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Jason Elam, long time kicker for the Denver Broncos, has left the building. A four year, $9 million offer from the Atlanta Falcons was just too good to pass up. At 38, I can’t really blame him.

Personally, the thing I will miss most about Elam isn’t his great kicking. What I will miss is his number. My sister and I have a long standing joke, I always tease her about being “Number One” and threaten to get her an Elam Jersey.

They are probably on discount now, maybe I’ll do a little early birthday shopping.

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So I’m not sure if there are any copyright issues in posting a Craigslist ad to my blog. If this is a problem for the copyright holder, please let me know and I’ll take it down.

UPDATE: Got permission from the author, so I should be OK

That said, this is, by far, one of the most amusing personal ads I’ve ever read. Hopefully the individual who wrote it isn’t as down on her luck as it sounds, I might feel bad about saying her advertisement is funny. If she is down on her luck, I would recommend starting a blog. If you work hard, post a lot, and write with this level of quality, you can probably make $2-$3 a month from Google Ads - enough to keep you in Ramen…

In an effort to appease my best friend I am finaly posting a personal ad on Craigslist. I have tried explaining to her that I don’t currently have a whole lot to offer a potential mate. She scoffs and informs me that I am a great person and that I should at least make an effort. Here it is. This is my effort:

I am an unemployed single female seeking a fun guy for friendship and maybe more. I don’t want to feel like a leech, desperately clinging to a guy with a fancy schmancy office job (complete with health insurance!) because he can pay for things. I want an equal. A true partner. Being unemployed and broke together as opposed to apart will probably help to boost our self-esteem.

Don’t worry about taking me anywhere fancy on our first date. I completely understand that the best you can do is inviting me to your studio apartment for some Ramen. I won’t mind at all that we sit on orange crates and that an empty cable spool is our table. I will gladly stand on one foot with one foil wrapped hand tightly gripping your television antenna as my other arm reaches towards the window so that we can watch a very scratchy Simpsons rerun. I totally understand that you can’t afford cable right now. Don’t worry, I can’t either!

If things go well, perhaps we’ll have a second date. This time, you can come over to my place. Don’t get any ideas though. Remember, niether one of us can afford condoms. I’ll make you Ramen and after we’re done eating we can search under my couch cushions for change. Maybe we’ll come up with enough to buy a piece of gum from the gas station across the street. We’ll have to split it though, because I’m not sure that there is enough change for two double bubbles in my couch.

Don’t worry about running out of activities just because we’re both broke and unemployed. There are plenty of things that we can do together that don’t cost any money at all:

- Use my neighbor’s internet connection to cruise craiglist’s “free stuff” for items that we might be able to sell on ebay.
- Steal toilet paper from public restrooms when we can’t afford to buy any.
- Go for walks.
- Go for more walks.
- Have competitions to see who lost the most weight last week when they couldn’t afford any food.
- Offer to clean people’s windshield’s at gas stations for the tip.
- I’m sure you can think of even more!!!

About two weeks before the end of every month I will expect you to sit on street corners with me as I pathetically attempt to make up rent money buy “playing” the guitar. (If you actually know how to play the guitar, I’ll definitely write you back!)

If you happen to get a job while I am still unemployed, don’t worry. It will be quick and painless to break up with me. I’ll feel really crappy about no longer being equal to you and in order to cheer me up you can take me out for a few drinks. Due to the lack of food in my stomach, it will only take about two beers for me to get completely shit-faced and start crying about how I don’t want to lose you to your co-workers and asking “who will sit with me on street corners now!?” While I am in this dependent and pathetic state you can take me back to my apartment and finally sleep with me (using the condoms you just bought with your first paycheck). Slip out the door after I pass out and never call me again.

I won’t try to call you back. After all, by then my phone will have been completely shut off due to lack of payment.

All I ask is that if you ever see me on the street corner, still trying to figure out how to play my guitar, leave a dollar in my hat.

I am eager and excited to find my new (albeit temporary) partner!

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Looks like Greeley has lost a couple more small businesses recently. Not sure how long they’ve been this way, but the signs are gone both from Young’s Cafe, just off 10th by Walmart, and Walrus Ice Cream in the King Soopers Parking lot off 35th Ave.

While I personally did not patronize either establishment on a regular basis (prefer the Wonderful Inn to Young’s, and really, who can go out for Ice Cream that often), but both were quality and I enjoyed their products when I did go there. Always tough to see Greeley any business, especially independent ones like these.

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Ikariam is an online game similar to Civ or AOE. It is completely free (at least so far) and completely browser based.

I’ve been playing for a couple weeks, and the really cool thing is it’s slow pace. I can check it a couple times a day, and it doesn’t take up a lot of my time.

After playing some, here are some tips I have for some of the more advanced/strategy items. If you have any tips, email me or post a comment, and I will include it.

