Pedro B

I’ve been looking forward to UFC 92 for a few months now, mainly because of the Rampage Jackson vs. Wanderlei Silva fight.  This is going to be an awesome fight I think and should get Fight of the Night honors.  Rampage and Wanderlei are both warriors.  They’ve fought twice before with Wanderlei coming out on top both times via brutal knockout.  Check the video above if you can stomach the brutality.

There are also two championship matchups on the card.  Forrest Griffin will defend his UFC Light Heavyweight championship title against Rashad Evans.  Rashad Evans recently knocked out Chuck Liddell to earn the title shot.

The other championship fight is Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira against Frank Mir for the UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship title.  Mir and Big Nog were the two coaches for the most recent Ultimate Fighter reality show.

Check out my predictions for UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008.

Dollar Bill

Does money change people?  I hear that saying all the time, usually after somebody that was broke comes across a bit of money.  I have to say I myself don’t believe that.  I don’t believe that money changes people.  I think it changes how some people act towards other people but I think that it’s still the same person.  Some people act really nice and friendly when they are broke.  Then they get some cash and what the hell do they need you for right?

Recently an apartment building burned down here in Minnesota.  It burned down just a few days before Christmas which is an added bummer.  This really touched a lot of Minnesotans and one of them who had the means to, donated a large sum of money directly to the tenants of this building that burned down.  The person who donated this money did so anonymously.  What this means is nobody knows who did it.  He didn’t want credit for it, he can’t even catch a break on his income taxes for it.  He gave something for nothing more than the extreme satisfaction of helping out people with less than what he has.  This is what I like to refer to as “Super Karma.”  Guy basically has a get-out-of-anything-you-want-to-do card.  He could jump off an eight story building right now if he wanted to and Karma would be on his side.  He could leave his Hummer running all night long.  He could eat a puppy if he was so inclined.

As far as the money this guy donated, it went to the individuals who’s names were on the lease of each apartment.  So I happen to know a few of the people that were renting there, but who’s names weren’t on the lease, they just rented a room.

I guess you can see where this is going.  Basically some people got a big fat check (between ten and twenty thousand each) and some others, who lost all of their wordly possessions a few nights before Christmas, got ye old shaft.

Elephants

Yeah, I put the elephant picture in.

Now I bet if someone would have presented these people with a scenario a few days before this incident and asked them what they would do with fifteen large if they’re apartment burned down, they’d each say they would split it with the people living with them, no sweat.  But you actually hand these guys a check and it’s like they don’t even know how to act.  I don’t think a person changes a bit when they do that.  They were just lying before.

And this is where Karma comes in.  What goes around comes around right?  I’m a big believer in the whole Karma thing even though I have zero idea what religion it comes from.  It’s just the idea of giving more than you take.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Avoid evil.

A person who acts like this when he gets his hands on some cash usually has no idea how to handle said cash.  So he gets his fifteen large and goes out and rather than invest in a business, buy stocks, buy gold, or some other worthwhile venture, he blows it on some big liability.  Like a car.  So he drives this car around for a couple of years, he’s back to being broke and has nothing to show for the money he came up on other than a two year old car that’s worth less than half what he paid for it.  Oh yeah, and everyone he knew hates him for shafting his friends.  WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!

I can’t say enough how important it is for us to give more than we take.  In everything we do.  Be different.  Do right.

Merry Christmas!

It’s Christmas morning.  Time for some good food and some easy times with the family.  Enjoy yours!

Rosies Bday

Sisters b-day today.  I didn’t buy her anything but I did sing her “Happy Birthday” into my Blackberry Storm with the speaker phone on in front of my assistants at work.  I was sufficiently embarrased and I’m sure that was gift enough for her.

Rosie turns 28 years old today which doesn’t make me feel very hot at this point.  She’s married with three kids and I have a blog.  Yeehaw.

Happy Birthday again Ros, Love you!

Drive Home in Snow

Leaving the home is not recommended unless absolutely necessary right now.  My drive home last night took about twice as long as usual.  I wish I had more patience driving.  It’s about the only time when I find myself getting on the irate side.  Add that to driving a two-wheel drive S-10 in the snow and you have yourself a very irritable Pedro.

