GovDeals - surplus, confiscated items for sale

I came across this site a few days ago and thought I'd share it. GovDeals allows different government agencies to sell surplus and confiscated items over the Internet.

I thought it was interesting to browse around for a while and see what I could find. You can search by item type or zip code to find used items near you. There's everything from office furniture, to trucks, vans, and even some concrete culverts for sale.

Submit your questions to the President to answer online

President Barack Obama will participate in a community-moderated online town hall meeting tomorrow (Thursday) on the White House's web site.

You can submit your own questions via video or text and read questions from other people and vote on the ones you want to see answered.

Check it out at http://www.whitehouse.gov/OpenForQuestions/

The online town hall will be at 10:30 a.m. Central.

I got pwn3d! Leetspeek explained

So I was surfing around the web tonight as I generally do most Sunday nights and came across some web speak I didn't recognize. "Pwn3d" What!?

After some quick searching using my lightening speed, journalistic skills (wikipedia...yea, I know), I found out it's a term of Leetspeak. Also known as leet, 1337, l33t, or Eleet, it could have developed as encrypted communication for hackers, but is now commonly used by gamers.

Now I realize I'm a n00b (newbie for all you non-leetspeak people like me), but I've heard of and used the more common terms like lol, brb, gtg, and ttyl.

Apparently, a lot of the words come from create misspellings.

Now that I know that pwn3d (owned) means to dominate, like as in domination of a player rather than just winning, I can leetspeak with the best of them. (Yea, probably not.)

Rant, rave, rate workplace after layoffs

With layoffs still making headlines across the country, I came across a site that provides a home for those who want to rave, rant, or rate their workplace or school.

On Telonu, you can post anonymously, with a nickname, or under your user name to tell others about your experience.

Telonu keeps track of layoffs across the country and provides a place for people to share first-hand experiences with the choice to remain anonymous.

From Wall Street to Sesame Street...recession hurts

First we were talking about Wall Street, then Main Street, now Sesame Street! Yep, the recession is taking its toll on Big Bird and the gang. While there's been a lot of satire about Oscar the Grouch raking in the dough as a slumlord after everyone moves into trash cans, this is real people with real jobs we're talking about.

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of "Sesame Street" and other kids' programs, announced layoffs earlier last week.

The company says it's cutting 20% of its work force because of the recession. That's 67 of 355 staff positions. Sesame Workshop was founded in 1968 and "Sesame Street" debuted in 1969.

I spent a great deal of my TV watching time as a child sitting in front of the tube watching Big Bird, Ernie, and Oscar so it pangs me to hear this.

Looks the Cookie Monster will have to cut back on his diet and Telly will have more to worry about.

Is this a sign of how bad the recession is, going to get, or are we at the bottom looking up? What do you think?

I finally did it...signed up for Twitter.

Well folks, I finally jumped on the bandwagon. I created a Twitter account. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/chendricks12. I'm not sure how much tweeting I'll be doing, but I'm on now!

Cut the Cord with Subscription TV

As more and more video is offered online, more and more people seem to be cutting the cord with their cable or satellite provider. A new company called ZillionTV that just launched recently boasts totally free programming.

How does it work? ZillionTV works with your internet provider to bring you steraming movies and TV shows through your television. According to the website, there are no downloads or painful waiting time.


ZillionTV is currently working with Disney, NBC, Universal, Sony Pictures Television, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. You search for what you want to watch, even down to the ads or no ads for that matter (paying a per program fee to view without ads). You can also use the service with your current TV service.

You can choose to buy, rent or watch programs for free. By buying programs you can watch them as much as you want. By renting you can watch for a specified period of time. Watching programs for free is great, but you have to watch the ads too.

Sounds good to me, but let's see how the beta testing goes.

P.S. read my earlier post in February about online videos and some good sites to find them.

Cell Phone Finder

I'm looking for a new cell phone and came across this handy help tool from CNET. It's a cell phone finder. You enter in carriers and phone preferences and the finder lists possible phones for you. I found it pretty helpful. Maybe you will too.

The Ultimate Unit Converter

Here's a useful little site I came across...The Ultimate Unit Converter.

Ever need to do some quick mathematical unit conversions? How many kilometers are in a mile? days, years, minutes, ounces, pounds, etc.

Although I didn't find it could convert temperature measurements, but it does have an improve section for users to submit ideas.

Convert away!

Contemplating netbooks, popular YouTube video

I've been contemplating purchasing a netbook and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions. A netbook is a mini laptop. They're much smaller and cheaper (starting around $250) than laptops. They're not made to take on the full load of a regular laptop or desktop, but they're gaining popularity.

I'm looking at the Dell mini 9 or the Acer Aspire One. I would mainly use it for travel to get online and check email, nothing hardcore. I would like the option of Bluetooth. My main concerns are price, battery life, and hard drive space (although that can be taken care of with external storage). So do you have any suggestions? What's your experience with netbooks? Love 'em, hate 'em, could care less? Tell me!

On a different note...I was browsing through some web headlines tonight and found some old ones about the most popular YouTube videos. In 2007 it was the "Evolution of Dance" video. That fell to the number two slot in 2008. As off writing this post, the video has had 115 million views.

I first saw this video probably a year ago and thought it was hilarious. So after I learned it had so many views, I decided to check behind the dancing and found that the dancer is a comedian. Apparently his YouTube sucess has translated into marketing success. He's selling dance t-shirts, has appeared on national TV shows, has come out with a second video - "Evolution of Dance 2," and you can even upload your own photo and do the evolution of dance routine yourself.

Just some random fun I thought I'd throw your way!