Geocaching

This is a neat idea for a new "sport" in takes hiking & treasure hunting & puts them together. Probably not the best idea for me, but a neat one nonetheless.

Goecaching:

"Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a GPS unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the Internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. "

This site lets you type in a zip or postal code (or there are other search criteria) and it tells you about caches in your area. You have to create an account to get coordinates.

http://www.geocaching.com/

Managing MSN Emoticons

There should just be a program that lets you easily install and move and trade and store msn custom emoticons. Sadly this is not the case! There are a lot of neat programs out there that let you do one of the functions I mentioned, but none that do all of them. Here is a list of the programs I've found thus far that are of some value, although again they are not perfect:


MSN Backup

Software for the backup and installation of Moods, Winks, Emoticons, Backgrounds and User Tiles from Microsoft MSN Messenger 7, 7.5 Live 8.0 and now 8.1. With MSN Backup you can see the image preview and the flash preview for the Winks.

**The downside is, in live messenger anyways, once an emoticon has been re-added from a backed up copy friends can no longer add the emoticon to their repetoire, it somehow disables the "add" options from their msn for the emoticon.

http://www.baisoft.it/msnbackup_english.asp


CEDP Backup Only

The Custom Emoticon/Display Picture Backup Wizard is a utility for backing up the custom content, like MSN Display Pictures and MSN Emoticons, that you have added to your MSN Messenger account (MSN 6.2, 7.0 or 7.5).

**This one only backs up files it doesn't put them back in msn, but it's neat if you get a lot of emotes from friends and want your own .gif version of them on your hard drive. Oh and it comes with spyware.

http://www.sherv.net/article78.html

Emoticon Adder

Automatically Add Custom MSN Emoticons into MSN Messenger

**This one has spyware as well, it works rather well though, it lets you add in a bunch of emoticons at once, the only downside is they have to all be named the same thing like "smiley1, smiley2, smiley3," etc. So it works best if you have a large, well-sorted collection. Oh and friends can "add" your emotes when you add them through this program.

http://www.sherv.net/MSN_Emoticons_Adder.html

EZ Emoticon

EZ Emoticons is a brand new add-on for MSN Messenger 6 and 7. It allows you to use all your custom MSN emoticons without the need to remember any shortcuts! EZ-Emoticons, as the name suggests, is easy to use. You simply press Control+Spacebar in an MSN Messenger conversation which will bring up a window with all your emoticons, and then click on the emoticons you wish to use. This means you can use over 300 MSN emoticons without remembering a single shortcut!

** The downside to this one is that is comes with spyware and only manages, doesn't backup emoticons

http://www.brothersoft.com/internet/communication/ez_emoticons_34022.html


CEDP Stealer

Steal your friends MSN Emoticons and Display Pictures and more!

**This comes with spyware and only lets you steal emotes that have been used in the convo, but it is kind of cool for stealing display pictures.

http://www.sherv.net/CEDP-Stealer-4.html

Song of the Week

"She's Everything" - Brad Paisley

She's a yellow pair of running shoes
A holey pair of jeans
She looks great in cheap sunglasses
She looks great in anything
She's I want a piece of chocolate
Take me to a movie
She's I can't find a thing to wear
Now and then she's moody

She's a Saturn with a sunroof
With her brown hair a-blowing
She's a soft place to land
And a good feeling knowing
She's a warm conversation
That I wouldn't miss for nothing
She's a fighter when she's mad
And she's a lover when she's loving

[Chorus]
And she's everything I ever wanted
And everything I need
I talk about her, I go on and on and on
'Cause she's everything to me

She's a Saturday out on the town
And a church girl on Sunday
She's a cross around her neck
And a cuss word 'cause its Monday
She's a bubble bath and candles
Baby come and kiss me
She's a one glass of wine
And she's feeling kinda tipsy

She's the giver I wish I could be
And the stealer of the covers
She's a picture in my wallet
Of my unborn children's mother
She's the hand that I'm holding
When I'm on my knees and praying
She's the answer to my prayer
And she's the song that I'm playing

[Repeat chorus]

She's the voice I love to hear
Someday when I'm ninety
She's that wooden rocking chair
I want rocking right beside me
Everyday that passes
I only love her more
Yeah, she's the one
That I'd lay down my own life for

And she's everything I ever wanted
And everything I need
She's everything to me
Yeah she's everything to me

Everything I ever wanted
And everything I need
She's everything to me

Managing Blogs?

There is no good way to manage blog readings! Especially when the people who's blogs you read post on a variety of websites.

What needs to be created is a program that sorts new blog entries similar to new e-mail entries so once an entry is read it can be marked as such so if you get behind in your readings you know where you are when you log back into the program.

It should be smart enough to acknowledge there is a date and that the post under it belongs to that date as does the title and give you an interface similar to Outlook Express where along the side you have all your blog title and then when you click on them, similar to an inbox, they have a list of all the entries in there by date & title. Once you've read an entry you can then move it to the trash or file it or simply mark it as read.

There are programs that do something similar to this using RSS feeds, but the problem is not all blog sites support RSS feeds automatically and some that do, dod not have a reliable RSS feed so that when you download all the RSS feeds you are missing a bunch of entries.

This RSS feed getter is pretty good, but far from perfect:

http://www.bloglines.com/

Some blogs offer a nice service, like Livejournal & Xanga where you can subscribe to your friends blogs and then they are delivered to your inbox, or at least your friend's page, but this is far from perfect as often if an entry is posted after the send time for the day you will never see it except for manually going into their blog. Also it doesn't help people like me who have friend's posting on a variety of blog sites.

Chris

An ex-colleague of my dad's is the step-mother of a guy I went to high school with, Chris. Chris and I were best friends for the better part of high school, but as often happens after high school we drifted apart. He moved up to Northern Ontario and I moved out to Alberta. We tried to connect via phone or e-mail over the years, an attempt here and there but all that ended about 3 years ago and I had not heard from him since.

