The Lousypoet

So I find myself on the fence in regards to the Olympics. Following Twitter and friends on Facebook, you’d think Canada had found the cure for cancer during the opening ceremonies. Sentiments such as, “I’ve never been prouder to be Canadian” were fairly common. Though I did get a laugh out of the few people who pointed out the particularly phallic nature of the large ice sculptures.

Similar sentiments of national pride erupted when Alexandre Bilodeau won the first Canadian gold medal on native soil.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand feelings of national pride. I’ve even felt similar feelings as I’ve watched the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team destroy every team they’ve faced. But there needs to be some perspective here. Being proud of your countrymen and their accomplishments is admirable. Being proud that we are hosting these games and that in spite of Mother Nature’s lack of cooperation, the events are still taking place is a perfectly fine feeling. But to have these games and any of their results be a source of your greatest sense of pride in your country? That seems to ignore the numerous accomplishments this young nation has managed.

When I first saw the poem by Shane Koyczan performed at the Olympic opening ceremonies, I had what is probably the typical Canadian response, which was, “should we really be bragging?” But after the outpouring of national pride over medals, I gave this poem a closer listen. I realised, that this is in so many ways why we should be proud. And does the poem contain a single “proudest moment?” No. Which is as it should be. No nation, not one that seeks to grow, learn, explore, and be more than it was yesterday, should have any one proudest moment. It should have a string of events and accomplishments that weave a tapestry of pride and joy.

You know what makes me proud when I watch the Olympics? That the stands are filled with people wearing Canadian flags, who shout and cheer when our nation does well, and all of them are different colours, ethnicities and backgrounds. It is a testament to our nation’s ability to take the numerous and disparate and create a country united. We don’t always get things right, and there’s always going to be someone that has to ruin the party, but in general, we are making strides that the world as a whole is failing at. In most major Canadian cities, there are Mosques, Christian churches, Synagogues, Hindu temples and all other manner of religious houses, all within walking distance. Do we have jihads every day? No. So if Canada can make it work on a local scale, perhaps there is hope for an international model.

The Olympic Games are just that, games. Whether we win or lose, means nothing to the greatness of our nation, or the superiority or inferiority of any other nation. There is skill, but there is also luck involved. Be proud when the home town team is doing well, but when they lose, admit that we got beat fair and move on with life. Don’t forget that pride though, because there are so many other things to attach it to; accomplishments realised and in progress that deserve to ignite our patriotic flame. Canadians do patriotism so badly. We really need to work on that….

A while ago I wrote about setting up a Cafe Press Storefront. In that time I’ve made one whole sale. Now, I suppose I should be bummed about that, but seeing as how I only ever did two designs, I guess it only goes to figure. Anyway, through another website I discovered Zazzle.com!

In many ways it’s like Cafe Press. You create original art that is then fitted onto products. Zazzle creates these products and ships them to your customers. By doing this, you earn a commission off every sale.

The benefit of Zazzle though, is that it offers far more products, and is entirely free. Cafe Press would only allow you to create a finite number of items if you were using the free site. If you wanted to offer multiple items, or a ton of different designs on the same style shirt, you had to pay to upgrade to their pro account. Not something I really wanted to do when I’m just doing this for some fun.

So I’ve decided to set up shop over at Zazzle. I’ve put the original designs I had at Cafe Press up for sale, and I’m hoping to do some more soon.

If you want to check out the store you can visit http://www.zazzle.com/Lousypoet*.

So when I wrote my review for The Shack it was less than positive. But then I started doing some looking around for other peoples’ opinions and whoo boy, there is some mean hate on for this book.

Most of the negativity is, not surprisingly, coming from churches. I suppose that’s to be expected, given the book’s cautionary message of giving in too much to the “laws” of religion. But some of the arguments lead me to believe that these people either

a) Didn’t read the book

b) Only read the book to look for those items they could use to denounce it

c) Are working off other people’s tirades against the book.

Which is extremely unfair. I love how they say that William Young is guilty of heresy because he presents an image of God, and in particular, that he presents God as a black woman. Now, this is where it is clear to me that they didn’t read the book. First off, God also appears as an older man later in the book, and thirdly, God pretty much tells Mack that He can be anything He wishes for the sake of communicating with His creations. So to me, Young has not created an image of God, all Young has said is that God is capable of being anything He wishes to be, and is kind enough to use that ability to appear to us in ways that are most needed and accepted at the time. I personally see nothing wrong with this, and really, I think to oppose it is to put limits on the capabilities of God, which is pretty presumptuous.

