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The Death of New, Spidey Makes A Comeback, and More (The TBOE Roundup!)
2009-03-29 18:50:00
I've got an announcement to make about April's theme. I half-jokingly the other day told Sweetie I was going to write a book called The Death of New, about how our culture has gotten to the point where we cannot tolerate new or creative things anymore; I mentioned that because Sweetie told me that someone is making a "Three Stooges" movie starring people like Sean Penn, who couldn't be less Stooge-y if he tried. Then I ended my usual rant about that until I came across a review of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, which apparently retells Pride & Prejudice only... ... hold on for this... ... with zombies involved, somehow. Which seemed to me to be (a) a one-note joke that would very quickly get old (pun intended) and (b) not new at all. It's just yet another retelling of the same story, over and over and over -- which is what our culture has devolved to, now, as cartoons do nothing but parody other tv shows, which are the same old TV shows that they've always been,...
More About: Roundup , Comeback

U CN WN STFF, EZ.
2009-03-29 18:41:00
It was only a matter of time before someone combined the two things that Oldest loves best: getting free stuff, and texting. Oldest gets her love of free stuff from me, I assume (and from having no money), but her love of texting is a purely young person's thing. (I only text message to avoid having to talk on the phone.)But because Oldest loves those two things, I can MAYBE impress her -- as much as I can impress any of the kids -- by showing her a new website I found, one that lets you Send text message and win and stuff.The site is called "SMSNIA," and that probably means something to the kids. What it means to me, and you, and Oldest, is this: you can go there and find sweepstakes to enter just by sending a text message to them. You'll send a text (normal rates apply) and then get a reply text telling you what number entrant you are -- with a winner every certain number.There's a contest there for a Nintendo Wii, for example, where every 849th text wins. So you text th...

The Best REM Songs That Prove They Should Stand Among The Giants Of Rock An
2009-03-26 15:19:00
Where does REM fit into the rock'n'roll pantheon? As U2's mediocre new album sells only half of what they'd hoped, as Coldplay stands astride the World of Rock while making music that, let's be honest, is not rock-and-roll, as people continue, inexplicably, to pay sporadic attention to Nirvana and Pearl Jam...... and let's face it: Were shiny white suits, platform shoes, and flares any more or less embarrassing than flannel shirts, greasy hair, and cargo pants? No. Was the music put out by the "grunge" rockers of the early 90s any more or less influential than disco? No. Yet, it took about 35 minutes for people to begin making fun of disco; meanwhile, twenty years in, people are still pretending that grunge was "real" or "authentic" or whatever it is that makes people pretend to like grunge...As all that happens, REM gets ignored, really. They even got ignored by me when I set the world straight on what Rock & Roll actually is (as I did here, and here, and here, and ...
More About: Songs , Stand , Giants , Prove

The Best Superhero Gadget: (Second Reader Nomination)
2009-03-24 21:35:00
The rebuttal to Sio's sterling nomination of The Lens as The Best Superhero Gadget was also originally left as a comment on my Wordpress compilation. Here is Maurice Kane, who kinda backs me up, but also kinda more backs up being very selective about which ring we're discussing.Maurice says:I agree that the Silver Age Green Lantern?s power ring is the premiere, inimitable gadget in the annals of superherodom because of its near-infinite multi-use versatility as an offensive weapon, communications device(including Starfleet-like universal translator capabilities), generator of force-fields, and provider of rapid transportation through any medium imaginable. It is simple, it is portable, and only requires a periodic charge and the user?s willpower.The update is that the impurity which renders ring-bearers vulnerable to the color yellow is no longer operative; apparently it relates to the fear-entity Parallax. And even with ?yellow? as a weakness, that impediment was still easier to...
More About: Nomination , Reader

