GameUtopia

Who would have thought that the east coast would have both an earthquake and a hurricane with moderate damage potential all within a week or two of one another. I am no earthquake or hurricane expert, but this doesn't seem like something that happens very often if ever.

I would be willing to bet that the conspiracy theory websites are lit up right now. And, likely some of them end of the world religious fanatics and websites. Any time something happens they got some crazy idea, story, prediction, or prophecy to let us know about.

I am not into all the conspiracy and end of the world stuff. I've heard it some many times in the past few years that it doesn't even remotely appeal to me. Occasionally I do find some of the threads and comments entertaining though. There are a lot more crazy people out there than I thought.

I am just hoping that this latest hurricane Irene doesn't cause too much damage. We already have financial issues in this country we really don't need anymore. And, then there is talk in the news that the hurricane might cause gas prices to rise. Oh great, just what we need. Give the big oil companies a reason to raise the price of gas and they will.

Be safe!

A news story that recently caught my attention was about this guy that says he has found some kind of base on Mars. Apparently he found it using Google Mars and has uploaded a brief youtube video showing his find.

He says it is 750 feet by 150 feet and cylinder shaped. He also says it appears to be in good shape and well maintained. Which, after watching his video I personally find it difficult to judge as the quality and resolution is not the greatest when he zooms in on the thing.

I am not sure how he comes up with or concludes that the thing is 750 feet by 150 feet. As he rotates around it does kind of appear cylinder shaped.

The guy suggests that it might be a base and speculates how it got there, but wisely doesn't say for sure. He says here is what I found, this is where it is located, check it out and see what you make of it.

I would expect the conspiracy sites have already picked up on this story and I can only imagine what they are saying it is or how it got there.

Personally I think it is just too blurry and not detailed enough to make anything out of it.

Check it out on youtube if interested:

Bio Station Alpha on Mars. The latest discovery by David Martines. Original Video

Remember the original old Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie?

It was good back in the day, but watching it now it seems a little cheesy I guess. Considering the budget and when it was made (1974 ish) it could almost be considered a classic.

Lots of rumors swirled around the movie. Whether it was true or if parts of it were at least based on real events.

Anyway there was a strange new story in the news about a Texas man who took a chainsaw to his friend of 20 years. They apparently lived in the same house and the guy was trying to do away with his friend by cutting him up with a chainsaw.

The first thing that came to mind is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Not that it had anything to do with the movie after all these years, but it is not something you hear about very often. And, being it happened in Texas just reminds me of the movie.

Technology is advancing and changing at an increasing rate. Things that used to take years to achieve is often accomplished in a matter of months. Which is kind of scary.

Every time I open pick up a newspaper there is an ad for something faster, more powerful, bigger and better. It almost seems as if you buy something today a few months later it will be out of date. You can't really keep up with it. If you need or want something you just have to buy it with the assumption and realization that it will be out of date in the very near future.

You just get used to and figure out your new technology device and get comfortable with it. Then, it breaks or you get a new one and spend countless hours trying to figure the new one out. Which we didn't have to do in the good old days. Seriously though the good old days were not that long ago.

We have so many little gizmo's, gadgets, and techie devices now I can't image what we will see in 10 to 20 years from now. But, when I think back 10 to 20 years ago I would have never guessed we would have or be using some of what we do now.

By now you have probably heard about Osama Bin Laden being killed. It would be hard to have missed a story about it in the news, and it is all over the internet right now.

Besides being a little sudden and somewhat unexpected after all these years the thing I find rather strange is where he was actually found.

It is hard to believe Osama Bin Laden was found right in the middle of a city of decent size. And, on top of that within a few hundred yards of a Pakastani military facility. Strange that nobody noticed or suspected anything out of the ordinary surrounding the place where he apparently called home.

I didn't catch how long he had been living at that location. Whether it was for years, or just more recently. If he had been living there for an extended amount of time it is very strange, and almost unreal that someone didn't suspect something sooner.

