Big Ern's "Nobody's Perfect,Especially Those Refs in Indianapolis Last Week" Locks of the Week

Well, it was a good run. A run we'd still we'd still be on if Ellis Hobbs could have avoided interfering with Reggie Wayne. By getting tackled by him.

This week's picks:

• Buffalo (-3) at Miami
• Redskins (-3) vs. Philadelphia
• Detriot (Pick 'em) at Arizona
  

Last week: 2-1
This year: 15-8-3

A ‘Stache is Born

Movember the Ninth

As previously mentioned, I will be growing a Mo (translation - moustache) for the month of November in support of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. I’ve agreed to document my progress for the benefit of those that lack the mental fortitude (or Y chromosomes) to join me on my journey.

So here we are. The calendar is clear. There will be no client meetings, no blind dates. My bathroom mirror is adorned with photos of the great moustaches of my youth: Zorro, Lando Calrissian, the Swedish Chef, and of course, Keith Hernandez.

These are the men who will guide me through the tough times, give me strength and inspiration. I will need their help, because deep down, I harbor the hope that, against the odds – the long, looooong odds – I can make the ‘stache look good.

But this is only the beginning. My Mo is a work in progress - a blank canvas of possibilities and adolescent dreams. So over the next few weeks, check back in for some pictures, random thoughts, and a rough count of the number people who mutter “Nice ‘stache, D-Bag” under their breath as they pass me on the street or in the subway.

Love,
Mike

P.S. If you’d like to donate, please click here. For those who can make it rain, please do.

An interesting way to find a girlfriend...make a website!

Apparently, some guy in NYC experience love at first site, but she got away. So, he created a website dedicated to finding her, along with a full sketch, description of activities and the time when he fell in love, so to speak....

www.nygirlofmydreams.com

Then, apparently, he found her! Good for him, but he says he won't be updating the world of the progress of the relationship. I'm excited for him, but then again, bad decision. Just think how he could take his 10 seconds of fame and expand it into success.

1) People could hire him to make little sketches for an online dating service.

2) He could lobby MTV or VH1 to make a reality show about their relationship (if they did a second season of "I Love NY", they should take this guy and his mystery girl).

3) He could start a social network based on colored stick figure drawings, adopt Google's OpenSocial platform, Twitter integration, Todoist, streaming TV, and go nuts! How could that combination not be a success?

I know I would join....

Trader Joe's kicks the leg out from under my food pyramid

I like Trader Joe's. The food is cheap, it is easy too cook, it seems like it's good for me, and you can buy cheap beer and wine. That all adds up to a successful business model targeted at semi-poor young professionals. For about a year, TJs supplemented my diet of cereal and donuts.

So I swing by there this weekend to pick up some of my favorites, and I get the devastating news:

Trader Joe's potstickers have been discontinued....

If you never had them, it was probably because I would eat half a bag a night for weeks on end. I bought the last bag at the store on 39th in SE Portland and cried my way home. I will have to try out this Wei Chuan brand and let everyone know my thoughts. In the meantime, the cereal and donut industries are crying out in joy.

Utterz: An audio/video blogging tool

Utterz is a Twitter-like site where you can leave voice messages, video, pictures, or texts.

Scobleizer described it as TwitterGram, but with a better interface. TwitterGram allows you to phone in your "tweets".

Basically, you can leave your voice/video/pics/txts to Utterz or instead to your website/blog. So, it can be a good mobile blogging tool, since it encompasses most aspects of your surroundings away from a computer. If you have a nice multimedia phone/smartphone, that would help.

I'll probably join, but only to use their services to post to the blog. There are widgets for most major blog sites (like Blogger) to automatically post things you send to Utterz right to your blog.
It just seems like a place to leave group voicemails. Let me know if you use it and find it to be helpful....

Here's a link from mashable.com about utterz: LINK

Kermit, No!

Aqua Dots, the, umm, dot toy have been recalled. When ingested, the aqua dots metabolize as gamma-hydroxy butyrate (GHB) also known as Love Potion Number Sigma Chi the date rape drug.

The manufacturer is believed to have shipped the toys made of GHB due to a shortage of lead.

The Office cast agrees not to cross the picket line!

From my twitter feed (writersstrike):

The Office has shut down - entire cast agreed not to cross the picket line
http://tinyurl.com/35ajg4 Video: http://urltea.com/20x7

This is depressing! I can't live without Micheal Scott and Dwight Shrute as the Regional Manager and Assistant To the Regional Manager.

My DVR will be crying on Thursday (or whenever this starts affecting new episodes).

What I want: Instant RSS to e-mail

I know that I preach the gospel of RSS feeds, Twitter, Snitter and the like, but what I really want is an instant RSS to e-mail agent/website.

Current options:
sendmerss.com
r-mail.org
feedblitz.com
rssfwd.com
feedburner.com

There are certain feeds that I would prefer to read via e-mail. Having a Treo and gmail IMAP accounts, it would be great to have instantaneous information for certain things. For instance, my future wife's Twitter feed. Having her updates e-mailed to me would be great. I don't want text messages or IM's.