Also a popular retort: "I'm rubber, you're glue..." etc.
2009-03-24 21:21:00
Those who know and love me know that I love a bargain.And don't say Well, why don't you MARRY a bargain, then? because you and I know that's simply not legal, not yet, not in these United States. In fact, I heard that Brad and Angelina are not going to get married until it is legal, around the world, for anyone to marry any bargain they want to.Which will be more difficult when people get a view of what Sears is doing these days -- they're giving up to 75-80% off on fall and winter apparel, making it possible to stock up on clothing (clothing that's still perfectly wearable, here in Wisconsin where it's 38 degrees today) while stocking down, as Dick Vitale would say, on price.I clicked on over there and found the Arrow shirt and Docker's pants shown here for $9.99 and $29.99, respectively, so I can get whole new work outfits for under $40 -- saving a ton of money from now until April 18th.Oh, Sears, with that many bargains around, you've made it all the more likely that leg...
More About: Popular , Rubber

The Best Superhero Gadget: Reader Nomination
2009-03-24 14:48:00
In lieu of the Weekly TBOE Comment Roundup-- which, as you know, comes every Sunday, unless on Sunday I happen to be obsessing over the end of a certain television program that shall remain nameless, but which rhymes with Shmattlestar Shmalactica-- I'm going to instead focus on one reader comment this week. The Comment Roundup will be back -- let's just say that due to inaccurate counting of leap seconds, there was no "real" Sunday this week.Th new nomination for Best Superhero Gadget was left as a comment on the Wordpress compilation blog I had for a while, a blog where I'd post sort of a "Best Of" from all my blogs. I've since discontinued that, so if you read me on Wordpress, then you haven't read anything in a while, and you should just bookmark this page.On to the Nomination : Reader Sio, who read The Best Superhero Gadget, and had this to say:The Green Lanterns, and their power rings, were either consciously or unconsciously, cribbed from E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen, a...

You have to admit: That would look pretty neat on a label.
2009-03-24 14:35:00
My handwriting is awful. Seriously bad. When I handwrite something, it looks as though it was scrawled by an ambidextrous frog having a stroke...... or is that cruel to ambidextrous people? I can't keep track of who I can't make fun of these days. The handwriting thing would not be so bad, given that I work on a computer for almost everything, except for this: I've been searching for an agent and publisher for my writing, which means sending out a lot of query letters, and it is a beast to try to get my printer to do envelopes. It's so difficult that I'd rather not even try.So you can see the bind I'm in: Spend precious time printing envelopes to industry people, or hand-write them, knowing that agents and publishers and editors are going to be opening up this envelope, so the envelope is my first impression. And I do not want them to be opening up my envelopes thinking "Aw, crap, that frog wrote to me again."Since Sweetie continues to insist that marriage is NOT equal ...
More About: Label , Pretty

No, you taste like failed ideology, which is more akin to root beer: (The F
2009-03-24 03:33:00
It's a MiniBest!Here's a thought I had, the first of many, and a thought that just struck me as both sort of sad/sort of odd, just tonight:People only maked shaped cookies for special occasions.Weird, huh? We make shaped cookies for Christmas, and for Easter, and for Halloween, and maybe, if you're really into them, other occasions, like, I suppose, Arbor Day or Lenin's Birthday or something.But everyday cookies aren't shaped like anything but cookies. Why is that, I wonder? Is it only worth the extra effort to shape the cookies like something else if it's for a special occasion? Would people think it was weird if I baked shaped cookies for just a "Tuesday?"I bet they would. I bet if I went right now and baked cookies, nobody would say anything about it (other than Sweetie, who would likely say "I thought you said you were coming to bed. Why are you making cookies at 10 p.m.?")(What's oddly frightening is that she might not ask that last part. She might just figure tha...
More About: Beer , Taste , Ideology , Root

Plus, it came with HD and a DVR and it makes me feel like I'm finally part
2009-03-24 03:23:00
Two years ago, more or less, I had had it up to HERE. I was sitting around, trying to watch TV while I babysat the then-infant twins, and the stupid cable kept going out; we didn't get much of a signal and I'd had the people out to our house about 15 times already that month, and each time they'd fix it and it would work for a day or two and then stop. And that day, I couldn't get ANY TV shows to work, at all -- the cable kept fuzzing and jamming.So I picked up the phone and called the Dish Network and asked if they could come install a satellite dish. They were there within a few days, and I unhooked the cable and never looked back. EVER. EVER ever. Here's the thing about cable companies -- ANY cable companies: They don't care about you. They've got a monopoly and customer services would be at the lowest entry on their list, except that it's not on their list at all -- they don't try to serve the customers. They just laugh and never fix anything and charge you $90...
More About: Finally , Part , Feel

