Do you see what I see?

Earlier I stated that video games can help in speed of tasks and cut down on errors, but it may also help your eyesight.
http://www.livescience.com/health/070315_video_vision.html
According to this study, when playing games like "Gears of War", "Lost Planet", and "Halo", there is a substantial increase in the ability to see objects in a cluttered space. Exercise for the eyes, as it is.
Sorry, sedate games like Tetris show no improvement, no matter how high your high score is.

Just vacuum the walls

When I was in High school, there was a school activity called mock trial. If you do not know what this is, that is OK, I never really knew what it was, I just participated to spend more time with my new girlfriend. Basically a mock trial is between 2 schools, and it is a trial with students playing the parts of lawyers and witnesses (obviously I was a witness). Now let me tell you I find myself to be one of the most analytical (a.k.a. not creative) people, but I pulled one out one day. Before you arrive to the competition, you see the information from both sides of the case, and they tell you when you arrive what side you will be representing. This gives you all the information, and what the opposition will try to get you on. Basically the trial came down to carpets that contained asbestos, and there were carpets on the wall. So when the opposing lawyer asked me the "janitor" if I vacuumed I said yes, every day. o their follow up was, what about the carpet on the wall. I responded "oh yeah, we have a special attachment that we use to vacuum the walls every day (this was nowhere in the notes, but it was not specifically stated to be untrue)". Needless to say this left the opposition dumbfounded.
http://www.nationalmocktrial.org/

Not exactly Brain Surgery?

Many people have a belief that video games fry children's brains, and should be monitored or withheld from children. I believe that a lot of that criticism comes from adults that have never played video games themselves when they were younger (because they did not exist), or at least never played games such as exist today. Their argument is that they are playing with "mindless machines". I've always been on the fence on this subject because of articles like this
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/12/66086
which shows that 3 hours of video games a week can improve speed , and efficiency in "everyday" tasks, including surgery!

Who is John Galt?

If you recognize that famous first line then you have probably read what is probably my favorite book of all time Atlas Shrugged. If you have not, then I highly suggest that you do. Published more than 50 years ago, much of what this book represents still rings true today, as evidenced by a recent wall street journal article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html
I have been trying to "push" this book on to most everyone I know, and the few that have managed to "trudge" through the 1168 pages are grateful for it. I have actually read it twice (although I must admit I glazed over "The Speech" the second time around), and I highly suggest reading it before the movie comes out (rumored to have Angelina Jolie, Russell Crowe, and Brad Pitt), because no matter how good the movie is I doubt it can ever do the book justice (The DaVinci Code, anyone?)

Creating a Blog

Apparently creating a blog is easier than I thought. Especially if you use Gmail, which I do. Ive noticed a trend in email names in the last few years. When the Internet first became popular, Aol was the primary way for common folk, such as myself. People had a wide variety of "names". In my own family there is a carbo22, realebusy, popalapu, brooklynbaby25, and a whosnext316, just to name a few. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert is one of the first people I can remember that used "FirstnameLastname" and he is still using ScottAdams@aol.com. I have taken to using my own name in my email addresses, web pages, etc. leaving little doubt who it is sending the information. The only blog I regularly read is Scott Adams', and I must say I really enjoy it (check it out here http://www.dilbert.com/blog/ if you are interested). I like his style, and I plan on having a similar one on this blog, unless "suggested" otherwise.