Play Multiplayer Billiards Online

If you are into playing multiplayer games,8c1.net.http://www.8c1.net may have what you are looking for. My friends and I have been having a great time playing billiards on the site. It's a lot of fun to be able to play with a group of my friends and chat while doing so. Even if you don't play with your friends, there are a lot of people online already, so you can just join a game. The site loads incredibly fast, and, best of all, it's free! So, head on over to http://8c1.net where you can have a lot of fun plaing multiplayer games with your friends.

Playing With TiddlyWiki

I've seen a few web pages that use TiddlyWiki but have never investigated it myself. Until now. My boss uses the TiddlyWiki platform for his work-hosted website. He refers to it as a "self-updating wiki" which isn't quite correct. He uses its journaling capabilities to keep track of the projects he's working on. TiddlyWikis organizational capabilities are very strong indeed. And there are a lot of plug-ins available to extend its capabilities.

Tips On Expanding Your Vocabulary.

"Use your words", my mother used to tell me when I was younger and expressed my frustration in a series of amr waves and gutteral screams. Speaking did not come easily for me because I feared the power of my own voice. Once you put words out there, you cannot take them back.

Decades later, I am much more comfortable expressing myself through words. Still, I try to choose my words carefully and occasionally find it frustrating when I do not have the proper word immediately available in my mind to properly express my thoughts, ideas or feelings. In order to combat that feeling, I am constantly looking for ways to better my vocabulary. If you are hoping to do the same for yourself, I have a few tips that you might want to follow. These things worked for me, and I hope they will work for you too.

• Learn At Least One New Word Per Day: There are a number of online "Word Of The Day" websites on the Internet that can help you. You might also consider buying a word-of-the-day desk calendar or subscribing to word-of-the-day email lists. 
• Software Drills: It's not enough to just try to absorb knowledge. You have to reinforce it. Using vocabulary builder software is ideal as they involve unique and entertaining methods of building and maintaining your vocabulary.
• Read To Learn: Picking up a good book is a great way to expand your vocabulary. Choose a topic that interests you and read all about it. Make sure to keep a dictionary handy so that you can look up words that you don't already know. Keep a notebook to write down these new words and add them to your lexicon.
• Get To The Root Of The Word: Many words in the English language are derived from other languages such as Greek or Latin. Knowing word roots will help you grasp the meaning of a word before looking it up in the dictionary

I try to follow these tips on a regular basis, and I find that by doing so, I encounter fewer uncomfortable situations where I struggle to find the perfect word. 

My Nerd Score

So, I took one of those "Calculate your nerd score" tests today. I honestly didn't think I was score so highly on the Nerd scale. At best, I thought I would score in the high 70s. I guess the fact that it's a Saturday night and I had nothing better to do than test my nerdiness should have been a clue.

Have Contractors Bid On Your Home Improvement Projects

I have a lot of home improvement work that needs to be done this Summer. With the economy being in such bad shape, and with my own money situation being so tight, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to afford to get much done. I happened upon a site called Fixr.com where homeowners can post their home improvement, home renovation and home remodeling projects and local contractors can bid on them.The site is currently serving Massachusetts but will soon launch nationally.

Plumbing jobs seems to be getting the most bids as of this writing, which suited me quite well as I have a kitchen sink that needs to be replaced. The best feature of the site is how it handles the bidding process. Instead of each contractor submitting a private bid, contractor bids are transparent. Upon submitting a bid, all other contractors are alerted so that they can adjusts their bids in order to win the job. It's also important to note that the lowest bid does not automatically win. As a homeowner, I would be able to consider several factors such as price, location and reputation (there is a section for contractor reviews) before awarding the job to a contractor.

The site is easy to navigate and there isn't much of a learning curve needed to understand how the site works. You can get up and running within just a few minutes. The only real issue I have is that the color scheme seems a bit jarring. The green/white/blue just clashes for me and it seems that sectioning off the content from the white space with some sort of border scheme would solve the problem. Still, the potential benefits of using the site far outweigh such a minor nitpick.

Click On The Screen Shot Below For A Closer Look At What A Job Looks Like

A Weird Dream

One of the more annoying "features" of my pager is that it off when the battery gets low, making me think someone had paged me, when it just wants to tell me to stick a new AAA up its back. It did it again around 2:00am this morning. In my half-awake stupor, I knew that it had to be a battery thing...nobody in their right mind would page me so early and hope to get a coherent response. I couldn't find the thing on my end table to shut it off, so I just fell back to sleep.

And then I had a dream. I dreamt that I had been paged into work at 2:00am in order to work out a problem on the Exchange server. It took me seven hours to fix it. And, at 8:00am, when my boss came in, I was slumped over on my workstation mumbling about SMTP queues. The boss looked over and said "Don't complain to me. You're the one who is dumb enough to leave his pager on after dinner time".

So true.

Color Therapy

Through the wonder of the Internet, I ran across a natural health blog today. I had been interested in information related to Chromotherapy, which is "color therapy". I was hoping to find an appropriate color scheme for my new video studio. I need to create an environment where my subjects will feel comfortable, yet will also be conducive to my subjects memorizing their lines. The blog owner, JP, related some very useful, well researched information regarding a study by the University of British Columbia regarding the association between certain colors and altered mental functioning.  I still don't know what color I am going to paint my new studio, but I now have a starting point and will be researching the subject further.

