ChaCha

I don't know if you've heard of this service or not, but its the latest and is becoming the biggest mobile search engine out there.

If you've ever got a question that you need the answer to, you send a text message to ChaCha (242242) and ask whatever you need to know. On the other end of that text is a human being who will answer your question, so even if you ask a subjective question, like "Where can I find the best Mexican food in Tulsa, OK?" you can still get an answer back usually within 5-10 minutes that would say "Try Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy at 10909 E 71st St. There phonenumber is (918) 307-1373. Adios!"

I heard about this service through a friend of mine and the first opportunity I had to use it was last night. Me and some guys were sitting around talking about cars while eating grilled meat and lighting things on fire... you know, usual guy stuff... and for some reason, the question of what tiny car was used on Family Matters came up. We wondered what it was so I sent the text "What type of car did Steve Urkel drive on the show "Family Matters". About 7 minutes later I recieved, "It is said that the lovely "clown car" that Steve Urkel drove was a BMW Isetta."

Church Sign Generator

You can create your own here.

In the Year 2000...

This has nothing to do with the year 2000, but as I noticed on my viewer counter that I am nearing that 2000 views mark, I was excited, yet disappointed. 2000 views and only one $5 donation towards my bobblehead. For shame!

Only one more week til the Office Season 4 comes out on DVD. I believe I will be purchasing it from Best Buy for the extras it includes. My favorite Office-related blog (unless you want to count mine) has a listing of where you can buy season 4 and what they have to offer. Check it! www.officetally.com

And just for kicks, In the Year 2000...

My Own Bobblehead

I was thinking about the Office, as I frequently do, and about the bobblehead that Dwight recieved for Valentine's Day. A friend once told me she was going to look into getting me one but they were pretty expensive.

I looked into it a little today, and decided I want one. But she's right, they are more pricey than I want to pay. The bobblehead to the left is about $89.00 plus tax and S&H. Besides gas, food, and rent, I've got a long list of things I'd like to buy before this, but I would love so much to be able to display this in my office.

So I came up with a solution. I checked out my feedburner stats and I average exactly 33 different viewers a day to this fine blog. My astounding math skills told me that if every one of those viewers gave me just $3 I would have enough to buy my bobblehead.

So I'm soliciting you. Every donation helps. If you would like to donate to the "Buy David a Bobblehead fund" click the donation button below. All transactions will go directly through paypal so no account numbers will have to be given out and all donations will be used only for their intended purpose. I will keep you updated on the progress and once the goal of $100 is met, I will take down the donation link and purchase the bobblehead. The suggested donation is $5 (not all of my viewers are actually people I know and I'm sure won't donate) but you can give as little or as much as you want. Oh, and when you make the donation vote for which bobblehead body you want me to get. You can view the choices here. Which ever body has the highest amount in donations wins!

My top 5 choices are:
"Stud Bobblehead"
"Casual Bobblehead"
"Shorts and Tie Bobblehead"
"Tough Guy 2 Bobblehead"
and "Executive No Tie Bobblehead"

If you would like your own bobblehead (after, of course, you help me to buy mine) you can go to http://www.headbobble.com/index.html

Thank you!

Better Off Alive

It all started with an innocent t-shirt. I was flipping through a magazine and I saw an ad for an $8 t-shirt that said "Better Off Alive". It was an ad for an anti-abortion website but what caught my eye was that it was a cool t-shirt. If anyone knows me, they know how much I love t-shirts, especially internet t-shirts. As guilty as I feel now, my honest thoughts were, "its a cool t-shirt and being political is trendy". I decided to take a look at the site so if anyone asked me about the shirt, I'd at least have a response. What I found put a whole new viewpoint on an issue that I have specifically tried to avoid having a viewpoint on.

I'm not going to apologize for my views on the matter, but I will apologize for getting political on a blog that is anything but. So this is your one chance to stop reading. This is going to be an anti-abortion blog and if you don't want to read about it don't. I don't want nasty comments on your views.

