If you read news online you have probably heard about Google +. The simple explanation of Google + is that it’s like Facebook 2.0, it’s Google’s social networking platform. Notice I said platform? It has several applications and a promise of more to come.
It is interesting to see what happens. Facebook is so completely dominant in the social networking world, you wonder what it would take to give them some real competition. Google has a lot of good things going for it, but social networking isn’t one of them. Remember Buzz? How about Wave? No? My point exactly.
You would think that most people in this country interested in using a social networking service are already doing so. Of course there are babies being born everyday so there are new users but I think the real meat of the market are the people using sites like Facebook today. So the $64 question is;
Will people with Facebook account use Google+? Will they abandon Facebook for Google? Will they maintain 2 sites? Are they already burned out on friends, invites and status updates so + won’t even get a 2nd look?
You can’t get a + account right now, they are in a beta phase and have been overwhelmed with requests for new accounts but you can be notified when they are ready for you. Granted, it won’t be a lot of use or fun if none of your friends are on it so waiting a little while may be a good choice.
I am one of the 16 people in this country who does not have a Facebook account. At first it just wasn’t interesting enough for me, i didn’t go for the “I’m eating lunch” kind of posts. I preferred the blog version of self expression. As Facebook got tremendously popular I took a closer look. I decided I had a few real issues with their strategy, the walling off of content (can’t be searched by outside search engines), the “owning” of your content and information and just the overall strategy of “I’m going to get you to tell me as much as you can so I can use/sell that data whether you like it or not” kinda thing. I don’t try to discourage people from using Facebook, it’s just why I don’t use it.
For whatever reason, I don’t get the same vibe from Google. They have been good to me so far. Because of this, and my insatiable need to check out new stuff, I will give + a try. If you end up doing the same, maybe we can hang out sometime.
If you click on the picture you will go to the demo site, click on the little + at the end of the arrows to see some videos talking about the features.
In our family, we have “emergency dollars”. These are a few dollars stuffed into things like the console of your car, the little pouch on the back of our bikes, things like that. They are for when you get caught without your wallet or need some small bills for a drink machine. This strategy has served us well.
Apparently other people have other emergency strategies. These unisex disposable underwear are for when you find yourself sans briefs. I could be wrong, but I think it would be way harder to explain why you didn’t have underwear on then why you have this box of emergency underpants. We won’t even talk about if someone actually sees you wearing said underpants. Click the picture for a better look.
Put a box on your desk at work, they are a real conversation starter. Some people just won’t be able to resist and imagine the entertainment value of someone explaining why they need a pair NOW!
You have seen those guys that can make a poodle or a headband with a feather out of balloons right? What do you think would happen if one of those guys was bitten by a radio active spider or abducted by aliens? Well, Larry Moss might happen. Larry is all about the balloons, he has wirtten books, holds world records and has his art shown internationally. Check out these creations – all made out of balloons
You know what else we learned about having a boat? Sometimes it better to go out on someone else’s! This past weekend Katie, Greg and I went with Captain Rocky in search of the coveted saltwater Speckled Trout or Sea Trout.
We were up at dark-thirty and met our captain at the Texas City Dike. We headed off towards Bollivar island. We met up with 12-15 other boats with similar goals but lesser skills and/or persistence. We had a slow start. We were only catching small Black Tip sharks who were eating our expensive bait (thanks Greg). As the wind picked up an the other boats started leaving we slowly started to catch our targeted species. By the middle of the day all the boats had left and a few late-comers had also come and gone but we were still there and we were catching fish.
Every member of our team reeled them in. When all was said and done we had caught about 10 sharks and 18 “Specs” All the sharks were released and they took no fingers with them. It was really nice to have someone else pick the spots, bait the hooks, manage the boat and clean up. Our guide was good an I would recommend him to someone looking to catch trout. In fact he headed up a boat the day before in a 47 boat tournament and he and his team took first place. If you are interested I will give you the information, it is printed on my Capt. Rocky coozie he gave us as a parting gift.
We all caught the largest trout that any of us had ever caught. It was a great day on the water. A good time was had by all.
