Well, not yet, but that is the budding plan.

One of my goals in life is to go somewhere with white sandy beaches and clear (or blue?) waters and just relax. Maybe the Caribbean, Bermuda, Jamaica or Mexico. I’ve always found these places to be extremely beautiful in pictures and on TV and have always wanted to see it in person, but it never seemed like a reality because nobody I know would want to go.

So, about a week ago, Keith, Josh and myself were out eating and we somehow got on the topic of cruises. None of us have been on one, but I have heard a lot of good things about them through Kiwi, as her family takes cruises pretty often. Again, something that sounds like fun, but I never saw myself doing because I didn’t figure anyone I knew would be interested. But strangely enough, both Keith and Josh were all about it. This has potential.

I’ve done some research the past few days and it really seems like an awesome idea. Prices aren’t too bad for a 5-7 day cruise to most anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. I’d expect to spend around $700-800 for a week’s trip, which includes everything on the boat except alcohol. Yes, unlimited food - I’m sold!

If you have never been on a cruise, basically you sail out of your port at 4pm, are out at sea for a day or two then spend the next few days visiting different ports. Some of the more popular ports include Beliz, The Bahamas, Grand Cayman, Cozumel and the Cayman Islands. While at each port, there are several different activities to choose from. Everything from touring the city/island, riding in a submarine, scuba diving, snorkeling, kayaking, riding dune buggies, etc. Each of these activities is an additional fee, however. But then again, you could just tour the city on your own, check out some shops, restaurants or just chill on the boat and do your own thing.

We really haven’t done much more than talk about it at this point, but early indications are that we will be doing it sometime in the summer of next year. It’s still too early to tell, but there could be anywhere from 4-8 of us going… maybe more lol.

Have any of you been on a cruise before? If so, could you share your experience and perhaps offer up some tips for a first timer?

I found something very strange when checking the mail the other day. The flyer you see above was in my mail box - burnt!

Did a mail truck catch on fire? Why would a postal worker deliver a half-burnt piece of mail? In all my years, I have never received something in the mail that apparently went through a fire. Keith and I were kinda shocked but then when Josh took a look at it, we began to question it more…

Something about this seems fishy. It almost seems like the burns are too perfect. Looking at the whole flyer again, only a small segment of text from the center is “burnt” away - all of the other text and necessary information is still intact. And that small section that is missing only contains the first letter of the street name and the first word of the city, both of which are common knowledge if you live around here.

We also noticed that the pre sorted postage paid area was not damaged and the only address, both to and from, was ECRWSS Local Postal Customer. ECRWSS stands for Extended Carrier Route Walking Sequence Saturation, which is a type of saturation mail where someone mails out to every customer in a specific area or ZIP code instead of to each named individual.

We came to one of two conclusions. Either this piece of mail was actually burnt and still placed in my box, or this is a clever marketing scheme. After all, it’s sure to garner attention (see, I am blogging about it!) and as we saw here, no vital piece of information was missing from the “damaged” flyer.

I am personally leaning towards marketing. What do you think? Have you ever received anything like this before?

I love variety and trying new things, which is something I have learned over the years. As a kid, my parents would get on a fix and make the same thing for dinner nearly every night. The look on my friend’s faces when I told them I was sick of steak, pizza or even ice cream was priceless, but it was true - you can only eat something so much before you get absolutely sick of it!

Now that I’m grown and buy / cook my own meals, I run into this problem quite a bit. There are some things I would like to cook, but A) it’s not cost-efficient to cook a full meal for a single person, B) I don’t really have hours to spend prepping and cooking and C) I haven’t really been exposed to a ton of different foods, so half the time I can’t ever think of anything new and unique to try.

So, before my last trip to go grocery shopping, I asked around for some dinner recipes / ideas and was given a gem: French Friend Onion Baked Chicken!

The recipe is extremely easy and can be ready to eat in under an hour! First up, gather the supplies which consist of: thawed chicken breast(s), two eggs, a package of French Fried Onions and Lemon Pepper seasoning. Go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Next, beat the two eggs in a bowl, which will be used as your batter.

Now coat the entire chicken breast in the egg mixture. This will help the fried onions stick to it.

Then, pour a generous amount of onions on a plate and crush them into tiny bits. If you don’t have other plans for the onions, you can simply crush them while they are in the bag which makes it much easier.

