Using E* existing dish for D*

I bought a house that has a E* Dish Network dish on the roof from the previous tenant. Can I just hook up my D* receiver to it and expect success?

Cam bitten by LearnDog as Petre dishes out guilt!

The Baseball Season Begins

Sports is a dull topic for an exceptionalist.  Almost by definition, nothing important is at stake in sporting match-ups.  And the more thoughtful commentary tends to fall into two hopelessly shop-worn categories:  analysis of what somebody should have done yesterday and predictions as to what will happen in the future.  In that sense, sports analysis is a bit like the insipid political goulash served up on cable and network television each night and Sunday morning.  By now most sports fans have probably changed the channel and a few Hungarians have taken umbrage (it was all in good fun, we didn't mean it, honest) at the comparison between their national dish and the yuckety-yuck snake oil sold by the conventional wisdom politics hucksters. 

For those that have remained, on to the bread and circuses.

We confess to feeling inspired for a few moments when the baseball season begins each Spring.  It helps of course that the season coincides with nicer weather and a move from standard to daylight time.  We decided to put down a few thoughts on the state of baseball.

Steroids.  BALCO, Canseco, human growth hormone. Bleh. Baseball suffered big time (and not enough in our opinion) in the court of public opinion this off-season as the world discovered the obvious: slender young men rarely grow into muscle-bound behemoths without the aid of the juice.  There is no need to name names, but we have our suspicions as to who the likely cheaters are.  Steroids has probably done more to ruin baseball than the 1919 Chicago White Sox or Pete Rose ever did. The baseball steroid policy provides an insufficient deterrent. Under the new baseball four-strikes-you're-almost-out steroid policy, a first offense carries a 10 day suspension, a second carries a 30 day suspension or $25,000, a third carries either a 60-day suspension or $50,000 fine and a fourth carries a full year's suspension. A better policy would hand down a 30-day suspension for first offenses and the full season for recidivists, both without pay.

The Win Twins.  We miss the campy old Twins logo with two guys (Minnie and Pauly?) shaking hands across the Mississippi River.  If there is anything to the Sports Illustrated cover curse, you can expect neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox to win the American League.  This wouldn't surprise the experts at ESPN, many of whom have rallied around the Minnesota Twins as the baseball win-it-all flavor of the month.  Of course, becoming the sudden dark horse favorite on so many lists not only speaks to the herd mentality in journalism, but probably carries its own curse as well. Our dark-horse are the Chicago Cubs. Sure, the line-up is suspect, but if their pitchers are healthy (and they do not have a lefty), they have the best starting rotation in the league.

The Fuddy-Duddy Club.  If you asked us in 2000 which pitchers we expected to see filling in the top spots on the best rotations on Opening Day in 2005, we would have replied "no idea" because sports was then a game of youth, and the top pitchers generally change every few years, with a few notable exceptions.  We would not have answered Randy Johnson (41), David Wells (41), Roger Clemens (42), Curt Schilling (38), Greg Maddux (38), and John Smoltz (37).  We're probably being generous putting Wells in this group, but he's the last guy we expected to see squeezing into his uniform 5 years later.

National League East.  One of our contacts in New York, and sadly, a life-long Mets fan (how?), warns us to never bet against Atlanta unless or until they do not win the National League East.  Sports Illustrated loved the Phillies in 2002 (see curse, above) but nothing came from their blessings.  An amazing statistic to us is that the Braves have won 13 straight NL East titles.  Almost as impressive is that they have only one World Series Title to show for it.  There is some reason to think this year might be different.  The Florida Marlins, who came into existence and have won the World Series twice during the same period improved their line-up significantly by acquiring Carlos Delgado.  The Mets threw away money like a drunken sailor (or the Boston Red Sox front office) during the off-season, picking up gallons of over-priced talent, chiefly Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran.  And in theory, the Phillies have a good line-up.  Finally, baseball has "returned" to D.C., but with a line-up as anemic as the Nationals' we don't expect much this year. 

