Justin Germino Ramblings

Today was a case of the Monday’s if you ever had one, and to happen the same week as Christmas is just bitter irony.  It all started when my refrigerator’s A/C Compressor died sometime yesterday unnoticed and all my freezer items were thawed and ruined.  I had to purchase a new fridge this morning from Lowes, which will be delivered tomorrow morning.  As if that wasn’t enough my oldest son got sick and vomited on our carpet which we had to vacuum and shampoo the carpet twice.  In addition to that on the home front, I joined a business meeting where the primary customer we were waiting for never showed up for the call.

On the positive note, we get a new refrigerator and it’s a nice Whirlpool one that has stainless steel door’s, we have had the same Amana fridge for about 8 years and never really had too much trouble with it until last night.  The other positive note is that my son does not appear to have a stomach bug, was a one time puke thing and he was acting fine the rest of the day and even held some noodles and plain pasta down later on.

Tomorrow is going to be busy.

-Justin Germino

This is my time to share some link love with my top droppers over the past 30 days,thank you my 10 top droppers for the past month. Some of you made the same list as my top droppers for dragonblogger.com and others are my top droppers for this site only. Again, anyone in my top droppers for either of my blogs gets added to the Dragon Blogger Entrecard Generator to help reciprocate some drops.

-Justin Germino

Today was a family day no one had to work and so the entire day was spent at home as a family, with lots of rest and time spent just hanging around each other.  The Family Man with Nicholas Cage was also playing on Television and we kind of watched in the background before dinner and after.  Though the movie is not one of my favorite Nicholas Cage movies I really do like the premise of the film and like the feel good story that comes out of it.  That success, wealth and power are nothing without a family to share it with and love and family are the building blocks that make us whole, the rest is nice to have but doesn’t really nourish or sustain our spirit.

I can attest to this in my personal life, much like in the movie I can picture and visualize what my life would have been like if I would have stayed single, or even separated at some point in the past.  Would I have been financially stable, sure.  Would I have been happy?  Most definitely not!

I can honestly say that as we are in the holidays there is no where I would rather be than at home with my wife beside me and my two beautiful and wonderful children around me.  To me what I have is worth more than any amount of money I could make or would have saved being single and living as a “power” person because without someone to spend and share my life with I would in fact be hollow inside.

-Justin Germino

I had only about $10 left on one of my gift cards and was doing research on what to buy or to find to utilize the last bit, when I stumbled across an article by Betterbudgeting.com that lists 63 gifts all under $10.  This made me think of all of the things one can get that have very little cost other than some time and effort which of course can be priceless in some scenario’s.

I am still on m quest to spend my last $10 of my giftcard to find something I can use, since this giftcard was awarded to me from my job, I decided to spend it on myself.  I just bought a replacement Turtle Beach HPA2 Microphone with some of it, since my 2 year old dunked the last microphone in my iced tea and shorted it out.

-Justin Germino

Today is the final weekend before Christmas and I am glad to say all of my holiday shopping is complete, I only have about 20 more presents to wrap so I don’t leave them all for Christmas Eve.  A co-worker of my wife’s may be coming over tonight to roll up a 3.5 Edition Dungeons and Dragons character, and if he comes over this will be my first official character creation in over 6 years.  I have not role played Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 in a long time, and am looking forward to starting up a campaign again if I can find the time and find some friends who have the time.

One of my favorite things about pen and paper role playing games is the in person interaction you get that you could never duplicate no matter how many fantasy RPG’s or even MMO’s you play online.  I like traditional Role Playing Games without miniatures or heavy on the props, pure imagination and role playing at its finest.  I was not overly fond of the 4th Edition Rules and details when I first read the release and for now continue to play in a 3.5 / Hybrid custom system that is all fully D20 compliant.

I had dozens of excel tables, spreadsheets, generators and charts that I created back in 2001 that I am blowing the dust off and going to tweak over the next few weeks to prepare for new gaming sessions.  My boys who are still too young for pen and paper D&D often play live action role playing equivelant with me, my oldest who is in kindergarten will actually sit down at bed time and I will read him a story and incorporate some player feedback, letting him roll some D20 for attacking, or saving throws just to get him used to the interactivity.  He loves it, and it is one of his favorite night time routines on the nights we do interactive stories (D&D Light) I call it.

-Justin Germino

In the last two months I almost can’t live without my tweetdeck being open and active on my home computer while I work during the day, I have come to enjoy creating daily twitter poems based on random words people feed me on twitter.  I create one unique poem per weekday and it usually is based off of 9 – 13 random words provided by my twitter followers.  I also am growing rapidly in the number of followers this is in part due to the Entrecard network promoting EC users to also join up on twitter.

I continue to experiment with a new plug-in for wordpress called Twitme, which not only updates twitter each time you publish a new blog post, but you can also see your followers, directly write tweets, view your direct inbox and sent outbox all from your wordpress dashboard.  I will post a whole detailed post about it on Dragonblogger.com after I play with the plug-in for about 24 hours or so and see how it works.