The Best (And Only Real) Explanation For How Humans Ended Up Being Alive An
2009-03-22 17:21:00
All this has been written before. And it will all be written again. Provided that someone makes a show like this again and I happen to see it...I thought I would start this nomination off in a more literary manner, hoping to gain a little credibility by piggy-backing on the shoulders of a more respected writer. After all, how can half-thought-out literary references that make no real sense, in the context of whatever else you're doing, not make things seem a little better and more weighty.No?Let me try this, then: Are you not liter-tained? Still nothing? Well, I'm sure I'll come up with something to prove to you that this is a weighty, thoughtful, symbolic literary enterprise, and not some throwaway crap that I more or less copied from some memories I had of books I read back in high school. And, if I'm lucky, I will also remember that for a couple of years now, I've been calling one of my characters a harbinger of death, and I will therefore make sure that comes true inst...
More About: Real , Humans , Alive

Sweetie would probably prefer I carve a Butter Jamie Bamber: (The Third Of
2009-03-20 16:11:00
It's a MiniBest!If crunchy saviors and Commerce Radishes cannot help me retire in style -- and retire now, so that I could properly prepare to watch the last-ever Battlestar Galactica (Titled: "Maybe They'll Forget All Those Teasers We've Planted For Years If We Have A Big Fight?"), then I might have found the next best thing: A Giant Butter Elvis:"Butter Elvis" is definitely going to be my ticket to riches and fame and retirement, provided that (a) I learn how to sculpt, and (b) federal copyright law is inapplicable to food-based sculptures.That last is particularly important, given that Butter Elvis was first created by The Butter Cow Lady, who is not a lady made out of butter cows (false advertising!) but is, instead, the world's most renowned butter sculptor.The Butter Cow Lady's real name is Norma Lyon, and Norma Lyon became famous (?) for sculpting, for 45 years, the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow. From 1960-2005, Norma sculpted Iowa's annual cow, as well as other butter s...
More About: Jamie

Welcome a new TBOE Reader-- dolphins!
2009-03-20 15:46:00
Dolphins do amazing things -- including, now, reading my blog. It wasn't so long ago that I proposed people using the phrase "shoulda put a ring on it" to describe something liked or to rub in the loss of something someone else liked... and now I find out that dolphins (maybe all of them, maybe just some) are, somehow, reading my blog.That's what I surmise from the new dolphin bubbles phenomenon which I just found out about today and which blew my mind. Watch this:Isn't that amazing? I had never even heard of this before -- and we even went to Seaworld last year on vacation. We went, but never got to see that, and I'm sorry we didn't get to see it live. But even having missed it live, it's cool enough watching it on video. Dolphins blowing ring shaped bubbles and then playing with them -- bubbles that don't act like ordinary bubbles, either. I could watch that video all day; I wish they'd posted more of them (or videos of dolphins maybe using a laptop computer to read my...
More About: Dolphins , Reader

Whodathunkit?!: The 64 Best Things You Want To Know About the 2009 NCAA To
2009-03-17 16:24:00
It's Whodathunkit?! for the NCAA Tournament! Maybe you like the Tournament, and maybe you like basketball. Me, I like the Tournament but I hate watching basketball -- so every year, I get excited about March Madness and follow who wins and loses, all without ever watching a single moment of the actual games.Which puts me at a loss about what to say when people talk about, you know, actual basketball stuff. If you're like me, then you need Whodathunkit?! -- the only source of the stuff you actually want to know about the NCAA Tournament.And I don't skimp, either -- I'm giving you not one, not ten, not 20, but sixty-four things you want to know -- one for each team in the Tournament. It's a long one, so get going:Whodathunkit?!:The 64 Best Things You Want To KnowAbout the 2009 NCAA Tournament:Louisville: With Louisville again making it into a college playoff, it's time for the annual review of how to pronounce "Louisville." This site will tell you it's "loo-uh-vul., and y...

