A Bloy and his Blog

Happy New Year! The start of a new year causes a lot of people to look ahead, and make their resolutions for the year. I’ve never been one to make new year’s resolutions. If there’s something I feel I should or should not be doing, I usually don’t wait until January 1st to make those changes or adjustments.

However, the small heart attack my father had recently (he’s doing very well now, thank you) has cause me to think a bit about exercise — specifically in the winter.

read the rest of: Get that heart pumping

From the website, Cohousing.org:

Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing that attempts to overcome the alienation of modern subdivisions in which no-one knows their neighbors, and there is no sense of community.

An interesting concept. In the Madison news yesterday there was a story about the beginning stages of a cohousing development, Aboretum Cohousing. In addition to all of the principles of cohousing, the people in charge of this development are also striving for affordability and to be very environmentally conscious.

Even more interesting to me is this cohousing community will be located about ten or twelve blocks from where I work.

Hmmm…

I’m a sucker for good flash animations and my mother always taught me to share. So, here’s one featuring a wise wombat that was passed along to me today.

Follow the wisdom from the wombat. It’s really a simple concept. Not hard at all, if everyone does it.

Or would you rather be doomed?

So my stereo receiver was suffering the effects of old age, I had some Christmas money in my pocket, and it was time for a new one. After browsing some online product reviews, I had a some specific models to look for. I went to a few electronics stores and found one of the recommended receivers, at a good price. I brought it home and begun the monumental task of unplugging all the components, speakers, antennas, from my old receiver and plugging them in the new one.

I got to the cassette deck. There are a lot of places to plug things in to the back of my new receiver, but where were the ones for the tape deck? There were none. The receiver had no input or output receptacles for a tape deck. That was something I needed to look for while I was shopping??

read the rest of: Death of the cassette

Over the past few days I’ve gotten several mass-mailed advertisements to my personal email address. That email address has, for the most part, been spam free for me. It isn’t posted on the web anywhere, so spam harvesting robots can’t grab it.

Well, it turns out there is a mass-mailing e-mail worm spreading around the net, which is distributing spam to every address it can find on the infected computer. If your computer has it, you are unknowingly sending spam to everyone in your address book.

Please folks, use anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. Make sure to keep them up-to-date. Keep your software up-to-date as well. Those of us in your email address book will be grateful.

I just got home from a basketball game where the Wisconsin Badger’s lost to North Dakota State. The Badgers had one of the flattest performances I’ve ever seen, with a shooting percentage of 22%. They only made 16 of 72 attempted shots.

The North Dakota State Bison, who are playing their first year as a division one team, made 50% of their field goal attempts, in a well-played upset of the nationally ranked Badgers. Wisconsin only made 16 of 72.

read the rest of: They only made 16 of 72

No doubt about it, there is a lot of junk on television and cable tv costs continue to rise at an exponential rate. Sometimes I wonder why I’m throwing away all that cash every month, just for basic cable.

However, there are a few shows that do make it worthwhile. Currently, I try very hard not to miss The West Wing, The Daily Show, Battlestar Galactica, My Name is Earl, and during these winter months, I can’t forget Big Ten Basketball.

A few weeks ago a new show debuted, and after last night’s episode, I think I have a new favorite.

read the rest of: Worthwhile television

The lead story in the New York Times today was, Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him, with regard to his speeches on global warming, and the ability for the United States to take a lead roll in doing something to reverse this trend. Earlier this week it was announced that 2005 was the warmest year on record. Other climate experts have predicted ice-free summers in the Arctic by mid-century.

But apparently, the current administration thinks having an uninformed public would better suit its policies. Or, should that be “would better suit their corporate interests?”

The U.S. has long taken on the role of world leadership. Where is the leadership when it comes to the environment? What an embarrassment.

Today while visiting the eye doctor for a checkup, I got one of the proverbial signs of aging. I need bifocals.

It wasn’t exactly a big surprise to me. Over the past six months or so, I’ve been looking underneath my glasses to read small print. When the eye doctor first entered the exam room, she asked me if I had any problems or concerns. I told her that I wasn’t having any problems, but that she was probably going to tell me that I should get bifocals. She then asked, “Are you okay with that?”

read the rest of: Signs of aging

After reading a couple of other bloggers who are contemplating changing the domain names of their websites, I got to thinking… If I ever changed the name of this site, what would I change it to?

A few interesting domain names popped into my head (which I just may register at some point). I also got to thinking about website names in general. The web design blogosphere has some great names, my current favorite being Photo Matt. There are many others.

I hit upon a new name for this site and decided to make the change. The domain name will stay the same — bloy.net is just too simple to stop using. However, in case I ever decide to change it, I did register bloyandhisblog.com (which now redirects you back to this site).

I hope you like the new moniker.