Twitter has actually introduced me to some local people in Arizona a few of which came out to our Rock Show back in November, I have also developed a cadre of regulars who play my twitter game daily and enjoy providing me fuel (words) for my poems.  It is an outstanding social network in its real time ability to instantly talk to people and engage in two way conversations in real time, often you can talk about the latest CNN news stories, or even local news in your city or state.

In the meantime I welcome anyone to connect with me and chat with me on twitter, my handle is @dragonblogger.

-Justin Germino

I am one of those people who is extremely busy during the day I have a full time job working about 9 hours a day with maintaining 4 blog sites at night.  I have my wife and two children who I carve out as much time with as I possibly can as well.  I don’t have any time to read novels like I used to, I used to enjoy reading a novel a week when I was younger and had alot of alone time.  Now my alone time is usually only found when I drive into the office which is about a one hour commute each way.

Audiobooks are the best thing for long drives in my opinion, I can listen to my favorite books or books that I want to catch up on and I have come to love the audio book medium better than reading the books manually.   Even Stephen King himself has once said that Audiobooks are among the best mediums for delivering the author’s work as it forces the reader to stay at the pace of the narrator and helps prevent people who skip ahead or skim faster through certain pages rather than others.

I find when I listen to a good audio book I can get lost in the story, almost like I am listening to a movie.  I can almost see and feel as if I was there with the characters, some audiobooks are just fantastic and others are just droning bores.  The narrator and speaker makes or breaks the audiobook in my opinion and even a mundane story can be more entertaining if read by a good speaker.  Some examples of great audiobooks are Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter series, which is really engaging.  Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series read by George Guidall is among the best there is.  Though Frank Muller who read the original four books before suffering a critical accident was even better, George did a fantastic job taking over the reigns and provides the voice of Roland Deschane and company with convicing voicework.

Other more engaging audiobooks are in the Star Trek and Star Wars lines, where they blend in sound effects and music into the audio book itself.  So it feels like you are listening to a movie not just an audio book.  This is very much like the audio book version of Stephen King’s The Mist which was created to be an interactive Audio Experience.

When I was a kid I used to record my favorite movies onto cassette tape and listen to them at night, creating my own version of interactive audio books and this was over 20 years ago.  I would record Legend, Labyrinth and others and just listen to the story, music and sound effects instead of watching.  Letting my own mind create the visuals for me was an even more creative and expressive way of enjoying the works themselves.

So how many of you out there are this passionate about audio books?  Who prefers reading vs audio books?  I would like to hear from you.

-Justin Germino

This post is dedicated to everyone who has ever had to struggle for anything in their lives and is continuing to struggle whether it be financially, socially or personally.  I have been through many struggles and challenges in my life so far and know that there is more around the corner each and every year.  Sometimes I do get depressed about what has happened and what may happen in the future, and sometimes I get stressed and depressed when in the middle of a difficult time.  When this occurs I always try to find some common ground to help even the odds, part of this comes in my always wanting to balance the odds.

When I am struggling financially I often will seek out blogs, charities and deliberately go read about the struggles of millions of people who are so much worse off then I am, this will make me sit back and as any kind of human being realize that I am being fickle in my complaints and should be more thankful I have all that I have as many others do not have as much as I.  For those of you who struggle to get Christmas gifts for your children, or to pay your mortgage, cars or are just out of a job, you can look at it this way.  Unemployment in the United States is considered wealth by some 3rd world countries where they literally starve to death their bellies distended from lack of food and nutrition.  People do come back from difficult times all it takes is hard work, patience and belief that you can work your way out of a rut.  Pull together with family and friends, and if you are one of the many losing your job in this economy then do your best to put yourself on Government retraining programs, Financial and Health assistance programs.  Sign up for everything you can and leverage it to help get you back on your feet.

For those of you who are struggling socially or personally due to self confidence issues or legitimate medical problems don’t despair, there is hope yet for everyone.  Medical issues do have treatments in most cases and all else can be overcome by sheer personality and force of will.  If you are shy or depressed due to being overweight for example, you may have tried to do anything including diets, working out and taking diet pills but instead of focusing on these things you should instead focus on being happy with who you are first.  One thing I have seen in this world is that people come in all shapes, sizes and colors and there is somebody for everyone.  For those who are afraid to put themselves out for the public viewing, you have only one life to live it is better to take a risk and take a chance, than to do nothing at all with it.  One example is if you are artistic, then explore and release your art so others may see.

Everyone remember that we all live on this world just one time and it is up to you to get the most out of your life, you can believe their is another life after this one or that there is an afterlife and even if there is that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make the most out of this one.  Life is too short to be beaten back and down, rise up and think about what you can do to improve your life or at least develop a better more positive way of thinking so that you aren’t suffering mentally.

These are just some of my insights and thoughts, I can only hope that they help inspire some of you.

-Justin Germino

I want to point this out to everyone who is overweight or used to be overweight but worked hard to get down to a normal weight. One of the big disadvantages I found now that I have come very close to achieving my weight goals is I feel guilt and think negatively whenever I indulge in food that I know is harmful to maintaining my weight. One example of this was I was eating breakfast this morning and I indulged in some pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs probably consuming a thousand calories or more in a single meal. As I sat there enjoying the food I was bliss, the flavor taste so good and I didn’t think about anything but enjoying the food.

