Here we go…

1. NateFowler
2. Mzs_Goof_Troop
3. sboselya
4. MichelleBerezan
5. lottsoftraffic
6. BusMatchMkr
7. No1_webmarketer
8. SEOFollowers
9. homebizmom2
10. iGrOOps
11. ByBox
12. adriana_a1ka
13. dimetr83

Last updated: Friday, August 27, 2010

Note: these are not linked as we don’t want to encourage this behavior or give them any link love.

I was on the varsity golf team in high school. I love hitting a bucket of balls around at the driving range. I love walking around the links playing or even watching from the gallery. But one thing I cannot wrap my head around is how anyone can sit and watch golf on television (unless it’s Happy Gilmore).  And to do it all day long.  Put on some pads, go full contact and we can talk.

If you’re unfamiliar with OIOpublisher, it is a PHP based ad platform with a focus on performance, control and ease of use. It allows you to easily serve advertising on your blog or website and keep 100% of the revenue you bring in. For those of you using WordPress, it includes a plugin that allows for easy integration. And if you need consulting help setting it up, please contact Watershed Studio.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of OIOPublisher, but I use the product myself and can vouch that it’s an excellent product.

Indianapolis, Indiana – Jeri Holland, 25, of the 3700 block of West 10th Street, said a man in a pick-up truck stole the basketball goal in front of her house at 6 p.m.

After backing his silver Chevrolet pick-up onto her property, the robber — about 5-feet, 10-inches tall, and 145-pounds — lifted the goal off the ground and threw it into the bed of the truck.

If I were the thieving kind I’m pretty sure that a basketball goal would be pretty far down the list of things I’d be after.  But hey, sometimes in the summertime I guess you just have to have your hoops.

IPhone users can now legally hack their phones to download applications that aren’t in Apple’s App Store.

The U.S. Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, has authorized several new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of which will allow mobile phone users to “jailbreak” — or hack into — their devices to use apps not authorized by the phone’s manufacturer. The new rules will be published on Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Jailbreaking iPhones in order to download apps that are unavailable in Apple’s App Store had been a legal gray area: Apple technically had the right to request a $2,500 government fine for damages every time a user violated the law that bans “circumvention of technological measures” controlling access to copyrighted works — in this case, the iPhone’s iOS software.

I’m glad that the government made the correct decision.  Sure, the warranty is void if you do so, and they’ll continue to try to prevent it (and spend a lot of money doing so in a losing effort), but that’s a public step in the right direction.  In my opinion, you should be allowed to do whatever you want to with any device that you purchase.

LONDON — The strongest and most expensive beer ever created sold out within hours Friday, a Scottish brewery said, as they courted controversy by packaging the bottles inside the bodies of stuffed animals.

BrewDog, the self-described maverick brewery, presented the beer — which contains a record 55 percent alcohol — inside the bodies of dead squirrels and stoats.

Animal rights activists rushed to condemn the stunt.

“It’s pointless and it’s very negative to use dead animals when we should be celebrating live animals,” Advocates for Animals policy director Libby Anderson told BBC Scotland.

“This seems to be a perverse idea.”

BrewDog said the limited edition Belgian ale — made with juniper berries and dubbed “The End of History” — was also the costliest beer ever sold.

The squirrel bottles cost 700 pounds (1,000 dollars, 840 euros) each and the seven stoat bottles went for 500 pounds a pop.

All sold out within four hours of going on sale, BrewDog managing director James Watt told AFP.

Watt said the controversial drink was the last in a line of experimental brews, explaining: “For the final installment in the strong beer series, we wanted to create something epic, something monumental.”

He said there were no plans to come up with a beer to beat this record, insisting: “We’re quite happy at 55 percent.”

As for the taste, Watt described “The End of History” as a “complex” beer with a multitude of flavours including honey, mint and cinnamon.

He recommended sipping the drink “much like you would a malt whiskey”, served up in a spirit glass rather than a pint glass.

I can’t say that sounds appealing at all, but if that’s up your alley I’d love to hear about it.

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian beachgoers got a shock when they saw a donkey soaring in the blue skies over the balmy beaches on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia last week, police said on Tuesday.

