Yeah! I found announcements that confirm a 2nd Transformers installment is coming our way. Its is scheduled to come out sometime in 2009. Currently Spielberg is supposed to come back to direct the sequel, double yeah! The unfortunate thing is that the tentative date is over a year away from now, June 2009. This is old news to everyone except for me, but I thought I’d still tell you about it, since I recommended that you go see the first one a while ago.

source: eonline.com

A report from Reuters in Japan contains a video that confirms that Megan Fox, the super hot girl on the first installment will be coming back, along with the same guy that played the main role. What’s his name again? Shia something.

Megan in Jimmy Kimmel Live a while ago (7:00 minutes).

Megan Fox in a short clip from Two And A Half Men. Hot and funny (1:50 minutes).

Also see

michaelbay.com

Megan’s page on Wikipedia

IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/

Woot! another book read, onto the next one soon. First I thought I’d give you my take on this one.

The Year of Living Biblically. One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

A.J. Jacobs is hilarious, this medium sized hardbound will keep you reading if not for its insights, at least for its light tone and comical nature; its hard to put down. It is a funny memoir that takes Jacobs, and sometimes his family through a year of radical changes in lifestyle. You are quickly exposed to the determination that AJ musters to bring you the results of this crazy experiment.

I must admit that the wide range of topics in this book touch on a lot of recurring themes in my life. The search for truth, the notion of spirituality, the reason behind ancient customs, to name a few all surface constantly in my life. Until I was 12 or so, I was raised Catholic, the whole shebang; kneel, sit, stand, pray, sing, eat crackers, rinse and repeat. Then after several years of freedom from religion, I chose to become a Christian. For over four years I was a firm believer in Christ. I participated in a non-denominational Christian church extensively, to the point that you could find me with some friends on the corner of Main street preaching to anyone that would listen and some that wouldn’t about Jesus. That’s all in the past now and perhaps topic for another discussion later on, but I wanted to point out that I’m not unfamiliar with religion, especially Christianity and Judaism. It is perhaps this familiarity with religion, faith and all that comes rolled up in that pacakge that sparked the desire to read this book.

The book has a strong contrast to Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith which advises us (and I agree) to stop believing everything you are told without demanding real evidence from a source other than that which demands your faith. A.J. on the other hand must follow almost everything he is told by the Bible and his wise guy circle as I call it –a large group of experts that help him clear up some cryptic biblical stuff. Lots of times he is told to just go along with it. A.J. opens up by explaining how he’s going to do exactly what the title implies; live biblically for a year. Each chapter is a month and the whole book is narrated in journal style highlighting the most important days. Jacobs constantly is at odds with things that the Bible tells him to do and how he feels about it.

He takes us through his visit to the Holy Land, to visit his crazy uncle Gil, all the way to a meeting with Jimmy, a snake handling preacher in Knoxville, Tenessee. I love the way he enthusiastically tells a story and I lost count of how many times his narration of the ordeals made me laugh out loud. Having lived under rules from the Bible for years at one point, I can only admire Jacobs for actually completing a full year and then some of this grueling project. Julie, his wife also deserves credit if only for putting up with the lunacy of this undertaking, most of it while pregnant with twins! That’s love right there.

I don’t want to tell you much more about the book, it truly is worth reading, it all goes by quickly because of the way it is written. He begins with 72 pages and 700+ rules collected after reading the Bible from beginning to end. Towards the end of the journey, he collects over 100 books on biblical law, tradition, cooking and other relevant topics that help him discern these nutty laws. I think this is a great insight into what your life might be like if you truly tried to live in accordance to the Bible.

Here’s one of my favorite days. Simply because of the way it starts:

Day 181, afternoon. I was on the subway today, sitting a few seats down from a Buddhist monk. He looked at me, with my white raiment and bushy beard, I looked at him, with his orange robes, and we exchanged a knowing nod and smile.

It was a great moment. I felt like I’d been let through the velvet rope at a holy nightclub.

On another one of my favorite passages he actually stones –if you can call it that, an old guy in NY. It cracked me up.

I think the great sense of humor the A.J. displays is a big part of what gets him through this endeavor. Coincidentally as I found out just today when I finished this book, he is also the author of another book that has been in my sights, The Know-It-All, and the now famous article My Outsourced life. If you haven’t read that article, I recommend you take a peek, I read it a long time ago on Steve’s website, and it is definitely funny and informative. On a side note, lately have been actually testing the whole concept of outsourcing your life; mainly thanks to that article.

Two thumbs up for this book and its author, I now want to read his other book, The know-It-All.

