MyBlogLog Sunday week 21
The 10 lucky bloggers on this first auspicious landmark day, get to have a go on an accordion! Check it out, brothers and sisters and tap those fingers all over the headings.
And don't forget, regardless of whether you are in the screenshot or not, today is the day to leave a comment with a link to your best post of the week. Visitors will read the comments, and I will stumble the links too.
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Good Friday
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
It is a slow day in America, a nation gripped by holidays and sub-prime fever. To calm my nerves, I feverishly wrote a post on how I killed the golden goose called Swicki. That felt better, until I discovered that my nifty celebratory MyBlogLog Sunday 21 post doesn't show in the RSS feed. At least, not in mine. Hummmmm Sorry to any of my triple digit subscribers who are disappointed that I didn't deliver on Sunday?
Flipping around the internet, I found some cheery stuff on Tina Turner and Naomi Campbell. I have no shame sometimes.
Elsewhere, I stumbled upon an engineer who got his own back on Verizon. It reminds me of a guy who I think wrote, I Promise To Pay The Bearer Two hundred Pounds - on a salmon. He delivered it by hand in the middle of summer. It may have stunk to high heaven, but somehow it was legal tender.
And I know a bloke who had a run-in with his local council and paid his community tax in 2 pence pieces, as a matter of principle. The cashier was going mad as he counted out hundreds and hundreds of coins. She wanted to eject him, but he had the newspapers with him, so he was allowed to pay.
And now I recall when I was a kid, I got on a bus and handed over a pile of coins to the driver. He said I was trying to be funny, but he wasn't smiling. I thought it was a strange thing to say, because I wasn't trying to be funny. He then said he could refuse to accept my money, if he wanted. Charming. I definitely lost all trace of a grin by this stage, and mumbled that I had no idea there were limits to how many coins you could use. I was a poor kid on my way to school, not a treasury expert or a smart ass - unlike the bastard public servant driver!
Have a good weekend, I am tidying up The Pisstakers. Great.
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Today's another day
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
After a ridiculously early start today, I have the dubious pleasure / embarrassment of announcing that I just cleared out about 2000 lines of superfluous code from the website! And on the constructive side, today I published The Tour de Gonads, a cycle race that is not for the squeamish out there; Keith Richard, gets the celebrity hair treatment, and I take a skewed look at how Microsoft will always win, however well Apple do in the Mac v Dell/HP and Leopard v Vista battles.
Theme tweaking never ends
When I first took control of the theme a few months ago, I knew enough about javascript to be dangerous. Let's just say, I didn't choose the most economical route for some of my tweaks.
Yesterday I experimented with a serious post on Blogaboutyourblog. It was a trip down memory lane and very enjoyable too. A couple of cogs are turning, but not so fast that I have done anything about the suggestion, yet.
And after watching a report on America, deemed too fat to fight by a senator, I am reminded of a killer observation on Lord Likely's site. America, the only nation whose inhabitants weigh more than the land they occupy. Ouch.
Moving on, I have some more blog code thinning to do. Cheers.
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Deezer music geezer
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Music is always dangerous territory, it is so subjective. Trying to convince people that your taste in music is amazing, is one sure fire way to attract a smack in the ego. Playing your fave tunes full blast, uninvited, convincing everyone that they are experiencing true nirvana, is also guaranteed to leave a room full of people looking at you, and at each other, in silent embarrassment. Having said that, I really think you need to listen to, and savor the following three tracks!!
Happy when it rains
The Jesus and Mary Chain once claimed to be the best band in the world. Hey, what? I tell you, that sort of confidence is awesome and shouldn't be dismissed lightly.Working Man
So, Geddy Lee squeals like a girl (Mrs Ed's words, not mine, Lord Geddy) but Working Man is Rush's ultimate air guitar track. They don't make 'em like this any more. In fact, I don't think they made 'em like that before, either.Baila Morena
And finally, for all you Hispano-Italian-Anglophiles out there, when the world is falling apart, crank up Zucchero and dance, baby, dance. Baila Morena is a bit of an anthem in Spain, and is a sure-fire way to get everyone out on the dance floor. Try it at home, at 5am tomorrow morning, and get a taste of Spanish party time.The Deezer widget is very easy and free, and usually appears as expected. (YMMV) What's not to like - apart from my taste in music.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
MyBlogLog Sunday 21
Filed in: MBL sunday
Thanks for calling by to get the scoop on another 10 happening blogs. I appreciate the emails and links and shout outs from participants and hope you see positive results from all this too..
From my point of view, it seems that by going to the effort of putting on this feature, I confound the concensus who say that weekends are a dead time for content blogs. (Apparently, regular visitors stay away when they aren't at work surfing from employers' PCs.)
To be honest, there is not much of a blip to report here, so do I have to conclude that most of my regular visitors are very rich because they don't go to work and have a PC at home - or is it the opposite and they all work 7 days a week? Before I get on the wrong side of all you hard-working souls and blog traffic theorists, I will leave it there.
Just to remind today's featured bloggers that if you leave a link in the comments to your best post of the week before 6pm Eastern time, I will also stumble the post. (One more touch to make MyBloglog Sundays a super special link love extravaganza that you can't fail to miss.)
Permalink is permanent
As usual, all mini reviews from today will stay on the homepage (PR5) all week and are instantly added to the archives, so you can get a permanent back link to your mini review when it appears later. (This may be the case today, it may not, as I am having a right fricking game publishing anything at the moment. Between Comcast, wireless routers and servers, I am truly blessed with a slick way to shunt material from my PC to the internet - not.)
MyBlogLog Sunday info links
All hot mini reviews on MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Be back later.
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Lee Evans in Glasgow
There is something hilarious about Something About Mary bit-part comedian Lee Evans. He has that bewildered look and sense of timing that will make you laugh, or at the very least get your feet tapping, or make you hit the mute button if you are watching this at work.
There is a neat collection of videos in the Pisstakers VodPod
There is a neat collection of videos in the Pisstakers VodPod
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Desperate home sellers, desperate tactics
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
In these volatile times of housing market woes, stock plunges and knee jerk feeding frenzies, some home owners are adopting desperate measures to sell their properties.
Yeast affection?
I understand how baking cakes and bread would lure buyers into a feeling of homeliness when they walk in the door, but surely the savvy buyers would just look around at over-priced square rooms with no character and wake up smelling the roses. "I can't bake bread to save my life, it will never smell homely if I move in, next property, please."
