Just another WordPress weblog

1. There are at least two people in this world that you would die for
2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way
3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you
4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you
5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep
6. You mean the world to someone
7. You are special and unique; an unrepeated miracle of ONE
8. Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you
9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it
10. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take another look

This is just a quick test of the aLinks plugin. I wonder if it will link adam eason’s name to his website, where you can get a free relaxation download? I wonder if you’ll go there right now, or in a moment, hmm?

I’ve considered getting a medical alert bracelet many times, I take many medications which emergency personal might need to know about to save my life if I’m in an accident, or simply fall on the street. I’ve never been able to find one that’s reasonably tasteful, affordable and weighing less than most ocean-going liners. I can’t tolerate any weight on my wrists, so I’d have to go for a pendant, which I couldn’t find for anything other than bee sting or peanut allergies.

Lucky me, because today I found a website offering a wide range of Medical Alert Jewelry in lots of styles and colours - and with the ability to engrave lots of information (like medications which could interfere with emergency treatment, such as pain killers or blood pressure medicine). Best news is, the have options from less than £20 - fantastic!

Scientists at the University of California have found that small amounts of anesthetic gas can stop painful memories forming (BBC report). Woop-te-do. We already knew this.

While research into all manner of drugs can tell us a lot about the formation and recall of human memories, simply finding that a drug can inhibit painful memories in the manner this study did is entirely useless. Firstly, the researchers state the study was done to look at how people’s memories are repressed during surgery. The study did not do this: it simply showed that memories were repressed - as we already knew - it did not suggest either a mechanism how this occurs or, more importantly, why it sometimes fails.

Secondly, the study does nothing to advance our knowledge of helping people deal with painful or traumatic memories - since the drug has to be taken whilst the event is taking place to be effective.
Standard talk therapy or hypnosis would seem to be far more practical.

We know almost nothing about the brain. We need to know most, more work needs to be done and is being done. Pointless ’studies’ such as this do nothing but pad people’s resumes. What a waste.

I’m going through a mammoth spite of insomnia recently, and there’s only so many times I can watch Top Gun or pretend to read the same ebook page before finally admitting my brain has gone to the zoo. These are the times I turn to a few relaxing hands of Hold ‘Em (with play money, when playing for real you have to have your wits about you!)

Unfortunately my friends in the US aren’t as lucky as me. My government still believes in freedom. We believe consenting adults have the right to spend their money on playing online poker if they want to. So long as an addiction or compulsion (very rare) doesn’t develop, where’s the harm? Congress disagrees.

A friend of mine at uni (college) used to like to go to the local casino a couple of times a month. He liked the atmosphere, the tension and the thrill. But he was no fool. He’d worked out that going clubbing he’d normally spend between £30 and £50 on food, drink, door fees and cabs, so he’d simply get out £50 ($100), leave his cards and chequebook at home and walk down to the casino. And the jammy so and so, he’d often come home a few quid ahead! Now what could possibly be wrong with that? Okay, at online casinos you don’t get free drinks, but you can still have a good time while betting very little, and often make a friend or two.

Luckily for people who live in the gambling-hating US, Kaushal Sheth has found a few casinos who are still accepting US players. So, if you want to have a bit of fun, have some room in your budget visit his guide to the top US online poker rooms.

visit site

I had a lovely update post.

It was funny.

It was detailed.

It had paragraphs longer than one sentence.

Honest.

It did.

But alas it has gone to the great happy archive in the sky. Suffice to say: girlfriend flying over, energy up and steadier, pain blah, and some nice opportunities on the horizon now that my brain has finally kicked back in a bit. Been learning a lot from some really lovely people.

Hope everyone out there is having a great day, sunny with a slight chill up here. I’m off to have a rest, then do something funky on Squidoo.

This week I have been mostly listening to the Brief History of Time, presented by Monty Phyton:

Edit: just noticed this is post id #42. How spooky

You know, I’m amazed at how many new ways spring up every month on the Internet to take up time. Sometimes we all need a little diversion, and this is probably the second biggest benefit of the increasing user-interaction we’ve seen in the past couple of years.

I’m sure you’ve seen, and probably done hundreds of, the quizzes on every site and subject from grading your geekiness to estimating your life expectancy. Quibblo.com is a new site bringing the power of Facebook to a MySpace account or blog posting near you real soon.

First the bad news. Firstly the site is new and seems to be top-heavy with immature morons - a risk that all sites like this take on. Certainly its an easy market to tap, but Quibblo might want to consider how easy this sort of traffic will convert for their advertisers. Secondly, the site is far too in love with javascript taking control of where and how I want to open new pages for my tastes. A less-intrusive code could still achieve a speedy user interface.

Now the good news. Quibblo is fast, easy to use and has three user-friendly integration options, at least one of which will work with almost any blogging or social-networking platform. Font size is good and general design clean and pleasing. “The Random” option is a nice touch for when you just have a couple of minutes.

Here’s an example of a quiz that businesses as well as bloggers might find interesting

Kind blog reader - who are you?

Survey by Quibblo

Notice how you can submit an answer without leaving this site, and the live results. A nice touch is the noscript link to the quiz, so users with JavaScript disabled can still take the test. I haven’t tested the accessibility of the HTML, of if the JavaScript is keyboard-navigation or speech-browser compatible (its late, and I’m not superman!). Some explanation of the terminology in the embed a quizpage would be helpful.

I can see great potential for Quibblo, some things I’d like to see them develop are the ability to make a quiz private (only viewable via embedding) and private statistics - possibly in a pay-for-use premium version for businesses.

Overall, a good job by the Quibblo gang, and well worth spending a few minutes looking around.

Oh, in case you don’t know who Matt LaClear is, he’s a permission marketer who’s made a very nice chunk of change on myspace based around little popular quizzes like on Quibblo. He’d love this new site - get your prospects to create the lead generation data themselves!

This afternoon a nice little package got delivered, a full set of free trial CDs from Michel Thomas language learning.

I’ve got the choice of doing a one hour taster session in French, German, Italian of Spanish. For some bizarre reason, I’ve chosen Italian.

Maybe I just want better meatballs.