I have had incredible success with my pursuit of Nicholas on Google. I have now jumped up to #263. I’m right above Mr. Palmer (another Nicholas and a composer). Of course, now that I have linked to Mr. Plamer; he’ll probably jump up higher. Oh well.

As for sports and my work’s site, United States Sports Academy, well it’s all over the place. I was up to 71, then down to 158, now I’m back to 72 according to GoogleRankings.com, a site I occasionally use to monitor this stuff, but when I search for it, I don’t see United States Sports Academy at all in the top 200. I think it’s because the site is newly ranked and it will take a while for the various Google indices to adjust.

The episode started off with all the contestants (Alonzo wasn’t there) saying they felt bad for Peter. Then, their trainer comes in and says, “The only guy that’s not whining and moaning is Peter. He’s ready for his next shot.” They shut up fast.

They all meet next to the ring, and Sylvester gives Alonzo a necklace. The necklace means that Alonzo won’t have to fight again until there are only 8 people left. This is the first reality show where immunity really makes sense. One, he needs time to recover. Two, he won a fight and should be rewarded.

Team West gets another reward for winning they get to have lunch with George Foreman. It’s obvious they are excited, and you can see members of the other team looking through the windows wishing they got to go too. George was friendly as always, and during lunch he cautions Ishme to make a plan and stick to. He has to make sure he’s calling the shot (important later on).

The teams meet again for their challenge. This week’s challenge was in a stadium. Each team raced to the top of the stadium to get a flag. They could only head back once everyone made it to the top. There were seven flags. Each one had a puzzle piece. After each flag was retrieved, one team member had to sit out. Once all the flags were retrieved, the teams had to put their puzzle together. Team West won again.

Both teams return to the training center. Sly is in the ring sparring, which seems both cheesy and funny, at first. But when Sly goes to ask them who won, he is completely out of breath. I guess he wasn’t just moving around for show. The contenders make some jokes about it. One of them offers him Gatorade. Sly tells them to get out of there while he finishes having cardiac arrest.

Team West gets to choose who fights. Jesse immediately wants Ishme to fight Akmed because of their ongoing rivalry. However, Ishme suddenly becomes hesitant. Jesse gets pissed and offers to fight Jonathan Reid (sp?). Jesse ends up fighting Jonathan but remains mad at Ishme.

Ishme did the right thing. George Foreman had cautioned him to think things through, and he did. Fighting Akmed now, would have been a mistake. The whole point of trash talking opponents isn’t that you believe what you’re saying or you’re afraid of them. It’s that you’re a serious competitor, and you want to shake them up; you’re competing at all times even when it’s just conversation. Once you get them riled though, you have to step back, let them cool down, then come back once they are off-balance again. Fighting Akmed then wouldn’t have served Ishme’s purpose, but he needs to be careful. Akmed’s anger could continue to build and prove to be an asset. Also, Ishme could began to doubt himself and think that he’s afraid of Akmed.

Jesse beats Jonathan in the fight. It was pretty close, but Jesse pulled it off in the end.

This new Zelda trailer looks absolutely amazing. Amazing. via Joystiq

Update: Try this link to Zelda.com. Better quality video and you don’t have to deal with IGN’s annoying advertising/insider scheme.

Check out the video of this incredibly real-looking Japanese robot. Also, you can read about how it can recognise over 40,000 phrases and more.
via Engadget

I’m ready for house-cleaning robots, especially since my wife got on to me for not helping enough with the cleaning.

Google News added the ability to customize the front page to your news preference. You can change to the order of sections and even add your own custom sections.

Here’s the minimzed customization panel:

It becomes this when you click on it.

I added a custom fencing news section.

You can also get a link for your custom news page. See my custom news page.

This is my first post about the city of Mobile, Alabama.

As I drove to work this morning, I listened to the Alabama Report on NPR. I work across the bay; so, the drive is long. I couldn’t help noticing that the Carnival cruise ship Holiday was in port this morning. It’s a nice site. Once, when I first started working across the bay, I was traveling home and looked out across Mobile Bay to see the sun setting and a Carnival cruise ship slowly moving across the water. It was an impressive site. It’s times like this that I wish Pentax would hurry up and give me a free camera, although traveling on I-10 is probably the worst time I could snap a picture.

Anyway, I had heard previously that a state legislative official was trying to pass a bill to install traffic light cameras. The cameras would snap a picture of your license plate as you ran a red light. Today, the Alabama Report said that the bill most likely would not pass.

Good! Man, there’s no reason here in Mobile, Alabama to have traffic cameras snapping pictures of license plates. It’s way too Big Brother for me. Besides, most of these lights are so out of synch; it’s insane. On Airport Blvd, if you catch one light, you catch them all. Why is that, anyway?

My mom forwarded this email to me:

Dear family & friends, Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone’s telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you will be given a map to their house. Everyone should be aware of this!

