Justin Germino Ramblings

I was dismayed when reading in the Casa Grande Dispatch the other day that the rate of suicides among Native American teens in Arizona was considerably higher based on percentage of teenagers and that this is actually a national epidemic rather than localized.  According to the Arizona Department of Health Services 49 teen suicides were reported in Arizona; 7 of which where from Native American communities.

In reading the article it would seem that not only does peer pressure, bullying and adult criticisms play a factor, but in some communities where unemployment exceeds 50% and many families are just barely living at the poverty level this puts strain on everyone from adults to children.

There are few things in life I can imagine more horrifying than one’s child taking their own life, and it is so utterly important to have open and established communication with children so that they can build that trust to come to a parent when they are feeling depressed or even begin having thoughts of suicide.  Though in many cases children will still simply hide their feelings and intentions, I do believe monitoring a child and teenagers activities and communications is important.

My heart goes out to the families suffering losses, and let’s hope a widespread education campaign and openly discussing such things with your own children can help prevent any more children from feeling like the only way to deal with their issues or life is to check out permanently.

You can read more in this Associated Press article here: [LINK].

-Justin Germino

So last week my son brought home a less than stellar progress report and some of his grades have slipped.  Computer and console games were revoked unless his grades can be brought back up in time for Report Cards in a few weeks as a result.  In addition to losing the ability to play games, he also lost the ability to watch me play games which was an activity we did together at night and weekends to unwind.  It is now that I realize just how much I gamed while my kids were watching me because now I find that I can’t play games unless I play while they are sleeping (which means I stay up late and lose sleep) or I have to game when they are not around (which is almost never).

So really I kind of feel I wound up getting grounded and now I am telling my son he had better pull his grades up so I can start playing games in front of him again.  My son is a very smart kid, but he is very prone to distraction and thinking about "other things" when he isn’t interested or bored.  Even though none of his grades are below a B we hold our kids up to pretty high standards because we know he could put more effort in.

He has two weeks to buckle down and pull his grades up, I have been helping him with Roman Numerals which was one of his weak areas and he continues to work on his grammar.  He does however have terrible handwriting and I don’t know really how much I can preach here as I myself have among the worst penmanship.

Until then, less gaming time for me until he can pull his grades up.  But I think this punishment was really a backfire and caused me more grief than him.0

-Justin Germino

It all started with the release of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and then goes into HOP, RIO and who knows what else.  The string of family movies have arrived and with near back to back movie releases you can bet that my Harkins T-Shirt and Harkins Cups will be getting good use over the next few months.

Sometimes it is just good to get out of the house and when the temperatures start climbing, the nice cool temperatures of a theater and the laughs in front of a big screen are just what the family ordered.

Movies have always been a big part of my entertainment, ever since I was a kid I loved watching movies and probably more than the average folk.  I paid 7x to see Jurassic Park in the theaters when it first came out.  My kids like watching movies too and obviously my love of films have rubbed off on them, so it is a good family activity.

The bad thing is the theater snacking which is not good for anyone’s waistline, and theater popcorn plus the tendency for everyone to want snacks whether it be Zours, Butterfingers, Whoppers, KitKat’s or my personal weakness Twizzler Nibs and/or Hot pretzels.  I often have to have only 1 meal a day on the days I plan on going to the theater just to try and offset the calorie intake.

It was fine when we went to the theater once per month, but now I am just going to have to start sneaking in healthy snacks like apples, nuts or something without chocolate or so riddled with sugar I can feel it eating holes in my teeth as I consume it.

What’s a theater watcher to do?

-Justin Germino

For Christmas my kids received the Lego Minotaurus game from Santa and the game is quite fun and creative for the whole family.

Minotaurus like the other Lego board game is a bit different from traditional board games in that you “build” the game board before you play the game.  This involves both putting the blocks together based on the default instructions or being creative and making your own mazes and labyrinths that players have to navigate in their attempt to avoid being captured by the Mintoaur.

My four year old and seven year old both enjoyed playing Minotaurus and the objective is to take turns rolling dice and moving your man a number of spaces toward the end goal which is in the center of the maze.  To add challenge there are several additional colored “blocks” you can add into the dice.

Gray Side

When you roll the gray side you pick and place a blocking wall on the game board instead of moving your unit.  This can be used to block off other players from reaching the goal or blocking the Minotaur from getting access to your own men

Black Side

If a player rolls the black side they move the minotaur a default of 8 spaces (12 if playing a more aggressive version of the game) instead of moving their own man.  They can control the Minotaur and move it to capture opponents men or make it more perilous to move through a specific certain of the maze.

Green side (optional)

This is a special option rule that allows units to jump green walls if rolled, it works kind of like the walls being “hedges” instead of actual walls and can make for interesting results when a person can evade capture by jumping a wall to escape.

Summary

Overall Minotaurus is a fun and engaging game which makes for a great family game night if you have younger kids.  The fact that you can change up the layout of the board allows you to cater the game to any level.  You can for instance make the maze longer and harder for the adult player sections and easier for the youngest kids.

