0Posted by Tony Thomas on August 18, 2011 at 10:38 am
I really would think that this would be a no-brainer, but obviously natural common sense has been chucked out the window once again and splattered in a bloody mess all over the ground.
This Facebook tip is essential and I think most of you will get it right away. Some of you may surprise me and yourself as you tilt your head to the side in an “OH REALLY?” moment.
Ready? Here we go…
DON’T FLIP OFF THE CAMERA WHEN YOU POST A PHOTO TO FACEBOOK!!!!
By default, whenever you post anything to your Facebook Wall, it also appears in the news feeds. In the process of posting, you can always set only the people you wish to see it, but. by default, it goes out to everyone.
When you flip off the camera in a photo you post to Facebook, you make yourself look dumb and immature. Once the photo appears in all your friends’ feeds, everyone gets to know that you’re dumb and immature.
Now, if you own a business and are on Facebook to promote that business, you have just promoted yourself from dumb and immature to a total idiot. You are a business owner and what have you just told every friend and/or person who has liked your Facebook Page? You figure it out. Needless to say, it’s not a pretty picture you’ve just painted. Personally, I deal with professionals. Have fun, by all means, but don’t cross that fine line that is a detriment to your business.
So, to sum up, think before you act. Don’t let everyone in the social media world know you’re an idiot. Keep it to yourself.
0Posted by Tony Thomas on June 16, 2011 at 1:31 pm
You remember a young girl who appeared on YouTube and began to sing about Friday? Sure you do.
If you haven’t seen the video, you can watch it below. WAIT! No, you can’t. Rebecca Black made a copyright claim on her own YouTube video. Um. OK. ;/
Trust me. It was horrid. Lame lyrics, lazy subject matter, saying nothing.
With that said, I really believe that Rebecca is the poster child for everything that is wrong with music these days.
As you know, I pretty much despise music today. Let’s put that statement in context. I’m speaking from a “what you hear on the radio” standpoint. Pop music, if you will.
I hold to my belief that after the 80s, music (slowly at first and then it picked up momentum) went into the toilet.
Augmentation in the studio, sampling, and electronic replaced any sort of real talent. The artists of the 1970s had real talent.
They played real instruments. Their voices were their own. It took work and dedication. It took passion; something that today’s music talent (ack!) know nothing about.
Just like so many other things in America, people wanting to break into the music scene have gone lazy. They want to make money, period. Greed and laziness is what permeates the business.
The talent putting in the effort and doing it for the love of the art is now the exception and not the rule.
Finding good music to listen to on the radio is often like looking for a needle in a haystack.
It makes me sad that today’s youth know nothing about good music, unless their parents are good enough to teach them.
You can only state this sort of opinion based on what you have to compare it to. You cannot say something is good or bad if you’ve only been exposed to bad. There is no comparison that can be made.
Kids, do yourself a favor and begin listening to music from the 1980s and then move backward from there. Once you’re exposed to it, you’ll quickly realize just how horrid most of the noise, passed off as music, today really is.
This is one of my favorite mugs, so it’s the MUG OF THE DAY.
I’m a huge Disney fan and this particular mug (coffee or tea, usually) was purchased at the Disneyland resort back in 2000 (the last year I was there, unfortunately).
It’s really large and holds lots of my favorite hot beverages.
Delight and enjoy….and then send a photo of your favorite mug!
“Lazarillo,” turns out to be an exceptional production put on by the Miracle Theatre Group at the Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark Street in Portland.
My wife and I attended opening night and had a great time. The theatre itself is very intimate and up-close, so you can really see and enjoy all that’s going on around you. The set design proves they have some very talented designers working for them. There wasn’t an empty seat to be had this night. I expect it to be that way throughout it’s run.
“Lazarillo” is a story of a young boy who just can’t catch a break. Accused of a crime he claims he didn’t commit, Lazarillo takes us back to tell his story.
He is born in Puerto Rico to poor parents that work their fingers to the bone to provide for him. As the father struggles with lack, he does what he feels needs to be done to put food on the family table. Caught by the police for theft, he is given the choice of jail or the army. Opting to go the way of the army, he is mistaken for an enemy soldier and killed.
