Home Of The Lazy Dog
While trying to stay busy and keep my mind occupied, I learned today is National Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday.) And to celebrate, IHOP will be offering their guests a free short stack of pancakes from 7 AM to 2 PM.
Mmmmmmmmm… P A N C A K E S
I just took this QUIZ sent to me by my friend John, in an obvious attempt to make me feel dumb. It’s comprised of questions from the US citizenship test, plus a few extra. In a spectacular failure, I managed to get 18 right out of 30, meaning that really, I should be kicked out of this country immediately. Even as I post this, there are hundreds of very intelligent foreigners standing in line at the Department of Immigration, asking for a chance at living in this country, but by some unfair twist of fate, I got in free by being born here. In fact, I’m not sure I make it in if I had to pass that test. Clearly, judging by my score, it’s doubtful I would even be allowed to visit this country. So much for that 10th grade Constitution test I had to take.
For those of you who read this blog via RSS make sure to update your feed URLs. Since I changed over to Wordpress my old feed is no longer valid. Come to think of it, if you only read this blog via RSS and haven’t already update your readers and aggregators then your not going to get this post any ways. Oh well… In any case, apparently yahoo and msn have a problem with my new feed URL. I dunno. But after much fruitless fiddling I managed to get something to show on My Yahoo! by using Feedburner. For those not familiar with FeedBurner, it’s a free service that you can use to handle your syndication feeds.
FeedBurner gives you stats on your feeds. It can actually tell you how many people have subscribed to your feeds and what reader they’re using. It also recognizes hits from browsers and from bots (and does not include these in the number of people subscribed). It sounds like the pro version gives some nifty stats, although at just under $5 a month, I don’t care enough to find out anytime soon. There are various things that FeedBurner can do, but besides stats the one I find the most interesting is that when it detects a browser accessing the feed, it will spit out an actual page that explains exactly what a feed is and it shows the feed’s content in a legible form. This is by far better than a useless xml display that visitors would otherwise see. I don’t exactly have any high-traffic feeds, but when you sign up with them they’re essentially hosting your feed, so there’s the potential for saving some bandwidth with the whole deal as well. (They’re really just making a copy of my feed and serving it up…my feed is still out there, but there’s also a FeedBurner feed with the same content)
If anything, this problem gave me the reason to try Feedburner. I’ve been curious about it and its increasing popularity. So far, what I like about having switched my feeds over is the stats. I think I might be a stats junkie. I even found a nifty Wordpress Feedburner plugin that took care of most of the dirty work for me.
Does anyone want to guess if Logan will let his wife die, or if he will take some other sort of action to prevent the terrorist plot against the Russian motorcade? I’m going to have to say no, and that’s not just because Aaron Pierce is in the car with her. Additionally, as the terrorists watched the motorcade drive off, did they see the Mrs. Logan get in the car? That wasn’t clear by what we were shown. What I do know is that the CTU will have a lot of explaining to do if Lynn comes down any harder. I would expect at least one phone call from Division next episode. Maybe Audrey will make a few calls to people in the DoD and heads will roll. Also, I’m still waiting for something to happen with Lynn’s stolen card, but how is a drug addicted going to pass it off to terrorists on the black market in a span of 18 hrs?
I have to say I really loved this episode. Some people might complain about the twists, the fact that Jack gets taken into custody at least once every hour, and that yet another person holding the key to finding the canisters died, but I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Lynn is starting to lose it, and next week it looks like Curtis is going to put an end to recess time, and I can’t wait to see the look on Logan’s face when he discovers that his wife has decided to jump into the limo.
Please know that I feel guilty about my absence from regular posting. And, no, this isn’t one of those ‘I’m going to be very busy, so I won’t be posting’ notices that people run all the time. (It’s a stupid blog. I don’t think people are going to call the cops if it’s not updated in 48 hours.)
But, trust me, not a single funny or interesting thing has happened to me in days, so you’re not missing anything.
I found this LINK via BusinessWeek Online that my Dad sent very interesting. As a user of Netflix, this concern has been at the back of my mind recently. And now, I see why Shawn Morton’s method for moving ‘Very long wait’ Netflix DVDs might pay off. Eventhough I’m sure I have suffered from throttling, I still love Netflix and I highly recomend them. Either way it still beats blockbuster!
Check out Zillow.com. It’s a pretty cool site. While there are a number of sites offering home value estimates, this is by far the most comprehensive and slickest-looking site I’ve seen yet. At the very least, it will let you spy on how much your neighbor’s homes are worth.
I got an invite to a very cool news site called, Newsvine. It actually is a new way at looking at news and how news is collected, published and distributed. If you are interested in getting a personal invite please leave a comment.
So I meant to post some profound entry yesterday about how I was in my last hours of my 20’s and that I could no longer be considered young, but I completely forgot to do that… Oh well.
The BIG 30. Not that I find that number to be a big deal. Or that this year’s birthday is more special than the others. Unlike some who are concerned that 30 is a beginning of something big, I am taking it as it is… just another day. Although it is a day with presents.
I think I’ll take a moment celebrate my age
End of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty yearsIn my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty yearsMy next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less… laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doin’ here in my next thirty yearsFor my next thirty years I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty yearsMy next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family… once I find a wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here in my next thirty years
with thanks to Tim McGraw for the lyrics above.
I’m on the downhill stretch of the first decade of the 21st century. Wow. I just had my driver’s license renewed and was taken aback a bit when I realized that the next time I would need to renew would be in … 2010! 2010 seems like some year out of science fiction - it’s weird. 2000 was such an anticipated year that it was a little anticlimactic - but 2010 makes it seem real. I wonder when we’re all going to get our flying cars?