I guess I just assumed that Osama Bin Laden would likely never be found not to mention killed. If he were found, captured, or killed I was expecting it to be more like a remote location. Maybe a bunker, underground, or in one of these caves we often heard about in media reports.

At any rate it is nice to see the Osama Bin Laden chapter finally come to a close. Not that there will not be others to worry about and deal with, but at least this one is finally over.

President Obama released his long form birth certificate the other day and once again the internet is buzzing about it.

The White House previously released the official Certification Of Live Birth that showed he was born in Hawaii. Which apparently wasn't good enough for a lot of people out there.

On top of that Hawaiian officials have said they personally examined Obama's Birth Cirtificate. And guess what? That wasn't good enough either.

So President Obama released his long form birth certificate all the Birther Movement and conspiracy theory folks have been demanding.

It seemed to finally satisfy a larger group of individuals, but there is already tons of conspiracy websites screaming fake. Which is hard to take anything some of those conspiracy websites claim serious. One site I visited had a thread some 50 pages long with comments and growing by the hour. So as long as I was at this website that was pushing Obama's Birth Cirtificate is a fake I thought I would see what else the site had to offer.

It didn't take long to figure out most of the pictures and video posted on the site to a variety of conspiracy theories were themselves likely fake. I swear some of these sites and people commenting will believe almost anything.

At any rate I don't know what more Obama can do to finally prove he was indeed born in Hawaii. Believe what you want, but it looks like the mystery, conspiracy, or whatever you want to call it is finally over. Thank goodness too. It was starting to get annoying and old.

Netflix recently raised the price of their most popular plan from $8.99 to $9.99 per month. They also added a streaming only plan for $7.99 per month, at least in the U.S. anyway.

Shortly after news of this increase in price people were immediately complaining. Sure a price increase is a bummer, but we are talking about $1 per month for most people. And, with the streaming only plan they could actually save $1 per month. That is just barely over 3 cents per day more.

I guess people don't realize that it does cost Netflix money to license and distribute all those movies or something. They need a vast network of computers and an impressive system to distribute them which isn't cheap either. Not to mention they do have to pay employees. All so the end user can sit on netflix and watch a movie 24-7 from many electronic gizmo's. They have to pay for it somehow right!

Now I could see if they were doubling or tripling the price or something, but a whole $1 per month! If you ask me the price is still extremely cheap for what you get.

Oh well, it's impossible to please everyone!

One day I read or hear about the economy recovering or improving, and the next day it's the opposite. I don't quite understand how or why it varies so much from one day to another in the news.

As I read some of these news stories I have noticed a lot of comments regarding jobs. Some of the more common comments I read are from people suggesting that factory jobs are disappearing here in the U.S. which they probably are somewhat. The other thing I hear a lot is jobs are being outsourced to other countries, which they probably are to some extent too.

I rarely or almost never see anyone mention jobs disappearing or being lost to technology. We have computers and machines that can now do the job of an employee. In some cases the computer or machine can do the job of several employees now.

The thing about this is they don't have to pay the computer or machine. They do initially have to purchase it, and maybe spend a little on upkeep and maintenance. Usually it will more than pay for itself in a year or two.

On top of that there is no complaining from the computer or machine. No insurance or other benefits to pay. And you don't have to pay it overtime.

I would really be curious to see some accurate numbers or some kind of study about job loss due to technology.

Since technology is constantly evolving, getting faster, and more efficient there is a good possibility we will see more job loss because of it.

Some folks claim it helps create jobs. It might create a few, but I lean towards more are lost than created.

Apparently the media and internet world is buzzing about this mysterious missile launch near Los Angeles.

Pentagon, Military, and Norad so far have denied any involvement or knowledge about it. Which, is somewhat typical or expected from them.

After reviewing the various online video footage, it is very apparent that whatever it is it's not a small little object or missile. The thing is rather large, and leaning towards huge in fact.

If the various U.S. government and military organizations are denying any involvement or knowledge one has to stop and think. The military regularly denies things they are testing or doing. We all know that by now. Perhaps there was something planned which they intended to follow up with a statement or release, but maybe it didn't turn out so well, and now they need to come up with some line of crap to feed the American public.

