The container grows empty, the sidewalk laughs
Memorizing names that eventually take the ride
Visualizing names that eventually become permanant
Forgetting names that the sidewalk makes favorite
The jacket doesn’t help
Laughing does.

Technorati Tags: Vice Presedential, Debate, Presidential, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin

If this is all new to you and you feel out of the loop, just walk in to a Wal-Mart and look directly in front of you to marvel (or not) on a large buffet of Hannah Montana plates, forks, plastic bags, purses, hats, shoes, pants, shirts, jackets, toys, dvds, video games, and practically every other tangible piece of gibberish known to man. It is quite amazing, actually.

Now is Hannah Montana a bad thing? Well, yes and no. Hannah Montana brings positive life image of a young rock star to hundreds of thousands of young fans worldwide, and it makes Disney a ton of money. The problem however, is that hundreds and thousands of young fans can’t all be rock stars because their dads aren’t Billy Ray Cyrus. Thus, the hundreds of thousands of young fans worldwide become excited and happy from her music but then depressed sad because they can’t be remotely close to Hannah Montana.

This brings me to my next point. Disney purposely knew that Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) was going to be a huge hit with the youngsters, the way that it is now, so they pushed what they call a fictional Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana “two worlds”, or two lives rather so that the viewers won’t only be brainwashed by her fame and beauty. Though her alternate unpopular life isn’t much different than her rock star ego, it still adds some variety to her true but fake life that everyone now watches. But to me, due to some of the content of her songs and how she acts in her show, her two different lives are actually non-fictional. I believe that Hannah Montana doesn’t live in two different worlds of her choosing, she just has two different uncontrollable personalities.

Let’s take the titles of some of her songs from her first album. A huge majority of them provides evidence to the theory that the 17 year old Disney superstar has multiple personality disorder. Nine of the fifteen titles make this a stronger point:

The Best of Both Worlds - Probably her most famous song, and the theme song to her show. “The Best” refers to a single thing, so “The Best” of “Both” can’t exist. Miley Cyrus is obviously a confused person.

Who Said - Does she hear spiritual voices too?

Just like You - This shows that there is a conflict between the two personalities, one wants to be like the other but one wants to be dominant.

If We Were a Movie - This title scares me. The joint between two fighting personalities wanting the same thing? Not a good idea.

The Other Side of Me - This one explains itself, and creeps me out.

She’s No You - Perhaps sometimes the personalities make up and like to defend the other one? This disorder must be a lot worse than what we think.

Find Yourself in You - Hannah Montana is trying to direct her listeners to not be like her, and that they should find themselves within themselves; something she cannot do.

I Learned from You - One personality has taken the ways of the other so that they can easily counter it when they fight in her mind. Things may get messy.

And of course,

Nobody’s Perfect - Another one of her hit songs, showing that the true Miley Cyrus, or whoever she is, knows that Hannah Montana, or whoever she is, has faults just like real human beings.

Hannah Montana uses the words “Who” “Me” and “You,” but never says “I” by itself, not even in the song entitled “I learned from You,” which obviously shows that both of her personalities affect the other in ways unknown. Because she can’t use “I” without another term of “Who” “Me” or “You”, shows that the internal conflict of the battling egos is something uncontrollable.

In her TV show, which I have viewed only a few times, shows that her two personalities never clash with one another and she tries to hide them from people besides her closest friends. Think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; in the terms that one alias wants the other gone. This is just like how Miley Cyrus wants to live her life in a normal way but her rock star identity, Hannah Montana, wants to live a life of fame and luxury. It is only a matter of time before one becomes more powerful than the other, and there will be either Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana shirts at Wal-Mart, not both.

It is hard to tell how they film the TV show but it is most likely difficult. Her personalities are uncontrollable, and when she is Hannah Montana they quickly shoot those scenes and when she turns into Miley Cyrus, they quickly shoot those scenes. Miley is oblivious to the fact of her disorder, and only abides by the lines that the TV show crew and Disney give her, (much like how she has others write her song lyrics for her.) If they were to tell her of her condition her ego in control would simply not believe it.

Miley’s condition is not a laughing matter, and her producers and writers are trying to tell the public that she needs help. It is perfectly fine to continue to buy her products, but just know, that one day, one of her personalities may be gone forever and that your product will become worthless and stupid, (Like Billy Ray Cyrus.) I vote for the Montana personality, her music is really good.

Technorati Tags: Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana, Disney, High School Musical, Billy Ray Cyrus, Shia Labeouf, Indiana Jones

Sorry for the bad quality but this was the only embeddable version I could find on YouTube. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: LCD Soundsystem, All My Friends, UK, Techno, Music Videoo, MTV

His name was John and he was holding a manila folder. He had a worried look on his eye, so when he signaled my attention I decided to listen to what he had to say.

“Hello, my name is John and I need to ask you for a favor.”

As I witnessed this first line I thought he was going to either ask me for a ride home, or try to sell me something.