There also seems to be an issue with Young’s assertion that God forgives all, and he pretty much negates the idea of Hell. Well, I did kind of feel this was contrary to some of the teachings I had in Sunday School, but on the other hand, in Young’s book he seems to make it pretty apparent that the reason for this forgiveness is because of Jesus and His sacrifice. Which I think is kind of in line, but I’m no Bible scholar.

One interesting attack leveled was that Young’s portrayal of Mack talking to Jesus about his appearance is racist. In the book, Jesus is presented as an Arab with a broad nose, something that has often been used as a way to poke fun at Jews. Now, when I read it, I didn’t think it was mean spirited, in fact, I thought it was Young’s way of trying to get people to understand a few things about what Christ might truly have been. For one, he was not a white man with a perfect, slim nose, and flowing brown hair. He was probably just as Young presents him. And in terms of the nose, Jesus joking that, well, he is Jewish, I think was again Young trying to point out something that is often lost. Jesus was a Jew, born to Jewish parents, and his ministry was aimed at the reformation of the Jewish religion. Perhaps Young could have handled this better, but I think his intent still comes across clearly to anyone who really bothered to read the book for its own sake, as opposed to those who read it for purpose of discrediting it.

They also attack Young’s portrayal of the trinity. Now, I can’t speak to this. I’ve never been able to wrap my head fully around the idea of the trinity, and I think most Christians have the same issue. I suppose someone who knows more about such things can discuss it, but at the very least, does this book not show that the knowledge of the trinity is muddy and that Christians need to have it clarified?

Really, I think the issue this book has caused is that it has Churches wondering what to do, because people are using this book as spiritual teaching, and part of that teaching is that the Church is largely unnecessary. I suppose organised religion would take a bit of an issue with that. But I think what the larger issue is, and where Churches are failing to use something like this book as a tool, is that it reveals the schism that has occurred between God and His followers. The reason people seem to love the message in The Shack is that it presents a God of love, a God that is personally interested and invested in our daily lives. It gives us a vision of Jesus in which He is not just working miracles and spreading the word, but is a man, a man that is warm, genuine, and would be your best friend if you gave him even a fraction of a chance. That many Christians find this message so appealing possibly presents the biggest issue that The Shack gives Churches to deal with; their parishioners don’t feel God’s love, God’s presence, or the friendship and camaraderie of Jesus. While I don’t think giving this book a big rubber stamp of approval is a good idea, I think churches fail their people by also telling them to not read the book.

Banning a book and its content has always been an issue with me. Instead of hiding the ideas, get them out into the open. Discuss them and what they mean in context of the real world. This was always my argument against parents not letting their children read Harry Potter. I mean, there were many positive morals and ideas in those books. Things that could have been used as positive messages to kids. So what if there is witchcraft? Explain to your children that magic in the sense of the Potterverse is not real. Explain to them that there are those in our world that do things they consider “witchcraft” that are not positive actions. There is so much people can learn by reading books, so why not use the fact that the book has created a conversation and actually have that conversation. Churches should tell their people, Hey, read The Shack. Don’t read it like it’s theology, because it gets some things wrong. But read it for some ideas that we can then get together and discuss. Use the book’s popularity as a tool to get some real messages out there. If churches just blatantly attack the book, they are going to lose people. And ironically, I’m writing this like I care, but I don’t. I’m not into religion. I have yet to find an organised form of religion that appeals to me. But I just feel that if people are in your Church, it’s because part of them feels they need to. If that’s the case, help them, nurture them, and answer their questions that things like The Shack bring up with understanding and kindness. To attack the book will only result in those who loved it feeling attacked.

So there’s my little diatribe for a (funny enough) Sunday morning. In the end, this is a work of fiction. William P Young is no more an expert on God than just about any other person. He is a man that has a vision of God that he wanted to share. I hardly think he deserves to be attacked and accused of things such as heresy!

Sheesh, all this and I didn’t even think the book was that great….

So much has been said and written about the current goings on in Ottawa these past few days. If for some reason you haven’t been following it, or aren’t Canadian and just haven’t heard, the opposition parties, including the separatist Bloc party, have signed an accord to bring down the government and that they will form a new coalition to govern the country.

The timetable is that on Monday, they intend to hold a no confidence vote, which will defeat the government, since it is a minority government (meaning they do not hold a majority of voting seats in the house of commons), and once the government is defeated, they wish for the Governor General to install their coalition as the ruling party of Canada.

