Randy Charles Morin blogs for the sake of blogging.
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Nominations for the 2006 KBCafe Blog Awards close tonight. There's no complaining tomorrow if your favorite blog wasn't nominated. You can nominate blogs by name, but it's better to nominate their blogsite homepage. You can also nominate one blog at a time, you don't have to nominate one in each category. You also have virtually unlimited (100) nominate votes.
Here's a few rules.
- Nominations for KBCafe blogs will be ignored.
- If I detect any cheating, then I'll simply remove the associated blogs.
- I reserve the right to change these rules to protect the integrity of the awards.
Created and eaten by my kids and their cousin over the Christmas holidays. Happy New Year to all my readers. And wishes for a great year ahead to all my blogging friends.
Bloggers Blog: The Jessica Cutler sex blog lawsuit is about to go to trial, according to CNN. Robert Steinbuch, a counsel to Senator DeWine on the Judiciary Committee is suing Cutler for disclosing all the nasty little details of their secret trysts on her blog, the Washintonienne.
The Guardian: Writing under the pseudonym Washingtonienne, Cutler described in detail the sexual intricacies of her life on the Hill. The blog, which Cutler claimed was intended to keep her friends up to date on her social life in Washington DC, achieved notoriety, and its author fame and a book contract.
Related links...
P.S. Never hurts to blog a bit about sex. It does wonders for your visitor count, page rank, comments, links.
- 170 lbs (I spent 2006 in the 180s, which is down from 200)
- Stay ahead of my taxes (I'm always a year or two behind)
- Go to Disneyland (never been to California)
- Visit my sister in Thunder Bay with the RV
- Watch a live NCAA division 1 college basketball game
- Park my RV in the middle of a live NASCAR oval race
- Attend the two weddings of my cousins out west with the RV
- Play in a live Texas Holdem poker tournament (wouldn't be a first)
- Become a 6-figure blogger (I'm only in the 5s and the wife wants me to get a real job)
- Have Rmail break 100,000 users (currently 38 thousand)
- Have The RSS Blog break 10,000 RSS readers (currently 6k)
- Organize an amazing 40th birthday party for someone special
Bonus: Get life insurance (it's not easy).
Checkout this photo of a giant electronic billboard in Times Square, New York City. Link.
I love the part where it says "Please tell Microsoft about the problem".
It turns out that some people don't like this blog and the fact that I post YouTube videos, a.k.a. crap. Ryan is just such a person.
Randy Morin is the type of slime that should be eradicated from the Internet for taking up bandwidth. All he does is post links to YouTube for money... Can people not search anymore?
Here's a video taken by an audience member of the Shamu incident at SeaWorld from earlier this month, where the whale attacks one of the trainers. Not much to see.
I don't watch many movies at the theatre. Maybe this one.
... starring Lord Darth Vader himself.
and more...
and more. Podracers don't let other podracers race drunk.
Here's a great poem posted by Dave, one of my most dedicated readers.
Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a "Holiday".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream Tree"
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!
Joe Critchley has a new blog. I'm subscribed.
Win 1 of 20 $50 gift certificates from The Beer Store by simply taking a survey. Passcode is SCARE-878. I think you have to be Canadian to win.
Nominations for the 2006 KBCafe Blog Awards are now open. You can nominate blogs by name, but it's better to nominate their blogsite homepage. You can also nominate one blog at a time, you don't have to nominate one in each category. You also have virtually unlimited (100) nominate votes and if you run out, then ping me and I'll bump that up.
Here's a few rules.
- Nominations for KBCafe blogs will be ignored.
- If I detect any cheating, then I'll simply remove the associated blogs.
- I reserve the right to change these rules to protect the integrity of the awards.
According to Jason Schramm's acronym creator, my initials (RM) could mean Regulative Mismanage. Hmm. Uncanny!
If you don't know yet, I was laid off by Open Text. They bought the company I worked for (Hummingbird) and then proceeded to lay-off most of the staff. Hummingbird and the product I worked on was profitable and is now in maintenance mode. That is, they've screwed the customers and f-ed the employees. In addition, they failed to comply with mass layoff regulation in Ontario, failed to provide my record of employment in reasonable time, refused to provide me with severance pay unless I sign something and now they are screwing me on my vacation pay owing. I've talked with many other employees and it seems like Open Text is screwing x-Humminbird employees across the board. I'm currently working on a complaint with the Ontario Ministry of Labour. Once that takes it course, I'm going to file a lawsuit. Any x-Hummingbird employees who want to join me in a class action lawsuit can email me (randy@kbcafe.com).
MSNBC has created a great Year in Pictures compilation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16094278/
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
View 101 of the most famous kids christmas movies. Some appear to be downloadable, others not. Get them now before the lawyers issue takedown notices.
