Donor made millions on 11 dollars an hour mill job, gives to charity

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20080113_Donor_built_millions_on__11_an_hour.html

When I first read about this story I was amazed. How can a guy working in a mill become a millionaire? Afterall, even though I work in non-profit, I'm sure I must make more than him a year. The more I read about him however, the more I realized that he didn't really make money from working in the mill as much as he made the money in investing in real estate property; renting them out to tenants. He also invested in the stockmarket and kept his expenses low by not having a family and buying his clothes at thrift shops. Not having a TV or paying for cable also probably helped in keeping costs down.

Now some people criticize him for hoarding all that money, and say that he must not have had a good life since he's not married. What does the guy do for fun as well, considering he doesn't even watch TV or read books? Well, he listens to CDs, hangs out with friends, and now donates to charity, what else can you ask for? Though the article did mention that he drives to the library in his old Isuzu, which I find interesting since he doesn't read books. But since he does read newspapers maybe that's what he reads there.

To me he also sounds like a hopeless romantic, having lost the love of his life at a tender age. I respect him for that. Who here has not been completely in love and been devasted by a loss or a break up? I can understand how some people can never get over such a traumatic experience. In a way that's honorable, more so than running around and sleeping with a lot of people. But who knows, maybe he did that as well, but why criticize a guy, or gal, for not getting married? Critics should cut the guy some slack. At least he's giving some of his fortunate away to charity and to the future children of America. In the end it's what you leave behind that matters, whether it's your children or a swimming pool.

Don't forget the separation of church and state

Vote it!

I voted!

Well, for the first time since becoming an American citizen I voted in a presidential primary. I must admit it was a bit anticlimactic, I was expecting huge crowds and balloons, but everything was sane and in order. No balloons, and no clowns either, which is nice, because clowns really freak me out. Honestly, what people hide their faces apart from pedophiles and bank robbers?

Being a real immigrant I also laminated my voting slip which I will show my children and grandchildren when they get older. This will teach them about civic engagement and how people have lost their lives for the freedom to vote and choose. Dammit voting is as American as apple pie and bass fishing! I'll also tell them that I escaped Old Europe to get away from the potato famine and religious persecution.

Anyhow, I'm proud to do my little part in the grand scheme of things. Voting is something that everybody should do, and you definitely should use it before you lose it.

Snow shoveling

Shit, I'm in the wrong line of work, I should frakking shovel snow for the city.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S274209.shtml?cat=89

Apparently the foreclosure mess is screwing up sidewalk snow removal and people have to shell out:

The city of St. Paul charges $160 an hour, while Minneapolis charges $300 an hour—plus a $103 citation.

Phuck me!

Facebook advertising debacle

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/12/advertisers-snu.html

Apparently Facebook thought it would be a good idea to sell-out to advertisers. Now I've got no beef with a company trying to make some money, or even trying to capitalize on their popularity, but I disagree with their stupid scheme of having Facebook members be notified anytime their friends buy something online from the advertisers. Honestly, do you really give a phuck what or where your friend bought a pair of Nikes? It's not like we are in middle school where we wanted to be like everybody else. Grow up people.

Billo to debate Alf on Faux News

Apparently having run out of guests to insult, Bill O'Reilly will debating imaginary puppets instead. Check it!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFk_Mxc-ugc

Celebrity gossip blog

Forget TMZ or Perez Hilton, Dlisted is where it's at! How come we can never get enough celebrity gossip? I must admit I always made fun of my sister for reading all those US Weekly magazines and People while I was reading The Economist, but now I see who was the wiser. Nobody gives a phuck about Sudan, but the fact that Britney is preggers again is big news.

Getting back to simplicity, the art of writing

A Mac user friend of mine introduced me to Writeroom, a simple, full-screen writing environment that harks back to the days of typewriters: that Golden Age where writers had nothing between their typewriter and the blank page but their imagination.

Being quite jealous imagine my surprise when I saw that somebody had cloned this software for the PC, called DarkRoom. It has no bells and whistles, not even a spell checker, but who needs that when you have a trusted Webster's Dictionary by your side? In fact this software pushes you to think more clearly as a writer, which is why I love it so. The bonus is that it's free as well, but if you have some pocket change you can PayPal the creator.

The debate over bottled water and the environment

So I've been following this new environmental trend on several blogs, especially the debate over the usage and reliance on bottled water versus tap water. I'm all for using tap water, I believe that bottled water is wasteful and unnecessary in areas that have access to clean tap water. Not all areas have great tap water, but I'm fortunate enough to live in one, so I use tap water for my consumption. I use a Sigg water bottle which has probably saved about 300 water bottles so far. I urge everybody to get a reusable water bottle or canteen, whether it be Nalgene or Sigg, or some alternative. In the meantime you can read more about bottled and tap water here:

http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2007/08/its_time_to_get_off_the_bottle.php

The end of Bear Grylls

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/23/ngrylls123.xml

Like many people I don't believe everything I see on television, but there are times when your heart just sinks, and learning that Bear Grylls staged some important moments in his show Man vs. Wild is saddening. I knew that he did some wacky stuff like jumping into flowing rivers when he didn't need to, or that he took unnecessary risks, but that he went so far as to have other people do the work for him is a big let-down. Furthermore, I knew he had a camera team with him, but I thought that they all stayed out in the wilderness together, not that they were all back in a cozy motel.

I suppose I should have listened to my gut instinct when I saw the first couple of episodes, it told me that what he's doing is just plain mad, like wringing water out of elephant dung and jumping into a bog. I shook my head at times when I saw some of the things he suggested, and real survival experts all agree that unless you are some Olympic athlete, you shouldn't attempt what Bear does because the energy expended to gain ration is warped.

