Living Online

I had recently found the blog called LifeHacker , where you can find tips about modern life like getting more out of your iPod with " ShrinkMyTunes (that was a link to the original Wired.com article). The software is available for $39.99. Considering I've only filled about 1 gig on my out-dated iPod, I don't need to take advantage of that tip. I thought of that blog when I was surfing Hasbro's Monopoly site this evening (trying to get an electronic version to work on the new Windows Vista on the main computer). I found some Monopoly Game Tools that are absolutely necessary for the modern human being. For example.... When I was about nine I cleaned up the bedroom and somehow managed to lose almost all of my Monopoly money. It was a tragedy of monumental proportions. No one wanted to come and play Monopoly at my house anymore. And when I was nine, about the only thing to do was play Monopoly because the Internet was a way-far-off reality. So I really needed a how-to

When I was looking for the SpongeBob Monopoly game, I found this contest for college students.... Amazon.com's Tuition & Textbooks Sweepstakes Deadline: October 6, 2007 Prizes: • One Grand prize: One year of free tuition, up to $25,000 • 50 Second-place prizes: A $1,000 Amazon.com Gift Certificate for the purchase of textbooks sold by Amazon.com • 1,000 Third-place prizes: An Amazon.com Gift Certificate for the purchase of one textbook sold by Amazon.com, up to a maximum value of $150

This is what I will not be doing in a few hours. I have to go to work in the morning. It is that time of year again for The Great Reno Balloon Race . This morning (well, Friday) there was a seven-car pile up on the Interstate because people here like to watch them fly about. My 17-Second YouTube Clip (not terribly exciting*) Someone Else's Time Lapse * I'm seriously considering purchasing QuickTime Pro for Windows because the Apple Store says that I can save the clips from my digital camera to .mpeg format. That way, I could actually edit the videos I take with my Kodak EasyShare with Windows Movie Maker. Anybody out there with experience, I'd appreciate the insight.

I found a cool Web site called UNEETEE - one day, one artist, one cool shirt. Artist can get submit their designs and might get picked for voting, or for the One Day Tee option. The One Day Tee option is on sale for 24 hours on the Web site front page, and the T-shirts are all $10. Also, a limited # of designs are features on the Web site for a longer period. Those T-shirts are more expensive. I thought this poor little kitty design with the clever piranhas was a cute example. And look, for those artists and digital artists that are looking to make money on the Internet this Web site is paying artists hundreds of dollars per design.

Thirteen 107-Year-Old "Facts" At work today my coworker brought a copy of Why Your Life Sucks by Alan Cohen. I flipped through the pages at lunch time and decided it would be an interesting writing resource. We writers, of course, don't want to create characters that suck. But, we do however want to show flaws. This book is written under ten basic topics (chapters). Each topic is broken down each into examples, a lot of which could be used as a specific flaw when outlining characters.. Reason 1: You give your power away. Reason 2: You expect life to suck. Reason 3: You get fooled by appearances. Reason 4: You waste your energy on things that suck. Reason 5: You keep trying to prove yourself. Reason 6: You say "yes" when you mean "no". Reason 7: You think you have to do it all yourself. Reason 8: You try to fix other people. Reason 9: You starve your soul. Reason 10: You forgot to enjoy the ride. My Thursday Thirteen was found in the chapter about how

Along these lines, paleo-future.blogspot.com features some postcards that depicted what people at the dawn of the 20th Century considered the 21st Century would bring. There are many posts on this blog that would prove an interesting jumping point for research that provide a historical look at the future -- as they say, the future that never was . This post Thursday Thirteen post of mine today is related to Thirteen 107-Year-Old "Facts". clipped from paleo-future.blogspot.com A Quick Stroll on the Water The Moving Pavement House-Moving by Train Televised Outside Broadcasting Personal Flying Machines Weather Control Machine Combined Ship and Railway Locomotive Undersea Tourist Boats Roofed Cities Personal Airships Summer Holidays at the North Pole Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine

A YouTube commentary on the toy recalls for lead paint...

Okay, so I found another video on YouTube (via Clinical Cases and Images - Blog ) that is meant to be humorous and educational , but manages to insult the " big belly people ." This video is meant to be a serious public service announcement by the Portuguese Cardiology Foundation as it talks about the danger of intrabadominal fat. But, somehow spoofing Sir David Attenborough doesn't quite work for me. Besides, the content isn't an accurate portrayal of what it means to be a big belly person. I'm not at my fittest but I certainly don't sit around and scratch on rocks when I'm at the beach. When I was a bit younger and lived in snow country I went X-C skiing every day. One day I invited one of the "skinny belly people" that didn't exercise every day and she was quite amazed that she was sweating like a stuck pig and couldn't breath after five minutes. As I recall, she wanted to check my pulse to make sure I was still alive. How could it pos

Last week I heard Brad Paisley's Online for the first time. Thanks to Lynda at String Alongs I found the video on YouTube . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcVnhNjWV0 This video is posted by the official Brad Paisly YouTube profile and they don't want people to embed. What is up with that? The video and song are funny, but yet.... Sadly, this video may have been meant to be a humorous. Still it is irritating that our culture as a whole always uses fat people as a warning against on-line dating. Some people probably worry more about talking to a fatty posing as a hottie than running across predators. One of the creepiest women I've met in a long, long time is one of the "pretty people". She's pretty and thin and a small handful of people at work follow her like a flock. But, she's a real creep. The sheep notice that too. Though, even when she kicks the sheep, give it a week and they're back to following her around again. She's really not a nice pers

I want. I want. I want. Unfortunately Pleo Dinosaur is $349 at Amazon.com (this item will be released on November 1, 2007 and is only available for pre-order). I can think of other uses for $349. But, it sure is a cute little baby dinosaur robot. Maybe if I win the California Lottery. There is a lot of information on that Amazon.com page about Pleo being an interactive robot pet. Apparently once you own Pleo, you can Users can find training tips and download enhancements to Pleo from http://www.pleoworld.com/ . This past week I've started watching the entire six Star Wars movies. I think that some of the sounds Pleo makes are Wookie. You can judge that yourself by going to PleoWorld . It is open right now in another tab and the baby dinosaur sounds are music to my ears. Pleo might not be available until November, but you'll still find tons of YouTube videos already.

http://hubblesite.org/copyright/ - Hubble Copyright Information http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ - Great Images in NASA has over 1000 high res images.

wikiHow http://www.wikihow.com/ A Web site where people can edit or create How-to wikis. By the way, I have signed up for a wiki before, and discovered it isn't really that hard to learn how to make wiki pages. * * * Honey, why are there fish in the TV? Isn't that obvious? I converted the old TV into a fish tank today. Even though the primary purpose of theis wiki Web site isn't for promotion, the TV fish tank page has been read 143,731 times as of today and that probably hasn't hurt traffic to The Age of Aquariams .