New Era ads

So I've seen this ad twice now in the MLB Insiders Club Magazine (it's kinda a scam... don't join). I thought it was cool that it referenced a local team (the Charleston Riverdogs) and that I love the Yankees because I'm a jerk from New York. Anyway, turns out they made one for each team. If you go to http://www.neweracap.com you can see the images change (that's where I stole this picture from - I kept refreshing their Flash until it came up). I meant to scan it and blog it before now but I haven't.

Oooh!

I've been horribly deficient in writing here but I just thought of something....

I bought a new cell phone because I'd been using my work's cell phone and they're not allowing personal use (I don't know that they did.. I had been using it for personal reasons... Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?).

Anyway, my new phone has a camera. Yay for more photo bloggy posts.

Slow Learners

So, in my day job, I'm a school psychologist. My job is to test kids to determine whether they need special education assistance. Some times, it's clear that students need additional assistance - students in wheelchairs, students with significant behavioral problems, etc. However, there is this large group of children (statistically, 14% of the population - that's part of the way this stuff works (look up the bell curve)) that doesn't qualify for special education that needs additional assistance.

I went to a conference on Wednesday where the presenter talked about these students as a group. There are lots of difficulties for these students because they take longer to catch on to the rules of education (not the actual item, but the general rule).

The presenter's name is Steven Shaw. He has a website with a paid podcast. This really sucks. He should have these things available for free.

So, what I want to do - start a school psychologist podcast. Free. Post it online. Free. Maybe run it with ads if necessary to pay for servers or something.

That's my goal. I don't know if I can make it happen but I'd really like to.

Limiting Freedom of Speech

So, this is an email I got at work:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With the elections being right around the corner, there has been some political discussions and emails circulating throughout the building and not just in the CCC. Please understand that work is not the place for politics. Many discussion are heard throughout various departments, in the hallways and the breakrooms. Please be mindful that others may take offense to your views and political opinions. These views and opinions can sometimes come across in the form of harassment. We encourage everyone to vote and be involved, but please do so outside of the work environment.

So, that's legal, right?

Southpaw Light Beer - Pretty Good

So, my friend over at raulgonemobile is a bit of a beer connoisseur (Thanks FF built in spell check!). I was leaving him a comment and I've been thinking of making this post for a while... We have a new house and a new house payment so I'm being stingy (my wife is trying but it's hard). I went to the grocery store for a few things and picked the cheapest beer at the store - Southpaw Light. $6.99 (regular price) for 12 bottles.

This beer is good. It's cheap so you'd think it would taste like Bud Light or something but it doesn't. It tastes much closer to a Yuengling which is currently my favorite beer. I also like Molson, Heineken and other light colored beers. But at $6.99 for a 12 pack, the value of Southpaw can't be beat. Even Bud Light was $9.99 for 12. That's ridiculous.

And like I said - the beer is good. It's given me more lower gas issues than I normally get with beer (I couldn't see anybody else complaining about this problem in a quick Google search... maybe it's just me) but otherwise, not bad.

Link dump

Flobots' Handlebars. This is a great song. First off, it's just a nice, smooth song, then you start listening to it, thinking about it and watching the video and it just devolves into the United States. Wow. Just.. wow.

Editor's note - I spent half the day figuring out how to make that movie not autoplay (no, autoplay=false didn't work). Had to use a different flv viewer. You're welcome.

Kevin Smith's new movie (nothing's here yet but it will be)

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog This really deserves more than this mention but it's unavailable online now. You have to pay. So, yeah, I missed the boat.

Banking crisis sucks

WTF is up with the whole banking crisis? The feds stepped in and bought out two more banks on Friday (July 25, 2008). This follows them propping up Freddie Mac and Fannie May and taking over IndyMac.

Interesting story - we recently bought a house. We were talking with a mortgage broker about how to do a land purchase and she went over our options with us. This company was good, this one was better and by all means avoid IndyMac. Why? They couldn't close a deal worth a crap. You'd get to the table and they would demand an extra $1500 for additional closing costs or something. They would find a way to screw you over. This was about a year ago. The rank and file knew about the problems a year ago. I bet if I talked to that broker now, she would flip out.

Oh well. I'm broke so I don't have to worry. My money's covered under the FDIC (technically a different branch or something since I'm in a credit union but still covered). {{It's the NCUA.}}

Randy Pausch has died

I figured I needed to make a post on this. Randy Pausch, a professor who knew that he was going to die, has passed away.

I happened to catch his appearance on Oprah, which is weird.. I never watch Oprah.

Anyway, not much else to say. His was a very inspirational story.

Update: Found this linked at the bottom of the story. The website for his last lecture.

Stickam support.. doesn't

So, Leo had posted a Twitter update a few months ago. Last month I emailed Stickam about it, to see if there was any progress. I especially like this screen:

"...in some cases it may not be possible to get back to you." Guess what happened. So I emailed them again today. And I'm blogging about it. And I'm saying that Ustream would have been a better choice. Leo has said that he didn't accept $100,000 but I wonder.... Why won't anybody say anything about this?

