Question: What do Randall’s Grocery Store and Spaceballs have in common?

First, watch this minute-long clip from one of the funniest movies of all time (Kanye, back off).

Second, do you have a Randall’s grocery store in your area?

Randall’s, related to Tom Thumb and Safeway stores, has a Community program called the Good Neighbor Program, and they donate a decent percentage of customer purchases to qualified non-profit organizations.  If you have a Randall’s in your area, and you shop there, you should get the Randall’s Remarkable card (free discount card).

What’s Remarkable about this Remarkable card is that you can tag a non-profit organization to get a donation from Randall’s equaling 1% of your purchases.  Even more remarkable is that it costs you nothing to do so!

Now, while there are many qualified non-profit organizations that would benefit from being tagged on your Remarkable card (what? you don’t have one?  GET ONE!), I’m bringing this to your attention because my daughter is in the Award-Winning Vandegrift High School VIPER Band in Austin, TX.  And we’re one of the authorized non-profits on Randall’s list.

So, all you have to do is tag the VHS Band Booster’s Good Neighbor ID on your Randall’s card, and the band will benefit from your purchases at Randall’s.  How easy can it get?   You can even have up to three different nonprofits on your card.  To add the band to your card, you can print out this handy cut-out card and hand it to your cashier, or tell them at the customer service counter.

Also, we’d appreciate it if you spread the word to friends, family, and neighbors who might shop at Randall’s.

What?  What’s that you say?  You want to know what the band’s Good Neighbor ID is?

Remember when I asked you what Randall’s Grocery Store and Spaceballs had in common?

Yup.

Our number is 12345.

Few things happen in the absence of incentive.

Why do we go to work?  So we can eat.

Why do we pay taxes? So we don’t go to jail.

Why do we brush our teeth?  So we can keep them.  (See “why do we go to work”)

A defining charactistic of individual humans is their tolerance level for pain.  This tolerance drives how much incentive is required to compel a response.  Every human, like everything else in nature, is shaped by stimulus and response.  Take away the stimulus, and the likelihood of response goes to almost nil.

The incentive granularity is almost infinite.  Take the work example – we want to do more than eat, of course.  We want to live in a nice place, have nice things, maybe save for retirement.  So, you work harder.  You strive for promotions.  The incentive? you want more stuff.  Different people have different incentives, and the variances in the tolerance for pain/discomfort also account for why some people strive harder than others.

So what happens when you remove the stimulus?

If our teeth were preserved whether we brushed them or not, we probably wouldn’t brush them.

If we didn’t go to jail for not paying taxes, we probably wouldn’t pay them.

If we got free food and housing , we probably wouldn’t go to work.

Unfortunately, the human race hasn’t evolved enough from our caveman days to act much different than, well, cavemen.  As a whole, we’re not “in it for the greater good.”  We don’t do something because “it’s the right thing to do” until we’re taught to do so. 

And by “taught”, I mean “incentivized.”

I’m pretty sure when I show this video to my wife, she’s going to want me to commit Web 2.0 suicide as well.

While the video makes excellent points, I don’t buy into the all-or-nothingness of it all.  But maybe that’s the real point.  Showing how bad it CAN get by using extreme examples (like committing suicide) so you can recognize when your online life is getting a bit too much and infringing on the in-person-and-in-your-face life.

I for one don’t think I could ever give up my online friends, nor could I discount the myriad benefits I receive from facebook, twitter and linkedin. 

Moderation is the key. 

(I found out about W2SM – Web 2.0 Suicide Machine through NetworkWorld’s article about the legal fight they’re having with Facebook.)

Don’t you just LOVE it when there’s a blogger you read (or watch) and they blog for a while and then they just disappear for a few weeks?  Sure, they’re on twitter, and they utter now and again (despite Utterli having tremendous telephone interface issues), and they pop up their head every once in a while to do a blog upgrade or two (if you haven’t heard yet, all you WordPress users should make sure you upgrade).

Sarcasm aside, don’t also just LOVE IT when a talented and giving blogger is cool and all, but still ends up not delivering on promises he made?  (you and YOU and you know what I’m talking about.  Especially YOU).

I promise I haven’t forgotten.  These promises range from a blog setup, a song, a guest post, a painting, a astrology reading… the list goes on and on.  In fact, I just added one about not forgetting.  Seems I hand out promises faster than Congress can create bills to hand out cash.

(speaking of which – have you signed the petition /poll urging Congress to pass a bill stating that Members of Congress and their families must be forced to enroll themselves into whatever health plan they pass for us citizens?  Go do that.)

