Listen to celebrities. They know what they are talking about are paid to say stuff.

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I am going to tell you ten stories from high school. The challenge for you is to determine which ones are true and which ones are fiction. Now, the only person I went to school with that has a blog is Mike; that may give him an unfair advantage if he stops by, but I bet he’s not familiar with all these stories!

I won’t name names in order to protect the innocent (and the guilty).

1. I went to high school with a guy that claimed he went on an undercover, overnight mission in the Soviet Union. After graduation, I heard he joined the Navy.

2. Freshman year, there was a girl (a senior, I think) who drove a truck to school and kept a bed mattress in the truck’s bed.

3. During my four years of high school, we only had two pep rallies. The first was during our Freshman year. The Seniors did something that made the school administrators decide not to do pep rallies anymore. In our Senior year, they relented and we had one. I can say that it was nice not having pep rallies all those years. Always seemed like a waste of time to me. Shouldn’t we be learning stuff?

4. I learned an effective means of suicide from a girl who unsuccessfully tried to kill herself. While she was recovering in the hospital, her doctor told her how she should have done it. She shared.

5. Sophomore year again (I think), the normal gang was sitting around the lunch table. There was a quiz that day; I think it was in Latin. Some people were studying for it. I sat there, quietly, apparently visibly nervous. I couldn’t really focus on the quiz at all. K., the girl across from me who was in my class, said “Don’t be so nervous. It’s only a quiz!” What she didn’t know, and never did unless she happens upon this blog post, is that there was a gun pointing at me at the time.

6. In the same Latin class, we had a Spanish exchange student. She gave us her address so we could keep in touch. Found out the following year that not a single one of us had written to her! I’ve tried to find her online a couple times, but never found her. Of course, I don’t have much to go on either.

7. One time, we had a project that required us to go to the library. We opted to go to the library in the nearest large city downtown, rather than the local libraries including one that was within walking distance of my house. I think there was a legitimate reason for the downtown library, but I don’t remember what it was. A friend, who went to another high school, needed to go to the library too. So, he picked two of us up from our school. Leaving the school parking lot, he cut in front of a bus. He didn’t care; what could they do? Take away his parking permit? He didn’t go to our school! Anyway, nothing happened, except, of course, for the excessive speeds he went down the highway.

8. The guy from the previous story (the one that got picked up with me, not the guy from the other school) once crashed into an ambulance. He wasn’t hurt. The ambulance crew told him he picked the right vehicle to crash into; if he had been hurt, they would have been prepared!

9. On hot days, one teacher apologized for not turning on the air conditioning. She said the air conditioning was centrally controlled by an outfit in Georgia, so the air wouldn’t be turned on until they were hot down in Georgia.

10. Another classmate nearly lost his finger in an auto accident in his garage. He had his car jacked up, and was spinning the tire. The phone rang. Before running to answer it, he tried to stop the tire spinning with his hand, like you would do for a bicycle tire. It nearly took his finger off.

So, there you go. Ten stories from high school. Now, jump to the comments and take your best guesses as to which ones are true and which ones I made up.

Yesterday, I mentioned Google’s new “Internet graffiti” project, Sidewiki.

Here’s another perspective: “Sidewiki Can KILL Your Business.”

Of course, for those of you who aren’t running businesses on the web, and just have your blog, you may be wondering how this affects you.

Well, think of all the hard work you’ve put into your blog.

Think of all the time you’ve spent getting traffic to your blog.

Think of all the effort you’ve put into commenting on other blogs in order to build a community of people commenting on your blog.

Now, imagine some big bully comes along and puts up a big sign that says “COMMENT HERE INSTEAD” and invites people to comment not on your blog but in their bulletin area instead.

Now, imagine you cannot do a thing about it. You did not invite the bully and you can not get him to leave. You’re just supposed to live with it and be happy he’s there.

What this bully is doing is siphoning off of your hard work and effort, leeching off of your traffic and using it to build his own community without even a penny for compensation to you for the blog you have built and the content you have created that gave this bully something to get people to comment on.

That’s what Google Sidewiki will be doing to your site.

Granted, Sidewiki is only (currently) accessible to Google Toolbar users. But, with the ubiquitousness of Google, how widespread do you imagine this could become? So, now someone can visit your site and, instead of leaving a comment on your site, leave the comment in the Sidewiki next to your site.

So, this user uses up your bandwidth, consumes your resource and builds Google’s community at your expense.

The only way you can respond is by getting your own Google Account (where you will have to surrender some of your personal info), installing the Google Toolbar (which will track your online activities) and using the Sidewiki tool. Now, your blog has a split community. There are those that comment on your blog and those that comment on Sidewiki.

