The Question, Ladies And Gentlemen, Is This: Is That A Naked Woman In Dick Cheney's Sunglasses?

To the right of this post, you'll see the picture that has all of the Internet abuzz. To prove my point, try googling "cheney sunglasses". As of this moment, I have over 137,000 hits, mostly from the last 24 hours. Lord knows how many hits there will be by the time that you read this.

The general question that people seem to want to have answered is the question referenced in the title of this post (see the Chicago Sun Times or several hundred locations if you don't believe me).

So, what is that image in Vice-President Cheney's sunglasses, anyway?
I submit these suggestions to what we are seeing in the image:

• Satan bowing down to Mr. Cheney.
• A human soul being sucked from an adult female in order to provide sustenance to the VP.
• The final emergence of Chulthu.
• The experiment has finally worked, and Cheney has finally bred a half-human, half-praying mantis beast. He calls it ManTis. Run!
• The aftereffects of gazing into the Ark of The Covenant (don't look, Marion!).

What this image in Mr. Cheney's sunglasses is NOT:

• A naked woman.

Now. Why were we supposed to care, again?

The Top Blogs In the World?

Over at Valleywag, they've done a beautiful post summing up Time Magazine's article on the World's Best 25 Blogs.  Somehow, they managed to limit it to one page.  Nicely done, Valleywag.

Noted are blogs such as:

The Huffington Post,
Lifehacker
PostSecret
Engadget
Freakonomics

I'm proud to say that I read those already, along with several others on the list.  However, I ALSO noticed that POW - The blog is not on the list, nor is Single Dads.  Perhaps I should endeavour to make that so.  What do you think?

Oh, and check out the article.  There's some pretty decent reading there.

Want To Radically Improve Your Blog? Here's How

I'm always looking for ways to improve my blog, so you can imagine that I was pretty excited to hear that the guy from Zen Habits quit his day job to become a full-time blogger . How will this affect you?

Well, it got me thinking. In his post he lists 10 things that he calls the stepping stones to his liberation. Quite the list... and in that list were a few things that I haven't thought about in quite a while. I want to focus more on content, because content is king. I want to give you more value, and I want to interact. In fact, everything that he says in Zen Habits in this post is something that you should be doing, and something that I intend to do, or continue, or improve on.

I appreciate people continuing to come around, and don't hesitate to drop me a line sometime. I started writing this for myself, but now, I do it for a lot of people. Thanks!

Protect Your Name And Your Reputation

Something that you need to definitely have to do when you divorce is watch yourself, and watch your name. Google it if you have to. I have personal experience with this phenomenon.

My present girlfriend had the wonderful experience of being stalked by her ex. He started a website solely for the purposes of trying to make my girlfriend look bad, put her down, and talk about personal information. He would put pictures on his site and allude negatively towards her work habits, personal experiences, and et cetera. Absolutely a prince, you might say. Eventually, it took a threat from the FBI, local law enforcement, and various websites being pulled from free sites for violations of terms of service to make him cease and desist.

My ex is similar, but does a different kind of stalking. On her MySpace page, (a page that which I read regularly) she describes how miserable she is and attempts to slam me as having a drinking problem and being an irresponsible and deadbeat dad... despite my regular OVER payments for child support - never missing a payment, regular visits, and general overall support. The reason that I am not with her is that we don't get along. I DO want to be with my child 24/7. It's a huge difference, and an emotionally and legally expensive one. Update! After talking to the offending person, she agreed to remove the offending content, which is great. She didn't, and just made her pages private, but hey, that's better than a poke in the eye. We'll see.

Solutions? I'm not sure that I have one, and if anyone has any great ideas, then I'm all ears. I'm already considering legal action. However, if your breakup with your ex was acrimonious, then learn to use Google. Be your best private detective. Keep a journal It can be a little annoying and perhaps may cause you fume a bit, but make sure that you have all the possible information. At least that way, if you decide to follow through, then you'll have all the information. Over at WiredSafety.org, they have a lot of great information about cyberstalking and a number of other Internet crimes.

Here's one that you can write down; despite any odd thing that I might see in her behavior, actions, or choices, you will never see me slam her in print. That's no better than gossip, and despite the fact that our relationship didn't work out, she does have good qualities for someone else. That won't stop me from being the dad of a three year old.

