Kara Rozendaal makes Wednesdays GREAT!
28 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in General
I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, and Kara’s is one of my favorites. I’ve been reading it for awhile now, and I am really impressed at how she manages to keep it fresh and interesting. She lives here in AZ, has a website, www.practicalsaver.com and also appears on local talk shows. I really appreciate how she finds the local grocery bargains and lets her subscribers know about the savings that are out there. For example, this week at Bashas they have Tyson Chicken Breasts for $1.87 which I may have never known about if Kara didn’t send me her newsletter first thing this morning.
Want to monetize your blog or website?
28 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in Commerce
We’re all looking for a way to make more money, right? Well, if you’re looking for a way to increase your adsense revenue you may want to check out urbanread.com. Their site says you can increase your earnings from adsense by combining their news items with your adsense ads. Urbanread’s site has a very clear and concise description of their widget and they even provide screen shots for better clarity. It looks really easy to use, and signing up with them looks like a snap.
If you are currently using a newsfeed on your blog or site, you can now make extra money by providing information on current events. I am really impressed with how innovative urbanread is and it may just make daily newspapers obsolete.
Looking back at those who were wrong about the future
28 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
I can NOT believe that Amazon is still selling a book called: The Y2K Personal Survival Guide
I think it’s pretty interesting to read parts of reviews left before 2000:
Pollyannas Don’t need to read this book. Keep denying!, June 4, 1999
EXCELLENT! One of the best you could buy(overall) for Y2K !, May 23, 1999
And up near the price and delivery options, here is something that chilled me to the bone:
Only 1 left in stock–order soon (more on the way).
I’m trying to remember what, if anything I did to prepare for Y2K. I think I may have bought two or three bottles of water at the store and maybe a dozen extra cans of soup. But I prefer to keep extra jugs of water around anyway, so maybe I just bought the water because it was on sale, I can’t remember right now. I do remember that guy on the news that filled his entire house with case after case of toilet paper. Remember him? He said it was going to be the new currency after all the technology crashed. For several months after the big non-event, I pictured him at his local convenience store, trying to barter one roll of Charmin ultra-strong for a blue raspberry Slurpee.
Gunfights in the Old West
27 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
We’ve all seen the scenes in old western movies. A card player squints, looks around, then tosses a fistful of poker chips into the middle of the card table. A desperado, seated across from him, accuses him of hiding aces up his sleeve and they both slap leather with guns a blazing.
I had thought that it was a common occurrence to fight over poker and other card games. As a matter of fact, I always thought that the Gunfight at O.K. Corral was over a poker game, but apparently I’m wrong. One site even says it was due to politics and other ideological factors.
Sigh. Another legend bites the dust. How disappointing. Well, I can still cling to the legend about Wild Bill Hickok. The story goes that when he was murdered, he was playing five card draw and had a two-pair hand, of “aces and eights.” Since his death, this has become known as the dead man’s hand. I wonder what it was called before he was shot to death? 
She has HOW MANY CATS??!!??
27 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
I just saw a picture of a woman that keeps 91 cats in her two room apartment. This is boggling my mind. I mean, she must be scooping the litter out nonstop. And the food… how much would it cost to feed all those animals? I feel crowded with the three cats that live in my home.
I refuse to say that I adopted these cats. All of them, at separate and divergent times, came to my door, told a pathetic story, asked for a small handout and they all promised to be on their way afterwards. Sad to say, none of them are felines that keep their word and so now my home is a kitty paradise. I am not a cat lover. I’m not a cat hater either, let’s just say that these three animals know that I am a cat doormat and they play the situation for all its worth.
I would’ve finished this post five minutes ago, but one of the cats decided they wanted to see what the room looked like from the vantage of the top of my monitor. After they spent 38 seconds perched up there, they then decided the best way to jump down was to take a detour across my shoulders.
Doormat. Patsy. Chump. That’s me, and it only took 3 of the cats to take charge of my home.
It’s cooling off again
27 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in General
Just where is that global warming I’ve heard so much about? They just said it’s going to be in the 40s tonight! YIKES! I don’t know if I should be wearing shorts or sweats right now. I should remember this feeling when it’s July so I’ll be able to remind myself not to complain (too much) about the heat. But it’s hard not to complain when it’s extremely hot. I heard that some people use the AZ heat to cook pot roasts on their car dashboards during the day. That kind of puts a new meaning to the phrase, “Meals on Wheels”, eh?
Okay, I’ll stop whining about the cold, and I won’t complain when it gets too hot. I just wish we could find our “normal” weather again, but I have a feeling it’s gone for good, just like Tri-City Mall. 
Conservapedia: an alternative to wiki
27 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in General
I have to admit that I’ve gotten used to using wikipedia as an online quotable resource. But Conservapedia has amassed a list of bias and errors on Wikipedia. Some of the examples are:
The Wikipedia entry for John Peter Zenger links to an incorrect Wikipedia definition of “Philadelphia lawyer”, which Merriam-Webster defines as a lawyer knowledgeable in “even the most minute aspects of the law.” Wikipedia claims the term comes from the Zenger trial, but Merriam-Webster puts the first use of that term at over 50 years later.
Wikipedia’s entry about Indentured Servitude is massive, but it omits any reference to Bacon’s Rebellion, which was the turning point for the use of indentured servants in the New World.
Conservapedia also claims that Wikipedia has a liberal bias. Obviously, Conservapedia has a conservative slant, but I think there’s nothing wrong with that because it’s evident in the name of the site. But if a site leans one way or the other, I think they should state it loud and clear so we can all know what’s going on. If a site tries to hide their leanings, I tend to think they’re purposely trying to misstate their goals and intentions.
Although I am mostly conservative, I don’t have a problem with going to liberal web sites. I actually think that we can all learn more if we try to listen to those that we may not agree with. However, I don’t like sites that are less than upfront about their motives.
