Fuzzy Bus

I was in my glove compartment looking for my  Florida maps. I never found the state map but I did find several road maps and zip code maps. While this doesn’t sound like much of an interesting find on the surface, it felt like I found treasure.

I went to Florida with some friends over spring break and I made sure that we couldn’t get lost by having all sorts of maps of the whole state down to zip code areas. I lost all of them when we got back. I wanted to put together a bit of a story for my friends that documented all that we did–which was a lot.

I wasn’t even going to bother since I didn’t have the well-used maps. But now that I do I can take details and use them with photos and maps of our travels so this in years from now we’ll all have a great souvenir.

I needed several new rugs for my house. I mean I needed everything from kitchen rugs to braided area rugs. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do then I went online and found a company called Natural Area Rugs that had great prices and a great selection.

After the rug part was taken care of, I needed some new paint for my kitchen. I wasn’t sure what color but once I decided on a color I went online to learn about painting. I needed to add a lot of color because all of the walls were while. I decided to keep the moldings white but I went with a yellow for the kitchen.

The rug ended up having that same color in it and with the addition of some curtains, the entire room was color coordinated. Now I think I want to work on the bathroom. I bet there are tons of rugs that would look great on white tile floors.

With around 3 million people between the ages of 12 and 25 have abused over-the-counter medications, such as cold and cough medicine. This is because is it cheap and readily available. Once a person is addiction, entry into a long term drug rehab program is needed to stop the abuse. Substance abuse rehabilitation teaches the addict how to adjust his or her behavior in order to maintain sobriety. Without drug rehab, the abuser will most likely not abstain from abuse and will only increase the severity of the addiction.

The ingredient in these OTC medications is called Dextromethorphan, or DXM. The effects of DXM include loss of coordination, impaired judgement and mental functions, nausea, dizziness, hot flashed, hallucinations, brain damage, seizures and death. The number of calls to poison control centers for overdoses from DXM has increased every year because people are now taking these pills by the handful.

One other interesting find was that incidences of overdosing and abuse show up in clusters. This is most likely due to word-of-mouth talk about using these drugs and almost every home has them on hand.

With much anticipation, 2 time second place winner Roger Federes is ready to once again try to attain the ever-allusive French Open title. Currently he is getting over a glandular fever after the Australian Open and he is using his past losses as motivation to prove that his career is not in decline. Federes said that many people in his home country of Switzerland think that the last few losses for him mean that he is losing his edge.

He couldn’t agree less. He stated that people don’t know that he’s healthy and happy. If they did, he says they would know that he has not lost his edge. In fact, he is looking forward to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 Olympics.

Federes recently lost an exhibition game to Pete Sampras at Madison Square Gardens. Longtime friend Tiger Woods watched the match. Federes is just 2 Grand Slam titles away from matching Sampras’ total of 14. This is also giving him motivation to have favorable French Open tennis tournament results.

With all of that in mind, this year’s French Open tennis tournament should bring interesting results and possible a few high-drama situations as egos, careers and reputations are on the line.

Several brands which were extremely powerful during the last few decades are about to disappear. Many of them no longer drive big sales. Some are a part of companies that are in trouble. Some are part of industries which are falling apart.

Big brands disappear all the time. Sometimes we simply miss their passing. Cingular Wireless was on most Top 100 brands lists. Once AT&T (T) took over BellSouth, it dropped Cingular completely. Compaq was one of the most visible PC brands in the world. It began to fade away after it was bought by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). The IBM PC brand, one of the original PC brands, no longer exists since it was acquired by Lenovo, a Chinese company, several years ago.

Here is a list of brands, most over them a decade old, and some much older, which are likely to go away in the next year or two.  Read more

Schooled as we are by Valentine’s Day greeting cards and breath-mint commercials to think of love as something that is expressed in spontaneous, personal ways, we may viscerally reject the idea that what we regard as our innermost, most intimate selves could be governed by something as crass as filthy lucre. Despite the fact that the gospel of romantic love preaches that our love lives are individual and personal, economics has always played a primary role in the choices we make. We are, as Adam Smith wrote, rational actors looking out for our best interests — and if anyone doubts it, they should ask themselves if, all other things being equal, the average middle-class women would prefer to marry a neurosurgeon or a construction worker.

While the latter may have a certain amount of sex appeal, the former won’t get one gossiped about as “could’ve done better.” Heck, just look at the problems Harvard-educated Miranda and working-class Steve had in Sex and the City.  Read more..