Going To Be Writing for an Ezine!

To help spur on my creative juices I gladly joined the writing team of a new eZine that will be launching shortly called NoF PANTS PARTY. For those not in the know NoF stands for Nipples of Fate. They represent a relatively big underground video game community. One of their members decided to launch this eZine for the fun of it. To best describe it, I’ll let the creator do so in his own words:

“What is NoF PANTS PARTY eZine, you ask? Well, it’s a fun eZine where interesting folks get together to review games, movies, music, important issues and other Geeky related stuff. It is a requirement that you wear interesting pants or bottoms. Some may tell you that pants are optional but, in an effort to keep this lens family-friendly, we can neither encourage nor discourage such initiatives (but it’s a free country so do as you like)!”

As you can see it’s a fun project and looks to be a fun time for all to enjoy. The first issue should be out within the next few weeks or so and hopefully it’ll be monthly on the 30th of every month thereafter.

To sign up , simply email: NoFeZineList@gmail.com and use “Subscribe” as your subject heading. That should be it. To learn more about NoF check out their blog or main members page.

My Favorite Number

For whatever reason, the number 7 has always been my favorite number. I really like that number. Not for superstitious reason or anything like that. I just like it. I guess my strong affinity to 7 is how linked I am to it. Take my birthday for instance. I was born on February, 7, 1977 at 7:30am. A whole lot of 7s there. Also my name, Julio, is the seventh month of the year (July).

Now that I’m trying to analyzing it, I guess that is the reason after all. Like I said, I’m not superstitious so I don’t think the number 7 can help ward away any ill will or luck or anything like that. I just like that number and the reason may be very superficial as the fact that I have a lot of 7s in my date of birth and my name is the seventh month of the calendar year. In some way I’m using the number 7 to celebrate myself. I’m not big on celebrating my own birthday so I think I’m entitled to a little self-indulgence here and there, right?

New podcast episode is up

Just finished posting a new episode of the “Mundane Chatter Podcast“. This time Claudia is taking care of co-hosting duties.  Give it a listen and let me know what you think 🙂

What Was That Video?!

After posting my last  blog entry regarding free site building options I got a pop-up window with the following video:

The heading above the Video was “Well Done”. I guess it was in reference to me keeping up with my post a week pledge and actually exceeding my quota. It was silly to say the least but not sure if this was the type of congratulations I was looking for. I give WordPress.com props for keeping things fresh and fun. And we could use a little silliness every now and then as well. Why not?

UPDATE:
The wp short code (wpvideo 5kIs7WFc), that I tried to use as per the pop-up window’s suggestion wasn’t working so I had to google “David Hasselhoff flying video” in order to find the clip that I got to see. I ended up getting the whole video but to sum up: The clip of the video that was shown was the part where he’s on the motorcycle but is also flying (at 1:51 if you want to just fast-forward to that silly scene and just circumvent this horrible video). Enjoy. Or not. Your choice.

Google Sites Isn’t For Me

I’m currently using WordPress.com for my blog as well as for my podcast but I was wondering if there were other free website options where I would have more control. The main thing I would like to do is to be able to add Google AdSense, Google Analytics and of course PayPal donation buttons. With this in my mind I thought I would try out Google Sites as a possible alternative.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to navigate around my options or add pages, etc. But once I got the hang of it I was able to make a decent page. Alas, there wasn’t a way to integrate a blog option into the site which is key for a blog or podcast. With this limitation that pretty much made Google Sites a non-option for me.

I then decided to fool around with Apple’s  iWeb. I have a Mac so the software is at the palm of my fingertips and of course I use MobileMe so why not. The problem with iWeb as I find with a lot of Apple products is it’s need to keep you insulated within the Apple ecosystem. In order to publish a page from iWeb, you need MobileMe and the only RSS feed you can use is the one that’s generated by iWeb which is of course linked to MobileMe. Forget the fact that I already have my own RSS feed via Feedburner or that I upload my audio files somewhere other than my MobileMe account. If I want to make a podcast website with iWeb it’s pretty much all or nothing. I opted for nothing.

So for now, WordPress.com is my free website builder of choice for all my creative needs. I was at least able to incorporate a PayPal option to my podcast’s site with a lone PayPal page via iWeb. I guess I did find some workaround to the “all or nothing” philosophy of the iLife group of products.