CakeBlast

Do you remember Lisa Loeb? She was a music icon back in the 1990s who was known for her cute eyeglasses as well as her hit single “I Miss You.” I had forgotten about Loeb until two years ago when she made an appearance on the children’s television series, Jack’s Big Music Show. More recently, Loeb hosted an online event for Parent’s Connect that I participated in.

Loeb’s return to the spotlight, along with a Glasses USA discount offer, got me thinking about glasses again. My wife Becca and I both have great vision and don’t need to wear glasses. If either of us ever needed them, we could get affordable prescription glasses online. However, sometimes I think it would be cool to wear glasses just for the sake of fashion.

Becca used to wear clear lens glasses because they looked cute, but hasn’t done this in several years. I like her without glasses but have to admit that they were a great wardrobe accessory. Becca’s glasses added a smart, sophisticated flair to her alternative rocker style of dress. The same glasses wouldn’t work for everybody, but the right pair of glasses can help complete any look that a person is after.

People can find many more styles of glasses online than what are available at a typical eyeglass shop. Glasses can be bold and daring or classy and sophisticated. While glasses are still used primarily to help improve vision, modern designers have created glasses that are cute, sleek, and stylish. Many celebrities such as Lisa Loeb have even become well known for their glasses.

Adults and children alike can look great in glasses, but it is important that the eyeglasses have high quality frames. Many people end up with inferior glasses from a store because they fail to realize that designer frames can be purchased at discounted prices from online retailers such as Glasses USA. Glasses are great for seeing, but the right frames make them an even better way to be seen.

DISCOUNT CODE

Besides the normal savings available at Glasses USA, you can get another 10% off your next purchase of prescription glasses! Just go to GlassesUSA.com using one of the links above, and enter the  promo code “cakeblast15” (without quotes) when prompted at checkout.

If you like glasses, be sure to “Like” Glasses USA on Facebook!

Disclosure: Image of Lisa Loeb labeled for commercial reuse under GNU Free Documentation License. Stock photo provided with non-exclusive, non-transferable license by sxc.hu. Glasses USA provided monetary compensation in exchange for this post. However, the words, ideas, and opinions in this article all belong to Larry H. from Cakeblast.

I chose The Proclaimers as my Music Monday pick today. I didn’t even post a “New Music Monday” like I usually do.  I didn’t feel like checking out a bunch of new artists this week, and never ran across a top choice organically.

Instead, I followed a themed Music Monday from another site and picked a song I would sing karaoke to. As usual, in my post I gave links to the band’s website and purchase page for the album containing my song selection. I also gave a link to a page where my readers could buy the band’s newest CD. After putting my post together,  I discovered a problem with the video that I wanted to embed.

I found a  second video of the same Proclaimers song and then thought everything was okay. I would have picked a different band altogether if I would have discovered that my visitors had to visit YouTube to watch it. From now on I will test all the videos I embed.

If a video doesn’t work, I will usually pick a another band and not even mention my first pick. Obviously the Proclaimers are so huge and popular that they don’t need any new listeners getting excited about their music anyway. It is true they are very successful, but why would they not want free publicity and do-follow backlinks to their website?

If I had discovered the lack of an embeddable video earlier, a different band would have benefited from free links and publicity. I almost chose Cake’s Going The Distance before deciding to give a nice shoutout to The Proclaimers.

Other people who have tried to promote the 1988 “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” video by reposting it have had the audio disabled by The Proclaimer’s label. The label obviously wants as few people hearing this music as possible. In the future I’ll be careful to not include songs that record labels are trying so desperately to keep to themselves.

All apologies for including a video that can only be played on YouTube’s website. Please open it using the middle mouse button on a PC to open it in a new tab. If a label does the oopposite of promoting a song, does that mean the song has been demoted?

Today is the Spring Equinox which is officially the first day of Spring! I was checking my email this morning and read that the Equinoxes are the only two times each year that an egg can be balanced on its end. Supposedly, I read, something to do with gravity and the position of the earth allows this to work.

Immediately, I set about testing this theory. Low and behold, it worked! I was so excited that I got out the camera and snapped photos. I then tried the experiment in other areas of the house. Amazingly, it is quite easy to do on this special day. I don’t know why egg balancing seemed so special, but it did.

Unfortunately, after taking pictures and telling my wife about this miracle of science and nature, I was told that egg balancing  can be done all year long. I checked with Snopes and discovered it was true. The Spring Equinox egg-balancing myth originated in China when an egg on its end was considered a symbol of the balance of nature. The equinox is a day when the time between day and night is balanced, so this all made sense.

I uploaded my pictures anyway, and began my day feeling a little bit empty.. don’t worry, the emptiness was only in my stomach. My disappointment faded along with my hunger as I discovered the miracle of a hearty Spring Equinox breakfast. That is an act I am glad I can perform any day of year.

I haven’t been writing much lately because Windows has not been booting and my Windows XP disc was freezing on the “Setting Up Windows” screen. I didn’t want to reformat my hard drive because I had not backed up any of our Christmas pictures. I am such a stickler for saving my work often, but I only back up my files every month or two.

Soon, I am going to be setting up an automated backup system for any new or edited files. I think I have learned my lesson, and luckily nothing was lost except a nice chunk of time. I was able to check my email on my wife’s netbook, but didn’t read most of my newsletters. The night after the earthquake in Haiti, I even felt compelled to write a small post. It was difficult to blog with the tiny keyboard of the netbook, but after reading a particular story in our local paper, I felt like I had to respond. I did not realize until the next day that another tragedy had shook the blogging world that same awful Tuesday.

I was very saddened by the sheer scale of the destruction in Haiti, but I was further aggrieved after finding out that Karissa from Prissy Green had taken her own life. Prissy Green was one of the first blogs that I began reading regularly. Karissa had a personable style of writing and took care with everything she wrote. Her blog truly stood out from the rest with tips, recipes, and reviews that were both useful and informative.

Is is incredibly sad that she is gone at such a young age. That she died by her own hand is absolutely heartbreaking. Karissa will be sorely missed.

I meant to write about my return to blogging after an unscheduled hiatus, but it is hard not to be sidetracked by last week’s dolefole events. Since I am talking about last Tuesday, I will save more pleasant discussion for future articles. However, I do want to mention that I have been glad to see the outpouring of relief and support for the victims of Haiti’s earthquake. My wife even told me about a group that is offering water purification that only costs 1¢ per liter. They take donations of any size and a mere fifty pennies can allow a family to have clean water for a month!

Tragedies like those of last Tuesday remind us that there are countless people in need of some kind of help. When it is a huge catastrophe like Haiti, the need is obvious. In a situation like Karissa’s, the signs aren’t always as noticeable. The most important thing to remember is that we don’t all have to do a lot in order to help. As long as we all do something it will amount to a lot. And if we keep doing something, it will mean everything.

“Indifference makes an excuse, but love finds a way.”                           -the Love Revolution by Joyce Meyer.

Why are food purchases called “Groceries”? This sounds too much like Grosseries. Why make the food sound gross? Give food products a name like “Yummeries” and they will sound much more appealing.

If you go to the Yummery store and buy a slice of cow meat, it is called a steak. If it comes from a female cow, does that make it a Ms. Steak? That is Read the rest of this entry »