In the meantime, I gave to Chili’s Create-a-Pepper fight cancer blitz.  I even wrote some code (which in retrospect is slightly wrong; I didn’t have my favorite code editor to help me.)

(click to embiggify)

While my procrastinating behavior is no excuse, I will say that a few things going on have taken center stage.  One is a new job.

Yup.  After almost NINE (9) years at the same company through mergers, acquisitions, growth and hard work, I’m leaving my awesome job as IT Director of a large national ISP.  It was a tough decision, because, well… I wasn’t looking for a new job.  I like it quite a bit here.  The company I’m at is great, the work is fun, the future is bright and gosh darn it, they even provide shades.  And 35 cent sodas in the vending machine.

But when The Force calls you to action, it’s not like you can just walk away and say no.

(click to embiggify)

I’m not even sure how much I can talk about the new job, so hang out a bit and I’ll probably explain more soon.  I know I can say for sure that it’s a geek’s dream come true.  At least, it’s THIS geek’s dream come true.  I start this coming Monday.

CRAP. I START MONDAY!  GAH!

Remember all those excuses I was saying I had?  One of them is the fact that I’ve been at my current job for almost 9 years and I’m leaving this Friday!  THERE’S SO MUCH TO DO.  Pretty much everything in IT that’s here, I either built, made, bought, set up, coded, installed, customized, supported, cussed at, tweaked, broke, fixed, loved, threw out, kicked, compiled, uninstalled, mentored, laughed with, documented, reviewed, spilled Pepsi on, plugged in, turned off, racked, stacked, touched and/or hugged.  We’re talking hundreds and hundres of servers, networks, firewalls, phone systems, call centers, blackberries, workstations and software packages.  At one time we were 86 people and now we’re almost 500.  There’s a lot of tribal knowledge to transfer with just a three week notice.

On one hand, I’ll be breathing a sigh of relief as I drop the burden of all the little issues off my back by leaving. On the other hand, I’ll be learning a whole NEW set of little issues to welcome onto my back.

So that’s what’s new with me.  What’s new with you?

(note: the above question is NOT just a question-tactic to get comments.  If I were inclined to incite people to comment, I’d ask your opinion about health care.)

Inspiration comes in many forms.  One of my favorite forms is Ren.

Ren is way smart.  And I’m way lucky.  Between the two of us, I’m pretty sure we’re going to figure out a way to solve the world’s energy problems.  Or maybe I’ll make a lot of money when he solves the problem.  Something like that.

There’s an ability Ren has of being able to discuss a subject devoid of annoying emotions that get in the way of logic, without coming across as if he’s Spock or Sheldon Cooper.  In fact, probably what makes Ren most endearing to me is his ability to not get annoyed.  That’s probably why we’ve been able to be friends so long.

A number of years ago, he impressed me by losing some weight when we worked together.  I ended up finding the weight he lost and now I’m ready to lose it.  Recently, Ren blogged about the one hundred pushups plan.  This is how he went from “impressed me” to “inspired me” in the fitness category.

I’ve now started the program.

The plan is a 6-week regimen of being able to do one hundred consecutive pushups. you do an initial test (where you max out how many you can do) and then choose three days a week to do a few sets.  It starts out easy enough, so it should be within reach of anyone.

My first suggestion, for those of you planning on trying this, have at least a full day between the initial test and your first day of the plan.  I did my initial test Sunday and chose Mon-Wed-Fri as my 3 days.  Of course, my abs and arms hurt like heck Monday afternoon when I tried the first set.

Also, since I play pool on Wednesdays, I figured out too late that it’s not a good day to actually do a lot of strenuous upper body work.  Therefore, I’m switching to Tue-Thu-Sat for my chosen days.

So far, I’m of two minds – on the one hand, I’m elated at the pumped up feeling my arms have after the first real set (Day 1).  I’ve been through Army Basic Training and I’ve also worked with personal trainers three different times in my life at a gym, so it’s not like this is an alien feeling.  I’m a little high from actually having my body be happy for being used up a little.  It truly is an uplifting feeling, if you forgive the pun.

On the other hand, I’m a little shamed at how bad I’ve let myself get, both weight-wise and physical strength-wise.  Some of it is that I have a 20 year High School reunion coming up.  Some of it is how big I look in pictures or the mirror.  Some of it is a nagging suspicion that it’ll only get harder as I get older, and I’d better grab that steer by the horns now if I’m going to make this analogy work in my favor.

If I have success, I’ll share some incredible before and after pictures

PS: thanx for the inspiration, Ren!

Greetings Wanton Consumerists and Suburban Slaves to the Man.