He proceeded.

“They are building a new Whole Foods up the street, and I just got a job there. I need this job so I can pay rent, but they wouldn’t let me have it until I showed them a valid driver’s license. My driver’s license just expired, and I need to get to the DMV today and get a new license or they won’t give me the job.”

I was interested. Usually when I am in this kind of situation I have an open hand in my face asking for alcohol money.

Despite the fact that this was a possible scam or I was on some new Candid-Cam: The Homeless Edition, I wanted to actually know more about the Whole Foods. I love Whole Foods.

“Where are they opening the Whole Foods?” I asked.

He opened his folder and showed me a professional looking memo with the Whole Foods logo was on. It had a letter of approval of his employment for the company, and he handed it to me with the location that they would be opening and by glancing, the letter seemed very well drafted.

I asked him how he got here and how he got out to the Whole Foods in the first place which was off of a major highway exiting Georgia. He said he took the city bus, but doesn’t have any money for fare. (To my knowledge the bus doesn’t go out all the way to where he stated, but I let him continue.)

“I just need $10 to get to the DMV so I can renew my license.”

He showed me his expired license, which was indeed expired, along with his Birth Certificate and a form showing his hourly wage and position if he were to be working for Whole Foods. After continuing on and on trying to convince me about his situation, I started to take out my wallet.

He paused, his eyes grew larger, and a smile was placed upon his face. I took out a ten, and I looked him straight in the eyes.

“I wouldn’t normally do this, and I know that your story is bogus, but because you went through this extreme length with your story, documents, and your attire, you definitely have earned this.”

I handed him the ten and he thanked me over and over. This con scheme he tried to pull was quite convincing, and he was probably a tad upset that I didn’t buy it. Either way, he got what he wanted, and I felt good to donate to the odd form of entertainment that I just had the pleasure of witnessing.

Technorati Tags: Whole Foods, Con, Barnes & Noble, Reading, Coffee

Technorati Tags: Dark Knight, Joker, Batman, Heath Ledger, Why So Serious

Despite my personal beliefs of the image, Bryant had full freedom to post the image. Shortly after, many news sites reported about his controversial post, and that is exactly what he wanted. I found about this through this Digg post, and decided to add my comment amongst the other’s on Bryant’s blog.

According to Alexa, KevinBryant.com is currently ranked 2,156,617 - that is horrible. His blog gets absolutely no traffic, so the senator obviously posted the image to get some free publicity. I decided to post this:

Idiots like Bryant post this stuff on their blogs for attention. If you noticed, this site is ranked in the millions on Alexa.com, which basically means that it gets NO traffic. Posting something stupid and thus annoying at this point in politics is just a cheap way to get some extra visitors to his site.

Besides my claim of him being an “idiot”, something that is commonly used nowadays to describe a Republican in office, my comment portrayed absolutely no harm. Most of his readers probably don’t even know what Alexa is, and for the ones that do, then they will have something to agree with when reading the 30+ comments that his post generated.

Senator Kevin Bryant had full right to post the image that he did, and in return, I had full right to post the comment that I did. But shortly after I submitted it, the “pending” turned to “deleted” and it vanished from existence. Where’s my free speech?

Technorati Tags: Kevin Bryant, Senator, Republican, Politics, South Carolina, Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden, Bush

Let’s start off with the names. We have “My Yahoo!” and “iGoogle.” Both leading search engines have silly names to begin with, and if you get beyond that, My Yahoo! seems to be a little more self explanitory than iGoogle in terms of a personalized homepage. Sure, iGoogle could be read in context similarly to “I Think, Therefore I Google,” but nowadays anything with a lower cased “i” in front of it is taken as related to Apple. To me, iGoogle sounds like the name of Steve Jobs’ hanky, and an utter ripoff of the shiny Apple lineup. My Yahoo! explains that it has everything you would need in one Yahoorific area. Winner: My Yahoo!

Next, let’s look at the features. Both services allow you to add RSS feeds to read right on the dashboard, and both have many widgets and tools to select from. However, it seems as if iGoogle has a few more, and that they integrate better with Feedburner and other RSS feed services. I added my feed to both homepages, and iGoogle updated it more frequently and more accurately. You can select the update time you want on either service, but it didn’t always work with My Yahoo! It seems like they have a few kinks to work out in this area. Also, Google has a more accurate and better search engine, and for those not using Firefox it is good to be able to click your homepage button and be presented with the Google search field. Winner: iGoogle

Appearance. Both services allow you to customize and pick from many different looks and skins, but My Yahoo! seems to have more customizability. Not only do they have textures and skins, but they have colors and layouts. In My Yahoo!, if you aren’t a fan of the three column layout, then make it two, or two with a larger sidebar. You are stuck with the “Web 1.0″ triple column look of iGoogle’s layout, and you can only change the skin style.

My Yahoo! also lets you choose the background color. With iGoogle, you are left with only the option of a white background. Winner: My Yahoo!

