Category: Beliefs


Just because you can download a game for free doesn’t mean that you won’t rack up some cost playing it!

Check out this case of an innocent-seeming iPhone game that cost a Mom a bundle:

>>Kids go on expensive buying sprees in iPhone games

“The Smurfs’ Village,” a game for the iPhone and other Apple gadgets, was released a month ago and quickly became the highest-grossing application in the iTunes store. Yet it’s free to download.

So where does the money come from? Kelly Rummelhart of Gridley, Calif., has part of the answer. Her 4-year-old son was using her iPad to play the game and racked up $66.88 in charges on her credit card without knowing what he was doing.

Rummelhart had no idea that it was possible to buy things — buy them with real money — inside the game. In this case, her son bought one bushel and 11 buckets of “Smurfberries,” tokens that speed up gameplay.

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I was eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria when a friend sat down to eat with me. He was  a security guard who was leaving soon to join the local police force, and was excited about it.

Well, he was excited about the possibilities that job would open for him … on other than professional fronts.

Turns out he had a “thing” for having sex with married women. While they were still married. Without their husbands knowing about it.

Now, this was something he had enjoyed for some time. But he hoped that being a policeman would, shall we say, make the ladies in the community more grateful to him.

When I asked him why he engaged in this practice, he said it made him feel good that a woman would choose him over her husband to meet her sexual needs. (Of course, he didn’t want these encounters to happen more than once with any given woman. More than that was “a relationship,” he felt.)

Why he was confiding in me with this information I simply couldn’t fathom.

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“Every relationship is sexually based.”

I don’t even remember who said that to me or even exactly when it was said, but that sentence haunts me to this day, for some reason.

I grew up in a family that, by modern standards, was sexually repressed. “Sex” was basically a four-letter word, something to be discussed in discreet company, not openly flaunted, which is how my parents saw where society was heading at breakneck speed.

My Mom and Dad were, of course, correct—society has become much more open about and obsessed with sex. And if advertisers had their way, sex would be the pinnacle of human existence. After all, we use sex to sell cars, deodorant, toilet bowl cleaners and even ourselves.

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I’m trying to get back to blogging on a regular basis, so I thought I’d make weekends a time to share videos about holidays songs I enjoy.

This weekend, I’m starting off with some of my favorites. First up, here’s the video for “Where Are You, Christmas?” by Faith Hill:

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I recently caught up with Rest, a sci-fi comic about people who take a drug that allows them to live without sleep. Originally, only a couple of issues had been released. However, last week, the rest of the story was published with the previous issues in a trade paperback, which is something very special.

Here’s a story from Comic Book Resources about the book being translated to TV:

>>With Heroes behind him, Milo Ventimiglia is finally getting some Rest.

Deadline reports that the actor, lifelong comic book fan and recently minted comic book creator is set to star in a television adaptation of Rest, the comic book series he co-created with his Divide Pictures producing partner Russ Cundiff. Ventimiglia’s latest project sees him returning to familiar territory on two fronts: not only is Rest a comics-based series similar to the superhero-themed Heroes, but the TV show will air on NBC, the network that once housed the recently canceled series. Ventimiglia and Cundiff are both serving as executive producers on the project alongside Marc Silvestri and Matt Hawkins from Top Cow, the comic book company responsible for publishing Rest. Smallville writer Philip Levens has been tapped to adapt the comic book for the small screen.

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I’m the first person in line when wanting computers to do more for us. It’s effortless, after all! But now, our medicines may have a microchip in them to dish on us!

Here’s the story from Reuters:

>>(Reuters) – Novartis AG plans to seek regulatory approval within 18 months for a pioneering tablet containing an embedded microchip, bringing the concept of “smart-pill” technology a step closer.

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These days, I don’t often have time to write an entire entry, but today I’m making an exception.

For my 150th entry, I want to discuss the mythology surrounding “government” and “corporation.”

I’ve notice a trend in the perception about organizations like the Federal, state or local governments. When people refer to them, it is with great reverence … as if they were “gods” (with the little “g”).

For instance, “the government” makes policy, determines how to fairly treat each other and keeps us safe. What I don’t hear people say is that the “government” is not some mythical being in a far away place, all-knowing, all-seeing and all-wise.

Instead, each and every government is comprised of people, just like you and me. And if anyone should understand that, it is here in the Washington, DC, area.

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Every once in a while, you read a story that makes you smile. This one, from lotterypost.com, did just that:

>>Canadian couple gives away entire $11.2M lottery jackpot

A Nova Scotia couple won $11.2 million from a lottery ticket in July and now every penny is gone.

But Allen and Violet Large of Lower Truro didn’t spend any of it on themselves.

They say they decided to take care of family, organizations and institutions instead.

“What you’ve never had, you never miss,” said Violet, 78.

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It feels like we’re driving in a fast-moving car that we can’t stop! And the voters are very unhappy with that!

Here’s an article from CNN that talks about a recent poll on this very subject:

>>CNN Poll: Those who say things going poorly higher than 1994 or 2006

By the CNN Wire Staff

November 1, 2010 10:34 a.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) — The number of Americans who say things are going badly in the country, at 75 percent, is higher than it has been on the eve of any midterm election since the question was first asked in the mid-1970s, according to a new national poll.

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There have been numerous reports of people spending entire days online, and that includes time on Facebook games such as Mafia Wars and Farmville.

Sadly, here’s a case of someone taking the games much too seriously. This story ran at jacksonville.com:

>>Jacksonville mom shakes baby for interrupting FarmVille, pleads guilty to murder

By David Hunt

A Jacksonville mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

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