Groupon

Check out www.groupon.com/dallas

Bit a Bliss is featured tomorrow!

Chasing Cool

"The next time someone says they want to be the "ipod" of their industry, ask them this: before he came up with the ipod, did Steve Jobs walk around telling people he wanted to be the Sony Walkman of his industry?"

www.chasingcoolbook.com

A must read!

I want to live in a Moon Hole

Or even better....a protected lunar lava tube :)


http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/01/01/moon.lava.hole/index.html

Guilty Pleasures

Lately, one of my guilty pleasures has been watching Jersey Shore. It's like real world only everyone is striving to be a "guido" or "guidette".

Last week the show became political. A New Jersey lawmaker is asking MTV to stop the show!

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=448791

The latest criticism comes from the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus, which says the show promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes and is "wildly offensive."

But when you watch the show, the kids on it seem very proud of these attributes that the legislator is calling derogatory ethnic stereotypes. So are they derogatory stereotypes or is it simply a generational difference? I don't know the answer, I"ve never even been to Jersey.

Here is what wikipedia has to say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_(slang)

An appeal from Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales

An appeal from Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales

Today, I am asking you to make a donation to support Wikipedia.

I started Wikipedia in 2001, and over the past eight years, I've been amazed and humbled to see hundreds of thousands of volunteers join with me to build the largest encyclopedia in human history.

Wikipedia isn't a commercial website. It's a community creation, entirely written and funded by people like you. More than 340 million people use Wikipedia every month - almost a third of the Internet-connected world. You are part of our community.

I believe in us. I believe that Wikipedia keeps getting better. That's the whole idea. One person writes something, somebody improves it a little, and it keeps getting better, over time. If you find it useful today, imagine how much we can achieve together in 5, 10, 20 years.

Wikipedia is about the power of people like us to do extraordinary things. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a time. People like us fund it. It's proof of our collective potential to change the world.

We need to protect the space where this important work happens. We need to protect Wikipedia. We want to keep it free of charge and free of advertising. We want to keep it open – you can use the information in Wikipedia any way you want. We want to keep it growing – spreading knowledge everywhere, and inviting participation from everyone.

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization I created in 2003 to operate, grow, nurture, and protect Wikipedia. For ten million US dollars a year and with a staff of fewer than 35 people, it runs the fifth most-read website in the entire world. I'm asking for your help so we can continue our work.

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s where we’re headed. And with your help, we will get there.

Thank you for using Wikipedia. You're part of this story: please make a donation today.

Jimmy Wales

Founder, Wikipedia

Not a Snuggie

Most of these pictures creep me out.....but they are funny :)

http://notasnuggie.com

RC and Moon Pie Festival

I completely forgot to blog about the RC and Moon Pie Festival in Bell Buckle Tennessee. Somehow, someone from Bell Buckle arrived on my blog.....and it reminded me.

Several months ago I was doing some benchmarking for the Chamber of Commerce. While searching I ran across the RC and Moon Pie Festival in Bell Buckle. See excerpt from press release.

Tucked away among the rolling hills, farmland and Walking Horse country of Tennessee lays the historic town of Bell Buckle where every year on the third Saturday in June, the Souths two most honored traditions are celebrated, RC Colas and Moon Pies.

This years performance will be The Ball is in Your Court, starring who else but the lovely little Moon Pie and the charming RC with guest appearances by GooGoo Cluster, Coke, as well as a host of fairies and soldiers

Click Here for More Information and Pictures

I thought it was adorable! Who wouldn't like a deep fried moon pie while watching the synchronized wading?

Intuit To Acquire Mint

Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service Mint, we’ve confirmed from a source close to the deal, for around $170 million. Silicon Alley Insider first reported a rumor on this. The deal should be announced in the next few days.
Update: CEO Aaron Patzer has just confirmed the deal on-stage at TechCrunch50, and written a guest post describing The Value of TechCrunch50 that contains more details.