Note that you can have your phone number removed or blocked. Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number in google.com. My phone number came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where I live. Quite scary. Please look up your own number.

Read below for details. Think about it–if a child, ANYONE gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. The safety issues are obvious, and alarming. In order to test whether your phone number is mapped, go to: http://www.google.com/

Type your phone number in the search bar (i.e. 555-555-1212) and hit enter.If you want to BLOCK Google from divulging your private information, simply click on the telephone icon next to your phone number. Removal takes 48-hours. If you are unlisted in th e phone book, you might not be in there, but it is a good idea just to check. If your number does come up if you hit map, it will show you a direct map to your house… forward on to friends

Okay, so what’s the big deal? I don’t even need to know your phone number to find out where you live. I could look your name up in the phone book, or I could call information. I bet I could get information to even give me directions. If not, I’m sure I could stop at local gas station and get directions.

So, what’s the threat to kids? Most likely if they give out their number, it won’t be to a stranger. If it was, then you have worse worries than that person getting directions to the child’s home. Besides, most kids these days have cell phones, which isn’t linked to a physical address and won’t show up. And on top of all that, what is ANYONE going to do with your home address? Absolutely nothing. So, why is it that information made pubicly avaible becomes a big concern when it hits the WWW? My suspicion is a right-wing conspiracy to keep information out of the public’s hands.

Anyway, here’s MY concern. My mother, and everyone she forwards this email to, will remove themselves from google’s index. So, when I want to call someone whose number I don’t know by heart, I won’t be able to find it online. Even worse, if I try to get directions to their house (to go to a party or get-together)… no such luck there either. So, unless you are in the CIA, on the FBI’s most wanted list, or otherwise keeping your identity secret, PLEASE do not remove yourself from indexes. The only people you’re going to hurt are the friends you have who are trying to get in touch with you.

I’ve decided that my home town Mobile, AL needs an offical blogger. So, I’m going to name myself to that position. Expect to see a weekly post on the city of Mobile. Plus, I prolly be doing some blog promotion trying to get indexed on google for Mobile, AL Blogger.

Just in case I was confusing, I’m officially the Mobile, AL Blogger. I plan to see if I can get a paper or local news channel to endorse me. Maybe the mayor, Mike Dow?

So, what will I do as the official Mobile, AL Blogger? Blog, of course. I’m going to try to help out local events by giving them a place they can get the word out. Just shoot me an email and I’ll blog about whatever you’re doing. Also, if you have a complaint or question about the city, shoot it to me, and I’ll see if my posting can help out. Maybe you’re going to have a yard sale, I’ll post about it for free, just let me know. Maybe you went to a cool new store or restaurant, I can post on anything.

My firend and fellow web designer Donald has an interesting, insightful site all about colors and the web. I’ve seen this before, but I have never really gotten a chance to look at it in depth.

I can’t believe the wealth of color information Donald has put together. I’m really going to have to read through all these pages carefully.

Napolean Dynamite vs Fender from Robots (I like Robots but this movie looks just plain dumb. Plus, Robin Williams is a sure sinker.) are having a dance off at www.napoleonvsfender.com. Napolean is a dead-sure winner on this one. Visit and Vote. via Kottke

Quentin Tarantino is thinking about making a Friday the 13th movie. That would be very cool. Whether or not you like his work, you have to admit that he has a unique perspecive. I’m pretty pumped to see how this pans out.

Also, the article mentions that he has signed on to direct the season finale of CSI. I remember reading that he wanted to do the next Bond movie, Casino Royale, but the producers wouldn’t go for it. Too bad, it would have been interesting, but they did get the director of Goldeneye (my favorite Bond movie yet) to do it. No word on who will play Bond though. I just think the Tarantino Casino Royale would have been better. The last few Bond movies suffer from unoriginality.

If Tarantino is taking requests, I’d love to see him direct my movie, Zombies From the Deep.

Slashdot posted a thread spreading more rumors about Google and VoIP. For those of you who don’t know, VoIP is phone service over the Internet. So, it’s supposed to be incredibly cheap and costs the same to make a local call as it does an international one.

I for one would love to ditch my local teleco. Wait, I already did. I switched to one of those smaller phone companies who lease the local telco’s lines. Anyway, I’d love to make calls over the internet for free using Google. I’ll be keeping an eye on this story.

New Drawing and Illustrations Blog, Drawn. via Boing Boing

A recent comic strip calls newspapers, “Dinosaur Blog.” via Kottke

Okay, Michael (a female) has a cool blog that is an interesting blend of southern charm with a Swedish accent. It’s called Owls in the Moss. I added it to the side bar too. –>

Check it out; you’ll see some great photographs of southern Alabama, a Swedish word for each day, and some humorous catalog and newspaper items.

Anyway, be sure to leave comments! I heard through the grapevine that Michael enjoys it when viewers leave comments (I do too of course).