This is Faiqa, self appointed leader of the Native-Born Liberation Army (NBLA), informing you that your beloved Whall has been captured by our operatives.

Like all good liberation armies, we have given Mr. Hall the opportunity to either join us or to pay us $1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 in exchange for his freedom.

Because, really?  We would never dream of forcing our ideals on other people without their express consent.

I and my army suggest that you, as friends and loyal fans of Mr. Hall, implore him to accept the tenets of our ideology as his own so he can get back to blogging for his loving, soullessly capitalistic audience without any further delay.

Our requirements are simple.

…

The NBLA Manifesto

As Amended for Mr. W. Hall.

• Deep Abiding Sense of Patriotism. Mr. Hall will herein refer to President Barack Hussein Obama as “My Main Squeeze, The Big Cheese”

• Charity Begins Under Duress. Mr. Hall will compose a correspondence directed to the IRS stating that not only does he wish to pay the amount of his income tax plus 25% for the rest of his natural life, but that he also insists that his taxes be used to put $10K rims on every method of transportation present in the government housing project nearest to his home.  Even bicycles.

• Multiculturalism. Before engaging in any more blog writing, Mr. Hall will ask himself, “What would a liberal left wing semi socialist brown woman think of this?”  and then amend his thoughts accordingly.

• More Multiculturalism. Mr. Hall will change his name to “Marmontiansese Nbyuti Barack Hussein Obama (tongue click) W. Hall” which means in a rare Kenyan dialect with which none of you have any familiarity, “Man, I Really Wish My Parents Had Named Me Barack Hussein Obama instead of W. Hall”

• Even More Multiculturalism. Mr. Hall will spend the rest of his life creating LOLCats that exhibit a broader appeal to humanity.  His first creation could be, for example, a Tabby with a dot on its forehead happily encouraging you with the knowledge that “I Gots Teck Sahpport.”  Or a Persian cat getting waterboarded screeching, “But Ahm Jest Heer Awn Ah Stoodent Veesa!”

• Equality of the Sexes. Mr. Hall will amend any and all items he owns that say, “Don’t Mess with Texas” to read “I Hate Sexists.”

I think you’ll all agree that the above sentiments are more than just notions of change, but promise to form the framework of an exciting and artfully constructed new world order.

Sincerely,

Faiqa
Supreme Magistrate of All Things Wise, Prudent and Being Generally Better Than Everyone Else Without Even Trying of the NBLA

…

UPDATE:  Early this morning, Mr.  Hall composed an e-mail that he requested we share with you.  The e-mail has been modified for the sake of brevity, but is true to form.  Mainly.

…

Help Me Internets!!

Dear Friends,

I can’t believe that not one of you offered to pay a ransom for me.  You’re a bunch of cheap jerks.

Thank you for your support.  It has meant the world to me.

As for the NBLA, it will be a cold day in h-e-double hockey mom sticks before I comply with any of their demands.  W. Hall is tough on terror.

The unbridled power of the NBLA is humbling and awe inspiring.

Obama, “My Main Squeeze, The Big Cheese”?  Ha!  More like “watching you snicker at  Wanda Sykes’ tasteless jokes made me wanna cut the cheese… ”

My captivity has given me time to reflect upon the ideals that I have held in the past and this reflection has prompted me to open a new chapter in my ideological life.  All I can say is, “Yes.  Yes, I can.”

Somebody please call the police.  Faiqa is completely insane, I think her pregnancy has made her psychotic.  Please.  Anyone.  Help me.  She’s going to make me watch a Spike Lee marathon.

I am happy here with Faiqa.  I’m not sure that my intellectual awakening is complete and would like to continue studying under her tutelage.

Oh, God.  Did she just mention Bollywood?  And a 24 hour repeat marathon of Gandhi??!  Oh, the humanity!!

Incidentally, I’m considering a hunger strike and may walk to the sea to make my own salt just as the great Mahatma did in the previous century.  I plan this with the hopes of reminding everyone that we’re all victimized by the post colonial legacy thrust upon the lesser developed nations by the Western powers.

NBLA Sounds Vaguely Similar to that Association for Pedophiles, doesn’t it?  What A Bunch Of Losers.

Fight the Power & Down With the Man,

Whall

Marmontiansese Nbyuti Barack Hussein Obama (tongue click) W. Hall

…

This e-mail is confidential, if you have received it in error… well, that sucks for us.  Don’t call the police.  NBLA is an equal opportunity conscript army and does not discriminate based on race, gender, class or sexual preferences.  We’re not fans of the French, though.  Or Saudis.  Or people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures.  Or people who steal lines from Austin Powers and try to pass them off as their own.

