Horoscope for the week of January 30

I was a bit concerned about the mysterious Dr. Zodiac this week as I figured he was going to skip the horoscope altogether.

The good doctor was always punctual when he was posting horoscopes (or StarCasts as he calls them) over at First Arkansas News, so I wondered if something terrible had happened to him. He doesn’t have a cell phone and rarely checks his email, so I had no real way of getting in touch with him (over than driving up to Little Rock and trying to find his home, of course). When all seemed lost, he came through with a horoscope and the following explanation:

I am so sorry this is late. I was called on by the stars to help them settle a dispute. It seems They were considering rearranging themselves so as to confuse mankind even more than they already have. I talked them out of it.

That whole business took some time and they were more interested in scheming than talking to me, so this StarCast took some time. Enjoy!

What do the stars have in store for us this week? Read on and find out for yourself.

Aries

Mar 21-Apr 19

You just never learn, do you Aries? Whenever you figure a project won’t take much time and you plan accordingly, things go terribly wrong. Once again you will find yourself in trouble be engaging in such wishful calculations. It’s all your own fault, Aries. Maybe you’ll learn from your failed time-management mistake this time, but I doubt it. Your lucky number this week is 10 minutes past your deadline.

Taurus

Apr 20-May 20

Well, here we go again, Taurus. Staying up all night might have been great fun when you were younger, but you need more sleep these days. A person can’t function off of three hours of sleep a night, but you keep trying. Remember – sleep is good and necessary. Now, go to bed on time at least half the nights this week. You’ll feel better. Your lucky number this week is 3 a.m.

Gemini

May 21-Jun 21

Don’t do it. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? That’s right – a new collectible you are convinced will make you rich. Beanie babies didn’t pan out for you and comic books didn’t, either. This thing you’re considering now – whatever it is – will do nothing but cost you money and take up space in your home. Trust me on this. Your lucky number this week is 75.

Cancer

Jun 22-Jul 22

You will find out for sure and certain that evil isn’t just some vague concept dreamed up by religious types. No, some people are just rotten and up to no good. You’ll learn for yourself that there is such a thing as pure evil and it is a nasty thing, indeed. In case you haven’t guessed by now, someone you wouldn’t suspect of foul behavior will plot mightily against you this week. Watch out! Your lucky number this week is 666.

Leo

Jul 23-Aug 22

You kept telling yourself you’d clean out those gutters, but you never did it. No, you just figured you’d wait until next fall and everything would be fine. It won’t be fine, Leo. You’re in for some serious roof trouble. The good news is that it might not be too late to take action and get busy on those gutters. Don’t delay! Oh, Leo! Your lucky number this week is 3 hours.

Virgo

Aug 23-Sep 22

You’ll give some change to someone in need this week and – absolutely nothing good will happen to you because of it. Hey, life isn’t a fairy tale, ace. Still, give that unfortunate soul a bit of change, anyway. It’s the nice thing to do. Your lucky number this week is 63 cents.

Libra

Sep 23-Oct 23

A song will get stuck in your head and drive you batty all week long. It’ll be a song you hate, too, and that’s absolutely worse. It might be a jingle, something embarrassing like one of those “tween hits” that are all over the place, an Eric Clapton song or something equally dreadful. It’s only for a week, so it could be worse. Your lucky number this week is No. 1 with a bullet.

Scorpio

Oct 24-Nov 21

You will finally decide who you want to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. If you’re a Republican, that means you’ll finally pick a favorite out of the primary candidates. If you’re a Democrat, well you know who to back, don’t you? It doesn’t really matter much – you’ll likely be unhappy with the election results regardless of which candidate actually wins. We do live in interesting times, I’m afraid. Your lucky number this week is Nov. 6.

Sagittarius

Nov 22-Dec 21

A fool and his money are soon parted and the stars tell me you will be a fool this week, indeed. I would tell you to watch your spending habits, but the stars assure me you won’t be able to help yourself. Still, it can’t hurt to exercise some restraint, so you might give that a try. Your lucky number this week is a penny saved is a penny earned.

Capricorn

Dec 22-Jan 19

I once knew a man who got struck by lightening and went on to live a full, happy life. That, I’m sure, is a rare thing. What does this all mean for you this week? Well, I’d stay indoors as much as possible this week if I were you. Your lucky number this week is 13.

Aquarius

Jan 20-Feb 18

You’re in for a week of head-slapping annoyances. You’ll forget to take the trash down to the curve, not set your alarm clock, leave your cell phone at home, mail a bill a day late and deal with the consequences of all manner of things. Hang on there, baby – Friday’s coming. Your lucky number this week is just almost 31.

