Justin Germino Ramblings

It is no suprise that Starcraft 2 has been the #1 selling video game on Amazon.com for a while in the pre-orders. This game has the weight of being the predecessor to one of the greatest real time strategy games of all time. Blizzard has only released a handful of games over the past several years and has mostly been focused with World of Warcraft that we shall see if they still have the creative power to reshape or at least hone the real time strategy game to where it feels fun, exciting and new again.

Here is some video footage of the game play of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty I found on YouTube:

I myself will be heading over to purchase a copy of the game today and have been flirting with even taking a PTO day or two this week to just sit back and revel like old times in a new awesome game. So be sure and pick up your copy of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty if you are a RTS fan or a Starcraft fan, this is your chance to finally see what they hype is all about.

I will be doing reviews with screenshots soon.

-Justin Germino

I hear people complain about how the cost of postage keeps rising even though I wonder how many people are really sending letters anymore these days.  I myself try to pay as many bills as possible online through either the companies website or through my BillPay.

Postage however is still required for some mail correspondence and I send about 10 mail items per month which require postage, this is about $4.10 cents per month or nearly $50 per year just to send postage. Imagine the people who spend two or three hundred dollars per year sending postage and this adds up.

I wonder why the United States Post Office hasn’t opened up postage to advertising which would say allow big advertisers to brand postage, or even stamp their company on postage for a fee and the post office in turn wouldn’t have to increase prices and may even be able to lower them for consumers. I think the main reason this may not be done is to devalue postage stamps, but I am not opposed to having advertisements placed on postage if it would reduce the cost.

I also think that regular postal delivery doesn’t necessarily have to happen on Saturday’s, but I realize this would affect peoples jobs and cause them to earn less so would cut costs at the expense of cutting peoples working hours and income. What other ways could you come up with to save money for the United States Post Office as well as decrease the cost of postage for consumers?

-Justin Germino

This is probably old news to many people who were following the world cup but earlier this week I read about Paul the Octopus who is a celebrity in Spain and lives in the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany. Paul the Octopus successfully predicted all seven of Germany’s matches in the month long tournament and even predicted that Spain would beat Germany in the semi finals.

To make these predictions they would paint the Country’s flags on mussel shells and then the Octopus would pick the flag that appealed to him at the time. This of course is pure coincidence I think, but the Octopus has gotten so popular that Spain requested borrowing or purchasing Paul the Octopus so they could keep him in their home Country. Sea Life spokeswoman Kerstin Kuehn made it clear that Paul the Octopus wasn’t going anywhere and there has been a little rivalry ever since.

By the way, Paul the Octopus also successfully picked Spain would beat out the Netherlands in the finals.

-Justin Germino

The worlds oldest drinkable Champagne bottles were unearthed from a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea recently. 30 bottles of Champagne were recovered and awaiting final testing from France to confirm the authenticity. The bottles were dated back to the 1780’s and one of the bottles was opened by diving instructor Christian Ekstrom who thought they bottles were wine or other liquor. The taste of the more than two hundred year old Champagne was described as sweet with tobacco and oak flavors.

If authenticated each bottle could fetch as much as $65,000 dollars which would make the total case worth nearly 2 million dollars. The fact that the Champagne is so old and still potable makes this an amazing discovery and watch for eccentric billionaires to move swiftly to add one or two of these to their collection I bet. These bottles of Champagne were believed to be on transport to Russia and make them nearly 50 years older than the previous oldest bottles of Champagne found which were dated to the 1830’s.

-Justin Germino

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of ampm. All opinions are 100% mine.

Recently I have discovered some secret menu items at a variety of food places after being told about them by a coworker last month. I didn’t even realize that food companies were putting “easter eggs” that people had to be “in the know” or look for them online to figure out how to order special items that aren’t on the menu and have to be ordered with a code word.

So it was another surprise when I saw that ampm is offering a slew of “secret items’ on the secret menu tab of their Facebook page.

I was curious to know what hidden times you could order and right away the Towering Inferno looked like quite a formidable order, though the Tower of Torta would be a close 2nd. In my younger years I probably could have devoured either of those in a single sitting, now I would have to order it and share with a few people. I have always liked massive entrée items and saw them as a giant challenge much like the Man Vs Food TV Show.

ampm has unveiled 4 secret menu items already and they will be unveiling five more items on 7/26, 8/2, 8/9, 8/16 and 8/30. They will also have a “create your own secret item” tab which will be live on 8/2 and will let you create your own secret concotions right on Facebook.