How long do you suppose you can maintain your own community? With Sidewiki, you’ll be able to comment not only on blogs that allow comments but any website at all, even if it doesn’t allow comments. So, do you imagine that people will continue to comment directly on your blog when it may be so much easier to just use the Sidewiki that’s in their browser?

And, there you go! Forget commenting on blogs. Forget Facebook. Forget Twitter. The focus will be on Google Sidewiki. Google builds its own community at the expense of everyone else. They couldn’t buy Twitter, so instead they will try to kill its effectiveness with Sidewiki.

You see, not only can you access Sidewiki through the Google Toolbar, but Google also has made available an API for developers to build additional tools around Sidewiki.

You see what happens here? Google becomes the community. Google controls the conversation. And, Google controls the conversation not just on its own sites, but on every site on the Internet.

People used to joke about Google taking over the world. Are you still laughing?

Yesterday, I blogged about the Google’s new Sidewiki, the virtual graffiti for the Internet.

It’s only been out a few days, and you can already see how it’s being abused in “Google Sidewiki: Brand Names Under Attack.”

On top of that, what happens when people begin selling Sidewiki comments? You don’t think there won’t be an underground market for Sidewiki comments? You know it’s going to happen, and people WILL find ways of getting around Google’s algorithms. Just look at all the junky sites you can find in Google’s search engine results!

As I mentioned yesterday, this is not something a webmaster can opt-out of. There is no opt-in either. If the tool were so valuable, you would think webmaster would jump at the change to opt-in, no? But, forcing it only goes to show that this “tool” really offers nothing of value to the webmaster. However, it will be quickly gamed by some webmasters. Spammy comments will be left on other sites. Comments will be bought and sold. In the end, with the gaming of Sidewiki comments that will happen, they will become essentially useless anyway.

However, scores of die-hard Google users, who think that if something can’t be found in Google it must not be on the Internet, will not know any better. They won’t know the comments are manipulated and unreliable. They’ll happily plod along, thinking they’re getting good info, when, in fact, it is likely tainted.

And then Google will probably start sticking ads in there, so that they can make a buck off of your site and your content without any compensation to you.

And, if you want to leave a comment with Google giving them your opinion on this new tool, you have to–A-HA!–open a Google account! That’s right. As a webmaster, you don’t have to have a Google Account to have Sidewiki comments appear on your website, but if you want to respond to any of these comments, you have to register for a Google Account. They get you and your info either way.

Plus, if you have a blog, you already allow comments, right? People comment on your blog. Now, they can comment on Sidewiki instead, which moves the conversation from your blog to something under Google’s control. So, are you going to respond to comments in two locations? You will now have to compete against something that appears on your own site for interaction with your visitors!

It’s utter nonsense.

So, with Google giving me no other option, I am now blocking Google Toolbar users from visiting this blog. If you have the Google Toolbar installed, you will need to disable it (or uninstall it) before visiting this blog.

I’ll change this policy when Google changes theirs.

Yes, the geniuses at Google have found a way to bring virtual vandalism and graffiti to websites with the introduction of Sidewiki.

This new “tool” will let anyone write messages on your website or blog for other users to see. As the owner of a website, you have no control over this. Apparently, you can’t even opt out.

Google will use its mystical algorithms to keep out spam and inappropriate comments, but judging by how well (er, poorly) they do that with their search results, this new “tool” seems well open to abuse, allowing your competitors to steer traffic away from your website to theirs. Sure, maybe the collective will vote those comments down, or maybe your competitors will have more allies than you in order to keep their message higher in the comments.

Good job, Google. You’ve found a way to bring graffiti to the Internet. Just another reason for people to drop Google and use Bing.com.

Wakn’ up, back on the floor
Slept on it, with my toys too.
Slept all the night, now it’s time for a nap.
Just a dog and my will to dream on.

So many times, it’s over too fast
You wake up too soon for morning.
Don’t lose your bite on the dreams of the night
You must fight just to go back to bed…

Chorus:
It’s the eye of the chihuahua, it’s the small ones with might
Wakin’ up to the morning of our nap time.
And the wide ‘wake chihuahua hungers for sleep tonight
And he’s watchin’ us all with the eye of the chihuahua.

Visit Little Too at www.LocoChihuahua.com.

Hey, I’m a big fat PR0 to Google anymore, so why bother with keyword-rich titles, or even proper spelling anymore? Or grammar.

