Just when you thought no one reads

I can't believe it has been a week since my last blog entry. Ok, I can believe it, but that doesn't make it right.

I was surprised to look in my email and see a comment to my last blog entry waiting to be moderated. I know some folks were reading this when we hosted it on our own web site, but I didn't know there were those who read it now.

It was a great comment - especially considering the content was plagiarized. I did credit it to an email I received, but it's not like it was original content.

Here are a few updates in the world of "Davedom."

• The diet ended as quickly as it started and will probably start again soon. I heard on the radio that scientists in Louisiana (Yes, we have those in this state) have debunked the idea that it takes diet AND exercise to lose weight. It's more of an either/or thing. Both won't get you faster or better results in the weight loss category.

Personally, I prefer physical exertion to food deprivation. I just need to find project that will help me exert more energy without becoming bored, or killing me because I'm out of shape at the moment. Then it's "bring on the ribeye and baked potato with extra butter."

• The blog and website have gone through some trying times in the past few weeks. For some reason, we have become so popular that we are overloading the servers of our hosting company. This is why my blog was moved from our server to blogger. While my blog by itself didn't send things crashing down, I'm sure it could have been a factor, so why take any chances? However, the popularity of the site and the problems it brings are a good thing, right? Now we just have to make money so we can host ourselves with good enough equipment to do all the things we want -- which would include podcasts, video streams, and all kinds of extras.

• I am truly proud of the folks over at the Minden Press-Herald. Their Profile 2007 Edition is AWESOME. Not only is it the largest edition in history, it is the best. Excellent work, folks.

It would be great to learn who reads this blog. So, feel free to leave a comment -- even if it is "Hi, I read it."

Thanks for reading,

May the Blog be with you

Forwarded Emails

I usually don't forward emails that are sent to me-- much less post them in my blog. However, this one from a good friend of mine caught my attention. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Who knows if this is actually true, but the points are quite good.

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair -- get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English -Thank a soldier

May the Blog be with you.

Who really wants to be a Louisianian?

Want to know how we look as a state? It’s pretty easy to see. Just read some of the headlines at www.thedeadpelican.com.

Blanco, Vitter Become "Poison Pen Pals...”
Britney Spears Parties And Pukes Over The Weekend
Will John Breaux Run In Louisiana Governor Race ?
Blanco has faith the Saints will stay
Former legislator: "Nation’s tired of Louisiana whining"
Relatives, friends gather on the anniversary of a double-fatality car accident
Mother Arrested in Connection with Her 2-Month-Old's Death
Suspect wanted for exposing himself
Update: Police chief apologizes for decision to order flags taken down
La. Katrina insurance suit begins
$33M bike path to connect N.O. with BR
Civil War-era Bell Stolen From Church

There is a radio commercial called “Tales from the Parish Line.” In each “episode,” the announcer tells a story of how someone in our history overcame great odds. He usually caps his story with “Just another example of how Louisianians are a mighty tenacious bunch.”

As of late, we don’t look all that tenacious. We look like a bunch of spoiled children. From our leadership, right down to a pop icon who calls our state “home,” we have done little recently to garner the respect of anyone.

Quite frankly, I am tired of hurricanes and the federal government being used as an excuse as to why our state isn’t better. Where is the “tenacious bunch” of Louisianians that overcame great odds in our past? Have they all died off, only to make way for a “spoiled bunch?”

C’mon folks. There are enough intelligent people in Louisiana to figure out how we can fix these things ourselves – and in a timely manner. If FEMA trailers can house people hundreds of miles away from New Orleans due to the devastation, why can't we house those who are rebuilding our state as well.

If our institutions of higher learning can write grants for every project under the sun, why can’t our south Louisiana school boards write grants to help in the rebuilding and recovery of those school districts?

If we have so much “extra money” in our coffers that we have to raise our own spending cap to use it, then why is the infrastructure of the state still some of the worst in the nation?

Right now, we look like a bunch of idiots. In today’s world, perception is reality. That is the bad news.

The good news is that perception can be changed quickly these days. It’s time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and finally get things back on track.

Let’s become that “mighty tenacious bunch” we were once.

May the blog be with you.

I hate computers

I typed an insightful, humorous, and masterpiece blog about 15 minutes ago. Then it went away...

Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

May the blog be with you.

Too much money

If you asked a friend or relative for $20 to buy something you really needed. However, when you paid for it, the item only cost $15, what would you do with the rest?

