audio example September 25, 2007

The bad news in the housing sector was coupled with a discouraging report on consumer confidence from the Conference Board, whose index dropped to 99.8 in September from 105.6 in August, much more than forecast. The index is now at its lowest level in nearly two years. A weak job market and stagnant salary growth [...]

Skincare supplements February 22, 2007

Here’s a link to a web site that I found that sells reasonable skincare supplements. It’s called Vitabase. http://www.vitabase.com/supplements/beauty-skin-care/default.aspx

An open-source gift? November 1, 2006

Jay Rosen says his new project, PressThink, is a “gift economy for news.” Yes, it’s an economy. But I fail to find that it’s a gift. There’s only so much news one can read in a day. Like Rosen admitted himself, there’s a saturation point. People are going to like this project. I can see [...]

Creeping toward blogging acceptance October 9, 2006

I may be in the minority — I’m not too keen about the two-blogs approach (one for the neighborhood stuff, and one for the other stuff). Here’s why: I’ve used a LiveJournal, but stopped posting to it long ago. My life wasn’t that interesting to read about; my thoughts weren’t fleshed out much. Times haven’t [...]

A very fishy experiment September 29, 2006

This photo prompted my friend to ask me, “Amy, how DO you get so close to all the fish?” But I wasn’t in the tank.

They can’t do that, can they? September 25, 2006

I got wind of this story two days late, and I can’t believe it. Sure, I, like the rest of us, would love to know who leaked the secret grand jury testimony in the steroids case (Who wouldn’t?). But if the source(s) hadn’t been anonymous and hadn’t trusted these reporters, there would’ve been no leak [...]

Putting the “live” back in “alive” September 18, 2006

Certain news subjects make some readers/viewers grumble, “This again?” There’s fresh news in the Barry Bonds steroids scandal, reported by ESPN The Magazine on Friday. (Source: Conte indicates that Bonds knew about steroids.) According to the article, BALCO founder Victor Conte says Bonds knew fully well he was taking steroids, and knew which steroids he [...]

Why the baseball gods smile on the Phillies’ Ryan Howard September 10, 2006

If Ryan Howard were to break Roger Maris’ non-steroid 62 home runs in a season record, Maris’ family would be satisfied, says Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports in this article. I don’t think Rich Maris can really reach into the depths of his deceased brother’s mind, but it’s great to see that the Maris clan [...]

Steroids September 10, 2006

Steroids are pervasive in most major-league sports. Newspapers, specifically columnists, all cover the topic differently. For a while, I plan to post about the coverage of this heated subject.

How prime-time TV brings 15 minutes of blogging fame to teenagers September 7, 2006

When I competed in the 1998 National Spelling Bee, it was really cool if you made it to the second day of competition because it meant you got an extra Scripps (then Scripps Howard) polo shirt, and you had a decent chance of making it to the televised rounds on ESPN. I was happy enough [...]