Attached to a parachute, the animal screamed in fear as it circled over heads of holidaymakers sunbathing on a beach in the Cossack village of Golubitskaya in the Krasnodar region.

A regional police spokeswoman said the donkey ended up in the skies as a result of an impromptu advertising campaign by several Russian entrepreneurs to attract beachgoers to their private beach.

Instead, they attracted the attention of regional police who learned of the flying donkey earlier this week and launched a probe.

“The donkey screamed and children cried,” regional police spokeswoman Larisa Tuchkova told AFP. “No-one had the brains to call police.”

Instead, she said, people reached for their cameras and bombarded a local newspaper with phone calls.

“It was put up so high into the sky that the children on the beach cried and asked their parents: “Why did they tie a doggy to a parachute?” the newspaper, Taman, said late last week.

“The donkey landed in an atrocious manner: it was dragged several metres along the water, after which the animal was pulled out half-alive onto the shore.”

The incident is stunning even for a country where animal cruelty is widespread and came as a shock to the locals, said Taman newspaper’s editor, Elena Iovleva.

“This has never happened before,” she told AFP.

The footage of the parachuting donkey was aired on national television Tuesday.

Wow. That’s funny & not funny at the same time. I’m not sure what to say other than if I saw a parachuting donkey calling the police would not be my first reaction either…and I’m not sure I’d even be able to find my camera to document the experience. Wow.

Thanks to my sister-in-law for sharing this oddity.

HAMILTON COUNTY (WISH) – A pet monkey went berserk Wednesday morning injuring two people and prompting a family to barricade themselves in a Hamilton County home.

Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputies were called to a home in the 2900 block of East 276th Street after Eujo, the Patas monkey, got out of his cage.

Deputies called in animal control officer Tom Rogers who was finally able to wrangle the monkey.

The two injured people are said to have minor injuries.

The Patas monkey is said to be one of the fastest primates; it can reach speeds of 34 mph.

A few days ago it was Jungle Cats in Indiana. Today it’s a pet monkey. Seriously people, what are you thinking with your exotic pets?  I know what I’m thinking…I’m thinking that’s kind of funny and want to see a video.  You have fun with your monkey.  I’ll stick with my Zhu Zhu Pets.

Officials with a child advocacy group are trying to retrieve some 1,000 plastic ducks that remain on the loose following a Fort Wayne duck race last month.

Stop Child Abuse & Neglect says 17,000 ducks were placed in the St. Joseph River for the annual fundraiser duck race on June 19, but were swept away by the current and only 15,000 were retrieved the same day.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Boen says about 1,000 of the rogue ducks have been recovered and some have been spotted as far away as Ohio.

The group says it’s working with the city water department to catch the remaining ducks. Officials also are taking boats downstream to search the riverbanks for runaways.

The group’s website says it doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the beauty of the river.

I’m thinking to only be missing 1,000 out of 17,000 isn’t too bad…those are numbers I can live with.

USA Today – A cheeseburger sold as a foot-long sandwich, with three burgers and three cheese slices, is being tested at 50 Carl’s Jr. restaurants in Southern California and 50 Hardee’s units in Indiana. That’s the same chain that introduced the world to the 1,400-calorie Monster Burger and the Monster Breakfast Sandwich, with 47 grams of fat.

“We live in a society that’s fascinated with all things big,” says Scott Hume, editor of BurgerBusiness.com, an industry trade site. “It’s inherently American to push for something bigger and better than anyone else has.”

The foot-long burger idea was hatched two months ago from a product development chef at Carl’s, says Brad Haley, marketing chief. The chain is especially eager to create products that appeal to its core customers: young men ages 18 to 24. “Obviously, the foot-long sandwich has been very successful at Subway. But we decided to do it the Carl’s way.”

That means big — and controversial. The sandwich has 850 calories with 20 grams of saturated fat. It’s served on a white sub roll, sliced in half and wrapped in butcher paper.

If it’s a hit in testing, it could be sold at all Carl’s and Hardee’s — sister chains in different regions of the country — within three to six months, Haley says.

Responds Haley, “I’d rather have a charbroiled, foot-long cheeseburger than a cold, foot-long deli sandwich any day.”

