Joey’s Crappy Day

While I was once a crazy Texas thousandaire, Texas is also known for producing an abnormally high amount of billionaires who think they can save the country. The two that come to mind immediately are H. Ross Perot and T. Boone Pickens. Hmm, come to think of it, they also only use an initial for their first names. How does J. Neal Bales sound? Anyway, back to the story.

T. Boone Pickens has a new website called PickensPlan (as seen on TV!) that outlines his concept for a new US energy strategy. He thinks all natural gas power generation should be replaced with wind energy and the natural gas savings can then be used to power our automobiles and reduce our need for foreign oil. He freely admits that his plan is not a permanent solution and is merely a bridge to whatever comes next. He also stresses the importance of good leadership to get the plan working. He says it would only take ten years, but with little or no infrastructure for natural gas powered autos, his plan might take longer than he thinks without significant help in the form of tax breaks and government vouchers.

H. Ross Perot has a new website too called Perot Charts. Be sure to check out the creepy and poorly scripted video on the front page. It’s a virtual love fest coming from some anonymous guy that Perot chose to “run” this project. I think we know who’s really in charge. The site is basically just a giant slideshow of Perot’s famous charts which have been updated for the 21st century. He doesn’t really have a plan or anything, just a bunch of charts and a lot of moxy. Go get ‘em Ross!

As many of you know, I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in over a year. So when I got a craving for something besides Arby’s yesterday, I decided to go for a Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Here’s the letter I wrote to McDonald’s after my visit.

I have not eaten at McDonalds in over a year. So when I ate at your store yesterday, you should have been trying harder to impress me. The store in question was #25273. I was not greeted when I came in. The cashier just stared at me until I ordered. In fact, he said nothing except to give me my total. Next, the store was filthy, both behind the counter and in the eating area. The ketchup was empty. All the tables were dirty. The floor was dirty. I was afraid to go into the restroom. While I was there several employees were on break and several more went on break. None of them tried to clean anything before or after going on break. They seemed to be unaware of the state of the filth they were working in. I saw no manager on duty, but I wasnt looking too hard. Also, I asked for dine in service, but my food was given to me in a bag as if it were carry out. You just wasted one bag.

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!

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.