Margret Sloan

The kids are all about the movie, “Transformers” which came out around Christmas time, just in time for the Christmas shopping for all the toys and other merchandise splashed with the Transformers logo and various robots. Of course, it was a big hit and there was a run on the robot toys, so we had artificial shortages that drove up demand and prices. It’s all so crass and commercial and brings out the worst in people at a time when we are supposed to be so generous and sharing and caring.

I have not seen the movie in its entirety, but know enough about it to spot this car as a fake Bumblebee. In the movie, the Bumblebee is a Camaro. But to little kids that are just learning to read (the license plate says “Bumblebee”), this yelow Mustang caused a big stir in the parking lot of our Golden Corral.

Growing up with 6 brothers, I can’t help but be a big sports fan. I love to go to professional levels games, and really miss the pro baseball games that I could easily get to while I lived in the DC metro area. I still cheer for the Orioles, but it’s been ages since I’ve been to a game.

Around here, it’s all football and I go to several NHL games every winter. I cheer for the Redskins, and love to get into office pools. I listen to sports talk on the radio while I’m working, and even participate at home in sports forums at sites like addictsports.com

If you’d like to try your hand at nfl picks online, maybe you’ll see me there!

Trying to let your hair grow out you are signing up for a long series of bad hair days. I had so many of those lately that I’m just grabbing a hat every morning and not even trying.

I only have one cap, so I’m on the hunt for a couple of news ones. I’m picky, though. The cap has to be adjustable in the back and not with velcro – the velcro gets caught in my hair and pulls – I hate that. If it’s not adjustable at all then it is too tight – I apparently have a large head. And all this time I thought it was just a lot of hair!

I’ve been reading more and more about being carbon neutral and our carbon footprint. There was a good article in Wiki and several recent articles in the major dailies. Now there is a search engine similar to Google but it is a Carbon Neutral Search Engine.

The way the Carbon Neutral search works is that the company hosting the search engine takes an estimated carbon emission for each search and donates a minimum of 300g via their offsetters Climate Care and Carbon Fund.

Climate Care is a leading offsetting organization in the U. K., and Carbon Fund is a leading US non profit carbon offsetting company.

It is a pretty cool idea and if you like the search engine results, then you are helping the planet by using it as your default search engine!

Clear Channel owns more radio stations in the U.S. than any other company, but radio is a business that has not turned a profit for years as digital music players and satellite radio have siphoned off listeners and advertising dollars. And, in my opinion, the decline in listeners is also due to the bad decisions of the radio operators and owners in their programming choices and their trend to replace human disc jockeys with homogenized and computerized sound bites and syndicated boffoons who pass off third grade humor as comedy and morning shows.

Now, more than half of Clear Channel’s revenue comes from its billboard business, with about 800,000 signs worldwide, and that business has been growing as advertisers are redirecting their spending away from other avenues, like radio, to billboards, which are harder for consumers to bypass.

So Clear Channel has been desperately trying to sell the business for the past 18 months, which is now in jeopardy because the banks who put together the financing deal are getting gun shy and trying to bail. Can’t say I blame them – the banks have enough trouble with the mortgage foreclosures and the recession, why take on this albatross?