I Haven't Posted A Game In A While

No people, I haven't forgotten about you.  As you can probably tell, I've been changing a lot of things here at POW lately, and my other blog, Single Dads, is really taking off and taking just a bit too much of my time.  Don't worry, I quit a job to make more time for my first readers who inspired me to continue writing in the first place.

So, in short, I'll give you this compelling game via Boing Boing, and say, Play it!

Hack Your Food

Lifehacker, that wonderful website with so many hints on how to do things in oh-so-many wonderful and simple ways, came up with a list of top ten food and drink hacks.  Among the highlights:

6. Bake no-knead bread

5. Build a fire with chocolate and Coke

2. Chill a Coke in two minutes

I have a personal favorite, which I like to call bringing back two day old bagels.  All that you require is a two day old bagel (meaning hard) and a cup of coffee.  The secret?  Put your bagel in the microwave, with the coffee (or a cup of water, if you prefer), and heat on high for 15-45 seconds.

Your bagel will soften enough to slice and toast, and bonus, if you used coffee for your recipe, it will warm that up a little too.

See?  I'm not so boring.

Two More Drugs To Avoid?

More good news for children this Christmas season. According to a news report released today, apparently the Food and Drug Administration believes that the flu drugs made by Roche and GlaxoSmithKline might have the unfortunate side effect of giving children neurological problems including hallucinations and convulsions. Fortunately, the government is considering warning labels on these items. How appropriate.

I am not a humorless individual, and quite often I can see the underlying humor in a lot of bad news. Unfortunately this is not one of those times. In my new role as an occasional entrepreneur, I think that someone could make a fortune on creating a website where a parent or other interested party could search and locate certain products such as:

• Toys proven to not contain lead,
• Medications that have been proven not to harm children, and
• Child safety items that don't harm children in any way.

I would, as a single parent would sign up for such a Internet site with great relish, indeed.

There are other items that I think would go well in a website such the one I propose, but at the moment, the news that proven influenza medications might make certain children convulse in their beds has dampened my ability to consider additional consumer products that might go on such a site. I will, however, claim "dibs" on such an idea.

I've Got The Gotta Go Into Bankruptcy, But The Debts Are Still There Blues

People, people, people.  You might as well accept the fact that you really want to avoid credit cards.  Don't think that bankruptcy will help you, either.

It's not as easy to get a Chapter 7 bankruptcy anymore due to recent legislation that was bought and paid for by the banking industry. In most cases you'll have to pay back some part of your debt under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan. The banks weren't happy with just forcing almost everyone into a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in which they have to repay all of their debts through a payment plan and are now going after people who already filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy and trying to collect on debts which have been legally bankrupted away.

That's from American Consumer News.  Consider reading the whole article.

I'm going to tell you a story about credit cards that you might not believe and might find difficult to conceive.  Did you know that there was a time in the last fifty years that credit cards didn't exist?  No, really, it's true!  There was NO such thing as credit cards!  Wow!

Strangely enough, people still were able to buy things with money.  Oddly, when people couldn't afford things they didn't buy them.  Shocking.

As it turns out, a fine way to spend yourself into bankruptcy is to buy things that you can't afford, which is exactly what credit cards allow you to do.  If you can avoid the trap that credit provides, then your chances of overspending decrease significantly.

The message seems pretty clear, doesn't it?

Confirmed: The RIAA Is Concentrated Evil

In another sign that the present way that the government does business is literally for sale, Gizmodo has a story on a particularly odious bill addition.

In a ridiculous display of just how much you can get done in government if you have enough money, a new bill on the House floor states that if colleges don't police their networks and do the RIAA and MPAAs bidding as well as buy into services such as Napster for their entire student body, they'll lose all their federal funding. Yep, that means if a college doesn't want to hand over names to the RIAA they'll lose things like their Pell grants, depriving thousands of low-income students from financial aid.

Ah.  Greed.  There really isn't much more to say than that.

Red Red Wine Makes Me Feel So...Ow.

Is it possible that science has finally created the device to predict the dreaded red wine headache?  Can a cure (besides not drinking it) be next?

BERKELEY, Calif. - The effects are all too familiar: a fancy dinner, some fine wine and then, a few hours later, a racing heart and a pounding headache. But a device developed by University of California, Berkeley, researchers could help avoid the dreaded "red wine headache."

