Feels like a blog day

Blog issue #1:

I finally made myself a “Good Morning” playlist on my iPod. This was after a gruelling session on the weekend improving and tweaking the iPod’s library so that I can put the thing on shuffle and not have to worry about crap songs coming up.

The reason I finally made the list (which I call “Good Morning Starshine”) is that post-daylight savings we have decided to continue to get up at the “same time”. This means getting up at 5am (which last week was 6am) and also means an extra 20mins before the bus shows up. In that 20mins I made a very kick-ass list.

Yes, 5am DOES suck.

Blog issue #2:

Today I, and a few others, was sent this email:

Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

Now, I don’t normally do this sort of thing but I felt that I had to in order for me to reply to the e-mail’s sender:

I don't want to be a downer, but this is an American site.

Shouldn't I donate my time to the New Zealand version first? Is there a NZ version? Do I have to buy a tshirt?

I was dubious of the site from the start. Especially considering all of the paraphernalia that was being sold including “Breast Cancer tennis-style diamond anklets” (I had to ask what tennis-style was).

There are bigger issues that surround this. One is the idea of disconnected social interaction (i.e. by clicking a [dubious] button on a website I have contributed to the wellbeing of society and can rest on my laurels).

I had a look around all of the associated sites. A quick check in the FAQ section of The Hunger Site revealed that one year after the site won various awards (including a Webby) it was sold to two guys. The FAQ page also says that the Hunger Site is NOT not-for-profit (i.e. they make money off it).

Don’t click everything you see on the internet. [I clicked it and I hope that it helps someone, I really do]

I also noted (because I am a guy) that there don’t seem to be any sites of a similar nature for prostate cancer (which is essentially the “male version” of breast cancer).

Blog issue #3:

The reason that there have been no long rants here about the Super 14 is that I now do that through the medium of “podcasts”. The Dropkicks are the world’s first ever southern hemisphere rugby podcast and, to be very very modest, we are BLOODY funny.

But it is nice to know that the Super 14 is as boring as I expected it would be.

I have decided that I will write a special extra large rant regarding the current salary cap woes of various sports and how it could all sort itself out if the only listened to me. We make sure you come back for that one!