

We have to keep HotTamale happy. Maybe after she gets a raise she could go on one of those cross country trips to visit a Postie and make them go through some crazy hoops for a scavenger hunt. That only seems fair since we make her jump through hoops to keep things running every day!

Let's recap.

1. HotTamale needs a Raise
2. She needs to go on a trip
3. And maybe she needs another raise when she gets back!

I've been attending the 24 hour a day EcomXpo since yesterday morning at 9am.

I've learned a great deal about ecommerce again.  They have this conference every 6 months and you don't have to travel anywhere.  For anyone that is building an online business, or a website or even a blog and its definitely a worthy time investment to check it out.

I'd highly recommend checking it out in the off hours first and making time for it in the day if you have a need for follow up questions.

They have a number of live presentations that are free to attend during the day, and if you want to access the archives of these presentations they are available after the fact for $99.95.  The price is probably worth it if you haven't attended in the past.  If you have, then you may find some repeat information (with some slight updates.)

If you want to sign up for a free registration to the show or if you are interested in hosting a booth there.  Check out the banner link on my homepage at Softduit.

Those crazy gorilla advertising fools at payperpost are up to some new tricks.

After trying to get on the Today show, this time they are chasing down 'posties' at home. 

So here's the thing they Show up at Victor's apartment in San Francisco and put him through a treasure hunt for $400, which was pretty funny.(check out the video here)

Victor's musical creativity was the best part.  Here Victor is playing a non-descript  bottle of alcohol.

 So all in all, I think this is a great way for payperpost to keep getting the message out and to keep their revenue stream charged up after all, each of us posties are what makes this business model run.

Holy Crap!  This Sumo wrestler, Manny Yarbrough, looks like he has an arm that weighs as much as actress, Miley Cyrus, posing next to him. 

Sumo wrestling might just take hollywood by storm.  Keanu Reeves lost a bunch of weight to play Ghandi a bunch of years ago.  What if he put on a few pounds to play a sumo wrestler??

Well that probably won't happen!

Manny Yarbrough has weighed in at 720 pounds on a six foot seven inch frame.

That would require one hell of a large matrix!

I'm looking at moving to North Carolina sometime next summer or the year after that in 2008.  My wife and I are looking to move close to lake Wylie in North Carolina.

We also love the beach.  We lived in South Florida for several years and before that we lived in Savannah, Georgia a historical port town.

There's one thing I've learned about living by the beach.  You need to be able to picture the beach when you are not there and you need to have some passionate books that incorporate beach living into the setting.

Pat Conroy and Anne Rivers Siddons are two of my favorite authors and they are expert at putting a person on the beach.

Beach Music

Now I'd recommend these books whether you live on the beach or not.  If you can't make it to the NC Beaches, then you need to check out a site like NCBeaches.com.

Check out some of these great pictures from their site.  If these don't inspire you to visit NC or try one of these books, then I don't know, maybe you are a desert or mountain person, and I can definitely relate to that. 

If you want to escape a bit and immerse yourself in the South east and East coast beaches then you have to try these books and see some of these beaches.

To see many more pictures (full version at that) take a look at NC Beaches again, and if you don't read another book this year, read Beach Music by Pat Conroy. 

So Firefox 2.0 is starting to roll out.

I'm very curious to learn whether or not Google will support this 2.0 rollout with another combination program combining Firefox 2.0 with the Google toolbar.

For many months now Google has provided an incentive to websites and bloggers that promote the products together

This has offered the 1.0 version of Firefox, but now its time for 2.0

Will Google offer an upgrade package or just change out the project or what?

I'd like to take a second out to plug one of my sponsors. 

I'd love to have a place in Spain some day.  I always think of Spain as a kind of European Summer playground and after living in South Florida for several years, I know that a Summer playground is good for your health.

So where do you start when you are thinking about buying a property in Spain?

Well the web is always a good place to start and taking a few fact gathering trips is another excellent consideration.  Getting a nice little place somewhere overlooking the mediteranean or maybe in the mountains seems like a nice way to get away from things a bit and also to take in a fresh perspective.

I'm attending the EcomExpo today. Its a virtual reality trade show that comes around every six months.

I've learned a great deal about doing business online this last year, but I have a long way to go.

I was reviewing Digital River and found their services to be useful from a blogging perspective.