Now this is constantly being painted as a “crisis” and many Canadian people are up in arms stating that this isn’t what they voted for. The interesting thing is that, while maybe individually we didn’t vote for this, as a country we did. Our political system has had, for the 140 or so years that it’s existed, always contained the possibility for no confidence votes. It has always contained the possibility that a new coalition government could take power, and we, as Canadians, did, as a majority, vote to not have the Conservatives as our ruling party. I think this happens to have people in a panic because coalition governments just have not been a normal thing in Canada. I think I read somewhere that the last time it occurred was 97 or so years ago.

The simple fact is, this is all about political maneuvering. Canada, like most of the world, is facing an economic crisis. Everyone is well aware of this. What the political parties of Canada are also aware of, is the fact that whoever guides Canada successfully through this will most likely form the next government of Canada. This is pretty simple. People want stability, they want a government that will provide them with security. Whoever proves they can do this will easily get a majority government the next time we go to the polls. The parties all know this. And as they watch Stephen Harper, they realise that if they do not act, and he is successful at getting Canada through this, he will most likely win a majority next time, and the other parties will be powerless to stop his partisanship governing ways. They see this as their window of opportunity. And maybe, just possibly, some of them believe that they truly could do a better job of guiding Canada through this.

Much of this stems from the government’s recent economic statement. The Conservatives used this as a means of telling the other parties that they are going to reduce, or eliminate, the public funding of elections. While the Conservatives have enjoyed much wealth from private donations, it would effectively mean that some parties would not be able to mount a campaign. So many of Canadians see this move as a purely selfish measure by the other parties to secure their funding. However, what people fail to realise is that the economic statement also failed to do something that is fundamentally needed at this time, which is to address how the government intends to address the economic crisis. In this sense, the opposition parties are justified in stating that they have no confidence in the current government. How, as Canadians, can we? Our Prime Minister has attended several high level meetings of world governments to address the global economy, he told us that it would be necessary to take “drastic steps” in order to secure our own economy (many people interpreted this as to mean going into a deficit), so where was the plan when it came time to discuss the economy? Need I remind that this is the same party that didn’t bother to release a platform until after the debates, which was only a week or so before we went to vote! They seem to be resting all too much on their laurels.

Another sticking point here is that in order for the new coalition government to stand, it has to rely on the support of the Bloc Quebecois party, which is a party that stands primarily for the separation of the province of Quebec from the rest of Canada. They are a seperatist party that only runs in Quebec, and therefor in many people’s views, does not represent Canada as a whole. While this may be true, I might point out that we did go through a period where the Bloc was the official opposition party. Did we all burn in hell? Did the country fall apart? No, actualy, the Bloc was quite effective in the role. The simple fact is, it is quite interesting really to see the Bloc in this role. They are a seperatist party, that is now being forced to be at least somewhat, of a nationalist party. This, to me, provides an incredible opportunity. If the seperatist party can be shown to work hand in hand with two other nationalist parties, does this not bode well for Canada remaining as a whole? In a sense, this coalition government is more representative as Canada as a whole than almost any other single party has for many years. The simple question is, how long can it last?

I suppose the other issue is Stephan Dion. The man has been generally seen as an ineffective leader. In fact, he would only be Prime Minister until a new head of the Liberal party was elected in May. Then, if the coalition still stands, we would have a new Prime Minister, who has never been voted for. But this happened recently at the end of the Mulroney years. He resigned while the PC party was still in power, and his successor Kim Campbell became Prime Minister for several months until the election actually occured. I think the Conservatives had done this as a way of test driving Campbell to see if she could engage Canadians who had come to dispise Mulroney. She failed miserably and the Conservative received a crushing defeat. I think the Liberals are playing the same game. Once again, if their new leader guides Canada through the next year and a half or so successfully, proves himself a valuable and effective leader, then it is entirely likely the Liberals could return to power.

But all of this rests on the decision of the Governor General. In our political system, she is charged with ensuring the continued operation of the government. If the no confidence vote occurs, she can either allow the coalition to run, or she can order an election. If she goes with the election, it is likely the current negative backlash could blow up in the faces of the coaltion and we could see a Conservative majority. If, however, she accepts the coaltion, they will get their chance. And then it is theirs to blow. However, there is also the option that the Prime Minister will request to prorogue parliament (effectively it would cause parliament to cease until a specified time). No parliament session, no vote. This would allow the governemnt to put together a budget that could possibly tame the coaltion. After all, if the coalition’s stand is that the government must fall because of their delay in addressing the economy, how can the coalition argue this if they are presented with a budget that addresses the issue. Not to mention that if the budget contains lots of gimmes for the average Canadian, it will leave much bitterness towards the coaltion if they tumble the government then.