The other day, through a Christmas card from the step-mom to my dad's work I was able to get an e-mail address through which to contact the step-mom to gain some information as to Chris's whereabouts... I e-mailed her a few weeks back, but to my dismay, heard nothing positive back from her. They were in the middle of a move and she had yet to unpack her address book with the contact information for Chris in it.

Today she finally replied back with a phone number and an address! I was over the moon! I have spent so many hours over the past few years worrying about Chris, wondering how he was doing and how his life has gone. Most of my friends from high school I knew would be okay on their own, but Chris was always a little more naive and innocent and I always worried the world would take advantage of him if I weren't there to protect him... which I haven't been for many years.

I called the number provided to me and got an answering machine, a comical message by Chris himself, no roomate, just Chris! It was so thrilling just to hear his voice again, to know that my gentle giant of a friend was okay, that he was still existing in this world and sounded none the worse for wear. I hope to talk to him soon, but just to know he is okay made my day! :-)

Word of the Day

(The only way to ride...)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 28, 2007: VIP

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=VIP&defid=676850

The act of riding in the back seat of a car when the front passenger seat is
available.

Tommy: "Do you want to sit up front?"
Tony C: "No, it's cool. I'm gonna ride VIP."

Passion Party

I hosted a passion party at my house tonight, those things are quite fun! I've been to 2 now, my friend's debut one before Christmas and this one that she held at my house. What is a passion party you ask? Well... they sell bath products like lotions & salts, gels & body sprays as well as shaving gel. They also sell things like massage oils & lotions, sensitive area sprays, massage mits & cologne. Then there is the naughtier side of things wherein they sell lubricants, vibrators, adult toys, role-playing props, love swings, sex dice and all manner of fun things. ;)

Oh the fun things I bought! But it would be overly naughty to tell you... hehehe

So instead I will show you the website and you can see for yourself what fun things can be bought and then let your imagination run wild... :)

http://www.yourpassionconsultant.com/index.php?page=catalog&id=northernexposure

How the Girl Scouts Have Changed...

I stumbled across this site the other day:

http://www.girlsgotech.org/

It's a site for younger girls put out by the Girl Scouts USA, promoting the learning of math, science and technology among young women. It tells about careers in these fields and how important these subjects are to the world we live in.

There's some games on it as well as resources and stuff for parents.

Also there are links to their ad campaign, which is kind of neat.

Backing up the Sims 2

When it comes time to wipe the pc, or when you just want to make sure your families are safe heres's some info on backing up your sims 2 files:

Back-Up "The Sims 2" Files
Courtney Marchelletta,

Back-up your neighborhoods and downloads to be sure you don't lose them.
Whether you just want to make sure you have copies of your families or you got a new computer, keeping a copy of your game files is a smart idea. With a copy, you will be ready to get a new computer up and running with your families quickly or have a copy in case a hack or expansion pack installation ruins your files. You could move the files to a second hard drive, DVD, CD, or at the very least another folder in My Documents (like C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Backup\.
The Directories to Back-Up

C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Saved Sims\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Projects\

http://compsimgames.about.com/od/thesims2strategyhelp/qt/backupfiles.htm

Star Wars + Boredom

An Essay on Star Wars... further proof people have too much time on their hands or that boredom is a very dangerous thing indeed:

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as 3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of the princess but doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jin, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tattoine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in the holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan - or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tattoine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options:
A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity
B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi. Now.
But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.
Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on 2-metre targets in complicated zero-altitude maneouvres. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 years gives r2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as possible, he gets away and heads for Kenobi. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, he blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. He wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan needs to make one more diversion first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father and the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmaneouvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? He only thinks he does, actually it's Chewie's. Half-way through RotS, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegatino must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation is the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as RotS.

Han is Chewie's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewie wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan is gone and the Falcon is caught and brought aboard the Death Star. Only Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident (but Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, R2 finds Leia in the detention cells and shouts that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns he has a daughter, then they're all in deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's plan.

Then, on the verge of escape, Vader himself turns up only yards from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force all over the place. Obi-Wan stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape. At this point, Chewie suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia are. And only Ob-Wan knew where Yoda has been hiding. Chewie is stressed out by the responsibility and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but don't understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He's no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is at first not interested but after a while starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han decides to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there'll be one agent who knows what's going on who can try and put something back together, but he doesn't feel good about it. When Han decides to turn around and join the attack, Chewie is all for it.

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and Obi-Wan's ghost can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is really hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will get here real soon before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005

http://www.morningstar.nildram.co.uk/A_New_Sith.html

Installing the Sims 2

This is an article I found that notes the order in which the Sims 2 game & expansions should be installed for maximum results:

"Order of "The Sims 2" Expansion Packs
Courtney Marchelletta

Install expansion packs in the order they were released to minimize problems.
When possible, I recommend installing the expansion packs in order. The expansion packs build upon the previous one released and include patches for previous expansions. In theory, installing the expansions in the order they were released should save you a lot of problems in the long run.

The Sims 2 main game

"The Sims 2" Expansion Pack Order
"The Sims 2 University"
"The Sims 2 Nightlife"
"The Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack" (Stuff Pack)
"The Sims 2 Open for Business"
"The Sims 2 Family Fun" (A Stuff Pack)
"The Sims 2 Glamour Life" (A Stuff Pack)
"The Sims 2 Pets"
"The Sims 2 Happy Holiday" (A Stuff Pack)"

http://compsimgames.about.com/od/expansionpacks/qt/sims2_exporder.htm

Google is Taking Over

This is an article about the seemingly "underhanded" means by which Google is effectively bugying up the internet data centers so that eventually they will be the only provider available to meet ISPs needs and will essentially become the proxy for us to tget to the internet. The article discusses the dangers this poses and how bad this large corporation is for taking such measures.