Chemists working with NASA-funded technology designed to find life on Mars have created a device they say can easily detect chemicals that many scientists believe can turn wine and other beloved indulgences into ingredients for agony.

Via Yahoo.

The thing that I really liked about this particular article was that chemist working with NASA-funded technology created the mentioned device, thereby proving that scientific advancement can be achieved through space travel, which stands to reason.  If man can fly to the moon and dock with orbiting space stations with shuttles that are using 20 year old technology, then surely they can detect the part of red wine that can be evil incarnate.  So drink up, wine lovers! 

Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

Priorities. When it comes right down to it, I have only three of note: first is myself, then is my family, finally would be work and friends. Why does this single dad mention that?

This single dad mentions that because at the moment, the my inner space is a touch out of whack. If you were wondering why I haven't written as much lately, it's not because of writer's block; it's because item no. 3 from above has finally begun to intrude on my primary concerns. In short, I've been a very busy dad lately, meaning, yes, I'm working too much.

I would imagine that this is a common problem with parents generally, and possibly single dads - especially, ones that are highly motivated by the thoughts of their children' present and future - in particular. We must make money to pay for added responsibilities. Child support, alimony, clothes, health care… all of that costs money. Tack on other items like college planning, private schooling, and other optional items, and suddenly, it might never seem to be enough. So, if you're like me, then you must work, and work like a dog sometimes, to pay for it.

Lately, though, I have been noticing little warning signs: not writing as much as usual, not sleeping as well, appetite fairly suppressed, and I realized that work and life are out of balance. I started writing on this website because it was something that I enjoyed, and because I wanted to leave my daughter little reminders of how I was thinking when she was a baby. That's a me thing, and to shirk that in even the smallest thing means that am not looking out for myself. Hence, it's time to take a step back.

Goodbye, part time job. Oh, how so painfully well I knew ye. Guess I'll have to find some other way to drop a little extra in the college fund.

Come to think of it, I suppose that I just got my daughter a new pair of shoes last month, and they were pretty inexpensive.  I bet she'll make the rest of the year just fine.

And The Winner Is... Netflix

Just because I have them as a sponsor (gaze left), doesn't mean that you have to think that they are the absolutely greatest, but certainly recent results have borne out that Netflix has conquered Blockbuster in the Great Video Wars.  From Consumerist:

We're ready to call Netflix the winner of this battle of the video war, based on Blockbusters remarkably sad third quarter numbers and the flood of pissed off emails we've been getting from Blockbuster's (former) customers.

Blockbuster managed to lose $35 million in the third quarter, and its customers have been writing in to complain about benefits being cut from their "Total Access" packages.

That, to me, sounds kind of bad for Blockbuster.  I wonder what will go in all of those stores, given that most of the mini-malls that have Blockbuster already have a Starbucks in them?  Personally, I like Netflix, even though at the moment I have no time to actually watch movies.  I hope for that to change relatively soon, though.  However, don't let that stop you, who I'm sure have loads of time just piling up in your garage.

The World Series Is Over

And now, with a quick annoucement that I tried to post three days ago, but it seems that Blogger dropped a post on me:

 

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox.

But, as today, we have the Rockies Rally, I'm still happy for my team and our fans.  The Colorado Rockies, a team that no one thought would do anything of note, and certainly not reach the World Series, did our city proud.  To the Rox, the loss might be bitter at the moment, but this team has many of the pieces in place.  You, and we, will be back, and soon.  We believe in you!

...next time, improve that batting average in the city.  Also, over week off playing baseball was probably too much.  But, I digress.  You still rock.

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.

You Can Certainly Tell That There's Never Been A World Series In Colorado

Obviously, the Colorado Rockies are rookies when it comes the mad crush of ticket demand generated by the World Series.

DENVER (AP) -- The Colorado Rockies suspended World Series ticket sales Monday after overwhelming demand crashed their computer system.

"Right now we're shutting the system down," club spokesman Jay Alves announced outside Coors Field, drawing boos from fans. "We expect to be online at some point."

"We're as frustrated and disappointed as they are," Alves said.

Alves had said last week that the Rockies were prepared for any computer problems.

On Monday, there were 8.5 million attempts to connect with the computers in the first 90 minutes after sales started, he said, and only several hundred tickets had been sold before the system had to be shut down.

Yahoo!