East affliction?
Feng Shui was all the rage once upon a con time in the orient, but enlightened specialists are now flogging this unsubstantiated dead horse in the west. Dressed in black and white and looking deadly serious, the gurus end up placing your sofa north, and your coffee table facing west. On receiving a check, they then leave expectant sellers to stand and wait for offers that come pouring in, usually 25% south of the asking price.
Last rites
Over the centuries, desperation and fear have become synonymous with catholicism, and none so fearful and desperate are believers who think a sale is theirs after burying St Joseph on his head in the garden! Are these the same people who go to Lourdes in wheelchairs, enter the church to partake of holy water - and trundle out the other side, still in their wheelchairs? To cut out the faith element, I would tend to be more visual. Cut the cat's head off and stick it on a stake in the garden. "Buy our house or you're next."
Is my home-selling deconstruction too harsh?
There is nothing wrong with dressing your home to look its best, and believe what you want to believe, but the bottom line is, housing is a commercial irreligious business. Glorified prayers have no place in the process, I think. If god did work in mysterious and positive ways in housing, surely he would start bombarding the Church of England with visions to make their huge inventory of empty property available to thousands of homeless. Or the Vatican would see the light and sell off a few jewels and offer subsidised housing to those in need.
By all means bake pray and bury to your heart's content, but the best tactic for most home owners is to sit tight till prices rise again, slap a coat of paint on the walls, give each room its proper identity, and then praise all that is holy when you get a sale at a fair price.
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Dentists and Sicko
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
After a trip to the dentist and a trip to the movies to see "Sicko", I have to say I am feeling a little sorry for myself. My teeth hurt, my wallet aches and my heart bleeds for the American population living a total health care nightmare and scam.
In the scheme of things, $1200 isn't a lot for my dental treatment. Defrayed at $10 per month over 10 years, the work will ensure my teeth stay in my head for a lot longer than the repayments. I am happy, I guess, and Mrs Ed is thrilled, because now she won't be gummed to death by me any time soon when I lust after her in a fit of passion.
I am puzzled by the dentist and wonder if it really is a sincere smile when I turn up at the office. Having paid him over $1200, I thought I must be a special customer now? But he keeps on charging me $300 for every additional hour of his time spent shaking my hand, asking me how England is, and crouching over my gaping mouth. Does the priviliged treatment with a couple of freebies kick in, once I have spent $10k? If so, I will never enjoy that elitist moment.My teeth aren't worth that much!
Doubly screwed without insurance
This is where my trip to Sicko made sense of the immoral scenario I was faced with at the dentist. I pay $1200 without cover, but if I'd had cover, the dentist would receive maybe $500 for the work, because that is the ceiling the insurance companies have placed on the procedure. I subsidise the privileged. Cool, innit.
But what do you do? Go without dental treatment? Yeah right! If there is one ache even numb nuts Ed can't abide, it is tooth-related agony. Bottom line, you have to go see a dental guy, and live by the rules.
Break the cycle?
Is there an alternative to rolling over to exorbitant bills or slavery to a job offering free dental health care? Actually, there is an alternative in America. Ed will tie a string round your tooth and yank like hell when you least expect it. Also you could wait in line for some up-and-coming dental student to find a spot in their training schedule to practice on you. Oh the irony of being a guinea pig to yet another up-and-coming health "care" professional investing a fortune so they can perpetuate the gold mine that is the private health care system.
Maybe you think the current rules are acceptable and fair. You know, why should you pay for some other person's health care?
Is it sicko everywhere?
A set of teeth in America belong to a bottomless gougable wallet, not to a fellow human being in need. It doesn't seem to be like that anywhere else. Time and again, Michael Moore's bias came down on the side of health care professionals around the world, where, for some baffling reason, doctors and dentists, by and large put their patients' well-being ahead of accountants' demands. American ex-pats in socialist France were embarrassed to have such freely available health care, while family back home lived the American dream. In the UK, doctors even get a bonus for stopping people smoking, losing weight... And they don't rely on the bonuses to make ends meet. They earn good money, great money in fact under socialised medicine, just not as much money as US doctors.
In the US, socialised medicine has been demonised, but it isn't all glamor for dentists under the current private system! Poor saps have to maintain $2m dollar homes and service 5 cars. All that paperwork and admin, what a bind. And I expect most dentists feel a bit of a dick wearing latex gloves and a goofy green suit while people at normal jobs get to dress up a bit. And all that tax to pay.
I don't deny dentists are valued members of society, but when you analyse the importance of the service being administered to fellow men in need, the practices going on in dentistry across America is legalised gouging. Not much to shout about in a civilised society.
And after Sicko, one of Moore's least biased shows, US health care is not a good reflection of a society that has it right in so many ways. Regardless of what fit young professionals like to believe, when you haven't got your health, or your teeth, you haven't got much. And if you live in a system where you can't afford to access the skills of people who can keep you healthy, (or your HMO blocks you from treatment even when you have paid for insurance) then whatever you have accumulated in material terms is completely worthless. Pretty much only America makes you pay through the nose for your health, one way or another, potentially for your whole miserable life.
What do you think?
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Crazy TV interviews
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Did you see the infamous They Know Nothing rant by stock guru, Jim Cramer? It was the loudest answer ever given to a simple question.
Although it was played throughout Wall Street, mainly to cheers, the video per se did not prompt the Fed to change course. They did it all on their own.The bottom line is, the Fed aren't doing much to bail out the 7 million sub-prime borrowers soon to be squatting before being thrown out out on the street. But relax, the money institutions have been given a breathing space, and at least if you have no home, rest assured, the economy isn't going bankrupt and your place of work will be open for the forseeable future.
Another famous TV interview was Jeremy Paxman's grilling of weasly Michael Howard. Paxman is the pioneer of tough questioning on BBC TV at least, and he asked the same question, Did you threaten to overrule him? I don't know how many times. Each time the politician gave a different answer. It was absorbing viewing, and total proof that you can't trust a politician as far as you can spit them.
If you care to ask Ed a question, feel free. I won't shout and scream, but I may not give you a serious answer. At least you know where you stand!
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MyBlogLog Sunday 20
Filed in: MBL sunday
Good to see so many new faces. Must be the early risers sneaking to their computers before the kids get up and monopolise them for games and zwinky toolbar construction.