There are so many twists and turns here. I think that is why so many people are anxious, because there is no clear path. I’m sure even the Governor General is scratching her head, because there is no clear path for her either. She has options, and none of them are proven to truly be better or more appropriate than the other. At this point, I don’t think she will prorogue parliament. I think that would be seen as a favouritist act and an abuse of the government’s power. Instead, I think she will let the vote come to be. And, given the resentment Canadians showed during the last vote, I think she will give the coalition their shot. After all, our system exists to support this. We vote, and once we have voted, our choice of who controls parliament is gone until the next vote. It is in the House of Commons that who is leader is decided. If the House has lost confidence in the current leader, then it is the right of the House to defeat that leader. And, in tandem with that, if the House as a majority has confidence in a new leader, they have every legal and constituional right to put forward that leader.

Whatever happens, this is an interesting time in Canadian politics. I am only sorry that we do not have our own Obama waiting to take the reigns (you can see my lament about that in this previous post). I can only truly hope that whoever remains in power does so truly looking out for the interests of the average Canadian, and is not just maneouvering for the sake of their political party.

Recently, I find myself looking southward to our American neighbours, with a bit of envy.

Certainly, there is much that I am happy with here in Canada. I’m glad our economy hasn’t completely tanked, I’m glad our government stayed clear of the Iraq war, I’m glad our nation has universal healthcare. There is a lot to be proud of in Canada, and to not feel too envious of the position of the US. However, there is something that I envy about the United States. It is their passion and the passion of their leaders.

On November 4th, the United States of America elected their 44th president. What was monumental about it, was that not only is their president-elect a man of colour, but that unlike the previous election, that was very much about sticking with what you know, this time around Americans overwhelmingly voted to change the course of their country. They voted for a man who is advocating change; a man whose passion and conviction is powerful, palpable, and contagious. As I sat and watched the rapture of that massive crowd as Obama made his acceptance speech, something in me went a little green.

In Canada, our politicians always seem so reserved. Even when they are trying to express their love for our country, they come across as having read the lines from a teleprompter instead of feeling them from the heart. Perhaps this is because we don’t have the same fierce nationalist pride of the Americans. Perhaps our reserved and quiet appreciation of our nation doesn’t lend itself to a fiery passion in our leaders. Or maybe it’s just that we are all so stuck in the status quo that we feel no need for a national revolution like that in the States. Perhaps our leaders feel that they shouldn’t speak out too loudly for fear they jar us calm, reserved Canadians; which, I think, is pure and utter bull shit.

The fact is our nation is in need of a great leader. While we like to think our country is great, the fact is we are a splintered, fractured nation that needs great leadership to truly unite us. Canada is a wonderful nation in its diversity, but that diversity seems more to drive wedges between us than to unite us in a celebration of our differences. The West feels bitter towards Central Canada, the East Coast feels often abandoned and under-appreciated. And then there is the province of Quebec that all too regularly wants its own desires to be put ahead of others and even talks all too easily about separation from the Canadian nation. Where is the leader that creates such a compelling vision for the nation that it unites the country? Where is the leader that the majority of us can feel great pride as we send that leader out into the world to represent us? When will the day come that a leader delivers a speech so rousing that I thank God that he/she is our Prime Minister?

I suppose maybe our system isn’t set up to inspire such a thing. After all, we do not vote for our Prime Minister, we vote for the party that we wish to form the ruling party and whoever is the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. So it is possible that despite how great a leader might seem, he/she may not be elected because of the party they represent. But I think that if a party had a truly inspiring leader, a leader who could effectively deliver a vision of Canada that united the nation, that party would win.

Taking a look at the most recent Canadian election, none of the leaders could effectively convey their vision for where to take Canada. The Conservatives proposed a stay the course response, and while other parties discussed some different paths to pursue, I don’t think any truly connected with Canada as a whole and the leaders just seemed incapable of capturing the nation. When it comes down to it, our leaders seem more like lawyers and academics than they do “leaders.” Which I suppose is appropriate because I think most of them come from legal or academic backgrounds; which isn’t to say a great lawyer couldn’t be the leader I envision. It just seems that Canada lacks the ability to turn out a truly strong, charismatic leader that will operate for the benefit of Canadians.