Pisces

Feb 19-Mar 20

No one likes a trash mouth, Pisces. Either clean up your language or stay away from people all week long. Where did you learn to talk like that? What would your mother say? Shame, shame. Your lucky number this week is $&*@.

Big birthday surprise

Author: Joyce Mccall

It’s my husband’s birthday. He will turn 30 this week. The big 3-0! He has been wanting a big screen TV with all the bells and whistles. I decided since it was such a big birthday, to go all out. I mean, how many times do you turn 30? And he works so hard for our family allowing me to stay home with our kids. So, I splurged and got him the biggest TV I could find that is HD, 3-D, 1080P, and all the other letters and numbers that the salesman convinced me we could never live without. I did feel a little guilty spending that much for a present, but I rationalized it by thinking about how our whole family could benefit from it. My kids would love to watch cartoons on a huge screen and I wouldn’t mind watching Modern Family (my favorite TV show) on it either. Since we’re going all out for him, I decided to look into direct tv packages and go ahead and sign us up for the full sports package too. He’s going to love it!

Kinder, gentler crowd control

When it comes to crowds that need to proceed in an orderly manner through a line, you can't have them wandering around at will, can you?

When is crowd control necessary? Banks need to keep people in line as they’re waiting to make deposits and such, amusement parks can’t have people cutting in line to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl or the Whatsit, movie theaters keep things moving in an organized manner out of necessity, etc.

Of course, it’s terrible business to erect steel barricades and use other oppressive measures to keep customers in line as such tactics could result in a substantial loss of business. To that end, kinder gentler methods – such as the time-tested system of stanchions holding velvet ropes – have been developed over the years. Those methods are simple, effective and do the job while still giving customers the leeway and respect necessary to keep them coming back.

Want to learn more? Click one of the previous links and you’ll find plenty of information on crowd control and ways to implement it in a subtle way.

Weekend OTR: Eddie Bracken Show–‘Eddie Inherits a baby’

First Arkansas News used to at least one old time radio episode a week in its Weekend OTR series.

Ah, but that series has moved over here to The Natural State Hawg – hopefully, we’ll find some more old time radio fans and the folks who enjoyed the series at the other site will make it over here.

This weekend’s episode is as usual, courtesy of OTRCat.com. If you're an old time radio fan, you owe it to yourself to pay that site a visit. While you're at it, head on over to First Arkansas News' Lum and Abner page every Sunday to read a new, original comic strip featuring those two beloved Arkansas boys who made good in the world of old time radio.

Having said that, click the below link to enjoy this weekend's show and make sure to stop in next weekend to enjoy another old time radio program.

Eddie Bracken Show -- Eddie Inherits a Baby(1/20/1952)

 

Just in time for Valentine’s Day…

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and you’re going to feel like a sucker if you don’t get your sweetie a little something in honor of the holiday.

Yes, your good friend – The Hawg – is in the same boat, but I’m to find something unique when I’m shopping for something for my wife for Valentine’s Day. If I can shop conveniently, that’s even better.

Want convenience? Turn to the Internet, ace, and you can easily find something unique. Candy is always a good choice on Valentine’s Day and you can find plenty of candy and lollipops – just click the aforementioned link and get shopping, ace.

Oh, and do it early – Valentine’s Day will be here before you know it and you don’t want to get caught empty handed, do you? Experience has shown me that’s a very bad thing.

The Pogoplug–mine’s hot pink, but who cares?

That’s right. I got a new toy today – the Pogoplug.

How much did it cost? A ridiculous $24.99 online at J&R Electronics. What is it? Perhaps the coolest little gadget I’ve bought in a long, long time. Yes, the POGO-B01 I bought may have been so cheap because the thing comes in a very ugly, hot pink color (the black Pogoports I found were all more expensive than my pink one). Still, I feel like I stole that thing.

the Pogoplug, in a nutshell, is a very small media server. It’s little more than a unit boasting four USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port and a dual core, 700MHz CPU that’s running Ubuntu Linux for an operating system. That’s a lot of punch for $25 and I’m enjoying the heck out of it.

I was able to get the Pogoplug up and running in just a few minutes by plugging it in, hooking running an Ethernet cable between it and my wireless router and then setting up the device after I took out a free account at PogoPlug.com. Once I plugged in an external hard drive, I was in business.