Go to the following link to see my post on Mint almost a year ago. http://consumptionfunction.blogspot.com/2008/11/mint-manage-your-money.html

Vetting the Health Care Rhetoric

CQ is non-partisan. So no one is trying to beat up on one side or the other. If you go to the link below you will see one of the best True/False on the Health care legislation I have seen.

As politicians and interest groups try to shape the outcome of the health care overhaul, they've offered interpretations that are so wildly different that truth sometimes seems to be taking a vacation.

Some — like the contention that a House health care overhaul (HR 3200) would create "death panels" that decide end-of-life care — are false. Some are misleading, and others are true.

Full Story Here.

Wally Lamb: The Hour I First Believed

I wonder where Wally Lamb got the idea for his book cover?

Wally Lamb Book Cover-
http://www.amazon.com/Hour-First-Believed-Novel-P-S/dp/0060988436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250877801&sr=8-1

The Middle Place-
http://www.amazon.com/Middle-Place-Kelly-Corrigan/dp/B002DYJKFM/ref=amb_link_663292_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=10DJJMZCCZ0F17Y8FQ9S&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=486663191&pf_rd_i=45

I accidentally came upon The Middle Place while searching for a new book to read, and thought I feel like I just saw this......

Paper = Art=Cash

I learned how to make a mobile in Kindergarten. Why didn't I learn to continue making them and selling them for $100/each?


http://frazierandwing.com/2009_mobile_collection

Big City Slider

I am not sure I have ever seen an info-mercial with a product that I wanted this badly.

https://www.bigcityslider.com/flare/next

I see a slider on a Hawaiian roll in my future

Ice Cream Design

Make your own ice cream and packaging. I will be doing this soon and I'll keep you updated!

http://www.ecreamery.com/

What about this flavor?

base : Gelato
flavor1 : Almond
flavor2 : Chocolate Merlot
mix1 : Raspberry Ribbon

Babies understand dog-speak, new study finds

Soo.... Can your puppy potty train your baby and vice-versa?????

Babies understand dog-speak, new study finds
Research from Brigham Young University (BYU) gives new meaning to the expression "babes in the woods." It turns out, babies may not be as naive as we once thought especially where their canine counterparts are concerned.

A new study shows that babies can "speak dog" (or at least comprehend it), even with little or no previous exposure to dogs. Infants just six months old matched the sounds of an angry bark and a friendly yap to photos of dogs displaying threatening or welcoming body language, respectively.

While paring babies and dogs might seem like a zany idea, according to BYU, experiments of this kind help us understand how babies learn. Long before they master speech, babies astutely recognize and respond to external stimuli.

These findings come on the heels of a study from the same Brigham Young University lab showing that infants can also detect mood swings in Beethoven's music.
"Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world," said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom, lead author of the study. "We chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark," Flom said.

In the experiment, the babies were shown two different pictures of the same dog, one in an aggressive posture and the other in a friendly stance. Then the researchers played — in random order — sound clips of a friendly and an aggressive dog bark.

While the recordings played, the six-month-old babies spent most of their time staring at the appropriate picture. Older babies usually made the connection instantly with their very first glance.

Study co-authors Dan Hyde and Heather Whipple Stephenson conducted the experiments as undergrads and don't recall any babies getting upset. "Infants are pretty cooperative subjects," Stephenson said.Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?entry_id=43951#ixzz0M8fzm4QJ

The Beginning of the End?

When is a Starbucks not a Starbucks? When it's a 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.
Full Story Here

And what is even worse.....they are being accused of stealing most of their decorating ideas from the bar next door.
If imitation is the kindest form of flattery, the restaurant and bar known as Smith is feeling ... well ... flat-out worshiped.
Located next to the Starbucks store that will now be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in Capitol Hill, Smith owner Linda Derschang said Thursday that everything from the paint color to the light fixtures inside the coffee shop have been replicated to match her rustic, mountaineer-like bar.
Full Story Here

Starbucks, I love you. Please stop this nonsense and just be a coffee shop. If you get a dollar menu or I go into one of your stores and find drunk people, I will leave you forever.