I for one would be thrilled if Google took over. I love Google! Google is my homepage (when it's not shortbus.) Google is the only toolbar I allow to live in my IE besides the IE ones. Google is my Earth program that amuses me to no end. Google is my desktop search. Google is my e-mail, although gmail does leave a lot to be desired... and, as of recently, Google became my blog provider thanks to the Blogger/Goggle merger. I say bring it on!


When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.
January 19, 2007
By Robert X. Cringely

I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buys and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any other organization. This is not to say that Google OWNS all that fiber, just that they control it through agreements with network operators. I find two very interesting aspects to this story: 1) that Google has acquired -- or even needs to acquire -- so much bandwidth, and; 2) that they don't own it, since probably the cheapest way to pick up that volume of fiber would be to simply buy out any number of backbone providers like Level 3 Communications.

Google loves secrecy. That they've been acquiring fiber assets hasn't been a secret, but the sheer volume of these acquisitions HAS been. Why? One thought is that it kept down the price since people didn't really know it was Google snatching up this stuff (they've done it under a number of different corporate names). But if price was the issue, then why hasn't Google just bought the companies that own the fiber? It made no sense until I scratched my head and thought a bit further, at which point it became obvious that Google wants to -- in its own way -- control the Internet. In fact, they probably control it already and we just haven't noticed.

There are two aspects to this control issue, but let's take the legal one first. If Google bought a bunch of Internet backbone providers, such a move would of course get the attention of regulators from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the two federal agencies charged with looking at large corporate mergers for signs of anti-competitive activity. But simply acquiring legal control of those same assets through leases and other long-term contracts doesn't trigger such an examination, though perhaps it should. By renting instead of buying, Google was able to acquire its fiber assets primarily in secret. The game was over before most of us even knew there WAS a game.

The second aspect of this is the whole idea that the game is already over for control of the Internet. I touched on this concept back in 1998 when I wrote my first column about PayPal, which at the time had been offering its core service for less than a year and already had eight million members. I wrote then that PayPal had already won the Internet payments race, which time has since showed they had. PayPal's confidence was based on analysis of its own growth. Understanding the potential range of growth, looking at the rate of subscriber acceleration, and using second derivative analysis of these data, PayPal was pretty darned sure, even back in 1998, that its competitors at the time would never be able to catch up.

Topix.net founder Rich Skrenta recently took a similar approach to argue that Google, like PayPal, has already won the game and represents to most users the face of the Internet. Skrenta (in this week's links) argues that Google's dominance of search and advertising is so profound that most competitors -- especially Yahoo -- would probably be better off NOT even attempting to compete and simply let Google handle search and advertising while Yahoo provides content. He's probably correct. Skrenta argues that even if services come along that are superior to Google's, in order to become dominant they'll have to overcome Google's brand recognition with users, which is almost impossible to do. So just being better than Google isn't enough.

All this is prelude for understanding what Google intends to actually DO with all this technology, which I have only lately begun to figure out.

I live in South Carolina, a state that I can argue qualifies as a technology backwater despite being the shrimp and grits capital of the world. Why, then, are the local business pages filled with stories about Google preparing to build massive data centers here? Google is apparently negotiating to build data centers in Goose Creek, a town not far from Charleston, where I live, in Columbia, the state capital, and a third location across the border in Georgia. To read the papers, Google might choose one or another of these locations, but according to people I have spoken with who are fairly close to the action, Google actually seems intent on building in all three locations.

Why?

Why would Google need two data centers in a state with only four million residents? Why would they need to buy 520 acres in a Goose Creek industrial park when that's probably 100 times as much land as any conceivable data center would require?

Google is building a LOT of data centers. The company appears to be as attracted to cheap and reliable electric power as it is to population proximity. In Goose Creek they bought those 520 acres from the local state-owned electric utility, which probably answers the land question posed above. By buying out all the remaining building sites in an industrial park owned by an electric utility, Google guarantees itself a vast and uninterruptible supply of power, much as it has done in Oregon by building a data center next to a hydroelectric dam or back here again in Columbia by building near a nuclear power station.

Of course this doesn't answer the question why Google needs so much capacity in the first place, but I have a theory on that. I think Google is building for a future they see but most of the rest of us don't. I'll go further and guess that Google is planning to build similar data centers in many states and that the two centers they are apparently preparing to build here in South Carolina are probably intended mainly to SERVE South Carolina. That's perhaps 100,000 servers for four million potential users or 40 users per server. What computing service could possibly require such resources?

The answer is pretty simple. Google intends to take over most of the functions of existing fixed networks in our lives, notably telephone and cable television.

The Internet as we know it is a shell game, with ISPs building their profits primarily on how many users they can have practically share the same Internet connection. Based on the idea that most users aren't on the net at the same time and even when they are online they are mainly between keystrokes and doing little or nothing when viewed on a per-millisecond basis, ISPs typically leverage the Internet bandwidth they have purchased by a factor of at least 20X and sometimes as much as 100X, which means that DSL line or cable modem that you think is delivering multi-megabits per second is really only guaranteeing you as much bandwidth as you could get with most dial-up accounts.

This bandwidth leveraging hasn't been a problem to date, but it is about to become a huge problem as we all embrace Internet video. When we are all grabbing one to two hours of high-quality video per day off the net, there is no way the current network infrastructure will support that level of use. At that point we can accept that the Internet can't do what we are asking it to do OR we can find a way to make the Internet do what we are asking it to do. Enter Google and its many, many regional data centers to fill this gap.

