Starting anew

I have copied this blog over to its permanent home: http://www.belhoste.com. While I have enjoyed using blogger for the past almost two years, I thought it was time for this change. After all what good is version 1.0 without the version 2.0 :-)

Marshmallowey goodness

It seems that this blog has a new fan (yay!!) and here is what he said in a comment: "I love your Blog. I'm Dale Tuccelli-Tucker. Thank you for the link to my site. I will offer all of your readers a 10% discount by mentioning Belhoste when placing their order." This was prompted by a previous post that linked to his site for gourmet marshmallows. So all you faithful readers and/or marshmallow lovers, go over to Marshmallow Temptations and check out their fine products. Just make sure to savor the flavors because when it comes to marshmallows, the sugar rush can be too much. Technorati tag: marshmallow

Love Bytes

I know on some level I had realized this fact, but I had never really REALIZED it. I spend more time during any given day with a computer(s) than with my significant other. Reading this article brought that little tidbit to the front of my brain. My time spent with various computers may or may not have something to do with the fact that I have never spent any real time away from a computer. My job requires the use of a computer, my friends all want help fixing their computers, my mom and dad call me on a regular basis for technical support (it is only after twenty minutes of working on whatever failing gadget they have questioned me about that they then ask "how are you doing"), my life partner has me fix her computer on a semi-regular basis (in all fairness, she has gotten pretty good at fixing it herself now), and my hobbies almost all include the use or abuse of computers. Although it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a survey to come up with these beauties: "They were surprised, Rodio said, to find that computer problems could unleash such powerful emotions. When confronted with a dead computer, 19 percent admitted to wanting to hurl it out the nearest window, 9 percent felt stranded and alone, 11 percent used language normally reserved for special occasions, 7 percent did so loudly, 3 percent did so tearfully and 3 percent additionally vented their wrath on inanimate objects." They were surprised that people had "powerful emotions" with regards to their computers. This does not make me want to purchase their help desk software - especially considering the "powerful emotions" that I have experienced in my lifetime directed at hardware and/or software. Back to the original topic.... hmmm... oh nevermind, after getting all worked up over this computer stuff, I now have the need to go throw a pesky laser printer off of a rooftop. Technorati tag: computers

Just another rejection

Crystal over at Boobs, Injuries, & Dr. Pepper (yes, that truly is the name of her blog), had to deal with this little trifle of rejection: "Why are you grumpy?" "I'm not grumpy. I'm....grumpy." "My mistake. So, why the attitude, dear husband?" "Well, you didn't exactly make me feel desirable this morning." "This morning? I didn't even see you before you left." He sniffed indignantly. "You don't remember." "Chris, I'm taking Ambien. People have dressed in drag to go shopping, followed by robbing a liquor store and taking a salsa lesson and they don't remember a second of it. Give me a break." He crossed his arms and stuck his bottom lip out. "I was feeling amorous." "Okay. And I turned you down? Was I mean about it?" "I believe your exact words were, 'Ooh, gross, how can you think about something like that when I just had a dream about my parents? Ewww!', before you rolled over and started snoring." "Well, you have to admit, that is oogy." Not speaking to me. As you can see from that little discussion - it was a bit traumatic for him.

iPhone Ringtone Options

Now that Apple has come out with ringtones for my iPhone, I have made a purchase or two of some songs and the accompanying tones. But I still find it to be a little lacking considering the sheer volume of music that I have from my CD collection. So I have been researching some options (whether or not I will actually do any of them is still being mentally debated): Instructions at iPhone Atlas Ambrosia Software's iToner Article at WIRED Rogue Amoeba's MakeiPhoneRingtone AppleGazette's iRing Reminder: I am a Mac user (at least when it comes to my music) - some of these are Mac only options. And of course the necessary quote from the WIRED article: "The legality of all this futzing is still being debated. Some say using a song you purchased (either on a CD or online) as a ringtone does not constitute fair use and may be grounds for copyright infringement. So, proceed with caution. And before you go crazy making a dozen ringtones, we can't help but suggest you consider another ring option: the ever-popular vibrate setting. Like a timeless black suit or little black dress, vibrate is classy, demure and doesn't annoy the hell out of everyone within 20 feet of you. Technorati tag: iPhone ringtones