Just to remind today's featured bloggers that if you leave a link in the comments to your best post of the week before 6pm Eastern time, I will also stumble the post. (One more touch to make MyBloglog Sundays a super special link love extravaganza that you can't fail to miss.)
Permalink is permanent
As usual, all mini reviews from today will stay on the homepage (PR5) all week and are instantly added to the archives, so you can get a permanent back link to your mini review when it appears later.
MyBlogLog Sunday info links
All hot mini reviews on MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Be back later.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Funny junk notice
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
You might want to waste a few hours / seconds this week checking out some funny junk that has been lying dormant elsewhere on the site. Loads of deep questions to ponder over your corn flakes; links to satire news from all over the internet; solitaire unveiled in its myriad mind-numbing forms, and a couple of contests.
Never let it be said there is nothing new to see hear from one day to the next!
Never let it be said there is nothing new to see hear from one day to the next!
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MyBlogLog Sunday is 21 tomorrow
Filed in: MBL sunday
MyBlogLog Sunday 21 will be up and running tomorrow. No candles or presents, but it will be overflowing with mini reviews of 10 blogs that you may or may not have heard of before. To take part, there is no catch, no hard "rules".
Around 11 am on Sunday I will take a screenshot of the MyBlogLog widget in my sidebar. If you are one of the 10 faces and you leave a comment linking to the best post you wrote last week, I will do a mini review of your site.
Apart from last week, where I screwed up big time, the featured blogs get to stay on the homepage (PR5) all week and live in the archives forever! And no strings. It is free to become a MyBlogLog member. and you aren't even obliged to join The Pisstakers scintillating community if you don't want to. How easy and useful is that?!!!
I said no strings attached, but in the spirit of an internet built on links between cool sites, it would be great if you mentioned the Pisstakers somewhere on your blog, in a post or install a widget for your sidebar.
Don't forget to call by tomorrow, and all you blogmasters looking for a bit of exposure, feel free to blitz me with comments with a link to the best post you wrote this week!
hasta tomorrow, babies!
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MyBlogLog Sunday 20 coming up.
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Fancy a mini review as part of MyBlogLog Sunday 20? The mini reviews are quite fun and I aim to bring out the best in 10 blogs you may or may not have heard of. The "rules" are simple.
Around 11 am on Sunday I will take a screenshot of the MyBlogLog widget in my sidebar. If you are one of the 10 faces and you have left a comment linking to the best post you wrote last week, I will do a mini review of your site.
The featured blogs get to stay on the homepage (PR5) all week and live in the archives forever! And no strings. It is free to become a MyBlogLog member. and you aren't even obliged to join The Pisstakers scintillating community if you don't want to. How easy and useful is that?!!!
I said no strings attached, but in the spirit of an internet built on links between cool sites, it would be great if you mentioned the Pisstakers somewhere on your blog, in a post or try a widget for your sidebar.
Don't forget to call by tomorrow, and all you blogmasters looking for a bit of exposure, feel free to blitz me with comments with a link to the best post you wrote this week!
ciao babies!
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
The fall and rise of America
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
It has been a weird couple of days. At a time when nervous folks have been queuing up at banks to withdraw their money ahead of a perceived market crash, the people running those banks have been queuing up at the Fed. Sweating bankers in suits talked their heads off convincing the central bank to do something to save their shirt. True to form, Bernankepanky pulled a master stroke and appeased both the account holders and the banks - and averted a financial meltdown. Hooray.
Yesterday, Hurricane Erin popped and spluttered in the gulf, but Dean is still steaming over the ocean at a great rate of knots. (Can someone explain how a weak E hit land ahead of a strong D?) Anyway, next week, as the financiers in New York pat themselves on the back chuffing down caviar wrapped in sugar-coated greenbacks, picture the irony when Dean takes the roof off all their banks in Houston.
On the plus side, the hurricane will at least create plenty of work for local construction workers. This could be a bitter sweet experience for many of the guys who have been sold mortgages they couldn't really afford. To add insult to injury, they are working under a cloud because their livelihood is on the line due to the bankers' decision to no longer give away cheap mortgages to new house buyers.
It's a complex funny world in which we live.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Contests widget
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
If you have a blog and want a snazzy widget that offers your readers fresh links to the latest contests on-line, please consider adding the new Contests widget to your sidebar.
Feel free to copy the code and paste it into your own sidebar.
If you are running a contest, consider adding your details to the widget. The contests appear one at a time with each page refresh. A new mug contest was added.
If your blog specialises in contests, consider adding the widget to your side bar. It is installed on the win a wii blog.
The contests widget was reviewed by WidgetLabs and Contest Blogger and DisregardMe.
It is a free service and the widget is maintained and served by The Pisstakers, so it is a win-win opportunity with minimal effort. You might even win something.
Contest Install the widget, or write a review, (short sweet or critical) and get a PR5 backlink. Send Ed the links
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Recent posts 4
Filed in: Recaps
Photo overload tackles the problem of coping with the fuzzy photo mountain clogging up millions of computers worldwide.
Bonds steroids celebrates the fantastic achievement of baseball star Barry Bonds whose head has literally grown one size since "Training hard" to be the best baseball batter of all time.
Bear attacks highlights some grizzly episodes where grizzlies and polar bears have crossed paths with Man, usually with a gruesome outcome.
No stairs introduces the unsuspecting public to the high-flying world of architect cock-ups.
Naturist horseriding is not for the faint-hearted. Don't feel you have to look at the picture.
Work injuries How Ed copes with worn out body parts.
Cooking hell is a must read for anyone who cooks. That means about 14 Americans will read this article.
Webpage optimizer goes all Google eyed showing you how to test your design for a landing page.
1959 top! is about an obscure financial measure of pending doom and gloom in the stock market. Could it have saved you from recent plunges?
RSS magic points you in the direction of everything you need to know about Really Simple Syndication.
Naked keyword brings you the Tic tap and Amazon search results for the word Naked.
Impossible Quiz will have you tearing your boils out.
Infinity razors have the perfect product - almost. A must read for the tight wad shavers out there.
Time news skims through stories from the hallowed Time magazine.
Adsense stops scrolling Yes, how annoying is it that I can't scroll straight through an Adsense ad. Is it just me?
Unreal tech A virtual trip through virtualisation, the unveiling of the real Steve Jobs blog impersonator, and Amazon.
Videos and Vodpod is a section of The Pisstakers that is slowly drawing more interest. The embedded videos look quite snazzy compared to Youtube's utilitarian page layout.
