TBP Open Your Mind

It was announced this week that for the european lottery anniversary they are having a super Euromillions Jackpot

There are less than 3 weeks to find out the details for this and buy your lucky ticket, so hurry up! Follow the link above to find out more.

The video The Winners Do It is now available on Google Videos for those of you who prefer to watch there.

A delayed Happy New Year to everyone!

I haven’t been around here often because i’ve been working on a new video to promote one of my other websites. I am more or less ready with the first version of the vid so i’ve uploaded it to YouTube for you all to see.

Did you do that?

I won’t say what it is about because its a surprise

A section of an email I received this morning. Very appropriate…

The Squirrel and the Grasshopper

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer way. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

THE BRITISH VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house.

The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing “We Shall Overcome”. Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his “fair share” and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrels food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

While first impressions are critical (whether we like it or not), when is it appropriate to begin placing more emphasis on substance than initial impressions? Is what someone drives or wears as important as what they know? Probably not.

Flashy new cars and expensive clothes can be as deceiving as an old clunker (e.g. Sam Walton and Warren Buffet) and blue jeans (e.g. Bill Gates and the Google Guys). If you judge a book by its cover, you’re likely to either be surprised or disappointed.

Our business culture has slowly begun to recognize that it’s not what you wear but how you do your job. Casual Friday’s, once an anomaly are now the norm. The explosion of high-tech employment has given rise to casual “everydays”.

Common sense is beginning to take hold. When it’s 100° F outside, why wear a suit…duh!

Comfort leads to creativity, creativity lead to innovation, innovation leads to discovery, discovery leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to success.

I’m more impressed with a well-spoken person who is clearly comfortable in their own skin than I am one who is obviously trying to impress those around them with the “stuff” they have acquired.

It’s not about what you have…

There are some rules of life we were never sat down and taught, they just seem to be picked up along the way.