Link Collection 8

I collect links. I collect a lot of links. The links end up on scraps of paper, post it notes, legal pads, and various other surfaces around the house and office. These are links that I either intend to blog about or just want to research a little further. Some of the links are just collected as cool looking websites, without any regard to content. Some of the sites have a wonderful business model. Regardless of the reason for the collecting of the link by the time I get back to the links, I have forgotten the reason I collected it in the first place. Since I don't generally do much more with them than collect, I thought it would be best to just start posting them as a list of links that I can find later or someone else can blog about. More than likely, there won't be any more information about them than the link. Twitter In Cinq After Vote Google Trends Wildside Press Stumble Upon Yo Yo Games Crazy Egg There is no particular order to these links. There is no rhyme or reason to them. And there definitely is no real reason for listing them here other than those stated above. Technorati tag: links

Correcting an oversight

I can't believe that in almost 2 years I have never written a single word on one of my all time favorite musical artists. I had to run a search on my blog to be sure and it was true. I had never said word one about "Weird Al" Yankovic. While I have not completed my collection of his works, I do own Running With Scissors, Even Worse, In 3-D, and Off the Deep End. I also have both the VHS and DVD versions of UHF. Hopefully, this post remedies my terrible oversight and I will once again feel whole :-) I will now leave you with one of the funniest "Weird Al" videos out there: Technorati tag: weird al yankovic

Women play games?

Who knew? Oh puleeze! Women have been playing games for more than a few years now. It just seems like no one ever noticed it - until now. I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember. I remember having several different video game consoles over my lifetime as well as spending quite a bit of time and quarters at the local video arcade (but that is another story). Let me see if I can remember all the consoles that I played on: Atari 2600 ColecoVision Intellivision Atari 5200 Sega Genesis Nintendo Entertainment System Super NES Nintendo 64 Nintendo GameCube Sony Playstation 2 Nintendo Wii Of the previous list, I still own the PS2 and of course the Wii - my mom now has possession of the Nintendo GameCube. Strangely enough, she wanted it for the grandkids and she plays it more than they do - more proof. And up until 8 years ago (when I cleaned out the garage for a move), I still had ownership of most all the older systems with the exceptions of the Atari 5200 (my sister kept that one) and the Sega Genesis (I don't know what happened to that one) - including most all of the games. I sold several of the systems/games at a garage sale, some went to the local thrift store, and one was sold on eBay. Side note: I remember an Odyssey being in the house, but I couldn't tell you much more about it. Technorati tag: women gamers

s'more than that

The marshmallow is a humble, squishy confection that has lived within our hot cocoa's for as long as we can remember. But now USA Today declares: "The everyday marshmallow is toast." I am not sure whether my world has now come to an end or if this is the beginning of a wonderful revolution. We now have choices of "gourmet" marshmallow treats. Here is a short list of tasty, gourmet marshmallow goodies: Pete's Gourmet Confections Plush Puffs Laura's Candy Tuccelli Just Born Technorati tag: gourmet marshmallow

What is seen, cannot be unseen

These comments are pretty hilarious when taken in context, they are even funnier when taken out of context. Here are some of the finer pieces of comments taken from fark.com: Clam Juice quadratic bunghole Hoocha hoocha hoocha probable topography of a stink loaf Poo is funny unsuspecting dirt snake equilateral set of sphincter muscles sharp like Ginsu football being crammed up an exhaust pipe Play-doh doesn't taste all that great Bearded Clam None of these comments really have anything to do with the original article that spawned the forum thread. If you are still wondering.....{dramatic pause for effect}... it was about a sinking ship. Technorati tag: um

My kind of sport

There are quite a few sports out there that I pretty much avoid (you can pretty well translate that to almost all of them). I strongly dislike football (which has become an even stronger dislike because I live where it is the home of the Sooners); I think softball is best watched while on painkillers; I believe that rugby is best left to the masochistic (ha, spelled it right on the first try - does that say something about me?); and I am completely against anything to do with basketball. There are two sporting events that I do like to participate in and/or watch. One of the two is poker and the other is bowling. Two sports that encourage you to drink while playing. This video is very definitely right up my alley: It just doesn't get much better than watching Lego figures bowl! Technorati tag: Lego bowlers