Maybe we will never know, or more likely never know the whole story.

I am kind of leaning towards the military had something to do with this. Otherwise, I would assume there would be a bunch of military fighter jets scrambled to the area to check it out.

Heck they scrambled a couple of military fighters not long ago when a small prop plane unknowingly flew to close to air force one when it was on the ground in Seattle. They were scrambled by Norad out of Portland, and many people in the Seattle area reported sonic booms. If they went that far over a little prop plane, surely you could expect a similar scenario over a potential missile or other unusual object.

I would guess it was the military. Whether it went as planned is another story though.

Everywhere you look lately there seems to be a new Viral Video circulating. Some of them are less than worthy of carrying the Viral part of the title. Now it seems like every video is Viral. Ok maybe not all of them include the term in the title, but I've seen plenty pop up the past few days.

For some I guess it is just a marketing technique that tends to spark someones interest. Which is what they are after. If adding the term Viral to a video increases visitors, then I guess it worked.

I am getting slightly annoyed every time I see or hear the word Viral now. It was alright a while back, but it is straight up annoying now.

Next thing you know we will see all kinds of other things include the term Viral. We will have Viral news stories, Viral blog posts, Viral pictures, Viral Facebook and Twitter posts. How about a Viral Virus even?

Apparently some college girl likes to spend 3 to 4 hours per day on Facebook. Her mother believes that her grades have been suffering as a result of so much time on Facebook. The mother decided that paying her daughter $300 to stay off the site might improve her grades.

Now I don't know how anyone could spend a full 3 to 4 hours on a site like Facebook every day. I can't imagine what one could even do there for that amount of time. Unless she has a habit of checking out 1000 friend pages each and every day. I can't see how posting a status update, adding a picture or video, and making a few comments could eat up that much time.

The mother can try her $300 offer to get her daughter off Facebook, or to reduce her time there anyway. If I had to take a guess that $300 is going to be a total waste. This girl will take the money and continue to do her daily Facebook routine. If she is that hooked on it, a whole $300 isn't going to make her stop. Nor, will it help improve her grades. Maybe she could take the $300 and pay someone to do her homework, but that wouldn't last long either.

This really makes me wonder...Do a lot of people really waste that much time on Facebook every day? If so how many?

Know wonder so many people are lazy, unfit, and unhealthy these days!

How exciting could a movie about social networking and specifically Facebook actually be?

I mean a movie about the founders of Facebook doesn't seem that appealing or interesting to me. Maybe it is to all the Facebook addicts, or the younger generation that can't seem to live without it.

A few popular movie review sites has it rated fairly decent. Jesse Eisenberg plays the role of Mark Zukerberg. I did like his character in Zombieland.

If they add a mix of comedy it might be slightly more appealing. I just don't find the nerdy computer programing stuff that exciting enough to sit for 2 hours.

The rating is PG-13 and not that it matters too much. I am guessing they wanted to keep it below an R rating so all the teen Facebook'ers would be able to see it.

Kind of reminds me of the older Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, which incidentally I never watched either.

Maybe it is your thing...great...I hope you like it as much as you probably like Facebook - The Social Network site!

If you are one of the Facebook addicts you might have noticed the recent outage or down time a few days ago. Apparently the site was down for approximately 2 and 1/2 hours give or take.

Users reported seeing or getting an 500 internal server error. Others just didn't see or get anything, just a blank page.

It didn't take long for the internet world to take notice. Even the online news media outlet sites were quick to publish an article on it.

It is truly amazing how much time people spend on a site like Facebook, which is pretty much about nothing. Is there life besides Facebook? Apparently not for all the addicts that can't go a few hours without it.

I have never been a big fan of the site. I could easily live without it. I really don't see what is so exciting that someone needs to visit it multiple times a day, but to each their own I guess.

It goes to show no site is up and running perfect 24-7. Even the big name sites have their share of issues and outages from time to time. They are just noticed and picked up on when they have issues, problems, or technical difficulties more than the average site.