Equilibrium.  It's opening day, the only day of the baseball season which much equilibrium.  The Yankees pounded the Red Sox last night behind a big game from Hideki Matsui, the Phillies are in first-place for at least one day, and the Mariners could not, under any circumstances, be worse than they were last year.  But no predictions here.  Finally, last Friday Alan Schwarz published this amusing homage in the New York Times to a classic April Fools hoax from 20 years ago, when Sports Illustrated published an article on the mythical Sidd Finch, a gangly 6'4" Mets prospect with a 168 mile-an-hour fastball.  For a few moments, at least a few readers thought they had a scoop on an amazing prospect.  The real Sidd Finch is Joe Berton, a junior high school art teacher in Oak Park, Illinois.  The 168 mph fast ball is probably the equivalent of running a 3 minute mile, and should have been a dead giveaway, but Finch, a Harvard drop-out, had a multitude of idiosyncrasies included playing the French horn, possessing only a rug and a food bowl, pitching in one work boot, and learning to pitch (where else?) in Tibet. 

Democracy Now: Examing the Pope's record, MLK remembered; The Daily Howler; BuzzFlash; Al Gore; MoveOnPac

Democracy Now!, "always worth watching" (Marcia):

Headlines for April 4, 2005
- Up to 2 Million to Attend Pope's Funeral
- The Pope's Legacy: A Social Conservative & Voice of Peace
- 44 U.S. Troops Injured In Attack on Iraqi Jail
- Mugabe Claims Victory in Zimbabwe Elections
- Minuteman Project Begins Monitoring Mexican Border
- Amnesty: Taser Guns Have Killed 103 In Past 5 Years
- Animal Rights Activist Faces 82 Years in Prison
- Gov't Conducted Record Number of Secret Searches in 2004
- Japanese American Civil Rights Pioneer Fred Korematsu, 86, Dies

The Legacy of Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)
Millions across the world are mourn the death of Pope John Paul II. We examine his 26-year leadership of the Roman Catholic Church with Mary Segers, an expert on Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church, journalist and author Angela Bonavoglia, and former Catholic priest Blase Bonpaine.

Martin Luther King Assassinated 37 Years Ago Today
Today is the 37th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. We hear an excerpt of his "Beyond Vietnam" speech that he delivered a year to the day before his death. [includes rush transcript]

A number of you have e-mailed about being "Pope-d out." Considering the minute by minute death watch, that's not surprising. But I'd urge to consider checking out Democracy Now!'s story today on Pope John Paul II because this is how the news should be done. Not a half hour on the "early life of the Pope" (check out ABC's Nightline tonight, if that's something you're interested in). Not superficial "discussions" of his record. Amy Goodman's interviewing three people and these are pretty deep discussions.

I'll assume most will check out the MLK story (and deservedly so). But later tonight, I'll be highlighting one item from the "Headlines."

Over at The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby continues to probe the reluctance of the media insiders to tell the basic facts. From today's entry:

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 1): In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick makes an excellent point about press reaction to Men in Black, Mark Levin's junk-book best-seller. But before we examine her excellent point, how about a point of puzzlement? We don't have the slightest idea why Lithwick thinks this is the case:
LITHWICK: Men in Black was published by Regnery Publishing--the same outfit that brought us Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry last summer. Serious journalists spent serious time debunking the claims set forth in the Swift Boat book, but absolutely no one seems to be taking on Levin.
We're forced to ask: Just who were those "serious journalists" who managed to spend so much serious time "debunking the claims" in Unfit for Command? "No one seems to be taking on Levin," Lithwick gripes--but who took on that Swift Boat book, which transformed the Bush-Kerry race? As we have noted (links below), major newspapers routinely failed to review that O’Neill/Corsi book, just as they are taking a pass on reviewing the book by Levin. ("It has been reviewed virtually no place and written up by almost no one," Lithwick writes.) And when these newspapers examined the Swift Vet claims in their actual news pages, their reporting was thoroughly softball. For example, the New York Times focused on how the Swift Boat project was funded--but why should voters care about a project's funding if the project's claims are on-target? And concerning the accuracy of those claims, the mainstream press corps said little. For example, when the Washington Post analyzed one of O'Neill/Corsi's major claims against Kerry, the paper played "on the one hand/on the other hand" pretty much all the way--and then refused to tell its readers when eye-witnesses to the disputed events came out supporting Kerry (links below). In fact, Unfit for Command was a kooky book--a book larded with crackpot, contradictory claims. But to all appearances, the lords and ladies of the mainstream press were too fine (and too frightened) to say so. We don't know why Lithwick thinks different.
That's right, folks. The mainstream press was big-time AWOL as Swift Boat claims changed the 2000 race--just as Lithwick finds them AWOL in the new matter of Levin. But then, this has been common conduct for the mainstream press corps over the course of the past several decades, as the pseudo-right has created an alternate discourse on talk radio and on cable "news" networks. By now, we thought everyone knew how the game is played: Pseudo-con spinners use these new media to make wild-eyed, kooky, irrational claims--and high-minded mainstream and liberal pundits all stare blankly off into space, being careful not to confront, challenge, critique or contradict them. When Lithwick describes the soft treatment dished to Levin, she describes a familiar practice. Her colleagues are expert at this sort of thing, although she seems not to have heard.