Oh hi! I suppose you’re looking for Whall but he’s off on a vacation, leaving his blog in the hands of a few certain elite bloggers.  Somehow I managed to sneak into the lineup.  For those of you who don’t know who I am (shame on you!) I am the notorious Sheila from Charm School Reject.

If you were brave enough to visit my blog, you’d be bombarded with a lot of pink and grey, skulls and words that I invent to make myself sound smarter and funnier than I actually am.

I’m pretty much the epitome of “so much cooler online”.

Self-deprecating humor, Whatchamacallits, Dr. Pepper and nicotine are the only things I pack in my survival kit.

But enough about me….let’s get on with the show and talk about the man that you all came here to visit.

**********

When you mention the word “whall” most people think of those flat things in a house that you hang pictures on.

Unless the person you are speaking to is a supercool blogger (i.e. knows Whall), you have to correct them and say “His name is Whall – it has an ‘h’ in it.”

Then you are required to delve into an epic-worthy monologue, heaping accolades upon the character of the man that is Whall. No seriously, you are.  If you didn’t know this, well, you really should learn to read the fine print.

So, without further ado…..::ahem::….What Whall Means to Me : An  Accolade of Epic Proportions.

Whall is the very first Republican Blogger I ever had the pleasure of knowing. In fact, I’ve only met two others – we are a rare and dying breed my friends.

When I first stumbled onto his blog, I was in complete and total awe of him.  The intelligence, wit and humor that he brings to the table while talking politics is astounding.   He takes the time to explain his position and is able to back it up with facts.  He doesn’t pepper his political talks with a bunch of extraneous information, just to make him sound better or smarter.   I, however, am not above doing that.  Please note my completely unnecessary use of the word “extraneous”.

I suppose, looking back on it, I was mainly in awe of the fact that he was so vocal about his political standings, especially in the midst of the two year campaigning for President Obama, amongst a vast amount of Democrats.

Whall is a man who has wore [has worn?] many hats throughout the course of our friendship.  Not only is he my political co-hort, he explained twitter to me and helped me figure out it’s [caution : big word alert] idiosyncrasies**, he set up my practice blog when I was debating movin’ on up to the East Side [also known as "Wordpress"], he offered tech support post-move, offered loads of help fixing my theme when I broke my blog shortly after my move to the deluxe apartment in the sky-y and provides comic relief throughout my day.

He is classy and cool and completely inoffensive – basically, he is everything that I am not.

Of course, politic diatribes [see? another word that no one uses], DITL’s, utterz, twitters, family talk and PG ratings* are all well and good but nothing really sets my heart to pitter patter like a good ol’ best of LOLcats posting.

So, you can imagine the heartbreak I felt when I took a Facebook quiz – which are known for their insane accuracy – to help me determine which LOLcat I was and saw this….

Oh the horror of horrors!

According to Facebook, not only am I bipolar, I’m also not an LOLcat!

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go contemplate my future – I really thought I had it in the bag with that whole LOLcat career.

xoxo

*I was worried that Whall was breaking his own rules  and trying to ruin his reputation when I saw the title to this post and this post.

**If you have known me for more than ten seconds you already know that there is a wikipedia page dedicated to me under the heading of TechnoRetarded so the fact that I had trouble figuring out Twitter shouldn’t really surprise you.

Hello Wayneaholics, Cissa here from Heart of Fire!

I was lucky enough to beg for a chance and given permission be hand-picked by Wayne to be a guest poster this week, and I thought I would try to be similar to some of the other great bloggers who have graced this place and keep up with some Wayne-ish traditions, so you feel more comfortable while Wayne’s living it up in Reno/Tahoe!

See the title?  I came up with that….You see, My husband MISK, is a big deal on my blog.  I speak of him often…ok well..usually when I am mad at him for something, but…entirely not the point — I’m here for Wayne! So without further delay,  onto the MISK, I mean MISC. Stuff : Cissa Style!

Cissa is Hot!  FIREheart is My name afterall…

I have decided that this year, I am going to go up for the Hot Blogger Calendar.  But I’m no dummy.  I know from reading Variety and all the Hollywood trades research that in order to get votes to win something, you have to start Campaigning Early!  I mean look at the Presidential race — Some nominees start a whole 2 years before!

So this year I am starting before it’s even announced that votes are open.  Vote for Me for Hot Blogger 2010! What?  You still need proof of my hotness?  well check THESE babies out:

Looking Hot at Dave York last Weekend…

Striking a pose last summer on the beach

The.Best.Picture.of.Me.Ever.  I totally can be Miss August.