Remove the chicken from the egg mixture and roll it around in the crushed onion. This serves as the breading, much like fried chicken. For an extra bit of taste, sprinkle each piece with a bit of lemon pepper seasoning.

Bake the chicken for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees or until the insides are white and juicy then server with your favorite sides!

Myself, Keith and Airica made this last Friday along with mashed potatoes and corn and it got rave reviews from everyone - so much so that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product! The chicken had a great flavor and was extremely juicy on the inside. I have no doubt that I will be making this again very soon!

Online communities like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster have totally revolutionized the way we keep in touch with friends and family members online. While this is great and all for leisure and entertainment, these sites don’t really offer any benefits for business-minded people. Its this void that sites like LinkedIn aim to fill.

LinkedIn is an online community for business professionals to meet, share ideas and keep in contact with each other. Networking in any business setting is essential if you plan to grow and expand your company. As I have said before, its all about “who you know”, especially in the tech industry. You really do need to know as many people as you can and get your name out there. You never know when having the right contact will benefit you.

The site is free to join and once you have created an account, you can begin to set up your profile. If you have worked with any online communities, you should already be familiar with most everything.

Your profile page is more or less an online resume. You can list previous jobs and your education background, as well as provide as little or as much detail about each as you wish. You can even receive recommendations from others on your connections list, like a business reference or a letter of recommendation. Stuff like this goes a long way when job hunting!

The meat and potatoes of LinkedIn, however, is the networking. A powerful search tool is provided which makes it pretty easy to find contacts you have worked with. Once you have established a contact, you can look at their connections list to find others you might know or have done business with. You can request that a friend introduce you to a new contact or elect to initiate contact yourself.

LinkedIn also offers a ton of other features, like job searches and a very neat question and answer section where you can post questions to your contacts or the community in general.

I joined LinkedIn last year but just recently started making a heavy push for new contacts and it is already starting to pay off as a few new business opportunities have developed. If you are already on LinkedIn, feel free to add me as a connection. See you there!

Call me optimistic if you wish, but as the title states, the numbers simply don’t add up in my books. By this, I mean the recession. Let’s take a look at some facts.

Apple

Apple announced their fiscal first-quarter earnings Wednesday and beat out analyst’s estimates. Net income was $1.61 billion in the three months that ended on December 27. Compare this to $1.58 billion the previous year.

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history,” Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs said in a statement.

It seems clear to me that Apple has chosen not to participate in the recession.

Video Games

Strangely enough, the video game industry recorded its best year ever during the midst of a recession, pulling in $21.33 billion in sales. According to this article, the Nintendo Wii sold 2.15 million consoles in December. The DS posted a record month with over 3 million units being sold.

Nintendo wasn’t the only one to set records this past year. Microsoft did very well for themselves with the Xbox 360, recording their best year ever for the gaming console. Microsoft sold 8 million consoles in 2008, bringing its total 360 sales up to 28 million since it was released three years ago. Microsoft’s online system, Xbox Live, netted more than 17 million members in 2008. At roughly $50 for a year subscription, that’s quite a bit of money.

Sporting Events

The 2009 BCS National Championship Game set a record for attendance in Dolphin Stadium with a crowd of 78,468.

Pay-per-view fights also did very well in 2008. The top North American PPV was Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao on December 6, which pulled in 1.25 million buys. Coming in second was the UFC’s Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture on November 15, which saw 1.01 million watchers.

The Super Bowl is just around the corner, and I’d be willing to bet tickets are hard to come by. Oh, and those insanely priced 30-second commercial spots? Yeah, they are still planning to sell out this year.

Presidential Inauguration

Last but not least, we have the presidential inauguration that took place just a few days ago. I read a bit over at How I Save Money which actually gave me the idea for this blog post. Lulu reported that the inauguration was going to cost upwards of $160 million.

It wasn’t this figure that got me to thinking so much as the sheer amount of people that attended the event. And just how many people attended?

“Today’s Washington Post analysis of the inauguration of President Barack Obama contains an estimate of the crowd on the National Mall — 1.8 million people … The National Park Service does not contest the crowd estimate and will use the figure of 1.8 million attendees when we refer to the inaugural in the future.”

This clearly beats the previous record of 1.2 million for Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration by a lot. Now, I understand that people have their various reasons for wanting to see the inauguration of Obama in person… but, surely it must have cost a lot of money for each person to attend. Grated you didn’t already live in D.C. or a nearby area, you would have to shell out bucks for airfare, hotel and food, not to mention the lost wages from taking off work.

