BiggAndyy the Magazine

Ok folks, I did not see the last installation of the Rocky movie series until it showed up on a Sunday Afternoon movie on ABC. I was not impressed. Nor was the rest of the world if I recall correctly. But the studios thought they could build on that success with ANOTHER Rocky movie.

This time it is called Rocky Balboa. You can see the trailer for it at the website http://www.rocky.com. Rocky steps into the squared circle again to face the current champion of the boxing world. No problem, Rocky is a boxer, he is going to box. No problem.

But…

I asked myself this question of Sylvester Stallone (the actor who of course portrays our favorite underdog punching bag Rocky):

Isn’t Sylvester Stallone as old now as Burgess Meredith was in the first Rocky movie?

A quick check on the Internet Movie Database gave me the answer:

Sylvester Stallone: Born 1946, currently 60 years old in 2006 (release year of Rocky Balboa).
Burgess Meredith: Born 1907, was 69 years old in 1976 (release year of Rocky).

I am all for the suspension of disbelief when I go to the movies but this is getting silly.

In one of my previous posts I was bemoaning the fact that my blog is not popular amongst the web “spamorati”. I am beginning to think this is a good thing. The spam that builds up daily in my work inbox is bordering on staggering. I don’t want to see that spill over into the website. But I still want to drive traffic to my site, I still want to be popular, I still want unconditional love!

Well, performing some search engine optimization won’t help me with the last two, but it certainly can with my first goal; driving traffic to my site. I have tried linking to Amazon under their Associate Program, but that program is really just set up for impulse buyers, not for serious marketing or revenue enhancement.

To get BiggAndyy out there and recognized takes more than gimmicks and fast talking. It takes some good old fashioned elbow grease and know how to get the BiggAndyy brand listed higher in search listings, trusted feed services, and in the bookmarks of my target audience.

The site has been around for a while now and I am finally starting to get a picture of who I want to reach, what I want to say to them, and why I want to say it. I have started the process, kind of like in the minor leagues right now. But as I learned in Amway (when it was still called Amway), you have to plan the work before you can work the plan.

I wonder if anyone would like my face on a travel mug?

No, we wouldn’t.

The only reason that I am a fan of the Suzies or Sacs is that I enjoy the varied and harried expressions of the kids at the checkout counters as I offer them as payment for a burger and fries or for another box of 7.62×39 ammo. Also not to be forgotten in the world of annoying store clerks is the wonderful Two Dollar Bill.

But honestly, MORE One Dollar Coins from the mint? Way back in 1979 when the Susan B. Anthony Dollars were released on an apathetic public the outcry from the great and the small was that they were nearly the same size as the much more useful and much smaller denomination twenty five cent piece (quarter). Even the blind lined up and complained that the new dollar coin was useless, even detrimental to them.

After much soul searching and redesign the folks in the government came up with a few solutions for the Dollar Coin. First was to leave it the same size. Second was to make it brass colored (really helped the blind folk with those two ideas, eh?) Thirdly the mint officials made it a smooth edged coin rather than the reeded edge coin like the quarter was (ever notice that on older quarters the reeded edge is almost always worn smooth anyway?).

Well, that is how government responds to complaints: they make more of the same and tell us it is different.

Such is the new Presidential One Dollar Program. More of the same, just with different pictures… lots of different pictures. 37 different pictures to be exact.  And ugly ones at that. Have you seen the new design for the new Dollar Coins? They ain’t much to look at, let me tell you. Here, see for yourself.

The date, motto, and slogan of the United States are moved to the edge of the coin (lettered edge rather than reeded or smooth edge).

More of the same bad design (Suzies) made worse (Sacs) and then repeated 37 times over (Pres’). One each for each President that has served up to the 37th.  The only way these coins can ever actually see any widespread use and acceptance is if the rag dollar (paper Federal Reserve One Dollar Note) is removed from service. The rag dollar lasts only a fraction of the time a coin does (months compared to decades) and over the long run the US Mint will make more money by minting coins rather than allowing the Federal Reserve to print greenbacks.

But that will never happen, makes too much cents. And speaking of that, get rid of the One Cent piece as well while we are at it.

To find out more about the Presidential Dollar Program visit the U.S. Mint website at http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/index.cfm

This week’s BFP, or Blast From the Past, is one of my favorite little PSA spoofs.

Watch out for the not-so-subtle effects of alcohol in this little file I like to call:

Alcohol Warnings!

This appears over at the Bible Baptist Temple website and I just want to link to it here because it is an important piece of American History that we celebrate each and every year and so few of us actually know WHY we celebrate Thanksgiving.

http://www.biblebaptisttemple.org/2006/11/22/the-real-story-of-thanksgiving/

There is nothing more important than our National History. It is the source of our National Heritage (good and bad), and is the source of our National Pride (a good thing to have). For the longest time, even way back when I was a know nothing crumb muncher I was told the story wrong.

This is something we need to pass along to our children so the current mythical half-truths taught today don’t completely displace the real truth and history of our Christian roots and history.