Into the Wild was touching, sad, inspiring and mostly thrilling throughout. At the end in a couple parts I must admit that my eyes swelled up. Krakauer does a great job of explaining what Chris must have been thinking. I enjoyed th narrative of the book and how Jon mixed in his own memoirs into the story. I can’t help but feel compassion and comradeship towards Chris McCandless. He did what we all talk about around the water cooler, but very few of us ever do or even try; live your dream. Unfortunately for him his adventure as you find out in the book, was not successful. At least not by most standards. Please don’t think I’m spoiling the story, his tragic ending is revealed before the book even starts in the Author’s note in the First Anchor Books Edition, Feb 1997:

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.

As I read the book I kept thinking to myself “I know what he must be thinking now” or “I bet I know what he felt right then” and the truth is that Jon’s writing makes you believe this; he makes you think you can understand what was going through Chris’ head. In all reality, few of us will probably fully understand the thoughts and emotions driving Chris as he sets off in a canoe down the Colorado river, or when he embarks on his last trip into the wild.

The book is easy to read and I found myself immersed in it right away, I was almost a third of the way into it when I put it down for the first time and I completed it in a couple more sittings. Some of the chapters begin with a simple map of the area which you are about to travel through. Constantly I found myself flipping back to review the maps to see where McCandless was and this gave me a great idea of the relative distances he traveled. Sometimes he made his way through on foot, other times hitchhiking but I absolutely think that if he had the choice, he would have used his little Datsun all the way to Alaska.

Half dozen pages over 200, the book is definitely easily digested in a weekend and I definitely recommend it. Most of the books I like give me a new piece of the puzzle to the great experience of life; this was certainly not an exception. I’ll spare you the details of the emotions stirred and the dreams that it evoked in me, but I can tell you that I would recommend it to anyone. Seems like I feel that about all the books I actually finish reading. Besides the new perspective in life that it presented, I was introduced to a new author. Jon Krakauer also has written other well known books that have now been added to my list, namely Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven.

There are a lot of pictures on flickr on the topic of Chris McCandless, and the story that became this bestseller. Here are links to some of the ones I found interesting; read some of the comments to understand more if you haven’t read the book.

by Akfirebug, Into the Wild set

by Chriso2000, Chris McCandless. Jon mentions this picture on his book, and this flickr member has several other ones on there.

There’s also a movie for the book [movie]Into the wild[/movie]

Hey, anyone want to join me on this reading adventure? If you want to read any of the books I have listed and want someone to discuss them with, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll be happy to do some talking about them with you as we read them. Or use the comments on my posts to voice out your thoughts, opinions and the like, I promise I’ll respond to each comment.

I was sick a good part of last week and earlier this week so I got plenty of time to read while the flu got the best of me.

I have now completed two more books directly off the list I posted earlier this month:

Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer and The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.

I was initially going to post my commentary for both books all in one article but I thought that each deserved their own little post. If you’re interested on my thoughts about the books, you can read them here and here respectively.

Sorry guys, I was sick on Tuesday. I had just enough energy and will to bring you a rant about staying home and I missed the triple Tuesday link post.

Here are 3 new sites worth checking out.

Nophonetrees.com - This site seems promising, it is a service and I’ve only used it once with really good success. The premise is that you shouldn’t be going through endless menus when calling someone. Press 1 for this, press 3 for that, please hold, all of our representatives are currently busy; you know the drill. This site takes your phone number, goes through all the prompts and connects your call when the call is about to reach a live person. Great stuff, they also promise not to give your phone to anyone, not even your mom “even if she bakes us milk and cookies and asks us very nicely.”

While I was sick the other day, I used WebMD to check out my symptoms and see what was going on with me. I’ve used it in the past to find out more about different ailments and diseases. Its a great resource and if you haven’t used it before, its time to check it out and add it to your favorites. This is one of the most, if not the most complete medical reference available online and its free. To use it type up your symptoms on the search bar and see what it finds for you.

The last link I have to share for you today is del.icio.us. This is the best bookmarking site out there. It has grown in popularity  tremendously over the past couple of years. It easily integrates into your browser to capture your bookmarks and favorites. Then you can share them with friends, other people or simply keep them to yourself. The greatest thing about it for me is the ability to easily share links with my friends and family. Another great benefit of using it is that I have my bookmarks available no matter where I go; if I’m online, I have access to them. If you’re already on del.icio.us, check out my profile and share some links.

Its been going around, that nasty pain inducing flu. I got it, my friend at work got it, my girlfriend’s got it. It sucks, I haven’t felt this sick in a long time, maybe even since 99 or 2000 when I spent almost 2 weeks in bed because of a flue gone bad.

This time I noticed I was starting to cough, it was a dry cough; my eyes felt hot and were watering at random. I thought it was allergies but my normal dose of claritin-D proved useless and thats when I realized I was going to get sick. I bailed from work last Thursday, about an hour shy of my full day. Headed to Starbucks for a hot cocoa and then went home. Once I was home it all went down hill from there. The headache became unbearable and my temperature shot up to 101, 102, it hit 103 before I jumped in the shower to try to cool off. My night was sleepless but it helped that my girlfriend came over and made a great chicken soup. The next morning things weren’t any better and I stayed home as well; I thought this would be the worse of it and I would be up and running by Saturday. I was wrong.