Here is My Yahoo!’s appearance panel:

And here is iGoogle’s:

If you were wondering, here is what the two look like with many features added:

So take your pick. Both services have tabs, have many features and tools, and whether you use My Yahoo! and use Gmail, or whether you use iGoogle and use Yahoo! Mail, you can still add a widget either way for convenience. I was actually shocked when I tried to add a Gmail widget to My Yahoo! and it worked, but that just shows the openness each company allows on their personalized homepage.

My Yahoo! has more customizability and for what it’s worth a better name, but iGoogle has better functionality and a better search engine. I’m going to be using My Yahoo! now just because I think it looks cooler and due to the fact that I have already been using iGoogle for a year and am ready for a change of scenery. According to this review, My Yahoo! wins overall, but either way, you won’t lose anything.

Technorati Tags: Google, Yahoo!, My Yahoo!, iGoogle, Homepage, Internet, Browsing, Personalized Homepage, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Apple

When I first saw the trailer for Pixar’s latest creation, Wall-E, I thought to myself, “Is the world ready for another E.T?” They portrayed the tiny and cute robot in such a way so that kids will automatically fall in love with the squeaky box, but has Pixar forgotten about the rest of us?

The reason E.T is the masterpiece that it is is because the cute alien character was mixed with a very political and thought provoking story. Not just a cute alien character doing immature acts for cheap laughs from kids. As the trailer made it out to be, Wall-E was a robot that looks into a bra and screams and rolls around for 90 minutes, and that just didn’t catch my attention.

But it’s Pixar right? Pixar wouldn’t take all their time, money, and talent, and create something along the lines of Shrek 2 or 3, Shark Tale, or even Over the Hedge. Those films are created by other studios and predominatly made for kids, and pixar has always risen above them. Up to this point, Pixar has added that extra quality that allows everyone, children and adults, to love their films. Because of the respect I have of Pixar, and I had nothing else to do, I decided to go pay the overly expensive ticket and sit down amongst many screaming infants to watch America’s favorite new robot, Wall-E.

I knew that if the story was dumb, and if Wall-E did what he did in the trailer for 90 minutes, that I would still enjoy the technology and the beautiful imagry that Pixar has always provided.

Due to my surprise upon several minutes into the film I, just like all of the kids around me, I fell in love with Wall-E. He didn’t constantly sing and hum like he did in the trailer. He had a sophisticated role and the setting of the post-apocalyptic and dirty world was rendered beyond what is considered eye-candy.

I won’t give too much away because the surprises won’t be as effective if i do, but as Wall-E goes on his space adventure hilarious and entertaining events unroll one after another. The extreme political message here of what will happen to us if sit around and watch TV all day, or if we forget about the environment and let it go to waste, definitely won me over in terms of loving this film.

From the jaw-dropping opening sequences to the extremely touching climax, Pixar has done it again with Wall-E, and in my personal opinion, it has shot to the top of my favorite Pixar films. It is good that a movie like this was released when it was, because not only did it satisfy the children, it also entertained and even educated the adults to a point where they hopefully open up their minds and take a different path than that based on their bad habits.

I’m considering going to see Wall-E a second time.

Technorati Tags: Wall-E, Pixar, Robot, Disney, Shrek, Over the Hedge, Shark Tale, CGI, Render, Animated

Need some extra traffic on your blog? Besides paying for costly advertising, bribing your friends with successful sites for link exchanges, or just spamming uncontrollably (not recommended), one of the best methods to take advantage of is to create a Twitter and add a lot of friends. If you already have a personal Twitter, and want to keep your blog life different than you know, the “cool” one you have, then create one with a different name or just use the name of your blog.

With this new Twitter account, try and add or “follow” 5-10 new friends a day. If you add too many too quick, they may ban you, so be careful. You can find users and other Twitter-ers by stalking other people’s profiles and seeing who they are following. People on Twitter enjoy being followed people that they don’t know, because it isn’t as personal as Facebook or Myspace, where on those social networking services the users would just think you are a creepy person and would end up blocking you. Remember: it is okay to be straightforward in terms of a friendship on Twitter! Just don’t make things too awkward.

Anyways, after you have created a new account and received a new army of following and loyal friends, (100-200 should do), every time you write a new post on your blog post it on your Twitter. Use TinyUrl to make the url small so it can easily fit in your Tweet. Once you post this, almost all of your friends will receive this on their public timeline and if it seems interesting to them, then they will click back to your site improving your traffic drastically. This will increase your RSS feed subcsription, your comment count, and your loyal fanbase. Go ahead and follow me on Twitter and I will follow you back to get things started.

Even if you don’t have a blog, Twitter, in my opinion, is the best social network out there. It is fun, educational, and quite addicting. Let’s just hope they upgrade their servers, because if you already are a user, you know that they are down quite a bit.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, SEO Samurai, Facebook, Myspace, Social Network, Tweet, Traffic, Optimization, Blog, Blogging, RSS, SEO