Bruce's September 2007 Newsletter

A Conglomeration of Posts by Bruce Simmons

Hi everyone. A collection of posts I've accumulated over the last month for your edification.
I hope you enjoy!

COMPUTER
iPhone - Increase the Time calls go to Voicemail
Outlook - Fixing Clipped Print Outs
My Tale of AOL - 8/22/07 (Update on my AOL experience)
You, Your Privacy, and Amy Polumbo
(She goofed and now says beware what you put on the internet. Duh!)
Woman gets 300 page iPhone Bill (She send thousands of text mssgs a month! HOW?)
A REASON TO KEEP YOUR COMPUTER PATCHED
Concerns about Google Street View
iPhone Observations and Tidbits
AOL, GMail and Email
(Application Shortcuts coming back next month)

CONSUMER STUFF
Recalls for Aug 30th
Monster Worldwide loses User Data (That's Monster Jobs)
Credit Cards Rated (This is worth reading or passing on)
Credit Card Interest Rates can Suck (That's present tense)
Recall - Swivels for Scuba Diving Masks
Home Builders start using EBAY (An interesting sales angle)
An Observation about Home Selling (Just a rant)
College Dorms and Fire Awareness (For those with kids headed off)
Statement by Toy Industry Association AND MORE Lea...
SpongeBob and Lead Paint = Recall
One Family's Sub-Prime Trap (Egads)
Doing Your Homework to Price Your Home
Median Home Prices (Around the country)
Rental Car insight (Just a bunch of Phone #'s)
Squirrell, Squirrell, GO AWAY! (A funny product)
Inkjet Printer Tidbits
Thinking about Buying a Cell Phone

REAL ESTATE
Time to Retire from THIS BLOG (I'm combining this into the consumer blog)
Foreclosures, Lenders and Median Home Prices
The Mortgage Squeeze
Failed Mortgage Lenders (A sad consequences of the ex-boom market)
Prudential's Online Seller Advantage (Gimme a break!)
A thought about Square Footage (Be Aware of the different ways to measure SF!)
Sub Prime Loans starting to impact Vendors

HOLLYWOOD, CELEBRITY Stuff
Princess Diana Remembered (Still a sad tragedy)
Arson at the Burning Man Festival (Now that's a confusing title)
Luke's LightSaber goes into Orbit (Never mind curing starvation)
For the Comic Enthusiast Out There: Jack Kirby
Aliens vs Predator 2 Trailer (I'm counting the days!! My two favorite movie characters.)
The Music Industry makes Billionaires BUT
The Dog free in Mexico, But NOT in the US! (Dog, the Bounty Hunter that is.)
Batman, Dark Knight Pictures (Another management example!)
Dateline NBC is still dodging Accusations (To Catch a Predator being sued)
NBC's Olympic Coverage (Oh boy, let's stay up until 3 am!!)
Michael Vick Chew Toy (I have no words for what this guy has done)

and for you
NASCAR ENTHUSIAST'S (Ok, that might be one or two of you)
Kyle Busch, Gibbs, Toyota - more
Dan Wheldon not to NASCAR yet
Wanted - One Busch Series Sponsor
The 8 Car Rumor on Drivers
NASCAR and ATT, Still going at It
Jacques Villeneuve and NASCAR
Scott Speed maybe NASCAR?
Waltrip, Reutimann, Pizza Makers (A funny sponsor rep situation)
Dale Earnhardt Jr and The History of the # 8
The 8 stays at DEI (Meaning that Jr can't take his # to his new team)
NASCAR in Primetime! (It's a 6 part series. For the beginner fan, it's not a bad intro.)
Budweiser to Pepsi, Earnhardt to Kahne

Quote for Aug 29

A quote for the day:

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." Antoine De Saint-Exupery( 1900-1944, French Aviator, Writer)

Is the Grass Greener?

A Postulate by Bruce Simmons

Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side of the Fence?

No. The grass is only as green as you think it is, regardless of which side of the fence you habitate and the grass is only green on the side of the grass blade facing the fence! Just like the side of the fence one is already on!!

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Bowling on "Tape"

So the other day, I was thinking to myself that I'd like to see some bowling on TV.

Then I thought I'd check out YouTube and see what's out there and I was quite surprised. Then, after looking at some video's, I was reading my US Bowler magazine (They send it to me, I didn't order it.) and on the last page is an article about you tube having bowling on it.

