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Everyone was up in arms over Facebook’s change in ToS which stated they owned (forever) any content posted to their site. I don’t see the big deal. It’s their servers. Users do not pay one cent to use the Facebook service. They have to make money somehow and if you don’t want them to cash in on your pictures, comments, etc then don’t post it. It’s that simple.

Before I get started, WordPress hated me again and wouldn’t let me log in. I had to remove my plugins directory (again) to get in. Anyone else had this problem or know how to resolve it?

Today I did one of those Boot Camp deals. It was through Operation Boot Camp and I was able to do it for free for a day (lucky me) on a ‘Bring a friend to Hell class Day’. It was pretty much what I expected and I did about as well as expected, too. That said, I was the last person trailing behind. But, I did make a few people laugh so all in all, it was a win for me.

It was cold though. Damn cold. Steve Jobs told me it was 28 degrees when I left the apartment at 5:40a to do this nazi ritual.

I knew it was going to be cold so I headed out to Dick’s (fyi, dicks.com is not the website of Dick’s Sporting Goods, found that out the hard way … at work) last night to pick up some warmer gear. Exercise clothes if expensive but I reluctantly picked up a pair of pants, a long sleeved Under Armour shirt, and a pair of gloves. Each of which are about $30 a piece. I didn’t like the idea of dropping $100 for one morning’s workout but whatevs, I didn’t want to freeze my ass off either. So I take my goods to the counter and I notice as the chick is ringing everything up, she fails to scan the shirt.

Moral/Ethical Dilemma: Do I tell her? Do I take the free shirt?

I took the free shirt. I feel kind of bad about it now. I thought I was more ethical than that. Guess I’m not.

I’ve done a fantastic job of posting so far in 2009. It only took me 9 days to get my first post out there! I’m awesome. Stop being jealous.

As I mentioned previously, I’m running the ING Half Marathon on March 29th. Training began this week and so far so good. I’m also incorporating the 100 Pushups deal into my training program. Wish me luck.

Because I’m never content to just join something, (went from APWBWGTTD member to hosting the site, went to a Home Owner’s Meeting for my neighborhood and left as a member of the Board of Directors, joined a kickball league and three seasons later I’m President of the OTP divisions…) I decided to register the kickball league as a Large Group Affiliate in the race. As such, we get a little free advertising, a discount on the race admission, and our very own space at the finish line of the race for our runners to rehydrate and socialize. That being the case, we need runners for our group. I’m hoping for 50+. If you were planning on running the race or if I have inspired you to run, join our group and run with us.

Here’s the info you need.

Register at this site: http://www.inggeorgiamarathon.com

Join the group, WAKA Kickballers.

Use the following codes to get a discount on the race.

• WAKAMAR09 – $10 discount on ING Georgia Marathon entries through 3/18/09
• WAKAHALF9 – $5 discount on ING Georgia Half Marathon entries through 3/18/09

Pass this information along to anyone you know who wants to run the race. You don’t have to play kickball, just join our group so we can get our numbers up!

I’ll post more as training progresses… possibly.

Whenever I start feeling a little good about myself the giant hand of patheticism smacks me back down to Earth. I’ve told many people this but I’m not sure if I wrote about it here or not but a few years back I had a girl at a bar ask me to come home with her. She was hot and I was drunk and horny so of course I said yes. We went outside and I was to follow her to her place. I followed the wrong car… Pathetic.

I bring this up because last night I was smote (really, smited is not a word? thanks spell check) again. I was hanging out at bar with some people, one of which was a girl I had just met. She was hot enough for the amount of alcohol I had in me and her friend (who I did know) was all ‘thumbs up’ on the two of us getting together. Things were going well and then a friend of hers showed up. After a few minutes of her talking to him and ignoring me the two of them start making out at the bar. That, in it of itself, is no biggie. What I failed to mention is the dude was in a wheel chair. I got cocked block by a guy who potentially has no ability to function below the belt! I got my tab and went home… Pathetic.

Before you leave a comment saying that just because someone is in a wheel chair does not make them any less hook-up-worthy than someone with fully capable legs, I know. It’s just amuses me. Get over it and yourself.