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/christmas/soapbox/64
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
Time.com has released their Best Photos of the Year 2006.
http://www.time.com/time/yip/2006/index.html
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
You can chat on MSN (santalivechat@hotmail.com) and Yahoo! Messenger with Santa Claus himself, or a bot pretending to be Santa.
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
A fortune cookie sold for $10,600 on eBay. My next investment is a fortune cookie factory.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280055164189
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
Of course he didn't. But I do wonder if I existed in Fitz or Pirillo's mind when they created this.
Today, I got a friend request from none other than Jesus, the Messiah. Check out his profile! I suspect a friend request from Jesus is good at the gates of Heaven for a free admission.
This is it. It's post # 6000. Almost four years after I started this blog. And I saved something a little bit special for just this post.
I'm a Professional Blogger!!!
It took more than 10,000 blog posts across dozens of blogs, but I've decided to focus full-time on blogging and some other personal projects, like Rmail. I made a decent salary (not a great one) as a part-time blogger, but since I was laid off about a month ago, I've seen my revenues via AdSense, FAN and other, move to a new level. I'm going to blog full-time for the next 3 months and see where things go.
This is just a friendly reminder. We'll be drinking a lot this holiday season. So when you are a little too merry, please don't drive.
For the past three months I've been privately engaged in a time-consuming dispute with Nathan J. Hole, a lawyer representing MGM Studios who claims that Wargames.Com, a domain that I've owned since April 16, 1998, is the rightful property of...
Rogers Cadenhead is in a battle for the wargames.com domain with MGM, which is owned by Sony and Comcast. They claim a trademark for the similarly named movie, even though the term is generic otherwise and Rogers has been using it as such. Let's all re-blog this and stick it to Sony, MGM and Comcast.
read more | digg story
PRWeek has released a list of top 10 PR blunders for 2006 and many other lists.
- HP's spying blind
- Dell's exploding laptops
- Cheney got his gun
- Oprah gets Freyed
- Wal-Mart and Edelman's blog blunder
- Celebs behaving badly
- Fox throws out the OJ
- Cristal thinks it's too good for us
- Comcast sleeps on the job
- Allen full of macaca
http://www.prweek.com/us/news/open/free/blogs/609688
post #5996 (4 to go)
Scientist at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China have used ultrasound fields to levitate matter and even animals. Truth or fiction?
http://www.livescience.com/technology/061129_acoustic_levitation.html
Here's a little trick you can use to fool your friends and levitate yourself.
http://www.livescience.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=balducci
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
Thanks Coolz0r! [play tag with me]
... and many of you are too. In fact, this is not the first time I've been named Person of the Year, back in 2004 ABC News did too. Time.com has named the contributed to the social Web as their Person or People of the Year. Thanks!
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
post # 5992 (8 more to go)
| You Should Spend the Holidays In |
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Between 1987 and 1995, I was big into role playing games. I was more into Cyberspace type RPGs and less so into D&D, but D&D is where it all started for me and most everybody. Love this commercial.
Even in foreign countries.
Pretty cool commercial by Brussels Airlines.
It's time again for the KBCafe Blog Awards. If you remember last year, the KBCafe blog awards is about rewarding blogs in niche topics, so there's no Best Blog or Best Group Blog or any stuff like that. Check out last years winners. The process will be very straight forwards, first we make a list of categories, then we nominate blogs, then we vote. That's three steps and we are three weeks away from 2007. Let me start by giving a list of initial blog categories.
- Best Google Blog
- Best Yahoo! Blog
- Best Microsoft Blog
- Best Apple Blog
- Best Toronto Blog
- Best Sillicon Valley Blog
- Best Web 2.0 Blog
- Best Webvertising Blog
- Best Syndication Blog
- Best Internet Communication Blog
- Best SEO Blog
- Best L.A.M.P. Blog
- Best Wireless Blog
- Best Music Blog
- Best Malware Blog
- Best Gadgets Blog
- Best Photo Blog
- Best Video Blog
- Best Movies Blog
- Best Hollywood Insider Blog
- Best Video Games Blog
- Best Baseball Blog
- Best Hockey Blog
- Best Scifi Blog
- Best War Blog
- Best Vehicle Blog
- Best Right-Wing Blog
- Best Left-Wing Blog
- Best Law Blog
- Best Venture Capital Blog
- Best Marketing Blog
- Best Disease Blog
- Best Food Blog
- Best Anonymous or Former Employee Blog
- Best New York Blog
- Best Japan Blog
- Best Middle East Blog
- Best Web Design Blog
- Best Web Services Blog
- Best Gambling Blog
- Best Basketball Blog
- Best Football Blog
- Best Religion Blog
- Best Anti-Fan Blog
- Best Family Blog
- Best Sex Blog
Next, I want my readers to suggest more blog categories. You have three days to suggest new blog categories before nominations begin (around December 17th). Thanks!
