Small Business/Tech Links…

• Google Panda and Content Farms
• What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn’t
• Turn Your Facebook Timeline Into a Movie
• Pricing Strategy for Creatives

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Join Twitter Today! Recruiting Video Is So Bad It’s Good
• The Swarm: Short Horror Film Made Entirely on Phones
• Chart reveals surprising #1 reason why women end relationships
• Oh Shit!
• Alyssa Talking Backwards
• The Muppets Attack Fox News
• Project Unbreakable
• Official 2012 Honda CR-V Game Day Commercial – “Matthew’s Day Off” Extended Version

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Your Local SEO Checklist For 2012!
• Lenovo announces seven laptops for small businesses
• Keep it Real: 8 Services to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick
• New Models for Web Publishing
• Dear Rick Santorum: 6 Ways to Fix Your Google Problem
• Do’s And Don’ts For Twitter Brand Pages [STUDY]
• How to Get the Most Out of Google Analytics
• 7 Ways to Love Blog Comments Again

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Sometimes you just gotta say F it (27 photos)
• Dr Seuss meets the Joker
• Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls (SLYT)

It’s time to get in those last-minute donations! We have only a few days until our deadline, so please visit our team page before we no longer have one. Thank you to everyone who has already donated! And one last reminder… if we do not raise the remaining $1,100 – that money will come our of our pockets. Yes, my small business-owning and Abbe’s unemployed pockets. We need your help folks, the deadline is December 16th. PLEASE donate if you can.

Movie Review…

Beginners - slow, but very well-acted and very good.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Twitter gets a new look: faster, simpler, cleaner
• Facebook Timeline: 10 Fresh Designs for Creative Inspiration [PICS]
• Google Currents is No Flipboard Killer
• How to Design the Best Navigation Bar for Your Website

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Topton musician creates Key of See, helps in search for a cure for blindness - Very proud to call Jim a friend, please take a minute and read about one of Abbe’s awesome uncles!
• Dancing With An iPod In Public – Christmas Edition - thanks Mary!
• What If Everything Worked Like BCS: The Spelling Bee – thanks Tim
• Tradition
• Best 10 Memes of 2011 [VIDEO]
• Louis CK on Female Culture
• The A.V. Club’s Annual Band Name Retrospective
• And here are some of the very, very well-deserved Rick Perry “Strong” responses… Rick Perry “Weak”, Rick Perry “Weak, man”, Rick Perry is an Ass, Jesus Responds to Rick Perry

Needless to say, we need your help. I will repeat what I said when I posted the last video a couple weeks ago – if you can donate, even a small amount, please do – if not PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE share this video. The last video was only shared twice and both by current donors. Clicking that share button on this blog post costs you nothing and perhaps gives a chance to someone that wants to help a means to do so.

Check out a video taken during our 17 mile run around Kelly Drive in Philadelphia yesterday…

And I also decided, to take a photo at every mile to see how different we look between mile 1 and mile 17… and it appears we are exactly the same goof asses, just a little sweatier…

And here’s us running up the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum… forgive the huffing and puffing, this was at the very end of the 17 miles!

Movie Reviews…

Human Centipede – this film had a lot of parallels with The Notebook… except Ryan Gosling’s face wasn’t sewn to Rachel McAdams’ ass. But other than that, very similar.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• The Most Popular Social Networks and Who Is On Them
• HOW TO: Change Your Twitter Handle
• How a ‘Facebook Phone’ Could Help Facebook Break Into Mobile Apps [VIDEO]
• How Job Seekers Are Using Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC]

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Privacy
• 82 year old tryin pop rocks
• One-second film festival

And then while the kids stayed with their mom, Abbe and I headed to PJ’s for a nice dinner outside with $4 margaritas (woo!). We ended the evening cuddling on the hammock, perfect.