1. Never give yourself a haircut after three margaritas.
2. You need only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use WD-40; if it moves and shouldn’t, use the tape.
3. The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship “I apologize” and “You are right.”
4. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
5. When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.
6. The only really good advice that your mother ever gave you was, “Go! You might meet somebody!”
7. If he/she says that you are too good for him/her, believe them.
8. Learn to pick your battles: Ask yourself, “Will this matter one year from now?” How about one month? One week? One day?”
9. Never pass up an opportunity to pee.
10. If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance!
11. Living well really is the best revenge. Being miserable because of a bad or former relationship just might mean that the other person was right about you.
12. Work is good, but it’s not that important.
13. Be really nice to your family and friends. You never know when you are going to need them to empty your bedpan.
14. Don’t be an idiot.
15. Never trust women who can’t put their lipstick on straight. They are invariably crazy.
16. Know your way home.
17. Don’t talk to yourself.
18. Closets make good sleeping - if you like being sore the next day.
19. If you like the music, dance.
20. You’ll feel better if you throw up.
21. No matter how certain you might be of any given situation, there is invariably another creature who will teach you the meaning of certainty.
22. Never try to take apart a computer with a monkey wrench.
23. Learn to say “Where is the nude beach?” in at least three languages.
24. Do not use your work laptop while eating Coco Wheats.
25. Children do not want clothes for birthday gifts.
26. Running into your wife’s gynecologist at Target is awkward. Somewhat surprisingly, you won’t have much to talk about.
27. He who makes a beast of himself takes away the pain of being a man.
28. If you talk to yourself (see 17), don’t answer in a different voicel; it tends to spook those around you.
29. Don’t hit your own head.
30. Even though it doesn’t appear it to us, everyone considers themself an above average driver.
31. don£t trtry to type stufff whebn yu are reallly”yy drunk….
32 No matter how socially inept you think you are, you’re still a lot more fun to be around than Carrot Top.
33. One good turn gets most of the blankets.
34. One day you can get screwed out of what is rightfully yours, the next day you may become world
reknowned and respected just for being yourself (See Ozzy Osbourne).
35. Carrot sticks and bleu cheese vegetable dip lead to multiple instances of explosive diarrhea.
36. He who hesitates is lost.
37. Schizophrenia means never having to be alone.
38. Everybody needs a good butt kicking now and again.
39. Early bird gets teh worm.
40. Forks fairly fly when you serve corn-saugage pie.
41. Avoid all so-called “vegetarian” options at fast-food burger joints, lest thou be hunched over
for a good portion of the night muttering incoherently about “food poisoning” as your intestines
try to leap up and strangle your stomach, causing the worst cramping possible this side of labor pains.
42. Fart jokes never stop being funny.
43. An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
44. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
45. Have your own sense of style.
46. As with all things, this too shall pass.
47. It’s not so bad because it could always be worse.
48. “Accept.”
49. Pet a dog.
50. It’s a small world after all.
51. Midgets are people too.
52. No great music was ever made on a Flying V guitar.
53. Everything that can possibly happen, will happen.
54. A tongue stud is no excuse not to learn to do it right.
55. Cry once in a while, it’s cathartic. If you need to hide from others to do so, then do, but still cry.
56. Follow it up with a beer/phone call with a friend who laughs a lot.
57. Eat cheese, it is marvelous tasting and, purportedly, scrubs your teeth.
58. When you see a little kid in the store, make a fart noise with your mouth. They laugh every time.
59. Splurge on toilet paper.
60. Lay in the grass and watch the bugs crawl around.
60a. (Optional) Squash them.
61. Positive to positive, negative to negative, ground to ground.
62. Beggers CAN be choosers.
63. Monkeys cheat at monopoly.
64. Chances are, you won’t refill your popcorn.
65. If someone tells you, “You’re dreaming, pal!” kick them in the shin. It’s okay, because after all, it’s a dream.
66. Never rub another man’s rhubarb!
67. Don’t buy live lobsters from Walmart.
68. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. There are more than two ways to serve it.
69. There are 68 things before 69, but of course none of them will be remembered.
70. You will not get rich quick with Amway.
71. First one up gets the paper. And makes the coffee.
72. Cheesy fantasy movies have at least one Queen track in them.
73. Always check to see if there is anyone else in a public bathroom when you enter.
74. If someone else enters, cough to let them know you are there. If not, you may have to listen to something you didn’t intend.
74a. The Sacred Buffer Corollary: When in a public bathroom, never take the urinal/stall directly
adjacent to another user/jockey. When you are the first settler, never take the middle facility.
Respect the Sacred Buffer.
75. Know someone who gives good foot massages.
76. Lyle Lovett is better heard than seen.
77. Even when you know there is nobody there, dark, long hallways are creepy.
78. Never trust a person who has a lugubrious countenance.
79. Never trust a person who has a smirking countenance.
80. Never tie a yellow ribbon round the old guy at the bus stop.
81. You can never teach an old dog new tricks, unless you have a peanut butter filled Kong.
82. A jar full of candy on the desk is a great way to start a new job.

Microsoft Antispyware is the previous name for this utility which you may already be familiar with.

In essence it is a handy piece of free software which sits in your system tray (down by the clock) and monitors what is trying to install itself onto your computer. When it spots something it is unsure about it prompts you to see if you want to allow it to continue installing, or if the offending program should be blocked. This has saved me a few times from rogue websites trying to change my internet settings or homepage, and the occasional piece of spyware which is sometimes hidden in some innocent-looking freeware, as i’ve found out in the past.

Windows Defender, new name, new features?

Following the automatic upgrade of my working version of Microsoft Antispyware to the new Windows Defender, the new program has been unable to download any definitions - definitions it needs to work properly, so i am now left without any spyware defences!

Hopefully Microsoft will release an improved version soon which doesn’t suffer from these glitches, but for now my recommendation is decline the automatic update when prompted, and don’t rush into trying Windows Defender.

In Europe, which renders the date before the month, late tonight — specifically, 123 seconds after 1:00 a.m. — the time and date, for the first time in all of humanity, will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That’s 123 seconds past 1 a.m. on 4 May. And after that, it most definitely will never occur again.

Wherever you are, it might be just the right moment to find an all-night liquor store and buy that lottery ticket that forms the basis of your retirement plan.