5. AUDITIONS - The audition process is outrageous. After waiting for nearly two days on concrete, the contestants are given an opportunity to showcase their talents alongside 20,000 hopefuls in the city they attend. Unless someone waits in line for the contestant (stepping away will cost you your place in line), this is a long time to be without an opportunity to shower. Not to mention, those that don’t bring food go the entire time without eating. Ryan Seacrest is typically late to these events, showing up as late as ten when the competitions start at eight in the morning. I guess the logic is, “What are two more hours?” Any attempt to beautify oneself must be accomplished in the bathroom while grappling with peers for a corner of a mirror to get television ready.
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1. Condense Your Main Message. Ideally you should get it down to a 30 second blurb. How do you do that? Start with the goal of your speech. Is it to convey knowledge? If so what is the main thrust? Perhaps your goal is to inspire your audience to take action. If so, what action do you want them to take Maybe your goal is to make your audience feel something. This is your overarching message. Write your first draft without attention to length at first. Once you’ve done that, then condense it. When you deliver your speech, touch on it at least 3 times or whenever appropriate, but be sure to include it in the beginning, middle, and especially at the end.

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1. Junk. I recommend using Gmail, as it has the best spam filter possible. I get zero spam in my inbox. That’s a huge improvement over my previous accounts at Yahoo and Hotmail, where I’d have to tediously mark dozens of emails as spam.

2. Notifications. I often get notifications from the many online services I use, from Amazon to WordPress to PayPal and many more. As soon as I notice those types of notifications filling up my inbox, I create a filter (or “rule” if you use Mail.app or Outlook) that will automatically put these into a folder and mark them as read, or trash them, as appropriate. So for my PayPal notifications, I can always go and check on them in my “payments” folder if I like, but they never clutter my inbox.
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1) Friend Lists Privacy Controls

A few weeks ago, Facebook took the first step toward enabling more efficient friend management with the release of Friend Lists. However, as was noted at the time, the killer feature of Friend Lists — Privacy Controls — was nowhere to be found. The good news is Facebook is working on this, and will allow users to control visibility for their profile, photos, and apps using Friend Lists soon.

2) Facebook in New Languages

It has been known for a while that Facebook is working on translating the site into a few new key languages. However, beyond this initial step, Facebook is planning an aggressive (…) Read the rest of this entry »

• Understand what it is that will make you happy. Everyone has unique requirements for attaining happiness and what makes one person happy may be very different from what makes someone else happy. Revel in your individuality and do not worry about whether or not your desires are comparable to those of your peers.
• Make a plan for attaining goals that you believe will make you happy. Your mood will very likely increase as your pursue your goal because you will feel better about yourself for going after something you value. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Trepanation

Ouch. In one of the oldest known medical interventions, a hole is drilled in the skull of a patient who is suffering from defects such as seizures or migraine headaches. The idea was to relieve pressure in the head which was believed to be causing the ailment. Today, trepanation is used on a very limited basis as a mechanism to access the brain for necessary surgery. Some people practice recreational or spiritual trepanation, presumably because they need modern medicine like they need a hole in the head. Read the rest of this entry »

Tapioca.
Tapioca, if not processed properly, can be toxic. It contains a natural source of cyanide, whose precursor, linamarin, is rendered harmless if properly dried, soaked, and baked.
Blowfish (Fugu).
This fish is deadly on its own, and highly regarded as a Japanese and Hong Kong delicacy. It’s poison, tetrodotoxin, is 1,200 times more potent than cyanide. Around one hundred diners die each year from it. Preparation is the key; make sure a licensed chef prepares your Fugu. Becoming a licensed Fugu chef is a long and intensive process, culminating in the chef preparing a Fugu meal and eating it himself. The most deadly parts of Fugu include the liver, muscles, ovaries, and skin. Read the rest of this entry »

I post this one with all appropriate snark and commentary.

Maybe in NYC Barbara can still move $10 million dollar penthouses with ease, but in the rest of the country, there’s a very good reason your house isn’t selling.

Hey Barbara, how about reason number 9: Your house is unsellable cause no one out there is buyin right now!

8 reasons why your house is unsellable (MSNBC.com)