Theatre Patron #1: Hey, what’s this show about, anyway?
Theatre Patron #2: I don’t know - they say it’s some big gorilla.
Theatre Patron #1: Oh, geez - ain’t we got enough of them in New York?

And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I’m going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld … Ladies and gentlemen, look at GreenStrat, the Eighth Wonder of the World! 

GreenStrat is a website I’ve been building for the past few weeks.  It has been an opportunity for me to combine two of my favorite hobbies: building websites and playing the guitar.  And GreenStrat is special in another way.  This is the first time I’ve built a website expressly for an audience that isn’t myself and my immediate friends and family. 

I’m very excited about GreenStrat.  I believe that as I continue to build and expand this site, I will create the best free resource on the internet for beginners to learn how to play the guitar.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but take a look, and tell your friends!

And don’t be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen. Those chains are made of chrome steel.

Seth Stevenson, a writer for Slate Magazine and self-described shy person, put himself on Paxil for a month in an experiment to see if he could become extroverted.  He chronicled the ensuing personality transformation, emotional detachment and eventual withdrawal in this powerful article.  Wow.

Movies, once a favorite hobby, do nothing for me now. Likewise books—I just don’t connect with the plots or characters. I can’t recall laughing (while sober) in the past couple of weeks. I’m never sad, but never happy.

Reading the New York Times Online this morning as always, I noticed something disconcerting.  On every page I looked at, be it an article covering news, medicine or travel, there was Angelina Jolie’s smiling face staring back at me.

CNN has literally pasted Ms. Jolie’s face on every article in today’s times online that doesn’t concern the death of American soldiers.

And don’t be fooled by the small, scaled-down image you see here.  These ads are obnoxiously huge, taking up a good 30% of my screen space.  On some pages there were two of these ads, one banner on the top of the page and another on the side.

It all just makes me wonder, do we all really care that much about Angelina Jolie?  Has CNN completely forgotten what news is?  Is their some executive at CNN, maybe someone who’s been there from the early days, who once believed in CNNs mission to deliver full, unabashed news coverage, who feels really dirty right now?

I was on Amazon.com searching for a USB cable for my new printer when I came across this product description:

The Belkin F3U133-06 USB Device Cable: flexible, strong, durable, and error free. You may never find a human companion with all these qualities, so console yourself by spending some quality time with this Belkin USB Device Cable!

Awesome.

As the internet continues to evolve, as bandwidth increases and technology advances, we move steadily towards a new era where more and more so, everyone has a voice that can be heard.

On a whim I decided to report on everything I did this past Thursday, a seemingly typical day in my life.  It was an interesting exercise.  At times I found myself over-analyzing every little occurrence as potentially noteworthy.  Other times I completely forgot I was supposed to be keeping track of what I was doing.

The most interesting part of this experience was noting all the odd little things that happen in a day.  On any other day they would be quickly forgotten, but on this day the little laughs and little quirks were recorded and seem to give the day an unexpected pizzazz.

I keep asking myself, was this a typical day?  The truth is that I don’t know what typical really is.  At this time in my life typical seems to change so quickly that it never has a chance to become typical.  And so in that sense, yes, this was a completely typical day.

And so I present, all the things that happened on Thursday, June 15, 2006:

Read the rest of this entry »

…mounting evidence produced by labor economists [shows] just how important it is for current graduates to ignore the old-school advice of trying to get ahead by working one’s way up the ladder. Instead, it seems, graduates should try to do exactly the thing the older generation bemoans — aim for the top.

The recent evidence shows quite clearly that in today’s economy starting at the bottom is a recipe for being underpaid for a long time to come. Graduates’ first jobs have an inordinate impact on their career path and their “future income stream,” as economists refer to a person’s earnings over a lifetime.

So says Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a research fellow at the American Bar Foundation, in this article from the New York Times.

Now you can show your love for robbecker.com every time you make a purchase at Amazon.com.  It’s easy, it’s painless and it’s totally FREE!

Here’s how it works: The next time you plan to make a purchase from Amazon.com, come to robbecker.com first, click on the Amazon.com logo (that will take you right to Amazon.com), and then make your purchase.  Easy!

Each time you do this, Amazon.com will pay me teeny-tiny little bit of money as thanks for sending you over to Amazon.com.  That money will help me pay for the cost of maintaining the website.

It’s a win-win for everybody.  I get a little bit of money, you get the satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped a friend and Amazon gets your money.

Thank you for your support!

How would you like to have a sixth sense?  What if you could feel when an electric device was turned on?  This article from Wired News explores a form of body modification where tiny magnets are implanted under their skin, giving people the ability to feel electromagnetic fields.  Pretty wild stuff.

This is just one of those odd things.  Air Arabia, the Middle East’s only low-cost airline has for the past few years been running a popular ad campaign featuring cartoon characters that look strikingly similar to the characters from South Park.  With destinations that include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Sudan, I’m guessing most of Air Arabia’s customers are not aware of the odd connection with one of the USA’s most controversial, lewd and profane television shows.