RogiLife.Com

I was looking around the intertubes for a new pair of boots, and by chance happened across what are probably the most artistic looking shoes and boots that I have ever seen, just one example of which is shown below.

New Rock Boots

They are made by a company named New Rock, which seems to consist of a family of shoemakers in Spain that have been making boots and shoes for several generations.

I have no idea what the prices are like – though I have a feeling that they are probably of the ‘If you need to ask…’ variety – but whatever the cost, for boots that nice looking they are probably worth it.

The only problem I have is that the boots they make are completely impractical for what I need my new boots to do, so I have bought some of these instead.

However, the next time that I am in the market for some new motorcycle boots I know now where I will be buying them from, whatever they cost.

eRepublik anyone?

I received an invitation this morning to a site called eRepublik. Usually I would have deleted it outright as the invition was unrequested and unheard of but, by chance, I had little to do at the time and so I wandered over to take a look.

Surprisingly, it appears to have the potential to be – or at least to become in the future – an interesting place, so I have signed up and will give it a go when time allows.

I’m now registered on there as Rogi_X.

If you are also on eRepublik, or end up on there at some time in the future, drop by my profile there and say hello (or leave a comment here and let me know where to find you there).

I’ll see you over there sometime.

This is not surprising news to me.

“It is OK to go to work regularly on an egg, health experts said today as they attempted to dispel “the ingrained misconception” among consumers and some health professionals that people should eat no more than three a week because of the “myth” surrounding the food’s link to cholesterol in the blood.”

The reason it is not surprising to me is because I have a nutritionist, I eat two eggs a day, and my blood tests almost always show near perfect levels of everything – including cholesterol(s).

Here’s the full story of why eggs should not be considered a bad food.

And, yes, I am also having trouble believing that I am writing about eggs, but someone has to do it.

Simple and to the point; Is Obama President.Com.

I can’t honestly say that I am as enthusiastic as some about the whole Obama thing, after all whatever else he may turn out to be (or not be), from saviour of all mankind thru to a complete disaster as President of the US due to inexperience, he is one thing for certain – a politician.

And politicians are not renown for being people to be trusted, are they.

Like many people, a part of my morning routine when I am at home is firing up my RSS reader and checking through the day’s news headlines. This works well for me and has done for years, and one of the many newspapers I grab a feed from is the UK’s Guardian.

I generally like the Guardian. I think it is a bit of a lightweight as far as serious in-depth reporting goes (at least the online version is, perhaps due to layout constraints. I don’t know about the print version). However, the thing that I think more than makes up for that ‘lightweightness’ is that it often takes a slightly different approach to most other UK ‘serious’ papers in that it is not afraid to comment and sometimes heavily slant articles according to the journo’s opinion. It doesn’t just report the news; it also has an opinion on it. That’s good, and it is refreshing in these politically correct days to read a BBC piece that begins, for example, “The Prime Minister today laid out his vision for…” followed by a Guardian piece on the same subject that might begin “The PM is today talking bollocks again about…”

Also, the Guardian is not afraid to innovate (or at least it is not afraid to take chances that other papers do not yet take) with presentation. It has weblogs, interactive commenting, video, and other multimedia that most papers do not yet have, and this of course is another Good Thing™. (Incidentally, much of the presentational innovation at The Guardian is down to fellow Brit-abroad Ben Hammersley, who has just been taken on by the paper as their intrepid new ’Multimedia Reporter’, which is another good idea. Congrats on the appointment, Ben).

So all in all, then, as far as I am concerned the Guardian is a good online read. Except for one thing. The triangular blue animated ad that now slides out from the left of the page after some seconds and stops directly in your field of vision. Right on top of the place in the text that you have usually read down to at the time that it appears.

OK, so it sets a cookie to ensure that it only appears once every couple of days, but garish animated ads are not innovation, they are 1998. Interesting innovation mixed up with irritating late-90’s style advertising is a tremendously ill-advised idea. Don’t you think?

Note: I’m aware that Firefox+adblocker would kill that ad, but I use Camino (on Mac) as my default.