They basically match publishers/bloggers up with software providers. So if I'm writing an article about PC security, I could offer my readers a special discount on Norton Antivirus. If my reader buys Anti-Virus, I basically get a tip (comission) on the sale and my reader gets a discount off the price. Its a win for the reader, win for Norton and a win for me.

Here's the quick low down on Digital river

Digital River oneNetwork - Make Money!

• Digital River provides affilliate programs for digitally downloadable products
• So you can offer software for example for sale with a discount from your website or blog and receive an affiliate commission for each transaction.
• Software Developers can list their products through Digital River and get a 100% commission based online sales force all around the world.

I've been thinking about jazzing up my MySpace blog lately. I do a lot of writing in Blogger, but haven't done much with MySpace for several months.

I know a lot more now than I did when I set up my space on MySpace

I've been thinking about doing things the easy way and using some free tools to boost the background and things.

I came across www.everylayout.com which offers some free background layouts that are pretty easy to copy and paste into your MySpace blog setup.

They seem to update and add to the site regularly.

Personally, I think I might try the Fifth Element Background for a while. The movie is a little cheesy, but its one of those movies that I can watch over and over again.

Emily was eight years old when the first attack ocurred.  She did not realize the importance of the attack, all she knew is that her father was dead.

The world was upside down and Emily was reeling.  Emily had grown up almost like a princess. 

Not in the fairies and castles and knights-in-shining armour sense of the word.  Emily had grown up as the princess daughter of a celebrity.

Her father had been larger than life to the world and especially to Emily.  Fortunately for Emily her father was not your average run of the mill celebrity.  He was not a true movie star or pop star or even really an icon.  He was a person that was so charismatic and daring, knowledgeable and talented that he was a self made success.

He was also a very practical father and Emily was a very practical little girl.  She was also a chip off the old block.  Emily would not fight any of the battles that were to come, however one day she would be the primary person responsible for saving the last traces of the human race.

So I'm a big wimp when it comes to the weather. I've known this since I spent basic training in Ft Leonard Wood Missouri during the first Iraq War. I went to Basic in January of 1991 and had the pleasure of freezing in a trench of ice and mud.

The mud created by the very little body heat that I would generate. This heat would melt the snow and ice I was laying on, which would get me wet, freeze when I got up to move around and chill me to the bone. Then I'd go through the entire process all over again, each iteration leaving me a little colder.

End result! Frost bite on my feet and toes!

I later went on to move to the South where I got hooked on the warm weather and as they say, my blood thinned.

Now I live in the South and every time the temperature dips below 60 degrees fahrenheit, I start thinking that I need to go to the tropics. I can't afford to live in the tropics, but a vacation can burn some of the chill out of my bones.

Now when I look around lately, the South Pacific catches my eye. I've always dreamed about staying in one of those hut like cottages on a pier overlooking the ocean.

Now a Caribbean vacation is probably more likely to be in the cards for me, since I live on the East Coast of the US. I haven't travelled to the Caribbean before, however, so I have to start researching somewhere.

I started looking at WarmIslands.com since they have hundreds of articles on tropical vacations. One of the articles on Jamaica caught my eye, however, I think I'd prefer to explore Mayan temples on the Yucatan peninsula.

Now, the forums for this same site are filling up rapidly with lots of information from people that have taken trips so you are not just getting the official line, but the insider's perspective and lessons learned. So I'm still gathering information from the various reviews about the islands and cruises and things, the only thing I have to figure out next is where to go!

I started studying Flash using Macromedia (aka Adobe now) Flash.


Following instructions from Total Training, I created this flash video. I'm posting it here to try and figure out if I know how to post the video to a blog or not. . .



It's still a little buggy as far as the graphics are concerned, but its a start!

This little video was from the first lesson. The first lesson is supposed to be there to show you what you will learn how to do. I went ahead and did what I was supposed to be watching, and with no other experience, I got kind of close.

I still have about 20 hours of lessons to complete.

So its back to work.

Getting serious Dad is cool points from my Son!

Tapco Mix.100 - Music 123

I just ordered my new mixer. Its a Tapco Mix100. The product was recommended as a unit to start a podcast with during the recent Podcast Expo in Ontario. I've got a pair of dynamic microphones already.

They came with a karaoke set that I picked up for free from my mortgage company when I refinanced my house a few years ago. I never got much use out of the karaoke machine, but I plan on getting some good use out of the microphones and this new mixer!

