With the official opening for the summer being this weekend, let’s make sure we all take a minute to honor the men and women of the Armed Services. Despite what you might read in the news, this is still a country with a freedom that is the envy of most of the world. And a lot of that is due to the sacrifice of those in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. When I say sacrifice, while many have lost their lives in service, others have put their own lives on hold to serve the country and its people. They deserve our thanks for bearing the responsibility as a profound duty not only for themselves and their families but for countless strangers throughout this land. If you have a veteran in your family, make sure you let them know how much you appreciate them and how much their years of sacrifice means to you.

“We have let people down.”

This statement of the ultra obvious comes from the CEO of BP Tony Hayward. Gee, Tony, ya think? Not only have you wasted a resource, you’re dragging your feet in initiating a cleanup when the planning should have been done way in advance, and your signature on the ecology is in black and red. You let us down doesn’t even begin to describe what your company is doing and who knows what the end ramifications are from all this.

I have some righteous indignation to get off my chest and it’s aimed right at BP. We all know about the Gulf oil spill and the effects it is having not just on the ecology of the Gulf but also what it is doing to our national political scheme. We have entered an era of finger pointing and blaming and political spin that hasn’t been seen for a long time. Lost in this muck is the facts about the cleanup. BP execs said today that their experimental plan to try and stop the oil leak could only be implemented as early as Wednesday. And the language they were using made it sound as if their not really optimistic that it will happen that soon. Also, they’re not even sure it will work!! They never thought to try this even though they went full steam ahead in building the off shore rig. While it is a mile down, find a way to test this since this was always a possible disaster, you nitwits! As if that isn’t bad enough, if this plug experiment doesn’t work, execs said it will be several months before a relief well can be drilled. OK, you just take your time meanwhile the shrimping industry and other industries in the Gulf will just slowly die while you get your act together. WHERE’S YOUR PLANNING!? Is there not one Boy Scout among you? The boy scout motto of “Be Prepared” was obviously not something you studied in school. IDIOTS!

I’m sorry for this post, but the more I read about this, the angrier I get.

Well, we have another gem from Daniel Scocco on how to make your blog better. I have to say that I get more from this particular gentleman than anyone else when it comes to ideas on blogging. Daniel has provided a list of things you can do to keep your readers from nodding off when reading your posts. While there are some things he lists that are pretty self-explanatory, there are others which invite discussion. One such item was to make every post entertaining. Scocco really means to make sure there is some humor involved. I would say that while humor goes a long way, placing a joke in every post can undermine your message sometimes. Think about it this way; have you ever had a friend that was always cracking jokes while you were trying to discuss a serious topic? You probably started getting rather annoyed. And I believe we have to treat our posts as a conversation sometimes, a conversation that takes place over many days instead of a few minutes. And if you are always joking around, I have to think your readers will start to get a little annoyed. Humor is a great way to connect with people, but it can also be a shield to hide behind if you’re not careful. Use humor, but don’t sacrifice your message for a joke in every post.

Well, for a change of pace from the normal Friday YouTube fun, I decided to create another quick mad-lib from a weird news story. The true story is that a bus driver started to take kids on a field trip to an amusement park when they were supposed to be going to school.

Officials say a mix-up led a ____________ (vehicle) driver in ______________ (location) to start to take students to an ______________ (vacation spot) instead of school.

About 30 Ridgefield Park High School students boarded thinking it was same ride as every day. But the driver had shown up early to take _______________ (group of people) to Six Flags at 9 a.m.

The students became worried when they reached the _______________ (location) and called _____________(celebrity) and ___________ (government agency) when the driver wouldn’t stop.

The driver eventually listened to them and turned around.

Officials called the police, who stopped the vehicle. An officer rode aboard until it reached ________________(location).

Well, we all know that to be a success, you need to have some knowledge of the field you are in. When it comes to finding your area of knowledge, look to your interests. Follow your passion and you will find maintaining a daily routine of posting easier to adhere to. For instance, I love to play chess, so if I wanted to build a blog, I would use that as a basis for starting my daily posting routine. Similarly, if I had an interest in fashion or kids clothes I would build my blog on that. If you deny your passion or if you keep it from coming out in your work, whether its a livelihood or just a hobby, you will find it difficult to progress. Case in point, a fellow blogging friend of mine started a blog for music. He wanted to share and discuss his ideas with other people. He got sidetracked because most of the people that found his blog wanted to talk about popular bands of today whereas he wanted to discuss jazz and other older genres. Rather than follow his passion, he decided to try and engage his visitors and he ended up walking away from it because it became something outside his experience and passion. Stick to your guns and discuss your desires.

I’ve been watching old concerts of some of the great stand-up comedians recently and have become fascinated with their ability to manipulate time, space and language. Comedians seem to be able to make the mundane funny with the right word choice. Couple that with their skill of creating pauses before a punchline, whether it’s a one word zinger or a change in facial expression, and you have someone who can bring tears to the eyes of some of the most stoic individuals on the planet. What does this have to do with blogging? While you can’t necessarily affect the speed of a reader, you can bring a smile or laugh with the right word selection. And when I’m talking comedy, I’m talking comedy that doesn’t rely on profanity. Call me old-fashioned, but the really funny stuff is funny without profanity. I’m not a prude, if a comedian swears for emphasis, it can sometimes enhance the joke, but most people who think they are comedians, both professionally and non-professionally, rely on the four letter words to generate the laughs. If you can find it, it’s out of print as of today, to really see what I mean by the power of word selection to make you laugh, check out The Last Catholic in America. I always laughed when I read that book, and it’s not anti-Catholic or anything like that.

I’m still getting used to taking my own advice sometimes. In terms of speaking with a voice that has an opinion, I don’t always do that. More often than not, I post something that has both sides of my topic. I do have some posts where I will state my opinion, but I always add some kind of disclaimer. Sometimes, you just have to be true to yourself and not apologize for it. If you have an opinion (and I’m talking to myself more than anything right now), just express, don’t be a jerk about it and don’t look for a fight. We’re all here, wanting nothing more than to share ideas and maybe a laugh here or there.

Last week, I went off the deep end on a fellow blogger publicly over his choice of content on a particular day. He had done nothing but provide fluff in his article. I never mentioned his name out of courtesy, but I bring it up to illustrate the difference between a so-so article and one that is outstanding. I read about what Daniel Scocco calls the blog post checklist. It’s a list of things to make sure that your post is as good as it can be. This article lists some things I had never thought to do such as proofreading (A no-brainer, but one that I am guilty of neglecting from time to time), crafting the title and checking the links. This is the criteria for a great article in my mind. An article that offers advice and information in a practical manner is one that I consider great. If that article is able to alter your behavior toward the positive, then so much the better. So-so articles only offer the same information in a different way. I plan to make use of this article and all it has to offer in terms of advice and action.

I haven’t done a Friday fun post for a couple of weeks, so I’m here to make up for that with a great clip from the past. If you watch Comedy Central, you may have seen a couple of their Celebrity Roasts. This is where a celebrities get together to good naturedly poke fun at a particular star and each other. The concept is not a new one, the Friars Club in New York has been doin it for years. And in the early 70s, the Dean Martin Show did quite a few of these roasts. This clip is from the roast of Johnny Carson and stars Rich Little, a famed celebrity impressionist. When you get roasted and one of the roasters is capable of imitating you, it takes you back a step or two. Watch Johnny as Little does his impression.