Let's note that BuzzFlash has it's first satellite site. At that site they will now be doing their GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

We'll note "Al Gore to Present Special Documentary Award at the 36th Annual Nashville Film Festival:"

On Saturday, April 16, former Vice President Al Gore will present a special award during the 36th Annual Nashville Film Festival to director, Taggart Siegel, for his documentary, The Real Dirt on Farmer John.
The award is sponsored by a new independent cable network, whose name will be announced in early April. The presentation will take place prior to the 3:30pm screening of the film at the Regal Green Hills Stadium 16.
The award is given to a documentary that best provides extraordinary insight into a contemporary global issue. The Real Dirt on Farmer John was chosen by Mr. Gore out of five documentaries scheduled to screen at the Festival.
[. . .]
The 36th Annual Nashville Film Festival takes place Thursday, April 14 -Thursday, April 21 at the Regal Green Hills Stadium 16. Tickets go on saleMarch 24, 2005 and can be purchased online at www.ticketweb.com or by phone at1-800-965-4827. The Festival Box Office will open at Regal Cinemas onSaturday, April 9, from 3:00pm to 8:00pm and run throughout the Festival. An early-bird All-Festival Laminate may be purchased for $300 or $350 by calling(615) 742-2500 and includes access to all films, panels, workshops (excludingKid's Workshop), Opening & Closing Galas and a VIP Goodie Bag. For completeticket information: www.nashvillefilmfestival.org http://www.ticketweb.com
(link: http://www.nashvillefilmfestival.org)

MoveOn's sister organization, MoveOnPAC, has a petition up regarding the funding of the war and the need for an exit strategy:

While Congress is considering an additional $82 billion for Iraq, they should insist that America has an exit strategy from Iraq with a timeline, that we do not construct permanent bases in Iraq and that we end war profiteering by corporations.

If you're interested in signing the petition, please do so.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Cable Show

The National Cable Television Association is having it's annual conference, The National Show, this week in San Francisco. Here's the schedule, session list, speakers, news releases, a list of exhibitors and CableNet, their showcase for new hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) and wireless solutions.

CED Magazine, Cable Labs, C/Net, Converge Digest, Cable Datacom News, Telephony Magazine and Google News have more details.

Telcos like Verizon and SBC are rolling out FTTH while The Brand X Case hovers over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. While "cable zones" seem to be underplayed at this years show, home media centers are hot. Wireless home networking may tie home entertainment boxes together.

Digeo, maker of the "Moxi" settop media center, may have the most buzz. Today they announced that Samsung has agreed to produce set-top boxes running Digeo's media center software.

Samsung is the third hardware maker to commit to a Digeo box. Motorola has licensed the Moxi settop box system , but it is currently working with a contract manufacturer to produce some boxes under its own name.

The first Samsung Home Media Center is expected to debut this fall. The deal is an effort by the two companies to break into a market that has been tightly controlled by Scientific Atlanta and Motorola, which both make boxes and other equipment used in cable systems.

Comcast and Digeo agreed last year to begin testing the media centers in a handful of cities, starting this spring in Huntsville, Ala. Charter cable and Adelphia have expressed interest in buying the set-top boxes. The companies did not announce the price of the new box which is not expected to be broadly available until 2006.