See what I mean? HOT!  Plus?  I have some Hot Friends who were in this year’s calendar. Hot by Association! I got this one in the bag, baby!

So next year when the polls open, remember me, Cissa Fireheart!

I know nothing about Tech stuff but WordPress 2.7.1 Is not Installed on My Blog!

I’d totally go into some techy talk, like Wayne does, but let’s face it — I’m just not that smart.  I mean, all I do all day is copy and paste HTML and insert a few links write detailed programming on websites.  But I have that nagging little reminder sitting on my WordPress dashboard every time I log into my blog, so I thought I’d mention it.

I totally want the upgrade, even if I have no clue what it does.  Since Wayne is all techy, and in fact, is so cool he hosts my blog, and does all my maintenance…HEY WAYNE!  UPGRADE WHEN YOU GET BACK, PLEASE??

The Best of LOL Office Cats

I work in an office all day and so I thought I would show you guys some of the LOL Cats I have on my cubicle.  To me, they are hilarious, and if you work for Corporate America, or even a small office, you will appreciate them…

Well that’s about it for me here, folks.  Hope you are surviving the week without Wayne, and maybe I helped in a small way by doing this post the way Wayne might have done it if he were me….

See you around, and Wayne?  Thanks for letting me guest-post. Hope you are winning big at the slots!

~Cissa

Hey gang, it’s Karl here, filling in for Wayne while he runs off to Lake Tahoe to gamble away his life savings.

It’s not easy guest blogging for Whall because he puts all these restrictions on you, like you can’t curse and you can’t show naked pictures of yourself. Man, that’s 95% of my repertoire right there! Now I’m supposed to stay clothed and use words like “heck” and “holy moley?” That’s frakkin bullhonkydoodoo, I tell you!

Still, when your host wishes to maintain a PG level on his blog, you have to honor it, even if you’re typically rated NC-17. House rules. I forgot to ask Wayne if I was supposed to take off my shoes before entering his house, but oh well. He’ll have to deal with it.

I live in this little tiny town in south central Florida called Sebring. Population is a little over 10,000, which is only slightly smaller than the city I lived in for 11 years before coming to Florida – Dallas, Texas.

The other day, Sebring actually made national news for something other than the 12 Hours of Sebring auto races. We had some buttclown (again, keeping it clean) play an April Fool’s joke by placing dozens of plain white envelopes on car windshields in the Florida Hospital parking lot. Each envelope contained white powder.

Needless to say, everybody freaked, especially since a select few envelopes contained a message: “Define anthrax.” The whole hospital was on lockdown for 14 hours…nobody allowed in or out.

This idiot also planted envelopes in some residential mailboxes. So there were a couple of residential communities on lockdown, too. The FBI was here, Homeland Security, and I think I heard mention that Captain Crunch was here. They weren’t messing around.

A sample of the powder was delivered to Tampa – 2 hours away, the closest place to Sebring that has testing facilities better than that in Walmart. Turns out, surprise, that it wasn’t anthrax.

Nope, it was Johnson’s Cornstarch Baby Powder. Which the moron bought at Walmart, where they have video cameras. I don’t know how they caught the guy, but they did. And here he is.

That’s Jerron Mario Moffitt, 20 years old, mugging it up for his mug shot. Now being held with 75 counts of second-degree felony, hoax of weapons of mass destruction. Ha, isn’t that funny? What a frakkin imbecile. Did Jerron Mario Moffitt never hear of 9/11? Anthrax just isn’t the fun and games it used to be.

Did you ever notice that the most notorious criminals are represented by THREE names? Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, John Wilkes Boothe, Mark David Chapman…you could go on and on. And now there’s Jerron Mario Moffit. Not just Jerron Moffit, mind you, because that doesn’t help us see what a horrid person he is. No, we need to use his middle name, too.

It’s like when I was a kid and my mom’s voice would suddenly drop 3 octaves as she caught me in the act doing something horrible, say, stealing cookies from the top of the fridge, or pushing my sister down the stairs. She’d say, “Karl Thomas Erikson!” And my whole body would freeze up.

Fortunately, aside from my parents, the only place you’ll see all three of my names is at your local post office. I can’t remember the charges…it’s not like I was swearing on Wayne’s blog or anything.

So kids, next April Fool’s Day don’t be tempted to stick cornstarch powder in white envelopes and plant them around your town, lest you be known by your 3-named moniker your whole life.

And as a special bonus, I give to you my favorite new commercial, which contains absolutely no curse words, no nudity, and no violence. It’s all about lawn maintenance. And it’s subtle, like an anvil being dropped on your foot.

Thanks for having me, Wayne. Enjoy your trip and bring me back some money.