Wrap-Up

So what is my point with this post? Again, I remain firm that things aren’t as bad as the media claim. How could all of these records be set in a year of a recession? And these aren’t even necessities, they are all entertainment! One would think if this was the worst economic time since the Great Depression, American’s could find more productive and lucrative things to do than buy iPhones, play video games, attend sporting events or order expensive pay-per-view events.

Today marks the two year anniversary of this blog! It was on January 20, 2007 that I made my very first post to this blog. I started this blog just after attending the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show where I met some really beneficial people, like Bob Buskirk, a fellow tech site owner.

Since that time, this blog has seen 745 posts and 1940 comments over the past two years, which is pretty decent for a non-niche blog. I have really enjoyed updating the blog, sharing aspects of my tech site and personal life with my readers.

I have toyed with the idea of monetizing this blog or perhaps starting a niche blog (probably personal finance), but thus far, I haven’t acted on either of those ideas. We shall see what happens in 2009.

Updates as of late have been few and far between, which haven’t been on purpose. It just seems that I have less and less time to devote to the blog, but I will look to change that from this point forward. So, what’s been going on since my last update?

A CES 2009 No-Show

This was the first year since I started going to CES that I didn’t make it to Vegas for the annual technology trade show. I tossed around the idea of attending late last year but ultimately decided against it, mostly for financial reasons. CES is such a blast and equally as beneficial for my tech site, as I get to network and make new contacts with potential sponsors and other site owners which is invaluable. But, I didn’t let that get me down and did what I could from home and managed to secure a relationship with Intel, which is absolutely huge!

CES 2010 is definitely in my future, granted the show doesn’t go the way of COMDEX and cease to exist next year. Attendance was down this year but let’s hope they give it a few more years to rebound.

Ole Miss Wins 2009 Cotton Bowl

Ole Miss shocked the country and took Texas Tech to the woodshed in the 2009 Cotton Bowl on January 2, coming away with a 47-34 victory and proving once again that the Big 12 is overrated. The Rebs finished the season very strong, with a 31-13 win over LSU in the 1st annual Magnolia Bowl and absolutely dismantled Mississippi State 45-0 in the Egg Bowl. Ole Miss finished 15th nationally and is already being ranked as high as 5th in preseason polls for next year.

These accolades are well earned. After all, Ole Miss was the only team to beat Florida, the eventual National Champion. 2009 will be a great year for sure. Can you say SEC Champions?

Xbox 360

I told myself I would probably never buy another gaming console, especially a current-generation unit. They are just too expensive and I don’t play games enough to warrant the expense. But here I am, with a 360!

I ended up buying a Pro model from Josh after our last LAN party. He purchased two additional units for use at the party but turns out, we didn’t need them. I got a heck of a deal which is really the reason I bought it. And thanks to Left 4 Dead, I have actually been playing it quite a bit, as a group of about 5-6 of us play multiplayer almost nightly. If you are on Live and want to add me, just leave a comment with your Gamertag or e-mail me at: playafly187@ocia.net

Paying Off Debt

Since I started following Dave Ramsey about a year ago, I have cut out a ton of useless spending in my budget and have been working very hard to pay off debt that I have accumulated over the years. About 85% of my debt is student loans and I have been paying those off as fast as I can. I have only a single payment left on the one loan I have been attacking which is pretty exciting. My focus after that is the one remaining credit card balance I am carrying, then it is full steam ahead on my large student loan.

At first, it was really tough to cut back on unnecessary spending and trying to save money, but now that I have been doing it for almost a year, it is actually fun. I enjoy seeing how frugal I can be each month and how little I can get by on. Odd, yes, but it is very motivating.

Keeping Busy With Work

Many people wish they could work for themselves at home, create their own schedules and be their own boss. The reality is, it is tough. The reason I say this is because you are never “off work”. With a traditional job, once you leave the office, you are free. You don’t have to worry with work until the next day or after the weekend. When you work for yourself, you are always thinking about work and what needs to be done and when you are going to do it. I love what I do but it is pretty stressful and there is a lot of responsibility. I don’t think most people could do it.

Anyway, things with OCIA.net are still going strong. I have been focusing on attaining more sponsorships for the site, which means sharing the latest and greatest hardware with our readers. Things look bright for 2009 and I can’t wait to see what the year brings!