Looking at this problem from another angle, right now somewhat more than half of all Internet bandwidth is being used for BitTorrent traffic, which is mainly video. Yet if you surveyed your neighbors you'd find that few of them are BitTorrent users. Less than 5 percent of all Internet users are presently consuming more than 50 percent of all bandwidth. Broadband ISPs hate these super users and would like to find ways to isolate or otherwise reject them. It's BitTorrent -- not Yahoo or Google -- that has been the target of the anti-net neutrality trash talk from telcos and cable companies. But the fact is that rather than being an anomaly, these are simply early adopters and we'll all soon follow in their footsteps. And when that happens, there won't be enough bandwidth to support what we want to do from any centralized perspective. A single data center, no matter how large, won't be enough. Google is just the first large player to recognize this fact as their building program proves.

It is becoming very obvious what will happen over the next two to three years. More and more of us will be downloading movies and television shows over the net and with that our usage patterns will change. Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we'll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY -- a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs. Those ISPs will be faced with the option of increasing their backbone connections by 30X, which would kill all profits, OR they could accept a peering arrangement with the local Google data center.

Seeing Google as their only alternative to bankruptcy, the ISPs will all sign on, and in doing so will transfer most of their subscriber value to Google, which will act as a huge proxy server for the Internet. We won't know if we're accessing the Internet or Google and for all practical purposes it won't matter. Google will become our phone company, our cable company, our stereo system and our digital video recorder. Soon we won't be able to live without Google, which will have marginalized the ISPs and assumed most of the market capitalization of all the service providers it has undermined -- about $1 trillion in all -- which places today's $500 Google share price about eight times too low.

It's a grand plan, but can Google pull it off? Yes they can.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html

Song of the Week

"Good Directions" - Billy Currington

I was sittin’ there sellin’ turnips on a flatbed truck
Crunchin’ or a pork rind when she pulled up
She had to be thinkin’ “This is where the rednecks come from”
She had Hollywood written on her license plate
She was lost and lookin’ for the interstate
Needin’ directions and I was the man for the job

[Chorus]
I told her way up yonder past the caution light
There’s a little country store with an old Coke sign
You gotta stop in and ask Miss Bell for some of her sweet tea
Then a left will take you to the interstate
But a right will bring you right back here to me

I was sittin’ there thinkin’ ‘bout her pretty face
Kickin’ myself for not catchin’ her name
I threw my hat and thought, “You fool, that coulda been love”
I knew my old Ford couldn’t run her down
She probably didn’t like me anyhow
So I watched her disappear in a cloud of dust.

[Chorus]
I told her way up yonder past the caution light
There’s a little country store with an old Coke sign
You gotta stop in and ask Miss Bell for some of her sweet tea
Then a left will take you to the interstate
But a right will bring you right back here to me

Is this Georgia heat playin’ tricks on me
Or am I really seein’ what I think I see
The woman of my dreams comin’ back to me

She went way up yonder past the caution light
Don’t know why, but somethin’ felt right
When she stopped in and asked Miss Bell for some of her sweet tea
Mama gave her a big ‘ol glass and sent her right back here to me

Thank God for good directions…and turnip greens

The People on the Bus Part 5

When I got on the bus as I walked down the aisle there was a profound smell of potpourri, the cheap kind that is way to floral and pungent to be nice except in small doses. The entire bus reeked of this scent and it was particularly strong as we walked by an older man in a ratty coat slumped in a middle seat of the bus. His hair was quite unkempt and his face unshaven, in general he was quite disheveled.

My traveling companion pointed out that perhaps he had bought cheap air freshener to improve his smell as he was obviously homeless, and is often the case homeless people are smelly.

This prompted a discussion about homelessness in general.

I just feel so bad for these poor souls who have nothing and no real means of acquiring a better existence. I mean I know there are shelters and food banks, clothing banks, etc. to help out such people, but it's hard for them. I mean if you don't have money you can't get clothes, well decent clothes, to apply for a job so you can get money and if you lost your job without a permanent residence you can't get EI from the government. I mean I know that organizations try to help but year after year I see the same homeless people around the parks and on the buses and I wonder how much good they are actually doing for these people.

Hamsters Part 22

One of the "boys" is missing *sigh* it's one of the parents, I think the mama... so it's GP and 3 babies in the cage now.

Tickle Me Emo

A great faked commercial for the Sesame Street Doll... "Tickle Me Emo"

Spiders on Drugs

This is a video supposedly put out by the "Natioanl Film Board of Canada" in the "Hinterland's Who's Who" series. It is all about the dangers of drugs as is represented by the test subjects; spiders. This is absolutely hilarious and really well done, looks like a film board movie from the 60's or 70's... for those who can remember back that far.

Adventure Time

This had got to be THE weirdest thing I have seen in a very long time... and I've seen some weird things!

Sims 2 Cheats

I found an awesome list of cheats for the Sims 2:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesims2/hints.html

The Sims 2 package files

So I had an extreme blonde moment today. I re-installed the Sims 2 so I could play the new Sims 2 Pets I got for Christmas, this is after many months of non-play (due to having pc issues) and I had all these custom download files that I had gotten... things like sims, clothes, furniture, vehicles, etc. They were all in a folder on my hard drive called "sims downloads" and most of them were zipped, so I unzipped them only to find out they were ".package files". I had a panic attack... I had no idea what to do with .package files, so I began scouring the web to figure out this conundrum. Well lo & behold on a website for n00bs, I found an explanation.

"A package file which will show up in the game automatically once added to the Downloads folder"
http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/sims2/install.htm

Yup a real d'oh moment for me... LOL


Oh and this is one of the best sites to d/l custom content for your sims:
http://www.modthesims2.com/

Word of the Day

(what most of these word of the day entries are ;) )

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 16, 2007: blogorrhea

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blogorrhea&defid=1072873

To write a [blog] entry just for the sake of posting an entry, not because you
have done anything interesting today.

I couldn't really think of anthing good to blog about, so my last post was real
blogorrhea.

Windows Live Stuff

Microsoft has released a whole cacophony of things to use with your Windows Live ID including desktop e-mail, photo galleries, my spaces (not to be confused with myspaces) and family security to name a few.