Digeo's media center software allows users to watch high-definition video, record digital video, access on-demand programs and manage digital photo, music and game libraries.

Digeo's software allows a box to record video on a hard drive, play DVD's and games, and organize music and video. It has technology that allows users to link its boxes with a simpler box in another room that could play programs recorded on the more sophisticated box's drive. This feature, analysts said, could give cable companies a way to counter satellite services, which have offered inexpensive multiroom packages.

Digeo also bumped up the speed of the microprocessor from 733 megahertz to 1 gigahertz. Digeo's "Moxi" box is said to be a technical accomplishment because it will "combine 26 components in current media-center boxes into one chipset", which the company is calling the Digeo X-Stream chipset. The consolidation reduces the cost to manufacture a media center by as much as 40 percent, Digeo said. In addition, the box can have a thinner and sleeker design.

The first Samsung box will have a dual-tuner digital video recorder, which allows a user to watch one show while recording another. But future boxes will have up to four tuners, which means that the box could serve as the central hub to record from four televisions throughout a home, said company spokesman Michael Markman.

Interactive Television (iTV) may also be a part of the Moxi mix. iTV channels present new marketing opportunities to promote premium and local channels, as well as On Demand offerings. Market sampling shows that take-rates from PPV and On Demand leads generated from iTV were as high as 8-10%. OpenTV is deployed in over 50 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries, enables enhanced television, interactive shopping and addressable advertising. Dotcast's dNTSC delivers digital services over existing analog cable lines, adding up to 400Mbps of additional bandwidth for new services such as VOD, HD and IP Video. Ensequence provides television authoring software that allows creative teams to develop, test, and air interactive shows and commercials.

Comcast moved most of its digital operations to Colorado, renaming the facility the Comcast Media Center, linked by OC48 fiber to their satellite dish farm a few miles away. The Ku-band, Ka-band, C-band, and DBS satellites are in geosynchronous orbit overhead and can transmit in a cone covering the full continental United States (conus).

Bob Cringley thinks PBS should be a WiMax broadcaster. PBS and commercial broadcasters aren't dead yet, but they seem more like real estate speculators -- lacking vision and a mission. Just do it. Or die.

Cable Show

The National Cable Television Association is having it's annual conference, The National Show, this week in San Francisco. Here's the schedule, session list, speakers, news releases, a list of exhibitors and CableNet, their showcase for new hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) and wireless solutions.

CED Magazine, Cable Labs, C/Net, Converge Digest, Cable Datacom News, Telephony Magazine and Google News have more details.

Telcos like Verizon and SBC are rolling out FTTH while The Brand X Case hovers over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. While "cable zones" seem to be underplayed at this years show, home media centers are hot. Wireless home networking may tie home entertainment boxes together.

Digeo, maker of the "Moxi" settop media center, may have the most buzz. Today they announced that Samsung has agreed to produce set-top boxes running Digeo's media center software.

Samsung is the third hardware maker to commit to a Digeo box. Motorola has licensed the Moxi settop box system , but it is currently working with a contract manufacturer to produce some boxes under its own name.

The first Samsung Home Media Center is expected to debut this fall. The deal is an effort by the two companies to break into a market that has been tightly controlled by Scientific Atlanta and Motorola, which both make boxes and other equipment used in cable systems.

Comcast and Digeo agreed last year to begin testing the media centers in a handful of cities, starting this spring in Huntsville, Ala. Charter cable and Adelphia have expressed interest in buying the set-top boxes. The companies did not announce the price of the new box which is not expected to be broadly available until 2006.

Digeo's media center software allows users to watch high-definition video, record digital video, access on-demand programs and manage digital photo, music and game libraries.

Digeo's software allows a box to record video on a hard drive, play DVD's and games, and organize music and video. It has technology that allows users to link its boxes with a simpler box in another room that could play programs recorded on the more sophisticated box's drive. This feature, analysts said, could give cable companies a way to counter satellite services, which have offered inexpensive multiroom packages.

