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Simon Cowell and the Snooki Factor

Simon Cowell’s X Factor is a major flop of talent and expectation and now, thanks to an interview he did with MTV, we know Simon wasn’t interested in creating anything new or unique or special on his new show — he just wants to find Snooki, Part II:

Simon Cowell knows a star when he sees one. But fans might be surprised to learn that when the reality TV judge took his X Factor” auditions on the road this year, he was eager to hit the state of New Jersey. It turns out Simon hoped to find contestants with the same indefinable qualities as the castmembers of MTV’s hit “Jersey Shore.” …

Asked to pick his favorite castmember, Cowell singled out Snooki, saying the pint-size 23-year-old had that “X” factor. “In fact,” Cowell revealed, “She recently came in to meet some people from my company. I would say they were more starstruck by Snooki than anyone they’ve ever met in their lives,” he said. “I mean, they were genuinely thrilled. They were taking pictures with her.

“Yeah, so that was the reason why I came to New Jersey: I wanted to find the next Snooki.”

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Marking a Marriage Milestone

Over the Summer, Janna and I were thrilled to spend another married year together as we celebrated our anniversary.  Our marriage is the number one greatest achievement of my life.  Sharing your life with someone is a massive challenge and every single day the relationship changes and re-breathes and moves again in sometimes unimaginable ways as once expressed in — Promise Before Dying — published in Urban Semiotic on July 18, 2005:

Then she asked me if I would bury her under a tree with shade when she died.

I promised her I would.

Then she asked me if I would bury her under a tree with shade that had leaves that change colors in the Fall from red to purple to orange.

I promised her I would.

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Petra Solar Lights Up Jersey City

Jersey City is on the rise!  First, we had the BigBelly solar trash compactors dotting our streets to help clean up the trash and gutters.  Then, we had the wacky, and ongoing, Janky Pole episodes.  Now we have newly discovered solar panels installed, so far, on some non-Janky Pole utility poles all across our fair city.

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Learning to be a Patient Parent

I feel, as a parent, quite fortunate to have stumbled across an excellent article with advice on how to become a patient parent. As a parent, one of the most important qualities one must acquire is patience. Losing ones temper with a son or daughter never goes well and does not help matters in any situation. It is certainly not helpful when it ends with screaming from the parent or, worse, any kind of violence be it in spanking form or otherwise.

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Labor Day Racism at Burger King

You wouldn’t think such a simple task — standing in a fast food line and ordering food — would be such a treacherous production tinted with repressed Racial hatred; but you never know what you’ll end up ordering up when you’re stuck in a fast food line at Burger King.

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How the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon Makes Us Think there are Coincidences

When I was in high school, I had a crush on a fellow student that happened to live in room 23 of her dormitory. It wasn’t too long before I found out indirectly that she actually had less than no interest in me and so I didn’t attempt to pursue any kind of relationship with her — I just didn’t want to get hurt. Not long after these events, however, I began noticing that the number 23 was popping up everywhere. I would notice it on a box of cereal, or a page in a library book would be dogeared to that exact page. What a coincidence, I thought, that I had recently had a crush on a girl who lived in room 23 and now the number seemed to be following me everywhere I went.

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The Greplin Effect

Yesterday, we published a Greplin review in our Panopticonic blog, and the surge in traffic for that review was incredible.  We had 1,102 views for that review alone.  I call that massive influx of readers “The Greplin Effect.”  Here’s a comparison chart over time that shows you the massive Greplin bump we experienced yesterday and today:

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Reflecting on The Empire State Building and the Not Yet Rebuilt Twin Towers

For nearly two years, I looked with awe and admiration at the Empire State Building as I walked from Penn Station to my former office on 36th street. What a beautiful building, I thought to myself, and one that so many people call home for the duration of their work day. It is this very same home that people pass by and stare at from a distance, taking photos — countless photos, in most cases — and paying different amounts of money for tours around and on top of the building. The building top has been used as a destination in a number of movies, one of the most famous being Sleepless in Seattle, in which Tom Hanks meets Meg Ryan and they end up falling in love.

When you take the significance we have come to put on this building and how iconic it is in the New York City skyline, it is hard to not think of another set of buildings that were at one point also quite significant in the New York Skyline that were obliterated thanks to the heinous acts of 11 evil men who perpetrated An American tragedy. It has now been nearly ten years to the day that our beautiful Twin Towers were destroyed, and yet the rebuilt Towers will not be complete until at least the last quarter of 2013 — that’s over two years from now.

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The Readability Review

I am late to the Readability party, but now that I have a seat at the table, I’m delighted to report I love the whole idea and driving purpose behind the product.  As a fan of Instapaper, I was surprised to see Readability so readily adopted by major RSS feed readers like Reeder.  I wondered what that red chair icon meant, and I wanted to know how Readability differed from Instapaper.

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Inequality in Underpants

I am not a hoarder, but I do like to buy in bulk.  When you buy in bulk, you get a greater value.  I apply my bulk mentality to purchasing socks and undershirts and underpants.  I like the bulk approach when it comes to unmentionables because they all tend to wear out at the same rate.  Buy quality once, and the degradation of that quality is matched across a bunch of material over time.

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