Musings For A Darkened Room

So one of the days I was home last week I caught a glimpse of the Today show, and they were doing a feature on an elementary school class in Massachusetts that did their part to eliminate not only unwanted mail, but wasted resources as well.

By using a new online service called Catalog Choice, they canceled 4,175 unwanted catalog subscriptions in a single month. Catalog Choice was established so that you can cancel any unwanted catalog subscriptions without having to call or contact the various companies you receive the catalogs from in order to be removed from their mailing lists. Simply sign up with Catalog Choice and select those catalogs which you no longer wish to receive. Best of all IT’S FREE!

So how does this help save natural resources? Well not only does it free up space in your mailbox, but it helps preserve natural resources. Kate Sinding of The Natural Resource Defense Council reported on the Today Show that over 19 billion catalogs are mailed in the U.S. each year. These catalogs equate to 53 million trees!

Since it’s start, almost 500,000 people have signed up and have opted out of nearly five million catalogs. This alone saves nearly 225 Olympic swimming pools worth of water, the same amount of energy it would take to power 3,500 homes on an anual basis, and is roughly the equivalent of taking 6,000 cars off the road in a year.

If you’re interested in participating in this new service I strongly encourage it. It’s easy, it’s free, and all you need is one of your catalogs handy to fill out the information on the website. For more information visit http://www.catalogchoice.org. If you’re interested in seeing the report from the Today show you can watch the whole segment at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/2282050822820508.

If you work at a school, or your kids are in school and are interested in making a difference like the students in Massachusetts did, The Today show wants to know. Visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22811067/ and let them know how your school or class did! Perhaps you can beat 4,175!

As anyone in the search engine optimization industry knows, the Overature Keyword Selector tool is about as reliable as Britney Spears showing up in court. But today, the tables turned. I often use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool when researching keywords for my clients, but today I was disappointed to find that their tool was not displaying search volume data for any of my keywords.

Rather than utilize some of the less reliable free tools, I decided to go ahead and try the Overature tool in hopes that maybe it worked…To my surprise, it worked. Granted it was not without error, but after about the third attempt I was able to get past the “Page Cannot Be Displayed” error and view some results.
This odd event has lead me to believe that, “There can be only one!”. It seems that when Overature is non operational I can rely on Google for search traffic information, yet when Google fails me Overature is happy to oblige.

This was originally posted on my Myspace page, but feel it applies here in many ways as well…

Ok, so I’m sure by now someone is offended and crying over my latest blog. Let me make something clear, my blogs against illegals aren’t directed at Mexican’s as a whole. And if you’re Mexican, and offended then you obviously think illegal immigration is ok, and if that’s the case then so be it. That is your view and you are ok to think that way, just as much as I am ok to think it’s not ok.

You can think I’m a racist, you can think I’m ignorant, you can think I’m arrogant. The bottom line is that it’s simply how I feel. My feelings about this are not unwarranted. And I have brought forth my concerns more than once in my blogs. Blogs are a place to share ideas, information, and opinions…This is what I do with my blog. Feel free to agree, or disagree, but again realize it is just a personal opinion towards a certain group of people not towards mexicans as a whole.

Do I sometimes attack mexicans in general? Yes, sometimes I do…Yes, I realize I may offend some of my mexican friends. But realize that most mexicans I know or are friends with do not fit in the category of mexicans I have so many issues with.

You aren’t rude and disregard those around you and their personal space. You don’t let your kids run amok in the store unsupervised or left to tear apart the toy section because you don’t want to deal with them while you shop. You have some sense of respect for others, their belongings, and their personal space. Agree with my POV, or not, you know exactly the types of Mexicans I am referring to. If you live in Corona, you’ll see them everytime you’re at the store…

If you’re my friend or know me, then you know I feel this way. If you decide you’re no longer my friend because of this, then so be it. If you’re willing to let a difference in views on social issues get in the way of our friendship, then you obviously aren’t a friend worth having around. This is who I am, this is how I feel. I have just as many issues with groups of whites, blacks, and various other races, but an opportunity to write about these issues rarely presents itself. I’ve said on more than one occasion, openly, that I am an equal opportunity racist and have issues with every race in some way or another.

With that said, I think I have laid everything out for you to make a decision. This is how I feel, this is who I am, and I will continue to write about topics that may be “racially sensitive” if I see fit. I hope you take this opportunity to come to a decision as to 1) how you will react to these posts in the future and 2) if you intend on continuing our friendship. If you decide to axe the latter of the two, then I wish all the best to you in the future. And if this is your decision, kindly remove me from your friends list so that I am aware of your decision and so that you are not somehow offended by future musings.

So I was browsing the aisles of Wal-Mart the other week and stubmled upon the latest version of the classic candy hearts. Thanks to our friends at the candy company Necco, we are reminded that we live in Mexifornia. As you will see below, you can now buy candy hearts in spanish…

So if you live in Mexifornia, swing by your local Wal-Mart and pick some up soon. Nothing says, thanks for taking all our jobs and stealing our resources better than a candy heart. But you better hurry, today is Saturday and the 15th was welfare day, so I’m sure there’ll be tons of spanish hearts sold following the second welfare day of the month.