• New Post: Scott Blogs Weekly Twitter 2009-03-22 http://tinyurl.com/d292nl #
• Anyone install the new MSN IM yet? Is it worthwhile? Does it work properly or crash like crazy? I am hesitant to install it. #
• Its time for Twitter to get faster servers. It’s over capacity far too often. The existing back-end setup is far too slow for its user base! #
• Soooo Tired… is it Friday yet? What? It’s only Tuesday? wow, this week is dragging on and on and on… #
• Wow, check it out – Friday arrived somehow and we all survived the work week! woo-hoo! #
• Still looking for ideas for a new header graphic – what should I have my brain doing at http://www.scottblogs.com/? I love ideas, so send em #
• @PeterSantilli I second that – working out is too hard – although I bike and kayak, so perhaps that’s good enough. in reply to PeterSantilli #
• @vipvirtualsols Thanks! My goal was to go for something a little shocking, a bit memorable, but still tame at the same time in reply to vipvirtualsols #
• @palmbeachsoaps Twitter needs to do a serious upgrade on their servers to handle all this traffic – it’s way too busy for its infrastructure in reply to palmbeachsoaps #

• New Post: Scott Blogs Weekly Twitter 2009-03-15 http://tinyurl.com/dg3g6k #
• Looking for header image suggestions for my site. Any ideas on what should be next? Currently my brain is running away… wwwscottblogs.com #
• New Post: Recycling and Composting http://tinyurl.com/ckycgd #
• Wow, up to 300 updates now. Not sure how I managed to post so much in only a few short months. I guess the posts really start to add up! #
• @BreakingNewz Such a joke, I say take back the bail out. Any company in financial trouble should not pay out a $6.4M bonus. Wheres my bonus? in reply to BreakingNewz #
• Happy St. Patties Day to Anyone out there who cares #
• Time for lunch I think – PB&J is what its looking like – oooooh boy. #
• I wonder if my lottery ship will ever sale in? #
• @lollieshopping Ya, I’ve won that one a few times, Gotta love the Billions that people want to send me. Maybe I should give them my Visa # in reply to lollieshopping #
• @Bookgirl96 Ya, I think I’m in the same boat as you – the rudder is broken and I’m going in circles. in reply to Bookgirl96 #
• Be sure to give my site a vote at http://www.sitebattles.com! click on “battles” then “active” and when you find my site gimme a vote! Pls. #
• New Post: First Day of Spring 2009 http://tinyurl.com/c2bw3a #

Well, today was the first full day of spring (March 21, 2009). (Technically, Spring started yesterday, on Friday the 20th, but because it wasnt technically spring till 11:47 last night, today was the first full day).

Spring comes when the sun is directly over the equator, the Vernal Equinox – it varies between the 18th and 23rd of March.

Today was a great one for me – after misearable weather for the past several weeks, this first day of spring brought sunshine and slightly warmer weather – this also brought outdoor projects like yard work and garage organization so no real relaxation, but all in all a great day.

So my wife and I have recycled and composted for some time now, but more recently have stepped it up a notch.

Before we would throw some paper and tin cans in the trash due to pure laziness. The same went for potato peels, apple cores, and all that good stuff. Just a few weeks ago we decided to go full out. All recyclables are recycled, and all compostables are composted.

What a difference!

Before we were putting out two garbage cans a week for pickup and now we are down to one, and it’s not even full!

Its really amazing what a difference recycling can make. We have found that composting alone is making a big difference. We’re now dumping about 3-4 gallons of food waste into our compost bin a week. If I look at recyclables, we’re filling two large bins a week (about 6-8 cubic feet in total). Again, if everyone recycled, what a huge impact it would really have.

I have always been a fan of doing whatever I can to be environmentally friendly. I am far from perfect, but doing the little things like recycling, and even switching to compact fluorescents, helps me feel less guilty for driving a fossil fuel burning vehicle.

Once hybrids are perfected and less expensive, we’ll move in that direction, but for now they are just not suitable enough for our lifestyle.