Every day on Google News, I come across some really crazy or stupid article from some place like Slashdot or something, which is known for preaching a higher ethical standard in blog editorial review Yada Yada Yada.

Crazy Picture Captions Linked to Normal Stories

But every now and then you come across an article that has all the other links to it, plus a picture that may fit the context or may not. Many of those pictures and the links they are associated with are just crazy though!

I came across two stories today. Both were medical in context.

1. New Research Sites Risks of Ritalin

2. Induced Labour During Pregnancy Can Lead to Rare Condition

Now, the Headlines didn't make it into the top grouping, but their great picture within the article did. So if you clicked on the picture for this article (with the dog flue diet and diseases caption) you would journey through cyberspace to Canada to learn about Preschoolers and Ritalin or Doctor's and Mother's scheduling the delivery of their baby during office hours.

Those sound pretty much like an official medical thing right?

Well the domain behind the news was something else. If you were looking into the risks of Ritalin or wanted to know if inducing labour might harm your unborn child, would you turn to a website specializing in DOGFLU?

OK, what if that DOGFLU website didn't have a dot com extension. What if it were Canadian?

Afterall, everyone knows that Canada's successful universal health care coverage only works because Canada covers all of its citizens and all of its dogs with the same doctors and the same medicine!

By combining medical school with veterinarian school and by elliminating all that time wasted with medical trials on animals, Canada uses the same doctors for treating people to treat Fido, and everyone is a Guinea Pig in Canada, even the Guinea Pigs!


Yeah Right!

Those Stories on Google News were at http://www.doglu.ca

Induced labour During Pregnancy Can Lead to Rare Condition
New Research Sites Risks of Ritalin
(Oops Spell check didn't catch that one. It should be Cites and not Sites!)

I see this all the time, and I want to come out and admit something right now.

OK, I want to admit one thing and state another, but in reverse order. I want to state one thing and admit another.

1. Google News is often full of shit because it has been manipulated by people that know how to crank up Google
2. I'm jealous but will learn how to crank up Google myself some day!

Then you'll see even more crazy headlines!



Technorati Tags: Crazy Google News Captions from Canada, Canada has uinversal health care for animals and people tested and treated together, Oh Canada, Oh Google, Only the penitent SEO Guru shall pass

The first casuality of the war stunned the world. Death was spectacular, surprising and fast. No one suspected a war. No one expected an attack. No one appreciated the significance.

The second casualty died more slowly. If he had died fast, the war would have ended in less than five years maybe. Instead, the victim lived long enough to convey a message to the world. The message was not to be believed by those that heard it initially. However, the message did not go completely without benefit.

It gave a few people enough time to plan, prepare and get ready for the real war yet to come.

Zo was thirteen years old when the attacks happened. She was there when the second casualty was attacked. She saw the attack and heard the message from her dying grandfathers lips. If she had not been there to see, and if she had not been there to hear, she might have gone on about her mostly normal life. Only to be wiped out like so many other young teenagers of that time.

Instead she went on to train and plan and act. She became one of the most famous resistance fighters the world had seen.

She had a secret, and it sped her to an demise that would have seemed premature before the downfall of humanity.

TVNinja did a great job covering the Korean Electronics Show this week. Normally, I cover technology in my blog Maven Mapper's Information, however I wanted to spread the love around for TVNinja so I'm writing about them here as well.

They covered a number of the Personal Media Players at the show. I've been following these devices for a couple years now. TVNinja pegged the category pretty well this week.

If you are looking for some true insights into where these devices are going and how they will change the way you receive information, surf the net and even listen to your blog, take a peek at this review, Digital Cube Netforce HSDPA-capable DMB PMP.

There's some real gold in this description that many of the normal tech pundits have not latched onto as of yet. A few more months and the world will be all over these products, regardless of the TV capability that will only work in South Korea. There's something else about this device that is very special!

Technorati Tags: TVNinja, PMP Player, personal media player, Where is the gold in PMP

Many didn't recognize the opening salvo. The first casualties of war sparked headlines around the world, but no one even new that the first shots of the war had been fired.

In fact, no shots were fired at all. The side that lost the war 30 years later was not prepared for an unconventional war from an unconventional enemy. They were focussed on the enemy from within their own midst. They fought themselves for thousands of years. They destroyed others outside their midst to pave the way for their own battles against each other. They destroyed others to grow their production capability without giving it much thought.