There's a lot of the stuff out there. I searched YouTube for 'PBA Bowling'.
I got back quite a few espn telecasts like:
The 2005-10-30 PBA Bowling Tulsa Championship in a stadium. HERE
Wes Malott vs Chris Barnes...2006-11-26 PBA bowling Discover Card Windy City Classic

Then the magazine article by Tom Clark, pointed out Roth's 7-10 split pick up.
Earl Anthony vs Dick Weber in 1976.

It's just nuts what is out there, depending on how you form your search.

Have fun, there's lots o' video out there!!!

Quotation

My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more.

Og Mandino

Blog posting comes Full Circle

I have a system set up that sends me emails about certain subjects as they are discovered on the internet.

Last night, I got an email, found motivation in an article about Amy Polumbo, giving chats about internet privacy, and created a blog post about it. Tonight, my email tool sent me more hits on Amy Polumbo, and there it is, my own blog post! Ha! I found that to be cool...

Even if I had a typo in it! AArg!!!!

Here's the "infamous" article: hollywood-noise.blogspot.com

Bowling Alley Diagrams

by Bruce Simmons

If one (IE: A Curious Bowler) has ever wanted to see a scaled image of a bowling lane, that is not a squat, representative type image of a PBA sport pattern, like this image to the right (The PBA Shark Pattern) go check out my web site page at:

brucesimmons.org



As I come across more, or if you have seen images that you want scaled and put out there, let me know here in this post.

Take care, and enjoy!

Internet Pet Searches

Over at hotsearches.aol.com, they point out that the most searched terms for pets are as follows:

Top Searched Things People Spend on Pets:
1. Pet Meds
2. Pet Supplies
3. Dog Training
4. Pet Insurance
5. Dog Health
6. Pet Friendly Hotels
7. Dog Food
8. Dog Beds
9. Dog Clothes
10. Dog Kennels

Keep in mind that this is an AOL search...

FLUFFY - WORLD DESTROYER

Need I say more? Fluffy-the-Destroyer-of-Worlds

"To Catch a Predator" being Sued

To Catch a Predator is being sued by one of the pervs, I mean "victims" who interacted with a psuedo 13 year old girl (A person whom he was led to believe was only 13 years old) online in an explicit online chat that got the guy to
A: Talk nasty online
B: to COME over to whom he thought was the 13 year old's house (Gee, that's not incriminating)

It has been pointed out that Perverted Justice got money for their efforts, and the "lawyer" claims entrapped because of that. She's also claiming Perverted Justice illegally recorded conversations with her client and also said the chat logs could not be authenticated.

Lady, everything you do, type, say, send, open, save, IM, .. what ever, is recorded online in one way or another.. .. you have a really big challenge in front of you, as you try to make a name for yourself with this sham of a case. I can only hope this "VICTIM", Dr. Maurice Wolin, is emotionally paying the price... Hey Mrs Wolin, are you the Ex-Mrs Wolin yet?

tmz

Driver Arrested while Blind

I couldn't come up up with anything better than that.. it's just too confusing:

Blind man arrested for driving car! (THIS IS NOT one of my jokes... )
Police in the Baltic state of Estonia stopped a man who was driving erratically at the weekend, only to find he was blind. At first they thought he was drunk! Yea, blind can do that to guy!!
reuters

This got me to thinking, so I googled blind man driving and was a little surprised I got hits!!!

This was from 2006: news.bbc.co.uk
This is from 2005: walb AND he blamed the dog for getting in trouble!!

Oh the funny place we live in.

Leaving Children and Dogs in Cars is not a good thing

by Bruce Simmons

 

How do I explain this, while the horror of the attacehd story confounds me.  Mother Charged with Homicide

 

Leaving anyone in a car in the sun is a bad call.  No matter how desperate you are, there are always better options.  A car is an incubator.  88 degrees may not feel too bad to you standing outside, but in an air stifled automobile, that temperature gets much much higher.

 

On a 78 degree day, windows up, temperatures in a car parked in the shade can exceed 90 degrees -- and hit a scorching 160 degrees if parked in the sun!  Heatstroke and suffocation are the results.  Do you want to take that chance to not be inconvenienced?

 

Leaving a car running with the AC on isn't the best option either, as this can overheat an engine, and the car may shut down the AC compressor at that point!!  (Paw Rescue.org)

 

Texas ranks at the top of Hot Car Deaths, accounting for 12% of the national fatalities.

 

The Boston Globe has a sad tale, as this terrible statistic is on the rise.

 

And CNN reports there are devices that can help prevent these scenario's, but very few sell.. for now.

 

Pass the word folks.  We, as a people, need to make sure our friends and neighbors are aware.