Digeo also bumped up the speed of the microprocessor from 733 megahertz to 1 gigahertz. Digeo's "Moxi" box is said to be a technical accomplishment because it will "combine 26 components in current media-center boxes into one chipset", which the company is calling the Digeo X-Stream chipset. The consolidation reduces the cost to manufacture a media center by as much as 40 percent, Digeo said. In addition, the box can have a thinner and sleeker design.

The first Samsung box will have a dual-tuner digital video recorder, which allows a user to watch one show while recording another. But future boxes will have up to four tuners, which means that the box could serve as the central hub to record from four televisions throughout a home, said company spokesman Michael Markman.

Interactive Television (iTV) may also be a part of the Moxi mix. iTV channels present new marketing opportunities to promote premium and local channels, as well as On Demand offerings. Market sampling shows that take-rates from PPV and On Demand leads generated from iTV were as high as 8-10%. OpenTV is deployed in over 50 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries, enables enhanced television, interactive shopping and addressable advertising. Dotcast's dNTSC delivers digital services over existing analog cable lines, adding up to 400Mbps of additional bandwidth for new services such as VOD, HD and IP Video. Ensequence provides television authoring software that allows creative teams to develop, test, and air interactive shows and commercials.

Comcast moved most of its digital operations to Colorado, renaming the facility the Comcast Media Center, linked by OC48 fiber to their satellite dish farm a few miles away. The Ku-band, Ka-band, C-band, and DBS satellites are in geosynchronous orbit overhead and can transmit in a cone covering the full continental United States (conus).

Bob Cringley thinks PBS should be a WiMax broadcaster. PBS and commercial broadcasters aren't dead yet, but they seem more like real estate speculators -- lacking vision and a mission. Just do it. Or die.

Anita Lo Defeats Mario Batali on Iron Chef America

By JULIETTE ROSSANT

The all-woman team of Anito Lo , with Jennifer Scism and Sawako Okochi (both from her restaurant Annisa), defeated Iron Chef Mario Batali and his team last night on Iron Chef America .


Anita said that for her the toughest part of Iron Chef America is finishing on time in an unfamiliar kitchen where she and her team did not know where everything was. Hmmm... sounds like the Iron Chefs have a home court advantage.

Furthermore, the stove never got hot enough for this chef famed for her pan-Asian signature. (Asian cooking often requires intense heat for short cooking times, e.g., cooking with a wok (click here to read Martin Yan 's tips on technique).

So, to what does she credit her win -- besides her excellent food?

"We got lucky. We had all food professionals for the judges -- that was good for me. My food generally is more for Foodies; it's more sophisticated. I like esoteric ingredients. For instance, on Iron Chef I used yuzu [a Japanese citrus with tangy and fragrant rind and juice -- click here to read what Norman Van Aken has to say about yuzu]."

(If you liked Anita's style, vote for her or any of 40 top women chefs for White House Executive Chef in this month's online readers' poll "Vote for White House Woman Chef.")

The idea of making a number of dishes with one ingredient a la Iron Chef is certainly nothing new to Anita. When Iron Chef America producer and Food Network vice president Bruce Seidel came to check out her cooking on an impromptu visit, Anita told me that she happened to be running a special menu where all of the dishes were made with corn. He loved it. She got the offer.

And did she deliver!

Previous articles:
Cat Cora, Anita Lo: Sexing Up Iron Chef America
Vote For White House Woman Chef
Iron Chef Pizza Wars: Batali vs. Puck
Bobby Flay: Married and Motivated
Ming Tsai TV
Cat Cora: Iron Chef America's First Lady
Roberto Trevino: Viva Aguaviva
Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali's Mozza
Iron Chef America: Running on Empty
World AIDS Day II: Iron Chef Cat Cora
More Reality TV Chefs (Or Less)?
Real TV Cooking? Kitchen Confidential a la Sex and the City
Molto Mario Massacres Mahi
Iron Chef: America vs. USA

--> back to superchefblog

Closed Captioning

My Wife is hard of hearing and relies on Closed captioning to be able to watch TV. 4 times now since having Dish Network, and I have only had it a week, Closed Captioning has quit working on my 522 and also on my 322. To get it working again I have had to hold the power button in for about ten...

Famous Trials

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/ftrials.htm

This is an educational and non-commercial site maintained at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.