I don't know how old everyone out there is. If you go back far enough to remember anything other than Google, Yahoo, and MSN(live/bing) or not. I am not an old geezer yet, but I do go back far enough to remember life before these big 3. And now that Yahoo is serving up search results powered by Bing we might be referring to them as the big 2 in the near future.

There were a lot more U.S. based search engines that each served up different results. I can't recall a single one of them at the time being superior or better than the other. I think most people at the time just preferred one or the other based on personal preference.

The ones I can remember are:

• Altavista
• Excite
• Lycos
• Yahoo
• InfoSeek
• Google
• Netscape
• AOL
• Ask/Ask Jeeves
• HotBot
• MetaCrawler

(Keep in mind they were not affiliated or powered by Google. Each served up their own unique results.)

Excite 1996:


There were a few others I can't think of right off hand or at the moment.

There was much more competition in the earlier days of the internet and through the 1990's.

Kind of funny, and maybe a little sad too. At least to some of us that can remember them and had actually used some of those search engines.

I don't recall MSN search in the earlier days of the internet. I think it came about 1999 or 2000 area. I do recall using Hotmail as long as I can remember though.

Who really knows how many App's there are out there anymore. It seems like every day something new comes out.

I was reading a news story the other day about gas prices (a popular topic here in the U.S.) Apparently there is some cell phone app that will tell you where the cheapest gas price is in your particular location.

Do we really need app's like this?

I can't believe people would really search their cell phone app just to save a penny or two per gallon of gas.

Yet they don't hesitate or think twice about buying one of those $3 to $5 fancy coffee's.

So if someone was going to purchase 20 gallons of gas and they searched their cell phone app to find they could save 2 cents per gallon, not to mention probably out of their way. They would save what 40 whole cents. Which they probably burned up in the process of finding the so called deal. Who knows how much time they actually wasted either.

I am all for saving a few bucks and finding a deal, but come on a whole 40 cents! Even if you traveled so much that you filled up or bought 20 gallons every day you'd save $12 per month. Providing the price didn't change.

I guess people can't live without all these app's or something. I am surprised there isn't an app to find an app. Maybe there is!

If you publish Google Adsense ads on your Google Blogger - Blogspot site you are required to have a privacy policy. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting your Adsense account banned, suspended, or terminated.

It is quite simple and there really isn't much to it. You can simply create a new page within your Google Blogspot account.

Step 1:
Go to the following site and generate a privacy policy for your Blogspot blog:
http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/index.php

Enter your blogspot site URl/web address:
-http://yourblog.blogspot.com

Enter your contact email address:
-you@yourmail.com

Yes, we use CookiesAnd make sure the box is ticked or checked for Google Adsense.

Then just click the Create my Privacy Policy button.

This is another question I have been asking myself lately. Why on earth do people text so much these days? I don't know the perfect or exact answer to this one. I have a feeling the ones not so tuned into it will generally be a bit older. Someone from the younger crowd or generation would be more likely to be texting frequently.

I know if I say too much about text messaging it will tick of those that like it. I highly doubt they can't live without it, they just think so.

It never really made any sense to me why people send text messages back and forth all day long from a phone that the original purpose was to call and talk to someone.

I think I have heard all the reasons why people text, but they still don't make a whole lot of sense.

Honestly I think people are lacking verbal communication more and more every day. So many people live in digital cyber world it's almost frightening. It was a much different world back in my day.

People just think they need all these new gadgets and gizmo's all the time to be like their friends or something.



There are so many devices out there people are constantly playing with that are distracting. I don't know how many times I have had to repeat myself because someone couldn't listen to me and play with their little toy at the same time.

Just going to a store is getting to be a real pain in the rump too. I stand in line, politely waiting my turn to pay for my things. The person in front of me paying for their stuff can't even focus because they are too busy yapping on their phone or sending a text. Now I am supposed just stand there waiting for them to finish their conversation because it must be important, and I have nothing important I need to do or would rather be doing besides waiting for them. It's like people don't even care anymore. They just act like it's not a big deal, and I shouldn't even care.

