MERRY YULE LOG POST

I wish my fellow bloggers, friends and readers a Merry Yule! Do you know where the X-mas tradition is coming from?

Put another Yule log on the fire, have a Solstice D'hiver beer in order to celebrate the "rebirth" of the sun. If you want to understand why it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas, read Robert Tracy's post, Merry Christmas! Check out Hot For Words for an explanation of the words, Christmas, Xmas, and Santa Claus.



I have created a Xmas playlist on iLike.

• White Christmas by Bing Crosby
• Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer by Ella Fitzgerald
• Equinoxe Part 5 by Jean Michel Jarre
• Cool Yule by Louis Armstrong
• Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Frank Sinatra

Super-powered by iLike

Talking about music, I will listen to Radio Dismuke's New Year's Eve/Day Broadcast Schedule.

APTURE MULTIMEDIA TOOL

I have added Apture multimedia tool to my blog. [Via Phil Bradley's blog, I Want To.] I will play around with the different features and see if my blog could "turn flat pages of text into multimedia experiences."

I wonder if this technology is better than embedding audiovisual material in the posts. Maybe it could speed up the loading of the blog page?

What do you think of NewsWeek's strategy to become more provocative? According to Silicon Alley, Jon Meacham (Newsweek editor) has used The Economist as a benchmark. [Via Apture @ Twitter.] [Editor's comment: I am thinking of renewing my subscription to The Economist.]

BOSTON TEA PARTY 1773

How did you commemorate the 235th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party? [Editor's note: I had a cup of tea and sent a mental thank-you note to the Sons of Liberty.] Here is an excerpt from kempite's post, 235 years later and all that the tea party was about is forgotten:

Our freedom and individuality has been the key to our greatness but unlike the people of colonial America, today, Americans are giving up their freedom and relinquishing their individuality to a controlling authority that they want to give greater control to.

Instead of demanding "no taxation without representation" we are accepting of the practice. (NJ Voices Public Blog, December 16, 2008.)

Next time I am visiting Boston, I will go to the Old South Meeting House. I have been to the Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum before. I will also go to the statue of Samuel Adams and then have a beer with his namesake. [Editor's comment: Have you had Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner?]

Related: My post, SEATTLE ESPRESSO PARTY?

GRATUITY

If you want do a symbolic gesture and add one x-note to the tip jar, you will enter the top spot list listed in left column (top left corner). You get a hyperlink to your site as a thank-you note. The $10 bill has the nickname ten spot, so I figured that USD 10 could be a nice and round gratuity figure. This donation widget is powered by Jim Kukral's site ScratchBack.

John Cox says it in a good way on his site:

If you enjoy John's site, one way to encourage him is to make a donation via PayPal. It's money well spent and deeply appreciated.

GLUE AND SMARTLINKS BY ADAPTIVEBLUE

I have added Glue to my browser and SmartLinks to my blog. These features are powered by AdaptiveBlue.

VISIT TO THE BIG APPLE NYC IN 2009

I am planning to visit The Big Apple, New York City, in 2009. I have accepted a challenge and I will eat a hot & spicy curry dish called Phaal at Brick Lane Curry House restaurant (306-308, East 6th Street, New York, NY 10003). As a chile head, I am looking forward to maximize the heat level, but I don't think I will order a hot and spicy chai tea drink together with the food. I will drink lassi instead. I will prepare myself a bit by sprinkle hot sauces on my food as much and often as I can. Recently I poured some drops of Mad Dog's revenge habanero and chile extract at my carne casada bontaña no bean chili at Texas Longhorn restaurant in Gothenburg, Sweden. The sauce extract has a level of 1,000,000 scoville units. It got too hot for me, so the waitress took and switched the plate and gave me some fresh nacho chips with a new side dish.

Please give me suggestions on what I should see and do in NYC. I am not sure that I am capable of visiting the location of the former World Trade Center. Have you been at the Ground Zero Museum Workshop?



Un Memoriam

UPDATE: [Editor's note: P.S. Now you understand why I have added a Moleskine City Notebook New York to my wish list...]