• Barracks One common strategy for players is to attack other players that have a 0 in their Generals score. When you build a new town, build a barracks and create some slingers so you get a general score and don’t get attacked as easy pickings.
• Transport You can transport goods to another city, but when you do so your ship just goes and drops them off. You can’t load their ship with goods in return. Means that all commerce takes twice as long - kind of silly.
• Trading Often people put goods out for sale at ridiculously low prices. Not sure why this is, but I have made quite a few game coins by buying at low prices and reselling at higher prices.
• Size Worlds in Ikariam are SERIOUSLY huge. If you are going to play with friends try to join up near the same time. I had a friend join, and her island is a day and a half away by ship. Kind of irritating.
• War For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem like the worlds are very warlike. Outside of some raiding on new towns there doesn’t seem to be a lot of fighting. Not quite sure how the whole battle thing works, you can siege and occupy a town. Not sure if there is any way of actually ‘owning’ that town, or if occupying it is essentially the same thing. Guess I should go attack someone and find out how it works.

Again, if you have comments, please leave them. Any tips on gameplay would be appreciated.

Popularity: 12%

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Brian over at Coverville has a GREAT cover of Peter Schilling’s Major Tom by I Hate Kate on today’s show.

Yeah, OK, so I requested it, but it really is a rocking song. I highly recommend giving it a listen, and supporting I Hate Kate. They rock.

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All those great 70s and 80s toys I had as a kid have come back into fashion. Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Hungry Hungry Hippos, stunt motorcycles (of course mine was an Evel Kneivel, Head Banger football kicker, seems like everything we had as kids is on the Wal-Mart shelves today.

Growing up, I had a lot of toys, but not as many as some kids. When my brother-in-law and I are out looking at toys for my nephew, it seems like he had two or three of every toy on the shelf. One thing we did have, not too long after it came out, was an original Atari 2600. I still remember the Christmas morning when we got the Atari. My mother, sweet as she is, loves Christmas. She had wrapped the console and the games separately. She instructed me to not open the console, but forgot to mention the games. About the second package I opened was an original Pac-Man game. Of course, this took away some of the mystery, but I was extremely excited to open the remaining games and the console itself.

That console ended up being incredibly popular in our house. We played incessantly. One of the games we played was the infamous Atari ET game. Until recently, I wasn’t really aware that this game was one of the worst video games of all time. I played it a TON as a kid, and although I found it somewhat irritating, but didn’t think it was the worst game ever. In fact, it had a bit of an appeal.

The Atari is now dead and gone, I have no desire to go back and play ET for nostalgia, but I do remember the game fondly. It’s just another memory of my blissful youth.

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After much searching, I think I’ve found a good photo gallery for the wordpress blog

NextGEN Gallery appears to be a good upgrade from the WP Photo Album that I am currently using on Bob’s Bad Binder, and the Gallery software I’m using on this site.

WP Photo Album is good, but the one thing I really don’t like is the full size images run outside of the framework of the blog. NextGEN appears to use some nice AJAX to display the gallery.

I’ll see if I can get it installed in the next day or two, do some testing, and then maybe get some pictures of last week’s trip to Moab up there.

One note, just to let everyone know. I think I’m going to post all my new Warrior info on Bob’s Bad Binder - it’s more of a motorsports oriented blog, just makes sense.

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Another good reason to not have children.

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I’m currently listening to one of my favorite podcasts. I won’t mention it, or link to it, since this isn’t a very nice post, but I think this needs to be said. Hopefully no one will be offended.

It appears that some authors are serializing their writing using the podcast format. They have adopted the term Podiobook, at least as far back as April 2005.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anyone said this term out loud. When being discussed the term sounds much more like Potty-o-books than podiobooks, of course, carrying a whole different connotation than intended.

I’m writing this just as a heads up to all you authors out there. If you want this medium to be accepted universally, you might think of changing what you call it. The average American is going to think twice about getting involved with something that sounds like potty.

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The Finest music stores are for sale. The Finest, which has been in business for over 35 years, has suffered a severe decline in business and owner Jim Risser is looking to sell.

Personally, I find this yet another blow to my lost youth. While I am one of the guilty parties, and haven’t purchased anything from The Finest in some time, I still have fond memories. My first experience with The Finest was back at Milliken Middle School. When we took field trips, or went to other events, they were often held at UNC. The most convenient place to feed a bunch of middle school kids was the McDonalds on 8th Ave. In those days, the finest was just a couple doors down from McDonalds, so we would sneak over there after scarfing down a burger to check the place out. At the time, I was a very sheltered child, only listened to Christian or Country music. I distinctly remember Kristy Alexander was just starting to turn into a real punk girl. She was listening to bands like Skinny Puppy or the Dead Milkmen. I was both fascinated and appalled by this music, and The Finest seemed to be a dark, dangerous place of forbidden delights.

As my music tastes expanded I spent many hours and hundreds of dollar perusing the collections in The Finest and other used music stores that have since went by the way. Unfortunately, the responsibility of adult life, the fact that I now have an extensive music collection and the convenience of acquiring new music online has reduced my visits to the store.

I certainly hope that Jim can find a buyer that will be able to keep The Finest name alive, and find a way to bring continue it on, but even if he doesn’t The Finest will live on in the memories of thousands like me.

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