The war started in the year 2006. Open hostilities ended in 2029 with a cease fire and a peace treaty was signed in 2036 after language interpretations were invented to allow the two species to communicate. The treaty was one sided in favor of the winner of the war.

The age of humanity was over from the perspective that the humans were no longer the dominant species on the planet.

I searched to see how many people might possibly have the same name as me (how many people in the us have my name)

Answer no one inlcuding myself has my name! Well imagine that. This is a great service!

Technorati Tags: I do not exist, I am figmented

I've been way to busy the last couple weeks with a number of great projects and activities. I'm not complaining. I'm enjoying myself!

Things have been a little chaotic, and sometimes when things are chaotic we like to think that it would be nice to get away. Visit some new place, try some new food or something.

Well, I could do all of that if I went to the Texas Turkey Testical Festival (noteworthy for being a real sausage fest sometimes with a lot of people that have a balls-to-the-wall party mentality and they aren't afraid to talk Turkey either). I could do that and go there and join on this ballsy bandwagon.

But I won't!

Technorati Tags: balls to the wall, Texas Turkey Testicle Festival, Sausage Fest

Two men flipped their car while they reportedly attempted to swerve to avoid a flying bra in Toldeo, Ohio.  The bra had fallen off an antenna from another car driven by two seventeen year old girls.

The girls reported that the men had motioned to them to lift their shirts and expose themselves.  The passenger of the girl's car then took off her bra and tied it to the antenna of the moving car, despite the warnings by the driver.

The bra flew off the antenna.  The car with the two men in their late thirties and early forties, then swerved and ended up flipping their own car several times.  They suffered a broken vertebra and broken ribs.

The female passenger missing a bra was charged with littering.

Don't miss this video from TAKE BACK THE CAPITOL.

The video rapidly covers all the arguments and problems with the current Republican administration. From the run up of the debt and the redlining of the budget, to the collision course war in Iraq, to the crony-ism and corruption.

This November and again in 2008, we need to vote out all incumbents and start fresh.

Don't miss this video!

PS this isn't something like a political attack add or anything. Just covers the arguments today and illustrates the fallacy and twisting that has been used against Democratic and Republican voters. This administration is not really part of the Republican party. They have basically hijacked the party and are in the act of liquidating the party of principle and reality.

A disable city prosecutor was charged with indecency after security cameras caught him walking naked through a government building on more than one occassion.

He faces a $250 fine.

Given the famously low salaries paid to government prosecutors maybe a $250 fine was cheaper than buying a new suit.

Technorati Tags: Naked Prosecutor fined, Fine cheaper than a Lawyerly suit, Do you walk around naked at work, How long have you worked for the government

Every year its the same old question.  What am I going to do for a Halloween costume?

Now I was married on Halloween, in Savannah, Ga and so this is no small question.  I just got pack from the Podcast expo and so the obvious possiblity is to dress up like a Ninja.

All I need is to order a pair ofninja costumes for myself and my wife.

What could be more romantic for a 13th Halloween Wedding Anniversary than to dress up like ninjas?

Now, the podcast convention that I got back from exposed me to a number of people that lambasted the Podcast and YouTube hero at AskANinja.com.

This guy dresses up like a ninja and answers questions from fans that want to know things about the Ninja life. Like are there Ninja interns? Answer yes there are N-Interns.

Are there Ninja Midjets? Answer: Yes there are Nindjets.

It just kind of devolves from there.

A British man was found to be in contempt of court and sent to jail after he broke wind during the proceedings and burst into an uncontrolled fit of the giggles.

Now, I'm sure its difficult even on a good day to find something amusing in the Old Bailey, but the fact that a judge there might not share any form of a sense of humour is almost a complete and total cliche.

I suspect the giggling flatulant plea probably would not go over very well in any court regardless of the inherint stuffiness of the setting.


Technorati Tags: man farts and goes to jail, he giggles too, How many bad tags does it take

At our last neighborhood townhall meeting for our local homeowners association, someone again called for a listing of trusted service providers to be accumulated by the people in our association. The idea is that if we have had a favorable experience with someone, we should spotlight that broker, or contractor or realtor for other people in the community.

The problem is that this has been on the 'to do list' for our association for almost a dozen years and it hasn't happened!