Remember as well; self improvement is the best form of revenge.

Xiao Xiao 7

It's a time waster, people.

If you don't know what Xiao Xiao is, then you can check it out here. Suffice it to say that it's been around a long time and many people were waiting patiently for a new one. So, without further ado, sequel to one of the first, and best, time wasters of all time.

...and here's the original page in it's native language. You should be able to figure it out.

Cloverfield

I don't know what the heck it is yet, but I'm definitely going to go see it.  I do know that someone I know is actually in the movie, and pretty much everything that I've seen has made me more apt to see it in the theater, if just to figure out what the blank is going on in the movie.

I didn't see 30 Days Of Night (yet), but I will see it on video most definitely.

I did see Into the Wild, and I might just do a review for a friend online so that you can see it.  We will see.

But I am seeing Cloverfield.  Hi, TJ!

A Halloween Shout Out To My Fans

I haven't done a shout out to my fans for a while, so while I'm in the midst of doing yet more changes (as you can tell by the various updates on my sidebars), I figured that I'd do a little shout to some of the fans that I've got out in the world. So, hello to:

Colorado:  Denver, Westminster, Fort Collins, Grand Junction (Go Rockies!)
Massachusetts:  Randolph, Lawrence, Woburn, Boston (those New England Patriots are crazy good, aren't they?)
Tennessee:  Madison
British Columbia:  Victoria
Ontario:  Newmarket, Hamilton
Arizona:  Phoenix
Nevada:  Las Vegas
California:  San Luis Obisco (Hi, Kim!), San Francisco, Mountain View (say hello to Google, everyone!), and Upland
Ohio, Urbana, Columbus, Perryburg
Juarez, Mexico (been there, done that.  If you go to college in Texas, this is a stop for you)
Washington:  Redmond and Seattle (waves to MSN)
Florida:  Leesburg, St. Petersburg (I dated a girl from there, a long, long, time ago), Miami, Melbourne, Sanford, and Vero Beach
Georgia:  Augusta and Hot-lanta
Minnesota:  Minneapolis
New York:  Manhattan, Huntington Station, Saratoga Springs, Mastic
Tel Aviv(!)
London, Loughborogh, Glascow
Paris (oh, how I must go to the Louvre )
Bredene and Brussells
Indiana:  South Bend and Bloomington
Bangalore and Calcutta (no, I'm not kidding)
Providence, RI
Texas:  Carrolton and Dallas
Gatton and Sydney, Australia
Pittsburgh and Erie
Virginia:  Richmond
Orland Park and Oak Brook, Illinois
and finally... Kansas City, Kansas. I have relatives there.  I love you all.

Thanks for all your continuing support, people.  I, and POW, appreciate it.

Boo!

As you might recall, I'm a big fan of ghost stories and Halloween in general.  Yes, I do believe in them, but they don't scare me.  I don't find movies like House On Haunted Hill... realistic enough.  I do realize that's a strange choice of words given the subject matter.

 

So, in honor of Halloween, I found this little slideshow (by the way, I do HATE slideshows, but meh,) on 15 Famous Freaky Ghost Pictures from KNBC, in Los Angeles.

 

Go ghosts!  In the meantime, it's the weekend, and the unofficial beginning of the holiday season.  Go out there and show the world that Halloween is not just for children and candy anymore.

Grade Your Website (And Justify Your Existence)

Over at How To Change The World, Guy Kawasaki ( you know, the Mac guy) tossed out a post about a tool called Website Grader. This free tool gives your website a SEO "grade" based on a few criteria that you enter into the site. Being that I'm always interested in the reach that my website has, I entered in this site's information and was given, within minutes, a score and a few items where I can improve my site reach to my audience.

It would seem that I have a lot of room for search engine optimization improvement. In other words, my scores were…lacking. I definitely will be working on that presently behind the scenes. Successful networking is certainly something that I am all about these days.

How are you working on SEO? Feel free to email me, or drop me a note in the comments.

Popular Podcasts On POW

Last night, I had this crazy dream that I added some of my favorite and more popular podcasts to this blog.  Imagine my surprise when I actually got up this morning and did it, changing my sidebar yet again.