I like technology that makes things better and more efficient. I just wish people had more respect and showed a little common courtesy.

I was watching the local news the other night. There was a story about a woman that setup a Twitter account page for her dog. She apparently has nothing better to do or something. Who on earth has time to post things even if they are short and brief for their dog? Talk about not having a life or something.

It doesn't matter to me what anyone does with their spare and free time, but honestly I could think of a few other things.

The news story went on to say that this dog has something like 2,000 followers now. Can you believe that. Not only does this woman posting these tweets on behalf of her dog not have anything better to do. There is apparently 2,000 Twitter members that have nothing better to do than to read virtual mythical tweets about someone's dog.




I understand the internet can be education and even a good source of entertainment when there is nothing better to do, but come on reading tweets about someone's dog!

People never cease to amaze me when it comes to online and internet related things they do.

I seriously think people need to unplug from all this digital stuff once in a while, and come back to the real world. Maybe socialize with people face to face might be a good start rather than in internet land all the time.

Every time the price of gas goes up here in the U.S. it tends to be followed by a few complaints. People tend to assume the gas station owners are getting rich. I'm sure they make something, but it's more likely the big gas and oil company giants that are making the big bucks.

Our way of life seems to revolve around gas and oil. What would be possibly do without? The gas and oil companies know we need it, and we can't do anything about it. We can complain about the price all we want, but we need it so we pay the price know matter what it happens to be.

With that in mind I came across an interesting article the other night about the price of gas around the world. It quoted the top 5 highest and the bottom 5 lowest prices. I had no idea that it varied so much. I knew many other countries paid much more, and a few paid less than what we expect here in the U.S. I just didn't realize some of them were as much as they are.




The world's highest gas prices:

1. Asmara, Eritrea: $9.59 a gallon.
2. Oslo, Norway: $7.41 a gallon.
3. Copenhagen, Denmark: $6.89 a gallon.
4. Hong Kong: $6.87 a gallon.
5. Monaco, Monte Carlo: $6.82 a gallon.

The world's lowest gas prices:

1. Caracas, Venezuela: 6 cents a gallon.
2. Tehran, Iran: 32 cents a gallon.
3. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: 45 cents a gallon.
4. Kuwait, City, Kuwait: 85 cents a gallon.
5. Cairo, Egypt: $1.17 a gallon.


Can you believe that it varies from $.06 to $9.59 per gallon. That is a big difference.

Read the full article if interested here:
Motorist's dream: Gas at 6 cents a gallon

Do the benefits of the internet outweigh the negative? It's a question I've been asking myself lately.

I guess it depends on who you are, what kind of lifestyle you live, and if you don't remember life before the internet. Some people are just too young to remember life without the internet.

Lucky me...I happened to be born before the internet we all rely on so much. I am even old enough to have actually enjoyed life in my childhood, teenage, and early adulthood without it.

The thing I keep thinking about is we all got along fine. We had fun and enjoyed life without it. I actually think we were more active back then. We went out and did things rather than sitting in front of a computer. We had real life friends, not digital virtual facebook friends.

Now people are just so stressed out and in a hurry for everything. They want it right now this second. If they can't get it in a hurry, or if one little thing goes wrong...look out it's the end of the world for some reason. If you can't find your TV remote, cell phone charger, or mp3 player calm down...Take a deep breath and chill out. Life does go on. There is life besides video games, movies, and facebook.



The internet is convenient and if used properly can be good for a variety of useful things. However, along with the convenience comes a lot of trouble, spam, viruses, thieves, con artists, you name it.

I just can't help wondering if the internet has made us all a bit more lazy. I mean if we didn't have the internet right now would we just sack out in front of the TV with a bag of potato chips? Or would we be out and about more...You know actually communicating with real life people instead of in la la land on the internet with total strangers.

I guess there is no perfect answer. Most people cannot live without it these days. I just wish sometimes life was much simpler like it used to be. Those days are long gone though now. I can't even imagine what things will be like in another 5, 10, or even 20+ years from now.