This event is the largest balloon festival in Texas and over 75,000 people were expected to attend. The events included multiple balloon launches throughout the weekend along with skydiver acts and other aerial performances. However, my favorite event of the day was the balloon glow. During sunset, all the participating balloons inflate while anchored to the ground. The show began at 8pm where every few minutes or so all balloons would synchronously fire their burners creating a beautiful glow inside the balloons.

I got a chance to snap a few pictures of the event. Enjoy!

If you would like to know more about how a hot air balloon works, watch the below video or check out this article on HowStuffWorks.com.

The post Up Up and Away at the 30th Annual Plano Balloon Festival was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

This pains me to watch.

The post From FailBlog – Wii Bowling Accident Cracks TV was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

I have to say, at first I expected to find a cheesy clip that I probably wouldn’t watch for more than 10 seconds. What I found, however, was a quite entertaining video done with catchy tunes, well thought out lyrics, good costumes and incredible makeup on Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Seriously, the makeup is awesome!

Indy Mogul is a network “dedicated to film fanatics and aspiring auteurs alike. Our shows are focused on DIY filmmaking, cheap special effects, movie reviews and conversations with high profile filmmakers and special guests.”  For anyone interested in creating their own video including all the special effects and such, Indy Mogul has many tips and how-tos covering such areas as how they created Voldemort’s makeup to building props such as the Tommy Gun. Great job, guys!

I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did.

EDIT: I have had quite a few emails asking me for the lyrics to this video. They’re actually listed on the YouTube video site under “Info” but I copied them here (and cleaned up the spelling a little bit) for anyone who is interested.

Lyrics

Voldemort:
I’m the darkest dark wizard in all of history
I’ll slay your ass out like Cedric Diggory.
With a wave of my finger Ill put you on the floor
You’s a punk ass little kid without Dumbeldore

I’m the best wizard rapper you ever will see
you’re a peewee witch midget with a dead mommy.
I’ve got multiple souls and can raise the dead
If you think you can win then you’ve been sorely misled

Harry:
You’s a big bald fairy, you think I’m scared of you
I smoked a basilisk and I’ll smoke you too.
I got witches in class I got witches in the halls
If you look under my cloak, you’ll see my Hagrid size balls.

I win at wizard duels, I win at wizard chess,
Got platinum coated DUBS on my Hogwart’s Express
You can’t touch me son, I drive magic cars
I dish out big hurt, you just pass out little scars!

Voldemort:
Poor little Harry, you’re such darling lad.
Do you miss your Uncle? Your Mom? Your Dad?
Oh that’s right, I killed ‘em, you’re little owl too.
All your friends are next, I’ll cut right through your crew.

You look like Marcy from Peanuts and your wand is tiny
Is that why you couldn’t close the deal with Hermione?
My boys are called death eaters, they’re black magic studs
They’ll make you disappear, they don’t care for mudbloods

You can never find me, it’s like trying to catch smoke
You can’t hide from me with your punk ass cloak.
You think you’re invisible, but I can see through that!
I’ll run up with my wand and go RAT-A-TAT-TAT

Harry:
Say it don’t spray it, your breath smells like a grave
Your teeth look like tombstones and your nose is concave
Your head looks like a golf ball, your face looks like a lizard
Here’s the toll free number for the hair club for wizards

The toughest gang around is the Gryffindor crew,
Wizards drive bys is what we do
When dementors try to ice me I step right up and own em
I crack a butter beer and say “Expecto Patronum”!

The post Harry Potter versus Voldemort in an Epic Rap Battle was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

• Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.
• Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.
• Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.
• No one knows your secret place.
• You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called “the world”.
• The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
• The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.

There! See? It really does work. You’re smiling already.

Just in case that didn’t work…here’s a video to calm you.

[pb_vidembed title="" caption="" url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ohxr91yJMU" type="yt" w="640" h="480"]

The post Stress Management Technique was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

Anyways, I attended a monthly meetup of the Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress group last weekend. While the usual format of the meetings consists of a speaker or some other type of presentation, this meetup was all about networking. It was a great opportunity to chat with seasoned users of WordPress as well as people considering or just getting started with WordPress. A hot topic that was discussed in many small circles was the mainstream rise of Twitter as well as the reason people use Twitter.

[smartads]

Here’s a great video made during the meeting  called “Why I / You / We  Tweet” that @socialnerdia posted on his site. Enjoy!

The post DFW WordPress Meetup and Twitter Video was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

“putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format”.

This, to me, sounds like a stalking TV format which would probably appeal to a certain amount of viewers but could actually hurt Twitter in the long run, in my opinion. This production, if successful, would undoubtedly cause another boom in Twitter’s increasing popularity for a company that doesn’t even make any income on the service yet.

