Gay teletubbies

First it was the popular cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, which was accused of being "pro-homosexual". Read 'Will Spongebob make you gay?' FYI, I am referring to the contemporary usage of the adjective, "gay" here.

Now, Poland's conservative government is planning to probe if Teletubbies are gay.

Teletubbies, is BBC's popular children's television series and my kids love it.

Ewa Sowinska, the spokesperson for the government appointed children rights was quoted as saying:

I noticed (Tinky Winky) has a lady's purse, but I didn't realize he's a boy.

These people are crazy.

Tags: gay SquareBob SpongePants Teletubbies

Not all Bloggers are teenage girls

A few years ago, when I talked to a lot of non-bloggers, they were under the impression that blogs are the online journals of teenage girls. I strongly objected to that as 1) I am not a teenager and 2) I am not a girl and 3) my blog is more than just a journal. Of course there might be some truth in this. I had posed a question in one of my early blog posts. Namely, "Are most bloggers, Girls?"

Thankfully I can see that most people have now changed their perception of blogs. In fact now, a lot of people read blogs to get the latest update on tech news and in several countries, uncensored political news. People from all demographic groups are also becoming bloggers themselves. It's not just young people but the older generation as well.

I recently got to know another blogger who started her blog "Sunflower's Thoughts" in November last year. She's a mother of 3 boys from Effingham, Illinois, United States.

Her first post was really similar to mine. The only difference is that mine was only a single sentence. She says:

Well I might as well jump on the band wagon and get a blog started. I have seen so many people with blogs, so I thought I would try it.

Like a lot of newbies, she is blogging with Blogger and is also a fellow PPP postie.

Each blogger has a different style of writing. For example, you can see her posts are quite short. On the other hand, some people complain that my posts are too long. I would love to read more about life in Illinois and see some pictures too.

What about you? Are you a blogger too and how long have you been blogging?

Funny blog

If you like funny videos, visit Funnylah.com. This site has loads of links to them on the web as well as jokes and funny pictures. It even has some links to free online games as well, like this funny maze game.

This blog first caught my attention because it's name is so similar to mine. Spent quite some time going through the blog.

Here's a joke I took from the blog:

A bear, a lion and a chicken meet.Bear says: “If I roar in the forests of North America, the entire forest is shivering with fear.”

Lion says: “And if I roar on the great plains of Africa, the entire savannah is afraid of me.”

Says the chicken: “Big deal. I only have to cough, and the entire planet shits itself.”

If you don't get it, you need to watch more the news and less of the reality shows on TV.

Fresh food from Florida

When we talk about Florida, the first thing that comes to mind are the amusement parks, in particular the Walt Disney World Resort and of course the Universal Orlando Resort. However, Florida is much more than Orlando and amusement parks.

I too was surprised to learn that agriculture in the state is a is a $87 billion industry. Fresh food produce from Florida are sent to countries around the globe. Just shows how Florida's Farmers are making their mark on the World.

Just check out the video below:

Tricked into holding a contest

Warning: This is a long post.

Some of you might recall that I had organised a Nitro T-shirt contest on my auto blog. It was not as successful as I had hoped it would and even though it received a fair bit of interest, there were no takers for it except for two bloggers who were also the winners by default.

That's when the problem started. the Dodge Nitro T-shirts were supposed to be sponsored but I totally lost contact with the sponsors (or they cut me off).

How did this saga start?

Well I was approached by a Corrie Zielinski from a company called New Media Strategies. I later found out that this online advertising and Marketing firm is based in Arlington, Virginia.

Given below is her first e-mail to me:

Hi Adam,

My name is Corrie Zielinski, and I just came across Auto Lah. I’m working with Dodge Nitro and have some t-shirts available for a contest. Would you be interested in running one? I think your site is great, and I’d love to work with you.

Thanks!

Corrie

I told her that I was interested and asked her to tell me a little bit more about the contest and what I would be required to do. This is her reply on Feb 22:

Hi Adam!

The contest process is pretty simple:

I provide you with the number of shirts I can make available to you, pictures of said shirts, and some additional picture assets you can use for the contest if you want. Then, we usually suggest a simple "enter to win" contest, where people email you and you can randomly pick a winner.
You send me the address, and I'll send the t-shirt to the winner or winners. That way, you don't have to pay for postage - we ship a LOT of stuff, so we have a pretty well honed system for getting stuff out the door quickly.

Does that sound good?

I told her what I planned to do and she wrote back on Feb 23:

Hey Adam!

That is the best idea - I love it!

I can give you one Dodge Red Long Sleeve T-Shirts and One Short Sleeve
Black "Can" T-Shirts. (If you look at the "Can" picture you'll totally
get why I call it that. I still can't figure out how they do it.)

I'd really appreciate it if you could include a link to official Dodge
site at (http://www.dodge.com/en/nitro/index.html). I'm also sending you
a link of a bunch of assets that we've collected from Dodge - pictures,
logos, magazine articles, etc. You're free to use whatever you want! The
asset links are available here: http://www.media-file.net/dodge/nitro/

Thank you so much, and let me know when the contest is live - I can't
wait to see it AND read the stories (have been personally drooling over
the Nitro since we get this project).

Thanks!
Corrie

The contest ended and on March 26 I informed Corrie about the results and that I had two winners.

I received the reply dated Mar 26 :

Corrie Zielinski

Hey adam - go ahead and get their addresses o we can get those sent. No worries on the parcipitation, it happens. I have no internet right now - thank god for blackberry!

Thanks, corrie
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

That was the last time I ever heard from her.

I obtained the addresses of the winners and sent them to her ... No acknowledgement! I had a bad feeling about that.

Then early this month, I learned that the winners hadn't received the t-shirts till date.

Sent Corrie another e-mail from an alternative e-mail address as I was afraid that the one sent from my Gmail might have landed in her spam filter ... No reply!

I then contacted the company through their website ... No reply! Sent email directly to them ... Still no reply!

Finally I realised that something was definitely wrong.

Searching on the net, I found out that a similar contest had ran on Kineda.com. On contacting Terry, the webmaster of the site,he informed me that he had had no problems with Corrie and

She delivered everything as promised.

I am not sure what happened. One thing is sure. I am never going to have a sponsored contest on my blogs again unless I have full control.

In the end, I had to send the winners Don and Doris a T-shirt each from my own online store.

Let this be a warning to all bloggers out there.

UPDATE:
I am really happy to announce that everything turned out great in the end. The whole fiasco was due to e-mail problems.

Tags: Contest Corrie Zielinski Dodge Nitro New Media Strategies Scam

Happy Birthday Son

My son turned one yesterday.

We had planned a small party for him but unfortunately he was down with flu and cough. Took him to our GP and he was prescribed antibiotics - first time in his life.

He refuses to sleep in his cot and wants to sleep with us. Was worried that he might tumble off the bed and so we came up with a solution. I have been sleeping with him on a thick duvet on the floor for the past two nights. First night was terrible but he slept through the night yesterday. I woke up early in the morning today to find him kissing my face (with saliva all over).

He's much better today, even though he is still coughing a bit.


New born baby, exactly a year ago....

Hidden executables in Microsoft software

If you don't believe me, try this:

1) Open a blank Microsoft Word document.
2) type the following: =rand(200,99)
3) Press 'Enter' and wait 5 seconds...

ZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZ

Don't worry, it is not a virus. Wonder whether there is anything else hidden in MS Word?

For a detailed explanation, read this article here.