I’ve always loved fireplaces. There’s something about the smell of burning wood permeating the cold winter air. A plume of smoke ascends towards the bright white stars and cozy visions of warmth heat our hearts.

When looking to buy a house, a fireplace was one of the intangibles that went into the decision-making process. My dream was recognized when I proudly lit my own fireplace (after several failed attempts). That was last year. Do you know how many times I’ve used my fireplace in 2010? More →

I feel no pride when my country wins an Olympic medal. In fact, it makes me kind of sad. For every gold medal you show me, I’ll show you some kid who was bullied by his parents to practice a ridiculous sport rather than do something productive for society.

If I were from Estonia I might feel differently. But being a spoiled brat from America, ‘big victories’ come along along with big marketing campaigns. People who were formerly unknown, will become tomorrow’s pitchmen and reality show has-beens. They will be forced down our throats until we can’t take any more. And if they’re good looking too? Fugheddabouit! Total media saturation. More →

The iPad. No, it’s not an absorbent digital tampon that whisks away menstrual cycles via Wi-Fi. Rather it’s another page in the exorbitant chapter of an era that heralds electronic gadgets over basic humanity.

Ripe for the “tiny hands” campaign from Burger King, the iPad looks like an iPhone on HGH. Starting at $499, I’m constantly amazed that people have the money for secondary and tertiary electronics. We all have computers. We all have cell phones. And many of us have laptops. We’re spoiled to begin with! Do we really need to introduce more clutter into our lives? More →

Who opens all of this junk e-mail? Not the messages from a Nigerian prince or your mother, but from companies trying to sell you something?

I’ve spent the last few weeks better educating myself on e-mail marketing. And despite the abundance of data and advice floating around the Web, I keep coming back to one central question that has me baffled: Why are people opening these e-mails? More →

Before you read this, you should know that I could care less about politics. I don’t lean left or right; they are all crooks. And even if they’re not, the system is crooked. So don’t waste your time trying to read between the lines for some political agenda.

Perhaps I am too forgiving, but I don’t see the latest thwarted terror attack as a catastrophic failure. I understand that I might be singing a different tune if the the poor-excuse-of-human-being with the loaded underwear blew up a member of my family, but aren’t these lapses to be expected? After all, we are a free society littered with nutbags. More →

When people annoy me on Twitter, I unfollow them.

If folks piss me off on Facebook, I unfriend them.

And now I have a new rule. If you send me a mass text message, I will kick the crap out of you.

Mass texts are the lowest form of communication. Even lower than smoke signals. If we were to assign a dollar value to types of communication, it would look something like this:

Intimacy = $1.00
Face-to-Face = $.75
Phone = $.50
E-mail = $.25
Text = $.10
Mass Text = $.01

I guess I could take all of those pennies, throw them in a jar, and save for a rainy day. But other than that, I have no use for a penny – and I have no use for your mass text message.

Depending on your wireless carrier and plan, it is sometimes tricky identifying a text that was sent to a distribution list. Usually the generic content of the message is enough to be a giveaway.

“A Happy New Year to All”
“Wishing you the best in 2010″

If I wanted to read a Hallmark card, I’d pay a visit to my local drug store.

Not just anyone makes it on to the Jack of all Blog’s contact list. That honor is reserved for people who want to communicate on a one-on-one basis. Send me a mass text and I will boot you from the list. Go ahead, try it, I dare you.

Google is set to announce the launch of their first fully-designed phone, the Nexus One. The Web is atwitter with chatter. Will the Android-based phone supplant iPhone’s mobile device supremacy? Who knows and who cares!

The Nexus One looks sexy enough, but I still have a major issue…

Forget technological advancements; what the mobile phone market really needs is an end to yearly contracts, especially ones that force consumers into a two-year deal. The lure of discounted devices (pay only $180 instead of $599!) is wearing off. This model worked well when devices were cheap and phones were released with less frequency. These days, things are evolving so fast that my LG enV (sitting in my junk drawer) already looks like an ancient relic. More →

With every birth comes a death. The new decade is upon us, and that means many things will get left behind. Among them…

Ed Hardy. The day designer Christian Audigier commissioned the right to use Don Ed Hardy tattoo designs as inspiration for a clothing line, the fashion world took a hit. The stuff is not cool, it’s just plain ol’ ugly. But at least earlier in the decade it was expensive, thus keeping it away from the masses. These days, Ed Hardy has a new part-owner who mass produces the line for lower-end stores such as Kohl’s, Kmart, Sears, Macy’s, Target and JC Penney.

Lost. The show is coming to an end, and I could not be happier. It has long been one of my favorites; the only program that can feature a “black smoke monster” yet bring me to tears. However, five consecutive seasons consisting of more questions than answers, including a time traveling storyline, has given me a headache. Six seasons is enough. Let’s hope they end the thing in a way that satisfies most viewers. More →

I don’t think that anyone, from the old-time American Legion guy to the most Zen new-age type, would disagree that the world is loaded, almost to the point of constipation, with a wide array of unresolved problems. Take your pick, we can worry and obsess over everything from the terrorism threat to the economy, to the H1N1 virus and starvation in Africa. The list goes on, and on…a tireless and relentless (dirty) laundry list of issues, concerns and frights.

But, and rather than attempt to legitimately deal with any of the items that really matter, we’re instead staying safe by concentrating on the trivial. And by that I mean the drivel that passes for technology today. For example, the New York newspapers recently wrote about how a driver could, by using an iPhone, detect where a broken parking meter is located. So, and by barreling at full speed to this space, the driver would not have to pay for the first hour of parking. The thinking is that this great news will provide subscribers with the riches, yes, the veritable bonanza, that saving anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar, entails. More →

It’s the era of YOU; at least that’s what corporate America would like you to believe.

No matter what the product, companies are giving us the chance to “customize” their products. After all, why shouldn’t inanimate objects be more like us?

This is especially true of computers, wireless devices and Websites. On the surface, being able to choose to use things or see the things the way we like is appealing. But if were to objectively sit back and view all of the things with alterable elements, we would see a pattern…we tend to return to the same things again and again – and that’s just boring. More →