Blog Interviewer interviewed Ed.
Archives is the one-stop drop into past Pisstakers posts.
Bonds steroids celebrates the fantastic achievement of baseball star Barry Bonds whose head has literally grown one size since "Training hard" to be the best baseball batter of all time.
Bear attacks highlights some grizzly episodes where grizzlies and polar bears have crossed paths with Man, usually with a gruesome outcome.
No stairs introduces the unsuspecting public to the high-flying world of architect cock-ups.
Naturist horseriding is not for the faint-hearted. Don't feel you have to look at the picture.
Work injuries How Ed copes with worn out body parts.
Cooking hell is a must read for anyone who cooks. That means about 14 Americans will read this article.
Webpage optimizer goes all Google eyed showing you how to test your design for a landing page.
1959 top! is about an obscure financial measure of pending doom and gloom in the stock market. Could it have saved you from recent plunges?
RSS magic points you in the direction of everything you need to know about Really Simple Syndication.
Naked keyword brings you the Tic tap and Amazon search results for the word Naked.
Impossible Quiz will have you tearing your boils out.
Infinity razors have the perfect product - almost. A must read for the tight wad shavers out there.
Time news skims through stories from the hallowed Time magazine.
Adsense stops scrolling Yes, how annoying is it that I can't scroll straight through an Adsense ad. Is it just me?
Unreal tech A virtual trip through virtualisation, the unveiling of the real Steve Jobs blog impersonator, and Amazon.
Videos and Vodpod is a section of The Pisstakers that is slowly drawing more interest. The embedded videos look quite snazzy compared to Youtube's utilitarian page layout.
Blog Interviewer interviewed Ed.
Archives is the one-stop drop into past Pisstakers posts.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Pisstakers Archives
Filed in: Recaps
A blogger's work is never done and over the last 24 hours I have introduced a Celebrity section (work in progress), added BlogCatalog discussions, sorted out the sidebars and experimented with the titles. If the site disappears off the radar, you know why!
I think the theme and sidebars look OK, but on the downside there is a small change in how you access the archives. Articles from way back when are now accessible from the left sidebar in the "Categories" section, or from here!! Thank you for your patience.
Blogcatalog is a "clone" of MyBlogLog, but it has a great Discussions feature which gives it an edge in the competitive world of networking for bloggers. So I am trialling a dirty great widget here in this post, and if it loads quickly, I will move it to a permanent and prominent spot in the sidebar
And please, don't be too cynical about celebrities. They all have something valuable to offer society and I intend to find that little something and highlight it for your delight and delectation. The posts will be happy humorous ones, and only when there is nothing inspirational to relate, will I resort to bitchy posts about twitchy eyes, alcoholism and knickerless debauchery.
Archives
I think the theme and sidebars look OK, but on the downside there is a small change in how you access the archives. Articles from way back when are now accessible from the left sidebar in the "Categories" section, or from here!! Thank you for your patience.
Blogcatalog
Blogcatalog is a "clone" of MyBlogLog, but it has a great Discussions feature which gives it an edge in the competitive world of networking for bloggers. So I am trialling a dirty great widget here in this post, and if it loads quickly, I will move it to a permanent and prominent spot in the sidebar
Celebrity news bashing
And please, don't be too cynical about celebrities. They all have something valuable to offer society and I intend to find that little something and highlight it for your delight and delectation. The posts will be happy humorous ones, and only when there is nothing inspirational to relate, will I resort to bitchy posts about twitchy eyes, alcoholism and knickerless debauchery.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Greed is good?
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Gordon Gecko may have carved the Greed is Good mantra on the souls of millions of movie-goers, but sadly, a few entrepreneurs carved the Hollywood slogan on their heart and live out the fantasy.
One such greedy git was the Baptist Church fund raiser and investor. He was a credible man with a proven track record for financial responsibility and he wore his love of god on his expensive sleeve. His financial project was supposed to be a short cut to the Promised land for fellow church members. What wasn't to like about handing over life-savings to god's respected banker?
Unfortunately for the folks down south, the Baptist financial planner was a star in the greed stakes. The end result of his religious investments in duff real estate was a $300m difference between assets and debts, for the worst. The congregation were ruined, when the police caught up with him, he was ruined, faith in the church was ruined. Incompetence didn't come into the equation, by the way. When the gory details came out, he had trespassed so far on the wrong side of the law, he will be the guy you see at Beelzebub and Gecko's right hand.
Greed is good?
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Institute Benjamenta or Films that disappointed
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Mrs Ed was telling me about the day she was banned from ever picking films for kids to watch. She had this idea in her head that Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call human Life, would be suitable for young teens. Apart from the Institute part of the title, I would have thought the opposite, as somehow, the name didn't conjure images of transformers, fluffy bunnies or superheroes. But that could just be me.
When pressed further about her choice, she said the director had a reputation for cool cinematography and, to her mind that meant an Amelie-style movie. OK, granted, if you get past the girlie bits, the adventures of Ms Poulain could be a good movie for boys too, but ordinarily, an independent foreign movie would hardly be the first example that came to mind for an American teen flick party fest.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was, the poor kids dutifully sat through a series of out-of-focus black and white cameo scenes loosely hanging by a broken thread of a story line set in a school for butlers. The actors who, as critic Carl Tait intimated, should just shut up, repeated their lines ad nauseam. Sounds gripping doesn't it!
In an effort to find out what possessed her to pick this Benjamenta pic, I did a little digging of my own. After a quick Google, I realised that she was possibly misled by a Village Voice critique, calling it "the strangest, prettiest, most mesmerizing debut since Eraserhead". Poor Mrs Ed had never heard of Eraserhead, and probably got confused by the Eraser part of the title, thinking it was a reference to the contents of a schoolkid's pencil case, rather than an intrinsic part of a cult movie where craniums explode left and right amidst B-rate drama.
But the probing insightful critiques really took a turn for the best on Amazon. The best observation likened the film to the scent of a zoo closed down many years ago by a local ordinance. I once heard Georgia (of the former Soviet Union) likened to a toilet that hadn't been cleaned since 1937, so I know exactly where that film critic was coming from. Take a look, there's more.
Bowing out gracefully, Mrs Ed would like to add, "Not only was it in black and white and out-of-focus, it was in German, with subtitles. And if you want to play a bad joke on someone, tell them that if they can sit through the first half, it is really worth watching."
