Remote Control Trucks

Every niche interest has its own special terms, I just learned a new one for RC Trucks. RTR, it stands for Ready to Run. Many hardcore enthusiast build there radio control vehicles from the ground up. I was actually caught off guard when I walked into the basement of a local hardware store and saw what looked like a scaled down chop shop (except in reverse) the owners son is an RC enthusiast and it looks like everybody in the area brings their bodies to him for detailing. He sells gas powered radio control truck kits as well. I almost forgot that I went down there to get my knives sharpened.

I got so engrossed in the information at RadioControlToyStore.com that I almost forget that I went there to review it. The section with all the RC Videos was especially distracting.

MTV Launches Webisode #1 of Shakira's 'Dirty Little Secrets'

MTV has an interesting project that features a contest winner and behind the scenes footage of Shakira's concert tour. It can only be seen on their website. I am going to go check it out...

...it's pretty good. The contest winner is 21 year-old Rachel Newhouse. She is acting like a reporter, quite convincingly. The woman on the street bit asking people about what dirty little secrets Shakira might have is a bit awkward at times, but there is a pay-off. Shakira reveals a real secret ( But it's not dirty, it's quite sweet and innocent actually ).

Recall Info For Contact Lens Solution

Yesterday, March 06, 2007, Bausch & Lomb recalled over 1 million bottles of one brand of contact lens solution

You can find details about the ReNu Contact Lens Solution Recall at this link. If you wear contacts, you should be sure to check the lot number on any solution that you have on hand. If you are trying to make a decision between continuing to use contacts or opting for laser surgery, you should factor product safety concerns into your decision making equation.

World Music Sampler #3

Here we have a couple of women performing what they describe as an Andean piece of music together. The instruments are classical(Spanish) guitar and mandolin.

We often enjoy people playing music that they have no direct cultural connection with and we don't even think about it. From Eric Clapton wailing the Blues to Nelly Furtado rapping, it all comes down to the authenticity of the emotions.

A Phone By Any Other Name...

Changing the name of an established business is always something that is done with a great deal of trepidation. I am going to try and enlist some of the research tools at my disposal to find out what was being said back when AT&T changed it's name to Cingular...

Back when Cingular started in 2000, CEO Stephen Carter said that the company's name "shows the importance of the individual customer, as well as the unity of this joint venture."

Well, now there is even more unity in wireless service and Cingular is now the new AT&T. I think that wireless customers have always been lees loyal to one provider than wired customers. With all the competition in the market people will always have their eye out for a better deal. As a relatively new brand name in a relatively new market Cingular is not losing any ground by changing its name to The New AT&T. On the contrary, AT&T is a very old trademark. I saw the word ICONIC somewhere. In that same place, I found out that the name American Telephone and Telegraph came into being on March 3, 1885.

Having a name that has the word American associated with it that is more than a century old is a good thing.

I do feel a bit sorry fro the guy who designed the Cingular logo. I'm sure that it was a prominant achievement on his portfolio. I guess it is still something to brag about even if it only got about a half a decade of use. Maybe since it has the appearance of a happy bulbous orange person with a floating head, he could do a quick mock-up of a dejected gaunt orange guy with a floating head. I would do it, but I have too much respect for trademarks.

I like The New AT&T logo, it is fresh and exciting.

World Music Sampler #2

This clip is a little heavy on personality and light on music. I have been interested in Anoushka Shankar for years. She is a half sister of Norah Jones and the two are somewhat close, though they did not grow up together and their busy schedules do not allow a lot of time for family get-togethers. There are purists who are always ready to verbally attack people like Anoushka who use their personality and celebrity to bring the music to the World's attention. I personally think that popularizing a genre of music usually benefits all people involved in that genre, even the hyper-critical purists.

india

A Dating Site for Single Moms

In the mysterious world of dating, Single Parents probably have a more difficult time than most other people. I think that added step of determining whether a potential mate is going to be accepting of and good for your kids often overrides and bogs down the natural courtship process.

