The Poor (not ugly) Americans

A sign of the times in Europe. Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy is offering American tourists a 20% discount on food and drink to help us Americans with the poor health of the dollar and our credit cruch woes. Cheers! Sphere: Related Content

Pending labor problems with NFL (from insiders perspective)

Great post by Chris Cooley (Pro Bowl Tight End for Redskins)on possible upcoming labor troubles in the NFL by 2011. It seems that many small market owners are unhappy with the current revenue sharing plan and that enough owners may not be happy as to demand consessions from the players unions and other large market owners to get a larger piece of the pie.

Cooley points out that fans and players make the owners their money. Fans go to the games and pay outrageous sums for beer and food (and parking, and tickets, and gear...). Players actually perform and compete to put a good product on the field.

But maybe the NFL should actually make a player perform at the NFL level before rewarding him with a huge contract. I think a rookie salary cap should be put in place to stop the crazy escalations each year for the top picks. Let them prove themselves first, then make the money, just like in the real world.

http://chriscooley47.blogspot.com/2008/05/will-owners-opt-out.html Sphere: Related Content

Hops = $$, Get ready to pay more for your favorite IPA.

Either that or put up with less hoppy beers. For those of us who love hoppy, bitter IPA's, the cost of hops by the pound has sky-rocketed, and now brewers are forced to raise prices or change their recipies. Say it isnt so.....

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2008/05/beer?currentPage=2 Sphere: Related Content

Apple helps find stolen stuff

Funny story here about a stolen laptop that was recovered when the proper owner logged in remotely to her computer, and activated the web camera built into it. She saw that her "friends" had stolen it. Similar stories about iPods being stolen and recovered when the theifs try to download music to it. Apple rocks! Sphere: Related Content

Some people don't get it

This story from Greendaily.com about a Starbucks employee who to their training a bit too literal and nullified an attempt to save cups. Didnt all Starbucks stores close the other week for a few hours nationwide for employee training? If they are going to be a "green" company, they should know that a customer bringing a mug from home should mean that they can save a cup!

Also makes me think if the classic "plastic or paper" scenario at the grocery store. A while back the save the trees campaign made it a social crime to ask for paper bags. Plastic bags were all the rage. Now, the plastic seems more of an environmental problem than the paper. When I ask for paper bags at the store, they look at me like I have 2 heads.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22786052/ Sphere: Related Content

Put down the newspaper and go online!?

Even though I work in the Internet business, and like gadgets and the like, I still do enjoy my morning Washington Post. Call me old fashioned, but I do like getting the paper in the AM, and reading (sports, business, then news) instead of logging into my computer and reading in the office, or take the laptop to the kitchen. On weekends, I find it very relaxing to read most of the paper and not have the ADD effect of looking at other sites or checking email. So I hope that newspapers continue (at least the ones in "NFL cities". But I am sure one day soon, the next gerneration of RSS readers will come out with much more mass user friendly features that will allow a easy daily automatic feed sent right to the printer or maybe to your networked TV so you can still feel like you are not tied to reading it at the computer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/henry-blodget/death-of-newspapers-puts_b_99423.html Sphere: Related Content

Redskins' Chris Cooley writing for Yahoo Sports

I have been keeping track of Cooley's personal blog http://chriscooley47.blogspot.com/ and now there is word that he will also be writing for Yahoo Sports. Cooley is a minor celebrity around the DC area since his on-field play is very inspiring, and his off-field personality shines with the local media. Fans love him, and he has been a staple on my fantasy football teams the past couple of years.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/The-Cooley-Zone-My-draft-day-experience?urn=nfl,78511 Sphere: Related Content

Google's Free food is expensive!

In my job, I have the pleasure of interfacing with Google and a couple of months ago, had the fine dining pleasure of eating at their cafeteria in NYC. It was a great gourmet meal of grilled red snapper over rice and veggies.

Much is written about Google's perks, and the free gourmet cafeteria is definately one of them, and one reason they were voted again as the best place to work by Forbes http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2008/snapshots/1.html

And now Silicon Alley Insider estimates that it costs them around $73MM a year to feed their employees their gourmet meals. Nice Perk indeed!

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/googles_ginormous_food_budget_7530_per_googler Sphere: Related Content

Today's Earth Day, but tomorrow is important to. And the next day, and the next day.....

Earth Day is a good day to reflect and decide to act on environmental issues, but the real key is to keep it going all year, every year. My company today gave all employees (a couple thousand of us) compact flourecent bulbs as a way to give back. But we need to give back all year. Each day is just as important as Earth Day.

http://www.greendaily.com/2008/04/22/tomorrow-is-important-too/ Sphere: Related Content

Don't skimp on web site hosting if you want to be President

Story from the Daily Kos about Joe Lieberman's website problems in November, and his subsequent accusations and demand for investigations into his challengers, only shows that his web site was down because it was done on the cheap, and not for intentional hacking. Looks like us taxpayers fit the bill for the investigation...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/114534/253/613/500770 Sphere: Related Content