When the Pogoplug is configured, you’ve got a personal cloud on your hands. I went ahead an installed an application that allows me to manage the device like any other hard drive set up on my main, Windows 7 machine, but it’s easy to access files from an Internet browser by simply logging into my account on PogoPlug.com. That’s right – if I’ve got an Internet connection, I can grab any file I need off the Pogoplug.

Ah, but there’s more. I can stream movies directly to my Xbox 360 through the Pogoplug and there’s even an iPhone app out there that allows one to stream media to my phone (yes, there’s an app for Android, too). I’ve got an old 350 GB drive hooked up to the Pogoport now but will order a 2 terabyte one soon so I won’t have to worry about running out of space. And, when I’m saving files on my local network, the process is very quick – just a little slower than it is to save on an external hard drive plugged directly to a computer with a USB 2.0 port.

We’ve got the unit set up in my home so that we all can save to the hard drive and pull files from it, too.

If that all sounds cool, that’s because it is. However, there are some drawbacks to the Pogoplug. For one thing, it would be great to be able to plug in my printer and use it as a network printer that everyone in my house could use. That feature is supposed to work, but I can’t get my computer to recognize the printer hooked up to the Pogoport. The ability to do that isn’t documented well at all and God only knows if the Pogoplug folks will fully implement that feature. That’s a shame because it only seems logical that the Pogoplug could be used as a network print spooler.

Bear in mind that such features – and more – can be implemented by those wanting to hack the thing by setting it up with a custom Linux OS that converts the machine into a pretty decent server (just google “hack Pogoplug” and you’ll find guides all over the place for doing just that). I may get around to customizing the Pogoplug in that manner one of these days, but I’d rather avoid it because I’m lazy. I’m sick to death of hacking away on devices to get them to work like they should – I’d rather just plug something in and use it.

Another drawback is that streaming media is great locally, but video is choppy when I’m away from home and accessing the Pogoplug through another network. That shouldn’t be surprising, but anyone hoping to stream huge files while outside of the “home” network will likely be disappointed.

And, if you’ve got a hard drive full of media, it’ll take a few hours for the Pogoplug to index it all. That process took about three hours on my hard drive.

Finally, the instructions that come with this thing are dreadful. You get a huge piece of paper telling you to log onto Pogoplug.com and activate it from there. Should something go wrong, they may be out of luck as there’s not just a whole lot in the way of support that comes with this thing. Heck, the documentary pamphlet packaged with the Pogoport doesn’t even go into the technical specifications for this thing. That’s a drag because there are a number of Pogoport models out there, and they don’t share a common chipset. If you’re going to put that aforementioned custom version of Linux on the system and use it as a file server, you’ll need to know which CPU you’re dealing with before you begin the process.

Still, those complaints are minor. Once you invest your $25, that’s the last money you have to spend. It’s a dirt cheap personal cloud that doesn’t come with a bunch of ongoing fees and can be expanded with additional hard drives.

I’ve still got some work to do with the Pogoplug, of course. “Cloud” printing is maybe-kind-of-perhaps supported and I need to set that up for those times when we need to print something and don’t want to drag a laptop back to the printer. I also need to mount the Pogoplug as a hard drive on my netbook that’s running Xubuntu Linux 11.10.

And, of course, I’ve got my daughter on the lookout for a “Hello Kitty” sticker to slap on the annoyingly pink device. It seems only appropriate.

Eventually, the Pogoplug will allow me to convert my DVD collection to a bunch of MP4 files so I can leave them in a closet and stream movies to my Xbox 360. Cool stuff. I converted my CD collection in a similar manner and that’s allowed me to clear up some space by dumping those discs in a closet and forgetting about them.

Stay tuned – I’ll write more about the Pogoplug as I find more uses for it. The fact I picked up that nifty device for about half the price of a popular, current Xbox 360 game is enough to make a cheap bastard like me giddy.

The two best lawyer jokes of all time

Yes, the rumors are true – I, The Hawg, used to be a lawyer.

Now, I realize that’s rather like being an alcoholic in that you never quite live it down. To that end, I am a recovering lawyer and I will be for the rest of my days. I started a solo practice in 1995 and got a couple of law partners in 1996. In 1998, one of those partners filed went nuts, filed a ridiculous lawsuit against the plant in Benton County that makes Little Debbie snack cakes, didn’t show up for work one day and wound up dealing cards at some casino in Tunica, Miss. Hey, that’s a true story – you can’t make up that kind of thing.

In February 1999, my other law partner told me she had accepted a job at another firm. I shut down the office a week later and haven’t looked back. Could I have kept the office going? Sure. I made a comfortable living and was usually competent at my job. Still, being a lawyer sucked. I figured I put in my four years and that was enough.