I'm going to try to keep this as brief as possible and let the website do most of the talking for me, but there are a few things I'd like to talk about. The first is my callousness on the matter. Much to the dismay of my right-wing, evangelical family (which, don't get me wrong, I am very much apart of) I have to honestly say I've never had a strong stance on this matter. I've got my own feelings towards it ("No wife of mine will ever have an abortion," I've thought) but have opposingly felt "Your body, your choice. Stupid choice, but yours nonetheless."

Secondly, I'd like to address the ignorance I've had with the issue. As a strong Christian, there are certain things that science can't explain that I have to rely on my faith to believe in. One of these things being the question I've heard many times in the face of abortion issues, "When does life begin." Much to my surprise, this isn't an unanswerable question at all. Its a question, nearly every medical book agrees with. Life begins at conception. From the moment of fertilization, the tiny zygote has a genetic code all of its own. In fact, one of the first things to happen after fertilization is a weakening of the mother's immune system so it doesn't expel this "foreign body." Once you have determined that it is indeed a form of life, that ends all questions for me. I'm further baffled by cases where a pregnant woman is beaten or killed and that offender can be charged with murdering the baby. Or if a pregnant woman takes drugs or alcohol during a pregnancy and something happens she can be charged with "fetal harm". So basically we're saying as long as its intentional, its legal.

I'm more or less going to end it here and direct you to the website. Mostly because it can say so much more than I can. I feel the need to first post this warning. It opens with some very gruesome images of what an abortion does. These are not the controversial "third trimester" abortions. These are the standard abortions done every day on thousands of embryos and fetuses.

My advice is, if you are already against abortion in any circumstance, don't bother with the site. It won't give you any new information and it will just show you images you don't need to see. However, if you believe there are permissible circumstances, I urge you to look at the site and think hard about your reasons. I'll give you the same advice the opening line of the video gives... If ignorance is bliss, turn back now.

http://www.abort73.com/

New Layout

I started toying around with my website a little today. I've been wanting to do a new layout for quite some time and just haven't worked up the motivation. My eventual plan is a total overhaul of the site, and also incorporate my blog into it as well. Right now, I just forward blog.davidwage.com to my blog, its not actually an active website yet.

So anyways, I broke out my handy-dandy HTML book today and got to work! I'm not sure how long it will be before I get my whole website done, but for now, you can check out my new layout at www.davidwage.com/new.htm and tell me what you think! You'll notice I've already gotten a head start on the blog look. Hopefully I'll have it fully integrated into my site by the end of the week. I'm leaning towards going back to a similar look of my first website design for those that have been with me since then.

Of course, I still have the original davidwage.com up and running. So visit there too!

Sex Tests Mandated for Olympics

When a woman looks a little too manly, we usually assume steroids, right? Well, have you ever considered it actually is a man? Beijing officials have been designing special laboratories for well over a year to determine the sex of any athlete competing in the games. "Suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination," according to Professor Tian Qinjie who has helped to develop some of this testing. Though, not everyone will be inspected, anyone can be.

This comes to the biggest surprise and may hurt most the American Men's soccer team who will now be without their star forward, Amanda Bynes.

Link to the full article here, which also has a list of famous past Olympians who were literally "playing for the wrong team."

This One's For You Hubbs

My friend Andy at bloginyourface.com posted a blog yesterday about his Sunday filled with equal parts testosterone and estrogen. It made me think of the MANtage video from Barats and Bereta. You might know these guys from their "Mother's Day" video of the two brothers fighting while trying to take a picture for Mother's Day. They've got a lot of other hysterical videos (and some not so funny ones.) I've been a longtime fan of these guys so here you go Andy. The MANtage! YOU'RE WELCOME!!

Prison Dance Rave

I realize I haven't been keeping up on my blogging duties as of late, and for that I am sorry. I don't have any excuses, I just really haven't had anything to write about, not that my content is usually all that riveting. But thank you to those who continue to come back. In the less than 3 months I've been posting (entries before May are posts from a previous blog I had) I'm well over 700 hits, which makes me happy. I wouldn't say I was stressing, but I was genuinely disappointed in myself for not being better at my blog as of late.