I think having “secret menu items” is a clever way to generate buzz and interest and ampm has a nice little showcase of secret items that I will have to follow as they are unveiled and lets face it if you are going to order a secret menu item, you have to get a delicious Blizzard to go with it!

I first have to thank @BlazingMinds for the idea of creating a weekly post highlighting some of my Twitter favorites, she also was using the Twitter AnyWhere plugin which turns each persons Twitter ID into a link that shows a popup that allows you to instantly follow them once you authenticate via OATH. This made it very quick and efficient to simply hover over and follow the recommended people.

In the spirit of recognizing people on Twitter and going beyond a simple FollowFriday Tweet, I have chosen to highlight some people this week who deserve your attention. Rather than list names, I will also include why I think they are worthy of a follow.

• @RockAlong

Arizona Music Production company that promotes local bands in AZ, they put on shows, events and run a music blog that does featured artists to bring attention to some of the great musicians in Arizona. Interactive and always willing to help share an opinion and answer questions if you are into music or an AZ resident you should be following this person.

• @ChefsCookbook

A chef who specializes in French Cooking Techniques and has a Culinary Degree who runs  a blog that is more than just recipes.  You can find informational articles about the culinary industry, French cooking tips and more than two hundred original recipes.  If you have any food questions, this is the gal to go to to get them answered.

• @jsinkeywest

Dedicated blogger who not only runs PotPolitics.com but is giving back to the blogging community with BloggerLuv a network for bloggers to socialize and get to know each other.  He has a very clear and in your face writing style, no BS and he is a good person to chat with on Twitter if you are in the blogging community.

• @FamousBloggers

FamousBloggers and more specifically @hishaman is one of the best bloggers I know online today.  He is not only helpful to other bloggers but goes above and beyond by creating a blogging website that allows some of the best bloggers to come together to provide information to readers.  It also happens to have one of the best blog themes I have ever seen.  I featured two favorite blogs on DragonBlogger.com and FamousBloggers.net was one of them.

• @BlazingMinds

BlazingMinds has at least three articles per week that are so compelling I have to read and leave a comment or two on.  Karen will often find and bring up a subject, WordPress Plugin or other online tool that I hadn’t found yet and they always provide value.

• @krenee76

Kiesha runs We Blog Better which is probably one of the top up and coming blogs in my opinion.  The theme is fantastic, the articles interesting, well written and always provide value to readers in the blogging community.  If you are a blogger you must follow this blogger.

Summary

This is my top five people I recommend on Twitter this week and the primary reasons.  This week focused on Bloggers but next week I will specifically showcase my top five Poets on Twitter.

I also have a few Twitter lists where I specifically list some really good bloggers and poets.

• Twitter List of Bloggers
• Twitter List of Poets

And of course, don’t forget to follow me @DragonBlogger on Twitter, I try to be as interactive as possible and you can join my Random Twitter Poetry game several times per week.

-Justin Germino

123Greetings Connect lets you track Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversaries or other special events so you never forget to send a card to for someones special occasion and is the ideal way for you to keep track of all your friends and family members special dates.

So why would you use 123Greetings Connect?

123Greetings Connect is an online contact book that now includes event reminders which allows you to keep your track of peoples names, emails, birthdays, anniversaries or any other special occasion and then setup custom reminders so that you can get updates before a special occasion comes up. Using these notifications you can also use 123Greetings  to send eCards (even post date them so they always arrive on time and are never late) to your friends and family.

Featuring 123Greetings Connect Event Reminders:

All you have to do is sign up at 123Greetings Connect and create an account then start building your contact list. You can then configure Birthday reminders by clicking on “My Birthdays”

From here you can configure your Birthday Reminder settings and select when you want to be notified about birthdays, you can set to be notified up to two weeks before one of your contacts Birthday’s occur and again to be reminded on the same day.

In addition to configuring Birthday reminders you can use 123Greetings Connect to setup email reminders for calendar events. Using the “My Events” link you can drill down through the event categories and personalize your reminders so you only get notified about the events that matter to you.

Simply select the events that you want to be reminded about, click the “Save the selected events to My Events” button and you will get email notifications at the specified interval you set.

Using the My Events feature of 123Greetings Connect allows you to keep track of holidays and other calendar events so that you never forget to recognize someone on an event again.

-Justin Germino

For Father’s Day my wife had bought me a Keurig Coffee Machine because I had told her how much I liked the one at my office.  The ability to brew just a single cup of coffee as you need it without wasting a whole pot was just too clever of an idea.  I wasn’t a heavy coffee drinker previously, but since purchasing the Keurig Coffee Machine I drink about two cups of coffee per day on average.  The machine just makes it far too convienent to quickly brew up a batch and just drink.