A year ago Linda and I decided to invest spend a chunk of our disposable income on a boat. We had been making regular trips to Galveston to fish off the rocks, jetties and piers. The fishing was good and bad randomly, the time spent at the waters edge was always good (at least for me) the company we kept in those places, well, let’s just say they had alternate values. I had fishing to keep me busy, Linda had fewer distractions so it dawned on Linda first, “maybe there is a way we can still spend time on the water, go fishing and be mobile when our personal space was invaded”. The answer came to her like a discarded cigarette butt landing in your hair – A BOAT!
We bought a middle of the bay, 19 foot fishing boat, not to big, not to small, not new, not old. It turned out to be a pretty good choice. Now that we had our vessel, we were ready to learn and spend. In the beginning we did a fair job of compensating for our complete lack of experience with Patience and some basic intelligence. There were no major accidents or incidents. At some point you have to ramp up the experience level – translated – you have to make a mistake that teaches you not to do that again.
Our first real experience building block (if you don’t count the sweaty palms, close encounters with a mailbox and numerous “do overs” trying to back the boat up our driveway) was when Linda and I were launching out of Baytown. It was a fairly busy ramp but there was a break in the action, a window of opportunity. If we moved quickly we could get our boat in the water without being in the way of having someone impatiently wait for us. As you probably have guessed patience was the firs to go, intellect was trying to catch up fast. We got up to the ramp, got the boat into the water and I was headed to find one of the very few boat trailer parking spaces left. Everything was going according to plan, until . . . . . as I walked back to the boat Linda was in it waving her arms wildly trying to get my attention. She got it, but I didn’t know what she wanted so I started jogging to the boat ramp. About the same time I could hear Linda say something about “the plugs” I saw that the back of the boat was way lower than it was supposed to be. I forgot to put the plugs in the boat at it was filling up with water from the back!
I RAN back to the car, and tried to make my way back to the ramp without banging my trailer into the 17 other cars and trailers between me and my mini Titanic. Fortunately no one pulled into the spot where I needed to be to pick up the boat. As I have become more experienced I understand how lucky I was that some yahoo didn’t try to launch in the same spot. With difficulty we got the boat back on the trailer and I pulled a little way up the ramp so the water would drain out. It seemed like it took an hour. It was probably only about 10 minutes but not only were we in peoples way but every single person who came and went on either side of us knew exactly what happened. I was embarrassed and mad at myself for making the mistake. I don’t ever want to do that again.
This was only one of many lessons learned. I could tell you about the time I had to paddle for about 45 min or when I got beached and had to jump out and push or even when I got caught in the fog and almost pooped my pants and turned Katie and I into fish food. But even then you would know less than half the story. I would also have to tell you about all the things I learned about handling a boat, navigation, working on an outboard, finding fishing spots and spending time on the water with my family and friends. For example, did you know a baloney and cheese sandwich tastes 3.7 times better on your boat than in your kitchen? It’s true.
After 1 year, we learned we are really glad we got a boat. I hope the trend continues, I still have plenty of mistakes to make and I have this theory about grilled cheese sandwiches that I want to test out.
As reported by our mainstream media, Croatian boy is magnetic phenomenon. The overweight mini Magneto AKA Ivan Stoiljkovic. See for yourself, in one picture his father throws coins and they stick, a metal pan with barbells and let’s not forget the silverware.
Ivan’s family also claims that his hands can emit heat and his mysterious ability has also given him healing powers. "Medical checkups so far have reaped inconclusive results," reports Reuters. There are more pictures including and iron and frying pan sticking to the boy boobs.
I guess those media passes and “journalism” degrees don’t require any understanding of basic science and “fact finding” is nothing more than surfing the internet.
Hmmmm, coins . . . . silverware . . . . . oh and an aluminum frying pan, what do all these things have in common? it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holms to figure out that you can’t gets coins or aluminum to stick to a magnet. Most silverware won’t either. Do you know what they will stick to? Sticky sweaty skin that hasn’t been washed in a few days. One time when I was in the keys, we were in a heat wave, it was 95 degrees at night – no air-conditioning , the first thing the next morning I had to get on a boat going out to a reef and bring another one back, no diving for me that day. By the time I got back to the dock I was really nasty. I was only wearing my swim trunks. I was leaning against the field trip van drinking some water when the van started to move. I mile later I finally got them to pull over and peel me off the side of the van. My magnetic powers were in rare form that day. I should have called CBS news.