I can see real potential in the SingleMomsAndDads.com site. Basically, by posting an ad on the site you are one awkward conversation ahead of the game already. Of course you still have to use all the precautions that you use when dating anywhere else.

World Music Sampler #1

While YouTube is still around, I plan to take you on a musical tour of the World. I am going to concentrate on string instruments and possibly drums.

First stop, Persia, which is not the name of a country at this point in time. The Oud is a popular instrument there. I hope you enjoy it.

Point of Sale Software

Sometimes unexpected things will really make me stop and think. A fellow blogger had a post up celebrating his 24th birthday and he put up a video. I was expecting to see some crazy party footage, but it turned out to be video camera footage of him as a newborn baby.

Here is how I am trying to relate this to point of sale software. When I was a kid, it would have astounded me if the Mom and Pop running the local store had been able to operate a computer. These days however, the Mom and Pop are closer to my age and they are just as likely to be comfortable around computers as not.

The great thing about the point of sale software from MerchantOS is that it is made to serve the needs of small business. I think it is great that programs are designed to run well on slightly outdated computers. Things like gaming tend to drive the hardware market and it is counter productive for a company to design something as practical as POS software so that it requires the current specs. A business that is getting started with POS computers can use a second hand PC to run it. I used to work at a big production facility that had a 486 handling most of the automation, it was all that was needed.

Web-based POS software has some extra benefits. I like the idea of off-site access. You could have a family meal at a reasonable time and then do your end of day routine for the store after the dishes are cleared away.

Homogenized Pop Stars

I already mentioned the fact that I get confused about who it who during the Shakira Beyonce video. On repeated viewing, I have decided that this effect is deliberate. What is interesting to me is that Beyonce is shot with both straight and wavy hair, but Shakira is only shot with her signature wavy mane.

I'm not absolutely sure of this, I will have to watch it a few more times.

Some Loan Info

Why do people get loans? Usually it is so they can afford to do some BIG life changing thing like buying a house or a boat or a houseboat. Or maybe they need to get a loan to go to school so they can get a high paying job.

UKpersonalloanstore.co.uk can offer information and comparisons for lots of different loan products, like a secured online loan. Going to a site like theirs is a quick way to look at what is going on in the loan market because the lenders are competing side by side for your business.

If you have a less than stellar financial situation, you may want to get back on track with debt consolidation. If your past is coming back to haunt you, than you need to look at a bad credit history loan or even adverse credit mortgages. Basically, the more financial info you can get, the better off you are.

Stuff About Shakira

There is a grab bag of Shakira info in the trivia section of her Wikipedia entry. Since the section is supposed to go I will run through it for posterity.

* She speaks five languages.

I think I have heard her qualify this statement, maybe she is really only comfortable conversing in three languages.

* She does not eat bread.

This is news to me. Avoiding refined flour is one of several effective ways to prevent weight gain.

* She loves to eat chocolate.

Eating chocolate is not one of the effective ways to avoid weight gain.

* She does not drink alcohol or smoke.

I respect her decision. I do not know if it is purely a health decision or if she has some belief system that precludes alcohol.

* She was voted #7 on AskMen.com's for the Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2007.

Who are the six women on this planet that are more desirable? I need to know.

* Shakira means in Arabic: Woman Full Of Grace, and in Hindi: Goddess Of Light

That's nice.

* She is the youngest of eight siblings.

Did they all eat at the same dinner table? I had a hard enough time growing up with three siblings.

Send Flowers to Someone You Love

DigitalFlowers.com has the sentiment delivery system down pat. If flowers can't say what you want to say, you can resort to a teddy bear or balloons. If you are having something delivered to your loved one at their place of work, you should consider making it something big and showy. The Digital Flowers website is very searchable by occasion and also flower category.

I can just imagine some of the Los Angeles flower delivery anecdotes they must have. Jason Scott Lee used to be a flower delivery man. Rodney Dangerfield's wife has a flower shop. I expected to find more interesting celebrity flower delivery stories. Mariah Carey has received expensive flowers from a secret admirer. I guess getting flowers is a fairly personal thing that doesn't make it into the celebrity news and gossip sites.

