Alright, that’s enough. Last week California was on fire. This week there is an earthquake rocking the state. For my friends and colleagues in California - get the hell out! NOW!!!

I don’t know what you did to anger God or Mother Earth or L. Ron Hubbard or whoever you guys believe in, but that deity is pissed! It’s time, my friends. Pack up your crap (those of you who are lucky enough to have anything left after last week) and get your asses over to Montana. There isn’t a damn thing going on in Montana. Leave California alone with the fires and earthquakes and everything else and go away!

NOW!

Over in Detroit they are switching all of their downtown street lights to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). I think this is really cool! No, not because I’m some sort of environment whack job (believe me, I’m not), but what a cool concept.

You can get the same exact lighting from a source that uses much less than half of the power of the current source. Forget about the better-earth ramifications (though they are vast), think about the ability to use that excess energy towards other purposes! Think about the ability to offer extremely low-cost electricity services to the rural areas of the country - or to distressed markets that could use a month of free electricity to bolster a local economy.

No, I’m not looking to have the government start giving away these free handouts, but I am definitely looking for private electric companies to give away some electricity instead of making a big profit.

Good grief! Have you read about the staph infection scare that is sweeping across the nation’s elementary and middle schools? Oh my God! How crazy is this thing?

The big headline a few days ago was how staph infections kill more people each year than the AIDS virus. And folks, if that’s not scary then I don’t know what is. Of course, there are those who believe that the AIDS “epidemic” is confined to the African continent (and the stats are mostly true to support that since AIDS deaths are going down in America), but it looks like we have a brand new (old?) epidemic to start being concerned about.

What strikes me about the staph infection scare is that most staph infections can be warded off by proper hygiene. As the CNN article linked above states:

Dr. Julie Gerberding, the director of the CDC, says these infections are not new. “It’s important to appreciate that many of these infections are the same infections moms have been dealing with for decades. They’re very preventable,” she says.

“If you see a skin infection that looks like the redness is getting bigger or if it’s associated with a lot of swelling around the wound or if the individual has a fever, those are reasons to definitely seek doctor’s attention. But most of the time these are things that can be treated with the same kind of common sense approach that is we’ve been using for years.”

So for those of you with children and those of you who are regularly in these school settings - be careful! Use your wits (we’re all smart folks in this country) and be sure to keep an eye out for any warning signs. Other news reports have emphasized how keeping one’s hands clean is a great way to prevent staph infections, too.

The other day I was up in the Roxbury area so I stopped in at The Vitamin Shoppe that my younger brother works at to replenish my supply of “Ultimate Man” multivitamins. I like the Ultimate Man, No Iron blend because it is essentially the same mixture as GNC’s Mega Men multivitamins except it costs between $8 and $15 less per 180-count bottle (depending on the sale at the time)! I began taking these “high-powered” multi-vitamins a few years ago after my doctor said that he wanted to see me on something stronger than Centrum. Anyway, I digress…

The Vitamin Shoppe was running a promotion where you got a free, 30-count bottle of Cytolean for every 180-count bottle of Ultimate Man that you bought. Since I buy my vitamins two bottles at a time, I got two free bottles of this Cytolean stuff. The Cytolean bottle says that it is a, “Maximum Duration Adipose Reducing Agent,” which I think means that it tries to burn fat for you. Another one of the on-bottle advertisements is, “Profound sense of well-being & mental focus.” Well, folks, since I have these two free bottles, I decided to give this stuff a try to see what the effects would be on me.

I should preface this review by stating that I don’t really take anything to enhance or skew my train of thought. I take the multivitamin each morning and I take some Excedrin Migraine whenever I get a headache. On occasion I will take some Excedrin PM to help me sleep. I don’t really drink that much any more and I’ve never done any drugs, so any time I’m taking something that has the ability to alter my state of mind, it’s pretty noticeable.

This Cytolean stuff definitely altered my state of mind! When I was taking it, I found that I was more active and less sluggish. I also found that my appetite was diminished and I was able to focus more on whatever project I had in front of me. Every now and again I found myself yelling at the television while I was watching Rutgers and the Giants play over the weekend (which is very unlike me to do). It’s also worth commenting that I was not jittery or in a frantic state of mind when I used the Cytolean; these are common side effects of energy/stimulant pills. Though I did get a little light-headed from time to time, but nothing more than usual.

Many years ago when I was in high school, I took Stacker 2 just to see what the effect would be and if it would actually help me lose weight. I distinctly remember sweating a lot with the Stacker 2 and being in an excitable state of mind while the pills were pumping through me. I didn’t like that. I also remember crashing after taking Stacker. I didn’t get any of those effects from Cytolean. Well, yeah, I was sweating when I took it the other day, but that’s because it was nearly 90 degrees in New Jersey…in October!

So I would recommend Cytolean for anyone who is looking for a clear, clean boost to their mental and physical facilities. I had no hangover effect after the pills wore off nor did I crash and burn at the end of the day. I can’t comment on the “fat burning” ability of the product as I’ve only had it a couple of times. All in all, though, it was a pretty nice feeling and something that I’ll probably use again!