If you are interested in Alternative Therapies and general health topics, be sure to check out Healty Fellow for yourself. JB has some very informative articles for you to read.

My Phenominal Godlike Powers

Had a tech call me this morning.

"Why is it that this computer is not in the domain?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Well, the two computers next to it are in the domain."

"Yep. You're right. They are indeed in the domain."

"So, why isn't this one?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone took it out. Maybe the user decided it didn't need to be in the domain. You are probably better off asking the user"

"Can't you give me a better explaination than that?"

"Tell you what, I'll check my Magic 8-Ball and see what it says."

He didn't like that remark. The thing is, I've got 5,000 workstations to keep an eye on. I'm not going to micro-manage who is on the domain, who is not on the domain and why. The conversation continued.

"Why don't you add it to the domain for me?", he asked.

"Well, if I add an entry to the domain, you still have to add the computer yourself."

He didn't believe me. "Just do it my way and let's see what happens."

"No, I don't like doing things the wrong way. Why don't YOU do it MY way and then thank me for my advice?"

Collision Repair Experts

This economy is just not conducive to buying a new car. There's a credit crunch going on, our jobs are feeling more and more precarious and the auto industry is going through a lot of turmoil. Those are good reasons to keep the automobile you already have. Keep in mind, though, that accidents happen. What are you going to do if your car is involved in a collision? Who are you going to get to fix it? For auto body yorba linda, you're going to want to check out Collision Repair Experts.

Collision Repair Experts is the premier autobody website in the USA. They are part of an insurance company approved autobody network. And, best of all, their autobody repairs are guaranteed for life.

Just watched Alien Apocalypse starring Bruce Campbell. It's total Grade-A cheese. But, that's what I like about Bruce Campbell. That's why I can't stop watching Army Of Darkness, constantly watch The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr on DVD and pray that he'll show up in the sequel to Bubba Ho-Tep.

I met the man a few years ago while he was on his book tour. I'd like to say that it was one of the greatest moments of my life, but you know, he's just a guy who stars in B-movies. Ah, who am I kidding? It was one of the greatest moments of my life!





Me and THE LEGEND Himself

Thoughts On Air Conditioning

Summer is nearly upon us. For the most part, that means fun in the Sun, but it also means that your air conditioning is going to be working overtime. While you're relaxing in air conditioned comfort this Summer, you might want to take a little time to consider where the concept of air conditioning came from.

While true air conditioning is a fairly new concept, the concept of keeping a building cool during the Summer is not. Ancient Rome circulated aqueduct water through the walls of certain houses to keep them cool. Other methods involved the forced movement of air using rotary fans. The first true chemically powered air conditioner was invented in 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier.

Carrier's invention regulated both temperature and humidity. It was based upon Michael Faraday's discovery that compressing and liquefying ammonia could chill air when the liquefied ammonia was allowed to evaporate. Indeed, the first air conditioners employed toxic or flammable gases like ammonia, methyl chloride, and propane. Due to the high risk of fire, air conditioning wasn't used in residential buildings until the adoption of the chlorofluorocarbon gas, Freon, in the 1950s.

Modern air conditioners no longer use Freon as due to its ozone depleting nature. Several more environmentally safe alternative are now being used, such as Genetron (aka Puron). So, this Summer, while you are relaxing in your home, basking in air conditioned comfort, make sure you take a little time out to thank Willis Carrier.

We Were Having Trouble Communicating

In general, I understand my niece when she speaks to me. While watching her last night so that her parents went out to dinner, however, we had a major breakdown in communication. She told me that she wanted to make chocolate milk, so I went to get milk out of the fridge. She then told me that she didn't want milk, she wanted tea. I poured some tea into her sippy cup. She protested, insisting that she wanted chocolate milk. I got the milk again. Again, she screamed that she wanted tea. I could not understand why she was flip-flopping on me. I've never known her to be so indecisive and thought perhaps she was just having fun wit hme

We had reached an impasse. She was frustrated. I was frustrated. Then, she made a breakthrough. She said "I want chocolate in tea!!!". Amazing! But, what a gross concoction. Surely, she wouldn't have the stomach to drink more than a sip. Ah, but she gulped it down like it was the best drink ever.

Real Property Management

The housing market may be in a slump at the moment, but demand for rental property is on the rise. The current housing market has a glut of unoccupied properties, which means that there is increased competition among potential landlords. Maybe you have found yourself in a situation where you own some rental property and would like to handle the associated tasks in a more orgnaized, professional manner. Whether you have just one property or as many as 100, the folks over at Real Property Management can handle tasks such as tenant placement, evictions, accounting, property inspections, maintenance services and more for you.

Real Property Management manages over 20,000 units nationwide. They recently received the "Franchise of the Year Honorable Mention" award and have been featured in the Bizjournal of Cincinnati and Columbus.

Why deal with the headache of manage your property yourself when Real Property Management can do it for you? Contact one of their representatives and you could end up saving yourself hundreds of dollars.

Damn MacBook Pro

I adore my MacBook Pro. For the past two years, it has been a workhorse for me, helping me complete nearly any task I have tackled with it. I have made so many videos and photo albums over the past two years. Alas, this morning, as I lifted up the hood to begin a new work day, half of the screen is all video gibberish.  Something is terribly wrong, and I know not what. I don't want to have to send it in to Apple Care, as I have quite a bit of work to do. I'm hoping I can scour the net on my backup laptop to see if I can't find my own solution, but I havea feeling that I am doomed.