Yes, I've added podcasts.  Not my own, mind you (I'm not that crazy yet), but if you have an iPod or some other device that can accept podcasts, a few of the more popular ones are located on the right hand side of this page.  They'll change frequently.  Let me know if there are any particular podcasts you'd like to see listed, and I'll try to put them up.  Enjoy!

Another New Widget - Blogrush

You might have noticed yet another change to my sidebar.  I've added Blogrush, a blog syndication tool featured in Business Blogging Tips.  I've only had the Blogrush widget on my blog for a couple of days, but the service seems to be getting updated continually and I'm wondering if it will be effective in generating additional readers for this here website. 

 

You see, I've been feeling ashamed because I've been devoting so much of my time to my other projects that I feel as though you, my first readers, deserve a little more love.  I like to improve your experience, so I'm always looking for little updates.

 

Take a look at it, and if you feel so inclined, put it on your own site and tell me what you think.

Mining The Internet Gold Mine, From 1 to 5000+

Wow.  Mashable, which I've written about before, has finally lost their minds and complied over 5000 resources to do just about anything that you want on the web.

 

There is way, way too much good stuff there to write about in this small space.  Suffice it to say that it would be quite clever of you to take a look at the article.

 

In other news, you might notice that the look of this site has been changing quite a bit lately.  I've added widgets from MyBlogLog, LibraryThing - where you can see the latest books that I've read - and Criteo, which shows blogs that might be similar to mine.  I figured that it might be time for a change up.

 

I suspect that I'm really going to change this blog up a little bit more, as I've feeling a bit mischievous of late. 

An Oldie, But A Goodie

I can't remember if I had posted this before, but an article title on Fark reminded me of it.  The Fark article title?

"Oh my God, there was this study where kids ate lots of food colors and preservatives and they were all like "WEEEEEEEEEE." Gonads and strife, gonads and strife, gonads and strife"

So, without too much fanfare:
The Inspiration.

First Google Checkout, Now This

You might remember a previous post about Google Checkout, the service that competes with Paypal and thus has caused rifts between two Internet giants - Google, and eBay.

 

Enter Amazon.

 

Look for a launch announcement by Amazon this week or next of a new web service around payments, adding to their S3 (storage), EC2 (virtual server) and other services. They've been quietly testing the service, which will compete with PayPal and Google Checkout, for a few weeks. It is an extension of the existing Amazon Payments , which allows third parties selling items on Amazon's extended network to receive payments from buyers.

Techcrunch for the win.

 

Have you been getting the feeling that Amazon is slowly, but surely, sneaking up on us all?

 

I love the competition, personally. 

 

Things are about to get ugly up in here.

May 14th - Tappity Tap Tap Tap.

When it comes to privacy, remember that you don't have any on the Internet.  On Monday, you'll have less.

 

May 14th is the official deadline for cable modem companies, DSL providers, broadband over powerline, satellite internet companies and some universities to finish wiring up their networks with FBI-friendly surveillance gear, to comply with the FCC's expanded interpretation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

 

Wired said this first.

 

Oh the news, Zombie Hoover sat up in his grave and applauded.  Oddly, the same news made millions of American Internet users shake their heads in disgust.

 

Hoaxes On The Internet

The way that you can tell that you've been on the Internet for a while is that you've at least seen or heard of most of these, highlighted today by Yahoo:  The Top 25 Web Hoaxes.

 

Some old favorites:

 

2. Sick Kid Needs Your Help (1989)

4. Five-Cent E-Mail Tax (1999)

5. Nigerian 419 E-Mail Scam (2000)

20. Rand's 1954 Home Computer (2004)

21. Microsoft Buys Catholic Church (1994)

Funny how things change so much, yet so little in Internet culture.  In some variety, I still see a lot of these available on the Internet and in my email - some daily.  Do yourselves a favor, folks, seriously:  check Snopes.com before you send that email explaining how Bill Gates is giving away money for just sending an email.  Snopes is a good resource, and is conveniently located on my sidebar.  Oldsters will remember the old Usenet group rec.folklore.urban - from which Snopes was born.  These guys know their stuff and have been writing about Internet and other urban folklore, or urban legends, for years.

Take a look.  I tend to do that before I believe anything that I read on the Internet.

 

 

 

Digg Dugg?

Uh oh.  I'm not sure what happened to Digg.com, but something big is definitely afoot.