Say what you will, but I love the fact that Hardee’s is up front about their food not being the most healthy option out there.  But boy, is it tasty.  I love that Indiana is a Hardee’s test market as there is always some sort of odd creation that they’re touting.  I may have to give the footlong burger a whirl…I only wish they had a Mushroom & Swiss option.

China is now the world’s biggest energy consumer, knocking the U.S. off a perch it held for more than a century, according to new data from the International Energy Agency.

China devoured a total of 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year, or about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.

The U.S. is still by far the biggest energy consumer per capita.

Via the WSJ alerts.

Seriously though, given the population differences I do find it surprising that the United States leads China in per capita consumption.  I know better than thinking that China is more “green” than the U.S. so I can only conclude that it’s due to the fact that we have more “free time” to fire up the computers, televisions, boats & RV’s.  And the fact that we’re America!

Goshen, Ind. – The Indiana Department of Natural Resources believes a hybrid of a rare tropical jungle cat is living in a vacant lot in Goshen.

DNR spokesman Phil Bloom says an Indiana conservation officer went to investigate Wednesday after a neighbor spotted an unusually large cat living there. Bloom says experts looked at photos of the cat and believe it is a hybrid of an ocelot, which are native to South America.

Bloom says there is an online market for ocelot hybrids, which is an ocelot crossed with another kind of cat.

More crazy people with exotic pets are trying to kill us all.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Metro Police are looking for a man who gave a Broad Ripple security guard a hard time while stealing several boxes of condoms from grocery store.

Officers were called around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday to the Marsh supermarket located at 2350 Broad Ripple Avenue. The security guard told investigators he witnessed a man shoving several boxes of condoms down his pants.

The guard told police he initially followed the man to the prophylactic aisle because the man matched the description of the suspect in a previous condom theft at the Marsh.

Wow. Is a 45-year old man is either embarrassed to buy condoms or find himself a place that gives them away for free?

“Toy Story 3″ is set to become Walt Disney Co.’s (DIS) largest-grossing animated film after generating $630.2 million in its first month in theaters, the Financial Times reported Sunday on its website, without directly citing sources.

The film yet to screen in about half of the world’s movie markets, the report said.

It said the film was set to debut in the U.K. Monday, and would be released in Spain, Germany and Scandinavia in the coming month.

That doesn’t surprise me.  “Toy Story 3″ is a great movie which was highly anticipated.

• First, check out Abdul Hakim-Shabazz’s Second Saturday Night Special post.  I echo what he’s saying.
• Parents: for those of you whose children were misbehaving last night, what in the world are you doing and teaching your children? And where were you?
• Leaders: where were you on this one?  You think a kid getting beat down for not respecting and listening to the authorities is a travesty and wonder why this sort of thing happens.  I’m not saying that cops should necessarily go out beating people down, but just think about the message that you’re sending to the youth and the community by asserting that you don’t need to respect authority.  This is what that mindset leads to.
• Girls: stop dressing like “street workers” & fighting with each other in the streets! Respect yourselves first and foremost and control yourselves.  Whatever you’re after and upset about isn’t worth it. (Back to the parents.)
• Boys: pull up your freaking pants! I watched live coverage of kids trying to run away from the shootings and there were a handful of you not getting anywhere fast as you’re holding your pants up. I thought the “prison draws” were a fad back when I was in school, but I guess that I was wrong.  Come on fellas.  I’m not saying to wear slacks all of the time, but you can at least do functional baggy in something your size. (Back to the parents.)
• Morons with guns: I’m glad that you’re a horrible shot, but:
  1. where did you get your guns?
  2. are you even old enough to have a gun?
  3. what made you think it was a good idea to bring guns along?
  4. what made you think it was a good idea to start shooting people?
• IMPD & Mayor Ballard: You did the best job you could be expected to and you were on top of.  There were ample officers and no one should expect you to control the stupid actions of a select few.

That said, let me know your thoughts, agree or disagree via comment or voicemail at 317-565-4250.  And keep it civil.

U.S. retail sales tumbled again in June, threatening to drain steam from an economy saddled with high joblessness. Sales fell 0.5% from the previous month, the Commerce Department said. Excluding auto and gas sales, though, sales rose 0.1%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.3% decline. In May, sales fell a revised 1.1%.