Just back down, Walt. Let's not get crazy here, okay? (The Second Of The B
2009-03-14 13:23:00
It's a MiniBest!It seems that it would be difficult to get rich selling cheese-flavored Saviors, even on eBay, and I can never take the time to slow down and watch the shapes of the snack foods I'm eating. Since I'm still not willing to gnaw a cornflake until it looks vaguely like a state and then lie about it to get a casino to buy it from me, I've continued looking for ways to get rich off Food Shaped Like Other Things.My search has revealed that yet again, someone has stolen my ideas from me, and yet again, it's Disney. I won't go into the long history I have of feuding with Walt Disney -- he knows why I'm mad-- but this just added fuel to the fire: Disney is actively creating foods shaped like other things. They're growing Mickey-Mouse-shaped pumpkins and tomatoes.Disney's doing that at "EPCOT Center," the part of the Disney Empire that nobody ever goes to because it's deemed far too boring -- which is probably Disney's plan, since Epcot Center appears to be some...
More About: Crazy , Back

I'm probably going to Hell for This (The First Best Foods Shaped Like Other
2009-03-10 12:58:00
It's a MiniBest!Remember the so-called Illinois Cornflake, a/k/a, the greatest scam foisted off on American society since the "Moon Landing?" I've never forgotten the Manitoba-shaped $1,350 road to easy street. And I've never forgotten it mostly because, like all Americans, I'm searching for fame and fortune and a way to do even less work than I usually do, on a daily basis. I know, I know -- I do about 13 minutes of actual "work" per day, but I'm still expected to show up there at the office, and still expected to wear pants. I ask you, is that the American dream?No. The American dream is fame and fortune through, well, luck. Luck and, in the case of the Manitoba flake, nibbling at the edges of cereal until it looks vaguely like a geographic blob, which all cornflakes do, anyway. Which is a good idea, because also the American dream involves food.Since nobody has yet taken me up on my offer to create a reality show about me -- still open, Hollywood! I'm still taking b...
More About: Hell , Foods

Sumo can. And does.
2009-03-10 12:45:00
That story is absolutely true, and it was more horrifying than I make it sound, now, 11 years later. That's why I always backup my files, and I use the Online Backup from Sumo . Sumo makes backing up easy; everything is backed up the moment I hit "Save," so I don't need to make sure that at the end of the day, I'm backing everything up. I can set Sumo to backup to a local hard drive simultaneously, so that I can get to my backup files even if the Internet goes down -- like it did yesterday when a garbage truck took out our phone lines at the office. Plus, they do the greatest thing ever: "Point-In-Time Recovery," where I can go back to get a file from an earlier date if I have overwritten the newer one. So if I had a brief saved a year ago, and then today took it out to cut and paste some portions but overwrote it, I can still get that brief from a year ago. No more accidentally saving something with the wrong name and losing the first document forever. I feel secure using Su...

The Best Superhero: New nominee/reader submission.
2009-03-08 18:36:00
What makes a superhero a superhero?That's the question raised by both the movie Watchmen and by Anonymous' comment/nomination on The Best Superhero . (That post, by the way, has now become the most-commented post on this blog, which means that NOW, the most controversial thing I've ever said is that Spider-Man was The Best Superhero, to which people responded that, no, it's "Dr. Manhattan" or, now, today's nomination.))(Previously, the most controversial thing I'd ever said was that Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are obviously identical twins, not fraternal.)(I stand by that opinion, too.)The question, what makes a superhero a superhero? is raised today because Anonymous in his comment nominates, as The Best Superhero, The Hulk, saying:The Hulk is by far the best superhero ever!!! He blows spiderman out the water!!!Before I get to whether I can even accept that nomination contained in the first part of the comment, I have to address the latter part of the comment.The latter part o...
More About: Reader , Submission