Over at TBLWrestling.com, there is a new Major Impact section that’s been added. This is essentially a column that talks about the “major impact” from each week’s TNA Impact! television program on Spike TV.

In case you were looking for some commentary on the first 2-Hour edition of TNA Impact! on Spike TV, feel free to head over to read the Major Impact Review. Or, for a similar yet different perspective, take a read of TBLWrestling.com’s Webmaster’s blog that has an anonymous open letter to the company. It’s an interesting read!

TBLWrestling.com is another Usable Web Solutions website that does a great deal of promotion for our web development company. Eddie T does a great job running the site and I thank him for his continued service!

For those of you that don’t know, one of the sites in the Usable Web Solutions network is XHeadlines.com. This is a fan-based professional wrestling website that focuses on news, rumors, and opinion columns as they relate to WWE, TNA, and the independent promotions. I had the honor of designing this website and it is the first professional wrestling website to employ the powerful WordPress site management system.

In any event, we recently integrated an internal site search feature that I’ve promised the webmaster I would promote. So be sure to head over and check out all of the great stuff that webmaster Jacob Spades and XHeadlines.com has to offer!

For those of you who are looking for stories about good people doing good things, look no further than Joel Parry of West Long Branch. Last week, a local paper called the Atlanticville published an article detailing the selfless work that Parry is doing at two local cemeteries.

I strongly encourage you all to click the link above and read the article. In short, Parry volunteers his time and much physical effort to restoring two local cemeteries that were overgrown and unkempt. The article talks about how no one really knows whose responsibility it was to maintain these final resting places, but Parry took on the job without thinking twice.

And what a job he has done. He’s pulled out debris, empty bottles of alcohol, even a mattress! What I find to be most inspiring about Parry’s efforts is that he intends to care for the neglected headstones. From the article:

“First, I want to finish getting everything cleaned, then I plan on remounting and resetting the headstones, and then I will wash all the headstones once everything else is in place,” he said.

Who does this on his own time and with no provocation or connection to the cemeteries? A good guy, that’s who.

This town, state, and nation need more good men committing random acts of selflessness like Joel Parry in West Long Branch.

Like you needed anyone to tell you that Osama bin Laden is a complete jerk, but I figured it was an apt headline. Did you hear what this slimy rat said in his latest video?

“The second solution is from your side. I invite you to embrace Islam.”

I invite you to take my foot up your ass you stupid punk. We don’t play that game in America - we don’t play the game where a crazy mad man tells us that we have to believe in a certain concept of God and in a certain prophet as the Messiah and that unless we believe in those certain thoughts, then we’re doomed.

You may be able to get away with that crap over there in your caves with your brainwashed masses, but we have freedom and equality over in the States. And I know that this is what you don’t like about America, but that’s too damn bad.

Stay in your hole and keep your mouth shut.

Like the majority of the world’s population, I agree that there is something to this Global Warming debate. I’m not sure if it’s as severe as the environmentalists would have us think. On the same token, I’m not sure if it’s as “who cares” as the non-believers would have us believe. I’m just not scientifically knowledgeable enough to figure these things out - sorry!

That being said, I always wondered something about Global Warming. Take the Greenland Ice Shelf, for example. The word going around the environmentalist camps is that if this ice sheet melts and falls into the ocean, then it would raise absolute hell on earth. The sea level would rise, the world’s temperatures would go haywire - we’d be shot.

But I always wondered what would happen to the cold parts of earth. In other words, if the part of the earth around Greenland warms up, then another part of the earth has got to get a little bit colder. Isn’t that how it works? I honestly don’t know, but I would assume that unless our planet is goofed out of its current orbit, then for every warm-up there would be an equal freeze up somewhere (even if it’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where it wouldn’t help anyone).

Any scientists out there?

As uber-liberal as this might sound, I’ve decided to do my small, SMALL part in helping preserve the environment for tomorrow’s generation. No, I’m not buying carbon credits and no, I’m not switching to wearing burlap or whatever those eco-crazy people do. I’ve decided to do a much smaller part for now and it’s something that you can do, too.

It seems that all of my creditors and debtors (bills and income) offer paper-free communications, so I’ve decided to switch to that method of receiving my statements. Sure, I’m not saving huge swatches of the rain forests nor am I preventing the global warming or whatever is going on out there, but at least I’m doing some small, small part to make things a little bit better.

They way I see it, if everyone flipped over to e-mail or non-paper communications with their debtors, then that has got to be tons and tons of paper that is saved each year. Sure, I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but it’s got to be something big. I’ve also gone a little bit further out on this limb with respect to the charities that I donate to. I’ve asked them to stop sending me paper solicitations in the mail and to only contact me via my e-mail address. Believe it or not, they’ve all been ready and willing to fix my contact method to e-mail only. It’s refreshing to have someone listen to you!

Also, the Market Street Mission in Morristown, New Jersey even complimented me on my eco-friendly approach towards solicitations. That was nice of them to do.

So there you go. That’s my little part to help save the world I guess. And please, bear in mind that if all of this global warming crap goes away in a few years, I’m totally taking 100% credit for it!