I have been looking to hire an additional reviewer and have taken a chance on two people in the past several months, both of which have screwed me over and basically stole the review items without doing any work. Its frustrating when someone with no morals comes along and throws a monkey wrench into what you have worked hard to do just for a free product. Its even more frustrating when you see these people move on to the next site they plan to scam.

On that note, if you are into the tech scene and think you might be interested in writing for my site, shoot me an email and we can talk.

I have also been doing some freelance writing for another tech site based in Mexico, Techspot. Things with this site have been going really well and I have had a good time reviewing for them and look forward to continue our relationship in 2009.

Texas Pickle

I had never heard of a Texas Pickle until just recently. Adam had been telling me about then for a while and finally decided to make a batch.

Basically, you take jalapenos, remove the insides, fill with cheese then wrap the entire thing in bacon. Bake in the oven or cook on the grill and you end up with what you see above!

I love trying new foods and the Texas Pickle was no exception and in fact, it was very good. I am not a huge fan of spicy foods but once gutted and cooked, the jalapeno was not spicy at all. I would recommend you give them a try sometime for sure.

And with that, I’m off to go make dinner…

Josh and I have been planning a Holiday LAN party for a few weeks. It’s been two years since our last LAN party so we were certainly overdue for one.

If you don’t already know, a LAN party is where you and your friends gather, bring your PC or gaming consoles, link them together and play games together! Our past parties have always been PC based but we decided to change it up and try an Xbox 360 LAN this time.

I prefer PC gaming, as it is much easier for me to control using a mouse and keyboard rather than a controller, but either way, each system has its pros and cons. Setup time with a console is virtually plug-and-play, while there is installation and long update / patch waits with PC games. Also, consoles are much easier to transport, but there are a few negatives with consoles. First, you need multiple consoles and televisions, as well as multiple controllers and games. Josh went above and beyond this time and made sure we had plenty of everything for a successful LAN.

As you can see, we had plenty of games to keep us busy both days.

Adam brought over his PS3 and connected it to his 24″ LCD screen. He is the only person that has a PS3 among the group so unfortunately, he was playing alone.

Here we have Left 4 Dead ready to go on one of the big screens.

Some Left 4 Dead split-screen gaming action.

More Left 4 Dead on another TV in the living room.

We also tried Stuntman: Ignition. I really liked this game but I don’t think Keith and Airica did too much.

Lunch time on day 2 and we decided on a Krystal Steamer Pack!

Mmmm delicious!

Winner! hah

Watched some of The Dark Knight while eating.

As evening approached, some bad weather moved into the area. Luckily there were no power outages to disrupt our gaming.

Some of the other snacks and food we had.

We finished the night off with UFC 92 which was one of the better UFC events this year. Notable victories include Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s first round knockout of Wanderlei Silva and Rashad Evans capturing the light-heavyweight title from Forrest Griffin via 3rd round TKO stoppage.

Overall, a very successful post-Christmas LAN party. I was unsure if I would like doing consoles instead of PCs but I think it worked out much better. Not having to spend hours waiting for PC games to install and update was a huge plus. Now we just have to work on getting everyone a 360 system and copies of good LAN games

Big thanks to Josh for hosting this event and all of the hassle he went through to get it running smoothly; it totally rocked!

Looks like we will get to see if the Big XII Conference is legit and how they stack up against a good SEC team! I can’t wait!

Sure, you know its coming, but most people still seem to get caught off guard by the holiday season. I am usually one of those people and find myself doing last-minute shopping, but that won’t be the case this year. Call me cheap if you want, but I can’t justify the gift-giving like I have in the past.

For a guy, Christmas shopping for others can be tough, especially when people won’t tell you what they want. I’m far from a mind reader and well, without some idea of what to get someone, I usually end up taking the gift certificate route after wasting hours of shopping around aimlessly. With that being the case, you might as well just exchange money with that person and thus, you break even like nothing ever happened lol.

But I can’t blame others for not telling me what to get them, because I do the same. It never fails and every year is the same. During the middle of summer, I could write a page-long list of things I would like to have. Come December, I can’t name a single item and this year is really no different. I can think of maybe two things that I would kinda want. I say kinda, because if I wanted them bad enough, I would simply go purchase them myself.

But, what is fun for me around this time of year is seeing gifts that others receive. Maybe that is weird, but I enjoy watching others unwrap their gifts and just generally being nosy and seeing what everyone got

So with that being the case, I present the question here for everyone… what is on your wish list this year?