• New Post: Scott Blogs Weekly Twitter 2009-03-08 http://tinyurl.com/cek4u2 #
• I was getting a TON of spam to 1 of my sites all from Pakistan. I found http://www.blockacountry.com/ which makes it easy to block a country #
• @imrananwar I found numerous IP’s, and numerous ISP’s, I was blocking 1 ip at a time, but it did nothing, so I went the brute force method. in reply to imrananwar #
• @megavark Yup – hate to mass block like that, but it was my last resort in reply to megavark #
• @theellenshow love your show, watch it every morning before work. Great appearance on Leno last night #
• Ellen on Leno last night – poor video quality, but still very funny – and she talks about twitter http://tinyurl.com/ah65hr #
• @theellenshow You should open your contests up to us Canadians! Also I know your audience is mostly women, but let a man on stage to win! #
• @BruceLaBruce Fair enough – you’re right, all stuff I have heard before too – but its still funny and entertaining – at least to me. in reply to BruceLaBruce #
• @imrananwar Thats great – I hate to block the whole country, but didnt know what else to do. I will see if I can get you a list of the ISP’s in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar Vast majority from Karachi, ISP’s: pakistan telecommunication, ptcl triple play project, metro ethernet network in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar & linkdotnet telecom limited, national wimax/ims environment, sattech (private) limited in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar Those are where the majority are coming from, but all in all 21 different network locations in all (according to G. Analytics) in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar Not sure if this info helps you in any way, but here it is anyways Good Luck in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar In all cases it was fake ad submissions to a classified ad section I have – all were affiliate links through “clicknearn.net” in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar My classified that I have is for locals only, not for affiliate links. I contacted ClicknEarn many times, they did nothing. in reply to imrananwar #
• @imrananwar Thx. I think I’ll write a brief blog post about this & my communication with you – would you like your name noted or anonymous? in reply to imrananwar #
• This cold is driving me nuts, if only I could go 5 minutes without having to blow my nose… #
• @theellenshow Ellen! Just like you wanted to be the first person other than Oprah on ‘O’, I want to be the first non-celebrity you follow! #
• @Karmiin I havent, but have heard of them. I am thinking I will go to the dentist, and when hes not looking just grab the sucky thing for it in reply to Karmiin #
• New Post: Golfing? Gotta Pee? Use your Uroclub! http://tinyurl.com/ceefut #
• @theellenshow Hey Ellen (still wanting to be your first non-celebrity on your follow list!). Gonna check out your link now #
• When I click on “home” it gives me a different # of Direct Messages to the right then when I click on “Direct Messages”. That’s screwed up.. #
• wife is sick, daughter is sleeping, I think I am going to go out and hit the pool for a swim #
• @EllaJo08 Well, its an indoor pool… That said I have thought about doing the new years polar bear swim, but always chicken out. in reply to EllaJo08 #
• @brianlitman was a good night – except the crazy guy at the pool laying down in the steam room singing. That was weird. in reply to brianlitman #
• @theellenshow Wow, after only a week, you have reached the top 100, currently #71: http://twittercounter.com/pages/100 #
• New Post: Flash Drive in my Nipple http://tinyurl.com/bqsr3j #
• was gonna get pizza for dinner, then read 1200 calories in a half medium pizza – guess we are cooking fish after all #

A Finnish software developer has had a USB flash drive implanted into his prosthetic finger. After losing part of his finger in a motorcycle accident last year, Jerry Jalava’s doctor suggested he have a USB drive built into his replacement digit.

When he needs to use it he simply pops off his finger and sticks it into the computer. I think this is a great idea, and am thinking about getting a couple drives surgically implanted into my nipples. (I was going to say somewhere else, but that’s too crude even for me to write publically – although I guess I just kinda did.)

I am a golfer. I’m not a very good golfer, but I’m still a golfer. When I am out golfing and the urge to pee comes around, I usually look for the nearest washroom, or if absolutely necessary, find a tree (us guys are good at that you know).

But when I saw this invention I thought, I need to buy that! Wait, no… that’s not what I thought at all, sorry, got confused there. What I thought was; “this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my life”. At first I thought it was a joke, then after digging up more YouTube videos on it I have come to the conclusion that the UroClub is real.

Give me a break. (it is still funny though – like something dreamt up by the writers at Saturday Night Live)

These two videos make me think this thing is for real…

Aside from playing around with this blog, I also have a very geographically specific website dedicated to my local area. On that website I also offer free classified ads for locals.

