Zombie Dream

I had an odd dream last night. I was in a place where everyone had turned into zombies (likely everyone in the world, but the scope of the dream took place in a part of one city). There were only a few people left who had not yet been turned. I think what brought this on was the George A. Romero's Land of the Dead movie I was thinking about seeing in the cheap theater. I also stayed up late watching several shows I recorded called In Search Of which came on the Sci-fi channel.



Anyway, in my dream I was on a boat full of survivors trying to escape into the open water, which we were not yet to. The boat was pretty small and had a small cabin below the deck with electricity (dependent on the gas from the boat). The water must have been about waste deep because there were zombies in the water that were trying to get us. It was as if the streets in a city were flooded because there were things to either side of the boat. Somehow at one point I even ended up on a jet ski behind the boat driving though the flooded zombie filled city. I believe I made it to open water just before I woke up.

Even though it was a zombie dream, and they clearly wanted to eat me, it was not scary at all. Quite the opposite, it was more adventurous than anything. I had not had a dream scare me since I was very very young. I remember in that dream (the dream I had when I was little) there were spiders crawling over me until they completely covered my body and then going into my ears and mouth. It felt real to me, but then again I was just a small child. After that I prayed for quite a while every night before bed that I would not have any more bad dreams, and I have not had a nightmare since. I have had sad dreams where I think something bad has happened to me or someone I love, but I have not had a dream that is terrifying which I would classify as a nightmare.

Roswell Logic

I have been watching a lot of the National Geographic channel lately. On this channel there has been quite a bit about aliens and UFOs on lately. I was telling one of my co-workers about some of the opinions I have formulated over the years about the topic. One thing we disagreed about was what happened in Roswell. I believe there was a government cover-up, however it was not covering up an alien crash landing.

When the Roswell incident (or crash) first happened it was public knowledge that (what seemed to be) an alien spacecraft had crash landed. There where even pictures of the metal from the spacecraft in the newspapers. The newspapers reported exactly what was found and what they thought it was. It wasn’t until the military stepped in that it was silenced. However, the military said what had crashed was nothing more than a weather balloon. It was obviously not a weather balloon so it was a pretty sad cover-up. Years and years later the military came out and admitted it was a cover-up, but it was not an alien cover-up. They said it was a secret government test project that had crashed. They then showed several images of this project that looked to me like a big metal kite. They did not say what the purpose of the project was. When they showed military photos of this secret project after the army finally released them and compared them to the photos from the Roswell crash from before the cover-up, it was indeed the same thing (size, shape, and material).

Did the government make fake photos to match the alien kite-like spacecraft in order to make a fake cover-up to cover-up the alien landing? Not likely, however it is a possibility. What my co-worker and I were actually debating is weather any alien bodies where found. I look at it like this, the first few days when everything was public knowledge why did the remains of the metal kite-looking object make headlines and not the bodies? If alien bodies were found they would have made the headlines instead of the scrap metal because again there is no cover-up yet. Meaning if there were bodies found they would have been in the newspapers before the military stepped in. However, there were reports of manikins which served as crash test dummies that were found at the site of the crash. These dummies for some reason happen to have been left out of the news even before the cover-up.

My co-worker basis his belief that alien bodies were found on the testimony of one (now old) lady who was alive at the time who now claims she saw alien bodies. I think I am going to have to have more evidence than that.

Personalize the 'comments' text

All blogger blogs by default have comments hard coded into the HTML. It doesn't matter how many you have it will appear to be X comments. You can use the code below to change this depending on how many you have.

Example:
to
to

In your Template, Find:

<$BlogItemCommentCount$> comments

Replace with:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var num = <$BlogItemCommentCount$>;
if(num == 0) { document.write('No comments'); }
else if(num == 1) { document.write('1 comment'); }
else { document.write(num + ' comments'); }
-->
</script>

You can make the comments say whatever you want it to say for any number of comments. The text above is just a suggestion.

Haunted Hotels

I was watching a show on Discovery’s Travel Channel (I think) called America's Haunted Hotels. It was a countdown of what are supposedly the most haunted places to stay in America. During the show they would interview several customers and some of the staff. I have to admit, these people seemed like they actually believed the place was haunted. Common since tells me they are just actors or actual employees ‘acting’ for the reputation of the hotel. After all the haunted claim to fame might be all that is keeping that hotel in business. Some of them were not exactly the Hilton downtown. After thinking about it, I have actually talked to several people who have claimed to have lived somewhere (or at least stayed somewhere) that was haunted.

It makes me wonder what kinds of things would make people think a place is haunted. I have heard people say things like a toilet flushes, the floors creeks, a light will be on, or maybe the TV turned to a static channel. If those things make a house haunted then I could only assume every house with indoor plumbing or electricity in the world is haunted. These things in conjunction with an over active imagination might make someone believe they really are being haunted.

A few days ago I was sitting at my computer desk when I suddenly heard the TV (which I thought was off) volume come on really loud. I got up and turned the TV off and called it a night and went to bed. I image the TV was already on, just on a program that was recorded at a much a lower volume (sometimes digital channels are funny like that) or perhaps the cat stepped on the remote. I can see where a customer in a hotel that had a reputation for being haunted might have assumed that was a ghost.

If I won the lottery...

My freind showed me these images the other day. His dad helped make this room for a client. Life just isn't fair...

Click on the thumbnail to see the full size image:
   


I have always thought if I had the money (in a galaxy far far away) I would build a room very similar to this.