I hopped on youTube this morning to catch up on some videos andcame across a video of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC). Known as "the dancing inmates," you've probably seen them dance to Thriller by Michael Jackson, but I didn't know they have routines to several other songs including Low by FLO Rida, Soulja Boy, and Do the Hustle. Once a month, they have a public appearance, that, if you happen to be in the neighborhood of Cebu, Philippines, you can go to the prison and watch their performance.

I guess the point of this post is to more get your opinion of what they are doing rather than to showcase their amazing prison dance skills. Although its fun to watch, the CPDRC's recreation time is met with some opposition. A statement on the youTube page for Byron F. Garcia, a provincial security consultant with the Filipino prison system, and the uploader of all the CPDRC videos, says: "Some even suggest that these prisons don't deserve this humane method coz they feel there is too much recreation and inmates are to be treated severely. There are also sick people who think that dancing is a form of cruel punishment! Since when was dancing categorized as punishment? My fellow citizens of the world, CRUEL and VIOLENT forms of punishment are a thing of the past. If we make jails a living hell for the prisoners, then, we might just be sending out devils once they are released and re-integrated to society."

Let me now tell you of another e-mail I recently received about Sheriff Joe Arpaio (from my friend who is a prison guard by the way). Arpaio created what is known as 'tent city jail' to save Arizona from spending tens of millions of dollars on another expensive prison complex. He has jail meals down to 90 cents a day (the guard dogs consume about $1.10/day) and charges the inmates for them. He started chain gangs to do free work on county and city projects. He also banned smoking and pornographic magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but 'G'movies. He says, "They're in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave... Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves."

We're basically looking at two opposite ends of the spectrum here as far as complaints go, in the former people think they are too nice allowing them to dance and receive mild fame with their public exposure. The latter is met with opposition that what they are doing is inhumane.

I'm kinda torn with where I fall on this issue. I like some of the ideas of 'tent city' but overall I think it goes a little too far. I agree with the removal of any and all "luxury items" such as cable, weights, porn, and TV, but not necessarily with denying them basic needs such as food and shelter. I pulled up another article about tent city that talked about these prisoners being denied medical attention at times and guard brutality. As for the statement that if we make jails a living hell, we'll be sending out devils, I don't fully agree. When I did something wrong as a kid my parents spanked me. It didn't make me angry and go out to do it again, it made me second guess myself the next time I thought about doing it. "Is watching TV instead of cleaning my room really worth a red bottom?"

I don't think having recreational time is all bad though. I have no clue if this is the purpose of the dance program or not, but to have something like that, that all the inmates want to be a part of and having a strict behavioral incentive behind it could be great. I recently helped out at a kids camp and we had one boy in particular who was an "attention getter." One night, he started pretending to mumble and talk in his sleep. He was bunked a few beds down and was right next to one of the junior councilors who tried silencing him. He assumed the boy was genuinely talking in his sleep so after a few tries to silence him he gave up. After a few more minutes of the kid's increasingly louder mumbling, I walked over and whispered "I know you're awake and if you continue to make these noises I'll start taking away activity time." I never heard another peep.

Well, I certainly made up for not blogging in a while, but let me know your thoughts. Are the prison systems too soft? How tough is too tough?

Here's the original Thriller video if you haven't seen it.

The Ultimate How-to Guide

If you're like me, you're a real DIYSer. Why pay someone to do a job you're fully capable of doing yourself. Sometimes its simply because you don't have the knowhow. So what do you do if you need answers quick?

Or here's another situation: you're friend invites you to a party on the weekend where they are going to have the ultimate flip cup tournament and they're counting on you to bring your cards to the table. One problem; you don't have a clue to the rules of flip cup and you're too embarrassed and proud to ask.

I stumbled across this website today and it can solve both problems. Its called HowCast and its a giant collection of How-To's.

The site is broken down by category and covers virtually everything, some serious topics such as "How to Invest in the Stock Market" or "How to Perform the Heimlich Maneuver", to crazy off the wall subjects such as "How to Kiss Like Angelina Jolie" or "How to Find Out a Girl's Name After You've Slept With Her".