What’s the point of mentioning all this? Simply put, attorneys hear the best lawyer jokes and I’m going to share my two favorite ones with you. Ready? Here we go…

Q. How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?
A. Cut the rope.

Hah! That’s a real rib tickler! A knee slapper! It’s simple but effective. The next one is a bit more involved but I like it better.

A Hindu, a Jew and a lawyer were taking a road trip through the backwoods of Tennessee.

They had been driving all day and were tired, but there was no hotel to be found. They came across a farmhouse and decided to ask the owner if they could stay with him for the night.

“Sure, y’all can stay here,” the farmer said. “But the bed in the guestroom only sleeps two people, so one of you will have to sleep out in the barn. Don’t worry – it’s nice out there. I sleep there myself when the wife is mad at me.”

The barn sounded fine to the Hindu.

“You two fellows take the bed and I’ll sleep out in the barn,” the Hindu said.

The lawyer and the Jew were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock on the guestroom door. It was the Hindu.

“There’s a cow at there,” he said. “I’m not sleeping under the same roof as a cow.”

“That’s fine,” the Jew said. “You two take the bed and I’ll sleep out in the barn.”

The lawyer and the Hindu were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock at the door. It was the Jew.

“There’s a pig out there,” he said. “There’s no way I’m sleeping with a pig!”

“That’s fine,” the lawyer said. “Y’all take the bed and I’ll sleep in the barn.”

The Jew and the Hindu were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock at the door. It was the cow and the pig.

Now, here’s a funny story about that joke. When I was in my second year of law school, my ethics professor gave out bonus points for the joke of the week. I submitted the “Lawyer, Jew and Hindu” joke and he stopped me after class.

“I can’t accept this,” he said.
“Why not?”

“Because it’s racially insensitive.”
“What? How?”

“There might be a Jew or Hindu in class and they might be insulted.”

“Insulted how?”
“Because the joke makes fun of the beliefs of Jews and Hindus.”

“No it doesn’t,” I said. “It makes fun of lawyers.”

“Yes, but it also makes fun of Jews and Hindus,” he said.

“Really? How?”

“If you don’t know by now, I won’t be able to explain it to you.”

And, that was that.

Heh. Lawyers. Go figure.

What Republicans can learn from John Kerry

Ah, good ole John Kerry. He is the poster child for how to absolutely blow an election.

Why is he relevant in 2012? The Republican presidential nominee will be in roughly the same position as Kerry was in 2004 and may well fall into the same trap as the failed Democrat.

Let’s go back to 2004. The Democrats were in a great position to take the White House. George W. Bush was a controversial president who appeared to be losing popularity on a daily basis. The economy was a concern, government spending had alarmed more than a few people and Bush was largely responsible for getting the nation involved in a war in Iraq that wasn’t exactly going well and was becoming very unpopular.

The Democrats, in short, were in a position to topple Bush and they may have done that with a strong candidate. Instead of a great candidate, however, the Democrats nominated John Kerry.

Kerry’s campaign slogan should have been, “Vote for me because I’m not George Bush.” Kerry ran around the nation griping about Bush. He boldly promised to not ever be George Bush, in fact, and appeared confident that was enough to become president.

Kerry failed. His biggest problem, it seems, is that Kerry spent most of his time trying to convince people to not vote for Bush instead of giving them reasons to vote for him. Americans are, arguably, more interested in voting for something they believe in rather than simply voting against something they don’t.

Think about it. We’ve seen that play out time and time again. I’ve been voting in presidential elections since 1988 and have rarely voted for a candidate – I’ve voted against plenty of them, however. I’m reminded of the Bill Clinton-Bob Dole election back in 1996 when a friend of mine returned from the polls. He said he held his nose and “did the right” thing by voting against Clinton, but was none to happy with Dole.

Here in 2012, the Republican who gets the nomination will likely be tempted to gripe about Obama. Yes, he can talk about the rotten economy and the failed stimulus spending. And, make no mistake – Obama’s stimulus packages have been horrible failures. The point of stimulus spending is to help create jobs so that the tax base will increase and the government will get back the money spent on stimulating the economy. When those jobs aren’t created, the government has effectively thrown a bunch of money out the window.

The temptation to complain about Obama and his policies is certainly there as this president is a magnet for controversy. There’s everything from the remarkably odd decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline (thus potentially causing that oil to wind up in China) to healthcare reform to, well, playing a bunch of golf.