For some time now my other site has been hit hard by spammers from the affiliate program clicknearn.net based on Pakistan. I tried contacting the affiliate program, and they replied saying that they feel strongly against spam, but never did anything about it with their affiliates. I suspect that they actually couldn’t care less, and in fact, are probably the spammers themselves.

Ultimately I started banning the IP’s of the people spamming my classifieds, one at a time. But they kept coming with several posts a day. After doing some digging earlier this week I discovered www.blockacountry.com which quickly and easily generates the htaccess code required to completely block a specific country from your site. I generated and posted the code, and now, no more spam. YAY.

I hated the idea of blocking an entire country from my site, however, as my site is very specific to my local area, I doubt there are many people from Pakistan actually interested in my site anyways, so that combined with the removal of SPAM, I took the step and just blocked them all.

I later posted what I had done in Twitter noting the block a country website and got a reply from “imrananwar” who noted that he has founded an registry to help track problem ISP’s so that all of Pakistan is not hurt by these types of spammers. I provided him with the list of ISP’s that had spammed my site, the nature of the spam, etc. He is working to help reduce spam, and while I am not sure if he will succeed, I am happy to see that there are people out there that care and are trying to do something about all this bad stuff.

• New Post: Scott Blogs Weekly Twitter 2009-03-01 http://tinyurl.com/b77p88 #
• New Post: Daylight Savings – Correction http://tinyurl.com/b76gqw #
• New Post: Daylight Savings – Correction http://tinyurl.com/abxkpw #
• @LucasBlack @myalleycatalley @Ramona_W @chughes15 @Thinkreferrals @TonyaPlank Thanks from everyone! Little Emma says thanks too in reply to LucasBlack #
• New Post: Dating Bases Explained http://tinyurl.com/bljk3o #
• NEW RATINGS! when you view my site use the new Rating feature added to all posts! It will help me write better posts in the future! #
• New Post: Poopy Time Makes Pooping Fun http://tinyurl.com/avel9d #
• Emma’s 1st b-day party went great on Sunday. Today is her official b-day. Here’s a recent video: http://tinyurl.com/ckvpfr #
• New Post: Happy 1st Birthday Emma! http://tinyurl.com/dxvpr2 #
• New Post: Rubik’s Cube and its now Spherical Friend http://tinyurl.com/bf4v23 #
• Reality shows are bugging me – gonna blog about it tonight. #
• New Post: Reality Television is Annoying http://tinyurl.com/ahbs3t #
• New Post: Reality Television is Annoying http://tinyurl.com/daacky #
• New Post: McNugget Emergency Call 911! http://tinyurl.com/b8unyp #
• Ahh Friday – Almost time to wrap up the work week #
• The new FaceBook, and its upcoming changes, remind me a lot of twitter… seems like FaceBook is moving backwards… #

So you have decided that its time to have lunch. You head over to the local McDonalds and order up some McNuggets. You give the cashier your money, she gives you your change, then she notifies you that they are sold out of nuggets.

Now in most cases, you would do one of two things: Either change your order, pay the difference, and carry on, OR get a full refund, and get something to eat elsewhere.

Well, for a Florida woman, Latresesa Goodman, when she asked for her money back, the manager at the McDonalds refused, and it resulted in not one, not two, but three 911 calls.

Goodman was furious that the McDonalds would not return her money (and rightfully so) but withholding McNuggets is a far cry from an emergency, and definitely not worthy of a 911 call.

The police finally arrived at the McDonalds and Goodman certainly didn’t get what she wanted – instead she was arrested for misuse of 911.

According to TMZ, McDonalds ultimately sent her a full refund and an apology as well as a certificate for free meal. They noted that the customer should have received a refund, and regret what has happened.

Now I agree that McDonalds was in the wrong, but Goodman certainly should not have called 911. It got me thinking, what would I do? Well, if management refused to refund my money, I am not entirely sure what I would do. Perhaps a letter to the paper and a phone call to McDonalds head office to launch a formal complaint – I doubt I would call 911. Maybe I’d even take them on Judge Judy, although that would be more humiliating, and not worth the $5 return.

A recording of all three 911 calls can be heard here.