Category: Personal

The best parody ad memes from the Nike Colin Kapernick debacle.

I’ve been watching Ascension and Dark Matter recently and I’ve decided we need a list of Science Fiction tropes that need to be stopped!

1. Literal Minded Robots
   Androids, Robots, Computers, why do we think that in the future none of them will be able to understand slang. Sure, I get sarcasm, I know humans that struggle with that, but slang? There’s a scene in Dark Matter where the android, who is acting jealous, is told not to get a “big head” which she takes literally. Seriously? Siri can already be pithy, but a future android doesn’t understand a “big head”???
   Sure, it was funny 25 years ago when Data did it, but it’s not funny now.
2. Unlimited Resources
   In Ascension the crew of 600 is on a 100 year voyage to a the nearest star. While they play a certain amount of lip service to conserving assets, in several episodes they were pretty cavalier with some of their resources, burying people in space instead of using them for fertilizer. Incinerating items, etc… If you are on a generational spaceship 50 years out from home, please conserve resources.
3. Explosive Decompression
   This has been on mythbusters. Explosive decompressions is NOT a thing. You won’t get sucked out the side of a spaceship or through an airplane window, so STOP DOING IT!!!

The Encounter Collection from Process Creative on shade sails gold coast Vimeo.

Amazing story of wisdom being passed from a father to a son.

There’s a buzz in the air in my little town of Loveland, Colorado, about the Olympics. At my local business referral group, we worked in some mention of the Olympics into our 30 second commercials when talking about our businesses just for fun. I’ve heard some news on the radio about some shocking developments, but I personally haven’t been able to watch much of the Olympics.

You’ve Got Cable, Don’t You?

I was talking with my client, Roger who lives in Omaha. I asked him, “Hey, have you been watching the Olympics?” I was sort of hoping that he would say no so I would have someone to commiserate with.

“Absolutely! Every night,” he answered enthusiastically. Roger is rarely overtly enthusiastic over things that are unrelated to dentistry (his trade), so this made me even more jealous.

“Must be nice,” I thought.

“I’m liking the swimming. You know Michael Phelps set a new record for the number of medals,” Roger said.

Yeah, thanks, Roger. No, I actually didn’t know that. Last I had heard, Phelps was sucking it up. Now he’s a rockstar again and I had no idea. Why didn’t I know? Because I don’t get cable television. I get cable internet and phone service from Comcast, but I opted not to get cable TV since my wife and I watch everything on disc or via streaming video from Netflix or Hulu. And there’s the rub.

But Wait, The Olympics Are Streaming For The First Time Ever!

…Well, they’re streaming for some people. My wife and I wanted to show our little boys some of the Olympics, so we went online to the NBC Olympic website. We see “Watch The Olympics Live,” and a big red button that says, “Click Here And Get Ready.”

We click the big red button and see a sign-in pop-up with a big Comcast button there along with a drop down menu for other providers. We think, “Okay, we’re Comcast customers.” Not so fast…

“Access to NBC Olympics Live Extra requires an XFINITY® TV subscription*” the site says. The asterisk says that it requires a subscription to Digital Starter and that “alternative requirements” may apply to other areas.

Wah wah wah. We lose.

In$pire A Generation

Today, I decided to take another stab at it. I look in the list of other providers. There are so many here.  Winnebago Cooperative Telecom Association…nope. Verizon! I have a Verizon cell phone, so I tried to log in with that info, but it turns out it’s just for Verizon’s broadband customers. So I’m still out of luck.

Women’s beach volleyball is going on as I write this. I don’t know that beach volleyball is inspiring, but I certainly find it entertaining. Unfortunately, because I haven’t dished out the premium required for that entertainment or inspiration, I can’t watch it.

I did come across a certain website with a stream of the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics, but it regularly spits out pop-ups for online singles listings and tries to install all sorts of adware (or worse) disguised as “Plug-ins”. When I launch the site, I envision my computer wrapping its arms around itself, rocking back and forth, trying to go to its happy place.

I know I’m not alone in my predicament, and I hope that sponsors of the Olympics realize that their advertising isn’t being seen by this segment of the population. I could pay for cable or satellite tv, but I choose not to. The only reason I know that Samsung, British Airways, and Coca-Cola are commercial partners of the Olympics is because I finally went to the official London 2012 website and saw their scrolling logos.

Special thanks to Dr. Roger Roubal who treats snoring in the Omaha, Nebraska area. This article was written by Given Life Ministries founder, Jonathan Fashbaugh for Off-Topic Media.

Love this commercial!

Is Social Media Being Overrun by Corporate Interests?

It is Facebook’s continuing popularity as a business and marketing tool that may well be the downfall of social media, however, as the concepts of social and professional interaction continue to struggle at social media training toronto and in each other’s company. This can be seen through the apparent stagnation of Facebook’s usage statistics and growth rate during 2012, and the continuing controversy surrounding interaction between employers and employees through social media sites.

Interesting post bout the future of corporate interference and greed are going to ruin Facebook? Is it already too late? What does the future hold?

When I was 7 my Grandfather, Donald Moore, WWII vet, painter and all around great guy fell while he was at work and died. My memories of him are fleeting, I was just a kid and in some ways I think his passing was a kind of seminal moment in my life. Memories after that are much clearer than before, in fact some of my most distinct memories from childhood are of the time around his death and the vacation we made to Las Vegas to see my Grandmother’s sister Wanda not long afterward.

One of the few memories of him that still exist for me is of a diner. One day he and I took a trip. I vaguely remember his truck, an old crew cab chevy at the time. I don’t recall where we were going or what we were doing, but I remember we were north of Greeley on Highway 85 and we stopped for lunch at a diner. The diner was in the Lucerne area, possibly what much later became Doug Kershaw’s Bayou House (if anyone knows about a restaurant in the area in the late 70’s, please comment). I think we had a bowl of vegetable soup, and I think it may be the only time to date that I have sat at a lunch counter.

I don’t know what we did that day beside that, but I know that do my essay a chance to eat out back then was a treat and was burned solidly into my mind. There are other stories about him that I don’t personally recall. I know he snuck me into the hospital to see my sister when she was born. I was 4 and at the time and kids weren’t allowed in the hospital. There was another time that he brought me a used bicycle he had found somewhere. There was something wrong with it and the wheels wouldn’t hardly turn and we lived on a farm, so it didn’t work well in the dirt, but his heart was in the right place.

I think about him a lot, it’s one of the things that inspires me to be a good uncle to my niece and nephew. I regret all the fishing trips we didn’t take, all the war stories I never heard and everything I didn’t learn from the man because he wasn’t able to be here for my childhood.

I’ve been wanting to post something about this since last weekend. It’s been 10 years since we lost the great Dale Earnhardt at Daytona, and I still get a little emotional when I think about it.

The most amazing thing I ever saw Dale do was in the 1991 Busch Clash. He won the first segment and had to start at the back for the second segment. By Turn 3 in the second lap he had passed the whole field to be in the lead again. It was really awesome.

“To come back leading the race after two laps was amazing to me,“ Earnhardt said. “I didn`t believe we could do it. I thought it would take King Kong to come from 14th to first in 10 laps, and I sure didn`t think we could do it in two.“

This video is from the 1993 Busch Clash where he did the same thing, although it took him a little longer to get back to the front.

What great days those were. Dale driving the Chevrolet Number 3 for GM. I remember them well, and I’ll always miss the legend.