Template: Atmostpheric

Does you blog need a new look? Click here for more information about custom made templates.

Name: Atmostpheric
Version: 1.0
Description: Space theme that boldly goes where no blog has gone before. Shows the atmosphere and the bottom of the earth. Dark, calm, surreal

Screenshot: (Click to view larger image)

Tracking your Blog's Statistics

One fun part about blogging for me is seeing information about the visitors who go to my blog. It is fun to know how many visits per day I have, how visitors are finding my blog, and (sometimes the most interesting) what keywords are people searching for (Google, Yahoo, ect..) to find my blog.

If you want to keep track of you blog statistics I recommend BlogPatrol. You may have seen the image below on other blogs.



I don’t know if they are the best out there, but it meets my needs. Some other free statistic tracking sites you can try are StatCounter or SiteMeter. It only takes a minute to sign up. Once you sign up they give you a small piece of code to add to your site. This code (JavaScript) displays an image which allows them to track your site. Just click on that image to login when you want to see your site statistics. I have to warn you BlogPatrol’s JavaScript quality is very poor, but it works. If you know JavaScript you will want to rewrite it first thing. If not, don’t worry about it.

What are they looking at?

I came across this photo of Sharapova on the lamest ever blog.



Guy 1: Is that a bee?
Guy 2: How embarrassing, she wore that skirt yesterday
Guy 3: Where is the wind when you need it
Guy 4: I love this game...

Interblogging's Guide to Blogging

Interblogging's Five Steps to Having Good Blog

1. Whenever you can add images that go along with your articles. This helps to pull the reader in and it gets them interested in the article. They will usually see the image first and then think, I want to know what this is all about. If a reader goes to your blog and sees oceans of nothing but text, they are likely to skip to the next blog.

*note* including links are also helpful. For example do not say, "Jim Shorts saw War of the Worlds yesterday." If Jim has a blog instead say, "Jim Shorts saw War of the Worlds yesterday" where Jim is a link to his blog and War of the Worlds is a link to information about that movie. Do not be afraid to italicize movies or book titles. Every now and then an italicized word can make your articles look more inviting to read. The text is less monotones.

2. Do not just post about what you did that day for every article. No one wants to read day after day, "First I did this... and then... next... after that...." If your blog is more like an online journal you will want some of that, but try to make entries about things you like or things that are personal to you. For example I like movies. If I see a movie I really like (or hate) I will write an article about that movie or even give a movie review.

*note* no one wants to see a blog that every entry is nothing but questions that they found on someone else's blog, or crazy quizzes/personality test results (odds are no one really cares which superhero's cooking style is closer to your own). It is okay to share your quiz results or answer questions that you found other people answer, but everything in moderation.

3. Give credit where credit it due. If you get an idea off another person's blog give them credit by linking to their article. This gives everyone more exposure in the end. If you do not want to send the reader away from your blog you can add to the link, target="_blank". This will make the link open in a new window so they can finish reading your article. However, if the user is using a real browser (anything but IE) then they will probably open any link from you article into a separate tab anyway. Surly no still uses IE right???? Download Firefox

4. Do not use a default template. Readers have seen them hundreds or thousands of times. This makes you blog just like everyone else's blog which makes it boring. If your template is unique people are going to be more likely to remember your site or be more interested in reading your blog. Especially if the template theme matches the content or type of blog you have. It also creates an atmosphere for your blog. Set the mood with your blog's design. Unfortunately this is too often ignored.

5. Do not make your posts too long. No one wants to read a 2,000 word essay about the last time you walked your dog. If you have to scroll down to finish reading an article it is probably too long. Please be courteous to your fellow bloggers.

*note* Try to keep your blog rolls (or other side links) from being too long also. They seem to disappear in a ocean of links if you have too many. Link to your favorite blogs and not the mediocre blogs you visit from time to time. No one wants to click though your watered down blogroll.

Cyberpet anyone?

I hope everyone has a good 4th of July. Happy Birthday America!!

Some of you might be interested in a link I stumbled across today: Adopt a Cyberpet. If you do adopt a pet, let me know so I can visit them. I probably will not be adopting one myself although I might be willing to exchange a Cybercat for my real cat.

King Kong Trailer

King Kong (Directed by Peter Jackson) Looks amazing. Click on the screenshot below to view the trailer.

Using 'My Yahoo' for blogging

If you have read my article here I talked about using Live Bookmarks to syndicate blog feeds. I recently discovered a new way to utilize blog feeds (thanks to Tanya). If you have a Yahoo account (they are free) you can create a My Yahoo page, it only takes a second. My Yahoo is completely customizable. You can display blog feeds, your favorite comic strips, movie information, TV schedule, current events, news feeds, and on and on. You can even change the layout, colors, or pick from plenty of pre-made templates. I choose just the standard one. This page is like your personal dashboard to the web. Anything that has a feed, you can add it. It is set up in easily editable modules.

Click image to see full size photo:


You can add your favorite blog feeds. In the screenshot above you can see where I added Interblogging and the five most recent posts (at least at the time of the screen shot). This is what it looks like when you subscribe to a blog feed. Although I have mine set up to only show new post titles only, you can also show a description of each post under the titles.

If you want to add a blog that does not have an XML feed, you might want to e-mail them and let them know they need to make their feeds available. For sites that use Blogger, you can usually type in their address + "/atom.xml" and get their feed. Since my address is http://interblogging.blogspot.com, my XML file will be located at http://interblogging.blogspot.com/atom.xml.