I wonder perhaps if they are only doing this because Google now has a desktop package conveniently called Google Desktop that comes with a lot of the same things and a cool widget organizer for your desktop.
(http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer_new.html?hl=en&gl=us&ciNum=11)

In addition wouldn't it just be easier for them to give you the pop settings to put hotmail into Outlook than creating a branded 3rd party mail client that only works with hotmail when they already gave us Outlook and Outlook Express?

Well I suppose they have the big bucks to pay the programmers...

Info:


"You already know the power and ease of Windows Live™ Hotmail®. Well, we're bringing you new, free Windows Live software and services that'll work great with your current Hotmail account and give you new ways to connect and share how and when you want.

Think new software for your desktop—like Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Windows Live Writer. Plus services you can tap into when you're online, wherever you are—Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger, Windows Live Spaces, and OneCare™ Family Safety. The best part is, they all work together so you can combine the power of Windows and the Web.

Now's your chance to get the latest versions of the Windows Live services you already have, as well as what's new."



http://get.live.com/wl/all

Song of the Week

"The Last Ten Years (Superman)" - Kenny Rogers

Oh, the last ten years, it's been quite trip
Over thirty-six-hundred spins around without a cosmic slip
But within the realm of our atmosphere
We're 'bout as out of whack as we've ever been in a million years
We watched the Y2K scare in a panic
An' we watched as time proved Nostrodamus wrong
An' we watched as Mother Nature shook the planet
An' cellular replaced the telephone
We lost Charlie Brown, Ray Charles an' Johnny Cash
We even lost Superman, mhm.

Well, the last ten years, look at the hills we've climbed
The best golfer's black, the best rapper's white an' it's about damn time
But we best beware, there's a brand new fight, you see
An' I hate to say we might be our own worst enemy
We watched Oklahoma sifting through the damage
An' we watched a US President get caught
We watched shareholders watch their savings vanish
We all cried when we watched those towers fall
We lost Minnie Pearl, Ron Reagan and Sam Ahan
We even lost Superman, mhm.

Expensive gas an' free downloads
The dot-com boom, an' reality shows
What's gonna happen next is anybody's guess
Satellite radio and hybrid cars
Hand-held computers an' a trip to Mars
It's all become a part of who we are
In the last ten years.

In the last ten years
We lost George Harrison, John Paul and June Carter-Cash
Hell, we even lost Superman
Gonna miss you, Chris...

Word of the Day

(this is the ONLY way to shop :P)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 14, 2007: shop naked

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shop+naked&defid=2143188

To shop for items online; to buy things from an online store.

I think I'm going to save myself a lot of holiday shopping hassles and just shop
naked.

My Chemical Romance Lyrics

Have y'all heard the "Welcome to the Black Parade" song by My Chemical Romance? It's quite awesome, well in particular the music video is awesome... You can watch it here on youtube.



After watching it for the umpteenth time I realized I had no idea what the song was about, so here's an explanation.

"Actually, this song, as described by gerard when he recently appeared on fuse, says the man in the song, they called the patient, is dying in a hospital. And his most treasured memory was when his father took him to a parade when he was a young boy. And gerard says he believes that when you die, death comes to you in any form you want it to. So as this man is dying, remembering his father and the parade, death comes to him as a black parade."

So the more you know.... LOL

Reference:
http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/lookat.php/bands/My-Chemical-Romance/dfe093080cef9c7

The Secret LIves of Icons

This is another very funny website!

"Have you ever noticed when you use your computer first thing in the morning, some of the icons appear to be in a different place than when you left? Have you sensed that something goes on if you leave your computer on overnight? Well, when you go to bed at night and forget to shut down your computer, I think you ought to know what actually goes on. For the first time, someone has captured what takes place after you leave the room! Remember to have the sound on...."
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jvdkuyp/flash/see.htm

Real work-at-home jobs

This is an article I found on msn the other day, it's way more pertinent to Americans than Canadians sadly, but still quite interesting...

Article can be found here

text of article to follow:

"Real work-at-home jobs
By Liz Pulliam Weston

Computers and high-speed Internet access mean new, better-paying choices for people who want the flexibility and convenience of careers that don't require an office-building cubicle.

After the birth of her daughter, Carrie Opara knew she didn't want to return to her old job as a mental-health counselor. But finding legitimate work she could do at home was no small feat.

She tried a multilevel marketing plan and wound up in debt. She looked on the Internet and found plenty of scams. Finally, she heard about LiveOps, a Palo Alto, Calif., call center that hired people to work out of their own homes.

Within two years, she was earning about $2,000 a month working 30 to 35 hours a week from her home in Columbia, Md. -- about what she'd made previously as a counselor. Her shifts can be as short as 30 minutes, although she typically works five-hour blocks while her 6-year-old is in school, plus some nights and weekends when her husband, a certified public accountant, can take over child care.

Opara said she still faces the challenges familiar to every working parent: how to work enough hours, spend enough quality time with her family "and still figure out how I'm going to clean my house, make dinner and do the grocery shopping." Not having to commute or pay for child care, however, are big bonuses.

"It's fit in perfectly," Opara said, "and we also like the flexibility."

Technology is opening up new opportunities for parents and others who want to work at home. Finding and landing legitimate, profitable work still isn't easy, but here are a few venues to try:

A call center in your home
You hear a lot about companies routing their customer-service calls to workers overseas, but a less-noticed trend is the growth in home-based call-center workers. The number of such workers in North America has tripled since 2000, according to an estimate by research firm Yankee Group, with more than 670,000 phone agents in the United States and Canada now working at home.

Thanks to the Internet and better call-routing technology, more companies are finding they can outsource their order-taking, sales and problem-solving calls to home-based workers, said LiveOps Chairman Bill Trenchard. LiveOps not only runs an outsource operation, Trenchard said, but it provides technology for companies that want to set up their own home-based call centers.