Movie Review…

Sunshine Cleaning – this movie was likable, but it just went nowhere. Alan Arkin is great as expected.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• About Fighting Spam
• 4 Critical Reasons Why You Should Review Your Privacy Policy Right Now
• How to Scale up Your SEO Productivity With SEnuke X
• 7 Twitter Marketing Campaigns to Learn From
• HOW TO: Use CoTweet as a Marketing Tool
• HOW TO: Launch Facebook Skype Video Chat
• Back to SEO Basics: Choosing Keyword Phrases
• Google to Businesses: Don’t Create Google+ Profiles Yet
• Crayola Releases Stylus App Combo For iPad

Funny/Interesting Links…

• designers.mx
• 8 Secrets about Disneyland
• Heavy metal quilts by Ben Venom
• Rotting, abandoned New Orleans theme-park

It turns out someone was looking for a replacement for some stock photography and found our proposal picture. A nice guy named Greg emailed me for permission and once he assured me he isn’t making a gabillion dollars off of our shot, it’s going to be part of his presentation.

Here’s a drawing Viv did of her cousin Ashley… I really like this style Viv has adapted. She makes these kind of heart shaped (almost Pink Floyd the wall looking) with the line and exaggerated lips. I don’t know that much about illustration, but it seems like a style to me.

You know how metal I am? Check out the shrub in my front yard throwin’ the horns… that’s how metal I am….

Movie Review…

Daydream Nation – Not bad, think edgy high school a lá Heathers, but not as good at the edge as say, Donnie Darko. It is equal parts good high school flick with not so good serial killer flick.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• GitHub for Mac now available
• 5 Proven Twitter Marketing Strategies
• 5 More Handy Web Apps to Save You Time at Work
• SEO Content Marketing and Cross-Pollination
• Agile Web Development That Works

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Mosh pit paintings by Dan Witz
• The Magnetic Dead – 3D Zombie Magnets
• Poems About Internet Dating

As much as I love the show Oddities, it can be tough to watch. I try hard not to tell anyone how to spend their money – whether they worked hard to earn it or not, I assume they did work hard. It is theirs to spend as they see fit. Sure it would be great if those that have would lend some measure of help to those without, and I don’t know if the collectors that come into the curiosity shop spend oodles of money on charities, BUT… it is truly hard to watch someone spend $300 on a piece of art made of human hair when I am sitting in the position I am in financially.

Great, you just bought a two headed pig cadaver for $3,000, do you think the pig could spare some change? How about instead of buying that taxidermied wolf penis, maybe you would give this hard working dad that is fighting every single day to provide for his family that money for some work, getting me entirely out of debt and you could just feel good. Isn’t that better than a wolf penis?

I do really enjoy the show mostly for the history, information on these very interesting sub-cultures, and the self-defined beauty that some of these collectors find in really odd stuff. But there’s that one part of me that just can’t help to think that this money could be put to better use.

Movie Review…

The Way Back – this was pretty good, I’m surprised this film did not do better at the box office. It is long and honest, a 4,000 mile walk to freedom is grueling and the audience shares in that experience to a certain extent.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Build Dynamic Pages with Knockout.js
• Dissection of a Twitter Account: 10 Ways I’ve Used Twitter This Month
• Colors in Web Design: An Exploration

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Rides A Bike.
• Go the F*** to Sleep! read by Samuel L. Jackson
• Guitar Baby

Abbe and I are going to help Bubs get his index cards together and help him practice his speech after school today. I’m really concerned with him doing well on this project. I keep drilling the idea of writing everything down, but he had no idea what outlining his presentation meant (this was supposed to have been covered in class), his notes were a complete mess, and his organization of everything was woeful. I know this is a prime example of the independent thought that needs to be encouraged, but when the written instructions were so brief – it really makes me nervous. I want my son to do well. He’s worked so darn hard this year – I want him to end it on a strong note going into 5th grade.

After a stressful afternoon of working with him on the project (and helping him re-study for his Language Arts test that is today), I got a slew of emails that through my already amped up worry into overdrive. I had to re-invoice a customer. I needed to re-work a MySQL user defined function into PHP code (because contrary to popular belief, although stored procedures and all those cool data object types exist in MySQL – they suck performance-wise). And then… it was like the clouds cleared a bit… Bubs and I went to hockey practice… ahh…. (that’s Bubs in the orange and white socks and the wooden Louisville given to him by his soon-to-be Uncle Ben)… oh but one last stressful thing, Bubs forgot his hockey gloves. They needed to be replaced anyway, but there went another $50… so he’s also wearing a pair of brand new Bauer gloves in the pic too…

So we have more work to do Bubs, but we’ll get there buddy. And hey, we have a make-up hockey practice tonight again too – just don’t think about forgetting any more equipment on the way to the rink, Daddy is broke!

