Source: 28 Instructions For Being A Good Parent

Source: The Scientific Method (Futurama Style)

Also, because you knew there’d be one, here it is in GIF form. Click the thumbnail to load the actual GIF.

Source: Marco Rubio Has Drymouth

Ingredients
Note: All of these can be found at all but the crappiest of grocery stores.
2 – 14.5oz Cans of Seasoned Petite Diced Tomatoes
            (Good Examples: Garlic & Olive Oil, Mexican Fiesta, Green Chilies)
2 – 16oz Cans of Chili Beans (Red Beans in Chili Sauce; Mild, Medium, or Hot)
1 – 16oz Can of Southwestern Black Beans
1 – 16oz Can of Southwestern Pinto Beans w/ Jalapenos
1 – 11oz (or larger) can of Mexicorn (Corn w/ Diced Red & Green Bell Peppers)
1 – 4oz Can of Diced Green Chilies
1 – 4oz Can of Diced or “Chunky” Mushrooms
1/2 Cup of Brown Sugar
OPTIONAL:
1lb Ground Beef or Turkey
Your Favorite Hot Sauce
Chili Powder
Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Preparation
Open every can in no particular order, strain out all of the extra liquid from all of the cans except the chili beans, and empty them in to either a crock pot or large pot. On top of everything add that half cup of brown sugar, then stir it all together. If cooking it in a crock pot, set it for 6-8 hours and cover, stirring it up every hour or so. If cooking on the stove in a large pot set the heat to medium-low for 3-4 hours and cover, also stirring occasionally.

If you’re going to be adding ground beef or turkey to the chili, stick it in a sauté pan sprinkle it with a few pinches of chili powder, and brown the meat. Once it’s brown (or at least pretty close, seeing as it’ll be cooking in the chili for hours) dump it in with the rest of the chili and stir it in.

Once everything has been cooking for at least an hour or two, taste it. If you feel like you need to kick it up a notch, add a little more brown sugar, chili powder, or your favorite hot sauce to spice things up.

About an hour before you’re ready to eat it, check to see how soupy it is. If there’s too much liquid, just crack the lid for the remainder of the cooking to let it steam off.

That’s it! It’s always a hit around my house and makes about enough food to feed a family of four. You can serve it over pasta, with crackers, sprinkle cheese on it, add some chopped onions, or whatever else sounds good. Enjoy!

Source: Evan’s Lazy Chili Recipe

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster’, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”
- Mr. Rogers

Source: Mr. Rogers’ Advice On Talking To Kids About Tragic Events

Source: Not cool, Bing.

Hanukkah is the most American holiday. It’s a celebration of burning oil we don’t have.

Source: Hanukkah Is The Most American Holiday

1. First thing’s first, you’ll have to open up your Phone to make a call, tap on the Keypad, and enter in the following: *3001#12345#*. As soon as you tap Call, it will open up the Field Test mode.
   
2. As soon as the Field Test screen opens up, you’ll notice that instead of the standard reception bars in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, you’ve got a negative number indicating the decibels referenced to one milliwatt (dBm). Keeping in mind that these are negative numbers, anything “greater” than about -100dBm is decent reception, with -50dBm being perfect. Anything “below” about -110dBm and you can safely assume there’s a good chance you’ll drop the call and you might have trouble with data.
   
3. Now that you know how to read the new number in the corner of your screen, the tricky part is getting them to stay there once you leave the Field Test. Tap on the screen where the numbers are so that it switches back over to the bars. Once you’ve done that, hold down the Sleep Button on your phone until the “slide to power off” screen comes on. Instead of turning the phone off or hitting cancel, just hold down your home button for several seconds. It’ll cancel out of everything and return you to your home screen, but now it will show the numeric reception value instead of the bars.

That’s it! Unless you go back in to the Field Test and tinker with it again, it should permanently give you access to the numerical signal strength of your iPhone. You can even tap on the numbers whenever you’d like to go back and forth between the numeric value and the bars.