Right, thanks to Mrs Ed for her contribution to those poor kids' education, now it's time for her to pay her penance. Sit through every Die Hard movie with me, eating chips and swilling beer, without complaining once. Mwahahaha
Gummi bear Contest
And to maximise the fun of this particular film, I am running an Institute Benjamenta contest. 1lb of gummi bears for the best review. Send them to Ed, and I will publish them here and link to your site, or send a link to where you have posted it.
btw, if you can explain what the deer are doing in the film, that would be cool too. I don't expect too many entrants, but those who do, may learn something useful?
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The Simpsons
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
I quite enjoy The Simpsons, but haven't followed them from the beginning. I was intrigued when someone said the original shows were really cutting edge and now they are a bit lame. After a trip through Youtube and clips of Willie the Groundskeeper in particular, I have to agree.
The Scot only comes out to play in small doses, but he is outrageous and plain funny when he does. I love the rip-off of Basic Instinct, where he is interviewed in the police station, sat in his kilt, crossing and uncrossing his legs... And the fight between Willie and Shamus, "I'm going to turn your groin into puddin'!" That is such an amazing swipe at the Scots who love their stodgy desserts and the romance of street-fights.
To gauge whether the new episodes are lame, we have to wonder, would Aboo ever dare warn a Chinaman not to eat his out-of-date flea-encrusted pastries, unless he wants to turn his intestines yellow, and to the consistency of Won Ton soup without the won tons? Probably not.
And talking of Won Ton. What a belly laugh, hearing Willie's version of Down Town. Doon Toon. It is up there with William Hung singing "She bangs"
I have watched a lot of Simpsons episodes in Spanish and one of the biggest double belly laughs came from reading the original banners and signs in English, and then reading the translations at the bottom of the screen. Like a double whammy.
In one show, there was a sign hanging outside the school on casino night, saying something like None of the profits go to Indians. It is such a succinct and funny line in English, and the Spanish laughed too, but a couple of seconds later. Not because it was a bad translation, but because in Spanish it takes up half the screen and takes a while to read.
There would be no room for the cartoon if they translated my stereotypical smart ass phrase: Most of the Indians who stayed on reservations drink because they lost their shirt to the white man, but the sober Indians now profit from drunk white men losing their shirt on reservations. Yes, the old ones are the best, and mine is not old.
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MyBlogLog roll widget
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
If you have been mini-reviewed, (which isn't at all painful if you aren't familiar with the MBL Sunday feature) why not install it in your side bar. This will lead more people to read the mini-reviews, yours included, and add to the buzz.
If you havent been mini reviewed, when you are, your batch will automatically be added to the widget.
An extra Stumble. Also, I am adding a masterstroke based on an idea by Untwisted Vortex, The featured blogs that leave a link to their best post in the Comments section get Stumbled too.
If you add the Stumble to the automatic link you get to your MyBlogLog community plus links to your homepage and / or individual posts, that is a lot of link love packed into a witty mini review! The widget is available here.
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MyBlogLog Sunday 19
Filed in: MBL sunday
The screenshot of the MyBlogLog widget seems to be populated by several new visitors, which is good to see. Welcome! You will all get a mini review - as long as you leave a comment here with a link to your best post of the week. And to answer Nurse Myra, yes you can try and participate as many weeks as you like.
If you haven't done so already, you have till about 6pm to leave a link and then I will get to work.
Permalink is permanent
All mini reviews from today are instantly added to the archives, so you can get a permanent back link to your mini review when it appears later today.
MyBlogLog Sunday info links
All hot mini reviews on MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Be back later.
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Losers who can't even rip off tourists properly
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
I have known some high flyers in my time and they all have good stories to tell about trips to foreign lands. One particular gentleman had an insight on the world of mega civil engineering projects, and boy, some of the things that go on would make you laugh and cry, both at the same time. When I heard the following story about a trip to Nigeria, the term, Who is taking the piss out of who? sprung to mind .
Small change in Africa
In Nigeria, the first thing that happened to him at customs was a subtle reminder from an official that he needed to hand over a tip, so he could enter the country. The guy was not used to this level of free enterprise, and was obviously unsure how to react. Not least of his concerns was, how much of a tip did the official have in mind?
He needn't have worried when the hand went out and he was asked to drop the equivalent of $1 in the sweaty cop's corrupt palm. And that was the end of his lesson. Everywhere he went, he carried a few loose "dollar bills", paid the bribes and had an easy time of it. If only bribes were so cheap over here.
Big bucks in India
I had a similar "small change" experience in India with a bike taxi owner. Those guys work like dogs to make ends meet and they aren't slow to spot a whitey and push their luck with the final bill. On one occasion, I had to travel across New Delhi to get a train ticket. The bike-drawn carriage scooted through the traffic, and the only incident of note was when a guy came screeching after the cab waving my Ventolin Inhaler at me. It had fallen out my pocket and dropped through a gap in the seat that I was clenching my ass on. Somehow he had seen it land, and even more amazing for a city full of robbers, (Indians' words not mine!) he did a good deed for the day, reuniting me with my spare lung, and didn't ask for money. My kind of Samaritan.
Long story short, the train ticket was not available from the place I had been advised to go to, so I had to scoot back to another side of New Delhi. Of course the taxi guy was happy with the extra work, and decided to celebrate with a stop-off at a water vendor. The cheeky git got me to pay for his liquid cholera - 2 cents. Ouch.
But the fireworks really blew when it came to journey's end. In a parking area where there were more people than taxis, he demanded the equivalent of $5 for his couple of hour's service. It sounded a lot to me, relative to what I had been paying, and I questioned the price. The next thing, a group of 6 or so well-dressed university types join in and they are calling the taxi guy a robber and a thief, and I wasn't to pay him a dime over $2 and he was a disgrace to all Indians and how dare he rip off the good people from wherever it was they thought I came from. It was quite the to-do. But most amazing thing was, the taxi guy would not back down!
That is when I put a realistic value on my time and realised that $5 for peace and quiet was $5 well-spent, so I handed over the cash.
You know when you look in someone's eye and you can see how they think they have got one over on you. It doesn't worry me any, because I rarely enter into a deal I can't live with, and being ripped off for $5 didn't worry me one bit. I just thought, who is taking the piss out of who? If he had done his research, he could have been nice about it, and asked me for a reasonable fare. I would have paid him gladly, and probably made it up to some ludicrous figure, like, $5. (So shoot me if I am too generous and a danger to local Third World economies with my extravagant ways.)
