McDonald’s Forced Out from Lack of Patronage in Healthy Town

Posted on December 31, 2006 by Kirk M

Hmmm, Somehow I just don't think it would work in the Old US of A. We do love our junk food. Still, it's an interesting idea and just might work in isolated areas and townships.

Anyway, check it out and the Good News Network itself. It actually pulls off being a good news site without being happy-happy-joy-joy about the whole thing and offering up out of date news unlike other certain "good news" sites that I could mention.

Written by JC SHAKESPEARE

Sunday, 31 December 2006

While Britain may be often maligned for its cuisine, or lack thereof, we portly Americans could learn a lesson from the good folks in Tavistock, Devon. Apparently the fresh, locally grown, healthy food available in other restaurants and in school cafeterias was so good that people stopped going to the local McDonald's, forcing the restaurant to close up shop…

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From This is London entertainment Web site:

John Taylor, chairman of Tavistock EatWise campaign, said, "Because of the quality of our local food McDonald's has not been able to compete."
Earlier this year Tavistock won the title of Best Food Town in the South West.
Mr Taylor said: "I think McDonald's really started to suffer about 18 months ago when healthy meals were introduced in schools."

Wouldn't it be great if more communities made the effort to feed their children good, healthy food?
One also has to appreciate the method in which Tavistock got rid of their McDonald's — no angry protests, no lawsuits; they just offered better choices! (ThisIsLondon)
More information on Tavistock and the EatWise campaign
(JC Shakespeare submitted this story to GNN on December 7, 2006)

Source: Good News Network – McDonald's Forced Out from Lack of Patronage in Healthy Town

Technorati tags: health, eating right, Mcdonald's, EatWise, healthy eating

Performancing and PayPerPost…Hold the Phone

Posted on December 30, 2006 by Kirk M

For those bloggers who happen to be using Performancing’s Metrics service or are listed in Performancing’s Exchange, you most likely have heard that these two services and the Performancing name have been purchased by PayPerPost and that the rest of Performancing’s offerings such as their blog editor extension for Firefox and their soon to be online Partners ad network will be kept together along with the original Performancing team and members and be re-branded. Read the announcement here.

Nick Wilson of Performancing had announced earlier that Metrics had just plain gotten to the point where it was getting too big for them too handle all on their own and now were looking at possible options including a sale to a company with like interests and the backing to put into it as Nick describes in his November post excerpt:

There is no other blog analytics program out there that can scale as Metrics was built to. I remember MeasureMap showing signs of buckling under just a few hundred users but it takes a lot of bandwidth, and 3 very high grade servers to run the current system.

At this stage, and in the current climate of “free” everything, I’m neither prepared to put ads on it nor charge for it — What’d I’d like to do, is to give Metrics to the community by making it Open Source, or sell Metrics to a company with more financial resources that could continue to develop it, and benefit from the usebase.

There, of course, have been many mixed reactions to the announcement of the sale and I’ve probably read about 30 comments so far and majority of them were negative. Not surprising considering the fact that PayPerPost (PPP) had such negative vibes right from the get-go which, as I have gathered, were blown a bit out of proportion. If you want to read about it just type “payperpost and ftc” into Google and come to your own conclusions.

Now I can somewhat understand the Performancing members that suddenly decided to pull Metrics from their blogs because of the new association with PPP…after all, it’s their choice but what really surprised me was some others who decided not to have any more dealings with Performancing (or whatever their new name will be) at all. Including dumping the blog editor and removing themselves from the Partners ad network which have absolutely nothing to do with the sale whatsoever. This was nothing but a knee jerk reaction by those I expected better from for one simple reason:

Nick Wilson and Chris Garrett, since the beginning have never steered anyone wrong…ever. As opinionated as they can get at times they were always honest and upstanding individuals and had no compunction about telling anyone or any company where they could get off if they smelled a rat. These boys are not very likely to “sell out” part of their excellent offerings to an unethical enterprise never mind alienating a large portion of their membership.

