4th of July pic from Wikipedia

4th of July / Independence day… a day where 234 years ago we told the Brits to suck it. It doesn’t seem to mean that much as a holiday these days.  Most holidays don’t seem to mean that much. This one is an excuse to play with fireworks – or break the law in certain areas to get the fireworks – over eat BBQ food, get drunk, and occasionally catch an orchestra.

This year I’m in the middle of a health kick, so I don’t care about the BBQ food.  In La Jolla, it was cold today, so I didn’t feel like taking people up on their beach BBQ offers.  For some reason I was really tired, so slept a lot during the day (my neck still hurts, and my head’s a bit foggy.  Glad it’s my day off P90x).  I did walk outside to watch the fireworks for a few minutes, then yawned and walked back in.

Why? Because in 2007 I ate shrooms at Burning Man, and watched a (literally) 1,000 foot fireball come out of an oil derrik, followed by probably about 40 minutes of the most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen!  Since then, nothing compares.  These were not the skimpy one firework at a time stream that you see in most fireworks show… these were hundreds of them at a time…. the sky was filled with them!  Like most things at Burning Man, these were done by artists who put everything into it… and probably didn’t have nearly as many fire-safety ordinances as most cities.

This year’s fireworks sounded about the same to me as a bag of popcorn getting ready in the microwave.  I went inside to hang with Webber, whom I was informed ahead of time hates fireworks.

I just don’t feel this holiday anymore. This year, to celeebrate independence, the United States has decided to pass a new law that suspends the 1st ammendment Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re not familiar with Ted/TedX, it’s a conference of the most brilliant minds…. They’re having a conference all day about the oil mess…. should be quite educational- just click play.

Dear friend – yes you!

I have something really important to tell you. It’s very exciting, and very difficult for me all at once.

I’ve arrived here in La Jolla, CA where the weather is truly amazing, and I am house-sitting for the next 5-6 weeks.

On my drive here from Austin, TX I had a lot of time to think, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the best answers come from asking the right questions. My question that I chose was “How do I make the best use of house-sitting near the beach for 6 weeks?”

I came up with many ideas, but the ones that made the most sense are also the most difficult, and I’d like to share them with you.

I have completed 3.5 years of couchsurfing around the USA.  I’ve met the most incredible people that I could ever imagine.  I have had amazing adventures, where Read the rest of this entry »

Sponge Bob Square Pants died in BP oil spill!

Here’s a fun one to share with your friends!

British Petroleum has a gag order on their staff.  During this cleanup, no one can tell you what’s really going on.  So… all those dead animals, all that failure on stopping the flow of oil…. yeah, they can’t

Click this to see BP's "Oil Spill" ad

talk about it.  Additionally, BP is paying for sponsored ads, so whenever you search for a term like “Oil Spill” their ad shows up at the top, like so (see image on left).

Their BP ad (the one with the yellow background) costs them money for each click.  It takes you to their page, where they get to present the information however they want to… i.e. “BP cares, loves you, are the good guys, and are really making the world a better place…. and a little oil in your sea food is good for you!”

Now, I may be paraphrasing a little bit, but you get the idea.

The sad part is that millions of people do not know that it is an ad.  They search for “Oil Spill” (or any other term relating to the worst ecological catastrophe in history), they see “BP”, click on it, and think they are seeing the real news, and thus believe it.

So, to show BP that this campaign is just a waste of their money, and that people are smarter than that, just keep searching for Oil Spill, and clicking on BP’s ads!  Then just hit the back button on your browser, you’re back in the Google page, and you can click again… rinse and repeat!

Send your friends to this page! With enough people doing this, maybe BP can invest their resources into cleaning the environment, rather than just trying to bully us into thinking that everything’s peachy.

Here! I’ll save you the effort– Just click here, and it will take you to a Google page where you can click on oil ads.

Have fun!

Wave hello to the drone that's spying on you

Grrr…. Houston Police has been lying to the press about restricted airspace (and god knows what else), in order to test out their new secret drones.

Channel 2 in Houston had the balls to check with the FAA, and investigate/film anyways. These drones can fly ofor 15-24 hours, look into your house, car, etc… and of course, be equipped with various other sensors.

Will they be giving speeding tickets? Will they be spying on you? I don’t know about you, but I’m not thrilled about this.

I think that if enough of our rights are violated, and we’re spied upon, someone will fight back… destroy these things (using something like uni-directions EMPs), and waste tons of tax dollars that you paid.

It may be entertaining to watch what they’re watching though

The following video is brilliant. Channel 2, you’ve earned my respect.

The Couchsurfing Radio Host- Couch Surfing Ori

Have you ever felt you were destined to be on TV or Radio?  Yeah… me either.  But I sure was told it often that I should have my own show.  At least for 10 yearas now.  So… here it is

I present to you CouchSurfingRadio, my latest creation. Right now it will be on Monday nights at 11pm EST, with replays available for your downloading pleasure (so you can hear it again and again… have it on as you clean, drive, work, jog, poop, etc..).

The show will cover many topics, but most of them will be what I often blog about: adventures, travel, incredible people and places, marketing, life lessons, motivation, design, jokes, and of course, my odd perspectives on everything.