Christmas time always reminds me of pruning the tree. It was December 27th, several years ago, that I had to layoff a dozen guys at Opencola. And yes, by pruning the tree, I meaning firing employees. Almost every company that I've worked for in my work-life, was afraid to fire even the most worthless of employees.
At Hummingbird, my last workplace, a developer was assigned to me. I had already noticed that he worked less than 30 hours per week, before he joined my team, but now that he was on my team, I realized that I was generous thinking he worked 30 hours per week. Some weeks, he worked less than 10 hours. I approached the Director about the problem employee and he did absolutely nothing about the situation. I then went to H.R. where they ran a report of his working hours based on his card-lock. It turned out, this employee had been working about 20 hours per week for several years.
About the same time, this employee dared show up to work one week less than 10 hours. I told the Director I know longer wanted him on my team and this time they at least talked to the employee. He admitted he was working very few hours and said he wasn't motivated. For the next two weeks, he showed up to work about 30-35 hours per week. Better, but still not the 40 he should be doing. He then took three weeks of unplanned vacation. Upon his return from vacation, he returned to working 20 hours per week. That lasted about 2 weeks and I complained again about his lack of participation at work. The Director re-assigned him to another project, where his new team was comfortable with him working half weeks.
The employee was eventually laid off as part of a mass termination along with a lot of good employees. He was given a very generous severance package. This was not an uncommon story at Hummingbird and the result was a horrible development culture where nothing got done. In fact, I knew of other employees who were working similar hours. Employers have to learn to fire bad employees. Otherwise, the good employees quit in frustration leaving you only with bad employees. You have to prune your employee tree.
Oleg Dulin had a baby daughter named Miriam Rae on November 27th. Congrats!
http://www.iwouldratherbeblogging.com/2006/12/miriam_rae_and_.html
I'm always amazed how people will protect their friends even while they know those friends are horrible people. This is something that I seem to be immune to. In my life, I've had a handful of friends who turned out were bad people. When I found out they were bad, I moved on and stopped associating with them. I think this has drastically improved my life, since I avoid these bad situation that put stress on our lives.
Then, I watch as other people protect their bad friends. I see the stress they put on their lives simply to keep a friend that they would be better off abandoning. I've tried on occasion to discuss this with people and I'm amazed how they will readily admit the friend is a bad person, but then give me excuses like "he's changed".
You see this also on the Web. I've known people who were spammers, pornographers or participated in click-fraud or black-hat SEO schemes. These people often readily admit to their crimes. When someone admits to such, I simply avoid them forever going forward. But most people don't, while still complaining they get too much spam.
Alec Saunders tagged me in a game of Blog-Tag. The rules are very simple, blog 5 little known facts about yourself and tag 5 other bloggers.
My wife is the greatest wife and mother ever. She's had three great babies with less than 10 hours of total labour. That's a combined less than 10 hours over three kids, not an average. She splits babies out like watermelon seeds. For the last baby, I was in the birthing room for less than one minute when the baby popped out. All three kids are fun, good and smart. When we go camping, I have to remember to bring three things; the laptop, beer and my wife. To keep a long story medium length, she often lays out my clothes on the bed in the morning. I am privileged.
- I own a Motorola Q. It cost me a total of $200, which got me the Q, the extended battery, a car adapter and a 3-year warranty. My late 90s Qualcomm was dying and I had to get a new cell phone. Bell offered to discount $550 on a new phone, so I got it for next to nothing. I've been playing a lot of Bubble Breaker and so have my two oldest kids. I like that it quadruples as an organizer, digital camera, cell phone and game player.
- My wife and I go ballroom dancing about once per month. We do the Merengue, Cha-Cha,Swing, Waltz, Rumba, Samba, Salsa, Tango and Foxtrot. We take classes up to twice per week. This year, we're going ballroom dancing on New Year's Eve.
My family spends about 2 months of every year in a motorhome. The last three years we spent 2 weeks to 1 month camping at DisneyWorld. This year, we're going to Disneyland. We'll leave around March 1st. During the summer, we go comping every single weekend, with few exceptions. Check out my RVDad blog. Yes, RVDAD is my license plate.
- I'm a professional blogger. Yes, the vast majority of my income is now from blogging. I'm taking a 12 step program to kick the addiction slash sickness. My wife is also trying to force me to get a real job and kick me out of the house.
I'm tagging Chip, Cooz0r, Rogers, John and Scott. Now it's your turn!