I took this picture while I was driving with my Blackberry Storm.  Yeah, yeah yeah, don’t drive and take pictures, got it.  I like the Storm’s camera, it just takes a long time to get a picture off.  You hold the button and by the time it snaps a picture everything changes.  I have the Flickr app for the Storm so I can upload pictures I just took right to my Flickr account.

Anyway, I was getting at different things I can do with dismal weather.  I avoid going outside at all costs for starters, which leaves things that I can do indoors, more specifically, at home.  It is Sunday today and it’s football season, so for me it’s pretty easy.  Steelers are playing the Titans right now and I can watch that while I type a few quick wordpress posts.  Eating is a big deal for me to so I eat as much as I can.  There is a bag of leftover tamales in the fridge that I’m chipping away at.

The cool part is everyone is home right now.  It’s the only day of the week that I get to see both my parents, my brothers, sister in law and the nephew (he’s the coolest of the group.)

And suddenly the snow doesn’t seem so bad.

Wordpress Content Management System

WordPress is a complete content management system (CMS) that is used by millions worldwide mostly as a blogging platform.  It is open source software released under the GPL (General Public License.) WordPress is free and the latest version can be downloaded for free at any time.  WordPress was created in 2003 as a fork of B2/Cafelog, also sometimes known as just Cafelog.

WordPress Features

WordPress feaures a very clean, easy to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, the ability to tag posts, nested category structures, the ability to create clean, search engine friendly permalinks and one of the most extensive group of users and developers for any open source CMS.  These users have helped create a huge library of downloadable, easily installed plugins and themes that can help personalize a WordPress installation.

Along with its massive base of users, WordPress developers keep up a constant stream of updates that take care of vulnerabilities and exploits that are found in WordPress installations.

WordPress is used by anyone who wants to write about anything.  Some use it to build a website as WordPress is not just a blogging platform but a complete content management system.  It is also heavily and successfully used by affiliate marketers.  Affiliate marketing using WordPress is a great way to attract and keep visitors and stay on the good side of popular search engines.

Content is, and always will be, King on the world wide web.  WordPress makes creating content easy and enjoyable.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft has been extra busy the last few days with a patch for a vulnerability that affected almost any version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer out there.  The next security update by Microsoft was not to be released until the middle of January, so you know this was top priority.

It’s estimated that the number of computers that were affected by the security flaw could be in the millions.

To get the update, simply go to Start, then All Programs, then Microsoft Updates in your menu and click “Check for Updates” in the browser that opens.  Many computers are set to run these updates automatically, so yours may have already done so.

After you install the patch, check your malware/spyware/antivirus program to make sure there isn’t anything left over on your computer.  If you want to read on what it is Microsoft patched up, you can check out this Microsoft Knowledge Base Entry.

3 year old Named Adolf Hitler

A couple in New Jersey have been denied a cake for their three year old son, Adolf Hitler Campbell.  Heath Campbell has three children, all with unique names, and has been denied three years in a row by the New Jersey supermarket Greenwich Shoprite because they refuse to write Adolf Hitler on the kids cake.

So let me get to the obvious question hear.  Who names their kid Adolf Hitler?  The father claims to not be a racist, he just avoids anyone from a different race.  He also claims that his son can have friends of any race he chooses.  Apparently he doesn’t care that by giving his son this name he’s pretty much damned the kid to be a side show his whole life.  He’s only three years old and anyone following the news knows his name, where he lives and the freakin’ grocery store he gets his birthday cake from!  Hopefully the child doesn’t grow up with two many problems from his name and has a chance to change his name legally if that’s what he wants to do.

You can catch the whole story here.

Disney has come up with an awesome marketing strategy with this.  I’m gonna do this for a few family members that have birthdays coming up.  It’s simple and it will put a smile on someone’s face.  One of the characters even says my name at the end!

Weston

This is the nephew looking all bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Don’t let the big eyes fool you.  He can be super agitated when he feels like it.  In this picture, I think I was watching a UFC event and he had just woken up.