The TBOE Sunday Roundup
2009-03-08 16:55:00
Let's welcome some new readers to TBOE. First up is Don Coorough, who has become a follower of TBOE (you can do that by clicking over there to the left.) Don is a "poet-philosopher, historian, social activist, pacifist and social critic" who writes on "Shoreline Driftwood," a blog of unconventional views and excellent poetry with stunningly powerful images. Check out "The Disenchantress" and you'll see what I mean.Then there's a two-fer from an issue of Newsweek recently in which the book "Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry" was reviewed. Jennie Yabroff, a Newsweek writer, begins her review of a book with this quote: "You've gotta have a gimmick to sell a book." Which is not true, but which echoes the refrain heard here on TBOE over and over -- that gimmicks are necessary: necessary if you want to be a successful supervillain, or if you want to encourage kids to re...
More About: Roundup , Sunday

The 4 Best Board Games That Should Be Made Into Sitcoms.
2009-03-04 17:44:00
I saw the other day an article about how a network might bring back, or run, or something, the show Rules of Engagement, a show that I have, unfortunately, seen almost 5 minutes of in my lifetime.Now, I'm not saying that a show which via it's title compares marriage to combat, and which premises its entire outlook on life on a few Henny Youngman jokes about the differences between single life and married life is not funny...... wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. What is the point of the show "Rules of Engagement?" Where is the humor? Let me sum up what I assume to be the plot of every single episode of Rules of Engagement, ever: Married guys feel as though they have to pay attention to their wives. Single guys sometimes feel lonely. Hilarity (?) ensues. Also, people fall down. Probably.Is there something I'm missing here? Is there something that's funny about marriage, or singledom -- and by that, I mean, inherently funny, such that marriage, or lack thereof, beco...
More About: Games , Board , Made , Board Games

Spring is here! And with it come disturbances, statistics and The TBOE Rep
2009-03-01 15:52:00
Well, finally, you cheered up. Maybe it's the fact that spring starts today, March 1 -- and shut up, weathermen and geeks who say it doesn't start today. Why have a calendar at all if we're just going to smack important dates down in the middle of the month? Here at TBOE, spring starts March1. Summer starts June 1. Fall starts September 1. And winter starts December 1.So because spring was coming, I think the readers cheered up a little. But not a lot. Instead of spending another month mostly looking at The Best Sad Song, February saw "The Ten Best Songs That Make You Feel Good (And Then Feel Bad About Feeling Good)" top the charts as the most popular post in the past month.So TBOE readers, you at least had a moment of happiness there in the gloom of February, right? Maybe this will cheer you up even more than the prospect that the earth* is everyday tilting a little more towards the sun (unless you live in the southern hemisphere, in which case, I'm sorry.) There's a...
More About: Spring , Statistics

Ah, the beauty of pregnancy. Now go put on some makeup.
2009-03-01 15:33:00
How often is it that you get a chance to do what the stars do, and be healthy?And by "stars" I mean "people in movies and TV shows and even maybe musicians," not "celestial bodies of gas that are producing heat and light via nuclear fusion." Because I doubt, very much, that you could engage in nuclear fusion and be healthy. Glowing hot, yes. Healthy, no.My point, and I am pretty sure I have one, is that women like to do what celebrities do, and they like to be healthy, and sometimes those two are at odds. Like when a woman is pregnant, it can be difficult to find beauty products that won't harm their babies. Or, it COULD be difficult, because it's not anymore. The new line of beauty products from Beaute de Maman has taken care of that. They've developed healthy and beauty products created by a board-certified obstetrician, products designed to treat problems related to pregnancy-related hormonal and other physiological changes experienced during pregnancy.Which means that y...
More About: Beauty , Makeup , Pregnancy