Just found this before I posted. Mashable.com says that these are the terms, including revenue sharing.

Update: Here's a quote from Leo:

Mark, you should have asked me - I would have told you the truth. Stickam has _not_ sent me any check. We have a revenue sharing deal that I hope will generate MORE than $100,000 a year, but I'm not buying that Bently any time soon. Streaming video numbers are much much lower than audio podcast numbers, at least for now.

Watch twitlive.tv for 10 minutes then tell me I chose the wrong provider!

My response:

You chose the wrong provider. Sure, it looks slick but it doesn't work...

Unforgotten Realms Video Series - Hilarious

This is how I wasted my Saturday. This is a hilarious video series of kids playing D&D. It's animated and very funny.

McCain Green Screen Challenge

I especially like the Poltergeist head movements (ie. when he does a twist, his head stays facing forward).

Rush playing Rock Band

I'm blogging this for my buddy, primarily. He used to be (if not still is) a total Rush nerd.

Stephen King's new project

So Stephen King has a new project. Or, well, some people are doing a daily video thing of one of his short stories. It's available at NIsHere.com. They have an embedding option which I have included here.

Just for Men - Touch of Gray

I don't know if that link will work or not but this is just ridiculous.

"Just for Men - now works less well!"

Seriously? A product that used to completely mask your gray hair which now "lets you keep some gray?" Wow. That's... weird.

So.. here's their commercial - caution - plays automatically with sound. One of the lines in the commercial - "Don't trust anyone over 90." Yeah. Okay.

Epic. Fail.

Pearls Before Swine doesn't know the Fonz

So, yeah. Unless this is some humor I don't get (Pig is stupid, but he's not that stupid), they screwed up. Everybody knows that the Fonz says "Ayyyy," not "Heeey."

Housework - whoo hoo

Yesterday was a weird day - Marlana was kind of sick for most of the day, so the kids and I got up and started playing computer games (they love casual games and i-am-bored.com in particular. No, they don't get to go there on their own but I help them find games that seem to be fun for them.

Hung a giant fricken' mirror, our college diplomas and some really cute pictures of the kids in the bathroom. Didn't get the bathroom pictures straight, though.. gotta try again. That sucks.

We also started our Netflix subscription last night. We watched 27 Dresses (meh) and Semi-Pro (less meh but still not great). The Bucket List is up for tonight.

When I was working in the yard two days ago, I got bit like crazy. Couple of ant bites and at least two spider bites on my left hand. They itch like hell.

Full day of work

Put in a full day of different kinds of work -

I need to get some pictures, but I planted some crepe myrtle trees. One came from my wife's grandmother's home but then we found 5 others on our land. That was pretty cool - free trees.

My wife also picked up border grass, so that went in across most of the front of the house. We also have some other plants from her uncle that we had planted in a corner of the land to keep them away from the construction crew. I moved a Magnolia and two Camelias to other places in our yard.

Then I came in and worked on some files. I have to get these done by the end of the week. I counted 19 and I think I got 5 done tonight (I lost count as I was doing the mad dash all night (it's 1:15)).

Trying again

I'm going to try, for the umpteenth time to become more active with posting and tweeting, etc.

I don't have much to say but I suppose I should say it. I have a lot of work to do. Maybe I could post about that. That's actually not a bad twitter idea.

Rudy Park blows it on Tim Russert

Rudy Park, like nearly all other comics is probably produced six weeks in advance or more. Today's comic mentions Tim Russert and the "deceased corpse of... Peter Jennings." Oops.

What I find interesting is that I can't find anything about it - no apology, no mention of them trying to hold the comic, nothing.

Spring Break

Guess what I did over Spring Break?

Mild improvement

For today, I did slightly better, down a pound. Still above my running average, though.

Ugh

Old post

Yuck.

Slow to post

Posting updates from the past couple days - I've been bad.

255 - hooray!

I didn't do anything - in fact I was bad - had two Slim Jims and a packet of Trail Mix on top of three full meals - but here we are again, under the rolling average. Hooray!

258

Ouch. Wrong way, dumbass.

256, again

Sigh.

256, still

Well, this is discouraging... I've been at 256 so long that the average curve is above the trendline. Bummer.

However, on the positive side, I got rid of the red YOU WILL DIE message for my BMI:

256

Whee.

256

Up a pound. I gotta stop eating cookies and go running.

Also, happy Daylight Savings Day.

255 again

I got weird results this morning - 258 at one point but I think I had the scale on the carpet. I got 255 when I moved the scale off the carpet.

Yay for 255

Way too much work to be playing on the internet but guess what I'm doing? Reading Valleywag for gossip. Whee.

Current weight loss

Whee. Back down around 258.

Leo's out of work

Leo Laporte just had his TV show cancelled. I think he knew it was coming... he's been talking for a few weeks about firing up Twitlive.com . (That un-link doesn't work.)

Interesting.