Earlier this week I had to make the unfortunate trip to the post office to pick up a couple of the Christmas gifts which wouldn’t fit in my apartment’s mailboxes. I knew it would suck as a trip to the post office has never proven to be a positive adventure for me. Even signing up for Selective Service when I was 18 resulted in an attempted anal cavity search. I’m not lying… but that’s another story for another day.

As could be expected, the post office closest to my apartment is not the post office which had my packages. Fortunately the other one was only a couple miles in the other direction. I arrived and there was a line of at least a dozen people. As for postal workers, there were two. One of which voiced very loudly upon my arrival her shift was over and she was leaving for the day. So now we’re down to one person to handle the line of people which is growing by the minute. I’ve worked retail before and this would never happen. You never pulled someone off the floor when the line was backed up. On top of that, I immediately thought of an experience I had at The UPS Store a few weeks ago. I went in to get some copies made and there were at least four people working and helping customers. They were pleasant and helpful. I was in and out in no time.

So why did the post office only have one person? Simple, to cut costs. Why did that second worker not stick around to thin out the line before leaving? Simple, no reason to. How does this happen? Simple, government run organization. There’s no incentive to exceed or help customers. Your job is secure and there for you no matter how well you perform. This is an example of what our future holds as we give more and more of our services up to government control. Hope you’re ready for doctors and nurses who care as much about helping you as postal workers do. It’s not as far of a stretch as proponents of universal healthcare would have you believe.

Last year on December 5th I came across repealday.org, a site dedicated to the memory of the day Prohibition was repealed in the US. At the time I thought to myself what a great reason to go out and drink. Turns out finding excuses to drink is a sign of alcoholism. So what? What’s your point? Anyways, I marked the day on my calendar and was set to celebrate the day in 2009.

Then, like most things on my calendar, I forgot about it.

A couple weeks ago a buddy of mine suggested we take a day off work and go get drunk. Hey Brody, have you heard finding reasons to drink is a sign of alcoholism? Just saying… So I pulled out the iPhone and started looking for ideal dates and noticed I had something blocking out the entire day of December 5th… what could this be? Why, it’s Repeal Day!

That was all the urging I needed. I set up an event on Facebook and was off. So far we’ve got 15 confirmed and many more mabyes for the day. I’m pretty excited. Some of us have even found clothing from the 20s/30s to wear. If you would like to join us, we’ll be starting at Vickery’s off Crescent and doing a pub crawl through Midtown. Should be a blast. I’ll post updates afterwards… if I survive.

view Flickr Page

I haven’t posted much about playing kickball this year but it has definitely been part of what’s been taking up so much of my time. Here are a few of the happenings since starting early this Spring.

• The Natural Born Kickers were born in the GA Lightning Division of WAKA on Sundays at Hammond Park in Sandy Springs. We started off strong but ended the season 3-5. We quickly become known as the party team in the division and became close friends with most of the members of the play-off champion team, We’ve Got the Runs. A trip to Vegas was planned over Labor Day Weekend for The Founders Cup which is WAKA’s answer to national kickball play-offs. It turned out our friends in WGTR would receive a bid to play in Vegas which made the trip even that more exciting.
• NBK returned to Hammond Park on Sundays for the GA Lightning Summer Season. This season didn’t end much better kickball-wise but we had an absolute blast and made even more new friends as well as retained our title as Social Champions. WGTR would become the regular season champ but ultimately loseWeight Exercise to a new team, It’s Business Time, in the championship game.
• The trip to Vegas was a success in every way possible … except for kickball. The teams in Vegas play with an intensity we had never seen. The first game would end on account of a mercy rule (13-0 at the end of the 3rd inning). The second game would be much closer but, playing one man down, The Runs were not able to recover from a late inning rally. The third game was also close but resulted in two more players leaving with injury and a loss. One item to note however is this team would end up winning the whole sha-bang so not a bad showing all in all. For many of us this was our first trip to Vegas and was simply amazing. It would be several posts to recount all that went down.
• At some point in here I took over web responsibility for our two divisions GA Thunder and GA Lighting. There isn’t much to the pages now but I’m working on revamping them for the Spring Seasons.
• The NFL would be the end of the Sunday games for the year so a couple members of NBK (including myself) joined We’ve Got the Runs for Thursday games in the GA Thunder Division. This was a much more solid division and many said we would not be able to handle it. That would be the furthest thing from the truth. With a disappointing and embarrassing 16-3 route by the #2 team in the division, Balls of glory, the only loss we encountered, we ended the regular season 6-1-1 including a tie with the six-time defending division champions Out Sick on Friday. The play-offs would be our feeding ground as we won four straight games to be crowned 2008 GA Thunder Fall Season Champions. With the help from NBK, We’ve Got the Runs is the only team to win both the GA Lightning and GA Thunder divisions. The pic above is from our championship night. This earns us a bid in Vegas next year … oh the debauchery!
• Also during this time I was elected (more like appointed) to the Board of Directors for our two divisions. I was Vice President for the Fall Season and am currently President-Elect for the Spring Season. How did this happen exactly?
• Unfortunately WAKA will not be hosting a Winter Season but that’s not stopping us. Many of us from Natural Born Kickers, We’ve Got the Runs, and It’s Business Time have teamed up with a few others to play as WAKA WAKA WAKA in GoKickball’s inaugural Winter Season at Piedmont Park. The season starts December 6th and we couldn’t be more excited about showing this second rate league how real kickballers play!