H3ck, m4y83 1 ju57 p057 1n 1337 5p34k, u kn0w?

Maybe one day Google will put me back at PR3 or higher, where I belong. Until then, I will sing the praises of Bing.

At any rate, in between everything else, I have done some writing. Here are a couple articles you can read:

“Office Cleaning - An Easy-to-Start Home Business”
If you’re looking for a home-based business that’s easy to start, needs very little if any training and requires a very minimal investment, an office cleaning business may be the perfect business to meet your needs.

“2012 - Will You Survive the End of the World?”
Will you survive the next end of the world? Probably.

“Office Cleaning - A Home Business that Can Be Started on a Shoestring Budget”
If you’re looking for a business that’s inexpensive to get started, an office cleaning business may be a good fit for you.

There are more articles out there, but I’ll just let you find them. Plus, more will be appearing soon.

P.S. I’m not going to claim I pre-stole this title from J.D. because I’m pretty sure she’d never do the title quite like this.

Apparently, Speedy’s got a good website, but not good enough for Kanye.

And more news from around the blogosphere…

Deborah wants to know what makes you unique; you know, unique, as in just like 1 in 12 other people.

Is it really a B-movie if it doesn’t involve scifi in some way? I’m not so sure.

Take a deep breath and breathe, and learn the difference between the two words.

Better late than never, but yesterday was World Alzheimer’s Day.

JD cut hair so you don’t have to.

I just discovered Jessica has a second blog, The Lola Show. Not like she’s been hiding it; I just never clicked the last link at the top of her blog.

Oh, and I’m going to get back into blogging about antiques and vintage items again. I caught Michelle selling rubber stamps, so it is so back on!

Oh, and Joanne is back to blogging tumbling!

I originally wrote this post on October 12, 2008. It’s been stuck in the draft bin since then. Time to clear it out! Just bear in mind that some of this will be old news, obviously!

Fifty-nine percent of Americans would vote to replace the entire Congress if they could, according to a Rasmussen poll. Only 17% of them would vote to keep them. Thirty-three percent of Americans believe that individuals picked at random could do a better job than those currently serving in Congress.

With so many people dissatisfied with the performance of Congress, you’d think it’d be easy to get rid of them all and start with all new people.

But, that will never happen. Why? It’s because of the “Not My Guy!” syndrome.

People will vote their representative back in again and again, because it’s all the other representatives that are the problem. Think Harry Reid is an utter moron? You can’t do anything about it if you don’t live in Nevada. Think Mitch McConnell is the idiot that needs to go? You can’t do anything about that if you don’t live in Kentucky. Their local constituents thought they were the best choice (and who knows what idiots they might have voted against that could possibly have been worse–think about that for a moment: the guy you think is an idiot might have been the better of two candidates!) and voted them in. And, they may do it again and again, no matter how badly they want to replace Congress because, probably, they think that their guy isn’t the problem. It’s all those other ones there that need to go!

Maybe you didn’t vote for your representative. Maybe you voted for his or her opponent. Maybe you’re sitting there, smugly thinking to yourself that you’re not the problem. Really, your guy isn’t the problem. If he had won the election, we’d all see how much better he (or she) would have been.

But, then you’re probably suffering from “Not My Guy” syndrome too. In this case, you’re suffering a variant of it called “Not My Party” syndrome, which is essentially the same thing. You think your political party can do no wrong. It’s the other party that’s the problem.

Which Presidential candidate is running a nasty campaign? Look around. Read different blogs. If you’re an Obama supporter, you probably think McCain is running a dirty campaign. If you’re a McCain supporter, you probably think Obama is running a dirty campaign. But, both are running using the politics of fear; chiefly, the fear of what will happen if the other guy wins.

“The best government is that which governs least.” You might think that is a quote from Henry David Thoreau, but it was the motto of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, a magazine that, in part, was launched to support the ideals of Andrew Jackson. Thoreau’s paraphrasing was “That government is best which governs least.”

Jacksonian Democrats believed in free markets. “Jackson believed that when the government took a stronger role in the economy, it made it easier for favored groups to win special privileges, which was anathema to a nation run by, and for, the common man.” Jeffersonian Democrats believed that Republicanism (representative democracy) was the best form of government, in that it avoided a tyranny of the majority.

Both Jackson and Jefferson would no doubt be disappointed in the modern-day Democratic Party. But, do you think Abraham Lincoln would feel any differently about the modern-day Republican Party?

Neither of today’s political parties are quite the same as they were when they first began. In fact, they are so different that their founders would probably not recognize them. They would probably even distance themselves from them!