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mashby

The personal blog of Michael Ashby

Month / July 2006

July 28, 2006

Going Cold Turkey From “The Juice”

Beverage canI’ve been hooked on “the juice” since I was a young boy. It’s what all the cool kids were doing, so it just seemed natural to follow suit. It started as an occasional thing, but by the end of high school, I was drinking regularly and within the first few years of college, it was starting to catch up to me. No longer was I able to slug back a six pack without seeing it’s effects on my system. College life had me hitting the books and spending untold hours in the practice room (I majored in Trumpet Performance), so I wasn’t as active as I once was and all that drinking starting packing on weight. That’s when I made the switch to Diet Coke. Yes, I’ve been talking about Diet Coke! What did you think I was talking about? 😉

I gave up Diet Coke a week ago Thursday and I went cold turkey. Why the sudden change? Well, Patty, a co-worker of Holly’s, said that aspartame can mess with your brain chemistry. When mixed with MSG, which is found in more food than you’d imagine, can really do some freaky stuff to your head. I knew that Diet Coke wasn’t a health drink, due to the aspartame sweeter, but hearing that it could monkey with my brain chemistry was the final push I needed to give it up.

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July 19, 2006

Kenny West Tonight On Computer Outlook

Tonight I’ll be co-hosting the _Computer Outlook Radio Show_ for their monthly “Palm Lifestyles” show. Our guest will be none other than Palm OS Legend Kenny West. The show airs live at 7pm CST/CDT on AM radio stations around the US. If you’re like me and don’t live in an area where the show is broadcast, you can listen live via the Internet.

July 15, 2006

“I Find The Pastrami To Be The Most Sensual Of All The Salted Cured Meats”

George CostanzaIt’s been quite a while since we’ve had cable television in the Ashby household. Most of my TV has come from either rabbit ears, or BitTorrent, so when we sit down to watch the boob tube it’s a bit of a challenge. Either the picture is fuzzy and peppered with artifacts, or I have to boot the laptop and find the show I want to watch. If it’s not downloaded already, then I get to watch it the next day. :s

Feeling as if Holly had suffered too long from being about to watch CMT and GAC, I finally broke down and ordered it for her. Comcast came out this week to install digital cable and I’m happy to report that it went without a hitch. Wanting to “test the system,” I bounced around a few channels and explored the online guide. Since it’s digital cable, there’s a programming guide that shows you what’s coming up. Scanning the channels, I came across my much beloved, and sorely missed station — channel 72, OLN.

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July 14, 2006

Nashville Is Talking Meetup

Nashville from Wolfy's Den courtesy of Kerry Woo and his handy cameraLast week, on Thursday night, I went with Kerry Woo to an event WKRN News 2 was throwing for Nashville Is Talking. I wrote a little bit about it before hand, but I didn’t write much because I didn’t really didn’t know what to expect.

Kerry picked me up at the house and we drove to Wolfy’s Den together, arriving at the perfect time, 15 minutes after the start of the party. As we arrived on the 3rd floor, I scanned the room and confirmed my expectations — I didn’t know a single person there. Of course that didn’t stop me. 😛 I made my way to the bar, ordered up a Yazoo Hefeweizen and started making the rounds.

As I introduced myself, I found that there was a pretty diverse group there. It wasn’t just “geeks”, but professional writers, WKRN video journalists, mobile content distributors, and bloggers of every type. Kerry was a huge help, because if I found myself in a lull, I could make my way to where Kerry was standing and he’d make an introduction to get me jump started again.

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July 3, 2006

DeepQuote Is Deeply Cool

DeepQuote LogoEvery now and then I come across a little utility application or web site that blows me away and makes me wonder how I lived without this new handy tool. The latest of these little gems is the web site DeepQuote and oh me oh my, does it rock.

Often times when I send links to people via e-mail, or when I include them in an article such as this, all I can do is take the person to the page. Beyond that, it’s up to the individual to find the information that is included in the page. Links to a product page are pretty simple and easy, but sometimes the information that you what your recipient to read may be buried in copy and hard to find. I found it frustrating to send those types of links to people, but it never dawned on me that there could be a better way — enter DeepQuote.

DeepQuote allows you to build a unique URL or link that includes not only the link to the page that you want, but also highlighted text on the specific information you wanted to convey with the link. Here’s how it works.

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July 1, 2006

Can I Choose Purple?

ABC News Special - State Of The Union: A Country DividedLast night, Holly and I were watching TV and there wasn’t much on, so when we came across the 20/20 Special “State Of The Union: A Country Divided“, we watched the introduction to the show. As George Stephanopoulos gave an overview of what was to come and showed clips of what we would be seeing, I was startled to see one of my clients being interviewed! Nothing else had our attention, so we stayed tuned to watch more.

The basic premise of the show was that the United States is more divided than ever, polarized if you will, between liberal (blue state) and conservative (red state). So George showed the small town of Montclair, New Jersey to illustrate a blue state community and then Franklin, Tennessee as a red state community. That’s where my client came in. H. Leonard Issacs is a reverend for a church in Franklin, among other faith based endeavors, and he leads a mens prayer group in Darryl Waltrip’s home.

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