Each video contains a list of things you'll need to get the job done, as well step by step instructions. It usually completes with a little Did You Know bit of relevant, yet needless information.

Sibling Rivalry

I'm watching Wimbledon today and heard that there have only been 2 years during this decade that one of the Williams sisters' names haven't appeared on the championship trophy, the Venus Rosewater Dish. And with the sisters competing against each other for this year's title, this year will be no different. You have to wonder if its in the genes or if its just two outstanding individuals who have pushed themselves to become 2 of the greatest female tennis players in the world, and who happen to be sisters.

I began thinking of other famous families and wondered the same thing. When thinking of famous sibling athletes, such as the Williams sisters or Eli and Payton Manning, or famous sibling musicians, such as Donny and Marie Osmund, Kevin and Michael Bacon (in the words of one writer, the Bacon Brothers are secretly successful with 11 years touring and 5 albums), or the newly famous Jonas Brothers, you have to think good genes play a major role in their success. There are times, however, that its not all about talent, and more about the opportunities having a famous sibling creates (i.e. Ashley Simpson).

This can especially be argued when the fame siblings share is that of movie stardom. A lot of people have the talent to at least reach a low level of stardom but it takes that big break to get them in the spotlight. Sometimes a brother or sister who has already made their mark can be that break, like Elle Fanning (Deja Vu, Babel) sister of Dakota Fanning. Or what about the Smith family? You've got mega star Will Smith (iRobot, I Am Legend, Hancock) and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith (Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions) and they have Jaden (Persuit of Happyness) and Willow (Kit Kittridge: An American Girl). The list goes on: Hilary and Haley Duff, John and Joan Cusack, Alec Billy St... all the Baldwins, Maggie and Jake Gyllenhal, Hanson.

Of course, not all blood-relations are destined for greatness. In fact for some the only "fame" these black sheep enjoy is the fame of embarrassing their families. Jimmy and Billy Carter, Kylie and Dannii Minogue, Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears... ok, so maybe the latter both get to enjoy the embarrassing spotlight.

Are parents pushing these kids to become famous and that's why it becomes a "family business"? According to Debbie Glasser, a clinical psychologist and editor for NewsForParents.org "parents who are really pushy and controlling really do undermine kids' underlying motivation. The best strategy, is the old tried-and-true: nurturing. The majority of famous siblings will say they were nurtured, not pushed."

New blogger address!

Just wanted to say thanks for everyone who checks out my blog. I'm in the process of integrating it with my website, www.davidwage.com and it will soon take on a layout to match my site (to which I will probably be changing the whole layout to.)

The first step in this changeover is the URL. Blogger.com will still host my blog, however, if you have it in your blogroll or bookmarked, please change the address to http://blog.davidwage.com

Thanks!

Rockets Over Rhema

Every year, our station hosts a Freedom festival around the 4th of July where they bring in food, music, and all sorts of activities for the family. Last year, the festival was combined with the annual fireworks celebration done by Rhema Bible Church which is the biggest fireworks display in Oklahoma. (Awesome, but its still no Rosenblatt).

I've worked some pretty long days in the hotel business, some 12, 14, and more than a few 16+ hour days. Although maybe not quite as long, yesterday felt longer than any day I had ever worked. I began my day around 10:30am helping the audio guys set up and getting the caterer set to go. My day completed after I had everything torn down and the bands were safely on their way back to their hotels around midnight that night.

It was such an awesome time though and couldn't have been more perfect of a day. It was a high of 85, not a cloud in the sky, low humidity, and very little wind.The bands we had were Connersvine, a new worship-rock blend similar to Telecast (whose frontman, Hunter Smith is the punter for the Indianapolis Colts), the Afters, and Mark Harris (formerly of 4Him). The night went great and I just had an awesome time. One of the great things about working for this station is their reputation is so high, that bands just love and feel honored to get to do these concerts. Makes for good experiences.