Also, Facebook status updates. I don't ever sign on, but I subscribe to the RSS feed for my friends' status updates.

Knowing these things in real time seems important to me.

The above websites are lacking in one main area: speed.

R-mail.org is the only one that will deliver multiple e-mails a day. The rest are just a digest format for the last 24 hours. But, once again, r-mail is slow. I was receiving the individual r-mail feed e-mails hours after I would see them in Google Reader.

On a side note, I think Google Reader is also slow, because I see updates in Snitter way before the feed hits Google Reader. Perhaps it is a feedburner problem.

Maybe I could use a combination of Outlook 2007, which reads RSS feeds, and an auto forward rule? I haven't looked into that yet. Or maybe Thunderbird?

This goes in line with the concept of gmail being the center of your universe as written about by Steve Rubel: HERE

Anyway, being part of the "MTV generation" that is engrossed in social networking, real-time information is important. Look at the blogging community. Everyone wants to be the first to break a story whether it is about Britney Spears, the latest Apple product, or whatever else is hot at the time. Although, it may not be "breaking news" for anyone but me to see the latest status update for a friend, it may be important enough that I want to respond in a relevant time period.

So, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

5min can tell you how to get girls to go out with you...

....thankfully, all the Villagers have girlfriends/brides-to-be/wives.

But, if not, check out 5min.
5min is a site dedicated to giving people tips and instructions on different topics.

They have a plethora of categories like Business, Fashion, Fitness, Tech, Life Tips, and many others. And 5min isn't just about learning, but also spreading your own tips and knowledge. All you need to do it make a short video and upload it to teach others about a topic of your choice.

Here's an example I could NOT pass up sharing. It is about 3 1/2 minutes long, but I highly recommend watching it:

Good Bowling Technique and Celebration...

Good bowling technique:


A great way to celebrate after a good roll:


Walter Sobchak: OVER THE LINE!
Smokey: Huh?
Walter Sobchak: I'm sorry, Smokey. You were over the line, that's a foul.
Smokey: Bullsh!t. Mark it 8, Dude.
Walter Sobchak: Uh, excuse me. Mark it zero. Next frame.
Smokey: Bullsh!t, Walter. Mark it 8, Dude.
Walter Sobchak: Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

Intense Debate Comment System

We recently changed our comment system.
All our comments are now hosted by Intense Debate.

To easily track new comments on the blog, you can subscribe to the comment RSS feed at:
Villager With Wheel Blog Comments

There is also a link the the right side of the blog.

So far, I like that ID (Intense Debate) integrates the comments area into the blog post page. I never liked the blogger pop up to add a comment. Also, this makes it much easier to track comments and actually follow a conversation.
It also allows you to track comments by individual ID users. So, if you wanted to see comments made by zach, you could subscribe to his ID user comments feed.

Just a warning, this service is still in beta. There are bugs.
I still can't log in with my OpenID, although it is supported by ID. Our Villager With Wheel account wasn't receiving the activation e-mail so I couldn't log in.

But, ID has been extremely helpful and responsive to my questions and problems. Our account was manually activated and the install process went relatively smoothly. Thanks to Josh from ID for all the help.

New South Park Episode Offends Many People

As zach pointed out, South Park's new episode "Guitar Queer-o" crosses the line. Guitar Hero fans are planning a live musical performance in protest of the new episode (real instruments will not be used).

Some South Park songs that have already been made into G.H. songs:


"Chocolate Salty ####"

America, #### YEAH!!!

Elroy Reluctantly Boycotts South Park...

...for pointed mockery of all-time favorite video game. I just hope they don't ruin Guitar Hero for me the same way they ruined Family Guy.

Driving and talking on the cell phone....

Personally, I don't like it and try to avoid doing it. Although, I am guilty of messing with my ipod while driving, also a bad habit.

I like that All-State commercial with the guy about to call All-State while driving....

But, that's not the point. This is from a blog that does nifty graphs, charts, Venn Diagrams, etc... indexed.blogspot.com:

Eating sushi makes you more attractive...

...statistically speaking.

According to an article about how Democrats are pinning their hopes on sushi, sushi eaters are more attractive.

They don't show a graph in the article, but I'm assuming they are comparing the amount of sushi restaurants in a city and the attractiveness of the people who live there.

Here's the list of the top 25 cities by human attractiveness: LINK
(only Philly is worse than D.C.)

The original article, which I found on the Freakonomics blog, actually talks about how the ratio of steak to sushi places can be correlated to the blueness or redness of a city.

ACOM tends to be conservative, but he loves sushi. So, clearly it doesn't always work.

The article also highlights a few other fun facts:

• fattest vs. fittest cities - steak doesn't necessarily make you fatter
  
• the most wired cities - no real connection between internet access and the food you eat
  
• steak-eating, Republican-voting cities are getting bigger faster than their sushi-loving, blue state brethren