Lazarillo’s mother sees a better life for her son and herself in America and they set off for New York. Once again, struggling to survive, our hero’s mother sells him into slavery to an old, but crafty blind man who teases and beats the boy.
Lazarillo eventually escapes the torment of his “guardian” only to find himself passing from person to person in an attempt to make a life for himself, each Guardian as brutal and demeaning as the other. Through each event, he attempts to reconcile the ways of the world with his still-soft heart. Picture a Puerto Rican Huck Finn. That’s Lazarillo.
You’d think that something with a plot of this nature would leave you melancholy, but not true at all. It will have you laughing and soaking in every moment. You’ll also be provoked to think. You truly have to experience it for yourself.
The group of only five Thespians are stunningly good at their craft. With the exception of talented Carlosalexis Cruz, who plays the lead, the other four play multiple parts and have you believing each one. Kudos to Kate Braidwood, Emily Gleason, Matthew Kerrigan, and Andrew Phoenix. Wonderful, wonderful!
“Lazarillo” plays at the Milagro Theatre through Saturday, May 28th. You can find all the information at their web site, http://www.milagro.org/
You’ll remember this well-done production for a long time to come. Highly recommended!
0Posted by Tony Thomas on April 28, 2011 at 10:25 pm
I’m a child of the 70s and graduated high school in the 80s. I’m oh SO thankful that I did! In my humble opinion, this was when the best music of all time came out.
You tune into anything pop or new in any way on the radio waves today and it just makes you go, “EW!”
In the 1970s, your ears were treated to ballads, love songs, fun songs, silly songs. Now all you hear is songs about explicit sex, guns, gangs….I’m sorry (no I’m not!), but music today just plain sucks!!
This post is about my love for the music of the 1970s and even into the 80s. I don’t want you to read about how great it was. I want you to experience it yourself…you need to!
I can’t do this post justice by just putting a few out there, but I can’t list them all. *sigh*
0Posted by Tony Thomas on April 24, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Do you really want to change your life for the better? Dumb question, huh? The thing is that some of us seem as if we need to be asked that question, because you certainly can’t always tell by the way we walk through life, all zombie-esque like.
Have you ever seen Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece, “Metropolis?” If you have, you know exactly what I’m saying.
I’m a huge proponent of doing what you love for a living. That’s the very reason I told the rat-race to kiss my butt in 2006 and ventured out on my own, to fulfill my own dreams. To live my life on MY terms.
I was tired of someone else controlling my present and future, especially when that someone else never had my best-interest at heart. Who knows better what is good for me than me?
The world has changed with the times. Things don’t work the same way they used to.
What is the same is people. Each individual was created for something special and amazing. Each and every one of us has a fire inside us; a passion that yerns for release. No one is mediocre. Your life is exactly what you make it. If you will accept a plain, uneventful life, you can have it. It’s actually pretty easy. The sad thing is that too many of us take that easy way out. We aren’t made to be a square peg that someone else is trying to shove in a round hole.
We can experience a life that is full, rich, and exciting, if we only tap into it and bring out the wonder that makes us all up. The passion. The zeal. The need and longing for something better.
“48 Hours To The Work You Love”is a terrific book that will teach you how to stop surviving and start living. Don’t settle for blasé. Find the real you and blaze your own path.
This book will surely help you turn your life around….if you really want to.
0Posted by Tony Thomas on April 23, 2011 at 10:13 pm
I was recently remembering back to grade school and all the weird and creepy things my classmates and I used to do. Not bad things, just strange things.
When you’re young, you really don’t consider the ramifications of the things you do. You just do it and to heck with the consequences… until they happen.
I recorded my memories in my recent YouTube video, with the exception of one. A commenter to the video actually reminded me of it.
I think I was in 1st grade when I decided it was a really awesome thing to stick a purple crayon up my nose. Hey! Purple was THE color, so it had to be a good idea!
I ended up having to go to the doctor to have it removed. Even for a kid, something like that was embarrassing.
Anyway, enjoy the video. Please rate, subscribe, and comment. I want to hear all the things you did when you were a kid.
I really would think that this would be a no-brainer, but obviously natural common sense has been chucked out the window once again and splattered in a bloody mess all over the ground.
