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Nifty WordPress Feature: Press This

“Press This” is a bookmarklet you can add to your Internet Explorer favorites or Firefox bookmarks (a bookmarklet is a small computer program that can be run via a bookmark or favorite).

What makes Press This so handy is that you can highlight some text on any random web page, then click the Press This bookmarklet and a window will pop up, containing all the highlighted text from the original page in a WordPress “new post” window. You can then add your own text (if desired) and click the “Post” button to quickly post the text to your blog. For example, most of the posts currently on the front page were added via Press This (look for posts that say “via [some link]” at the end of the post. If you like, you can also add pictures and videos to your Press This posts as well.

To add Press This functionality to your browser, just go to your WordPress dashboard and click the “Tools” link in the sidebar: you’ll find complete (simple) instructions there.

Once you start using Press This, you’ll see how handy it is. It’s almost as fast as Facebook’s “Share Link” function, and it’ll save you all kinds of time and hassle with cutting and pasting!

Note: there is a bug with Press This in WordPress 2.7.1. If you follow the instructions on your blog and get an error message when using Press This, let me know, and I’ll send you a link to a fix.

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SONGS I LOVE: “Quicksand”

La RouxThe BBC makes up a list of around 130 up and coming British bands every year. Through website polls and other means, they eventually whittle the list down to a dozen or so bands. These bands make up the Beeb’s official “Sound of [insert year here]” list. Here’s this year’s list.

One of the bands making the cut this year is London-based synth-pop act La Roux. I first heard them via the BBC list, then scrambled to find some more tracks from them. They have an awesome 80s pop sound, yet fully updated for 2009.

As I always do with songs I like, I found a version of the song in question (in this instance, the “AutoKratz Drags to Riches mix” of “Quicksand”) and listened to it over and over again. The remix is addictive… once it’s in your head, you won’t be able to get it out!

Check it out here:

[audio:quicksand.mp3]
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Steel City is toast of the sports world

TAMPA – One of the heroes of the game nearly became a bus driver.

The owner of the team walks to work every day. The fans of the team drink Iron City beer, wave dish towels and ignored the slumping economy to make their pigskin pilgrimage and turn this Super Bowl into a Sunshine State version of the Steel City.

This is why America should celebrate now that Pittsburgh is the home of more Super Bowl championships than any franchise in the history of pro football: Because the players are hungry, the owner is humble and the fans are loyal.

What more could you want out of the NFL’s champion of champions? And what more could you want from a Super Bowl?

via Steel City is toast of the sports world — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

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Boy found in crocodile

The remains of a five-year-old Australian boy have been found in the stomach of a crocodile, police say.

Jeremy Doble was last seen on 8 February playing near his family’s home beside a flooded mangrove swamp in northern Queensland.

Police now say he was attacked and eaten by a 14ft (4.3m) crocodile who was then trapped in a flooder river.

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Boy’s body found in crocodile.

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Glucometer Tattoos?

Scientists at Draper Laboratory, a research company out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, are developing an injectable nanomaterial that fluoresces under infrared light in the presence of predetermined amounts of glucose. The idea is to make something like a tattoo that can provide constant monitoring for diabetics. So far, investigators at Draper have developed a version that can detect sodium, and are now working to transfer the technology to glucose.

via Coming Up: Injectable Under Skin Glucose Sensors – Medgadget – www.medgadget.com.

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Hubble’s Next Discovery: You Decide

You’re In Control! In 1609, Galileo turned his telescope on the night sky for the first time. Now, 400 years later, your vote will help make the momentous decision of where to point modern astronomy’s most famous telescope.

“Hubble’s Next Discovery — You Decide” is part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s observations. People around the world can vote to select the next object the Hubble Space Telescope will view. Choose from a list of objects Hubble has never observed before and enter a drawing for one of 100 new Hubble pictures of the winning object. The winning image will be released between April 2 and 5, during the IYA’s 100 Hours of Astronomy, a global astronomy event geared toward encouraging as many people as possible to experience the night sky. Vote by March 1 to swing Hubble toward your favorite target.

via HubbleSite – Hubble’s Next Discovery – You Decide.

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The Police Beat

When police arrived, they saw a stopped, running car at a green light, facing eastbound on Speedway.When the officer approached the car, he saw the woman was asleep, with her dress pulled up to her stomach and her underwear pulled down to her mid-thighs.

The officer knocked on the window several times. She did not respond, so he opened the door and began to shake her arm. Upon opening the door, he saw a three-quarters-empty bottle of Sailor Jerry Navy Rum on the floorboard of the passenger side. There was a strong odor of intoxicants coming from the woman and the car.

After about two minutes of trying to wake her up, she awoke, saying, “No, Clint, not right now.”

via Police Beat – News.

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Montel Williams Obama coins a ripoff?

One of the most physically painful TV moments in our lifetime was having to watch poor Montel Williams sell the last remainder of his soul for worthless Barack Obama commemorative coins.

It seemed just yesterday that the talk show host with the Yul Brenner scalp was chumming it up on the daytime talk show circuit, interviewing women who love too much or husbands who love way too much with people other than their wives. It was like watching the rock-bottom moment of a man’s life in the wake of his waning glory days without it airing on VH1.

via Obama coins hawked by Montel Williams a ripoff? Well… duh! – TV Squad.

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Fun Steelers facts!

As the Super Bowl nears, sports writers all across America will dig deep into the bag of statistics and trivia. Amazing facts are shoveled about everywhere, to end up on si.com, sports blogs, newspapers, and as factoids during the game itself. I compiled a list of some amazing Steelers facts during this past Super Bowl. My edited list follows. But first… some Steeler history:

The Pittsburgh Steelers were founded as the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 8, 1933, by Art Rooney. The rights to the team cost him $2,500, which is around $40,000 in 2007 dollars.

According to football legend, Rooney purchased the team using money he had won at the Saratoga race track. What actually happened is that Rooney bought the team in 1933 using money he already had, but in 1936 he did win a longshot parlay bet at Saratoga that netted him almost $160,000 ($2,370,300 in 2007 dollars). Rooney did use most of this money to improve the team, especially by hiring coach Joe Bach. In fact, Rooney’s winnings from that day in Saratoga funded the team exclusively until 1941.

In that year, the Steelers were involved in one of the strangest ownership moves in NFL history. Rooney sold the Steelers to NYC playboy Alex Thompson. Since there was already a team in New York City, Thompson wanted to move the Steelers to Boston, the largest city close to New York without an NFL team. As the Steelers sale was being finalized, Philadelphia Eagles owner Bert Bell began having severe financial troubles. So Rooney agreed to buy 70% of the Eagles using the proceeds from the Steelers sale. Since Philadelphia is much closer to New York than Boston, when Thompson found out about the Rooney-Bell deal, he suggested that the two switch sides. So the Rooney-owned Eagles moved to Pittsburgh and the Thompson-owned Steelers moved to Philadelphia, both owners kept their original team names, and everyone was happy. Bell would later become NFL commissioner, a job that required him to divest myself from the team, so Rooney convinced Barney McGuinley, his sister’s father in law, to buy out Bell’s shares.

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Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, the Steelers have posted the best record in professional football. The Steelers have won the most total games, won the most divisional titles, earned the best winning percentage (including every expansion team), earned the most All-Pro nominations, reached the playoffs 24 times, won their division 19 times, played in 14 AFC championship games, and won six of seven Super Bowls. They are also 2nd overall in playoff wins and season game wins.

In the past 10 years, the Pittsburgh Steelers are an amazing 153-1-1 when leading a game by at least 11 points.

Continue reading “Fun Steelers facts!”