Here's some pics from the show. Just click to enlarge:

More pics will be available on the station's website

E-mail Scares

This is partially in response to a blog Andy @ bloginyourface had posted about a Best Buy e-mail he had gotten. Ironically I had just been thinking about posting a blog about this site, as I refer to it at least once nearly every week.

We've all gotten those e-mails - Little Jimmy has cancer and if you forward this e-mail AOL will donate money for ever person who receives it. - or - Forward this e-mail to get a cool video to pop up. Many of us aren't so naive anymore and know better than to believe these crazy hoaxes(despite the frequent forwards and myspace posts I still receive), but what about the ones that are a little less obvious such as the above mentioned Best Buy e-mail my friend Andy received.

Snopes.com is a website that with a quick search of your subject can prove or disprove any of your urban legend questions. Generally the format of the site is to state the claim being debated, tell whether it is true or false, then support its answer. Nearly every e-mail I have ever gotten I've been able to find on this site such as the Best Buy disgruntled customer.

Besides e-mails, it also goes into other common wives tales or urban legends such as gum taking seven years to be digested, or hair growing back thicker after being shaved, or a tooth left in a glass of Coke will dissolve over night. There's also a whole list of true and fake viruses you get warnings about through various e-mails.

So next time you get one of these e-mails, check out snopes.com before you hit that FWD button.

Superchick in Studio

Today was a fun day. The band Superchick (you'd recognize them from their chick-anthem "One Girl Revolution" in the movie Legally Blonde) had a new album released today, Rock What You Got so they stopped by the studio to promote it. They did a fun interview on the air, then did a couple songs for us live, and stayed for lunch with some contest winners.

The band was extremely cool and even offered to serve all the listeners who had called in and won a spot around the table. Very nice. Melissa was also sporting her new tats. I have to say with her tats, piercings and red streak in her hair, she reminded me of a more petite version of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Weird, but very cool nonetheless (not that being like this ex is uncool). If you can't tell from the picture, its a tree branch with flower buds and two birds. It also wraps around to the other side of her arm.

More pics will soon be available on the website at kxoj.com and there are more videos posted at youtube.com/kxoj including another track from their new album.

Superchick - Crawl (Carry Me Through)

Requiem For A Day Off

I'm sure this has been around for a while but I just came across it thanks to GirlRobot. Who knew John Hughes had a dark side?

Family Tree

I got bored today so I decided to do a little family research. I've never really known much about my Waggoner roots and in talking to my dad he didn't know a lot either. He wasn't even sure the names of my grandpa's brothers and sisters. I got myself a free 14 day trial of www.ancestry.com and got to work. I was fascinated!

My great great great great great great grandfather, Henry I. Waggoner was born in Germany in 1733 and came over with his wife Katrina to Virginia and we kinda spread out from there.

If you consider Henry to be first generation Waggoner (which it is likely that in Germany it was a different pronunciation and spelling) that makes me a 9th generation Waggoner. I'll probably do a little more research next week.

That's all for now!

Fact Page

Did you know that eagles mate while airborne? That's freakin sweet.

www.hookedonfacts.com

Archives

Since I don't have ESPN and I don't have money to go to a pub to watch the ASU-Fresno St game, I've been watching the updates online. (ASU is currently down 5-7). While I wait, I made some changes to the blog as you can see. I uploaded some of my old blogs to this site and I pre-dated them so you'll can find them in the archives. I've also started tagging to make it easier to find.

Think of a midget when you're having a bad day

As I was driving to work, I saw one of the funniest things I have ever seen. A midget on a Segway...I'll let it sink in.

You know how on some motorcycles, when bikers ride, their hands are almost above their heads because the handlebars are set so high? Picture that, only its Segway scooter, and the midget is standing straight up. It got me curious, so I hopped online and googled "segway" and "midget" together. I actually found a blog dedicated to the little people so I thought I would share. I hope this brings as much joy to your day as it did to mine. Take some time to peruse around the site. There are some good reads about dwarf tossing, midget bowling, and cute little article about a midget who glued a vacuum cleaner hose to his own "little person".

http://allaboutmidgets.typepad.com