Home-based workers tend to be better educated and more loyal than their counterparts at traditional call centers, Trenchard said. Most of LiveOps' workers have college degrees -- Opara has a master's -- and turnover is low.

The flexibility that Opara likes also benefits companies. Home-based operators are typically contractors who are paid for each minute spent on the phone, so companies can quickly gear up to meet high demand without having to pay for idle workers during slack times.

The job isn't without drawbacks. Pay usually starts around $8 an hour, assuming you get enough calls, which can come slowly at the beginning, Opara said. The jobs that simply require taking orders often pay the least, while the better-paying jobs typically require that you have sales skills.

Call centers usually have no tolerance for audible distractions, so a crying baby, barking dog or ringing doorbell could get you fired. (Some companies require their workers have dedicated offices with doors to minimize potential distractions.) An operator also needs a dedicated phone line, a computer and high-speed Internet access.

Some call centers that say they are currently hiring include:

Alpine Access
LiveOps
Willow CNS
West at Home

Start a Web business
Paul and Alison Martin, who met while they were students at Stanford University, decided to launch a Web-based baby-product business shortly after the birth of their twins, Ainsley and Sierra. The couple launched Noss Galen Baby in February 2004, just before Paul graduated.

By May 2005, Paul said, the site was profitable enough to support the family.

The Martins had some distinct advantages. Paul had programming and start-up experience from a stint at PayPal, so he built and maintains their Web site. The couple also moved from expensive Menlo Park, Calif., to more reasonable Albuquerque, N.M., which keeps down their living costs.

Perhaps even more significant, the Martins were able to capitalize their business with stock-option money from Paul's time at PayPal. But Paul said initial inventory costs were just a few thousand dollars, and he could have gotten a small-business loan or worked a part-time job to keep the venture going until profits came in.

"The most important thing is to have the mindset that you're going to make it work, that you're going to learn from your mistakes," Paul said. "It may take longer than you think. . . . There were difficult times when we were wondering if we were ever going to turn the corner."

The Martins' business isn't the only thing that's expanded. The couple are expecting their third child in March.

If you find a concept that works, you might make additional money teaching other people what you know. Tamaira Sandifer of Sacramento, Calif., launched a service called Fun Mail for Kids that sends customized packets, complete with stickers, personalized letters and crafts projects, to kids via the U.S. mail. Once that was a hit, she wrote an e-book, available for $25 on her site, to teach others how to run similar businesses on the Web.

As with any small business, it can help to draft a business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration has a free business set-up guide on its Web site.

Online auctions
Online auction sites have helped people do more than empty their attics (or fill them up again). The largest online auction site, eBay, says 1.3 million of its 212 million registered users are "professional sellers" who report the site is a primary or secondary source of income. That's almost double the number of pro sellers from a year earlier.

Barb Webb of Salt Lick, Ky., started her online-auction career a few years ago by selling household items she otherwise would have put in a garage sale. The former corporate executive branched out by looking for bargains at local retailers and then auctioning them off for a profit on the site. In her best year, she cleared more than $10,000 -- not enough to live on but not bad as a part-time job squeezed in between activities for her three kids, now ages 4, 6 and 17.

Auction sites have "how to" sections to familiarize beginners with the selling process, and a little research can help you determine the best way to market your offerings, said Webb, the author of "The Mom's Guide to Earning and Saving Thousands on the Internet."

Sellers also need to be mindful of their reputations because bad feedback from buyers can hurt future sales, she said. Staying organized, using truthful descriptions and shipping items promptly are essentially to a profitable auction business.

Webb also advises newbies to start slowly, particularly if they're buying items with the intent to sell them at auction rather than selling off what they already own. It can be easy to misjudge what people will want to buy, she said, and listing-costs, the site's commissions and buyers who don't pay can eat into profits.

"The best way is to bank some (profits) and then reinvest some," Webb said.

Mystery shopping, survey taking and 'piece work'
Mystery shopping and survey-taking opportunities have been around for a while, but the Internet has made finding them easier, Webb said.

"Mystery shoppers" are typically paid $5 to $100 per assignment to pose as average customers and then critique a store or service, Webb said. The range for filling out surveys or participating in focus groups can be even wider, from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks a shot.

As with other work-at-home jobs, applicants need to be prepared to start small and work their way up. Research companies look for reliable, articulate, detail-oriented people and tend to reward the ones who consistently perform well, Webb said.

Both jobs tend to come with freebies as well as cash. Webb said she's been given such products as free laundry detergent and free diapers in exchange for her opinion on surveys.

Mystery shopping tends to take more time and effort but generally pays more. Webb said she makes about $6,000 a year in cash, plus free goods and services worth $3,000 to $4,000.

"I work it in with our schedule. I look at the week ahead and think, 'Where do we want to go? What do we want to do?' " she said. "If I need to buy clothes, I'll look to see if they need a mystery shopper."

Some Internet-based mystery-shopping services include:
Corporate Research International Mystery Shops
Mystery Guest
Service Intelligence Experience Exchange

National survey companies with an Internet presence include:
American Consumer Opinion
National Family Opinion
Survey Savvy

"Piece work" is an age-old concept that's been updated by the Internet, most visibly on Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk. The site pays people to perform tasks that computers can't easily do, such as fill out opinion surveys, transcribe audiotapes and see whether items for sale have been correctly "tagged," or classified.

The Mechanical Turk for which the Web site was named was a 1700s and 1800s hoax in which a supposed machine played chess (the Turk actually concealed a human chess ace). Amazon started the site to find humans to help fix problems that its automated systems couldn't. The Mechanical Turk is now used by an array of "requestors" who want people to help them with various small tasks.