[smartads]

Twitter’s overwhelming increase in subscribers over the last year (up 1382% according to Nielsen) has led to people  musing if Twitter’s infrastructure  can handle the traffic. Since Twitter hasn’t announced how they will make any money, it’s hard to see what the future might hold for the micro-blogging service. I do forsee some type of paid subscription service based on tweet usage or an ad-based platform to supplant the service or even a total buyout by Google or other conglomerate. Anyways, I digress.

Back to the story…

Later in the day, I saw that Ashton Kutcher had referenced the Variety.com article in his Twitter stream and stated “”Wow, I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus.”  Demi Moore, also agreed with her husband’s sentiments and tweeted “I hope this isn’t true — if it is, our Twitter time may come to a quick and sad end!”  These statements come from the pair who are 4th and 6th, respectively, on the list of the Top 20 Influential Twitters.

Luckily, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, quelled the rumors on his blog by writing  “[t]here is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast!”

Personally, I’m happy about this statement for a couple of reasons: 1) I don’t want to see Twitter fail just because it couldn’t aptly handle its popularity and 2) I don’t see the need to increase the amount of papparazzi that already stalks celebrities just for the sake of another reality show.

What do you think?

Would you like to see this show come to life (Biz Stone didn’t say it wouldn’t happen)?

Or are you content with one less pointless reality show?

The post The Day the Twitter TV Show Died was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

[smartads]

Some Twitter Lingo

Twitterverse/TwitterLand – the virtual cyberspace of everything Twitter

#Hashtag – a word or group of words (no spaces!) preceded with the # sign which is used to signify an event, group, thought, etc… Hashtags are mostly used to give people the ability to keep tweets grouped together. For example, #wcdfw09 is the hashtag we are using for all tweets concerning our upcoming WordCamp Dallas 2009.

Retweet – if you see a particular tweet that you like and want to promote, you can “retweet” it by rebroadcasting it to your followers. Accepted syntax is to place “RT” (no quotes) at the front of the tweet. You should also give credit to the original poster by placing @user (replace user with their user name). Since this might push your tweet over 140 chars, it’s acceptable to make slight modifications, just try to keep the original idea intact.

These are just a few bits of lingo I wanted to share. I’ll cover more in the future as well as go more into depth on certain ones.

The post How do I use Twitter? was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

What exactly is Twitter?

Wikipedia defines Twitter as:

“a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers)”

If that doesn’t explain it well, think of it as a short note you used to secretly pass along to a friends in school, or as a quick text message from your cell phone. The main difference in these examples is your message goes to everyone who subscribes to your Twitter updates.

Why should I use it?

The possibilites are endless but they include such ideas as:

• Communicate with friends, family, and co-workers when long emails aren’t necessary
• Get quick answers to questions you might ask from multiple sources
• Catch up on breaking news stories or just find out what’s going on in the world
• Promote ideas or events that are important to you
• Promote your blog posts

Ok, I think I understand. Now, how do I start using it?

You will need to create an account at http://twitter.com/signup (by the way,  Twitter is FREE.)  You will pick a user name, enter some information and you’re ready to tweet! I also suggest using Twitter’s “Find People” tool to see which of your friends and family are on Twitter so you can connect with them and start tweeting right away!

[smartads]

Where do I go to access Twitter?

Once you have signed up, there are several ways you can access the service; on the web at  http://twitter.com, thru a mobile phone device, and even instant messaging platforms. There are also quite a few third-party programs that you can download and use such as Tweetdeck (my favorite), Twhirl, Tweetr and others. If you have an iPhone, there also many free and paid apps available in the iTunes App Store. I am currently comparing Twitterific, Tweetie, and TwitterFon. Lastly, on the IM platforms, I like to use Digsby. I combine all my Twitter accounts, IM accounts, my Facebook account and my email accounts into Digsby and can just use one program to access them all.

Will I be spammed? What about my privacy?

These are questions that come up when I discuss Twitter with friends or family. Twitter is unique in the fact that YOU, the user, control what people may or may not see. If you subscribe to someone’s updates and they aren’t appropriate for you, just un-follow them. Easy!

On the issue of privacy, if you want to use Twitter between a select group of friends and you prefer that no one else see what you discuss, you can hide your updates in the settings so only people you follow and that follow you can see them. If you don’t want to be this extreme, you can also send direct messages to people who follow you and they are hidden from the public.

There’s quite a bit of information here but I hope it helped you feel more comfortable in the Twitter world. Try it out! I’ll be posting plenty of information here on TwitZig so check back often or just subscribe to my feed to get updates as they’re posted.

The post What is this Twitter thing? was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.

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I invite you to join me, John and others in getting healthy!

I’ll be posting my results here along the way.

My goal? Lose 25 lbs in 12 weeks – no fad diets, no diet drugs, just old-fashioned exercise and eating well.

You can find details of the challenge over on John P.’s blog.

The post Take the John P. Health Challenge was created by Zig Baird and appeared first on Zigology.