by on July 24, 2007

Celebrities Behaving Badly: Lohan vs. Pennington

Jail hallNow that we’re all over Paris Hilton and her stints in and out of court and jail, we’ve got Lindsay Lohan acting like coke clown. She just got out of rehab and was sunbathing with her SCRAM anklet, going around town, and living the high life again.

Apparently too high, as she was arrested last night for suspicion of DUI and had cocaine in her pants pocket. She posted bail and is free again to keep acting like an idiot. I see no remorse, shame, guilt, or even the slightest shred of personal responsibility out of her corner. Her publicist must have one of the worst jobs possible. Lindsay is a train wreck. At least Britney Spears stays sober and out of jail.

Now, let’s contrast these silly teenie-bopper washups with Ty Pennington, lead designer for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, one of my favorite shows. In May, he was arrested for DUI and immediately (from Saturday to Monday) issued a public apology [Read more…]

Filed Under: Common Sense, Personal
by on July 24, 2007

Quick Apartment Update: Clean and Dry

The carpet is still a bit damp from the water extraction and cleaning, but the place smells better than before the big blow up. After working 10 hours yesterday, I didn’t have much in me to do anything, but it meant a lot to K, so I got up the gumption and busted out the following:

  • mopped the bathroom floor with bleach water
  • cleaned both tubs with bleach water
  • cleaned both toilet bowls “just in case”
  • replaced both shower liners
  • washed the dishes that we didn’t get to because of the evacuation
  • delivered a trunk-full of trash from the event to the compactor

Today, dear, sweet K is putting away our overnight bag and tidying up the rest of the apartment to our normal “we’re home and not physically challenged” appearance. I like it that way now that I’m constantly around someone who has shown me what that is like. I used to be the biggest slob in the world, yet I couldn’t stop cleaning last night. Freak. /grin

Filed Under: Personal
by on July 24, 2007

Starbucks Is Raising Prices Next Week


Cooking.comAccording to Reuters, Starbucks is planning to raise drink prices 9 cents per cup because of the increase in the cost of milk. This will be the second price increase in less than a year. Though the story does not directly state it, we know for a fact that milk prices are rising because the corn normally fed to cows is now being fed to our cars because of the big push for ethanol.

Livestock farmers are now paying outrageous prices for feed for their herds because corn farmers are sitting on what amounts to oil fields. When is someone going to come up with an idea that doesn’t affect nearly every stinking item on the market? The only thing we could to worse to our food economy that I can think of off-hand is to raise sugar prices. Sure, we might be healthier, if people actually stopped consuming sugar, but that won’t happen for a very, very long time.

Filed Under: Blogging
by on July 23, 2007

Add Bling to Your Posts; Use Royalty-Free Photos

View My PortfolioI have noticed and read a lot about how a simple image brings a lot to a post, especially an intriguing article. It relates to the reader, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Who wouldn’t want to add 1,000 words to each post in such a small space?

I recently started using iStockphoto.com to get small images that I can use in my posts and use for series identification and better story-telling. My own photos don’t always bring as much emotion to what I write as I’d like, so I used to just leave it as stand-alone text. That was a mistake.

More things to remember; very important things that will save you a lot of grief:

  • Don’t copy random images from Google image search. They could legally belong to someone.
  • Don’t ruin a good picture with a stupid title or alteration. Use good design sense.
  • Try to complement or contrast your blog’s color scheme when you can.
  • Do your best to choose a picture that contributes (adds more) to your post.

Purchasing a royalty-free photo or graphic will put you at ease from being issued an order to remove a picture and improve your blog’s curb appeal.

What other ways do you see images helping your posts or documents?

UPDATE:

I was remiss in adding something that I wrote for my primary blog a long time ago:

Easy Bling for Your Blog Without Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is crazy expensive, so not everyone has good tools to edit their shots. What if you could use an online editor and then save it back to your computer or upload it directly to your Flickr account? Pix-en-ate lets you do just that. FOR FREE!

Filed Under: Blogging, Design, Writing
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