Would you:

a) Go to McDonald's and celebrate your newly found income with a happy meal
or
b) Give the change back to the person who gave the money in the first place

If you picked "a" then you must be in state government.

I have heard many speak of the "revenue" surplus in the state's coffers. You see, we (meaning Louisiana) underestimated how much taxes we (meaning Louisiana) were going to collect.

So now, we (meaning Louisiana) have more money than we need. We balanced a budget without this surplus and have paid all the bills.

Now everyone wants a piece o the surplus pie. Everyone from DOTD to teachers wants this money to come to them. In fact spending this surplus (and another one, by the way) will most likely be the dominant theme in April's regular legislative session.

Even so-called conservative legislators are speaking about the best ways to "spend the surplus."

Here's a novel idea... return the surplus to the taxpayers.

If you didn't need everything we (meaning us) sent you last year. Then why don't you return the difference?

Yes, we (meaning us) know that if you (meaning Louisiana) knew there would be more money, you would have spent it already.

So it wasn't your (meaning Louisiana) great frugality that caused us to have a surplus. But we (meaning us) still think the fair and right thing to do is return the money you didn't spend.

Of course this makes too much sense to ever be seriously considered by you (meaning Louisiana).

May the blog be with you.

Better than the Super Bowl

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Indianapolis Colts for their victory in Sunday's Super Bowl. They did what was expected of them.

Having said that, I would like to say that there was a much more interesting television to watch Sunday - and all weekend. The St. Jude auction was telecast on Minden Cable Channel 29. Our entire family watched most of the weekend, bidding on several things and winning a few.

People even came over to the house, so that we could watch and bid together. It was a great time, and for a good cause.

Apparently others found it to be a good thing as well, as this year's auction beat last year by more than $50,000. Minden really came together once again.

It is my hope that this spirit of cooperation would continue. If we would learn a lesson of what can be accomplished when people work together, there is no telling how successful we all would be.

By the way, I think the Saints would have done better than the Bears.

May the blog be with you.

Observations of a Newspaper guy

This business tends to make one look at the world around them a bit differently. Not in the cynical, skeptical way you may be thinking. Let me explain...

Today, I was driving down the road and saw Cubby Hole Self Storage. My first thought wasn't "Hey, they have a nice place." My first thought was "They need to advertise in the Business and Service Directory."

Another thing that has changed is the way I see signs. When you spend a good portion of your day correcting stories for grammatical and typographic errors (Yes we do check for that -- just imagine how many would be in the paper if we weren't checking?), you find yourself finding those errors everywhere.

While the letter "n" with the slash going the wrong way is a mere annoyance, improper conjugation is flat out wrong.

Knowing this, I am having a difficult time with the "chat dialect" online. All those acronyms make is hard for a wordsmith like me to just "go with the flow."

They think it is NBD. But I think it is a very big deal.

Yes, I know it is hard to text message on a cell phone without abbreviations. But this dialect is permeating into the written word. Have you tried to read a 7th grader's school report? They ideas are there, but the grammar is not.

Perhaps my background just makes me super sensitive to this. Perhaps I'm just getting old... You are supposed to complain about everything once you get older right?

MTBBWY

May The Blog Be With You

Conspiracy in the Drive Thru

By now, everyone knows that fast food restaurants are beginning to change from oils that contain trans fats to those that don't. Somehow, we all feel it w0uld be healthier to eat our deep fried morsels if the oil was merely changed.

So, reluctantly, fast food restaurants have taken the initial step to healthier deep fried eating. Or have they?

For the second day in a row, my ritualistic trip to a drive thru has resulted in one glaring error. Each day, I have ordered a Diet Coke with my meal. Each day they have given me regular Coke.

Could it be a careless error? Perhaps it is just a communication problem through the "squawk box." I think not.

This is a blatant attempt to keep us fat and coming back. Fast Food restaurants know that healthier eating will lead to healthier food choices. Healthier food choices lead to trip to Subway -- and we can have a world of Jared's running around can we?

One little slip at the soda dispenser and trans-fat oil is replaced with full blown sugary sweetness.

Maybe we won't notice. Maybe we won't care.

It is a conspiracy going all the way up to the highest levels of the fast food chain. Congress should being holding hearings. CEOs of every chain should account for the use of sweetness-enhancing substances.

And, in memory of the passing of liberal columnist Molly Ivins, I blame George W. Bush.

May the blog be with you.