I’ll post more as events arise… who knew playing kickball could be so much fun and take up so much of our time?

The CL blog is reporting the talks of legalized gambling to Georgia are on the table once again. This could be great news for our fair state (and city). The tourist income would be sure to see all time highs. Not to mention the fact Atlanta is already a conference super center. Just think how much more that would grow with the addition of casinos in the heart of the city? The money this would bring in to local businesses would be enormous.

But I honestly don’t know how I feel about this though. On one hand, I love me some blackjack. On the other hand… I’m not known for my big winnings. Plus, one of the best parts of traveling is getting to do the things you can’t do at home. A bunch of friends and I went to Vegas for the first time earlier this year and had an absolute blast. We had so much fun in fact we’re making it an annual event. Obviously the ability to gamble was a huge part of what made this trip fun. How will that change if we can gamble ever day here in Georgia? Would we be so willing to go back each year?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for limiting the reach of government. Not allowing gambling to take place in the state is absurd. Let people do what people want to do. As for me though, I would much rather see our local politicians work on abolishing a ban on something even more ridiculous than gambling. Get rid of these outdated blue laws and allow alcohol sales on Sundays and throughout the night. I wonder if the casinos would be forced to be closed on Sundays, too? It would make sense… Chic-fil-a could be the first sponsor.

A coworker of mine asked me to run the ING Half Marathon with her. Obviously she’s blind if she thinks I look like someone who’s in well enough shape to run 13.1 miles. What’s also obvious is I’m an idiot because I agreed to do it. I’ve been trying to loseWeight Exercise Lose Weight Exercise for what seems like forever but without a clear goal being set, I tend to stop exercising after a few weeks. I’m hoping this goal will help me keep on track and cause me to loseWeight Exercise some Lose Weight Exercise as I prepare for the race.

As for training, the coworker showed me this 12 week training plan which is supposed to help prepare you for such a race. Although the race isn’t until the end of March (which is much more than 12 weeks away) I went ahead and started the training program. I plan on re-starting the program at the appropriate time in January but figured getting a jump on it now would help me get into better shape and make the real training easier.

I’ve recruited a few friends to run the race as well and I’m hoping this will encourage me to stick to it. If so, this should be one of many training/race posts to come.

Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

I’m not a fan. I kind of somewhat supported the first bail out only because the intent was to give lenders money to lend to consumers. I’m starting to rethink my stance on that one though, especially now that this auto bail out is on the horizon. Instead of giving money to corporations which have proved they cannot generate their own revenue, why not give those billions back to the tax payers who paid them? Put the money back in the hands of consumers and if they choose to buy an American car, they will. Let the auto makers file for bankruptcy and restructure their organization. Let them get rid of the unions which have a huge hand to play in the the industry’s failure.

I know there are jobs at stake. Millions of jobs. But it’s not the government’s responsibility to ensure each person has a job and keeps that job. That’s your responsibility as a human being. If the government would take that bail out money and refund the taxes we’ve all paid in, then the unemployed auto workers could have some cash on hand to last them until they can find another job. We already have welfare other social programs in place to help as well.

I also find it amusing the GOP is changing its stance on the bail outs. Sounded good when you were trying to get McCain elected, huh? Doesn’t coincide with your core principles now, does it? Pathetic.