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So I failed!  I’ve failed to get my weekly cool links out at least every other Friday!  Flog me if you want, but I have a good excuse.  I was very busy last week with work and in turn wasn’t able to prepare my links for release by Friday, so here I am releasing them on Monday instead.  Last week I was was in training Tuesday through Friday with a contractor from Hill’s and Associates doing the Time Warner Cable Business Class certification courses.  Even though I pretty much knew everything about our business class product, it’s still good to get a refresher every so often.  Plus now I know even more about our services and probably about 150 more acronyms about networking and the telecom industry…  In addition I spoke to the trainer during one of the breaks about some career advise, because I’m looking for some more technical training and discovered some certifications from (ISC)² that I’m researching and possibly will be taking the exam for (the SSCP first) and then studying for more.  In addition to that he taught us everything you learn in MBA school and officially gave us all MBAs…

MBA in 2 Minutes

1. Revenue – Costs = Profits
2. Businesses without customers are not in business
3. You must do everything you can to attract and retain customers

Besides work not much happened the last couple weeks, we had a couple various family gatherings, a relaxing 1 week vacation, and saw a couple movies.  Funny People (3 Stars) and 500 Days of Summer (3.5 Stars) you can check out my movie reviews here (more reviews to come as I catch up!).  Lastly I’m getting into golfing and bought some new irons last week, that should be arriving at my house today and I’m looking forward to playing 1-2 times a month if possible.

On to the Weekly Cool Links!!!!

Music
I have a bunch of music links this week, most of them about finding new music, something I struggle with because of my specific eclectic preference.  I’m always interested in finding more music I might like, iTunes DOES NOT CUT IT with their recommendations, even Genius is just sort of ok, but Lifehacker put together an article on articles and ways to help, with their Top 10 Tricks for Making Your Playlists Rock.  There is Project Playlist which can help you find music, generate playlists and create ringtones for you.  Lastly if you are looking into turning an old computer into a “media server” you might want to check out Amahi, doesn’t require much power or high priced tech to get running, and can stream to just about anything, in addition is has lots of features that compare to those of Windows Home Server!  And lastly, I thought I would share an artist I discovered yesterday, this girl can do wonders with just a ukulele and has a very pretty voice.  She is also playing in Long Beach in a week or so.

Movies
Not much on the movies front this week, but how could we all have missed the production of Lesbian Vampire Killers!  Most of the reviews say it’s pretty bad, but come on with a name like that it has to be at least entertaining.

Sports
I found this gallery archive of Iconic Dodgers Photos from Sports Illustrated.  My favorites include the picture of Sandy Koufax’s no hitter, if you look closely on the chalkboard someone wrote and then erased that he went 0 for 4 in the game.  Also love the picture of two of the best pitchers ever in baseball, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.  Glad that they included one of my favorite Dodger of all time, Orel Hershiser.

TV
If you happen to know anyone that is looking for a job, perhaps Veridian Dynamics might be just the place.  Well regardless if it is, I highly recommend that you check out the two episodes of Better off Ted that will be on this week (Tuesday 08/11/09 at 9:00 P.M.).  Or maybe you are like me and you just accidentally want to somehow download all the TV shows you are interested in so you can watch them later on your own time and without advertising… Well ShowRSS might be able to help you out…

Tech
If you don’t know by now, both myself and Kelly have iPhones, and one way I keep up with the release of free applications I might want to check out is by visiting FreeAppAlert, actually I have them on my Twitter, but I check out their website via their feed there.  Talking about the iPhone I’m really stoked to see that the FCC is interested in getting to the bottom of the application approval process at Apple after their denial of the Google Voice app.  I was really looking forward to getting to use my Google Voice number, hopefully these questions that the FCC has made will get Apple and AT&T to stop with the antics.

Neat Stuff (probably tech oriented)
Did you know that my relative and US President John Quincy Adams is tweeting?!!?  It’s all being done by the Massachusetts Historical Society, as this article explains.  J.Q.A. kept a 1 line a day journal 200 years ago while he traveled to Russia to be the first US Ambassador to Russia.  According to my calculations he’s currently just off the coast of Canada make his trek to Russia.
View Larger Map

On to present day, I really thought this graph by the New York Times showing how people spend their day was interesting.  I love the data that have put together and the ability to filter through it and see some specific groups.  For those of my friends that enjoy beer, and especially Miller Lite, they are soon to release some new draft technology to be used in the home.  This one should probably be in the tech section, or maybe I should just make an iPhone section, but someone has come out with software that allows one to track what is in their pantry and allow it to link with their iPhone to help create shopping lists and keep your pantry items up to date.  With the integrating of the pantry list on your computer you can have an automated shopping list that updates to your iPhone pantry list!

Local
That’s right I have a local section, but not much to report.  OC Register posted a list on Certified Farmers Markets throughout Orange County, although it doesn’t include the one in Stanton on Mondays (unsure if it’s a certified but I could have swore it was), also check the comment section for most lists.  Lastly, Gustavo Arellano at O.C. Weekly wrote about an article he read in a Jewish satire magazine, in which porn star Joanna Angel praises the sausages from Mattern Sausage in Orange for, “Its curved shape was good for hitting my G-spot and, because it was a smooth surface, it was also great in my ass.”  If that’s not a praise for their sausage then I don’t know what is!  What Gus didn’t mention is that there is actually an article and pictures of Jenna von Oy from Blossom fame!!!

Videos

Ladies, is this what it has come to?  What extracurricular activity does the Shake Weight resemble?

Are all the people in Santa Cruz like this, or is their something wrong with the water?

Don’t forget the Aspray next time you have issues with your body odor.

And lastly I had to include this awesome time-lapse video of Disneyland construction, it’s amazing how quickly they were able to do stuff back then, compared to the time it takes today.

Have a great week!