I’m Over Here Now

Obviously, there’s been a slowdown of posts here over the last few months. Posting here is going to probably going to remain slow for and maybe get even slower.

Lately I’ve been posting over at scottadcox.com for the most part. The posts there are shorter, more snarky, and even less on topic. I’ve had less time to write anything lately. And quite honestly, anything I think has been written by someone smarter and more literate than me, so it’s easier to just link to them!

You can head over there and subscribe, or just follow me on Twitter, which is killing blogging. Or maybe you are enjoying the silence. That would make sense too! 🙂

“Libertarian leaning commentary from Knoxville Tennessee” probably won’t be located in Knoxville for too much longer, so now is as good of a time as any to begin the transition.

I still plan on posting here every now and then, but the post you are currently reading is going to remain at the top of the page. Anything new will be posted beneath. This blog and all of its archives will remain indefinitely for posterity and revenue!!!!

Knoxville Overground Spring Gala Fundraiser

This one is truly over ground. Tomorrow night KO is hosting a gala on the 6th floor of the Sunsphere (that’s one floor above the Wig Shop). The public is welcomed to attend, just a cool $25, but there is a limit to only 120 guests.

Official KO members, KO sponsors, and members of KO affiliate organizations receive a 20% discount for this event: $20/per person includes an evening of cocktails, friends, an upbeat vibe, and inspiring speeches about Knoxville’s potential to be even more sustainable, innovative, cosmopolitan, and empowered entrepreneurial community of cultural creatives.

This is a great opportunity to meet some of the folks involved with KO, and if you aren’t a member yet, you can swing by and take this quiz to see if perhaps you should be!

Fogerty

Sometimes it only takes one word for you to know exactly what you are gonna get.

It reminds me of a story…

I went to see a Credence Clearwater Revival tribute band with my buddy Half once. In between sets one of the band members was standing near us at the bar, and Half struck up a conversation with him that went something like this:

Half: When ya’ll gonna play “Lodi”?

The Guy: We don’t play “Lodi”.

Half: *with full contempt*  If you don’t play “Lodi” you ain’t no damn CCR tribute band!

Sometime I Wonder About You

800px-typicalwafflehouse

The current poll asks for your Waffle House hash browns order. So far, seven people have voted, but only three have included “scattered” in their options.

Uh…can you get hash browns at Waffle House that aren’t scattered? I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

Carry on.

GeoCities R.I.P.

Am I the only one who is discreetly wiping a tear from my eye to learn that Yahoo! is shutting down GeoCities?  Back in the day, GeoCities RULED! Honestly, GeoCities hasn’t crossed my mind in years, and I was surprised to read it was pulling this kind of traffic recently:

GeoCities’ traffic has been falling over the past year. According to ComScore, GeoCities unique visitors in the U.S. fell 24 percent in March to 11.5 million unique visitors from 15.1 million in March of 2008. Back in October, 2006, it had 18.9 million uniques.

If you remember the old GeoCities, you can really appreciate how far the web has come in a short period of time with free blogging sites, MySpace, Facebook, etc. It’s kind of sad that the cutting edge concept of allowing everyday people to build an attractive website pioneered by GeoCities has left it so far behind.

What’s next? Yahoo Games?

Things I Wonder About

Why is a tax credit for home purchases only good for first time home buyers? Wouldn’t making it available to everyone lure even more people into the market?

Doctors, lawyers, engineers, car salesmen, politicians, school teachers, reporters…the list goes on and on.  Is there any profession out there that isn’t loathed by anyone? I’d say firefighters and nurses–maybe. But even librarians irritate me. They walk around pretending Google can’t do their job 1,000,000 times more efficiently than they can.

What is the ratio of right-handed to left-handed pitchers in MLB? It seems like there are just about as many lefties as righties, even though there aren’t nearly as many left-handed people in the general population. The logical conclusion is that there are lots of right-handed people out there with good stuff, or at least the potential to have it. Why don’t I know any of these people?

When we played battleball/dodeball in middle school, why were you out if you hit someone in the head. It’s not like you were trying to hit them in the head. In fact, if you could purposefully hit someone in the head with one of those difficult to throw balls at such a young age, you probably should have been rewarded for your ability.

Mayonnaise–why in the world would anyone eat that on purpose?

If you can answer any of these questions, I’d appreciate it.

Big Knoxville Overground Event Tonight!

KO is working on building a micro-enterprise development center at 35 Market Square and is hosting a social mixer there tonight (link to the flyer).

From KnoxViews:

Their proposal, modeled off of the top-ranked San Francisco Renaissance Center, entails using the space as a resource where startups in a variety of industries (specifically companies positioned to bring in the majority of their revenue from outside Tennessee) can grow around a community of other startups, self-employed professionals, and organization representatives that specifically serve the startup community.

If you fall into any of these categories, swing by and check it out! And, as always, there’s the weekly Wednesday open house at the coworking space on Kenesaw where you can meet cool KO people and find out more!

Good Peanut Butter and Good Toilet Paper

…the rest of life is butter if you have those two things.  Really good butter.

Check out this awesome video of our ol’ buddy at ktownlowdown and his (much) better half, CouponKatie. You may have to watch the video twice, because the first time through you’ll most likely be distracted with thoughts of, “how did that guy land her?!?!?”

I don’t think such things, because I’m in a similar situation myself.

UPDATE–Had to link to the video…the autoplay was driving me nuts.

Katie is a serious money saving ninja and has built an incredible resource for families looking to save money in our area.

If I had any money I would actually pay her to come help me save it!!!

Gift Ideas for Heads of State

Over on my “short post” blog today I linked a story about the gift President Obama gave to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown–25 of the awesomest DVDs this country has to offer. I mean, how cool is that? I wanted that for Christmas, but I don’t have any friends or relatives that can pull those kinds of strings.

It would have been cool if Mr. Obama could have swung a Wii Fit, but those are tough to find.

Ok, seriously? DVDs? I think, as a general rule, you should stray away from giving heads of state gifts that you can get on Amazon or in the White House Gift Shop, although the James Bond Blu-ray set or a Kindle 2 would be cool. But I’ve received better gifts than DVDs in the past year, and I couldn’t get elected to the board of my HOA.

So, of course, I have some ideas for future gifts that are better than DVDs if the President ever decides to actually give something thoughtful or significant. These are all things I think the President could actually pull off:

  1. An external hard drive with all the music he downloaded back in the Napster days
  2. Offer to help him move, and actually follow through
  3. Tickets to an Oprah taping (transportation to Chicago not included)–bonus if you can swing a lifetime membership to the Oprah Book Club
  4. Let him “ride bitch” on one of the motorcycles in the Presidential motorcade
  5. Offer to let him crash on the couch for the weekend
  6. Autographed photo of the cast of Facts of Life
  7. A couple of four day passes to Disney
  8. Cubs tickets
  9. Hook it up for him to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (on a non-trading day)
  10. Teach him how to work the teleprompter