The problem here is that the pay is often literally pennies -- sometimes just a single penny to perform a task that might take a few seconds or minutes. Only you can determine whether the time you spend is worth the payoff.

Other home-based businesses
There's not much high-tech about home-based businesses such as child care, house-sitting, dog walking and errand running. But classified advertising sites such as Craigslist and Expo can help you easily and cheaply connect with potential customers.

And old-school businesses, if properly run, can provide a decent living, said Steve Damato, who operates a licensed day-care center with his wife, Jodi, at their Elgin, Ill., home.

"With five full-time kids, one of which is our own daughter, and three part-time kids," Damato said, "we have found an occupation that allows us tremendous flexibility, the luxury of being full-time parents to our daughter, numerous tax benefits, no commuting, no fancy clothes . . . and not to mention a generous income between $50,000 to $60,000 a year."

The Damatos inherited the day-care business from Jodi's mother, who retired last year at 65. The Damatos moved into the mother-in-law's home to look after her and the business. Previously, Steve had worked as a flight attendant while Jodi had been a stay-at-home mother for their daughter, now 4. Besides the opportunity to be a full-time father, he likes the fact that he no longer has to work nights, weekends or holidays.

Before you launch any business, research your community's license and insurance requirements. In Illinois, for example, day-care providers who look after more than four children must be licensed, Steve Damato said, and the state provides about 30 pages of standards that centers must follow, covering everything from the number of electrical-outlet covers to the frequency of CPR training.

Damato also recommends talking to others who run similar businesses for tips and advice. You also need to gauge your own aptitude for the work.

"If you don't like changing 20-30 diapers a day or constantly wiping noses, or playing referee throughout the day, then this job is not for you," Damato said. "Otherwise, this could be a wonderful opportunity . . . for many couples."

Keys for the home-based worker
As you're considering potential work-at-home opportunities, keep these points in mind:

Your best opportunities may be close to home. If you're still working, rummage around your current workplace to see if any job -- not just the one you're doing now -- is portable. You might hit pay dirt if you're well-regarded and your employer has work that's not getting done or not being done well. A written plan explaining your proposal may help you sway your employer.

Otherwise, expect a lot of competition. Plenty of people want to work from home and will inundate any company they think might hire them. (One call-center company I tried to interview for this article wouldn't even talk to me, saying it already had far more applicants than it could use and didn't want another spike in inquiries that it couldn't handle.)

Don't expect to make a fortune. The sure sign of a scam is a promise of huge rewards for little effort. The real world doesn't work like that. If you have to pay big upfront fees for materials, details or training, your best bet is to walk away. Ditto for any "opportunity" that involves stuffing envelopes or assembling crafts; these activities profit only the promoters.

The folks I interviewed who are making decent money at home also made decent money in the regular workplace world. They tended to have good educations, strong business skills and a history of workplace success. If you're organized, focused, a self-starter and possessed of in-demand skills, you could do OK at home. If you're not, your options are likely to be more limited."

chanceXchange

This is kind of a neat site I was told about the other day... thought I'd pass the info on to y'all for review. :)

" chanceXchange is a free service where you can trade unwanted films, cds andbooks for those things that you really want.

It's been setup to help us recycle more and so help reduce the amount of wastewe generate on a daily basis.

Use the free service to list items you have finished with and the items youwould like... we'll do the rest.To find out more please visit the link"

chanceXchange recycle your cds, dvds and books a free exchange service

Word of the Day

(okay this one is just... well just awesome! :P)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 09, 2007: Bond Year

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bond+Year&defid=2171931

Any year that ends in 007, such as 1007 or 2007.

(countdown to 2007...)
3,
2,
1,
Happy Bond Year!

Song of the Week

“Only Grace” by Matthew West

There is no guilt here
There is no shame
No pointing fingers
There is no blame
What happened yesterday…has disappeared
The dirt has washed away
And now it's clear

There's only grace
There's only love
There's only mercy and believe me it's enough
Your sins are gone
Without a trace
And there's nothing left now
There's only grace

You're starting over now
Under the sun
You're stepping forward now
A new life has begun
Your new life has begun

An’ there's only grace
There's only love
There's only mercy and believe me…it's enough
Your sins are gone
Without a trace
And there's nothing left now
There's only grace…

And if you should fall again
Get back up, get back up
Reach out and take my hand
Get back up, get back up
Get back up again
Ohh…get…back…up…again…


There's only grace…
There's only love…
There's only mercy and believe me it's enough…it’s enough
Your sins are gone
Without a trace
And there's nothing left now
There's only…there’s only…grace…

There's only mercy and believe me it's enough…it’s enough
Your sins are gone
Without a trace
And there's nothing left now
There’s only…grace……
So get back up…get back up again…
Get back up again.

Converting videso from Flash

So awhile back I posted about how to download videos from youtube.

http://drelwin.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-to-save-flash-videos-from-youtube.html

Well this is part 2, how to get those pesky files converted from .flv into something that is more easily recognized and used... like say .avi.

All you need is Cinemaforge, a neat little program that will convert into a myriad of file formats, including: .swf .avi .wmv .mov .asf

So go here and download it:
http://www.download.com/CinemaForge/3000-2169_4-10373646.html

Then just take the .flv file you made before throw it in the imput box, choose and output location and output type and then hit the encode button, wait a few seconds (or minutes depending on file size) and voila! you have a new file all ready to be played by conventional players. :)

For you more geeky types you can even change a bunch of the output features or upload the output file instead of saving it. ;)

Pet the Kitty

This a neat website that was e-mailed to me, not sure if I've shared it yet or not....

"YOU HAVE GOT TO PET THIS CAT!!!!

