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Juggling Urges

I have taken to practicing juggling in the carpool line. My 5 ball juggling has really started to clean up and today I started trying to work a couple of behind the back throws into the 5 ball routine. I’ll practice many things in the carpool line. I haven’t done anythings scary yet but still the mothers in the carpool will get out of their cars and chat with one another all while avoiding me. So yes, sometimes I do get the urge to juggle machetes.

Thanks Willful!

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Quote of the Day

This made me laugh hysterically.

“We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.” Robert Wilensky

Thanks to JBB of Lumbering Through Life! As an aside, I disagree with stance that Twitter’s 140 character limit is in place as an etiquette and means of keeping thoughts concise. The 140 character limit is to enable Twitter to send message by SMS and keep the message within a single text message. I believe different people are finding different uses for Twitter. I have chosen not to follow a couple of people because of their topic choices and style. I think Twitter’s will fall into 3 groups: self-promoters and linkers (using Twitter to post URLs to blogs and websites), news/media alerts, and voyeurs/exhibitionists/chatters. The first group, the linkers, will use Twitter to promote traffic to their own sites or sites interest them. The news/media alerts will be a group sharing relevant information that is happening now. The chatters will use Twitter as a replacement or complement to IRC and the instant messengers. Not everyone will enjoy the style of all three groups.

Update: My wife agrees with jbb.

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Is $1000 for someone else not worth YOUR time?

I am really enjoying participating in The Problogger Birthday Bash Darren Rowse and Lara Kulpa have put together. I do find it a little troubling that when they offered a prize of $1000 to your favorite charity it only generated 24 qualifying entries! Now turn it around. Instead of offering a decent sum of money for someone else, offer a $20 gift certificate for yourself and they got 724 comments! (not all of those would have been qualifying but I’m not going to count). Granted, there was a prize in that post which could have gotten you $500 for yourself but winning any other prize did not disqualify you from entering the charity giveaway. Every single Problogger reader should have entered the charity giveaway!

Ok. Let me get off my soap box and add in a little rationality.

  1. The money for self contest required no effort, just a comment under the post itself with as little as one word in it, so it makes sense that the number participants would be far greater.
  2. We assume that every reader of Problogger, due to its subject matter, has a blog BUT that could be a false assumption; ergo, the participation in the money for self would be higher.
  3. Not everyone is into charities. And that’s ok. So the participation in the money for self would be higher.
  4. The charity post required a little substance and effort. Unfortunately, effort and substance do knock a lot of people out of the game. Therefore, the money for self would be naturally higher.

All that said, it does make sense that some of the other contest posts would generate more comments. But only 24 valid entries for giving $1000 away to a meaningful cause?! Surely we should have done better than that! Karthik shares my sentiment.

Life is a participation sport. Get up! Participate! Be active in your community. Vote! Go to school board meetings. Pick up trash. Bring a shopping cart into the grocery with you instead of leaving it in the parking lot. Say hi to your neighbor. Hug someone daily! Volunteer your time. Leave a legacy. Make a difference!

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My Entry to the Problogger iPod giveaway

My entry for Problogger’s 6th giveaway is:

iBlog for iMust

I met a guy from Oz
Tim Miller his name
Of SpyJournal fame
We have never met in person
But are friends all the same

See I was trying out
This fad call blogging
Tim said its more than a game
Blogging is not a fad
It’s here to stay

People make a living
In this digital world
Publishing their own word
Tim advise, “Check out problogger
A site by Darren Rowse.”

Problogger showed the way
Follow these rules
And you can make your pay
In the comfort of pajamas
Sitting at your computer all day

I have yet to make a dime
But Darren must be doing ok
For it’s Problogger’s birthday
And good ol’ Darren
Is giving $54,000 away

Remember, they just needed a poem with the word "problogger" or "Darren" in it. The poem did not have to be a literary masterpiece although there are a couple of gems! At the time of this post, Darren Rowse and Lara Kulpa had 416 entries for their iPod giveaway which includes 4 iPods and 1 iPod makeover. You still have 4 hours to enter.