Video Games = Psychotic Drugs!

His mother cancelled his World of Warcraft *account* or something:

This is why I do everything I can to prevent my kids from playing video games...

I Did It - ONE MILLION HITS!

This morning my blog received its 1,000,000th hit, finally!

I thought it would happen sooner (1.5 years ago), but whatever.

Nothing is more unpopular than *the truth* (credit: Will Durant), I never tried to game the Google search results like everyone else did, and the competition for web eye-balls has gotten fierce over the past few years.

This blog has done wonders for me. It's been more educational and more rewarding than all my years of schooling. And through it I've met some terrific people - most of whom I've never met in person but still consider dear friends.

I'd like to buy each and every one of my readers a drink.....but just not in Manhattan - home of the $17 vodka tonic and $20 martini!

So thanks!

I do hope that sometime in the future I can post again with my old prolific regularity....

Teaching Science To Dumb Kids

I used to love this show:

Awesome!

Thanks to CaptiousNut for this one.

Al Gore DID NOT Invent The Internet!

Nor did any Commi agency.

It turns out Big Government HELD BACK the development of the web!

Read Stossel.

Pirate Golf

One Captious commment on YouTube (not mine!):

I know I'm gonna catch a lot of shit for this. But good golfers know this guy has an advantage over two legged golfers. The only thing he ever had to learn was swing plane. His center stays put because he cannot sway without falling over, and the low point of his swing arch is super consistent cuz he's anchored. This guy is the human equivalent to a belly putter. off the course he is at a disadvantage. But in golf...he kinda has the ideal anatomy.

Time Flies!

I should make my kids do this!

Heck, I should do this myself too.

The World Is ENDING!

And I'm not talking about the imminent crash of the stock and bond markets....or any other such trivialities.

I just now joined both Twitter AND Pinterest!

I actually only wanted to join Pinterest....but I needed a Twitter account in order to create an anonymous profile. Otherwise it syncs with your real name on MyFaceSpaceBook.

What can I say?

I'm experimenting with traffic generation for HomeschoolDad.com...

Moronic Pseudo-Science

"16 out of the last 17 years....we've had record temperatures..."

????

Okay.

The *record* is only 100 years or so long...

AND Earth (my least favorite planet), is allegedly 4 billion years old.

So, yeah, let's all go and extrapolate from this STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT sample set!

One might euphemistically call this *intellectual arrogance* from a present-tense Moron...

But whatever you want to call it....it's not *science* by any stretch.

Who Is Da Biggest Moron?

It's a tough call!

Book Rec - The Talent Code

I just read The Talent Code (a mere 2 days)....and, well, it's not that bad.

If anything, it's got me hitting golf balls at the range M O R E S L O W L Y.

And it's also, from my perspective, yet another *homeschooling book in drag* - even if most of the people reading it (and the author!) don't realize it.

It's in the same mold as Outliers and Talent Is Overrated. So if you appreciated those...

Here are the links to those:

Book Rec - Talent Is Overrated

Outliers - A Must Read

Daniel Coyle also has a blog. Today's post has a neat little soccer video on it too (if you're into soccer anyway).

One For The 'Old Coots'

My own kids actually like this classic series. I bought a $5 DVD of the Rascals at Walmart and let them watch in the car a couple years ago on our long drives.

They laughed so much and so loudly....my wife and I kept yelling at them and threatening to turn it off!

I'm Shattered

Is that really MacGyver?

And, can he really not fix a horseless carriage???

In the old days he could handle thing with some duct tape and his Swiss army knife!

Career Reinvention Update

Long-time readers will recall that I used to trade the financial markets....and that I took a whooping shorting this insane bear market rally.

I've recovered from many an a$$-whooping in the trading account over the years (16+) but for variety of reasons it was time for a difficult career change.

Well I'm still in the process, HomeschoolDad.com is the main long-term business plan at the moment, but I've also been angling to break into the lucrative high-end tutoring market here in the NYC metro area.

Not in dire need of money, I've been holding out for precisely the kind of work I wanted.

And, finally, I'm starting to make some inroads.

Today I taught my first *competitive math* classes in a summer program here on Long Island.

Class is 4 straight hours and pays $320 cash....which while nothing like what I used to make selling a 100-lot of juicy puts back in the day, it still felt good. The thing is, I enjoy teaching math so much that I would almost do it for free. Almost.

The kids are young, 100% Asian, and well-behaved (so far).

In the future I hope to get my hourly rate north of $100 once my reputation as the *best math teacher on Earth* spreads...

And I'll also use this teaching position as an opportunity to build out my (math) info-products.