With 28,000 bloggers hooked to Performancing in one form or another (including yours truly), a few tens of comments doesn’t worry me all that much and I do believe that the majority of Metrics and Exchange members/users who stay with the programs through the sale will be more than strong enough to quell any unethical business practices that might cross their bow but I really don’t think there will be any.

For me, I’ve been with Performancing almost from the beginning and I plan to stay. I’m not currently a user of Metrics but as my newly moved blog becomes more established in it’s new home and place in the blogosphere, I most likely will become one whether it’s owned by Performancing or PPP. Just as long as things stay on the up and up.

If things need improving somewhere you can’t improve on those things if the first thing you do is bail out.

A couple of interesting views on PPP and PPP & Performancing can be found at ProBlogger and Andy Beard (under the “2007 A reality Check” subtitle). Read the comments as well if you have time.

We shall see…

Correction: The Performancing company is actually owned by Nick Wilson and Patrick Gavin. Chris Garrett being the CTO of the group wisely decided to stay in the background during this time and let Nick and Patrick handle the dealings. He gave me the impression in a PM to me that he figured “three’s a crowd” when it came to announcing the decision. But make no mistake. These three are probably in my top 5 list of the most ethical critters on the web at the moment.

You can get read about these three “musketeers” on the about page at the performancing website

Technorati Tags: performancing, payperpost, Metrics, performancing exchange, bloggers, blogging, paid reviews

Headaches, rotten headaches

Posted on December 28, 2006 by Kirk M

I used to get migraines quite often up until a few years ago. Things were so bad at one time that I would have one of these nasties 4 to 5 times a month and no day went by, for longer then I care to remember, when I didn’t have a headache of some kind or another.

Thankfully that’s all behind me now and although I have mild headaches often enough, I haven’t had a full blown, shades drawn, covers over the head etc etc type of nuclear migraine for a long time now (knock on head…I mean wood). But I woke up with a second cousin removed type of head this morning I can tell ya’ that. I didn’t want to move for fear of the room imploding in pastel colored used car commercials or something equally horrible. Arrggh, I had forgotten how much I hated these things.

I did get up after a fashion and called work telling them I’d be in at 9:00am instead of 8:30 and made it there by 8:45 in spite of myself. The rest of the day I spent working very slowly and carefully and with an erect posture that would have Miss Etiquette swooning off her pedestal had she seen me. This was to ensure my head didn’t fall off and perhaps roll under a shelving unit where it would be difficult to retrieve.

The whole point of this little dissertation is that the headache is now gone and in it’s place is the usual lethargy that follows along in it’s wake. I attempted to start a post that I was currently thinking on and 2 small paragraphs into it I suddenly realized I had this great need to get my fanny to bed so I stopped and began writing a quick “I feel like crap and I’ll finish the post tomorrow” sort of thing and now I see that I’ve written 4 small paragraphs to explain why I had to stop the post I intended to write when I had only written 2 small paragraphs.

Everybody get that? If you did would mind explaining it to me ? I don’t have a clue of what I’m talking about. Guess I’d better get some sleep.

Good night all.

Note: Not responsible for any sort of spelling or grammatical errors while in this particular frame of post achy mind.

Technorati Tags: headache, migraines

So what have I been doing?

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Kirk M

I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing. I’ve been truncating (cutting short) posts on the old WordPress.com blog and linking each one to the appropriate post on this blog. Why, do you ask? It’s simple…

The other blog, before I transferred over to a WordPress install, had a page rank of 4 (and still does) and comes up often in Google searches. More results than this one as a matter of fact. So by truncating the posts and linking them to the full post on this blog might give more potential readers the idea that the “beef” is over here now rather than at the old blog and heck…it can’t hurt. I realize that the old blog has been around a lot longer than this one has but I figure every little push helps in gaining ground so to speak.