BlogRush and FeedBurner

I made a couple of small, but significant changes to this blog yesterday. I added BlogRush to bottom left-hand side of the page. And I added a FeedBurner link to the bottom right-hand side of the page (if you don't want to scroll, then here is the link to add me to your feeds: http://feeds.feedburner.com/belhoste). While FeedBurner has been around a little while and doesn't need a whole lot of explaining, BlogRush is fairly new and may need a little explaining. What is BlogRush? From ProBlogger: "There’s a great little video on the front page of Blog Rush that explains the system better than I could on a post - however in short this is a little widget that you put on your sidebar which displays posts that others have written on their blogs (related to your blog’s content)." I will only add that the displayed posts are based on content that is relevant to your site. Hopefully, this works better than some of the others I have tried in the past. One thing to make note of is that BlogRush did not quite anticipate the sheer volume of new sign-ups that they would receive in the first few days. When I signed in this morning to check on the status of things, I saw this: TO: All BlogRush Members FROM: John Reese, Founder of BlogRush "The first 60 hours since we launched the BlogRush public beta has been nothing short of EXPLOSIVE. We knew that we were developing an exciting tool that many bloggers could benefit from, but we had no idea how fast the 'word' would spread across the Web." I am going to choose to take this as a good sign of things to come. By the way: I would like to thank the 11 people who have already signed up for my blog feed!

An impending switch

Let this be fair warning to all 9 people who read my blog on a regular basis (by the way - I love it that you keep returning to read my ramblings). I have a plan to switch my blog to Wordpress (hosted by GoDaddy) before the end of this year - maybe early November if I am lucky. I have been doing a little research and Wordpress seems to be the way to go. While some people might not think GoDaddy is the best choice of host, I have had pretty good luck with them and I really like their customer service team. Some of my first thoughts on this are (in no particular order): I plan on leaving this blog intact with a "final" post directing people to my "new" blog. I will use the domain name of www.belhoste.com which I already own and is currently forwarded to this blog I will re-create all posts that I have here on the new blog (including comments if possible) I want to be able to expand my blog beyond a blog - having a full about me page at the very least Be able to host my own image files - while I like using photo bucket it has its limitations While my primary goal of this site is to just have a place to speak my mind and not necessarily make any money - I will continue to have a "spare change" section that hopefully makes enough money to cover the hosting I will try and make a real category list and limit those categories to between 10 and 20 topics One thing you can be sure of that will not change is my ability to post in grammatically incorrect sentences My main reason for the switch is to make this a more "professional" looking blog. I have had this blog for a few years now and I have managed to keep it going, so I feel like it is time for the next step. While I don't have all that many returning readers, I do have quite a few people who come here to check out some of my more popular posts. With that said, I would love to hear any advice from people on how best to go about this. I have ideas of my own, but I am always open to suggestions. Note: I hate begging for anything, but I would really appreciate some links to this post to be able to get more advice from people about switching. Technorati tag: switch

Almost dead - or just feeling that way

Given that pollen levels have been seemingly off the charts here in Oklahoma for the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling some serious effects. My signs and symptoms first started about a week ago and they started to progress from there. It first started out as just the basic allergy stuff: sniffing, sneezing, and gummy eyes. From there it went to: the inability to breathe through my nose. Then it progressed to: can't stop coughing. The end result of this being bronchitis - for which I went to the doctor for the appropriate dosing of antibiotics before it turned into pneumonia (which was where it was headed). The worst part about this is that I had to use some of my sick days at work for actually being sick instead of just taking "mental health" days. I tell you all this so you know why I have not been blogging very much. I have not had the strength to do much more than sleep, cough, and "drink lots of fluids" - fluid intake of that level for me is generally only made of the caffeinated kind. Technorati tag: allergy alert

3 AA batteries required

I must admit that my thoughts after reading the first line of this post did not take me in the same direction as the remainder of the lines in the post. Just so you can see what I am talking about here is the first line: "I go through AA batteries like teenagers go through refrigerators: at high speed, with little if any regard for the potential expense." My first thought took me in the direction of a recent conversation with a friend: Friend: "If anything ever happens to me, I want you to go to my house and remove something for me." Me: puzzled look "Like what?" Friend: "Just a box." Me: "Okay, what box?" Friend: "It's just a wicker box, about shoebox size, that I have under my bed." Me: "What do I do with the box after I remove it?" Friend: "Take it out from under the bed and throw it away - DO NOT open it" Me: "Why would YOU need ME to remove a box only to throw it away? What the hell is it?" Friend: sheepish grin "Well, I just don't want anyone else to see and I trust you not to open it." Me: "Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you still haven't told me what is in it..." Friend: looks away "Well, it's personal - and I definitely don't want ANYONE to see what is is in it." Me: knowing grin "...so you're not going to tell me - you know I will have to assume the worst - like that maybe it contains body parts or old love letters. Most likely I will assume that what lives in the box likes it dark and you only feed it batteries." knowing look in her direction Friend: silence Me: snickering ... more snickering ...okay, okay, I will do it. But you have to promise me something. Friend: "Like what?" Me: "That you'll do the same thing for me." Friend: relieved look "No problem." Me: smile "There is one thing though." Friend: puzzled look "What is it?" Me: big smile "Mine is considerably larger than a shoebox..." Which takes me back to the need for batteries... Between all my electronic gadgets that require batteries and all those "personal massagers" - I have the need to purchase my batteries in bulk. Technorati tag: humor