For a site that now averages one million "hits" (page requests) each month, the criticisms have been surprisingly few. I'd say that roughly 95% of the comments that I've received, and over 90% of the reviews I've read, have been generally favorable. Most visitors to the site that take the trouble to offer their thoughts seem to be happy with my choice of trials and with the eclectic mix of primary and secondary materials chosen to tell their stories.

"My goal is to make the cases come alive," he said in a recent interview. "If a kid discovers a jellyfish at the beach, he's fascinated. If you give it to him in a petri dish in class, he's bored. The same is true with cases. It's important to put up these primary documents in a structured but quirky way and allow people to enjoy the richness of discovering" what a trial is all about, he said.

This site has been selected as a featured link by The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Yahoo,
The History Channel, Internet Scout Project, Law & Politics: Internet Guide, PBS, Mining Company's History Site, NBC News, The Discovery Channel School, ABC News,
JURIST: The Law Professor's Network, CNN.com, and the National Organization of Bar Counsel.

Will today Yankee game be Blacked out on ESPN2

I live in Syracuse,NY were the YES Network is on Cable. My qustion is will the Yankees game be blacked out on ESPN 2 for Dish Network because YES is carrying the game too.

Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

From Pop, to Loyal Readers

Leave it to my Pop to be well organized. He sent me the following pre-typed Living Will to post here for all of my Loyal Readers so that we may avoid anymore cable news network feeding-frenzies like the Terri Schiavo case. Simply fill in the blanks, and sign at the bottom before a notary and a witness.
Oh! Be sure to post a “Thank You” to Pop.
~Omar.

I,______________________________(fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer (or a dish of ice cream) it should be presumed that I won’t ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren’t in a permanent coma.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case and I don’t care how many fundamentalist votes they’re trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008. It is my wish that they play politics with someone else’s life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn’t care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators and pretend that they care about me. I don’t know these people and I certainly haven’t authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.

___________________________ Date:___________

That should help a bunch o’folks, Pop!
Omar, out.

Lost An Hour

Did you remember to "Spring Forward"?  I did and now I have to get used to change again.  I feel like I got up at the normal time but then I look at the clock and it's later than usual.  Oh well, I should be adjusted by the time we "Fall Back"

I think our freakish weather is calming down.  It's cold this morning but there shouldn't be any more snow, rain and excessive wind.  At least for a few days anyway.

Yesterday Pam spent the day getting her new computer set up.  It's so nice, but every time we order a Dell we are very happy.  Anyway, she should be back on line today.  She will be a very happy camper.

The other computers that were "sick" are now in my "hospital".  I have them all set up and on the network via a hub, but I am waiting on a new KVM box so I can work on all three at one location.  I am trying to bring them back to life.  I love doing this so that's why I got all the crawling around and wire hook ups done ahead of time.  While I'm recuperating I can dink around with them and get them fixed up.  If I can revive them I am going to set up another web cam and maybe host the Daily Dish on my own box.  Who knows the possibilities are endless.  It's what I do and it's what I love.

The Daily Dish is coming along and we have 19 members.  I hope to really get this board going so everyone can contribute, comment or just say Hello from time to time.  If you haven't visited, please stop by and share a tip or two and maybe answer a question here and there.

I am going to sample a couple varieties of baby food today to see which one is the least nasty!!!  9 days and counting!!  I've gotten most stuff ready, just have to shop next week for stuff to drink.  Humidifier is all cleaned out and airing until the big day.  I still have to rearrange my room so I will have my lap top within reach, the TV remote control and my little dorm fridge all close by. 

One thing I did just because I think it will be nice while I'm recuperating was to order some Philosophy Cinnamon Buns Body Wash and some Amazing Grace solid perfume.  I just love the Philosophy stuff!  I really enjoy the Purity face wash and Hope In A Jar moisturizer.  Since I've been using that I stopped using Olay.  It's so nice! 

Today I am going to try and get outside and pull more weeds.  Oh the joys of Spring. 

Have a great day, my friends.

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The Blogging Experience

So I've been using Blogger for just over a month now and I guess the honeymoon period is over. I figured I'd look back on the month to give you my experience on blogging.