It is now Tuesday and just now I’m feeling better, not well enough to go to work but much better than I did Saturday or Sunday. Two days ago I decided that it might not be just the flu so I went to the doctor. The waiting room had a few other people that seemed okay compared to me, but there was one lady that was interrible condition. Her cough sounded like an old car that wouldn’t start and her eyes were as red as as a cherry. I was concerned that I would pick something else besides my ailing flu so I stepped outside and told the nurse I would wait out there. Eventually I got to see the doctor, she said I had the flu and early onset of bronchitis. I got amoxicillin prescribed with the recommendation to use Robitussin DM for the cough, and Motrin or advil or some sort of ibuprofen for the body aches and fever. The cough syrup worked really well, about 20 minutes after taking my first dose my nose cleared up and the cough diminished to maybe once every few hours. Motrin is my prefered pain reducer so I already knew it was working but I could still feel my back ache a little. It felt like the day after you start hell’s week in high school sports.

I’m much better now, I’m sitting up and walking around and even though I still get tired really easily, I don’t feel like I want to just curl up in a ball and die. But this got me wondering… Why don’t employers do a better job of preventing this kind of thing?

I should have taken a flu shot, but I didn’t. Last time I did, it simply sent me into a 3 day bed stay with the flu, so I thought I’d take my chances this year as I have done in the past 3 years. I eat a heatlhy diet and exercise regularly, I also drink more water than anyone I know so I thought my chances were pretty good. But the problem here was that people that are sick continue to go to the office. I seriously want to curse them and my boss along with them for not sending them home. I mentioned this to my doctor and she just rolled her eyes and commented on how ridiculous it is that people continue to show up at the office when they know they are sick.

I have to agree with her, it is ridiculous. Not only is it disrespectful and down-right offensive, it is dangerous. If you show up to the workplace sick, you are just creating more problems for yourself. A week later, when you are better then someone else is now sick and the cycle continues. There is no good reason to do this, stay home sleep it off and come back when you are better. I know for our workplace, we have a VPN (virtual private network) in place that allows you to connect to the office and do ALL of your work from home; use it! You are not in a time race to find the cure for cancer so trust me, your work can take a backseat while you recover from an illness. Your body will thank you and your co-workers will appreciate your efforts to stop spreading crap around.

One of the reasons I have heard for coming into work is “well I don’t want to get my kids and wife sick.” Well whoop ti freakin do, do you think we want to pickup your illness and bring it to OUR home? How about you close the door to your room, get some good ventilation through a window and tell your kids you can’t see them much because you don’t want to get them sick. Your spouse is already been exposed to you because I presume you are sleeping in the same room so he/she will have to just hope for the best. But I feel better now, is another big excuse. If you’re coughing uncontrollably and your body aches and your nose is runny or you sound congested, I don’t care if you feel like a million bucks. You are not well and shouldn’t be there. Go home!

It really is time to come to terms with the fact that you need to get rest to get better. I hate missing work, I hate missing 3 days of work, but I also hate extending 3 days of illness to 15 because I didn’t let my body recover in the first place. I can’t emphasize it enough! If you feel sick, go to the doctor and confirm if you are sick. If so, STAY HOME. If you’re a boss, supervisor, or in some sort of authoritative position, you should be sending people home when they’re sick. There is no excuse, seriously stop the cycle.

For some reason, over the past week or two, some clever spammer has found a way to bypass Gmail almost-perfect filtering system. That is to say I have been getting about 5 to 10 spam e-mails each day. Normally and for the past few years, Gmail’s spam filter has been excellent…

Have you been getting spammed?

Out of 52 new messages this morning, 13 are spam.

Haha, I thought some of you might get a kick out of this baby. He does the “evil eye” or “evil look” on demand.

So I will try to give you three new sites each Tuesday, here you have the first three.

After you’re done posting that ad to sell your old clunker in Craigslist, you can take a quick break and check out Best of Craigslist. What I really like about this site is the creative writing that people come up with. I think the anonymity allows for people to really spill out their guts. If you have a few minutes to kill, give it a visit. Some of my latest favorites: To the drunk Hottie that fell off my motorcycle, Looking for a dead deer and 20 things I gotta tell my boss.

If you are busy stumbling, or blogging, or actually getting stuff done and can’t do any more surfing but you still want more stuff to look at, then fire off Flickrspy on your second monitor. It is kind of like watching a global slideshow from the most recent pictures in Flickr. Flickrspy got its own domain now, but I still like the old version better.

Pick the brain. To me a sophisticated life-hacking site, it has articles ranging from using  procrastination to your advantage, to essays about the nature of some of our social problems; this site is a heavy hitter. Its a multi-author blog that keeps me coming back day after day to read their latest. I may not always agree, but they make their point concisely and eloquently.