Source: View Your iPhone’s Numeric Signal Strength

Chrome – Free
When it comes to browsers, I’ve never been a huge fan of Safari — both on the desktop and on the iOS. For a long time, if you wanted to browse the web on your iPhone, Safari was your only choice. In comes Google’s Chrome and I’m longing for a way to (without jailbreaking) set a “default browser” that isn’t Safari. It handles tabs better, offers incognito mode, and seems to run a little quicker than Safari. It even offers bookmark, history, and password syncing if you use Chrome on your desktop as well. The only major complaint I have is that more applications don’t offer a way to “view in Chrome” when opening a webpage inside of them.

Camera+ – $0.99
The built-in Camera app for the iPhone does exactly what it needs to do. Autofocus, optional grid, HDR, etc. Camera+ offers everything the built-in camera can do and then some. The autofocus is more easily targeted, while using autofocus you can also separately adjust where the exposure should be and zooming is significantly easier. As if that isn’t enough, there’s also an optional stabilizer, timer, burst mode, horizon marker, and a bunch of other more advanced options that anyone who wants more than the most basic point-and-shoot options will love. This is the app you have to thank for introducing taking a picture with the volume button. Just like Chrome, the only downside is that you can’t set this to be the go-to camera application when opening the camera from the lock screen.

Clear – $1.99
Frankly, I’ve never been a fan of Apple’s “Notes” app. It sits in a folder on my phone labeled “Unused” along with Safari, Stocks, Videos, Compass, and other apps that I never open. Clear, however, is the exact level of ease and polish that I’d expect from Apple themselves in a list-keeping or note taking app. Not only is it simple to use at every level, but it also syncs through iCloud with a desktop version. If you’re like me and most of your “notes” consist of a few words or maybe a line or two, then give Clear a look. If you’re actually taking lengthy notes, then do yourself a favor and pick up Pages. Clear probably considers themselves more of a replacement for “Reminders”, but without any kind of notifications it offers much better functionality as a list/notes app than as a to-do list.

AccuWeather – Free
Let’s be honest, if you gave a monkey a copy of iPhone Application Development For Dummies, it could probably write a better weather app than what comes with the iPhone. There’s a ton of good options out there and I’ve tried many of them, but I’ve always been partial to AccuWeather. It’s free, it’s accurate, it has way more weather information than you can possibly need, and (my personal favorite) if offers timely severe weather alerts via push notification.

StockWatch – $1.99
Much like the Weather app, Apple’s default “Stocks” app is a steaming pile of mediocrity. If you’re looking for the current price of a few different stocks and/or indices, then you’ll be fine with the default. If, however, you actually want to keep track of a portfolio and need more detailed information, then look no further than StockWatch.

It probably goes without saying that this list is in no way definitive, so if you’ve got another suggestion or an alternate app to any of the ones I listed above, please feel free to share it in the comments below.

Source: 5 iPhone Apps Better Than The Defaults

White Apron
Obviously this is a great starting point for the costume. Get a nice white apron, but some iron-on tshirt transfers, print out the Progressive logo across the chest of the apron, and you’re all set.

Name Tag & I Love Insurance Button
If you’ve ever worked retail, you might have some old ones sitting around some where that you can cover with a white sticker and either draw on the name along with the orange and blue bars at the top or print it out from your computer on to the sticker. If you haven’t managed to accumulate at least one of these in your life, then you can always pick up a pre-made button/name tag set from the above link.

White Collared Blouse with White Pants
This part is pretty straight forward and some of you may even already one or both of these as part of your wardrobe. Regardless of the exact style, if it’s white it’ll work.

Hair, Headband, and Lipstick
If you’ve got long straight brown hair, you’re already set in that department. If you’ve got long brown hair, but it isn’t straight, you can straighten it. If all else fails, get a suitable wig. Once your hair is set, just add the headband and get your lips nice and bright red.

Navy Converse Shoes
Honestly, you probably don’t need to worry about the shoes. Most people won’t look at your feet and certainly won’t judge your costume because of them. If, however, you want to make sure everything is exact, these are the shoes you’ll need.

I hope your Flo from Progressive Insurance costume turns out as great as my wife’s did.

Source: DIY Flo from Progressive Insurance Costume