Here is the very first episode.

Check out the Couchcast

It’s a great story… the forming of this radio show:  I felt like putting on a radio show, I tweeted and facebooked that in 2 hours I’ll be putting on a radio show, and then I put on my radio show.  Exciting, huh?  There was more to it than that, of course. I didn’t figure out how to log-in to the host number until (literally) 3 minutes before showtime. I was a distracted spaz.  I didn’t know how to read the questions that were coming in through the show’s chat-room, through twitter, and through skype. So.. yeah.. I was all over the place.

The feedback thus far has been great though!

For next episode, I will have a surprise guest, someone to filter the questions/chat for me, and segments… so, some kind of structure.

Take a listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show (Leave a comment below please)

Oiled up the machine

I find that I’m a lot more productive when I work through the night.  Last night, not only did I write an awesome article on Falcon, the not-so-adventurous Balloon Boy (I wonder how many years that name will stick), but I also tinkered around under the hood.  Some of the changes I  made to my site:

• Made it interact with Facebook.  You can now share your posts on Facebook, become a facebook fan, etc….
• Added Tweeting functionality.  You can now push that green button in the top right of every single post, and instantly tweet that post.
• Added Disqus & Tweetmeme — Now it’ll be easy to track not only comments, but the replies they’ve gotten around the web.
• Swapped out analytics code.. it turns out my last structure was slowing the site down.
• Added site-caching to try and speed up the site.
• Added mobile-phone support, so that Iphones/Blackberries/Androids can all enjoy the site in a more convenient manner.
• Fixed a few things on the SEO front, so the site will be easier to find.
• Backed up site database & files (WAY past due on that).
• Added some idea-organization tools.
• Improved my mailing tools, so I can actually keep in touch with you better. Read the rest of this entry »

It's Falcon! The balloon boy!

This 6 year old kid, Falcon (I think that’s even more ridiculous– the kid goes flying, and his name is Falcon? Hmmm) climbs in his Dad’s helium baloon that looks like Jiffy Pop.  The baloon takes off.  The whole nation is talking about it.  Everyone’s tweeting and facebooking about it… I even know of a certain stay at home mom that got her drink on ’cause she was so worried about this kid.  I was already making jokes (If “He tried to go visit Michael Jackson one last time!” gets popular, just remember, I made it up! Funny enough– I just looked up the newsline, and there WAS a Michael Jackson single that just debuted online just the other day), and people were giving me grief, “Oh… you gotta at least wait till he lands safely!” People were telling me how they’re praying.  Wow.  What concerned people we have, it’s nice.  It’s also not nice, because they were bamboozled into being concerned.  What a waste of positive emotion.  Oh yeah… I forgot to mention, for those who haven’t heard, turns out that the kid was never in the baloon… he was hiding at home in the attic, in a box or something.  So… let’s take a look at what happened. Read the rest of this entry »

Seriously! I got on the scale, and thought “This can’t be right!”  So I asked Suzanne, “Are you sure your scale is working properly? Maybe it’s not zero’ed properly?”  Walk to the  bathroom “Nope… works fine.  *sigh* looks like I gained two pounds.  Why do you ask?”  “Ummm… Can you read what it says?” I step on the scale, and Sue says “195 pounds.”  “Ummm… so.. you’re confirming that I lost 20 pounds in 7 days!”

Read the rest of this entry »

I said my piece on Prop 8 before it passed.  I donated money to help “No on 8″, but I don’t think I did enough to promote.  I never said anything about it on my blog after it passed.  I think Keith Olbermann said it best in this video: Read the rest of this entry »

Now, I sure had my fun poking at angry republicans… but this is not just to mess with you.  You should be glad that the Mccain/Palin ticket lost, because this woman was even more unprepared than anyone knew…. well.  some knew, but couldn’t tell us… (dramatic pause) until now! Read the rest of this entry »

Woo Hoo!  Wow, the sun will shine brighter, the air will become cleaner, people will smell better… oh yeah folks… it’s a brand new world (assuming the president doesn’t get assasinated). Read the rest of this entry »

St. Peter’s standing at the pearly gates when Barack Obama shows up.

“Hello Sir, welcome to Heaven.  I’d like to remind you that entry is only granted to those on the list. What is your name?”

“Barack Hussein Obama.”

“Hmmmm… I don’t see you on here… did you maybe do something you’d be known for?”

“Well… i was the 1st black man to successfully win the election for United States President”

“well.. that sounds impressive enough… I’m still not showing it… when were you elected president?”

“About 15 minutes ago!”

——- I laughed when I heard it.  I suppose it was funnier coming from a drunken redneck.  I laugh at all sorts of improper jokes, and often tell them.  But, this joke does bring up a sad reality… Obama has had the most death threats of any presidential candidate ever.   Over 500 so far.  Just 2 days after I heard the joke, here’s what’s showing in the news:

Feds disrupt skinhead plot to assassinate Obama

My republican neighbor had said from the start, “He’ll get killed before he even gets sworn in!”

I have a lot more respect for Barack and Michelle for doing this, knowing that grim possibility that there are a lot of ignorant folk that would go to extremes to harm them. That, and I truly believe that they’ll make a positive difference.