If you'd asked me about 5 months ago what a blog was I'd probably come out with a smart-arsed comment about something to do with toilets or toilet related (yes, I have a schoolboy humour streak). But within a very short time I'd become familiar with them through big name media websites, most notably the BBC. I mean you have to wonder why the media would pick up on internet crazes unless it's a slow news week...
But back then, blogging didn't really make an impact on me, it basically didn't make sense to me. Why do we want some random person talk on about their day and how they took their cat to the vet for a checkup? And so on and so on? (Of course, I'd only read some uninteresting personal weblogs by then)
I'd have to say the big breakthrough for me was Podcasting. Radio when you want it basically. There was a time when I would rush home to catch a certain radio programme, or ensure I was free to listen to a certain station, but those times have gone. Whether it's because radio generally sucks nowadays, or I just don't think I can be bothered to work my life around a radio programme, it's not worth it. Radio apathy made me turn to TV. TV apathy made me turn to XBox. XBox took my life away (but not without me getting quite good at Halo 2 :) ).
Podcasting changed all that. Notably the Engadget podcast (back when Phil Torrone headed the podcast), G'Day World, Reel Reviews and The Daily Source Code. All 1st(ish) wave/generation podcasts as I like to call them (since then 1000s of podcasts have sprung up after they laid the ground work).
Blogging suddenly made sense, after all, podcasts are essentially audio-blogs (although better in my mind). These podcasts opened me to the good side of blogging, the useful side if you will.
Things like product reviews you can believe because they're not on the company PR payroll, movie reviews , insight into companies, insight into jobs, how to make things, gadget newsthe list goes on. Of course there are still people talking on about how their cat learned a new trick today, but it has to be said people will want to hear that, and it's their choice.
So I wanted in. I didn't really have a plan, know what to write about, or how to get a blog, but I wanted one. A quick search came up with hundreds, nay thousands of links. But there was one that helped me the most, About.com.
I did know a few things I wanted:
a)It had to be free first of all as there's no sense me going nuts and paying out money only to give up in a few days.
b)It had to be easy(ish) yet have plenty of FAQs to get me up and running.
c)It had to be configurable so I can do all sorts of garish things to the colour scheme so as to annoy any interior designers that visit the site.
The result was: Blogger. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a blog, even if they don't have any webdesign experience. The great thing is, if you do know basically what you're doing, Blogger will let you tinker with your website design. Now I'm not saying Blogger is the best way to blog as there are some great blog platforms out there that offer more but often at a price or for more experienced web users. For sheer ease of use though, you can't fault Blogger, you can be up and running in 5 minutes!

Now I have to say, blogging was a little harder than I thought it would be, probably because I set my aims and expectations a touch too high than I should have. Blogging can take up a lot of time in the day, and can be a little unrewarding at first when you see that your visitor list is just 2. And that's only because you visited via your own computer, and also went to check on another computer to see if it works too. But on the whole, the blogging community is a nice one, every leaving nice comments like "Great blog!" and "Keep up the good work!" which without fail bring a smile to my face, and of course there are people dishing out advice on how to get your blog noticed. The most useful one I came across through Lifehacker, here at Tony Pierce's blog.
I always felt a little bit lame linking to my blog and self promoting in such an obvious fashion, but I tried it out once by leaving a post on The Office Weblog, and boy did it work! Of course, I have to thank Marc Orchant for having a helping hand in it too by appending to his blog post.
As you can see, there was a 'little' traffic spike on my blog.....which was nice.

But I have to say, the single greatest thing about blogging is feedback. They never cease to surprise me (who it is that leaves a comment), challenge me (with good questions) and of course bring a smile to my face. I can cheesily still remember my first comment, and although it was an innocuous one (a comment on the weather no less), it was an important one. Thanks Nat!
Of course, people linking to my blog and/or leaving comments is always a nice thing, and I just have to say thanks to Cameron Reilly from the G'Day World Podcast/Podcast Network and Just Pete from the Illinoise podcast. At last, but not least, thanks to all my friends who have taken the time to check out my blog and given me that little, yet very significant boost to my visit count.

Ok, so disturbingly, I've spent over an hour writing this now, guess that means I'm a blogger now...One month and I'm hooked.