This Is Why I Pay So Little Attention To The News

Here’s an RT hitpiece on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. I believe RT stands for “Russia Today”. Apparently, RT interviewed Bill Ayers, a known former terrorist and close associate of our current President. O’Reilly attempted to “no-spin” the whole thing, which resulted in motion sickness for most of his viewers. Hannity also devoted 4 minutes of one of his programs to this “non-issue”.

I pay little attention to any of the mainstream media outlets. Considering how much time they spend on what amounts to hot air, I always wonder what they’re not telling us. They seem to spend more time on celebrity affairs than they do on issues like the NAFTA Superhighway.

As for Bill Ayers comments, I agreed with one thing. Get your news from places like The Daily Show and The Onion. During my teenage years, I went through a period of time when I got my news almost entirely from Mad Magazine. I was amazingly current with the issues. To this day, I still prefer to get my news from satire, which at least amuses me while I’m getting current.

Home Alone Parody

I know it's the day after Christmas, but the gift of humor is good all year. I came across this on Cracked. I thought it was funny. I was never a fan of Home Alone. OK, maybe I was the first time, but by the 10th, I didn't like it any more. Enjoy Home Alone 2009: Kevin's Revenge. 

Home Alone 2009: Kevin's Revenge — powered by Cracked.com

Thou Shalt Not Steal: Cheesy Christian Merchandise

I don't buy any of this stuff myself. I don't have a use for it. I don't watch American Idol, and I don't have any interest in wearing a shirt bearing a Christianized message based on the logo for it. I do use an iPhone, but I'm not wearing an "iPray" hat. I don't wear hats anyway.

I came across a story in USA Today about how a $4.6 Billion industry has popped up around ripping off trademarked brands and turning them into Christianized logos. 

Some interesting quotes from the article (used under fair use guidelines):

Trademark attorney Michael G. Atkins of Seattle
said legal parodies of commercial trademarks are protected under the
First Amendment, but such religious products generally don't fall into
that category.

"You could take Microsoft
and change their logo around to make fun of Microsoft, and that would
be legal," he said. "But I can't use the Microsoft logo to promote my
Christian theme because there's no real connection there. That's
illegal."

and

Abare, the church marketing consultant, just
wishes Christians would pay more attention to the commandment "Thou
shall not steal."

"The whole claim for Christians in general is
that God is the source of all creativity," he said. "I think there's
something to being original that will speak to people in a way that we
don't have to copy."

Seriously, what exactly does it do for a witness to show Christianity to the world by wearing merchandise based on ripped-off brands? NOTE: the article states those "iPray" hats are properly licensed.

The Ultimate Windows 7 Review

I came across this on Facebook. A Review of the Pirated Copy of Windows 7 I Bought On eBay. It's hilarious. Note: the language is a little raw, but the humor is worth it. I needed a good laugh like this after I got home from work today.

Nook to Get Update This Week?

Engadget has a report that the Barnes & Noble nook is likely to get a software update this week. For those of you following my eBook reader series, this goes with what I've been saying. Most of the problems up to this point reported with nook are software related, and should be easily fixed with a software update.

As far as I know, Amazon hasn't released a software update for their Kindle. 

Steve Ballmer (Apparently) Fires Microsoft Employee For Not Being Excited Enough About Bing

I'm testing Typepad's new microblogging feature. OK, it's not that new, but I've never tried it.

Steve Ballmer at Microsoft apparently fired an employee for not being excited enough about Bing, Microsoft's latest attempt at a search engine that can't find anything.

http://mashable.com/2009/12/19/bing-youre-fired/

I have no enthusiasm for Bing. I think I tried it once, and it didn't return any useful results, so I went back to Google.

Have You Ever Bought Any Info Products? Were They Useful?

My interests change from time to time. Lately I've been reading a lot about writing. I want to learn how to write great content for my blog so people will want to read it. I also want to write other products. I've always wanted to write a book, and the thought of how easy it would be to write and publish an eBook really makes me wish I could think of a topic to write about that people would want to read.

I've come across a lot of landing pages for info products that sound really interesting. Many of them promise to teach me better writing skills, or ways to use my writing to earn money. I like that concept a lot.

