Monthly Archive for September, 2010

Your Blog Won’t Make A Year

Published on September 30, 2010 in 5 rules, Created, Observations, Reviews, Stories and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Get excited! Powerogre.com is now a year old, a year wiser, and statistically past the blog failure zone (most blogs die after 6 months, I have no source, go Google it). There have been some ups and some downs (literally, powerogre.com was 404 over a week in September 2010). Through it all, the article’s kept coming and so did the readers (all 15 of you).

It’s really not easy to blog consistently. To write even a short article usually takes an hour, and a longer article takes…longer. Writing is important to me however, if it weren’t, I wouldn’t spend my precious time doing it. The best way for me to understand/comprehend something is to write it in my own words. This is not to say that when I write about something here on Powerogre.com, I don’t understand it until I write it (If this were the case, it would be a particularly embarrassing revelation considering some of the stuff I have written about in the past), rather I mean that writing is a way for me to organize my thoughts, to see things in a different light, to express what is difficult to express except through written words.

So what does the future of Powerogre.com hold? It will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams (or poorer), it will solve the global climate change conundrum (or contribute to it), it might make you smarter (but certainly not stupider), and it will entertain you at the most opportune moments (or at least provide you with toilet paper if you are so inclined to print it out for bathroom reading material).

Thanks for reading,

Josh

Twitter Sucks, Or So I Thought.

Published on September 28, 2010 in Observations. 3 Comments

“So what is that Twitter thing anyway?” This is a question I would ask myself not even a year ago. Like some of you out there, I thought that by avoiding all things social on the web, I was maintaining my anonymity and ensuring that when the internet police started to take people away, they would have nothing on me. Why would I need Twitter anyway? I was sure that I would have nothing to say, or even worse, I would reveal too much personal info.

So why did I jump on the Twitter bandwagon? To this day I’m still not sure, I just know I’m glad I did. I have interacted with some cool people, learned interesting things, received insider info, and had tons of fun.

Let’s take a look at a random scattering of things I tweeted about during the past year.

So what do I tweet about? Pretty much anything.

One of my close friends mentioned I tweet about food an inordinate amount.

I tend to get on Twitter the minute I receive poor customer service from a giant corporation. Typical.

Like everyone else, I tweet about current events.

By far my favorite things to tweet are random tidbits that must seem strange to….strangers.

To follow the fun all day long, click on the button at the top of this page,

or go to twitter.com/joshjallen.

I will keep on Tweeting, while at the same time loathing the term “tweeting”, and keeping one eye out for the internet police. I think they are onto me…

5 Rules For The Weekend

Published on September 25, 2010 in 5 rules. 1 Comment

Should there really be rules for the weekend? It’s debatable, but I’m not going to let that stop me. The weekend is a special time; it’s a 2 day holiday that happens every week. It’s a time to relax, to get stuff done you were not able to accomplish during the week. The weekend should not be wasted, but neither should it be used as just another Tuesday or Wednesday. With that in mind, let’s get to the rules.

1) If you have a job like most people, you wake up with an alarm, a loud, shrill, obnoxious alarm. Forget the alarm on the weekend, sleep in at least a little.

2) All week you get things done. Business from dusk till dawn. Your relaxation consists of mowing the lawn and helping with your kid’s homework. When the weekend hits, do something totally unproductive, at least for an hour on one day.


3) These days, everyone knows they should eat healthy, or at least they do if they have access to the internet. All week you battle with eating what you should and avoiding the donuts. Forget that on the weekend; eat at least one thing you know you shouldn’t. Ignore this rule if you are dangerously overweight.

4) Rule number 3 begets rule number 4. Exercise like it’s going out of style. It can be hard to exercise during the work week, on the weekend there should be no excuses for not getting in two solid days of exercise. Run, ride, row, and….do something else that starts with R, I can’t think of anything.


5) During the work week you may not have time to see people or talk with them on the phone. Talk with at least one person who you didn’t see during the week. Posting “What’s up dude?” on their Facebook wall does not count.


There you have it, 5 rules for the weekend. As always, feel free to add your own rules in the comments.

I’m Working Out…At Home

Published on September 23, 2010 in Observations. 8 Comments

A large sweaty man, muscle’s bulging out of his size-too-small tank top, slides up next to you; his eyes sweep your less than perfect body in disgust. You give him a nod, and he ignores you, turning to the task at hand, “pumpeen tha ion”. You guessed it; the gym is where this hypothetical situation takes place.

So why don’t I like gyms? If the scenario above did not give you some clue, then keep reading. My dislike of gyms can be summed up in three points; the cost, the people, and the time.

Let’s start with cost. Gyms are expensive. Yes, there are some gyms out there that charge $20 a month with no joining fees. However, even $20 a month can be a budget breaker, and if you don’t use the gym frequently, the cost cannot be justified. How many of you out there got a gym membership promising yourself that you would use it, only to let it linger and slowly die? All the while a $35 a month charge stealthily creeps onto your credit card bill. You keep telling yourself that you should really go, but it’s just so far away, and the people there are all so stuck up…

Most people don’t live next to a gym. Therefore you must drive, and driving takes time. Even a gym which is 10 minutes from your house eats up another 30 minutes of your day, 10 minutes to drive each direction, and 5 minutes on both ends to park and get in the door. If you add this 30 minutes to your hour-long workout, suddenly an hour and a half of your day is gone, and you still need to shower and eat something…

From the stuck up gym rats, to the grunting sweaty old men, to the stair climber obsessed workout queens, to the slow moving newcomers, the people are a large reason gyms just aren’t worth your time. Listening to the loud crash of weights on the improperly used machines, the loud grunting and shouting from the “hardcore” workout area, or the poorly selected elevator music piped into the building does not add to a great workout environment.

There you have it, the reason I am against gyms. I have found alternative methods for keeping in shape, and so should you.

The Days of Fall…

Published on September 21, 2010 in Observations. 6 Comments

Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah!…or something like that, just my simplistic way of leading into the topic at hand, the season of fall and what it means to you (and me). It could just be my misperception, but to most people, fall equals football (hence the rah-rah), apples, pumpkin pie, and Halloween. All around the United States, people are watching football games while eating pumpkin pie and apples, and dreaming about what they are going to dress up as for Halloween (dressing up for Halloween is no longer just for kids).

While that all sounds fun, it’s not the first thing I think of when fall slowly rolls around. Fall is the beginning of the end of the year. It’s a time to reflect on the year that will soon be gone, what was accomplished, and what was not. In my opinion, it’s actually a much better time than New Years to start again, set goals, and keep pressing on. The entire year from January to June is a build up to summer, when summer hits (it hits late in the great North-wet) the year reaches its apex. Once it starts sliding into fall, it’s time to reassess, and start planning to do it all again. Fall is a rebirth.

So keep watching your football, eating your pumpkin pie, and stitching together your Sponge-Bob Squarepants costume, and if you get a chance during a commercial break, think about the year that was, and what exciting things next year may bring. See you on the streets Halloween night!