If you are looking for last second impersonal gifts, then try an Amazon Gift Certificate. Click the banner to get some.
Congrats to Chris and Ponzi. Dave Winer got these pictures up really fast. Scoble was the best man. Check out the entire photoset. Thanks Dave for sharing.
Just login as root and type 'ku'. Hint for the less geeky. Explanation for the non-geeky. How to really solve Sudoku.
I often play Sudoku when I'm not online (very rarely).
You have your A-list bloggers, your B-list bloggers, your C-list bloggers and your D-list bloggers, but what are they really? I don't think anybody has tried to truly define them outside of subscriber and inbound link counting. Let me try to define them. The blogosphere is like this big giant cone (shown).
The A-list resides at the very tip of the cone, the B-list, C-list, D-list reside below in order.
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A-listers are read by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of readers. When they blog, they get re-blogged (linked to, linklove), everyday and many times.
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The B-listers are read by thousands and get regularly re-blogged.
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The C-listers are read by dozens and maybe even hundreds and are rarely re-blogged.
- The D-listers are those that rarely blog, or maybe their blog is private. Either way, they are read by few, maybe even just one (the author).
- The F-listers are those that FAIL to blog.
Now, when a new blog entry is written, the higher the entry gets in the cone, the greater chance that the blog entry will be widely read. Now, if a C-lister can get an A-lister to reblog his entry, then he'll undoubtedly get a lot more exposure. But remember that A-listers make up a fraction of 1% of the blogosphere. These A-list bloggers are really busy and getting their attention is often extremely difficult. The B-list, on the other hand, makes up several percent of the blogosphere and getting their attention is much easier, but they won't give you the same exposure.
I'll continue on this thread at another time, but simply understanding the cone can make you a better blogger.
| Your Birthdate: May 20 |
 It takes a long time for you to develop an attraction to someone. Generally, you prefer to pick who you love. Anyone who tries to rush you is in for some heartache. Number of True Loves You'll Have: 4 Number of Times You'll Have Your Heart Broken: 4 You are most compatible with people born on the 2nd, 11th, 20th, and 29th of the month. |
Actually, I met my wife and we starting dating the same week. I was only 19 at the time, so I hadn't really dated anyone seriously (more than a few months) until her. Her birthday is the 27th. I do have 4 true loves; wife and 3 kids. And I guess all four will eventually break my heart leave me; university and death.
Microsoft has hired premier blogger Coolz0r. Congrats Microsoft, finally a worthy replacement for Scobleizer.
This is the story of how [someone] made $1100 by selling a free email address with the letters "PS3" in it on eBay. [His] auction hit the front page of digg 2 weeks ago, here are the details of how [he] pulled it off and what happened later.
read more | digg story
It's amazing just how stupid people are. I'm considering selling pics of Porsche's just to see how much people will pay. Maybe I can pocket $100k?
The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half of global household wealth, and almost all of the well-heeled live in North America, Europe and richest Asia-Pacific countries. To be among the richest 10 per cent of adults in the world...
According to this article, almost everybody I know is in the top 10% richest people in the world. Sometimes, we don't realize how lucky and well-off we really are.
Randy: Congrats Jason!
Swiss Chalet is donating $1 to Children's Miracle Network when you order the Festive Special or a Quarter Chicken Dinner on Thursday, December 7th. You can order online (pick-up or delivery) or at the restaurant.
The Best Divorce Letter. Ever.: heh
A little explicit, so don't read if you aren't in the mood. Hat tip to Jeremy.
Ok, here's some advice to any telemarkets that want to call my number. Please do! It's my daily entertainment and a waste of your time. Today, I had a religious conversation with such a telemarker about how he's an mucking a-hole. I was very explicit. I'm sure he'll re-evaluate his career.
Let's take the war to the telemarkers. They call me all day. About a half dozen each weekday. And you know it's them, because you answer and there's nobody on the line for the first 2-3 seconds. Then, they say "Hello". Your response should be "Are you a telemarker? Do you realize how annoying you are. You disturb everybody. Everybody hates you. What's your name? What's your home phone number?" Etc.
ROTFL!
Remember this commercial?
read more | digg story
| You Are Very Mature |
 And while everyone should be as mature as you, most people aren't! |
Let's start with this is important. Bristol-Myers is donating a dollar to AIDS every time someone goes to their website and moves the match to the candle and lights it. Please forward this to your friends. It takes a second to raise a dollar. If you do this today (December 1st 2006), then leave a comment here with your blog URL and I'll add your blog to my blogroll. Every blog in the blogroll will be linked to from all 5000+ blog entries on the iBLOGthere4iM blog. That's some pretty awesome link love. Then tell everybody you know to do the same. Then re-blog this. Then tell some more bloggers.