Cool Black Cat with Green Eyes Go to this site (link below) to see something awesome! I have no clue how they got this to work. There are some great code writers out there! If you tease her with the mouse pointer on her chest or stomach she will purr, I got her to meow also, by rubbing her forehead with the pointer. If you make a slow circle around her body, (counter-clockwise) not only will her head/eyes follow your pointer, but toward the top, her paw will go up, and when in front of her paws at the bottom, her foot comes out like she wants to play with your mouse pointer. If you move the cursor up and down between her (his?) eyes, she'll meow.(Don't hold the mouse down, just move it) Enjoy!"

http://www.broenink-art.nl/maukie2.swf

Word of the Day

(I won't lie to you, I"m only posting this one 'cuz it has the word "penis" in it... teehee)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 05, 2007: e-penis

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=e-penis&defid=584775

A term used to describe the technological prowess of an individual, usually in
an internet community. Factors that engorge the e-penis include [bandwidth],
computer speed, [hard drive] size, size of [DVD] collection, and an impressive
[frag] count in any number of popular [first person shooter]s.

"I have a +5 e-penis of [down smack]ing, bitch!"

"my e-penis [>] your e-penis"

Challenged Books

I found this interesting...

about.com lists the most challenged books of 1990-2000:

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

books that have either been banned or challenged in the united states (at one point or time):

1984 - George Orwell
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) - Mark Twain
Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
Andersonville (1955) - MacKinlay Kantor
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Arabian Nights
As I Lay Dying (1932) - William Faulkner
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo A. Anaya
Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Call of the Wild - Jack London
Can Such Things Be? - Ambrose Bierce
Candide - Voltaire
Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye (1951) - J.D. Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
Color Purple - Alice Walker
Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Decameron - Boccaccio
Dubliners - James Joyce
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Fanny Hill - John Cleland
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Grapes of Wrath (1939) - John Steinbeck
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
House of Spirits - Isabel Allende
Howl - Allen Ginsberg
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
King Lear - William Shakespeare
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Lolita (1955) - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Lysistrata - Aristophanes
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
Monk - Matthew Lewis
Native Son - Richard Wright
Nigger of the Narcissus - Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
Portnoy's Complaint (1969) - Philip Roth
Rights of Man - Thomas Paine
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Separate Peace - John Knowles
Silas Marner - George Eliot
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Sons & Lovers - D.H. Lawrence
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Ulysses - James Joyce
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Word of the Day

(sorry there are so many of these lately, I've just gotten some very funny ones! Oh and this one is proof of my point about the redundancy of resolutions on new years, lol)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com
January 04, 2007:

resolutionary

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=resolutionary&defid=2083325

People who join a gym after the New Year, only to quit going within 3 months.

I couldn't find a free treadmill, the place was crawling with resolutionarys.

Word of the Day

(I like this one 'cuz it's soooo true)

Urban Word of the Day
www.urbandictionary.com

January 03, 2007: christmas gear

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=christmas+gear&defid=1576173

The new clothes that people wear that they recieved for the holidays. Usually worn the first week in January and is recognized by the new clothes smell and creases left from being folded in boxes since Thanksgiving.

Steve wore his Christmas gear on his first day back from winter break and all the cool kids teased him for his shoes.

Quotes of the Day

I'll start the new year off with some quotes I've collected... enjoy!

"May you always have Love to Share , Health to Spare, and Friends that Care" - unknown

"When you're down to nothing, God is up to something." - unknown

"Yesterday is History Tomorrow is a Mystery Today is a Gift ...That's Why They Call it the PRESENT!" - unknown

"Life is Short...So Live it Today!" - unknown

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it ever six months" -Oscar Wilde

"I don't do drugs, I am drugs" -Salvador Dali

"THIS DAY IS YOURS DON'T THROW IT AWAY" - unknown

"To the world you might be one person, but to one person you just might be the world"

"May the Lord Bless you and keep you, May the Lord Make his face shine upon you, And give you Peace.....Forever"

"Good friends are like stars...You don't always see them, But you know they are always there”

"Don't read beauty magazines they will only make you feel ugly!"

Song of the Week

AULD LANG SYNE

Words adapated from a traditional song
by Rabbie Burns (1759-96)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine,
And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine,
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit,
Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne


Meanings
auld lang syne - times gone by
be - pay for
braes - hills
braid - broad
burn - stream
dine - dinner time
fiere - friend
fit - foot
gowans - daisies
guid-willie waught - goodwill drink
monie - many
morning sun - noon
paidl't - paddled
pint-stowp - pint tankard
pou'd - pulled
twa - two

New Year's Resolutions

Well as always happens 'round this time, a new year has dawned and with a new year one must make resolutions! So here goes my resolutions for 2007!

I resolve to.... you know what no, this isn't what I want to do.

The thing is resolutions seem so corny... like you talk all big, say you'll lose weight, quit smoking, drinking, womanizing, partying... you join a gym, throw out your cigs & the booze, burn or bury the little black book and do really well for about a month, maybe two but by the time Easter rolls around you're back to your old habits, I mean in all fairness I'm sure some people stick to them, but the majority of ust make the same resolutions we did last year which were the same as the year before, and so on back as far as we can remember. I know I have

So this year I'm going to resolve simply to have a better year than I did in 2006! I'd like to lose weight, I'd like to get a better paying job, I'd like to feel loved and needed, I'd like to have friends that are true blue. I'd like to learn to be more assertive and express my feelings more openly, I'd like to cry less and have less cause to cry. I'd like to learn to love myself, I'd like to eliminate some debt, I'd like to spend more time with those I love and less with those I don't. I'd like to re-analyze and re-structure my life goals, I'd like to enjoy my work... these are the things I considered resolving to do, but just by saying I'll do them, by writing them down and sending them out into the void that is the internet doesn't mean they'll get done.

I would simply like to have a better year than 2006 and if that includes any of the above so be it, and if it doesn't then that's okay too, so that's what I'm going to resolve to do, period.

Happy 2007 all! I wish you a year of love, peace & happiness and success in whatever resolutions you set for yourself!