A truly sad day indeed.

Muscle Milk

I've recently started to drink CytoSport's Muscle Milk, a kind of high protein dietary supplement that is great for people who work out and are carb conscious. I must admit it's not half bad, a tastier and leaner version of Slimfast. I don't think it's suppose to be a meal supplement like Slimfast, but it does seem to give you a little boost after a work out, or at least it feels like it. I guess that's my product endorsement for the day. It works wonders after a treacherous hike through the wilderness.

Errrmm

Wow, I just realized that I have not posted on this blog for quite some time. I do apologize to all the people who read this blog, or rather one person, I did not intentionally mean to let you down. I've just been super busy with going to Las Vegas and holding a conference in my hometown. Lots of work and it keeps me busier than hell. I shall resume my ranting soon my dear friend. In the mean time, you can think about cold beer on a hot day.

Bear Grylls vs. Survivorman

Granted there is nothing I enjoy more than a good survival show and the two giants in the business are Britain’s Bear Grylls and Canada’s Les Stroud aka. Survivorman. You can catch Bear on the Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild and Les on the Science Channel’s Survivorman. Both are excellent programs and may save your life one day. I enjoy watching Bear Grylls for his absolute craziness and high tempo, running down mountains, climbing water falls, jumping into freezing lakes, and eating rotting carcasses in Africa. In fact he takes far more risks than Les, but then again he does have his own camera and expedition crew with him; whereas Les carries all his own camera equipment and is effectively alone in the wilderness. I respect Les a heck of a lot for doing that because he has to hike back and forth, expending energy, just to get enough film to make his show.

I think both of these gentlemen are excellent explorers with great survival skills, and I hope that they will continue to thrill and entertain us with what I consider a real “reality show.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRKpnkX99z0

Pvt. Murphy

I love this guy:

http://www.pvtmurphy.com/

No I don't want to be your friend!

I'm sorry but I really don't want to be your friend, especially since you can't seem to make up your mind of who you really are! Is your name Shane or Autumn? Yet another lame attempt to make me a Myspace pal. We all know how this goes, pretty soon they will be asking you to visit their website to see them topless or something like that. Of course you have to pay for that, or they will ask you for money some other way.

Gawker

I love the Gawker. This post was brilliant:

Condé Nast Cafeteria Lays Down The Kielbasa

With the arrival of the Google Cafeteria and the New York Times new cafeteria soon to open, the glory of the Gehry-designed Condé Nast cafeteria—lauded as the apotheosis of workplace cuisine when it opened—has softened like so many spears of overcooked asparagus. The latest report, by The Amateur Gourmet, does little to rescue the fading institution's prospects. Last week the cafeteria was featuring stodgy Polish peasant food: kielbasa, pierogi, cabbage. Has the Prague Spring come to the Vogue Summer?

Has Anna Wintour been reduced to eating pierogi like some sort of Wrocław cobbler? Does Graydon Carter arrive at his Waverly Inn still reeling from the after effects of a foot-long kielbasa? Probably.

But not all is lost. Continuing the cafeteria's tradition of quirky crazy designer desserts, the only redeeming offering was a creme-filled cupcake. Quoth Amateur Gourmet: "The cupcake was a green color--was it pistachio? Or lime? It was hard to tell but one thing I know is that it was one of the best cupcakes I've ever eaten."

God I love a clean barracks!

Pentagon says "nyet" to YouTube, Myspace, blogging

I stumbled across this wonderful soldier blog today, Fight To Survive. I've always been fascinated with soldiers and the military life, especially what soldiers are feeling and thinking. Soldiers are more than just mindless robots as some imagine them to be, they are people as any other, with thoughts and feelings who have a damn hellish job to do. Ever since reading Colby Buzzell's blog and book "My War," I've been hooked on reading soldier blogs. I can understand that the Pentagon must ensure operational security, but most of the blogs I've read would not violate operational security any more than reading books and journals from Vietnam or World War II. In fact you can pick up books about US infantry tactics from World War II, and even the Ranger Handbook and some of the methods and tactics there are still used today.

I think that censoring soldiers' blogs and sites is wrong, especially ones that do not violate any operational security. Morale is getting kind of low, and soldiers do need an outlet to vent sometimes, and I think these sites give them that outlet. Watching funny videos on YouTube and catching up with your family on MySpace is also good for the lads on their days off. Still, it's a bit ironic that the Army has its own official YouTube and FlickR accounts, but they won't allow the individual soldier to use them now.

Prince Harry to Iraq, yes, no, maybe??? No...

So is he going to Iraq or isn't he? Why can't the MOD make up its mind whether or not to send young Prince Harry to war? He's a soldier for Pete's sake, not a buffoon unwilling to accept his share of the burden. The man wants to lead his men into battle, as rightly he should. We should be proud that young men like Prince Harry are willing to defend their country, quite literally. It's dangerous over there for EVERYBODY, not just royals. If they go out of their way to kidnap lowly American soldiers, it will not be much different with Prince Harry. Of course the MOD in all their wisdom, if they decide to send Prince Harry over there, will probably embed reporters with him, tell them what unit he will be assigned to and what province. The insurgents would only have to pick up a newspaper to know where he will be.

I say if they change their mind and send Prince Harry over there, they should keep it quiet and send him over there with another unit and not tell anybody about it. Still, he should be deployed with his unit, and they should treat him like every other officer. Otherwise they should strip all military titles and uniforms from royalty, they don't deserve to wear them.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/16/iraq.harry.ap/index.html

Forget American Idol, Estonia's SUPERSTAARI is where it's at, yo!