And that’s the problem we seem to have. Our leaders get into office, and while they may do some good things for Canadians, they then do crappy backroom deals that bring disgrace to their parties, or become so protectionist that there is no longer any transparency. Also, why does it seem to be the intent of the Federal party to dump as many responsibilities as possible on the provinces? Why is healthcare a provincial jurisdiction when it is a Canadian, national, philosophy that healthcare being available to all people of our nation? How can a country be governed effectively and universal standards applied if the nation’s major tenets are fractured across the individual provinces?

I’m wandering a bit, I know. But I do love my country. I do want a leader who can be as passionate, visionary and charismatic as Obama. I do want to feel all Canadian people are united and emboldened by a vision for a glorious future for our nation. I want to see Canada be on the forefront of things like renewable energy, peace making agendas and healthcare research. I want to hear a Canadian politician speak and feel pride, instead of bitterness and apathy.

I’ve been told by more than one person that an Obama would never work in Canada. That our fractured nation would reject such a strong nationalist leader and that Canadians are just generally unprepared for such passion from their leadership. And perhaps that’s because things have been too good for too long. The rest of the world is falling into turmoil, but our nation appears generally well prepared. Our healthcare has problems, but it is still better than what most countries have. We need to be shaken. We need to wake up. We need to realise that we could play such a larger part in the world if we would just embrace it.

So, to my American neighbours, I say congratulations. I pray that your new president is able to deliver on the great promise he has shown thus far. While I would be envious to see you resurrect Camelot and gain new and great prosperity, I will not begrudge you it. You deserve it for taking a chance on change. I can only wish Canada had the same opportunity.

So yesterday I wrote about my plunging Google pagerank and wondered what I should do about it. Varsha Vijay wrote a comment on that entry that is naturally very simple, but did get me thinking about this site and what I should be doing with it. He wrote;

Advice ? Write good and people will come to you. BTW your blog name (lousypoet) created the curiosity to come to your site but could not find anything relevant to poem`s.

Now there’s the thing. There is nothing about anything on The Lousy Poet. Currently, this site is a mish mash of my ideas, things I see and do that interest me, and a series of blog posts that only exist to make me a few bucks. While I don’t see anything particularly wrong with doing the odd paid post, there is not enough original material to balance it out. This site is more than just the eclectic place that I promote it as, it is, simply, a mess. There is no balance and no sense of direction. And yes, Varsha, you are right, there is very little here that has to do with poetry even though the name would suggest some connection to the poetry world.

So I spent today thinking about this site. Where it is, where I want it to go, what kind of niche do I want to be a part of. This brought me back to the very reason I started this site to begin with.

About four years ago, I wanted so very badly to be a writer. I had a number of old poems and short stories laying around and so I thought that I wanted to put them in one archive online, that would then serve as the growing archive of my own written work. I thought this place would inspire me and that by now my first book would be written.

Well, here we are today, and I haven’t written that book. I haven’t even written much of anything. The old stories and poems are still here in the writing archive, but they’re just a reminder of what I had wanted to do, and demonstrate how today I am still so far from that goal. So where does that leave The Lousy Poet? Well, like I said, this site has degraded to a general sloppy mess. I haven’t done anything with it to provide it with some purpose because, frankly, I have no purpose. I try to be a good father and husband and employee, but when I sit down on this computer, I really only have a goal to earn some extra cash to keep my websites online and maybe put twenty or so dollars away each month.

So after reading Varsha’s comment, I decided I am going to do the following things. These may not be the only things, but it’s my starting point;

1) I will continue the Word of the Day
2) I will be adding a Literary Quote of the Day
3) I will be adding a weekly feature called The (Not so Lousy) Poet of the Week
4) I will be focusing more on articles that aspiring writers and poets can use, such as getting published, writing cover letters, self publishing versus getting published and more.

These changes will take place over the next several weeks. I’d love to say that they will start tomorrow, but I want to get a few things in order and done ahead of time, so if my schedule gets heavy I can keep things going up on time.

I’m hoping to make this an interesting place to visit. I know that I might not be able to compete with some of the really great literary and poetry sites, but I hope that with these added features and a few other things I have in the works, the Lousy Poet will prove to be a fun, informative and interesting site to visit.

Here’s to better days!