Anyway, I wouldn't go as far as to wish ill upon his family or anything, but I won't lose any sleep if his enlarged heart and arthritic joints give him hell for many a long year. Loser. (Come to think of it, I am probably the loser for thinking like that.)
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The architect who forgot the stairs
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
I once heard of an architect who had the contract to design and prepare the plans for new homes on an army base in Germany. They did their job, the military approved the plans and assorted builders priced up the work based on the drawings. The contract was awarded to the best tender. Work started on time, preliminary stages were signed off by the architect, and all was going well, until someone pointed out a minor oversight.
They were two-storey homes. The architect had neglected to include a set of stairs in any of the plans.
The architect was an idiot, the guys signing off the project were incompetent. You may also wonder what sort of builder would miss that sort of detail when submitting the original tender for work. I suggest the builders were very shrewd, and would definitely have played dumb when asked why they never pointed out the lack of access to bedrooms.
The point to remember is that in construction, some of the most profitable companies are the ones who exploit mistakes made by others. The builder knew very well that the architect had screwed up, and they probably laughed their heads off when they were awarded the contract to build hundreds of homes without stairs. However, they did nothing contractually wrong to quote the cost of building homes in accordance with the plans they had been presented with. It wasn't their job to question the design! That was the job of the military responsible for providing livable housing for their people.
As a result of that monumental cock-up, the builders earned a shedload of extra money putting things right. In civvy street, perhaps the architect and the paymasters of the project would have been bankrupted by the extra costs of redesign, remodeling and backtracking. But the money was government backed, safe and everyone would have been paid. Good work if you can get it.
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Flawed business plans
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Yesterday I was bombarded with an ill-conceived business idea from an enthusiastic friend of mine. Thankfully today is another day and it seems that her enthusiasm has waned. Not another word about cooking for neighbors has been mentioned. Cool! As I breathe a sigh of relief, no longer living with the threat of supporting Mrs Ed in a catering enterprise doomed to divorce us, I am reminded of an equally flawed money-making opportunity I dreamt up once. In my defence, I was 12!
One summer holiday I was cycling past a local pub that specialised in good home-cooking. It used to get mobbed out by hungry drinkers, my parents included, and I thought, "The pub offers something different every day, they only have a blackboard at the door with the Dishes of the Day scribbled on it, I win prizes for calligraphy, why not offer them hand-written menus?"
With a head full of loose ends, I pedaled home to tell my father. He must have smiled inside when he heard my plan. "Hey, dad, I am going to prepare a sample menu and go see the owner of the pub and see if he wants to pay me to write say 10 new ones every day."
"How long will that take you?"
"Erm, don't know. 10 x 5 minutes?"
"And what about the cost of materials, delivery, some profits. How much are you going to charge for 10?"
I can't recall the figure I quoted but it made him look to the heavens. I think he could see I was not quite grown up enough to start a business that would turn a profit. Saving me from further embarrassment, he neglected to point out the technology of photocopiers, and patted me on the head and suggested I stick with a paper round.
On reflection, I came to my own sad conclusions too. I realised I would make about $2 a day and be cycling up and down a long hill at least twice before lunch. Apart from the risk of sweating all over my beautiful menus, the biggest hole in the plan was continuity. Why would a business pay for a service that was going to finish at the end of the summer break? (My mother had killed stone dead my idea that I would get up at 5.30 on schooldays to prepare the menus. Not that she wasn't supportive of my little plan, but pragmatic as ever, she pointed out that it already took her an inordinate amount of time to get me out of bed at 7.30.)
Oh, the exuberance of youth. And a shame that my friend of yesterday has still not tempered her child-like enthusiasm with common sense. Apparently the latest idea is for Mrs Ed to run weddings. Great idea, except the scheme has more holes than a Swiss cheese, starting with the minor issue that hosting weddings isn't a part-time proposition, and Mrs Ed has a great job already. Back to the drawing board for her, I fear, before the next whacko suggestion.
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Recent posts
Filed in: Recaps
Free implant girls continue to tease and tempt Ed with emails pleading for support of the financial kind.
Lo tech in hi-tech keeps complex things simple for us klutzes who get easily confused.
Amazon soars thanks to long-term investment in technology and stays well ahead of the curve even as Wall St stumbles.
Joe Guse analyses the theory of laugher. Read the Pisstakers to put the theory into practice?read more
Lo tech in hi-tech keeps complex things simple for us klutzes who get easily confused.
Amazon soars thanks to long-term investment in technology and stays well ahead of the curve even as Wall St stumbles.
Joe Guse analyses the theory of laugher. Read the Pisstakers to put the theory into practice?read more
Spend all ye faithful
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Over the years I have lived in many different places, and once I was not far from a monastery run by Benedictine monks. Talk about businessmen in cassocks. They had a huge estate where they raised Guernsey cows, planted thousands of trees and generally lived off the land, using the produce to run a little tea shop for their curious visitors. All very pretty and rural, but the most interesting and lucrative part of their operation was a pottery.
There were full-blown electric kilns the size of a small house, several workshops with professional monks throwing plates and vases and all sorts on the latest generation potters' wheels, and a huge showroom that wouldn't have looked out of place on 5th Avenue or Knightsbridge. They exported their wares world-wide and made a fortune for god.
I remember once looking around their "Seconds Store" and got a good gauge for their commitment to quality and profits. Imagine a rack about 15 feet long 2 feet deep stacked to bursting with highly glazed perfectly formed salt and pepper pots - with no holes in them. Good one, guys. That's like selling single shoes, or jerseys with the necks sewn up, or a plane with no landing gear. I don't know how many they sold, but I am sure some enterprising person came up with a use for them. An item in a joke sure, most likely.
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MyBlogLog Sunday 18 coming up
Filed in: Mini reviews
Fancy a mini review as part of MyBlogLog Sunday? The "rules" are simple.
Around 11 am on Sunday I will take a screenshot of the MyBlogLog widget in my sidebar. If you are one of the 10 faces and you have left a comment linking to the best post you wrote last week, I will do a mini review of your site.
Your review stays on the homepage (PR5) all week and stays in the archives forever! It is quite a popular feature and there are some competitive guys out there always itching for a mini review, so don't forget the link!
For the bloggers working out every permutation of What ifs, if you leave a comment but your face gets shunted off the avatar by the time I take a screenshot, you don't get a mini review, but at least you will have publicised your site to the masses who call by during the week for a look.