NETWORKED BLOGS ON FACEBOOK

I haven't used Facebook for a long time. I wonder if it has to do with some sort of social media fatigue... I have now gone through several messages, notifications and requests. Please feel free to join my blog network ("NetworkedBlogs") on Facebook.

WISH LIST FOR 2009

I have updated my wish list at Amazon. I found several interesting items in the following posts:

• What to Buy a Blogger for Christmas by Randa Clay.
• Must-Have Tech Tools for 2009 by Anita Campbell.
• 10 Affordable Gifts For The Computer Tech On Your List by Matt R.

I am interested to hear your views and comments regarding netbooks, iPod Touch, Flip camcorder, different smartphones, e.g., Nokia E71, HTC Touch HD and Android.

SJC AURUM AT DESIGNED FOR ME

The Dollar Sign Collection by SJC Gold & Silver Handicrafts is featured at Designed For Me.

SUPER BEAUTIES BOOK

If you adore beautiful women, you will find a gold mine in Dwayne Bell's book, Super Beauties: Nude and Natural. It is packed with more than 400 stunning photos taken by over 20 different photographers.



To learn more about the superbeauties covered in this collection, check out the galleries at Body in Mind.

Here is a special offer from Body in Mind:

Win a FREE copy of Super Beauties - nude and natural. Join Body in Mind by clicking on this link and you could win a FREE copy of the new Body in Mind book: Super Beauties, nude and natural. Every month for the next 3 months (December, January and February) Body in Mind will draw a winner from its members who joined from an affiliate site. Super Beauties, nude and natural is a beautifully bound hard cover book with 364 pages of the most superbeautiful women they've found: Nikkala Stott, Peta Todd, Jewel, Britney, Klaudia, Nadya, Linda, and of course, Tracy. And many more. Sign-up for Body in Mind now to get your chance to win this month's prize.

SAINT LUCIA AND TIPS FOR XMAS GIFTS

Today is Saint Lucy's (Lucia) Day. I will give two tips for Xmas gifts in the next two blog posts. [Editor's note: Full disclosure: Both companies have supported my blogging by purchasing Blogads in the past.]

I recommend you to get hold of a hot and spiced wine drink called "glögg" (in Swedish) and then add the following stuff to your shopping list...

PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN HOENIG

I will conduct an interview with Jonathan Hoenig of Capitalistpig LLC at 8 PM Swedish time / 1 PM American time / 6 AM Saturday Australian time. You could send me an email with a question to my guest, write a comment on this post, or send a Twitter message.

Related: My post, EGO PODCASTING COMEBACK IN SEPTEMBER.

UPDATE: Due to "last minute" technical problems with the studio equipment, today's interview had to be rescheduled. Stay tuned for a new date!

DRAW OBAMA IN SIX SIMPLE STEPS

Follow John Cox's instruction on how to draw Barack Hussein Obama II.



Related: My post, DRAW BUSH IN SIX SIMPLE STEPS.

MY PLAYLIST

I have added my playlist to the music section. The widget is powered by iLike. [Via Blogger Buzz blog.] What are you listening to at the moment?

WHAT AM I DOING ON TWITTER?

I am still trying to figure how to use Twitter in an optimal way. Feel free to follow me on Twitter.

At this moment, I have a Twitter grade of 87 (#41,527 overall rank, out of 563,695).



Read Using Twitter... 'The Smart Way' by Mark Ramskill. [Editor's note to self: Check out SubHub's online publishing platform later on.]

Check out the video, Twitter in Plain English, by Lee LeFever.



You could follow an interesting comment thread to Anita Campbell's post, You Should be Looking for Small Businesses on Twitter. I have added Randa Clay's Twitter graphic to my section with the latest five "tweets" (Twitter Updates).

In the news: Twitter: Secret Business Model On Track For Q1 - Silicon Alley Insider.

I think that the following quote from Evan Williams's post, What Blogger Should Do, is right on target and I hope to see this feature mentioned at Blogger Buzz blog sometime in the future...