What also is amazing is the amount of Keurig K-Cups you can find now that come in all sorts of flavored coffees.  I haven’t been a big fan of black bitter coffee, and find myself drawn to the Hazelnut, Pecan, French Vanilla or other roasts that have flavoring mixed in with the blend.  Walmart and Fry’s Marketplace here don’t have a very good selection of K-Cups but I found a great selection at Bed Bath & Beyond and was able to pick up Caribou Coffee, Cinnamon Roll flavored Coffee from Donut House, and even some Green Tea K-Cups.

If you like drinking the occasional cup of coffee, I highly recommend you look into the Keurig Coffee Machine, there is a reason why they have become so popular and simply pouring in one cup of water to get a perfect brewed cup of coffee is one of the easiest and best things about this device.

There are also dozens of flavors you can find on Amazon.com including my favorite two flavors including Green Mountain Southern Pecan and Rain Forest Nut.

-Justin Germino

I was eating at On The Border in Awhatukee the other day and had an unusual encounter with one of their light and healthy salads called the citrus chipotle chicken salad. I have always enjoyed eating at On the Border Mexican restaurant and typically my favorite dish there is the Dos Equis Fish Taco’s but for some reason I felt like something lighter due to the fact that it was over a hundred and fifteen degrees outside.

My family started dining on the chips and salsa which is not overly spicy but does at a little bit of heat as you eat more of it. When the salad finally arrived I dove right in and noted that other than the mango dressing which was a little tangy, the salad itself was a little more bland than I expected.

After eating about three quarters of my salad I my mouth was still on fire from the salsa of the chips and I commented that the salsa must be really strong today. I normally don’t eat spicy food and my stomach just cannot take spicy cuisine like it could in my youth, I have horrible stomach pains, intestinal pains and whatnot if I eat foods that are just to rich in spicy peppers and the like.

By the time I finished the salad my mouth was on fire, salivating, drinking Diet Coke like crazy I just couldn’t figure out why my mouth wouldn’t cool down. It wasnt until I inspected my salad more closely that I realized there were tiny diced pieces of Jalapeno peppers littered all over the plate and hidden in the lettuce!

There was no mention of Jalapeno’s in the entree description nor a spicy symbol or warning like they have in Chinese restaurants. I was literally burning from the mouth to my wounded stomach. Fortunately, the waitress was so very friendly that she spoke to her manager and they actually took the salad off my bill saying “Nobody should have to pay for a dish that hurt them” and I greatly appreciate it. I wasn’t even asking for my bill to be comped I just thought they should rememeber to update people that it is spicy next time.

So I won’t be eating the spicy citrus chipotle chicken salad at On The Border again, however the service was superb and the fact that they took it off my bill because I didn’t like it (even after I ate it) I don’t hold the salad against such a fine restaurant. As I said the Dos Equis Fish Taco’s are amazing, and they do have good Chips and Salsa and I did have the the big bordurrito with fajita steak which is fantastic.

If you live in Arizona and have not eaten at On The Borders yet, you should.

Ahwatukee-OTB LLC
5005 E. Ray Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85044-6407
Phone: 480-705-5454

-Justin Germino

Last week I purchased Super Mario Galaxy 2 as my three year old is a huge fan of all Mario related games for the Nintendo Wii. The most noticeable new feature of Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the expanded features of the “Helper Hand” by the second player, the player no longer can trigger jumps or trip up Player 1, but instead functions as a full assistance in SMG2. The Helper hand can shoot stars, stun and even destroy enemies in the second Mario Galaxy game as well as collect stars.

While I wish there was a true two player element of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (split screen top bottom where Mario and Luigi can explore the same world at the same time and have to meetup at the same star to shoot to other worlds) the planetoids themselves are a little too small to support two characters running around at the same time. The game has the same level of graphics and gameplay as the original but new creative worlds and costumes are available for Mario to pick up.

The fact that you are just as amazed with the gravity effects, smooth responsive controls and sense of wonder and creativity with the second Mario Galaxy game as you were with the first is a tribute to how brilliant the game designers truly are. Seriously, Metacritic has SMG2 rated at 97 with 82 Critic Reviews, and may of the gaming review giants in the industry like IGN, OneUp and GameSpot all gave Super Mario Galaxy 2 “100” score the highest rating ever!

Clearly Nintendo continues to do the right thing when it comes to releasing games with their flagship characters, and this is one game that my three year old loves to play (and watch me play constantly). You would not go wrong purchasing this game and if you haven’t played the original you are missing out on two of the best Nintendo Wii games that exist right now.

-Justin Germino