Perez Does Not Think Shakira is Hot

It's not a gay thing. Perez Hilton is using some of his made up adjectives to trash the new video for the Shakira and Beyonce single. Perez has strong opinions about music. He has stated that Europeans appreciate GOOD music. That is such a provincial thing to say.

Anyway, I tried to look at the video with fresh eyes today to see what it is that he thinks is awful about it. I just don't know. I'm glad he embedded a video, YouTube took the one I first used down.

Marriage Minded Women

It is a cliche that pre-dates the internet, Single Russian Women wanting to get married to men in America or other wealthy western countries. There are stories of successful marriages and there are stories about deception and dishonesty coming from either and sometimes both genders. If you take away the preconceptions, the situation is pretty much the same as the rest of the world of online dating. In a lot of ways, all the same risks and limitations exist even if you are just dating people that you meet in real life in your locality.

What are the advantages of this type of search for a mate? Well, Russian Women get to choose a life in a region of the World with more opportunities and a better standard of living. The men get to marry someone who may have values that the men prefer to the values held by women living in the west. The most heartless of social scientists have put forth the opinion that falling in love is essentially the subconscious process of recognizing a good deal.

LoversPlanet.com has information to help people avoid being mislead by scam artists.

Norah Jones Thinks Shakira is Hot

Norah Jones also tells Maxim magazine that she picks Shakira songs when she enjoying karaoke. I like Nora Jones. Her father is famous Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankar, so she and Shakira both benefit from having a diverse cultural and ethnic heritage, and I will go so far as to say that they are both hot.

Source...

Flowers In San Francisco

I think one of the first instances of me recognizing a continent wide delivery system was the result of the flower business. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. It's kind of strange to think that sending flowers to a friend or relative on the other side of the city or on the other side of the continent could be considered a necessity, but it must have been important for people to have been using electronic communications to get it done for many decades before there was a home computer or the internet. It is pretty unspectacular in this day and age that I can click on a link for San Francisco flower delivery and send somebody I know some flowers, probably by the end of today, if I wanted to. I want to apologize to the one person that I know in San Francisco, because I am not sending you flowers today, it was just an example.

Businesses like DigitalFlowers.com have more than just flowers. They can also deliver chocolates, teddies, balloons, gift baskets and more.

A Very Long Engagement

The most basic definition of an engagement is an agreement between a man and a woman to marry at some future date. The social implications of this (usually) verbal contract varies a lot throughout history and also throughout the World. In much of modern society, premarital sex is no longer a taboo. It remains as a taboo in other places that where a dominant religion still holds a strong influence in the society. In between are places where being engaged takes the social stigma away from premarital sex.

I may be wrong, but it is my impression that Shakira was raised in such a social structure. She has been engaged to the son of a former ruler of Argentina for many years.

Awesome Sandals

Did you know that Shakira, in partnership will a small number of other investors has purchased and begun development of a Caribbean island? I bet that she has probably bought a few pairs of sandals to wear on her island, too.

I can't afford to buy an island in the Caribbean . I can scrap up enough cash to buy some of these high quality reef sandals online. I moved much further south than I had ever imagined that I would about two years ago. I actually didn't bring any other pairs of shoes other than a half decent pair of sandals. I grew to love those sandals. Unfortunately, they really were half decent, while the uppers still looked tip top, the soles were wearing thin and had split though where they bend the most. At Active-Sandals.com, you can get the most trusted brand names, sandals that will last.

Ok, Now Beautiful Liar is on and then off of YouTube

Shakira & Beyoncé - Beautiful Liar
Uploaded by dris

Sometimes you spend so much time anticipating the release of some new entertainment for so long and with such high expectations that you end up being disappointed. This is NOT one of those times. Shakira may end up being the Great Collaborator if this keeps up. This comes just in time to replace Hips Don't Lie, which was such a huge success, and I think, getting just a little bit overplayed. I find it a bit disconcerting when I can't tell which woman I am looking at, but in a good way. This is going to be a huge hit.

shakira, beyonce