They are watching me.......

After looking at Alice.com yesterday and signing up for an account.....I magically get an email about a program through Amazon.com "Subscribe and Save"

Same deal but looks like better savings on the products and still free shipping. Already ordered a monthly delivery of coffee for half the grocery store price.

Anyway...I was looking at rugs on Overstock.com a couple of days ago and then I am on a totally different site a few days later and a pop up add comes up for an Overstock.com add with the exact rugs I was looking at!

I know there is a simple explanation for all this but it freaks me out.

Alice?

I don't know if Alice can help me or not but I'm gonna try it out. It is a site where you shop virtual shelves for household items like toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent etc.. and they deliver to your home FREE.

At first glance prices seem reasonable, close to the store prices. And if required I might sacrifice $1 for the convenience of never running out of toilet paper. You can set up a list of items and tell it to deliver to your house every 2 weeks, or every 5 weeks, whatever works for you.

I'm going to try it. Right now we are almost out of body wash and I keep forgetting it at the store. I'll give it a couple of months and report back :)

http://alice.com/

Buy some Amazon-AMZN

Amazon To Target $5.5 Billion Textbook Market With New Kindle?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071702597.html


Texas House approves bill on funds for school electronic text books.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-textbooks_03tex.ART.State.Edition1.4afd165.html

Textbooks of the future? If that turns out to be the case Amazon is set to grab onto that market share.

It will probably take a while for this to become integrated into schools nationwide, we'll see how it does in Texas.

However, regardless of the kindle/textbook outcome Amazon is a great long term investment. Even in the rough economy, Amazon has still produced a good looking 1st quarter statement, much better than most companies in their sector.

I use Sharebuilder http://www.sharebuilder.com/

Grammar

I posted a while ago that I was teaching English as a volunteer through a program at the library. What this has taught me is that I don't know grammar rules!!! At least not well enought to just spit them out when asked.

Try to explain to someone who has no context at all of what you are talking about the difference between -this-that-these-those or which-what-whose.

This girl is eager to learn so I have to get it right!!

I have found alot of sites that have helped right now this one is my favorite

http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/TOC.CFM

Charlie Wilson D-Texas

Last Friday I had the pleasure of meeting Charlie Wilson. I knew I was going to be meeting him so the weekend before I watched "Charlie Wilson's War". I had no idea until watching the movie, the history this man had made and that I was living in the future that it brought.

Charlie Then

Charlie's war was the catalyst that brought down the Soviet Empire in the 80's. It was a relatively small war between Afghanistan and the Soviets, but such an important one.

"That was the experience that will always be seared in my memory, was going through those hospitals and seeing, especially those children with their hands blown off from the mines that the Soviets were dropping from their helicopters. That was perhaps the deciding thing... and it made a huge difference for the next 10 or 12 years of my life because I left those hospitals determined, as long as I had a breath in my body and was a member in Congress, that I was going to do what I could to make the Soviets pay for what they were doing!"

Charlie Wilson led the largest ever covert CIA operation in US history. Appropriating enough money and weapons to the Afghans that they were able to successfully defeat a super power.



Charlie Now



What happened after the war was won is something Charlie regrets even today. We just left. We left a broken country that had no leadership but many weapons of war. The appropriating committee was no longer willing to give money to Afghanistan once the war was over.

In his own words "These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we f'd up the endgame."

Charlie Wilson has a great respect for the Afghans and called them the bravest, fiercest fighters he had ever seen. He also said that what we need to remember is that 2/3 of the Afghans are with us. 2/3's of the Afghans also want Al-Qaeda out of their country. Although it is terrorist groups from this country that were responsible for 9/11 there is some thought to be given to the fact that the groups developed as a result of leaving a country broken and defenseless after they fought a war that ended decades of communist rule from the Soviet empire.

He believes that we should stay in Afghanistan and rid the country of the terrorists that now hide there.

People like Charlie Wilson are so intriguing to me. They are reckless, the kind of reckless that can produce amazing things.