It is free to become a MyBlogLog member. and you aren't obliged to join The Pisstakers scintillating community if you don't want to. Your loss!
Hope to see you - and please, fill this comments box to bursting with self promotion.
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Google PR - no pain no gain
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
The quarterly Google page rank updates are due again soon. Are you holding on to your horses in the anticipation? I know I 'm not - this time round. Last time I was fit to burst when The Pisstakers arrived in the twilight zone of PR5. I still don't know how or why, but I wasn't going to argue. But this latest round will be a non-event for me, because it takes an almighty increase in fortunes to bridge the gap to PR6, and after a series of techie-type setbacks coinciding with the usual summer slowdown, the growth of traffic has been steady but hopefully not meteoric enough to impress Google.
I say, hopefully, for good reason. In my opinion stats, of which Google PR is just one of many, are a lottery with anything from zero to a little meaning. And if they just hand out high PR without making you sweat really hard for them, the ranking would have zero significance in my book.
So, Googloids, appeal to my Capricorn mindset of no pain no gain and make me sweat, baby. Give me another year of plugging away before you catapault me into the upper echelons of PR6, please. And don't shatter my illusions, by dropping me down a PR. That really would have me wondering why I bother appealing to the Google robots with my choices of titles and keywords.
What are your expectations as far as page rank is concerned. Do you even give a rat's ass?
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Work-related injuries
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Following on from yesterday's delve into exercise and blogging, I was reminded this morning of other health problems that can be attributed to work.
I suffer from a lack of nasal sensory perception (or deformed sense of smell) due to many years of breathing in paint fumes. (Who can I sue, please?) Unless I go up to something and give an almighty sniff, or unless the wind is blowing a gale into my face, most aromas just pass me by. The world of perfume, for instance, is out of my reach - unless I walk up to a woman and sniff her neck or wrists. Not a good idea for the most part.
However, this lack of smell has its advantages. When I was having coffee this morning there was a decomposing mouse on the porch and apparently it was rotting away. I say apparently, because, unlike Mrs Ed, I couldn't smell the stench of rotting flesh. This oblivion to stinkiness made me number one candidate for corpse disposal duties. As I was unable to appreciate the stench of a maggot-infested vermin, (I held it at arm's length for good measure) the incident passed by without a hint of an upset stomach. Maybe deformed smell glands is a bonus, and I should thank the paint manufacturers for their Health and Safety oversights in the early days?
Another work-related issue is the creaky left shoulder. This niggle is the result of holding heavy paint cans in my left hand, and texturing, plastering, scraping or painting ceilings with my arms above my head for hours at a time, day after day, year after year.
Before the joint started to wear out a bit, there were a few advantages to this abnormal behavior. Like many painters, I could beat almost anyone at arm wrestling. How funny that a "weedy" Painter could whip a bricklayer, but it was true for the most part. Also, when I went to classes, I could hold my hand up longer than anyone else, so I always got to ask my questions!
I went to a gym once under duress (they are so boring) and the instructor guy had me bench-pressing weights to gauge what I needed to do for repeat exercises (not that I planned on going back.) He kept adding dumbells and I kept lifting them. I wasn't the world's strongest man or anything, but he was surprised at my novice abilities, and practically called me a liar when I insisted I had never trained before. "I'm just a painter."
But those days are over and I just nurse the shoulder along now till it warms up. If there is any painting to do at home, it takes a bit longer than it should, and when "the guys" feel the need to prove their physical prowess at arm wrestling, I make sure I don't get too testosterone pumped and I sit it out.
Arm wrestling is actually one of the easiest ways for anyone to wreck an arm, but at least if I did get caught up in that macho crap, I wouldn't be able to smell my opponent's sweaty armpits.
Are you nursing any work-related injuries?
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RSS feeds
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Just a quickie about feeds.
Rather than go through the bore of typing in my URL to see if anything new is going on, you can click on the flying orange icons in the right side bar and sign up / subscribe to the x-fruits Feed. That way your Feed reader tells you when there is something new posted anywhere on this site. (Bottom line, you won't miss the other fantabadozy, emphasis on the dozy, articles I post everyday in the Tech section and quirky or news pages.)
The Pisstakers is a complex living beast, and if you only go the home page, you may be missing out on some funny stuff being left in the comments all over the site. Therefore, to keep abreast of all comments, why not add this feed to your reader too and laugh at people often a lot funnier than Ed.
One of the smart aspects of using x-fruits rather than Feedburner is the range of options for feeds. This is a link that will put you through to the Bitty Browser which generates an RSS feed viewable on mobile phones.
If this RSS business is doing your head in, check out this RSS made easy video that really does explain it in words of one syllable.
Main RSS feed
Rather than go through the bore of typing in my URL to see if anything new is going on, you can click on the flying orange icons in the right side bar and sign up / subscribe to the x-fruits Feed. That way your Feed reader tells you when there is something new posted anywhere on this site. (Bottom line, you won't miss the other fantabadozy, emphasis on the dozy, articles I post everyday in the Tech section and quirky or news pages.)
Comments feed
The Pisstakers is a complex living beast, and if you only go the home page, you may be missing out on some funny stuff being left in the comments all over the site. Therefore, to keep abreast of all comments, why not add this feed to your reader too and laugh at people often a lot funnier than Ed.
Mobile RSS feed
One of the smart aspects of using x-fruits rather than Feedburner is the range of options for feeds. This is a link that will put you through to the Bitty Browser which generates an RSS feed viewable on mobile phones.
Explanation of RSS feeds
If this RSS business is doing your head in, check out this RSS made easy video that really does explain it in words of one syllable.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
MyBlogLog Sunday 18
Filed in: MBL sunday
If you haven't done so already, you have till about 6pm and then I will get to work.
Just to bring the Tour de France theme of recent weeks to an end, congratulations were in order for Team Discovery Channel. Their Spanish mountain goat, Alberto Contador, or AC to his doctor, won the yellow jersey. Enhorabuena for now. But was Contador drugs free? I don't know, but the MyBlogLog Sunday feature is definitely clean.
Permalink is permanent
All mini reviews from today are instantly added to the archives, so you can get a permanent back link to your mini review when it appears later today.
MyBlogLog Sunday info links
All hot mini reviews on MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!
How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!
Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!
Be back later.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
Moblogging and exercise
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
I was wondering whether blogging is healthy, both physically and mentally, and realised that it depends how you blog. The state of your health depends on whether you are a static or mobile (moblog) blogger.