The problem is, I'm kind of shy about dropping $35 or more on an info product. I want to know if they're any good. Obviously, any landing page worth its salt is fully of testimonials from real people about how great the product was for them.

But still, I hesitate.

So can you do me a favor? Have you bought any info products online? Can you leave me a comment, either here on my blog, or on Facebook about which one you bought and whether it was useful to you or not?

I'm thinking specifically of products that you might find from Bob Bly, or Men With Pens, or even Dan Miller. I know there are tons of others. I have John T. Reed's "How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Own How To Book". If you've bought one of these info products, or know of another one, can you let me know?

Tell me which product, and if you found it useful or not. I don't mean entertaining, but useful. Did it give you realistic how-to information?

Is It Realistic To Be “Happy With What You Have”?

I met my wife when I was 25. Prior to that, I was that loser "nice guy" who complained about not being able to meet girls. When I had friends who complained about their wives or girlfriends, I'd tell them that they should be happy they have someone to complain about.

I think we all have an area of our lives that we're unhappy with, yet there is always somebody around to tell us that we should be happy with it. "I don't like my job" is answered by "Well, at least you have a job. You should be happy that you have a job".

On some levels, we should be content with what we have. But on other levels, doesn't some discontentment drive us on to better things? If you don't like your job, shouldn't that drive you to get a better one? If you don't like your neighborhood, shouldn't that drive you to move to a better one?

Is it really smart to stay in a job you don't like just because there are people who don't have jobs?

When I was a kid, my mom was a really bad cook. Yes, we talked about it after I grew up. She knew she wasn't very good at cooking, and my dad liked his food incredibly bland, which is what she cooked for. I like lots of flavor. When my mom cooked something that I couldn't eat, (seriously, I grew up thinking lasagna was horrible!) I'd be told "You should eat that. There are starving kids in Africa". I always suggested we send my mom's cooking to Africa and let me make a sandwich.

I'm not sure there are any hard and fast rules to govern the situations where you should be content with your situation and when you should strive for better. I think if you exercise wisdom and caution, you should be all right. If you don't like your car, but you have to place your family in financial peril to make the payments on a new one, then you should probably be content with your car. If you don't like your house, but you have to take up a sub-prime Adjustable Rate (Rape) Mortgage (ARM) to get a better one, then you should probably be content with what you have for now. If you don't like your spouse, I can't help you in this post, but I have come across some interesting thoughts on love that I might share in another if anybody will actually read it. It helped me a lot.

If you don't like your job, I'm all in favor of bettering yourself and getting a better job. I've done it a few times myself. There are ALWAYS jobs out there. Yes, even in the Great Depression there were jobs. 30% unemployment means 70% employment. You just have to stand out a little better to get a job in those situations, but they're out there.

I guess "be content with what you have" could function as a general guiding principle by which to live your life, but it shouldn't be considered a law of behavior.

I think I've rambled on enough and not given enough answers. What about you? What rules do you have for when you should be content and when you should strive to improve?

Critique This Blog, Please

I'd like to ask a favor. I've been blogging for 5 years now. I've seen other bloggers achieve varying levels of success. Except for the time Dan Lyons linked to me, I think I might have gotten a max of 500 views in a 1 month period, which I couldn't repeat the next month.

I enjoy writing. I've written close to 700 posts in 5 years. I've only been on Typepad for a year and a half, but I imported most of the content from my Blogger, MSN Spaces, and WordPress blogs. But as much as I enjoy writing, I can't seem to write content that anybody actually wants to read.

Please, as a favor, can you poke around? What do I write well? What do I write poorly? What subjects or "niche" should I stick to? What should I avoid? Are my longer essays any good, or should I stick to shorter, snide commentaries about tech news?

If you could poke around at a few of my posts and let me know what you think, I'd appreciate the help in choosing a direction to go for 2010.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

Spam Fail

My submissions never seem to make it onto Failblog, so I figured I’d put this one here. I was going through my spam folder and I came across this. I’ve gotten some “interesting” spam in the past, but I can’t figure out how these words fit together. I can’t say that “Amway” makes me think of “sex”, and “sex” definitely doesn’t make me think of “Amway”.

I guess we have a rookie spammer. n00b!