It's been a slow process, but things are finally looking up for me on many fronts.

Punching Dorks

Thanks to LeagueIslander for this gem!

Truth In Advertising?

I always wondered why say a restaurant didn't try to advertise itself as having *the most fattening cheeseburger* or something.


I guess if it did, it would ring like this:

Ineffective AND probably expensive to make on account of the *star power*. I'm sure someone in the marketing dept. of Hulu got fired over this one!

10,000 Hours - Golf Test Case Update

3,000 hours in....and he's down to a 6 handicap.

I myself am probably only a 7-handicap.

But I'm quite sure I'd easily psych him out/scare him in a head-to-head match!

What's going on here?

The dude has dropped everything and decided to test the the 10,000 Hours Hypothesis.

See also - Great, Another Golfing Wacko...

Weighing In

I'm tipping the scales at an all-time record of 173 lbs right now.

Only 6 months ago I was at my personal low of 161 and annoying family members were saying I looked *emaciated*.

I myself am shocked at this sudden reversal. My busy schedule has limited my short bursts (20 minutes of the elliptical) of aerobic exercise AND it has induced a lot of *eating out* for lunch and dinner (burritos and pizza)...

But still I am somewhat surprised and frustrated by the weight gain. I still do the kettlebells and 30 grams of early morning protein from The 4-Hour Body.

Added muscle? Maybe - but certainly not all of the bulge.

So right now I'm finishing up Day 2 of a serious diet (if I make it through bedtime!).

No pizza. No burritos. No ice cream. No candy. No soda. No bread. No pasta. And tons of fruits and vegetables.

My goal is to purge for 10 straight days.

I pretty much suck at avoiding sweets so these experiments never last long.

But this time I'm more motivated - not only by the *all-time* number, but also from reading about Tony Robbins and his ninja mental tricks. I'm really interested to see if I can pull this, a major behavioral change, off.

I'll weigh in again the morning of July 12th, shaved, naked, and post-defecation.

See also - Breaking My Vows.

Happy DEPENDENCE Day!

Big Government is a Hyrda-headed monster...

And I seriously doubt the capacity of today's Americans to slay it - not when our best entrepreneurs peddle socialism, not while the jurassic ruling class continues to feather its nests on the backs of future generations.

Robbing The Robbers!

So what's the difference between them stealing from you and vice versa?

Oh, yeah, they have the Big Government thugs on their side!

A plumber just left my house. He changed the *insides* of two toilets.

Guess how much?

With tax, $283.51.

And he wouldn't leave the house until I paid him, either. No more *billing* because people have been stiffing THEM, back.

I don't blame them even though the premium in my price no doubt is subsidizing those debtors.

$135 an hour for labor? That seems high to me - extraordinarily high actually.

And I love how they mark-up the *parts* which they certainly get for 50% of retail prices...

Self-Help, Health

Last year I discovered self-help guru Tony Robbins - a guy whom I like to describe as the *mind over matter* dude.

Many people no doubt scoff at Robbins, the *informercial* guy from the late 90s but I just read another of his books - Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement - and came across some fascinating heath/body stuff that I'd never read before.

Ever hear of *food combining"? I certainly hadn't.  It's a digestive theory that asserts certain foods (e.g. meat and potatoes) shouldn't be eaten at the same time because some necessitate a stomach acid for proper digestion....while some foods demand a stomach base (alkali?) for proper digestion.  For example, the American staple combo of meat and potatoes is to be avoided.

Why?  Because the acid and bases supposedly neutralize each other and make your body work harder to digest.....leading to bloating (ever felt that???) and other stomach issues (*out of your brains* farting!) In his book Robbins even said that eating a ton of incompatible sh*t food can even lead to a bad night's sleep if you eat late and your body is working overtime (several hours) to digest while you are sleeping.

I'm sure that those overweight doctors and the medical establishment have a study that debunks this....

BUT if anyone has stomach issues they'd be crazy not to experiment with separating their foods according to this *quack* theory.  I myself don't think I have but am willing to give it a whirl and see what happens.

There's also a snippet in the book about the lymph system, body cell waste products, and proper breathing.

Now I myself have been unable to stop shallow, mouth-breathing for quite a while now.  But Tony has a method that seems to be clicking with me.  Breathe in deeply, hold your breath for 4-times as long, and then breathe out slowly for twice as long as your inhaled.  When I do this....I can really feel the inhale get deep down into my stomach.

Okay we're still here on the beach (Ocean City, NJ)....and I just missed the sunrise writing this post. As my son would say, "WHAT AN EPIC FAIL!!!"

See also:

Moronic Respiration

Breathe-Right?