I’d wager the Republican nominee who focuses on Obama’s controversial decisions will fail miserably in the upcoming election. Sure, pointing out Obama’s faults is fair enough, but a successful candidacy is built on outlining policies that are attractive to voters. Giving voters something to believe in and support is far more effective than simply telling them that voting for Candidate X is less dangerous than voting for Candidate Y.

Obama clearly did that in 2008 with his “hope and change” message as well as the “yes we can” slogan (I still think he swiped that from Bob the Builder, but it worked). Obama had a lot of enthusiastic support from people inspired by his campaign while John McCain simply did not. The outcome of that election was predictable, wasn’t it?

Republicans should take that lesson to heart. Voters had rather vote for a candidate they like then against one they don’t.

Promote your business with cool, free stuff

Here’s something on which hopefully everyone can agree – there’s not a soul on the planet who doesn’t like cool, free stuff.

Think about it. When’s the last time you turned down something that was both appealing and cost nothing? Yeah, that’s right – you took that free item and felt good about it, didn’t you? You were happy with your new, free item and thought well of the person or organization that gave it to you, didn’t you?

That feeling – the sheer joy of getting something for free – can be leveraged by businesses looking to make a few bucks in this rotten economy. The trick at succeeding in business these days is to stand out from the pack and promotional items (i.e., cool, free stuff) can help companies achieve that goal.

There are tons of promotional items available. Some of them are good, some are not. Let’s say you’re looking for something that’s unique, fun and carries your company’s logo – promotional toys, for example. Click the aforementioned link and you’ll find more unique toys than you can shake a stick at. They’re of good quality, fun as heck and can help recipients both recognize your brand and think well of your company – two very good things during any economic climate and a necessity these days.

The amount of items available and the customization items open the door for a good number of personal, unique items. For example, let’s say I decided to promote The Natural State Hawg by grabbing the site’s banner and wrapping it around a bottle of oh-so-fun bubbles. That’s easy to do and is just one of thousands of options available. Fun stuff, huh? And – here’s the thing – ordering such items can lead to more business.

Wordless Wednesday–Daughter

Want to see more Wordless Wednesday entries? Just click here.

Should have been standard software for the iPhone

As great as the iPhone is, it feels very limited in a lot of ways.

Clearly, the hardware is powerful enough to do quite a bit, but Apple’s obsession with controlling what can be done with the devices results in a frustrating experience for users.

Well, iPhone users, get ready for the software package you’ve been wanting for some time – ImTOO iPhone Transfer Platinum. That little package should have (in my opinion) been standard with the iPhone.

Well, it’s not standard but the price is reasonable and the software works on Mac and PC. What does it do? Quite a bit, really. It allows users to:

* Transfer multimedia files directly from a computer to the iPhone.

* Rip CDs, DVDs and convert audio and video files to the iPhone.

* Create iPhone ringtones from audio and video sources (that is, indeed, a big benefit).

* And more…

It’s been a chore to make iPhone ringtones and convert video to iPhone in the past, but those days are over. The aforementioned software makes it easy to transfer multimedia to iPhone, and it’s the kind of package that iPhone users absolutely need.

Portable power when you need it

Smartphones and powerful, portable devices are all great things, but they all have a flaw – they suck batteries dry under heavy use.

I’ve had an iPhone 4 for the past couple of years and well know how that goes. When my phone is away from my computer or car charger for two long, the thing can go dark in a hurry.

Fortunately, there’s a solution to those who are tired of running out of power on their portable devices – a USB battery charger. What is that? Simply put, a low cost device that is portable and allows owners to charge smart phones, cell phones, tablets, gaming devices, cameras and other high-drain devices on the go.

How does one use portable USB battery chargers? Simply charge it, take it with you and plug in your mobile device when its low on power. The portable charge is a simple and effective way to make sure you don’t run out of power on your mobile device when you’re out and about.

Music Monday: Sonics–“The Witch”

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the ACTUAL LINK POST here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

 

PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

Questions about web hosting?

If you’ve been messing around with a blog for awhile, the chances are good that you’ve thought about hosting your own site rather than relying on one of the many free services out there.

But web hosting can be a confusing topic. What companies are good and which ones stink? Which companies offer the most bang for the buck? What’s the difference between a good company and a rotten one? Where can you find answers to those questions?

Well, lucky traveler, those answers are easy to find on the Internet. Log on and check some website hosting reviews to get started. Worried about how to access and manage your site? Find out about website control panels that allow you to do just that and find out which ones are best suited for you.

Finding a good web host can be an involved process, but there are resources out there to help steer you through it.