Like they say, all good things must come to an end. Apparently that includes “Good Eats”. Yes the food show on the Food Network after 12 years and 249 episodes is hanging up it’s tongs. This was my favorite cooking show by far.
Alton Brown was (is) my kinda guy. He was equal parts, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Jim Henson and Julia Child. He seemed to care about what he did and when he talked about food he did more than just scratch the surface.
He did have his quirks. He was a bit AR (anal retentive) when it came to some things, measuring by weight instead of cups, taking a cooler to the grocery store to maintain the temperature of your food +/- 3 degrees and raising your own fig tree so you could make sure you got the southern facing fruit (ok, I made that last part up but I wouldn’t put it past him).
His show took a hit when he decided to go on a severe diet. Instead of shows about Beef Wellington and Banana Cream pie we were shown the best way to eat uncooked sardines (the answer: in olive oil). He lost a few of us then. He just recently had a show where he made lasagna! Unfortunately there was no cheese in his lasagna. I hear where you are coming from Alton but what’s next macaroni and cabbage juice? Come to think of it, maybe it was time for the show to wrap it up.
He is a big star at the Food Network and I am sure he will surface again, if fact, I bet we see plenty of him even before his next show kicks off. By the way, roomers about the new show are flying – Vegans gone wild and 30 calorie meals are often mentioned.
Craigslist is quite useful. It seems to have a little bit of everything. For buying and selling your used rocking chairs, cell phones or boats there is nothing better. In olden times people used the classified sections of newspapers. If the print media had even the slightest clue on what the online world was about or just listened to what their customers wanted we would be talking about the Chronicles list or the Times list. But that is another story.
Craigslist is not perfect. It’s circa 1990s text interface looks like it was written in BASIC. There are few rules, no feedback system so you are at the mercy of the buyers and sellers. Therein lies the rub. Unlike eBay, most sellers are not “stores”, they have something to sell then they are done. There are few consequences if you screw your buyer. Of course buyers are just as likely to take advantage of the situation and abuse their leverage with the seller.
As you might have guessed this is not a random rant. I tried to buy a kayak on Craigslist last week. I exchanged emails with the seller, talked to him over the phone, made an arraignment to exchange kayak for dollars the following evening after work. I drove to Katy at the prescribed time eager for the transaction. I called the seller and the call went right to voicemail. A giant red flag came unfurled in my brain. I left a voicemail – no response. I waited. I sent a text seeking resolution. “sold it this morning” came back on my phone. I had offered to do the transaction the night before but he said we could just wait till the next day. I was disappointed but not surprised. Personal responsibility has been on the decline for decades and varies with age and cultural group.
The best part of this story is, since I was in Katy, I went by one of my favorite stores, Bass Pro Shops just to look around. They also sell kayaks and kayak accessories just incase I HAD to have one NOW. I didn’t. I looked around and left. On the way to my car I walked by a pickup truck parked a few spaces away with . . . . you guessed it . . . . the kayak I was going to buy in the back.
This weekend Katie had her Junior Recital for her Bass Performance degree at UNT. It was a big deal and she practiced long and hard. She played a range of music from Bach to John Williams to this little ditty just to show some range.
She had a really good turnout with friends, family and sisters (from her music fraternity SAI). At the end she got a standing ovation and the consensus was that she nailed it. Then there were cupcakes and cheese squares for everyone at the after-party. We don’t see her play as often as we used to, but that makes it easier to see how she improves. We were all very proud of her we and we are all looking forward to next year’s rendition of “The Coyote vs. The Roadrunner.
Like they say, all good things must come to an end. Apparently that includes “Good Eats”. Yes the food show on the Food Network after 12 years and 249 episodes is hanging up it’s tongs. This was my favorite cooking show by far.
