Posts from — April 2003

All photos and entries for the Bluebonnet Photo Contest are due by May 1, 2003. If you haven't emailed your entry, please check out the info ASAP. The winner receives two tickets to Six Flags over Texas in Arlington.

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Later today, I'll begin the first of my posts for "30 Years in 30 Days". I've been giving it a lot of thought and I didn't realize just how challenging it's going to be to explain 30 significant events that have shaped my life.

Anyway, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to share some of these stories. I hope you enjoy them!

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I wanted to take a second and send out a very public "Happy Anniversary!" note to my wife.

I love you, Merrin.

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Just a friendly reminder from the judges: All entries need to be in by May 1, 2003. For more info, click here.

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I got to go to the grocery store without the wife today. That always means a few new disccoveries that aren't on "the list".

My big find today? I'm finally a convert to the Crest® SpinBrush. OMG! I've heard people talk about these little toothbrushes, but after trying it - WOW! It's like getting a dental cleaning in every brush!

A couple of interesting little tidbits, for those that are interested. You use the Spinbrush just like you're regular toothbrush. If you can brush your own teeth, you're qualified for this one. It just so happens that part of the head spins to give you an even better cleaning. It uses two "AA" batteries (included) and you can replace the heads. I think I ended up paying $5 for it, which is more than a regular toothbrush, but…WOW! My teeth and gums are so happy!

I normally don't get too worked up about my toothbrush, but this thing ROCKS!

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Your Miller Lite Catfight commercial "guy" (and I still don't understand why I'm #1 on Google et al) has some news for fans of Kitana Baker, Tonya Ballinger, and the catfight commercials.

There is at least one new Miller Lite Catfight commercial. It has one of the guys actually getting into it with Kitana Baker. That's immediately followed by the same guy getting into with a big sumo-esque guy (in the girls version). There is also a rumor that there is at least one "latin" version of the original commercial. As of right now, I can't find these being available on the internet. If I do manage to find them, I'll post some links.
[Read more →]

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In the spirit of my previous entry on coming clean with you - the sweet, clean reader - I offer up my latest confession:

I don't recycle.

Let me expand on that statement slightly: I don't recycle anything. Newspapers? No. Glass? No. Cans? Nope. Phone books? I'm gonna go with no. Plastics? Surely you recycle plastics? That would be no. I don't recycle. Never have. I've got plenty that I think is recyclable (glass, cans, newspapers, you name it!), but I don't recycle any of it. It all just goes in the trash.

I can just see the dazed, manic expression of the "save the (insert_cause_here)" folks heads: What? He doesn't recycle? This does not compute. This does not compute. What do we do?

I could give you some cutesy reason as to why I don't recycle, like, I'm afraid my wife would run over the recycle bin in her fossil-fuel belching SUV (which…now that I think of it is kind of another half-valid reason), but the truth of the matter is I just don't want to recycle and there's no incentive for me to do so at all.

Does my garbage bill go down because I put a Diet Coke can in a plastic bin instead of the trash can? Nope. The city actually makes money selling my trash and (hypothetical) recyclables to companies. Do I see any of that money? Are my taxes going to go down if I recycle? Nope.

Will I sleep easier at night knowing that I saved x amount of space in a landfill because I recycle? Nope. We all help pay the salaries of hard working men/women who are paid to inspect the garbage at the landfill and remove recyclables. I don't want them to lose their jobs. And even if your area doesn't pay someone to do it, there are definitely some people who go to the landfill and remove recyclables to go to the recycling center because they can use the extra $2-3 for doing it. Do I want to be the one that says, "Gee, sorry Mr. Homeless Guy, you and your dog are just shit outta luck because I've decided to start throwing my own cans into this little plastic box?" No, I don't want to be that guy.

I don't pretend that I'm some kind of hero (for this reason, anyway), but the possibility exists that people who don't recycle are actually doing more to advance the effort to "save the _____" by not recycling. Somewhere right this very minute, genius scientists and inventors are coming up with new ways to use my trash for all kinds of greater needs: electricity, paving roads, creating shipping commerce (garbage barge joke! j/k). Who knows what they'll think of next? If we all recycled, this research might still go on, but not with same sense of urgency because the land fills wouldn't be growing at the same rate (hypothetically).

But, in complete honesty, the latter reasons above are just secondary and tertiary reasons. The real reason I don't recycle is that I don't see a reason to do it. I wouldn't save any money. I wouldn't realize some sort of practical benefit.

My garage has two bins: a big ol' trash can and a bright, clean, shiny recycle box. My name is Kevin and I don't recycle. I use the trash can for everything. (Otherwise the recycle box might get dirty!)

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I think Solonor waved to us from his luxury jet flying over the house to D/FW. Cool. I'm pretty sure it was him. The plane went right over Flower Mound and somebody waved. It had to be him, I mean, who else said they were going to wave?

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Pictures from Tuesday night's Buffett concert are online. Turns out I took more pictures than I remember…although…I'm not surprised as many of the exact details are all a mystery to me. A lot of them didn't make it to the 'net, but there are a few good ones that survived Margaritaville customs. Enjoy!

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Everybody already knows that this site uses the great SongWriter plugin for WMP to display my "Now Playing" music list. It's a cool tool, for sure, but kinda out there on the "geeky" edge because you need to be able to code the plugin output into your webpage. Let's face it, not everyone with a blog can put code on their page - even relatively simple coding.

Microsoft has created a plugin of their own that allows you to drop WMP's currently playing song into your blog post. It looks pretty simple to use and only requires a little work to setup.

To use the plugin, you need to be using a blog client that will support the plugin. Microsoft says that wbloggar does, along with a couple others. I mention wbloggar because it pretty much works with most of the blog backends out there, including Blogger and MT (Movable Type).

If you're looking to paste your currently playing songs into your posts automatically, you might check out Microsoft's new blogging plug-in.

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Friday couldn't have gotten here any slower, but at least it's finally here. I'm sure a lot of you have big plans for the weekend, but –if you sitting around saying, "What are we going to do this weekend?"– let me offer a few suggestions:

I'm sensing a pattern developing here, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. More posting later including Buffett concert photos and another confessional, so stick around.

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Some folks ping weblogs.com when they update their sites. (I do.) Some folks ping blo.gs when they update their sites. (I do.) Why do I ping them? Well, mainly so my #1 favorite blog tool (blogrolling.com) will know when my site is all warm & toasty fresh.

After the briefest reference on Robyn's site, I found out you can ping Blogrolling.com directly. If you're using MovableType, here are the directions for the simplest way to ping Blogrolling:

In your "weblog config" under "Publicity / Remote Interfaces / TrackBack" add in http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/ in the text box and save your settings.

Why would you ping Blogrolling.com directly? First, your guaranteed that information is getting there as quickly as possible. Second, you can skip the "middleman", if you feel so inclined.

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Fire up the blender! I'm outta here! It's 2:00 on a Tuesday and I'm leaving the office. I'm headed straight to MARGARITAVILLE!

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Are you looking to host Movable Type on Windows XP? Trying to install Movable Type on Windows XP? This looks like an exceptional tutorial hosting and serving MT on Windows XP.

Lots of reading to do here, but I'm getting goose-bumps just thinking about the possibilities! Hmm…already have at least one extra XP server @ the house, lots of extra bandwidth, already doing the domain management…hmm.

Note: I have not attempted to follow these directions yet. Please direct all questions to the author. If you are serving MT from an XP box, please leave a comment and relate your experiences.

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Two more great bluebonnet entries by the vaunted D/FW Blogs queenie. They're great! Check 'em out and submit a couple of your own!

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