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Top 10 Git Tutorials for Beginners
• OS X Lion launching in July for $29.99: all the details
• Apple’s iOS 5: all the details
• Apple Releases iOS 5 Video
• Apple iOS 5 hands-on preview
• Everything you need to know about Google’s +1 button
• Apple Blesses Twitter, Makes It the Social Network on iOS Devices
• iTunes To Finally Get Wireless Syncing With iOS 5
• HOW TO: Optimize Text Ads for Search
• Modern Debugging Tips and Tricks
• iOS 5 jailbroken

Funny/Interesting Links…

• My Friend Evan: Episode 1 – friend saves other friend’s drunken voicemails and animates them
• Storming Juno
• Artists build house where it rains inside

And here are the junior bridesmaids dresses Abbe recently completed…

Yesterday was a busy day, but a better one than the day before. Abbe and I got in a very hot run and I got a lot of coding completed. Wow, the weather is amazing this morning – must make sure to enjoy it today, you do the same if it’s nice wherever you are.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Creating HTML Emails : An Overview for Web Designers
• Should You Build That Website You’ve Been Talking About?
• 7 Ways to Build a Business Around WordPress
• Twitter Launches Photo & Video Search
• HOW TO: Add the +1 Button to Your WordPress Site
• LinkedIn To Launch Job Application Button
• Google PageRank: SEO Treasure or Fool’s Gold? What the Experts Say…
• Video Marketing Strategies: 5 Hot Strategies For Cool Results!
• Google SEO Checklist
• 11 Astonishingly Simple Steps To Avoid Business Failure
• 4 Ways Video Conferencing Can Benefit Small Businesses

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Kickass Commercial of the Day
• Who Had the Best Civil War Facial Hair?
• The 100 Greatest Movie Threats of All Time.

My friend Margo just posted this staggering statistic. In 2010 alone, CHOP saw a total of 843 new children at the Cancer Center. It breaks my heart to think that 843 children and familes in just one hospital are now trying to make their way up and over the same mountain that we were forced to climb. We need to fund research for childhood cancer. This is the only way we are going to find a cure. Margo Pellegrino is a champion of this cause. This July she will be paddling the entire length of the NJ coast on her stand up paddle board – nonstop! This is an incredible feat of endurance, courage,  determination, psychological and physical strength. Donations will go directly to support research for neuroblastoma at CHOP. Take a moment to check out the website for this event.

http://giving.chop.edu/site/TR/Events/General?px=1451987&pg=personal&fr_id=1100

Also, be sure to check out Margo’s site too…

http://miami2maine.com/

Yesterday Abbe picked up her engagement ring from Rob at Karat Kreations, and he did an amazing job with the ring that Abbe designed herself. I was going to go into this long diatribe about how Abbe and I hate the word fiancee, the rigoddamndiculous idea that people believe in spending two months salary on a ring, the silly notion of spending so much money on engagement parties, and hiring a calligrapher to address your envelopes… But hey, it works for some and making yourself happy is not as easy as we collective human beings think it is.

Abbe and I love this ring and there was a lot of thought that went into it. There is a piece of glass from her windshield that shattered into her hair during a nasty accident a little over a year ago (I think that may have been the one thing I really insisted on including – something about a reminder of how fleeting time may be). Since I borrowed someone else’s words above, I’ll keep the streak alive and let Abbe describe it…

The stones around it are my family and his family’s birthstones. On the right side of the ring (the top side in this photo), is a small turquoise-colored piece. That’s a piece of my windshield that I picked out of my hair after my car accident a year ago.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• The Best WordPress SEO Plugins For Small Businesses
• Search Engine Advertising – A Good Investment?
• Web Designers vs. Web Developers (Infographic Remix)
• New Google Analytics Has Rolled Out to All Users
• 5 Ways to Ensure Your Site Is Accessible to the Visually Impaired
• Twitter Client Generates Leads for Business Users

Funny/Interesting Links…

• The 30 Best Anti-Westboro Baptist Church Protest Signs – thanks Kristy!
• Well, it is a creative answer…
• Amazing Rube Goldberg Machine
• My Mets Journal