I like the idea behind Congoo. It basically allows users to create a blog that draws newsfeeds based on the custom categories that the user specifies. The user can then link to this blog and have their friends, forum members, customers or whoever share it.

If I get a Congoo News Blog, i will probably set it up as my homepage as well. I always have soem sort of news site as my homepage as a way of reminding me about the big bad World out there. I don’t have TV or Radio at home, I hate being bombarded with commercials.

Here is a short announcement about the dangers of Meth. Henry Rollins is a very intense dude. I find him a bit hard on the head, actually. He has that informed entitlement vibe that so many of the baby boomers have and he isn’t one of them. They are all due to become senile soon, this might be a lethal combination. The Crystal Meth problem is more immediate and heart wrenching.

The YouTube comments on anti-drug PSA’s are depressing. Denial is a terrible thing. Drugs are bad Mmmkay?

Being the parents of teens is difficult even under the best of circumstances. Children in this age group ( I insist on calling them children) are discovering that their parents a fallible. They are being exposed to new freedoms and new social pressures. They are most probably being exposed to drugs. Even if they are not being exposed to the substances first hand, they are at the very least being exposed to pro drug viewpoints. Unless you are homeschooling them and you have no television or computer.

Being involved and aware are the fundamentals of effective parenting. Keep in mind that your kids might be very secretive. As far as drugs are concerned, you should find out what drugs are the ‘drugs of choice’ where you live and educate yourself about them. Also your kids should know that you know.

Heroin is a bit of a problem where I live. Crystal Meth is a major problem elsewhere. Crack is almost everywhere in North America these days.

I used to live next door to a crack house in North America. Maybe you do as well. Pay attention to stuff like that. I think my worst anecdote about irresponsible parenting was when I saw a mom roll into the driveway of the crack house and toot the horn to let her kid know that she was to come to the car to go home. This woman had a nice car. She had a nice hairstyle. She was too good to get out of her car and go to the door of the low rent house, but she apparently allows her kid to go there.

ParentingTeens.com is a great site for finding Troubled Teen Help. Besides directing parents to qualified support groups, the site also has articles about health, drugs behavior and more.

I drive my kids to school most days because it’s easier than coaching them to get out the door in time for the bus. This morning was extra hectic. I grabbed the things that I needed for the errand in a hurry while the church bells were playing the familiar eight o’clock melody that I do not know the name of.

Driving through the narrow streets and around the various roundabouts is pretty demanding of my attention. I was dangerously distracted this morning by the stupidest of things. I had put my wallet in my back pocket. I am not one of those guys who ALWAYS has a wallet in his back pocket and sometimes I find it annoying. This morning though, I put it on the wrong side. It was driving me crazy.

Credit for post title inspiration goes to Amy.

I am having a cow over bid4prizes. A cow is not one of the prizes that you can bid on. Pretty much everything else as far as consumer electronics an even cars is up for grabs at one time or another on the site.

I think they might have a truly unique idea here. It’s like an auction site but the person with the LOWEST UNIQUE BID takes the item. That’s different. I think I would bid $6.65. I want the car. The Scion XB is small and cool and Scion is a division of Toyota, the people who made some of the most reliable cars in recent history. Can you imagine getting a car for almost nothing?

Bidding can be done using text messaging, there is a flash image on the site showing you an example of a bid being made.

I made some images in rapid succession last week. I tried to use my ‘left’ brain. That’s right isn’t it? The ‘left’ brain is the side that’s less analytical???

I might talk about this from more of a business standpoint elsewhere. Right now I just want to mention how cool it was to go to a restaurant that only serves one set meal, no substitutions. Well, you can opt for just soup.

Here is the thing, the clientele are tourists. Most of them will never be on the island again let alone in your restaurant. You don’t need variety, you just need to serve what you do best.

I can’t type Blue Ridge Mountains without getting song tagged.

Music is a big part of the culture in the Southeast. Asheville, North Carolina is no exception. There is so much more. Asheville is like a really big small town, with the added benefits of some cosmopolitan flair in the downtown core.

American destinations were not in the list when my wife and I made our decision to telecommute from wherever we decided to go. We wouldn’t have been able to stay in the USA. If you are a part of the post tech boom community, you know that mini booms are happening in small cities dotted across the USA. Basically one or two companies with some venture capital decide to set up shop somewhere based on quality of life decisions they draw talented people, there are spinoff businesses and B2B relationships galore and suddenly a city is hot.

The trouble is, once everybody knows about one of these great little places, it’s too late to get good value on a home. things seem to be heating up a bit down in North Carolina now.

Ok, I did more research, they use the word BOOM when talking about Asheville homes, and the digital infrastructure in the city is a big draw for tech businesses.

I just had a brief discussion. I asked someone why it is always marginalized oddballs that do ‘outsider’ art. She said that a lack of self-consciousness is a prerequisite for being an outsider artist. Not knowing how to spell prerequisite is not marginal enough.

I miss my Vonage voice over IP service. I brought my adapter over to Eurpoe with me and I think it got fried by lightening. I made some enqueries about getting a replacement, but the shipping costs were prohibitive. As an alternative I got hooked up with a local Voip service from the cable company. The sound quality isn’t as good as what I have become used to with Vonage, and the calls get dropped a lot.

Vonage-forum.com is a great information resource for Voip users. If you know everything already, it is a great place to go to help people and feel all helpful and stuff. I think I will spend some time there tonight trying to find out if I can adapt a European adapter to the Vonage network somehow.