The Best Undead Creature
2009-02-28 13:37:00
Well.Apparently, I was ahead of my time. Or I was right on with my time. Or I actually set the pace. I can't decide which it should be. If I was ahead of my time then that means that I did something that nobody is yet able to recognize as genius, like the guy who invented Zero candy bars, which have been around forever but which are underappreciated, even by me, considering that last night I was going to get one when we were out running errands but then I thought Am I really ready for a Zero bar right now?I really did think that, and then the answer was No, I'm not. However, it wasn't so much that I wasn't ready because Zero bars are ahead of their time, but instead because I'd eaten a lot of pizza for dinner and then gone and tried on pants because they were on sale, and I'd had to get pants a whole size larger than the pants I just bought in January, which dismayed me and made me opt not to get a Zero bar after all. Still, Zero bars are like something from the future, ...
More About: Creature

From up to Heaven: (The Third of The Best Songs By One-Hit Wonders That Are
2009-02-24 21:49:00
MiniBest!When you start the big part of your musical career off with a song titled "Loser," aren't you courting trouble?I know, I know, Beck didn't start with "Loser." I said the big part of his career, the part where people knew about him and actually bought his records and made him a star. "Loser" hit number 10 on the Billboard charts, back in about 1994; I had to look that up because if I'd gone on my own impressions, I'd have said that "Loser" didn't stop at hitting number one, but must have gone on to a ranking somewhat higher than "number one," a ranking of imaginary numbers that is reserved for those songs that seem more popular than physics should allow -- songs like "Mambo Number 5" and "La Vida Loca" and "Loser," which are played so often that they don't just stick into your head, they actually lodge in your mitochondria where they will dance around bewilderingly until Charles Wallace comes and does whatever he did to stop them dancing around, but even then your mi...
More About: Songs , Heaven , Wonders

Ah, nostalgia!
2009-02-24 21:38:00
Remember as a kid when you played with Tonka trucks? Road graders, dump trucks, bulldozers, all kinds of large machines? I did -- taking them out to the backyard where my parents had a flower and rock garden that would be dug up and rerouted and was the future site for all kinds of construction projects. Of course, my Tonka trucks were also from time to time driven by my "Greedo" action figure and were used to try to kill Luke Skywalker in a sort of space-construction-war. But I still played with trucks as a kid.Some lucky guys went from playing with trucks to using them in business. Being able to do that would be the best possible thing about being a construction worker: driving for real the kind of equipment we had to push around with our hands as kids.Al Asher & Sons know the pleasures of driving around the big equipment, and they know the pleasure of selling the big equipment to you. They've got all kinds of heavy equipment trucks: Bucket trucks, cranes, cable puller...
More About: Nostalgia

Everybody tell me have you heard? (The Second Of The Best Songs By One-Hi
2009-02-23 19:44:00
It's a Minibest!The enduring appeal of "The Safety Dance" was shown when The Family Critic Guy Show this past week had its characters do a dance to that song (doing so in the midst of another tired parody of another tired movie. What is it with cartoon television shows, anyway? Why do they more and more simply parody other art forms? Last season, South Park parodied High School Musical. Which segment of their audience was that supposed to appeal to? Is there a cross-section of television watchers who know enough about High School Musical to watch a South Park parody of it and enjoy it? Is there any overlap between the audiences of those two?)(And, what was worse about the Critic Family parody was that it was the second time in a year that a cartoon television show parodied Ocean's 11; South Park did that, too. I understand, cartoon show creators, that you have cashed in and are no longer even bothering to pretend to try, but aren't you somewhat worried that the studio head...
More About: Songs

2-4-6-8, who do we iCoaster -ate?... no, doesn't quite work.
2009-02-23 19:31:00
I can I can iCoaster... I'm just trying to come up with a cool rallying cry/trash talk to use in my next session on the MagNext arena game "iCoaster." I've played and written about this game before, but I can't say enough about the whole site.Magnext lets you create a free account and once in, become a magnetic supercool futuristic sphere that takes part in all kinds of games, from challenge puzzle games to my newest favorite, "iCoaster." Your little avatar/sphere goes racing around this roller coaster track at what feels like lightspeed while you've got to click and replace the missing tracks ahead of you to keep from flying off. It's like a race game crossed with Tetris, only faster and more addictive; this is the game that's going to get me fired if I don't find a way to master it soon, because I can't quit playing it.And I'm not even that good at it yet. But I will be, because it's seriously compelling and provides a good rush of fun. It's like I've said a lot...
More About: Work