Fortunately, this is the age of the internet and service referrals in one area that the internet can level the playing field and provider consumers with many choices.

A great example of this is myhomething. MyHomeThing allows a user to solicit multiple offers or bids from a service provider.

They cover many of the things that home owners will always need at some point, but rarely have experience with in the local area, let alone a short list of effective service providers.

MyHomThing offers choices covering:

1. Residential & Comercial Mortgages,
2. Realtors,
3. Movers
4. Storage Services
5. Air Conditioning Repiar,
6. Electrical Service
7. Pest Control
8. Pool and Spa Care
   
9. and the list goes on and one

Its a simple enough solution and one where the internet can deliver. You provide a description of your need and wait for the offers to roll in from MyHomeThing. You now have a short list and are ready to rapidly make the best choice!




Technorati Tags: MyHomeThing, Realtor Services, Mortgage Services, Appliance Services, Contractors bid for your service

Fashion on Yahoo! News Photos

Since a Spanish modelling show prevented several models from participating after they failed to weigh in at a subjective weight established to identify a normal body mass index, many fashion watchers have been talking about what is too skinny v. what is skinny enough.

Obviously the argument is slanted either way. From my perspective this is a question that probably varies based on the actual person in question.

So what do you think? Is this model skinny enough or too skinny???

If you do not want to make a subjective call, try the objective approach. How many ribs can you count?

Technorati Tags: skinny model, body fat, bmi oh My

Below is an excerpt of my comments on the Calcanis Blog in relation to an article titled, "Mike Arrington's best moment: making PayPerPost look like the losers they are."

Please consider reading the entire article if you are interested in the impact of advertising on the Blogosphere. If you don't really care, about the impact of advertising on the blogosphere or blog advertising, then do what most people do and just keep skimming!

Many consumers are aware that clicking on a hyperlink anywhere on a website could be something that takes them to another site and potentially an advertisement.

There are a number of contextually based ad programs that turn content text into links. These are immediately recognized as links.

There are many much older advertising mechanisms in affilliate marketing where the links are hidden or disguised (look at Amazon or CJ or linkshare or name your affilliate program aggregator ad infinetum)

Affilliate ads are rarely anounced as an ad.

That said, I post with PPP on my blog. Sometimes I disclose, sometimes I do not. I always craft my own views around the subjects regardless of the requirements of the advertiser. If the requirements don't fit my views, I don't take the opportunity.

The podcast was very good, but I'd call it a draw on both sides agreeing to disagree.

Both sides are getting a lot of attention from this open disagreement. Both sides are polarizing the fringes and drumming up more business due to the polarization. TechCrunch gets some juicy news that sparks a flame under its base and PPP gets free publicity.

If I didn't know any better, I would think that the two groups were working together. Its kind of like the Bush foreign policy. Promoting instability in the Middle East, which raises oil prices and profits of the countries that the Bush administration likes the least.

If you help your enemy, does that harm your own integrity?




This Post includes paid adverising in the form of a hyperlink that has been endorsed by an advertiser. The words and thoughts are all my own and not influenced by any advertiser. Feel free to put that in your pipe and Smoke It!

Technorati Tags: PayPerPost, Calcanis, TechCrunch helps PayPerPost despite the rhetoric, Anti-PayPerPost Rhetoric gives TechCrunch readers great content

A lawyer in Dresden is trying to drum up more business with victims of Alien abduction.

A German law provides state compensations for victims of kidnapping or abduction and so forty one year old (as if age matters) Jens Lorek who specializes in social and labor law is hoping that victims of Alien Abduction might be eligible for compensation in Germany.

If successful, Germany's kidnap victim state compensation fund could make Germany a favorite destination for emigrants that expect to be abducted by aliens in the future. No other country in the world provides benefits for victims of alien abduction. Germany could be the first!

So far Lorek has not indicated any intent to represent Aliens abducted by Germans in Germany nor any terrorists secretly abducted by the CIA, time and money are always facts in these situations.

Technorati Tags: kidnap victim compensation fund, alien abduction, terrorist abduction by CIA, lawyers, German Government could pay terrorists abducted by CIA secretly

More and more people are sharing their videos online.  Services from YouTube to Google Video Sharing, iFilms and more are offering services where people can upload their videos and share them with other people online.