Lego makes some quality board games and I think it is important to have some family activities unplugged from the computer where the family can sit around a table or floor together and just talk as a family while they play an entertaining board game.  I know this game is coming to us when we go to a cabin with the family for a summer vacation.  At  around $23.00 Minotaurus is a game that provides hours of entertainment and well worth the price.

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I had switched to GASP (Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin) for WordPress combined with Simple Trackback Validation with Topsy Blocker to deal with my WordPress comment spam.  My technology blog is now taking in about 150-200 comments per day if I left all my plugins disabled and about 80% of them are spam bots or backlink stealers not true users looking to provide value and engage in conversation.

Akismet was still left on my personal blog which only gets about 3-5 comments per day and I was dismayed to find that one of my long time readers had most of their comments end up in my spam folder without me realizing it.  What’s worse is that I went to my spam folder and accidentally clicked “empty spam” before thoroughly looking at what comments were marked spam.  This means I can’t recover any of those comments that weren’t spam.

This was the last straw for me and I would rather manually spam or trash 20 spam comments than have 1 valid reader comment get pushed to the spam folder by accident.  Nothing turns readers off more than thinking their voices aren’t heard or that the blog owner doesn’t care enough to respond to their comments.  Blogs are about communication and two way conversations, this is the difference between regular news articles where the author rarely if ever interacts with comments and a blogger who should engage and build a relationship with their readers.

Kikolani wrote a fantastic article on the WordPress commenting system that I highly recommend all bloggers read or even if you aren’t a blogger and just visit blogs and leave a comment it is good to know how the WordPress commenting system works so you can leverage it properly and respectfully when commenting on blogs.

Her article is spot on target and talks about some great plugins that bloggers should use to augment and improve the default commenting system, though she recommends and mentions Akismet, I personally would not recommend using this plugin for the propensity to catch false positives.  For users who still get spam comments when using GASP and Simple TrackBack Validation, there is also the wp-captcha free plugin which is an additional method of blocking spam which displays a capture only to specific visitors based on criteria in the plugin.  These should minimize your spam comments but you will get a few spam comments but this is far better to having to weed through a spam folder to find the valid comments.

If I have a repeat offender who I know abuses the system I add them to my blacklist on WordPress by blocking their email address and URL so that their comments will auto spam even if they make it through the GASP plugin.  I only do this for commenters who are blatant spammers and not for users who just don’t properly use name@keywords using keywords instead.

Bottom line you need to think about how to handle your comment system and you need to do this when your blog first starts up because by the time your blog gets popular you can be inundated with spam if you don’t have a good comment management system in place.

-Justin Germino

Few things in life compare to the joy of listening to your favorite music or discovering new music that turns out to be a gem.  Once you get a favorite song or band stuck in your head and you are in that mode where you have to listen to it a few dozen times you really are helpless but to just ride the wave.

What makes music so appealing is that there are so many different genres and different moods within each genre that you have a virtual infinity of choices on any given day and moment on what to listen to.  If you are upset or angry, listen to some music that helps vent the rage or if you are joyful and upbeat some light pop or classy instrumentals can work wonders on your mood.

Music is art for the ears, and like all art it is subjective to the listener on whether they enjoy or appreciate the song or not.  One man’s trash is another man’s art also applies to music and some of the music that I have seen blasted by music critics turn out to be some of my favorite music compilations.  (The same holds true with movies).

Recently  my four year old has taken to listening to music on one of our older MP3 players from years back.  He doesn’t listen to Wiggles, or kiddy songs but loves listening to AC/DC, Justin Bieber and other songs that he has heard from movies he loves.  Of course one of his favorite songs is Yoda by Weird Al Yankovic (one of my favorites too).  I love how passionate he is when he is listening in the car bopping along to the music with one ear bud in.  His brother who is seven years old will be starting up drum lessons again soon with a new teacher as his previous one moved away.  He also loves music and is heavily into rock.  Of course my son asked me "Who is Elvis" the other day and I flipped on the Elvis station on Sirius so he could listen to it.  I explained that Elvis was the King of Rock and practically started the Rock and Roll genre.  He had the same questions about Michael Jackson a few days later and wanted to hear and watch some of his music video’s on YouTube.

Music is discover, music is emotion, music is art.  What are some of your favorite songs and how do they make you feel?

-Justin Germino

It’s one of the ironies of growing up that many of us strive to be accepted as mature adults well before our time – and when we get there, we pine for those innocent, trouble-free days of youth. For most people, thinking back to their childhood instantly conjures images of happiness and fun – whether it’s family holidays, formative experiences or playing with your favourite toys. But don’t forget that you had to spend the working week in school – and didn’t even get paid for your trouble.

With childhood conjuring such happy memories, it’s no wonder many people take a little longer to let go than others – especially in the modern world, where it’s easier to hold on to your youth for longer. But what is it that the 40-year-old ‘kidults,’ riding on their skateboards and wearing inappropriately figure-hugging Mr Men T-shirts, are really missing about their youth?

Everyone’s childhood is different, influenced largely by our family environment and friends. If you were an outdoors kid, childhood probably means falling out of trees and making adrenaline-pumping leaps across raging rivers. But for those who found their comfort in games and kid’s TV, our mental pictures are bright, colourful and fringed by bad retro wallpaper.

