One of the blogs I frequent has a very funny post today.

Recently my sister R complained about the amount of airtime Elmo gets on Sesame Street. I’ve long loathed the little red brat and I’ve had minimal exposure. Joel Stein wrote an article for calendarlive.com (L.A. Times) outlining everything that is wrong with Elmo. Very entertaining and educational, unlike today’s Sesame Street.

Well here we are again. It’s that time of the week that we try to bring you some of the little gems we’ve found on the net. This weeks was a bit tough though, as I lost my bookmarks late last week - and bookmarks are key.

• Domain names are cheap and if you’re paying to host one low traffic domain its cheap to start hosting another. With the web being so cheap its no wonder people will register domains for just about anything. Free Bill Stickers is one such site.
• If you spend much time on-line you’ve come across the term Web 2.0. This pretty much means that the site welcomes interaction from visitors. It doesn’t take much. StillSpinning.net is 2.0 because people can comment. There have been a lot of voting sites that have popped up. Blufr is a favorite. You’re given a ‘fact’ and you have to decide if its true or false. A great time sink.
• Only 2% of the US polulation is left handed. At one point at work a few months ago, nine of my thirteen agents were left handed.
• And finally we’re going to talk music for a second. I have, in the past, been accused of being a music snob. Its true I take pride in the fact that I don’t listen to commercial radio and I don’t buy music a big box stores, but that’s pretty much the end of my snobbery these days - its more of a blissful ignorance. But not all commercial pop is bad, just poorly executed. Proof? Check out the cover of Outkasts Hey Ya.

I would normally wait and add this to next week’s sampler, but this was just too good to wait.

It seems that a young X-Ray tech from France named Daniel Anceneaux went on-line one evening looking for some nookie.? Instead he met Juliette, a sweet, sensitive girl who had looks to boot.? After months of racey chat and emails they decided to meet.

On the appointed evening young Daniel went to the shore to meet the woman of his dreams.? There she was, standing on the beach wearing the white shorts and pink tank top she’d described.? With growing excitement Daniel approached his Juliet only to discover he’d been misled.

Apparently his dream girl wasn’t the girl in the photo she’d sent.? Instead she just scanned a photo of? rather curvey and mostly naked woman she’d scanned from a men’s magazine.? And who was the decietful woman?? Who was it that dared soil the Internet with her web of lies?

Daniel’s mom.

(source)

Welcome to yet another Sunday Sampler! I’ve actually been working on this one all week long, collecting little tid-bits I’ve found just to bring them to you.

Before we get started though I want to point out that I am now number 3 on google’s search results when searching for my first and last name. Take that all you other Jeremy Hohns out there. Soon I will rule the internet! (Update: I took a closer look. The 2nd result on Google is actually me too, but its not a result for this site.)
With that out of the way:

• The good folks over at the j-walk blog have a parody of a new, fake google service, the Google Content Blocker. While we’re on the subject of google fun, back in 03 during the run up to the war in Iraq the people at albinoblacksheep made a site dogging France.
• I get a lot of pleasure out of looking down on people who park in handicap spots without permits. I always dream of having the power to have their vehicle towed away while they ‘just run in for a minute’. This is a better idea.
• This week was my birthday and my sister T asked me if I received any Lego’s. I didn’t - which is okay. I really don’t have a place to play with Lego’s right now. But she did get me thinking about Legos again so I headed on over to the Lego site to discover they’ve now got Batman themed sets. I will have a Batman Mini Figure if nothing else, thought the Two-Face one really excites me too.
• And finally a question to round out this week’s sampler. When did the word gay stop being an adjective and become a noun. I am speaking of the trend of saying someone is ‘a gay’ instead of just gay. I’ve heard this mostly on NPR but its also come up when speaking to my gay friends. Is PC invading grammar now that it has finished with our vocabulary?

Those of you who know me know that I can tell some really great stories about really bad birthdays. In the past I’ve spent my special day throwing-up all day, fighting with friends and family or even letting it go unnoticed.

This one was good though. I got up early to play golf with my brother-in-law E. Golf is hard - don’t let anyone tell you that its not. The truth is golf is the only thing I subject myself to that I am a complete and total failure at doing. It’s not that I get bogies when I want birdies and its not that I have a really, really bad hook. These are things that every golfer faces - even the pros from time to time. No, my problem is that I miss the ball…a lot. I’m talking sometimes seven or eight swings of the club to move the ball fifteen or twenty feet down the course.

It was hot yesterday. So hot that I didn’t finish the nine holes we’d agreed to play. I got through seven and had to stop. I was frustrated, sore and terribly hot. E was as encouraging as he could be. He reminded me that I only play about once a year (it was, in fact, one year to the day since we’d played last) and that I should just spend some time on the driving range to get my swing under control. To encourage me he gave me his spare set of clubs. Thanks E! Now I have to actually practice so next year I can show him my mad skillz.

There were birthday greetings scattered throughout the day. T, a girl from work, put a note on my car making her the first person to with me well, S sent a text message and J left a voicemail. My sisters T and J both called and I got to speak to my niece E for a few minutes (we share the birthday).

For dinner last night the family went to an Italian bistro in Knoxville. R and E bought my a steak dinner and there were presents. E and R, in addition to the golf clubs gave me a cap and a DVD. The nephew B who is always allowed to select the gift from him, got me a nifty pair of Simpsons boxers. From mom and dad was a shirt and a card. T has mailed a hat and she says something else - it should be arriving very soon I am told.

After dinner I went to the mall with R, E and the kids. The actual purpose of our visit will be gone over in another post as its just too good to bury four paragraphs down in this one, so I’ll leave it at we got ice cream and I got a flat tire.

Now back at home, S came by for some quality hanging out time. We went and got ice cream again, paid a visit to everydaycompanion.com to see what Panic was playing in Lousiville and that was pretty much the end of my day.

Thanks to everyone who made my day a good one. Birthdays are a funny thing. I personally think that everyone should get their own birthday off work. A special day just for you, like Presidents Day or Labor day - a day to recognize all that you do to support your employer and government.

So here’s to thirty. May it be better than 29.

My friend Sunny lives in Prague where she works for a missions group.? Her blog talks a lot about local people and events but every now and then she busts out some takes on living as an American in Europe.? This post really struck me as funny.

Another week has come and gone and its time for another Sunday Sampler.? I’m sure you noticed yet another new layout for the site.? This one I think I’m going to keep for a bit.? I like the three column layout and it seems to be working okay in Internet Explorer.? Even the single page posts are displaying correctly.

Anyway…

• We’re Not Afraid is a worldwide effort to show terrorists that their tactics don’t work.? Though I question the effectivness of the campaign I do like the idea. The thing is, today’s terrorist isn’t worried about whether or not we’re scared of them, they just want us dead.
• In an effort to actually conform to blogging standards I’ve decided to start a ‘blog-roll’ for the blogs I read regularly.? Hopefully they’ll be kind enough to do the same.? I’ve linked to a few in prior posts, but this one is new.? WaiterRant.net is the story of Waiter and his insites into humanity through the eyes of a server.? Funny and sometimes embarrassing - especially when you see yourself through his eyes.

That’s it for this week kids.? Have a good Monday!

Okay. Its not that I’ve given up on fixing the problems my template is having in IE but until then, do you and me both a favor:

I don’t like horror films.? Not at all.? But I do like locals staying local and thats what the guys who made Point of Fear did.? That’s why they get a link from me.? Good for you guys, good for you.