The thing that makes this sharing service so useful is the ability to embed the video in a blog or other website very rapidly.

I keep another blog entirely dedicated to showing Viral Videos that I find through many of these services.  Its one of my most popular blogs. 

These sites make it very easy to share videos.  This makes videos readily accessible, but also makes it difficult to find truly entertaining clips, unless someone culls through the massive databases and watches the actual videos.  So in my spare time, that's what I do!

I probably watch a hundred clips per week, looking for funny videos.  My particular site Best of Viral Video U Toob is set up such that your average person could watch any of the videos at work without getting into trouble.

Here's a recent example, titled 'Hotel Fantasy'

UN - Official sources at C.N.N (Crazy News Net ) have reported that Michael Jackson may be suffering from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE aka Mad Cow Disease).

They report on rumors that the real cause for MCD or BSE may be cannibalism, which may have 'caused the formation of the malicious prions, and the beginning of the Mad Cow Disease.'

Apparently their diagnosis based on the manifested symptoms:

• Sudden change in skin color
• strange leg and hand movements
• weird vocal dounds ('mixture of singing and crying')
• 'waking up to children you never saw before'
• not being able to identify your own sexuality while standing in front of  a mirror.
• acting on thoughts that babies enjoy flying from balconies

They think that the cannibalism may have been triggered when they mention that Jackson may have eaten his own nose.

For more Details see the .


Technorati Tags: Michael Jackson, Mad Cow Disease, Cannibalized nose

Trying to find video coverage of college sports is a little easier for those schools that belong to ACC Sports. Georgia Tech Volleybees Fans can see the competitions on the internet.


You can catch the Georgia Tech Volleyball games On ACCSelect.com.



Technorati Tags: Volleybees, ACC Sports, ACC Select, Georgia Tech Volleyball

I did my tour of Best Buy and Guitar Center. I was looking at some of the gadgets that might make my future podcast sound a little more professional.

I have a good enough pair of microphones, but I wanted to check Best Buy and see if they had any interesting USB mics.

Then I went across town to the local Guitar Center and looked at mic shields (they block some of the air coming from your mouth so that the S's and consant sounds from C's and K's don't 'whistle' and 'click' as much.

Guitar center also had some expensive microphones in the $100 - $1000 range, but I won't need anything like that for some time. At least I won't need it until the venture is profitable and pays for that kind of expense!

I primarily went to Guitar Center to look at their USB mixing boards. These are sound mixing boards like a small version of something you might see in a music studio. They typically allow for 8 or more inputs and outputs from various sources like microphones, guitars, radios, recorders etc.

I just need something to attach my microphones to that will then push the sound through the USB connection to my computer's sound card.

The mixer boards that interested me ranged in price from $80 - $150. So all in all, I will probably spend about $180 to get going.

$130 for a mixing board, $10 for microphone shields, $30 for software( more on that later), and maybe a microphone stand to round things off.

Technorati Tags: podcasting, usb mixer, microphone, Guitar Center, Best Buy

I got back from the Podcast Expo this week, and I'm racing to put all my notes and impressions together so that I'll be able to absorb all of the information.

One of the interesting shows that I learned about was a Podcast show called Window to the Magic. This show is a regular tour of Disney Land. The interesting thing about the show is the use of the technology.

They use a binaural audio recording technology that records the sound in a way that when replayed sounds just like it would if you were in the park itself. Picture microphones attached to earbuds worn by the actual recorder. These earbud like microphones record sounds in the direction the actual sound came from based on their location.

What it does -

It allows the listener to be able to hear the direction of the incoming sound in the show and even to be able to tell the depth of the sound.

Or

The listener can determine how close or how far away the sound really is.

It creates a more than real sound effect that is truly captivating.

Since I heard about the show, I've been thinking about taking a series of Florida Holidays myself to experience Disney World and some of the other theme parks and compare my experience with the show's recordings.

Unconfirmed Sources picked up a scoop (of something) and shows a snapshot of President Bush putting the Medal of Freedom on Ex-Congressman Mark Foley.



Very bizarre real story just gets stranger by the minute, I'm sure sarcasm sites like Unconfirmed Sources are going to have to work extra hard to keep up with the latest strange developments in the world of the real news.

Technorati Tags: Mark Foley Medal of Freedom Award, Bush benefits from Foley's bad press, Where can alcoholism get a politician