When you have kids with special needs, it’s hard for both parents to have carreers that take them out of the home. That’s why it’s been so important for us to find Ways of making money at home.

There are quite a few blogs out there that can provide some really great advice and guidance. I found Lisa’s blog and she’s got lots of different means of creating income streams and traffic for websites. What I also liked about her blog was that it’s also her personal blogging space, which helped make it feel a little more personal. All too often, blogs with advice on making money at home can seem cold or too much like a gimmick filled sales pitch. Finding a blog where there are some good pieces of advice but you can also read about how Lisa’s cats gave birth to kittens just makes it all so much more real. Check this one out!

So yesterday Canadians went to the polls. Big Fat Hairy Deal. Things haven’t changed a whole lot; we still have a minority government. But there are some interesting things that came out of last night’s results, and possibly we will see some true change because of them. Here’s a few interesting tidbits about the Canadian election:

This is the third minority government in a row. This is the first time that has happened since the 1960s

The Liberal party received the least percentage of seats in the party’s history, dating back to the mid 1800s!

The Green party did not win any seats, but increased its share of the popular vote by 3 percent.

The turn out for voters was an all time record low at just 58 percent of eligible voters.

Now, why is this interesting? Well, to me, it seems the next election we might see two new party leaders. In the very least, I believe that Stephane Dion will be replaced as the Liberal leader. He was just too weak in his delivery of their platform and appeared to just let Harper walk all over him. Harper, on the other hand, might feel his neck a bit, because for the third time he has failed to lead his party to a majority government. This can only weaken the Tories, because if the Liberals don’t fuck up with their choice of leader this time, they might be a better, leaner beast in the next election. And hey, how about the gains made by the NDP? I haven’t seen any figures, but I’m sure they have more seats now than the party ever has in the past, certainly that I can remember. Jack Layton has really done some impressive work for that party, and I think his job is pretty safe. Elizabeth May, I think, will stay on as leader of the Green party. The woman is smart, well spoken, and if the Greens can continue to grow their base, I think they could very well make some more headway in the next election.

I think it should be alarming how few voters turned out. In the 1980s, voter turn out was as high as 88 percent! I think Canadians are just sick of voting. It seems like we’ve done nothing but have campaign after campaign for the past 6 years. And every time, the results are very similar and there really isn’t any change. And again, instead of parties standing up and stating their platform loud and clear, they resort to scare tactics and defamation as a way of trying to shore up voter support. You know, when I was in grade school, we ran an election for class president. You know what, when it came time to make our speeches, we didn’t say how much cooler we were than our competition, we didn’t tell our classmates that their way of life would be in jeopardy if they voted for the other guy, we just clearly stated why we wanted to be president and what we would do for our classmates. Now, if we could manage that in grade school, why can’t our federal politicians do that? Why, when the Conservatives clearly knew before anyone else that they were going to call an election, did they not release their platform until the week before the election? Why did all the other parties manage to write lengthy, comprehensive platforms that totaled in the hundreds of pages, while the Conservatives merely weighed in with 40 pages, at 14 point font and over 20 pictures of the Prime Minister? I think Canadians felt like they were just being sold short. I think Canadians just wanted to keep the statusquo until we knew what the hell was going on in the world. And that is why the government is still a minority, why the Conservatives still lead it and why most Canadians couldn’t even be bothered to vote.

Next time though, oh I so look forward to the next election. I can only hope that we have younger, smarter, stronger, more dynamic leaders that have true vision for the future of Canada and the strength of character to present it in a way that ignites the country. Oh, if only….

One of the things I really hate is having to shop around for the best price. I wish there were more sites that allowed you to answer questionnaires that help tailor to your needs and then present the best price available from several providers. Well, now you can do that with auto insurance quotes at InsuranceBurea.com. They ask you a series of questions that then feed back the three top companies that offer what you are looking for. No more trolling through dozens of sites, no more having to keep multiple windows open, just one simple site. Check it out if you’re in the market for a new insurance provider!

We’ve all heard how the internet and other forms of communication are shrinking the world. Well, I think blogs are shrinking the distances between people. Through blogs, we have a window into someone else’s life. We can share their hopes, dreams, fears, loves, hates, and all other facets of their lives. I find it fascinating, and naturally, I’m one of those people that does it as well. So this morning I bring you a link to Yoshiro. It really is a blog that follows the life of its creator. And the fact that they’re in the phillipines only demonstrates how blogs bridge distances.

And hey, any blog that has some toy reviews is okay by me!