You’re rarely under time pressure as a kid, when it seems like these years will last forever. So there was very little guilt in sitting in front of Children’s BBC, CITV or the other dedicated children’s shows for hours on end, watching the animated adventures of various anthropomorphised animals. While your parents might have moaned at you for watching too much TV, many of them didn’t take their protests too far – as they were equally culpable of indulging in evening viewing too, when they thought you were sound asleep.

It’s not just TV that provides an imaginative escape for kids, of course, which explains the popularity of kid’s games across all generations and all parts of the world. Today’s sophisticated electronic toys may be a far cry from the wooden dolls of the Victorian era, but kids are adept at filling in the blanks and making even the simplest of toys provide hours of fun.

Childhood wasn’t completely without its problems though, even if you grew up in a happy home. Many kids feel the same social pressure to conform or impress their peers as adults do, which could mean worrying about the clothes you wear or the people you’re seen hanging around with. School can also be a very challenging and even unpleasant time, if there are subjects you find it hard to get your head around, knowing you won’t be free to head back to your family, toys and TV until 3.30. While childhood can be an incredible and important time in our lives, its finite duration is what makes it so special.

About the Author:

Jennifer is a part of the digital blogging team at alwritenow.com who work with Kid’s games retailers like Woolworths. For more information about me, or to keep up to date with the latest in lifestyle news, check out my posts at alwritenow.com or visit my Twitter account, @awnow

After using Netflix for about a year I can conclusively say that the Instant Play of movies which streams to your TV, Laptop or other Internet streaming device is awesome.  However, the selection is limited and you can rarely find movies that are breaking new releases or even major Hollywood films less than a year old on Netflix Instant Play.

This is where having a DVD by mail system comes in, Netflix does an adequate job with the DVD by mail system but Blockbuster Total Access does it better.  Blockbuster Total Access allows you to search movies to add them to your queue faster, gets the movies 28 days sooner than Netflix, allows you to trade in your mailers in-store for instant movie exchanges (no waiting for DVD to arrive by mail) and you can even rent console games or DVD’s with the same subscription which pits it against Gamefly as well.

The Blockbuster Total Access by mail has a 2 at a time plan for $16.99 which is only slightly more expensive than Netflix but you don’t get any Instant Play.  This is why I have decided to change my Netflix plan to just Internet streaming at $7.99 and instead reactivated my Blockbuster Total Access plan at 2 at a time for $16.99.

Netflix is good, no problems with it as I think the Internet streaming will continue to get better.  Until it does however, Blockbuster has a better DVD by mail system and allows you to pick the newest titles sooner.

If you do have Netflix or you want to stream movies, then I do recommend the Roku XDS as it gives you the highest quality movie streams and works with any television.

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-Justin Germino

One thing about ordering magazines online is it still takes 6-8+ weeks just to receive your first issue of a magazine.  This is completely absurd and I approach my 6th week waiting to receive my copy of Maximum PC and PC Gamer which I ordered through Amazon.com so long ago I nearly forgot that I ordered them.

I don’t read very often anymore, I listen to audio books when I drive into the office, but my reading is actually done two places.  When I am in the restroom or when I am on a plane traveling.  I still manage to digest more than a daily paper and a magazine a week in my limited amount of reading time and hate finding myself with nothing to read.

I probably should get an iPad2 at some point and use that as my magazine equivalent but I still like the tactile feel of pages and being able to fold pages in magazines or papers so they can prompt me to write blog posts later.  I still think that it should be much faster when ordering a subscription to a magazine than to wait 6+ weeks to receive your first issue.

-Justin Germino

Just as you would see in the title, this is a blog post about nothing.  Nothing came to mind and I just decided to write a post with no intention of having a topic or thing to write about.  Ironically though, as I was writing about nothing I became increasingly more inspired to continue adding to this article and use it to help me brainstorm so a future post would be about something.

So when you don’t know what to write about or don’t have a topic, then don’t write about anything, just write in an editor like LiveWriter, Word or anything and just write what comes to mind.   As you write you will probably prompt yourself to flush more details out on a subject you spewed across the page and this can be a subject for a blog post.

Never start with a title, the title of any article should be the last thing you create.  Write the article and then spend time crafting the perfect title to your blurb, remembering to optimize the title for SEO by using keywords that will rank better in the SERP.

So I guess this post which was originally about nothing kind of transformed into a post about how to just start writing with nothing in mind and nudge it to make it transform into a post about a subject you happened to gain interest in while you were just writing your ideas and hoping for something to stand out.

I noticed that Chris Brogan has an offering where you can pay a monthly subscription rate and you will be sent "post ideas" to give writers and bloggers ideas on what to write about.  I don’t mind that he has such an offering, but in general I think if you can’t at least come up with an idea from just writing on a page, spending time on Google Trends, read the news or something of that magnitude then why stress about writing and just take a break.  Or better yet, if you really don’t know what to write about just send out a blanket "What should I write about?" on your social networks and see what curious responses you get.

-Justin Germino