Otherwise, I’ve been working, my honey’s been working, the cats have been causing all sorts of trouble (as usual), my “Friends and Neighbors” (fellow bloggers) are still on holiday for the most part and all is quiet here in Stove Pipe City. I’m also looking forward to yet another long weekend; this time without being sick or flat on my (busted) back and Laurie is looking forward to being able to close up the quilt shop on Sunday’s until Spring arrives. Yay for a day off every week.

And so it’s off to take care of the evening “going to bed” chores and all that wonderful stuff and hopefully, a good night’s sleep with as few cat attacks as possible.

Sleep well all…

The storm that never came.

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Kirk M

I’m becoming of the mind that the New England area couldn’t work up a good winter nor’easter if they imported cold air directly from the arctic itself. God knows we had enough southern bred moisture in town these past few days. For 3 days now the meteorologists have been predicting a “major snow event” some of them even degrading themselves to actually call it a genuine old fashioned “northeaster” headed for this part of New England and although only the very top of the area was due for snow, I for one was definitely looking forward to it.

Now I’m not talking about a rip roaring, hell bent for leather, power killing, people freezing blizzard here. I’m talking about getting a good solid foot of snow. Heck, I would have settled for 8 to 10 inches of the white stuff, especially if it was just wet enough for making a snowman. Haven’t been able to make a good snowman in years around here and the forecasters had predicted that all this possible snow was going to be wet and heavy…perfect!

Never happened.

Early yesterday morning it was rain and sleet turning to all snow by mid-day–7 to 11 inches expected. By mid morning it was any rain turning to all snow by the afternoon–4 to 8 inches expected. By mid afternoon it was rain turning to snow–4 to 8 inches in the higher elevations and by 3:00 pm the storm that had never arrived was canceled and the storm alerts were taken down and packed away in a box and shoved under some meteorologists desk awaiting the next storm to be canceled.

All we actually got was a heavy mist and lots of fog. So much for building a snowman.

If you hadn’t noticed yet…I’m just complaining here.

Some of you I suppose, would say that this was a blessing; that winter storms are dangerous, cause accidents and all that, people running off the road and such well let me tell you…people run off the road all the time around here anyway. Even on dry pavement on a sunny day in July (mostly “out-of-stater’s” but that’s not the point here). What a good snowstorm does do is keep people honest. It breaks them in to a new winter’s driving. Even native Vermonters tend to lose the edge over the warm season here and the first storm of the winter sharpens everybody up and the initial accident toll for this first storm drops sharply downward for the rest of the winter. The later in the cold season it becomes before the first snowstorm does hit, the more dangerous it becomes for those on the road. The longer people have to wait for the snow and ice, the duller the edge becomes.

This, of course comes from personal experience and observation. Whether anyone believes or agrees with me is entirely another matter. Either way I’m downright sick and tired of nothing but gray, drippy skies and temperatures somewhere between 36 and 50 degrees for the past two months.

Ah well, we have the “long haul” till mud season to get through which gives us plenty of time to brew up a couple more hopefuls worth of snowstorms and there is a bright side to all this warm, gray and drippy if I think about it. It keeps the fuel oil bills down, the lights on and the later in the season it becomes before the real winter weather hits, the less time we’ll have to wait till spring.

I guess I can live with that.

Technorati Tags: weather, snowstorm, northeaster, fog, rainy, complaining

A perpetual year

Posted on December 25, 2006 by Kirk M

In anticipation of the coming new year and for those of us that save our old calendars, here is a list of perpetual calendar year equivalents for 2007. For those of you who may not know, any calendar of the years listed below can be used for 2007. The days vs dates are the same.

My wonderful wife is the one who saves her old calendars just for this reason so now our home will be adorned with a few 1979 and 2001 calendars as well as the 2007 version. Some of these calenders can be very beautiful or at least unique so it’s nice that they can be used more than once. This plus the fact that it may cause the occasional visitor who does not know of this practice to ask funny questions or at least look at us strangely.

Have to keep them interested now don’t we?

And now I must go practice my ’07s. One never knows when one might need them.