After breakfast however when the flavor was gone I started considering how much I ate and how rich the food was and that if I indulged too much like this I would have to consider weight loss products or work out twice as hard again. This is something I notice very much about my new mentality, previously when I was heavy I ate and didn’t care about what it might due to my weight gain or my health. Now I am much more conscious to worrying about it after I have done it, but I still indulge anyway. I do have a system in place where if I indulge in a big breakfast I will cut back on lunch and dinner, I still try to eat only about 2,000 calories per day but I might change which meal is the highest calories for the day. Some days I have a big dinner and I will only eat a 140 calorie cereal bar for breakfast and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch which allows for a 1500 calorie dinner.

Other days a big breakfast means a very light lunch and lean cuisine dinner of only 250 calories or so. I try to keep my calorie intake consistent on days where I might eat too much, I try to eat less the next day. Never do I starve myself I keep it increments if I can, and I only guesstimate calories I don’t go so far as to add them all up in my head to the exact number. This helps keep my weight around 160 pounds even though I still have a section of belly fat I am trying to reduce.

I am sure many readers out there eat or indulge and feel guilty afterward, what are some of the punishments you inflict upon yourself to compensate for indulging in food? Or how do you make yourself feel less guilty or counteract when you cheat on your diets?

-Justin Germino

I am an avid fan of online movie rental services in general and have reviewed both Blockbuster and Netflix very thoroughly before making my choice of Blockbuster Total Access in the last year. I wanted to share with you my reasons for choosing Blockbuster instead of Netflix in case my readers are wondering which service to choose, or if they have one service they can consider if they are using the right service for them.

First I want to say that no matter which service you use there is almost no reason to have a local account and rent movies from a local video store anymore.  Online Movie Rentals are cheaper by far, fast delivery and with live streaming getting better every week, you just don’t need to pay $4.00 or more per rental at your local video store.

Both Services Blockbuster and Netflix offer DVD or Blu Ray movies through the mail and allow you to keep them as long as you want. The services work very similar you simply sign up, browse through their extensive list of movies and build your movie queue. Then depending on the package you purchase you will receive your movies in the mail and you can watch them at your leisure. When you are finished with the movie you simply return them in the mail (postage is already prepaid) and your next movie will ship when the first one arrives back.

Both services have the ability to download and stream older movies to your computer and desktop for watching immediately. Both services have package and pricing model flexibility whether you want 1 movie at a time, or 5 movies at a time. Indeed both Blockbuster and Netflix are priced very similar, so here is some of they key differences in why I chose Blockbuster.

Blockbuster has 2 key advantages over Netflix that are particularly valuable if you live within 10 miles of the nearest Blockbuster Store.  This is true in my case and is the main reason why I chose Blockbuster.

• Blockbuster Information

#1 – When you are done watching a movie from Blockbuster that you received in the mail you can immediately drive it back to your local Blockbuster store and exchange it for a free in-store movie.  This bypasses you having to wait a few days for your next movie to arrive.  You get an immediate instant movie to replace it and the store will mail your movie back for you.

#2 – When you sign up for Blockbuster movie service of a higher level (3 movies or more) you get a free E-coupon every month that you can print out and redeem at your local Blockbuster for a free movie or a free video game.  Thats right, a free Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 game rental every month which is normally like $7.00 to rent a game, you wouldn’t want to waste your E-Coupon on a movie, since movies are only about $4.00 to rent, you get more value for your coupon for renting a game.

Now one of the disadvantages is Blockbuster currently charges for online movie rentals and downloads to your computer at a per movie download.  This is discouraging as Netflix offers free movie streaming to your desktop and is one area Blockbuster needs to be more competitive.  So if you are really looking for streaming movies then Netflix is probably of more value. I should note though that with both services you can only stream older movies not the most current new releases.

• Netflix Information

Netflix has actually a larger and better selection of movies than Blockbuster and especially this hold true of foreign films, independant films and rare films.  While Blockbuster advertises 85,000+ movies, Netflix advertises over 100,000+ movies.  Netflix also has the advantage of free streaming movies without having to pay for streaming movies to your desktop.  Both services have about the same speed for mail delivery, but if you live close to a Blockbuster like I said, then with Blockbuster you have zero wait time if you just trade your movie in for free rental.

Netflix also has a slightly cheaper package deal but this only amounts to saving a dollar and some change, Blockbuster is quite competitive and the free coupon and in-store exchanges more than even the odds in my opinion.

• In Summary

I would like to conclude this post by reiterating that if you live close to a Blockbuster store and also have a game console of any type that the Blockbuster Total Access is a better deal and more flexible than the Netflix Offering.  However, if you care more about the indepenent and foreign film access and want to stream movies to your desktop PC, then Netflix may be a better fit for you.

I have been using the Blockbuster 3 at a time service for over a year now and have been very happy with it, I often have over 70 movies in my queue at any given time.

-Justin Germino