 

I've never really seen anything like this on user run websites, but chaos is taking place over on Digg. As I have mentioned before, Digg is my favorite website out there, but after they banned me earlier today I got a little pissed. I submitted a story about a T-Shirt with the now famous HD-DVD hex key on it, and I was banned for "violating the terms of use".

Stories were getting deleted and user accounts were being banned all because of a stupid HD-DVD copyright Hex code that can be used to unlock HD-DVD. Digg claimed that they could be sued and what not for it so they decided to censor all of the stories that had to deal with the key. The whole thing is just bull, you can't copyright a sequence of numbers and letters.

Thank TechPwn.

 

Then this, also from TechPwn.

 

Well, as a follow up, digg has shut down story submissions. They have also turned off the ability for stories to reach the front page.

 

This is quite the interesting thing to come home to after a 15 hour day.  Here's a little Digg background.

 

...and here's Digg.com.

 

Slashdot weighs in here. 

 

I am a member of Digg, but I haven't been there lately.  The geek in me finds this revolt... intriguing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting The Locals

As you might remember, I like to support some of the local talent here in the fine Rocky Mountain West.  Here's a contribution: featuring, coming to a micro theater near you, Drunk By Noon .

 

What happens when a big shot advertising executive realizes he's been destroying the planet?

He hits rock bottom.

Vagrom pictures presents DRUNK BY NOON, a story of one person's attempt to build a better world, one picture at a time.

After a life-altering epiphany, a successful Madison Avenue advertising executive abandons his profession and begins to drink. Having reached bottom, and, inexplicably, Denver's Colfax dive bars, he is determined to use his creative abilities for a different purpose: to help make the world a better place. His goal, to convince a popular local underground magazine to publish his auto-biographical comic strip, 'DRUNK BY NOON.'

I suspect this is going to be interesting.  They don't have direct movie downloads set up yet, but I'm sure that they will.  Support the arts!

 

Shakadoo.com

Recently I've been doing a little guest posting on a website called Shakadoo.com.  What do they do?  Take a look at their first page:

 

Shakadoo is a site written and created for those who love their home. Whether you live in a condo or a castle, Shakadoo has a place for you.

 

Shakadoo has several different "shaks": the LoanShak, WorkShak, ShakYard, Shaktronics, Shak In Style, Shakhammer and the Love Shak, Baby (love that title).  It's an interesting community that they are trying to build there that I would recommend that you check out.

 

However, don't think that my "pro" blogging job will decrease my regular blogging output.  You see, I know how to use Google.  Ah, the Internet is a wonderful place.

 

There are some single dads out there that I owe a post to, though.  I haven't forgotten about you.  Expect it tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

I'm NOT Seeing 323 This Weekend

In case you were wondering, that's 300 plus 23.  I like Jim Carrey, and I like Frank Miller, but that would be a bit much for a weekend.

 

Yes, I did get that from Wil Wheaton.  Yeah, that's the former Star Trek guy .  I'm a geek.  I read him regularly.

 

Now on to the entertainment: I have a friend who does quite a bit of writing for a living.  Well, maybe not for a living, perhaps it's more part of what she does, along with sleep, eat, engage her brain, and make her best attempt to have a good time, tempered with casual conformity to what she considers to be rational society norms.  This is all a roundabout way of saying that she wrote this well-considered review of Frank Miller's 300, which sacked a theater near you recently.

 

Frank Miller's Hot Gates
by Carol Borden

Only the hard. Only the strong. A feeling's been gnawing deep inside me
for a while. A feeling that maybe Frank Miller's hypermasculine
antiheros and faceless, breast-thrusting women are exactly what they
seem, not just sketchy parody. After reading 300, Miller's 1998 account
of the Spartans at Thermopylae, I don't have any doubt: Miller means it.
His aesthetic is fascist.

Fascism isn't all jackboots and Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. Sometimes it's
well-hung Spartans toting big spears. In this case, 300 is beautiful
with art worthy of a picture book. Lynn Varley's goauche-like washes and
thick spatters of rain, blood and ash are lovely. Some panels look like
ukiyo-e woodcuts, and Miller demonstrates a fluid line reminiscent of
Will Eisner.

 

That's in the Cultural Gutter.  I imagine it will eventually show up on my blog roll, since posts like that remind me of why I like to blog sometimes.

I think she write good.