Looking for a way to wow your angel on Valentine’s Day? Take your angel to the “City of Angels”- Los Angeles. Create a memory that will last a lifetime for that special someone in your life. The beautiful and vibrant city of Los Angeles is the perfect place to celebrate a romantic day, evening, or an intimate getaway for lovers. Whether this is your first Valentine’s Day together or one of many, Los Angeles offers everything you will need to make it a truly memorable celebration. It is a city that seems custom-made for love and romance. Start planning your ideal celebration in Los Angeles with these tips to make it special.

Valentines Day doesn’t have to be all about flowers, chocolates, and a syrupy Hallmark Card. Create a unique celebration around famous landmarks like the Hollywood Bowl, Rodeo Drive, Olvera Street, Chinatown, or the bustling and beautiful beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. All are within walking distance or a short cab ride of posh hotels, world class restaurants, and a varied and vibrant nightlife. Los Angeles offers so many great ways to make Valentines Day as extraordinary as your love for that special person in your life. Bring along the flowers, chocolates and card, if you must, but use these hints and tips to show your lover just how truly thoughtful you are.

Read the full text “Create Valentines Day Memories in Los Angeles”

Looking for a way to wow your lover on Valentines Day? Take that special person in your life to the star of the Lone Star State – Dallas. Create a memory that will last a lifetime for both of you. The beautiful and vibrant city of Dallas is the perfect place to celebrate a romantic day, evening, or an intimate getaway for lovers. Whether this is your first Valentines Day together or one of many, Dallas offers everything you will need to make it a truly memorable celebration. It is a city that seems custom-made for love and romance. Start planning your ideal Valentines Day in Dallas with these tips to make it special.

Valentines Day doesn’t have to be all about flowers, chocolates, and a syrupy Hallmark Card. Create a unique celebration around famous landmarks like the Fair Park, the Arts District, Ellum District (home of jazz and blues), or the bustling and beautiful Uptown District. All are within walking distance or a short cab ride of posh hotels, world class restaurants, and a varied and vibrant nightlife. Dallas offers so many great ways to make Valentine’s Day as extraordinary as your love for that special person in your life. Bring along the flowers, chocolates and card, if you must, but use these hints and tips to show your lover just how truly thoughtful you are.

Read the full text “Create Valentines Day Memories in Dallas”

MySpace has grown up

MySpace the Big Daddy of social networking sites, isn’t the kiddie’s playground anymore. It’s become mainstream with adults age 35+ having taken over the sandbox over two years ago that the under 20 crowd originally built.

Originally created to compete with Friendster in the social networking arena, the marketing focus of Myspace almost from day one has primarily been aimed at 20-somethings and under. The idea was to provide a platform for young people to engage in their own unique brand of self-expression and connect with others who shared their taste in music, gaming, pop idols, fashion, and overall attitude about life in general. The other half of the equation, of course, was to generate revenue for Myspace through advertising specifically targeted to this youthful audience.

It was an idea that found favor with the younger set rapidly and between 2003 and 2006 the numbers of the 20 and under networkers grew exponentially, giving them dominion over the Myspace site. By 2006, however, the site seemed to come of age, unexpectedly it seems, as evidenced by a marked shift in the average age of Myspace users.

According to a 2006 study of the demographics of the Big Four social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook, Xanga, and Friendster) over 50% of Myspace users were in the 35+ age group and less than 20% of the site’s users were age 18 and under. The study, “comscore”, was conducted by Media Metrix and this surprising new information was quickly picked up and widely reported via the Associated Press (AP). We are left, however, to speculate as to the reasons for the demographic change, since the Media Metrix bean counters offered no causal explanation of their own.

Read the full text “MySpace: Not the Kiddies’ Playground Anymore”

Justice or just desserts for Robert Isaac Toussie?

In an unprecedented move, outgoing President George W. Bush has rescinded the presidential pardon he granted to Robert Isaac Toussie. The pardon for Toussie was 1 of 19 criminal pardons announced by the White House on Tuesday, December 23, 2008. A day later came the startling news that President Bush had reconsidered Toussie’s case and was rescinding the pardon.

During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Dana Perino said that she didn’t know of any other instance when a presidential pardon had been reversed. The President’s decision was defended by Perino, calling it “the right decision” when information came to light that Robert Isaac Toussie’s father, Robert, had donated $28,500 to the national Republican Party in April 2008. He contributed an additional $11,000 to other Republican candidates throughout the year, according to stories printed in the New York Daily News and Newsday. President Bush was reportedly unaware of the donations when he granted Toussie’s pardon. Once that information came to light, however, The President quickly rescinded the pardon to quell any illusion of a quid pro quo deal.

The President’s Power to Pardon

The President’s broad power to grant (or rescind) reprieves and pardons is provided for in the U.S. Constitution:

“The President … shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Over time, the President’s broad power to pardon has evolved to include:

· Full pardon – wiping away a criminal conviction, as if it never happened…

Read the full text “Bush Pulls Pardon of Robert Isaac Toussie”

Get your fan on! Spice up your MySpace 2.0 profile page with this totally awesome layout template featuring your favorite and mine, Hannah Montana.

Sure, there are lots of sites out there offering free MySpace 2.0 layouts and templates featuring Hannah Montana. Too bad you have to be a computer geek to figure out how to use them. I know, because I tried. After an hour of messing around trying to follow confusing instructions and waging war with annoying advertising redirects, I gave up. A friend finally turned me on to pYzam.com for the best free and easy to install Myspace 2.0 profile layouts and celebrity templates.