The most widespread bloggers are the static group who sit at a desk all day and report, rehash or ridicule news / other blogs as it happens. Come 5pm they stop. They could end up in bad shape if they don't look after themselves. There is also a huge subset of this group, the guys and gals who do a personal blog based on their thought of the day. As they publish in the evening or early morning before heading off to a job, they have few blog injuries to worry about. Their job may be killing them but the blogging, probably not.
Healthy Static blogging
I spend a few hours a day huddled over a computer trying to entertain the metaphorical masses, so what toll is that taking on my body? A quick experiment reveals that my lower back is screaming at me to get the hell outside and do some stretching or cycling. Another test tells me I need to get a nice wrist and hand massage from Mrs Ed. MRS ED!!!!
That's better. Suddenly I am up to 100 words a minute, but I am still making 2 miostakjes a second. So blogging has a mental impact on me too. Fatigue is the downside to the stimulation derived from hours of flicking through and distilling piles of information.
So what do you do to keep healthy if you are a static blogger? Simple really. Blog in bursts. (Set your alarm for an hour's time and when it rings, get out for a walk even if you are mid thought. Eventually you get into a routine and write very efficiently.) Exercise in bursts. (Find finger, wrist and neck stretches to do in your chair without getting arrested for obscenity, or try sporty pursuits that compensate for posture problems - swimming or ballet rather than weight-lifting.) Relax in bursts. (I prefer to relax in long stretches, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.) Enjoy.
Moblogging
The second group, which really got me thinking about health and blogging, are Mobloggers. The mobile web log bloggers are opportunists, work agnostic, different. As these mobile bloggers go about their day, camera at the ready, their health issues are not tied to blogging as such, more to the nature of what they do.
Skydiving bloggers, gang bloggers, celeb and party land good time bloggers have more potential pain to deal with than any static blogger, but RSI probably isn't one of the pains. By way of compensation, they have plenty of original material of their own to publish day by day without getting stressed out ploughing through Youtube and co for imagery to complement their posts..
Conconclusion
By adding some moblogging to the mix, you could revamp your blog AND reduce the mental toll of blogging. You don't necessarily have to get into a dangerous or philandering career. As you go about your day, take pictures of funny incidents, weird looking people, noteworthy signs... upload them when you get home and add some text to put the images in context. All original material, almost no interference in your daily routine, a lot of blogging material acquired organically without twisting your spinal column out of shape, trawling for pictures - a hit. At least that is what I am thinking!
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Road accident stories
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
Ed the Editor's personal blog corner
Sometimes it doesn't matter how alert you are, shit happens. Imagine driving down the freeway in your steel truck and the bridge you are driving under collapses on top of your head? It just happened to Robert Sylvester, and luckily, he survived. Another feelgood side to the story is that the collapse of the bridge has coincided with a stall in the collapse of steel and concrete stocks on Wall Street. Schweet!
Death load
A less positive and more gruesome story related to me by a former trucker was the case of the flying rebar. A truck pulling a trailer full of steel reinforced bars ground to a sudden halt in traffic. The wheels of the truck stopped turning, but the steel behind had a life of its own and carried on straight through the back of the cab. The driver had no chance, and by all accounts never felt a thing.
Acid attack
And then there was the rather surprising and gross revelation by Robin McGraw when she revealed that someone threw a container full of acid off a bridge and it smashed through her sister's windshield, leaving her with 70% burns. Isn't it unbelievable how cruel and stupid some people can be? I don't know whether they caught the shitheads who did it, but if they did, they should have applied some random Sheraya Law and lopped a few limbs off - and then prosecuted them as well.
Holy cow
Finally, this will make you laugh. Imagine a guy driving his brand new car on a sunny day, no traffic on the road, not a care in the world, enjoying his new purchase. He slows down to safely negotiate a bend, and the next thing he knows, a cow lands on his hood. It had been grazing on a steep bank above the road, lost its footing and rolled down to the road. As the driver jumped out his car in shock, the cow rubbed it in by rolling onto the road and ambling off without a care in the world. Funny old world!
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Wanna win $400 from Invesp?
Filed in: Ed's blog spot
The RSS contest
There is a secret word in their RSS feed. If you subscribe to the feed, spot the word, AND you are the lucky one chosen from the other few people who will undoubtedly spot it too, you get $300. If you happen to be a MyBlogLog member to boot, you get yourself another $100 for good measure. Not exactly hard is it? Plus you might learn something, as these guys are pretty handy at what they do.
The bonus
It doesn't end there, because these Invesp guys are big thinkers. If they bump their subscriber numbers up past 5000, they will double the prizes. Swoooooon.
You can do a lot with $800. How about a week's supply of Big Macs and fries for an oversize eater? A year's supply of soap for a village of 3000 Frenchmen? Erm, a text link for a week on the Pisstakers' homepage in 2020? You get the idea, this prize is worth winning.
Call to arms
Before you salivate too much and rush off and buy those burgers ahead of time, get on over to the gurus of [industry speak] site design, content, and implementation [/ industry speak] sign up to their RSS feed and get looking for the secret word.
Thanks to Matt for the pointer to a clever contest, and, as a throwaway suggestion before I dive back into my technical duties reformatting a damn Dell laptop - if you feel MyBlogLoggy, why not sign up to Matt's MBL community or mine?
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
MyBlogLog Sunday 19. Ready to go?
Filed in: MBL sunday
Fancy a mini review as part of MyBlogLog Sunday? The "rules" are simple.
Around 11 am on Sunday I will take a screenshot of the MyBlogLog widget in my sidebar. If you are one of the 10 faces and you have left a comment linking to the best post you wrote last week, I will do a mini review of your site.
The mini reviews stay on the homepage (PR5) all week and live in the archives forever!
How easy and useful is that?!!! And no strings. It is free to become a MyBlogLog member. and you aren't even obliged to join The Pisstakers scintillating community if you don't want to. Don't forget to call by tomorrow and all you blogmasters looking for a bit of exposure, feel free to leave a comment tomorrow with a link to the best post you wrote this week!
I said no strings attached, but in the spirit of an internet built on links between cool sites, it would be great if you mentioned the Pisstakers somewhere on your blog, in a post or try a widget for your sidebar.
Hope to see you - and please, fill this comments box to bursting with self promotion.
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| "Your name" is a Kiva lender | "Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget | Funny HQ humor store |