The TBOE Comment Roundup.
2009-02-23 15:34:00
This week in The Best Comment ers:Supercommenter/Awesomewriter Lisa Pepin, whose blog "Lost In Provence" should be required reading for people who (a) breathe or (b) exist, had this to say about the most recent Supervillain post:"Chillblaine," that's the perfect brand name for your business leg warmers. Though it sounds like you should add a line of mittens as well. But they'd have to be mittens you could type in. Or they'd have to be so expensively-priced that they would inspire the kind of awe and respect that would get you out of doing such mundane tasks as typing while at work. Also, thanks for posting a picture of Duckie Dale. I didn't realize how much I had missed him until I saw his face (and gold jacket and ultra-feminine lapel pin) again. Sure, Lisa, you say you missed Duckie Dale -- but you missed him as a friend, right? A really good friend, of course... but the Duckies of the world reside forever in the Friend Zone. But you are right that "Chillblaine" would be mark...
More About: Roundup

Managing requires understanding.
2009-02-23 15:34:00
With the news this morning that the government may have to buy up to 40% of another large bank just to avoid a run on it, it looks like the country could be stuck in neutral, if not reverse, for a while. That makes it all the more imperative to be more careful with your own personal finances, and manage them a lot better.Managing your finances begins with understanding them. Take your credit card, or credit cards -- do you really understand how they work? Sure, you know that you can charge things and you can pay for them over time and that you pay interest, but do you understand how your interest is calculated, and what interest is charged on?That kind of information is important, because it lets you know just how much that shirt or cup of coffee that you charged is actually costing you: the cost of the shirt is the ticket price, plus all the interest you pay. But most people don't know how much interest they pay or how to figure out how it's calculated.Care One Credit Counse...
More About: Understanding

Give All Your Love To Me: The First of The Best Songs By One-Hit Wonders (
2009-02-20 23:47:00
a-ha (note how I lower-cased it, just like they'd have wanted it. Also, note that there's no exclamation point there. a-ha were not suprised. They were blase about the whole experience. Whatever experience you're talking about) hit number 1 with their song Take On Me, which took the world by storm with its quirky video and peppy beat.How to follow that up? Why not alienate your fan base by releasing a moody, dark, ponderous (but still-fast-paced) single? Sure, why not? Hey, could you also make it about a guy who's probably going crazy or something?Can do: Hence, a-ha's second top 40 hit, The Sun Always Shines On TV, which peaked at 20 in the United States, despite winning a bunch of awards for the video (a video I can't find on Youtube; this one is a later version of the song and video.)What did the world want from a-ha? Probably not lyrics like "I fear the crazed and lonely/Looks the mirror's sending me these days." At least not unless they were coupled with a peppy b...
More About: Songs , Love , Wonders , Give

Debuting The MiniBest!
2009-02-20 23:38:00
What's a "MiniBest?"What it sounds like: A "Best" that's not accompanied by all the frou frou of all these other lists and Whodathunkits? and meandering lengthy essays that could benefit from some severe editing (or medication. Either one.)I like to write, and I especially like writing on here, but creating those longer posts takes time and every now and then I'm expected to work/parent/be a productive member of society, and because of those expectations, I don't get to write on here as often as I could.To help fill the void in between those lengthier posts, I've decided to institute "The MiniBest," which will be a periodic "Best" nomination interspersed throughout the others. Each month will have a "MiniBest" theme.February's "MiniBest Theme" will be: The Best Songs By One-Hit Wonders (That Aren't Their One Hit.)As always, feel free to submit your own nominations for a Best! Because I am lazy and I'd rather you do the work for me.MiniBest Themes:February, 2009: The Be...