As I continue to say, a small fluctuation either direction should be expected, but more importantly, the state of the economy isn’t really any better than it was two years ago.  If anything, from what I’ve personally seen here in the “real world”, things are actually a little worse.  Most companies are still making money, but they’re tightening their belts as they see their income decrease.

What have you seen? Do you agree or disagree? Please leave a comment or leave a voice message at 317-565-4250.

Consumer Reports said its tests show a hardware defect causes the iPhone 4 to lose reception when held a certain way, challenging Apple Inc.’s claims that the problem is rooted in software that can be easily fixed.

The product-quality watchdog said Monday it can’t recommend the newest iPhone despite otherwise high marks, dinging a company that for many shoppers can do no wrong. It was the first time Consumer Reports has failed to give the thumbs up for an Apple phone.

…

Consumer Reports took some of the heat away from AT&T Inc.’s network, which has been criticized for dropped calls and not being able to adequately handle the load of data-guzzling iPhones.

Full story

The iPhone isn’t perfect? Really?  Well, I’m glad that we can now add it to the list of every other piece of hardware.

While the iPhone may have its software issues, I can say without a doubt that AT&T’s cell coverage is horrible.  I can’t count the times that I’m somewhere around Indy, even in my downtown office late at night, and either the phone drops out or I can’t get data to come through at all (I have a Blackberry Bold). And forget about trying to get a decent & consistent connection at a major event or an amusement park.  It’s not happening.

I can vouch that back when I had my non-3G Palm the service was better.  When I switched to my BlackBerry service was decent as well.  But by the time the iPhone market began to overwhelm AT&T it was really bad (they claim NYC is ready for the iPhone now…I wouldn’t hold my breath).

All of that to say, once my contract is up I’m planning on heading elsewhere. Someone that has decent service & isn’t going to start charging me outrageous fees for data usage (on top of an already expensive plan).  I don’t have time to worry about how much data I’m using and I’m sure not going to pay for data that only half way transferred because the network is choking on the data that’s trying to flow through it.

Get ready America. It’s time for a star-spangled celebration of…roast beef! To celebrate the red, white and blue – and help America save some green – Arby’s, the home of the free and the delicious, is offering its new Junior Deluxe sandwich free, with any drink purchase, on Monday, July 5.

The latest addition to Arby’s Value Menu, the Junior Deluxe features oven-roasted, thinly sliced roast beef, topped with crisp, fresh lettuce, ripe tomato and mayo on a toasted sesame seed bun. The Value Menu, which launched in April, features Arby’s signature offerings starting at $1.

“We’re thrilled about adding the Junior Deluxe to the Arby’s Value Menu,” says Steve Davis, chief marketing officer, Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc. “The July 4^th fireworks may be over, but this sandwich will help people close out the weekend with another kind of explosion – a little ‘kaboom’ for their buck.”

Free Junior Deluxe Sandwiches will be available during normal business hours on Monday, July 5, with any drink purchase, excluding Value drinks and coffee, at participating Arby’s locations nationwide. This offer is limited to one per person while supplies last. Consumers will need to ask for their free Junior Deluxe with drink purchase to receive the offer.

For more information about Arby’s Junior Deluxe giveaway, please visit http://www.facebook.com/arbys or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Arbys.

The father of a 6-year-old Ohio girl who turned up on the U.S. government’s terror watch list says the worst thing his daughter has ever done is probably been mean to her sister.

But Santhosh Thomas, a doctor from Westlake, Ohio, says he’s sure that’s not enough to land his 6-year-old Alyssa on the no-fly list of suspected terrorists. “She may have threatened her sister, but I don’t think that constitutes Homeland Security triggers,” he told CNN.

Federal authorities have acknowledged that such a no-fly list exists, but as a matter of national security, they won’t comment on whose names are on it nor why. “The watch lists are an important layer of security to prevent individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism from flying,” an unnamed spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration told Fox News.

[read the full story]

This will probably get me put on “the list” for saying this, but our government is apparently ran by complete morons.  Is it really that hard to find competent people for the  job? Boy, do I feel safer now that this 6 year old girl can’t fly.