Technorati Tags: perpetual calendar, new year, 2007, calendars

Happy Holidays

Posted on December 24, 2006 by Kirk M

Merry Christmas all.

Absentmindedness is a sign of what??

Posted on December 23, 2006 by Kirk M

I’ve heard it said that absentmindedness is a sign of genius. Well, They say a lot of things don’t they but you couldn’t prove that particular one by me. Not in a million years you couldn’t. I’m absentminded as all get out and I have yet to see one smidgen of genius poke it’s little head around the corner and say “hi, howyadoin?”. I can truthfully say that Mensa has never been caught beating down my door, that I can assure you. I’m not stupid in the least mind you, I just wouldn’t have graduated magna cum laud from Sister Mary Penalty’s School for Immaculately Gifted Human Beings, that’s all.

Oh sure, there have been times in my life when I could see a solution that no one else could see or fix problems with a machine or an electronic device that no one else could seem to fix and even made friends with ornery type animals when no one else could but I think just about everyone has those types of “ah-ha” experiences in life at one time or another. Besides, I have a habit of relating to things like machines and animals better than I relate to people which of course in my experience, stands to reason. After all, machines and animals don’t appear to be doing their utmost best to do themselves in now do they?

Hmmm…I was talking about absentmindedness wasn’t I. Yes I was so let’s continue.

Life, since the beginning, seems to have been a constant battle with myself when it came to things like glasses, keys, checkbooks, pens, pencils, favorite coffee mugs, the occasional pet…things of that nature. Once I actually became so completely frustrated that I could not find my car keys I threw them against the wall.

If anyone didn’t get that last line just read it again please.

Hard to believe isn’t it?

I have sat on more pairs of reading glasses than I have ever worn for more than 3 months. We have a pair of reading glasses in every room of the house, some rooms have two pairs of different strengths and all of them are off limits to me because anything I pick up has a bad habit of immediately disappearing and (in the case of said reading glasses) getting sat on. That’s not my wife’s rule in case you were wondering…it’s mine! I tell ya’, if the thing in my hand is not a matter a national security, I’ll pick it up and make it go away–guaranteed.

I should bottle this stuff and sell it on Ebay. Make a fortune I would.

The ironic thing about all this is just about the time I almost got a handle on this little malady of the mind I found, much to my dismay, that I had reached that point in life that is commonly described as “Middle Age”. This is supposedly where most people seem to have some sort of crisis ( I didn’t seem to have one of these by the way. Probably slipped my mind) and have been slowly creeping downhill ever since.

Ah well. Now what was I talking about? Oh yeah…

Through all this I do well enough at work, though I have a tendency to seek out the type of employment where I work mostly alone for what should be obvious reasons. I get sick of the wisecracks. And so far, my wife still finds this trait of mine somewhat endearing and all that and if not, she covers it up well. I have to say that I do admire her tolerance level when it comes to my frustrated searching about everyday.

She also apparently thinks I have more going for me than what I currently believe I do. For her kind thoughts and the fact that she is amazingly intelligent and talented, it does take the edge off the frustration factor.

I have hope though. I truly believe that many years from now as I’m lying in bed ready to breath my last and head to the next great adventure, I’ll have this truly amazing insight. Within this insight I will finally see what Life, The Universe, and Everything* is all about in stunning clarity and I won’t be disappointed.

That’s the important part…not being disappointed and for some reason, I’m positive that will not be the case. Finding out what the Question is to the Answer 42* would be frosting on the cake but we can’t ask for everything now can we?

So I’ll happily go on looking for things that are right under my nose and misplacing the same things everyday ad infinitum for that seems to be my forte in life. And if that genius ever does show up and I manage to cobble up some life changing type of thing-a-ma-jig, I absolutely swear upon my honor and anything else I may have of worth, that I will not let any government or large corporation get a hold of it.

Now where did I put the cat?

*Attributed to Douglas Adams great series of novels: “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”

Technorati Tags: absentmindedness, genius, mensa, Douglas Adams, IQ