Become the Aggregator: One possible answer to the question to what role does the stand-alone blog live in the age of a million-and-one generalized and specialized participatory web experiences is as a personal aggregator that reflects back the other stuff one does on the web. Yes, I'll load all that stuff into FriendFeed, but that's not my "online presence" as we used to say back in the day. Everybody (or at least a lot of people) needs an URL -- and one without a ? in it. I want my tweets, and my photos, and my whatevers to show up on evhead.com (hosted by Blogger) in an attractive way. (Evhead.com, December 3, 2008.)

Related: My post, TWITTER.

BUSINESS IN AMERICA

I have tried to give several reasons for why America is a great place to run a business on Open Forum.

HAPPINESS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK

A new study by James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis, in the British Medical Journal, concludes that your happiness can be spread through degrees of separation within your social networks. I think that it could be easier to stay in a good mood and be a "happy camper" if you interact with individuals that are advocates of the benevolent universe premise. I think a general positive attitude outlook could spread to others, but it has to start with you, the individual. Therefore I can't agree with the following statement from the study:

Conclusions People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon. (BMJ 2008;337:a2338, December 4, 2008.)

[Editor's note: I have empasized the word, collective, in the quote.]

Related: My post, PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS.

LAUGHING OUT LOUD ECONZ CATS

Check out Trevor Felix's Laughing Out Loud Econz cats at Slate's The Big Money. [Via Open Forum by American Express.]


Clawing at the Dow

[Editor's comment: How about a carnival with LOLcats in 2009?]

LIST OF FAVORITE COFFEE PLACES

I want to create a list of your favorite coffee houses in the United States of America. I am interested in tea lounges too. Read Jacob Grier's post, The Rise (and fall?) of a Caffeine Empire.

Related: My post, STARBUCKS ATTENDING BARISTA SCHOOL.

OLD GOSSIP BY PAUL BOUTIN

Here is an excerpt from Paul Boutin's article, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004:

Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. You'll find Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies from the golden age there. They claim it's because Twitter operates even faster than the blogosphere. And Twitter posts can be searched instantly, without waiting for Google to index them. (Wired, October 20, 2008.)

Phil Baumann has responded with his post, Is Blogging Dead and For Losers?



I am still trying to get used to Twitter, writing "tweet" messages on a regular basis. I have added a gadget with my five latest updates. Scroll down the right column. I think that StockTwits could be an useful application. You could follow a stream of real-time stock conversations.

UPDATE 12/07/08:

Has Ev figured out a business plan for Twitter? [Via Chelle Parmele's Google reader.]

ON MY NIGHTSTAND

What's on your nightstand at the moment? I have added books to my bookshelf at Shelfari. I am planning to interview several authors on my radio show.

ART ATTACK WITH LEE SANDSTEAD

Check out Art Attack with Lee Sandstead! [Via Hence the Elizabethan.][Editor's note to Lee: See you in NYC next year?]

HELP ILLUSTRATED IDEAS WITH WORDPRESS

From Robert Tracy's post, Word Press Upgrade Easy?!:

I’m an image man, and a trader. Anyone out there who can do the upgrade for me without losing what I’ve got, I propose a trade. You do the upgrade for me. I make a graphic or any other image of your desire for you. As long as my image doesn’t require creating a traditional drawing or painting in the traditional manner. I rarely take commissions on my traditional work, and besides it takes too long.

I know I have few viewers of my blog. Of these I ask to spread the word on my offer. (Illustrated Ideas, December 6, 2008.)

I think he needs help with his RSS feed too. I have his feed on my Blog List, but I don't get his latest posts listed on my blog. It looks like this at the moment:

Illustrated Ideas
Introducing Brian Faulkner, Poet. - I’ve found a living poet who seems to possess an unlimited imagination. I find delight, inspiration and encouragement in his works. Find him at: Brian Faul...
9 months ago

EMIGRATING TO NEW SWEDEN OF USA

Maybe it is time to emigrate to New Sweden in America? I looks like I have a consanguinity to the Springer family. I have sent my application to the green card lottery this year too. Please wish me luck!