Twitter

I read about Twitter and decided to see what it was all about. At this point it seems to be sort of mini-blogging.

Anyway I've added a little twitter section on my sidebar. I'm sure I'll post to that just as much as I blog :) /sarcasm

My Sister Rocks

My sister is a college professor and she teaches reading. How does that work you may ask? Well here she is in this video explaining it:

The System

Is it possible that there can be a foolproof system for predicting the winner of horse races? Watch as Derren explores this.

It moves a little slow but it is well worth watching. It is very well done.

I Don't Get It

If Major League Baseball is a private organization, why is Congress involved in trying to figure out who used performance enhancing drugs?

Is this a criminal investigation with people on trial for illegal drug use? Doesn't seem like it. Can someone explain this to me?

Your Vote Counts

Amazing how close the Democratic vote was yesterday:

Clinton: 7,350,238
Obama: 7,295,400

Love Hope Fear

Great post from Seth Godin on motivations that marketers use.

Google, amazingly quickly, became a beloved brand, something many people see as bigger than themselves, something bigger than hope. Apple lives in this arena as well. I think if you deliver hope for a long time (and deliver on it sometimes) you can graduate to love. Ronald Reagan was beloved, even when he was making significant long-term errors. So was JFK. Hillary may be respected, but Obama is loved.

R.I.P Bobby Fischer

Chess legend Bobby Fischer died.

Hope

This gives me a feeling of hope that I haven't felt in the last 7 years.

Dick Cheney Boggles Me

Dick Cheney on why it was a bad idea to take out Saddam back in the Gulf War. It's fascinating how prophetic and ironic it is.

How I Became a Vegetarian

Irie and I both submitted our vegetarian stories to a Eugene based vegan site and you can read them here.

Yo-Yo

Check out this video to see what people are doing with yo-yoing these days. We are long past walking the dog in 1982 with our Duncan Imperials:



I bring up yo-yos because at my side business we are about to start manufacturing and selling them and I've been enjoying getting back into it.

Eugene Happenings

The other day our local video/dvd rental shop closed. They had been in business for 24 years specializing in art, foreign and independent films. They were one of the special things about the neighborhood we live in. They will be missed but will live on through the library which is buying up 10,000 titles from their great collection.

On the other side of the coin we discovered the coolest coffee in the world which actually opened last December. This is the coffee shop run by the same local roasters that roast the coffee we drink at home. They are called Wandering Goat. This coffee shop is so vegan friendly that it costs extra for dairy milk and not for soy, rice and any of the other non-dairy options (every other coffee shop I've ever been to charges extra for soy.) As well all of the treats are vegan. We love the location and it has a great atmosphere. Nothing like riding our bike over there for an iced soy mocha.

Matisyahu

Matisyahu is one amazing reggae artist. Check it out:



And the live version:



So on August 27th we're going to see Modest Mouse. The very next day 311 and Matisyahu are playing the same venue. We're going to try and turn this into a little trip and maybe see both shows. We'll see.

/begin rant

It drives me crazy when you make an additional principal payment on a loan and the loan company's default action is to NOT apply it to principal but rather apply it as if you made a whole bunch of pre-payments. This happens even when I ask to them apply a certain amount to principal on the check memo. So now I have to waste time calling in to ask them to change it.

The default action should be to apply any extra payment to principal because I'm sure that is by the more common reason for paying extra on a loan. In fact, I can't think of a good reason for making a bunch of minimum payment pre-payments. Why would you possibly do that? They make the same amount of interest on your loan, AND they get to take your pre-payments and put them in the bank and make interest on them.

In the specific case today, it happens to be a mortgage loan. I tried to call in and spent a long time trying to get through the automated "press 8 to press 2" section because obviously the automated section won't be able to help me with this. Finally I get through and it looks like I'm on hold for a person and then suddenly a recorded voice says:

"We are upgrading our phone system for your convenience, please call back at a later date," followed by a hang up.

Nice. Does this happen to anyone else?

/end rant

I love Our Cats

Here are a couple of classic pictures of our cats.

This is one is Morgan cleaning her belly (of which there is a fair amount.) If you watch her do this, she freezes as if to say "whatchoo lookin' at?".



Meetu has learned to ring some little bells (from Shawn and Dagua's wedding that we had just happened to hang on that door) to let us know she wants to go outside. The more she wants out, the longer and louder she'll ring them. Also to get her to come back inside we open the door, ring the bell and wait five minutes and then she usually comes back. The bells are under her outstretched paw hanging from a string that you can just make out in this picture. Also, check out that fluffy tail.