Link Collection 7

I collect links. I collect a lot of links. The links end up on scraps of paper, post it notes, legal pads, and various other surfaces around the house and office. These are links that I either intend to blog about or just want to research a little further. Some of the links are just collected as cool looking websites, without any regard to content. Some of the sites have a wonderful business model. Regardless of the reason for the collecting of the link by the time I get back to the links, I have forgotten the reason I collected it in the first place. Since I don't generally do much more with them than collect, I thought it would be best to just start posting them as a list of links that I can find later or someone else can blog about. More than likely, there won't be any more information about them than the link. Amie Street House Party Open Directory Project Quantcast Reputation Defender Pownce Micro Persuasion Mobile Mammoth There is no particular order to these links. There is no rhyme or reason to them. And there definitely is no real reason for listing them here other than those stated above. Technorati tag: links

Art in Oklahoma

Since tonight was the first OU game of the season, we decided it was better spent outside of Norman. We called a few friends and decided to head out of town (as far away from the traffic and noise of the game as possible). You see, we live close enough to the stadium to be able to hear just about everything that goes on at the game. Spent a wonderful evening at the Arts Festival Oklahoma. The weather was just perfect for viewing all the artists. We wandered around all the tents soaking up some local and not so local art talent. It is great to go to this festival since all the artists are present. You can speak with them and ask all sorts of questions about their art or where they came from (and more). All types of artists were well represented this year. I especially liked the art of Brad W. Foster. His "The Giggling Dragon" graphic was just adorable. I was completlely fascinated by his "The Athenaeum" - it was a library that just went on for days and the details in it were amazing. And I just loved "Eve". The graphic of "Lady and the Tiger" seemed to be a bit different than the rest of his work, but it was just as amazing. One of the best things about his work was that each one had its own story. The other artist that had some amazing detail in her work was Kim Laird. Her painting of "Mother" was extremely well done. The unexpected details in the eyes of the cat just drew you in to the painting. I also loved the painting of "Sophia". The face is wonderful and the peacock feathers are very detailed. Her work was very colorful and just made you want to look and look and look. I spent a long time just staring at her paintings trying to find all the details. Side-note: Since living in Norman, OK means always hearing about football (no matter how hard you try not to), the score was Sooners 79; North Texas 10. Technorati tag: art

Quest for Tea

This is the weekend to celebrate the laborers and since I fall into that category, I took the day off. The day started off pretty slowly - got up late, drank some coffee, and decided to go to Texas for the day. Since my life partner and I didn't have any plans while we were there, we decided it was a good day for an adventure. Mostly our adventures involve driving to no particular destination and getting lost. In our case, lost isn't a bad thing - it just means we'll have to consult a map (or ask directions - women can get away with that sort of thing) to discover the best way back home. We drove around Dallas. We drove around Denton. We also drove around some other towns we didn't bother to catch the names of. While we were in Dallas, we went to Cafe Brazil for some lunch and the BEST cup of coffee in town. Afterwards we drove around some more and located Boba Latte in Richardson. They have the widest selection of drinks. They used the freshest ingredients (barely any powders in sight). Their drinks were wonderful! This is definitely a place to go when you have a thirst for a bubble tea. Technorati tag: boba

My kind of phone bling

There are scads of accessories and phone charms for mobile phones. I haven't been much into it except for a case or two (and that is just to protect my precious). I may, however, make an exception for these. When I saw these mopods for my phone I really did think "I must have all of those". Then I saw these: ...and all thoughts of the mopods were quickly exterminated. Technorati tag: mopods

102 uses for a microwave

The folks over at U-Starvin were kind enough to experiment on all sorts of strange items in their microwave. I do have a couple of questions for them on their experiments: exactly how much alcohol was consumed prior to thinking this was a good idea? was anyone aware of exactly how toxic burning plastic can be? how many IQ points were lost in the making of those films? did any of these attempts result in the fire alarm sounding? All that aside, my favorite had to be the microwaved Christmas lights. *Disclaimer: 102 uses were not found at the aforementioned website. However, I'm sure you could find that many if you searched the Internet. And as always - do not try this at home. Technorati tag: microwave