Up until about a week ago, I was afraid to drink any kind of fruit juice. Juice had a negative effect on my digestive system of a nature that I’d rather not discuss, but that you can probably deduce from the title of this article. However, I have discovered a secret that now lets me enjoy juice again.
Until I was about 25 years old I could drink as much juice as I wanted and had no problems at all. I’d drink big 32oz cups of grapefruit juice as if it were iced tea. But then something happened, and all of a sudden the juice was making me sick. So I stopped drinking juice altogether.
About a year and a half ago I came down with a mysterious case of bladder infection and it was recommended that I drink cranberry juice to help with the pain. I tried it in small amounts and things worked out great, but I was still a little gun shy about juice.
Then about a week ago I bought some Sunny Delight in small 6.75oz containers (I was on a nostalgic kick). Sunny D was at the top of the no-no list of juices for me, but I thought I’d give it a try. To my “delight,” it had no adverse effects. Since then I have been enjoying juice as in the old days.
Watch this video of Barack Obama. It is from 2002. That is pre-Iraq war for people who have trouble with their history. It’s prophetic and says a lot about the intelligence and wisdom of my current favorite presidential candidate.
… and many other things. If you don’t know who Rush Limbaugh is, consider yourself lucky. He’s a talk radio host and staunch Republican. If you listen to his show, you will soon note that he has no love for Democrats, liberals, poor people, progressives, non-Christians, or any other group that does not conform to his conservative ideals.
He claims to be the voice of America, and millions of people listen to his program every day. Sadly, he is the sole news source for many of those people. During the program he regularly denigrates anyone who does not hold his views, often insulting them and going on tirades that rival Orwell’s Two Minute Hate.
I was listening to his program today and realized that about 50% of what he was saying was a complete lie. About 15% of the show was news reading and other factual statements. The remaining 35% of the show was filled with fallacious arguments and personal opinions.
The problem I have with this is that he presents all of this as fact. People who listen to Rush probably have no idea that he is purposely feeding them a load of garbage. I can hardly believe that he actually believes any of his own propaganda, but after spewing it for so many years, maybe he does.
No, this is not the title for an upcoming Fox special, it’s a short article about RSS feeds and why you should use them. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and it really is just that, simple. An RSS feed automatically keeps track of updates to a web site and makes that information freely available to the users of that site. The beauty is that you can check out the feed and see if anything is new. If there is new content, you can go to the site and check it out. If there is not new content, you don’t need to bother.
The thing that makes RSS feeds work is the feed reader, or it is sometimes called the feed aggregator. You can find stand alone programs that do this, but I prefer to use a web based feed reader like Google Reader. From within the reader, a user subscribes to the feeds from their favorite websites. This can be done by copying the link to the feed into the reader, or setting up your browser to automatically add the feed to your reader when you click on it. The common icon for a feed is , but it could be just about anything. Once you have subscribed to a feed, the reader will automatically download the feeds on a regular basis and it will show any new content that may have been posted. You can then skim the feeds, looking for items that interest you.
My feed strategy is to subscribe to my favorite web sites and also a few general type sites as well. I have feeds from BBC news, ESPN, Digg, Scientific American, and several other smaller sites. This allows me to skim through my feeds and see the news of the day without having to visit 5 different websites. Remember that some websites are updated tens, if not hundreds of times a day (like Digg and BBC), so keep those sites to a minimum unless you want to wade through a ton of content.
You can subscribe to my own feed by clicking the Feed link in the Navigation menu or by clicking the feed button at the bottom of the page. Happy feed reading!
I decided to go for a walk yesterday. Really I was just going to walk to the ATM and make a small deposit, but I ended up walking around in Pflugerville, TX.
You see, I had found this ATM up on the wrong road. At the time I didn’t know it so I just kept walking, looking for the ATM. I ended up walking about five miles round trip.
On my way I was nearly run over twice. The first was a lady pulling out of a parking lot and just not looking where she was going. The second was an old man who was on a cell phone and weaving all over the road. I was also honked at three times and a guy on a bike gave me a kindly smile and nod.
I never did make it to the ATM, but I did stop and pick up a few groceries along the way.
There’s a great web app out there that I think everyone might find beneficial. It’s Google Calendar. If you’ve already got a Google account, I advise you to check it out immediately. If you don’t have a Google account, get one.
Google Calendar has all of the typical features you’d expect in a calendar program like reminders, multiple calendars, and event planning. You can also share you calendars with friends, family, and the world if you’d like. One of my favorite options is the ability to have a text message sent to your cell phone as a reminder. This is very helpful for someone with my memory problems.
It’s things like this that made me get rid of cable television. It’s another advertisement for the 1/2 Hour News Hour on Fox News. The show is supposed to be a satire… I guess. Sean Hannity’s reaction, or lack thereof, is pretty telling.
One question rattling through my brain is, did they even test it on a real audience? The only good joke in this clip was that Rush Limbaugh was President, and amazingly they even included a laugh track on that one.
Fox and others seem to be playing up the fact that the show is being made by Joel Surnow, who also makes their hit show “24.” I guess this fact alone will get a few people to watch, but probably not past the first episode.
On a side note, I just watched my first episode of “24″ the other day. I was completely unimpressed, but I did like the sound the clock makes when it’s ticking before a commercial break. The show was full of bad acting and the plot seems to be typical of most of the night time soap operas that seem to be so popular these days.
I added link to my humor page. I also formatted my resume so it looks halfway decent. Making that humor page work right was a pain, so you better enjoy it… or else…
Earlier this year I heard about about a new television show on one of the radio programs that I enjoy. The new TV show would be a half hour “fake” news program in the style of The Daily Show. The difference would be that this new show, to be aired on the Fox News Channel, will have a decided right-wing slant. You can check out a clip from the pilot on YouTube.
Before I even viewed the clip above, I knew that this show was probably going to be bad at best, utterly horrible at second best, and suicidally painful at worst. It looks like my worst fears have been realized, the show is awful, at least I am assuming so from this clip. The jokes are stale, the acting is… atrocious (shutter), and the use of a laugh track with a live audience in studio is just plain insulting to both me and them!
, but it could be just about anything. Once you have subscribed to a feed, the reader will automatically download the feeds on a regular basis and it will show any new content that may have been posted. You can then skim the feeds, looking for items that interest you.