I was totally blown away by the great selection. Besides the awesome layouts and templates featuring my favorite celebrities (like Hannah Montana), there were great MySpace 2.0 profile layouts for:

· Bands and music

· Sports

· Fashion

· Hearts and Flowers

· Animals

· Favorite colors

…and, tons more. The hardest part is choosing which template to use, but that’s not really a problem. These profile layouts are so easy to install, I can change the layout of my profile page as often as I want. I love that and you will, too. My friends tell me they keep coming back to my profile page on MySpace to get ideas on how to pimp out their own profile pages. Thanks to pYzam, I’m a trendsetter and I have a huge list of friends to prove it. How cool is that?

Read the full text “MySpace 2.0 Layouts: Hannah Montana Template – Free ‘n Easy

For the adventure vacation of a lifetime, learn sea kayaking in the calm blue-green waters of Washington’s San Juan Islands. Begin your adventure in the quaint waterfront town of Anacortes on Fidalgo Island, located at the north end of Puget Sound. It’s a scenic vacation destination, popular for all types of boating enthusiasts from sail to power to paddle. Sea kayaking in the San Juans is one of the fast growing water sports overall. What’s the great appeal? It can best answer comes from other local sea kayaking enthusiasts:

“I love adventure and active exploration that doesn’t pollute the air, foul the water or waste petroleum.”Dave Baum

“In my kayak I am amphibious – playing quietly alongside the other creatures that belong in this environment.” Tove Andvik

“Kayaking is a combination – the challenge of high adventure, a sensual immersion in the realness of the natural world, and a compelling tranquility.” Wyn Berry

Sea kayaking is both relaxing and adventurous. And, one of the best places to experience it for yourself is in Anacortes. Lying on the northern shores of Fidalgo Island, Anacortes is surrounded on three sides by saltwater and offers miles of rocky coastline for kayakers to explore. The area abounds with wildlife and offers spectacular views of the rugged Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. Anacortes serves as the “gateway” to the San Juan Island chain in the U.S. and the Gulf Islands further north in British Columbia. It hosts a Washington State ferry terminal that provides ferry service to islands of Shaw, Orcas, Lopez, San Juan, and Vancouver Island in Canada.

Read the full text “Learn Sea Kayaking in North Puget Sound”

“Social Networking No Substitute for a Real Social Life with Real Friends.”

Last year, a friend of mine told me she’d signed up for a MySpace account. Recently divorced and with no family that lived close, she said she was a little lonely and thought it would help her find and make some more friends. I remembered that conversation as I was doing some research for this article, so I gave her a call and asked her to tell me about her experience with social networking. The first words out of her mouth took me by surprise. She said, “MySpace is no substitute for a real social life with real friends.”

She went on to say that she had recently cancelled her MySpace account because she was spending 4 or 5 hours every day on the site and she didn’t seem to be getting anything from it. I asked her if it was because she hadn’t been able to make many friends.

“Not hardly!” she said, “I had 1,247 friends listed on my profile page. Problem was, they weren’t really friends at all. I’d spend hours reading their comments and blogs and exchange the odd email with a few. One day it just hit me – I had all those MySpace friends, but I was still lonely as hell and sitting at home on the computer instead of having some fun. That’s when I decided to quit wasting my time on people that I really didn’t care about and who didn’t really care about me.”

Read the story here

Protect your computer from bugs, worms, and viruses

Yet, another virus (worm) has been making its way through the rabbit warrens of Facebook and Myspace. Although the “Koobface” worm was discovered back in August and Facebook has posted information on their site to warn their users, the worm continues to work its way into the accounts of the overly-trusting or careless members of these social networking sites. Facebook has now put up information on its site to guide its victimized members through virus removal procedures for the “Koob” virus. Since an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, here’s some information that should help your to protect your computer and the folks in your address book from falling victim to this latest hacker.

The “Koobface” virus (also called the “Koob” virus) uses an e-mail to lure the unsuspecting with a provocative message inviting them to view a video. When the user attempts to start the video, a message says the user must update their flash player in order to view the video. Therein, lies the problem. The worm is cloaked in a “flash_player.exe” file and that’s when the “fun” begins. According to an article on the PC World website, the virus transforms the victimized user’s machine into a zombie computer to build a botnet, the purpose of which is to proxie all HTTP traffic, hijacking the results of popular search engines and diverting them to lesser known search sites. The worm propagates itself through the victim’s e-mail address book, sending the bogus message to the user’s friends, family and business associates. The e-mail thus flies under the radar for most e-mail spam programs and suspicions of the recipient since it appears to be coming from an approved source.

The provocative subject line on these bogus e-mails frequently contains misspellings or grammatical errors. Some of the reported ones read:

“My friend catched you on hidden cam. Checkk it out.”

“lool yoour blushing afce is so funny.”

And, my personal favorite:

“Paris Hilton tosses dwarf on the street”

Read the full text “Facebook, MySpace “Koobface” Virus

All of those complaints –  fatigue, chronic infection, blurred vision, slow-healing wounds, numbness in hands or feet – can be the early warning signs of diabetes. As the disease worsens and continues undiagnosed, the symptoms become more severe. Most common are an unquenchable thirst, frequent urination, and weight loss when we haven’t been dieting. For an explanation of how these symptoms are interconnected, read the information on the Diabetes Symptoms page here. The short explanation is that these symptoms are all the result of our bodies having too much sugar and too little insulin to metabolize it into energy. There’s no “sugar high” for the diabetic. To the contrary, diabetics experience a “sugar low” – feeling overly fatigued and wishing to sleep more than normal.

Read the full text “The Telltale Signs of Diabetes: Denial is a River in Egypt”