Hooked on "You've Been Hooked" Blog

With my personal time being scarce as it is, it’s hard for me to keep up with as many blogs as I would like. With the exception of informative blogs like Engadget and Punchline (tech and comedy blogs) I pretty much just skim a few of them through Google Reader and call it a day.

With that being said, there is one Blog that I discovered almost at random that I haven’t stop going back to and that’s “You’ve Been Hooked!” that’s written by a hotel worker in Canada. I say “almost” random because the author of that blog wrote a comment on mine (back when I was still using WordPress.com. I know it hasn’t been that long but whatever!). I appreciated the comment, noticed he had a blog of his own and decided to give it a read and after two entries I was hooked! (no pun intended).

This blog is filled with hilarious stories of The Hook’s exploits at his hotel and the patrons he has to endure . It is a fun read. I even subscribed via the email option. It’s such a good blog that I noticed it’s absence in my emails and wondered if he had stopped blogging. It turned out that my email subscription settings were reset somehow and so I reactivated them and hopefully I will be getting wonderfully funny new tales delivered to my inbox.

Worse case scenario, I also have this blog in my Google Reader but the I’d rather get the tales sent directly to me instead. Anyways, what are you doing still reading this critique? Go and check out the humor of “You’ve Been Hooked!” already!

Oh What To Do With Squidoo!

So my buddy and co-host of the Mundane Chatter Podcast, Yomar, kept talking my ear about this social networking too called Squidoo (Pronounced Squid-Dew) and finally I decided to give it a try. Yet another night taken away from my much valued tv watching!

Anyway the way the folks at Squidoo explain it this platform is:

The popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create “lenses” online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic of interest–and snap it all into focus. Like the lens of a camera, your perspective on something. (You’re looking at a lens right now).

It’s a supersimple, fun and powerful way to share your interests, build your online identity and credibility, and connect with new readers and friends.

So basically you create a “lens” or page dedicated to an interest you may have and try to create a community gathering around it. I guess it’s kind of like a forum thread only with the look and feel of an interactive blog (if that makes any sense). I’m still trying to make sense out of it. All I know is that it took me a hell of a time completing one.

If anyone’s interested, feel free to check out my “lens” about my favorite sci-fi show of all time, Farscape. Here’s hoping to see you there.

Oh yeah, Yomar also made a Squidoo lens for our podcast if you want to check that out as well.

If I Were To Debate My Older Self…

If I had a debate with my younger self, I’m not sure if I would win but I definitely would be more drained in attempting such a feat. My younger self was more stubborn, more ignorant and therefore more self-assured in his opinions, more youthful and energetic (obviously) and saw things in black and white more than I do.

As I’ve gotten older and more wiser (well more experienced for sure), I’ve acquired a bit of hesitancy and doubt in myself and in my actions. Things just don’t seem as clear and obvious as they use to when I was more naïve and saw things in broader strokes.

I see more than one side to every story and see the merits of each argument. It sometimes drives my wife mad how I over-analyze things today. My younger self would just see his point of view and stick with it no matter what. I’m now more willing to take a step back and hear the other side of the story before assessing the situation.

To debate my younger self would be an exercise in futility because for the most part my younger self wouldn’t necessarily listen to what I have to say. He would rather spew out his two cents and demand that I “see the light”  and agree with his assessment. My current self is ok to just agree to disagree.

Week 4 Of Weight Training: Another Pound Lost

I promised myself that I would exercise more this past week but didn’t. Apparently that week of fun I had is still having a lasting effect. I couldn’t get a regular sleep schedule going. Of course my newest acquired hobby of website building did play a factor to all this as well.

Moving over my blog and podcast sucked out a lot of time and I fell asleep at 2 in the morning on most nights this past week. Not that I’m complaining. I learned some new useful html and WordPress tips that will help me along my DIY path. It was creative energy well spent. This week though I do have to get some writing done. Got a new ezine article I need to write for and of course the writing program I re-enrolled in.

But back to the main point, I lost another pound despite myself, yet again. I started this change of eating habits 4 weeks ago at 242 lbs and am currently 236.5 lbs. In previous weight loss attempts I would lose 5 lbs in one week easy. A faster more youthful metabolism was probably the biggest factor in those previous times and despite that I would eventually lose focus and put on the weight again. This time around I believe I’m doing it right and will keep on course. I think the slow results are proof of that and all the more rewarding.

I would like to say that this is the week I will definitely commit to exercise but this week also happens to be finals week for my dear wife and so most of the apartment will be in disarray as she prepares for her school work, which will leave me very little space to do any jumping around. I will at least try to walk more this coming week. All in all,  losing one pound a week has been fun and enjoyable so far.

If You're Getting This Post…

If you’re getting this post than that means you’re using my Feedburner RSS feed link or Feedburner mail subscription link and my new site is up and running. I thought this process would take a few days but it only took one long sleepless night. As tired as I am, I’m happy with the result and I hope you readers are too.

You’ll notice not much has changed. I even kept the Coraline theme that I was using at WordPress.com. Other than a few ads and a donation button everything is pretty much the same (have to fund my self-hosted site somehow, right?).

Anyway, I’m glad with this new direction I’m taking with my blog. Maybe, because I’m paying for it, I’ll even be more diligent with my blogging and I’ll take this writing path more seriously. I guess time will tell.