Were I the person in charge of coming up with the online system used to sell World Series tickets, probably the first thing that I would do is find the largest ticket selling organization that I could, and then mimic their e-commerce solution as fast as possible.  That there were 8.5 million requests/hits in 90 minutes isn't the slightest bit shocking.  The poor Rockies crashed their own site, effectively fashioning their own Denial of Service attack.

As I speak, the streets around Coors Field are closed as hundreds of fans are clamoring the ticket offices looking for tickets.

Ah, I love baseball in October.

Be Bold!

The Colorado Rockies are going to the World Series.

The Colorado Rockies are going to the World Series?!

Yikes!

Ah, yes. Yes, it's sweet indeed.

Have I Seen The Future Of Vampire Movies?

I simply must see the movie 30 Days of Night.

The IMDB page.

The IESB.net trailers.

The Graphic Novel.

See it, I must. I shall.

Another Life Lesson For Your Children (And For You)

I find it funny how a rut can begin and how quickly familiarity can breed contempt.  Even a person that spends time on the ever-changing Internet (like myself) is not immune from the boredom that everyday life can bring.  So, I have found myself considering that topic, and how I might teach my daughter how to avoid the tedium the everyday world can bring.  As is not particularly unusual, I caught myself learning something new as well.

Perhaps you might have perceived that I'm quite the reader.  Exercise for the brain is really what opening up a book and reading really is.  Not to say, all books are particularly enjoyable - they aren't.  Some are awful, at least by my estimation.

But not all are.  On occasion, a good book will remind you of something that you can use everyday; there's a lesson there that can make you a better person, parent, and teacher.  And today, I remembered this some lines from this poem " If" by Rudyard Kipling:

"If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools"

…and so on.

There's a lesson to be learned here, that I believe is similar to a quote that Joy Behar attributes to Rush Limbaugh in the worthwhile book Got What It Takes? Successful People Reveal How They Made It To The Topby Bill Boggs.  That is, be bold.  BE BOLD.  Mostly I can get behind that theory.  Very few people accomplish things of note without some measure of risk and hard work. 

For my daughter and myself, I will reinterpret that slightly. 

The real lesson is this: in whatever you decide to do, sure, be bold, but don't let that be an excuse to be stupid.

Yes, I think that's a good plan for us all.

What bold thing have you done today for your children or yourself?  Perhaps today, more than any day, is the perfect moment to try something radically different.

Compare And Contrast, For Your Amusement

Two famous people.  Two audiences whose popularity are worldwide.  Two equally powerful American political parties.

 

Today, for your consideration, from NobelPrize.org:

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

 

Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.

 

1/2 of the prize

USA

b. 1948

Now, from Editor and Publisher: Ann Coulter on "perfecting" the Jews:

 

DEUTSCH: "Let's wipe Israel off the earth." I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners --

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued -- when you say something absurd like that, there's no --

COULTER: What's absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I'm going to go off and try to perfect myself --

COULTER: Well, that's what the New Testament says.

DEUTSCH: Ann Coulter, author of If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, and if Ann Coulter had any brains, she would not say Jews need to be perfected. I'm offended by that personally. And we'll have more Big Idea when we come back.

[...]

DEUTSCH: Welcome back to The Big Idea. During the break, Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment. So I'm going to give her a chance. So you don't think that was offensive?

COULTER: No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to, you know, live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament.

DEUTSCH: You said -- your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that's what you said -- don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic --

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.

Sigh. 

I suppose you should read the whole transcript.

Ann Coulter.

 

 

 

...and that is probably the last time I will ever write your name, Ann.  May you soon be regulated to the political discourse dustbin that you so obviously deserve. 

Office In A Thumb Drive

Lifehack.org, yet another of my favorite websites ever, put out an excellent article on how to turn your USB thumb drive into a mobile, primary office. 

With very little work and no money aside from the original expense of the drive itself, you can easily turn a thumb drive into your primary workspace — complete with the software and settings, reference material, and documents you uses the most.

How nice.  With the six (all good) ideas that they mention in this article, you are pretty much set.  Web pages like this are the reason that I started POW in the first place - here's a nice reference point for safekeeping.  Don't forget, many flash drives now contain simple word processors, anti-virus, and other valuable software preinstalled.

 

It's hard to believe that just a few years ago my primary computer had 4 GB.  Now you can buy a thumb drive with that much for next to nothing.  I have one, and feel like I have the whole world under my thumb.  There's your pop culture reference of the day, people. 

 

Heady times, my friends.  Read the article.

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.